#the air is hazy and looks apocalyptic. its so fun. not.

[onepiexe]

god today is gonna suck ass

[monaedroid]

On a hot December afternoon, the sky hazy from wildfires that raged just beyond the Los Angeles city limits, a handful of people gathered outside a nondescript Super 8 motel off Sunset Boulevard. Nearly all were dressed head to toe in black: elegant crepe shirts, fitted leather pants, wide-brimmed hats. The group made their way inside to the Girl at the White Horse, a discreet bar nestled in the space below the motel. Here, the air was still hazy — the synthetic kind, from a machine — and lights tinted the room pink and red, colors of the heart. Low vibrational tones, not unlike those coaxed out of Tibetan singing bowls, droned in the background. Most of the invitees worked for radio stations, record labels or awards shows, and while they waited, they ordered cocktails created for the event: “Pynk” (rosé, gin, aperol and grapefruit) or “Screwed” (pineapple-infused tequila, lime, agave with a touch of pepper).

As the sounds faded, the guests turned their attention to the eight women marching into the bar. Each wore aviators, leather jackets over black bodysuits and brightly colored tights. They struck dramatic poses — an arm flung over an eye, a hand on a cocked hip, a leg held askew — and paused as the singer Janelle Monáe strolled into the room and took her place in the middle. She was dressed in a studded motorcycle jacket over a white crop top, black palazzo pants, suspenders, a derby wool hat and mirrored sunglasses. A navel-length ombré rattail snaked over her shoulder. For a moment, she stood perfectly still, letting the room drink her in.

Monáe was presenting a preview of “Dirty Computer,” her first solo studio album in five years, and the anticipation was as palpable as the smoke filling the room. On an indiscernible cue, an apocalyptic electropop bop about partying in a dystopian world began to play: “I hear the sirens calling, and the bombs start falling, but it feels so good.” The women broke into choreographed moves — toe stands, neck rolls, Michael Jackson spins, footwork that summoned the Charleston and James Brown. Many artists now share new music via encrypted downloads, but Monáe insisted on introducing her songs live. After watching her for a few minutes, it became clear why. The room was mesmerized, feeding off the energy emitted by Monáe and her backup dancers. An oversize man in loafers aggressively played air guitar. Others bounced their shoulders, nodded their heads, shuffled their feet in a two-step. Few stood still.

The performance reached its peak on a song called “I Got the Juice.” During the chorus — a percussive trap riff that will be best appreciated blasting out of an expensive car stereo — Monáe dropped to her knees below a disco ball as her dancers swarmed around her, fanning her with large exaggerated motions, less to cool her off than to emphasize the white-hot intensity of her moves. While she gyrated on the ground, the women danced around her in a circular “Soul Train” line: They did the Milly Rock, spun in tight twirls, snapped their fingers, fanned themselves and their own behinds. As the song trilled its last few beats, Monáe and her dancers slowed, laughing and wiping their brows. The room burst into applause.

Monáe took a bow and picked up a microphone. “I just had a lot of fun,” she said. “I’m very excited about where we’re going this time.” Then she took a beat to breathe. Her body was still heaving from the dancing, but she suddenly looked grim, transformed from artist to activist. “This is the first time I’ve felt threatened and unsafe as a young black woman, growing up in America,” she said. “This is the first time that I released something with a lot of emotion. The people I love feel threatened. I’ve always understood the responsibility of an artist — but I feel it even greater now. And I don’t want to stay angry, but write and feel triumphant.”

Monáe released her official debut EP, “Metropolis,” in 2007, when she was just 21. The cover showed her head topped with an elaborate pompadour, attached to a robotic female torso in disrepair — frayed wires snaked out of arm sockets and beneath a breastplate. This was Cindi Mayweather, a time-traveling android whose story the album tells: After falling in love with a human named Anthony Greendown — a union forbidden by the legislation of their time — Mayweather is marked for disassembly, and a bounty is placed on her head. The album ranged from poppy dance songs like “Violet Stars, Happy Hunting” — which cleverly evokes the history of black fugitives with lines like “I’m a slave girl without a race” — to symphonic ballads like “Sincerely, Jane,” which begs for compassion for Mayweather’s plight, urging “daydreamers, please wake up.” “Metropolis” was “West Side Story” for the cyberage — instantly earning fans among R. & B. and psychedelic-rock listeners, not to mention young black girls like myself, who saw themselves equally in Pink Floyd and TLC and were hungry for narratives starring women who weren’t hypersexualized and perhaps even a bit nerdy.

The album earned Monáe a Grammy nomination for the song “Many Moons.” She would go on to collect five more nominations across two more albums, both of which starred her alter-ego, Mayweather. For years, Monáe remained safely cocooned within the character. “Cindi helps me talk more,” she said; through Mayweather, she could address things she didn’t feel comfortable talking about directly. “You can parallel the other in the android to being a black woman right now, to being a part of the L.G.B.T.Q. community,” she said. “What it feels like to be called a nigger by your oppressor.” Mayweather was a proxy for all the things about Monaé that made others uncomfortable, like her androgyny, her opaque sexual identity, her gender fluidity — her defiance of easy categorization.

But then Monáe shifted her attention to acting. She made her film debut as the de facto surrogate mother of a young black boy in “Moonlight,” which won the Oscar for Best Picture last year; she starred, with Octavia Spencer and Taraji P. Henson, in the blockbuster “Hidden Figures,” about early black female mathematicians. Fans wondered if she would commit to films, where she could attain a level of fame that can be elusive in music. But part of the reason she was slow to return, she told me, is that her mentor, Prince, died unexpectedly. They were working together closely on what would become “Dirty Computer.” “This was the person that I would literally call and talk to about sounds or: ‘How should I say this? Is this saying too much?’ I just never could imagine a time where I couldn’t pick up the phone or email him, and he’d contact me right back and we’d talk about all these things that I was unsure of.”

The music Monáe introduced on that dusty afternoon in Los Angeles marked her highly anticipated return. “Dirty Computer,” a celebratory ode to femininity and queer people, seems to signal a new era in her career: If in the past she seemed distant, using Mayweather to stand in for the real Monáe, she now seems ready to present herself to the public. “Right now I’m escaping the gravity of the labels that people have tried to place on me that have stopped my evolution,” she told me. “You have to go ahead and soar, and not be afraid to jump — and I’m jumping right now.”

‘I knew I needed to make this album, and I put it off and put it off because the subject is Janelle Monáe.’

Two months later, in February, I was in the back of an Uber, riding southwest toward a subdivision of Atlanta. After a pause at a security gate, the car drove through an upscale, predominantly black community, past typical suburban scenes — teenagers shooting hoops, people taking out their garbage, men working on their cars. I was heading to Wondaland Arts Society, Monáe’s creative headquarters. Its inspiration is Paisley Park, the elaborate compound outside Minneapolis that housed Prince’s rehearsal space, recording rooms, concert venue and countless parties. Several years ago, Monáe established the Wondaland label — one of the few black women to have a label of her own — and signed several acts, including the band St. Beauty (one member, Isis Valentino, was a backup singer for Monáe) and the singer and rapper Jidenna. The Wondaland artists often practice together and appear on one another’s albums. And the compound, where the artists often crash, has become a center of black culture in Atlanta. Much of “Black Panther” was shot in and around the city, and the cast held impromptu gatherings at Wondaland. At one, Chadwick Boseman whaled on the drums and Lupita N’yongo was hailed as the best dancer. They were among the first to hear “Dirty Computer,” and their approval gave Monáe’s confidence a boost. “I felt understood,” she told me. “I felt like, Man, these are people I admire and I respect, and they love this album. I have to finish it.”

Outside Wondaland, eight cars lined the long driveway, and staccato bursts floated from an open window upstairs. It sounded like band practice, a score being workshopped. I recognized the music from “Dirty Computer.” A Wondaland staff member named Kelly greeted me at the door and gave me a quick tour. From the outside, the house looked like any other Southern McMansion, but the entryway immediately suggested something different. Thick, leafy palm trees crowded the foyer so densely that I had to wrestle them to get through. A handwritten note asked guests to slip off their shoes. An archway was decorated with a dozen or so clocks, in different shapes and colors, their hands frozen at various times.

Before I went down to the sprawling lower level where Monáe and I would talk, I poked my head into a few of the rooms on the first floor, all filled with recording equipment and more luscious tropical plants. People seemed to be having casual meetings in many of them. There was a large wraparound kitchen, where a woman was chopping army quantities of vegetables. On the dining-room table, there was a chocolate cake surrounded by red and blue balloons, a bottle of sparkling rosé and a laserjet printout that read in block caps: “CONGRATULATIONS, YOU DIRTY COMPUTER.”

The stairs to the basement were covered with green turf, so that even as my eyes adjusted to the dimming light, my feet were receiving the pleasantly disorienting sensation of outdoors. Downstairs, there were tropical plants everywhere; brilliant orange-and-white fish swam in an expansive tank bathed in purple lights. I counted at least five keyboards, eight guitars, two drum kits, a piano, a cello, a trumpet and a saxophone. A stack of books piled on an end table included “Writing Better Lyrics,” “Sapiens,” “Zen Guitar” and “Built to Last,” a book on business management. There was a desk crowded with sound mixers and synthesizers, and a box set of Jimi Hendrix CDs. A minifridge was stocked with seltzer, wine and water, and a bottle of absinthe stood on the desk.

Monáe soundlessly padded into the room, clad in a velour caftan, gold earrings and rings to match. She was barefoot, her toes painted metallic silver. She had arrived from Los Angeles that morning, and tried to take a nap, but Jidenna, who was in town, woke her up with his practicing. Though she apologized for being tired, she was buoyant. It had been 24 hours since her first two singles — “Django Jane” and “Make Me Feel” — were released, and both were trending on social media. “I’m still nervous, obviously, but I’ll enjoy this moment,” she told me, as she arranged herself more comfortably on a chair next to the couch where I was sitting. “But I won’t drive myself nuts trying to preplan what people are going to say, what they’re going to think, even though it terrifies me — I just have to put my energy into finishing.”

Monáe, who is 32, told me that she has been circling the themes explored on “Dirty Computer” for at least a decade, but that earlier it felt safer to package herself in metaphors. “I knew I needed to make this album, and I put it off and put it off because the subject is Janelle Monáe.” She’s still having a conversation with herself, she said, about who she wants to be when she’s in the spotlight. The sanitized android version felt more accepted — and more acceptable — than her true self. The public, she explained, doesn’t really “know Janelle Monáe, and I felt like I didn’t really have to be her because they were fine with Cindi.” When Prince died in April 2016, she started to rethink how she would present herself. “I couldn’t fake being vulnerable. In terms of how I will be remembered, I have anxiety around that, like the whole concept about what I’ll be remembered for.”

At its core, “Dirty Computer” is a homage to women and the spectrum of sexual identities. The songs can be grouped into three loose categories: Reckoning, Celebration and Reclamation. “The first songs deal with realizing that this is how society sees me,” she said. “This is how I’m viewed. I’m a ‘dirty computer,’ it’s clear. I’m going to be pushed to the margins, outside margins, of the world.” “D’Jango Jane” is an ode to black power and pride that is also a dirge about the struggles that come with that heritage. The middle half of the album is a raucous party. “It’s like, O.K., these are the cards I’ve been dealt,” she said. These songs include “Make Me Feel” and “Pynk” — the sizzling, sex-drenched songs that titillated the internet when they were released earlier this year. The album winds down with an anthem about being an American, whose sound evokes Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” with lyrics like “love me for who I am,” and “cross my heart and hope to die, I’m a big old piece of American pie.”

Monáe will release an extended musical film with the album that illustrates and complements “Dirty Computer.” The 50-minute “emotion picture,” as she calls it, follows a young woman, played by Monáe, on the run from an authoritarian government that hunts down so-called deviants and “cleans” them by erasing their memories. Those memories serve as the musical interludes (the videos) amid the drama — “Handmaid’s Tale” meets “San Junipero,” set in a desiccated “Mad Max” landscape. It follows a crew of young kids, mostly black, dancing and dodging capture. Longtime fans will recognize the parallels to Mayweather — which Monáe expects — but instead of focusing on a fictional male human lover, the object of her affection is the actress Tessa Thompson, with whom Monáe is frequently photographed in real life. A beautiful man whom she occasionally hugs and kisses makes appearances, but he feels like an afterthought. Plausible deniability. The star-crossed romance between Thompson and Monáe, and whether they will be separated or reunited, is the true narrative of the film.

Most popular music is so determinedly centered on heterosexual dynamics that any hint of same-sex interactions can feel revelatory, even radical, upon the first encounter. That’s the way it felt to me when I first watched Monáe’s film. The queer sexual interactions are refreshingly explicit — miming digital and oral sex — and images throughout celebrate women. The video for the song “Pynk” is an extended appreciation of the female anatomy, with neon signs screaming, “[Expletive] Power,” and pink-frilled jumpsuits that wouldn’t look out of place in a Judy Chicago installation.

Already much of social media has speculated on the nature of Monáe and Thompson’s relationship, and this film — especially with scenes like Thompson poking her head from between the legs of Monae’s pink vagina pantsuit — is certain to only inflame those rumors. The first time I saw the video for “Make Me Feel,” months before its YouTube release, I found it so sexually suggestive (Thompson appears throughout the song, fawning over Monáe, dancing with her, almost kissing her) that I immediately texted the woman I was dating at the time, “omg janelle might really be gay.” It felt as declarative as a coming-out could. And yet in person, Monáe would say only that she felt this was her coming-out as an advocate of women and queer issues. “I want it to be very clear that I’m an advocate for women,” she said. “I’m a girl’s girl, meaning I support women no matter what they choose to do. I’m proud when everybody is taking agency over their image and their bodies.” She told me that she wanted the album to be especially relevant to black women and queer women, for them to feel seen and heard in this album. “I felt that way when I listened to Lauryn Hill, as I was trying to find myself as a young woman, I felt that way when I listened to Stevie Wonder when I was trying to understand God more.”

I asked Monáe what she thought of the internet’s speculation about her romantic relationship with Thompson. Watching her as she decided on a response was like watching a mathematician working out Fermat’s Last Theorem. Gears were churning; calculations were being made. Finally, she laughed, raised her eyebrows and deflected: “I hope people feel celebrated,” she said. “I hope they feel love. I hope they feel seen.” It was late into the evening, and I was conscious of how long we’d been talking — at least two hours — and let it drop. But the issue lingered for me, especially the more times I watched her film.

These days, the culture seems more accepting and welcoming of queerness: Young actors and pop stars like Amandla Stenberg and Lady Gaga are identifying publicly as bisexual. Lena Waithe and her fiancée were recently photographed by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair. And yet, nonheteronormative sexuality remains the last taboo. Monáe is media-savvy enough to protect herself from becoming tabloid fodder for publications that want to turn her personal life into spectacle or reduce her art to her sexuality. She told me repeatedly that she worried what her early fans and very religious and very Southern family would think. There’s little precedent for a black female celebrity at her level living openly as a lesbian in a gay relationship.

Monáe has spent a lifetime perfecting the art of being a pop star who isn’t a sexual object. Discretion is a survival strategy, a coping mechanism especially useful for black women living in the public eye. But she has now made an explicit album about sexual expression and identity that is somehow still shrouded in ambiguity. In 2018, empowerment isn’t a color — it’s a call to action. It’s Cardi B talking about how much she loves her vagina, not holding a neon sign explaining that she has one. On “Dirty Computer,” it still feels as if Monáe is deciding which version of herself to show the world — or that this is the tentative beginning of a larger reveal.

Monáe grew up in a large yet tightknit family in Kansas City, Kan., the kind with relatives in the double digits. Money was scarce, but they made do. Her parents worked in the service industry, her mother as a janitor and her stepfather as a postal worker. Her mother was a Baptist but didn’t mind when Monaé listened to racy R. & B. songs by groups like Jodeci or rappers like Tupac. Her great-grandmothers played organ in church and taught piano. Her biological father sang. She thinks he could have gotten a record deal if he hadn’t battled an addiction to crack. Her mother left him when Monáe was a toddler and remarried. He was in and out of prison Monáe’s entire childhood. “He’s sober now,” she told me, and the author of a memoir in which he writes about Monáe: “She always had this distinctive look in her eye that said: ‘I’m going to make it! No matter what!’ And I believed that she would.”

As a teenager, Monáe was enrolled in a young playwrights’ program and performed in talent showcases on the weekend, where she sang Lauryn Hill songs a cappella and usually won. She watched movies like “The Wiz” but struggled with the same question that all black children weaned on American pop culture eventually reckon with: Is this all there is?

After high school, she moved to New York to study musical theater at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. She couldn’t afford to live on campus, so she shared a room at 140th and Amsterdam with an older cousin, who worked nights at the Post Office. They each took a shift sleeping while the other was at work or school and saw each other on the weekends. Her congregation supplied some funds, and Monáe did some work as a maid to make ends meet. She spent the rest of her time in libraries, reading plays and practicing monologues. Her best friend was studying in Atlanta and regaled her with tales of wild parties and the camaraderie of black Greek life. “It was just more exciting than what I was doing,” she said. She liked the rigor and discipline of her school but worried she would lose her edge: “I didn’t want to sound, or look or feel like anybody else.” She made the decision to leave New York after a year and a half.

Monáe eventually settled in a boardinghouse that was directly across from the university center that contains all four of Atlanta’s historically black colleges: Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College and the Morehouse School of Medicine. She went to Georgia State University’s Perimeter College to save money and began to write her own music. Atlanta in the early 2000s was a hotbed for musical innovation, with artists like OutKast spinning their eccentricities and distinct Southern identity into record deals and national fame. Monáe began experimenting with her own sound, performing around campus — in dorm rooms, at school events and, once, on the steps of the library. She made a CD called “The Audition” and sold it out of the trunk of her Mitsubishi Galant. She worked at Office Depot and during slow moments updated her Myspace page with new photos and music.

During this period, she met Mikael Moore, her longtime manager, and his classmates Chuck Lightning and Nate Wonder, who would eventually became close collaborators and form the backbone of all her creative efforts — writing songs with Monáe and directing her videos, which they continue to do. At an open-mic night, she met Antwan Patton, otherwise known as Big Boi, from OutKast. He invited her to contribute to “Got Purp? Vol. II,” a 2005 compilation album that featured artists of Dirty South rap like Goodie Mob and Bubba Sparxxx but few other women. She also appeared on the soundtrack for “Idlewild,” the 2006 musical film starring Patton and André Benjamin, or André 3000, Patton’s partner in OutKast.

Sean Combs, the producer also known as Puffy at the time, reached out to her after her work with Big Boi put her on his radar. Monáe had already taken a few meetings with record executives, and was disillusioned by those early encounters. They criticized her style, which then involved, sartorially, androgynous suits, and musically, operatic odes to her character Cindi Mayweather. During one performance, she noticed midsong, breathless and sweating from the effort of dancing and singing, an executive casually reading a magazine. “I cried,” she said. “I mean, I cried.” She made Puffy a deal: She had just finished “Metropolis.” She’d hear him out if he came to see her perform. “It was important to know if he was serious, that he was going to appreciate me and not try to change my live show or my music.” Combs halted filming on his reality show, “Making the Band” and flew down. He loved what he saw. “He said, let’s meet tomorrow and let’s talk,” Monáe recalled.

Combs told Monáe that he wanted to introduce her to a larger audience. “I knew I had to work with her,” he told me via email. “It was immediate. I just knew she was going to be important to music and culture. It was the same sort of feeling I had when I first heard Biggie or Mary J. Blige, and I wanted to help introduce this artist to the world.”

In 2008, Combs announced the signing of Monáe to his label, Bad Boy Records. They rereleased “Metropolis” and then followed up with “The ArchAndroid” in 2010 and “The Electric Lady” in 2013 (as well as “Dirty Computer”). Monáe went on tour with No Doubt and Bruno Mars and collaborated with Solange Knowles and Erykah Badu. She landed an endorsement with CoverGirl. She was being sent movie scripts. None moved her until she read the one for “Moonlight.”

Yesi Ramirez, the casting director on the movie, had flagged Monáe for the director Barry Jenkins, and they scheduled a screen test over Skype. When she appeared, her hair filled the frame, even more than her face. He was startled. “I wanted to call her Auntie. I was used to the pompadour, and this larger-than-life entity, the outer-space person that I’d seen live in Oakland with Erykah Badu, and I had to reconcile that person with this person before me,” he said. “We started talking, and it was very clear that she got it.”

During the beginning of production, Monáe lost a relative to gun violence. Jenkins felt that the story of Chiron, the boy whose life the movie follows as he matures, spoke to her because she knew young men like him, lost and struggling to make sense of their sexuality — and understood the way strangers can raise you as much as your biological family can. “She felt it was important that someone like that be centered in a narrative,” Jenkins told me. “And whatever she could do to bring it to larger light, she was down for.”

For Monáe, “Moonlight” and then “Hidden Figures” were a way to convey the message she has striven over and over to convey: recognition and validation for people overlooked by society. “I was, like, this is just another way to get out the message I’ve been trying to talk about for so [expletive] long that I feel like I don’t know if anybody is listening,” she told me. “You can show people better than you can tell them.”

Rain is Kryptonite to social outings in L.A., but bad weather could not touch the mood in the room at Catch LA in early March. There were a few men — Jay Ellis from “Insecure,” as well as Monáe’s team of male collaborators — but women were everywhere: Ava DuVernay, Rosario Dawson, the director Dee Rees accompanied by her partner, Sarah Broom, Debra Lee, the president of the BET network. The actresses Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o arrived together. Geena Davis watched the scene approvingly from a nearby table. The former editor of Teen Vogue, Elaine Welteroth, held court at another. The New York DJ Kitty Cash played songs, mostly by female artists. Tessa Thompson bounced around in a gorgeous yellow-and-pink feathery coat and leather pants, occasionally at Monáe’s side. The women had gathered for a brunch that Monáe was hosting for her “Fem the Future” project to support women in the entertainment industry. Monáe had chosen three female filmmakers to make short films funded by Belvedere vodka that answered the question: What does a beautiful future look like? The event was nominally to celebrate them but more largely to gather in one room actors, writers, directors and producers Monáe admired.

Monáe, dressed in a Bella Freud ice-blue velvet suit, matching glitter eyeliner and perfectly matte red lips, walked to the front of the restaurant and picked up a microphone. “This room looks good,” she said. “You inspire me and encourage me to be a better woman and artist.” Earlier in her career, she said, she asked some label reps to recommend other female producers and creators she could work with. The list they provided stunned her. “It was so tiny,” she said. “I was upset.” To channel that anger, she said, she started her initiative to help women “cross-connect and open doors,” as she put it. “It gives everybody a seat at the table.”

Throughout my conversations with Monáe, she talked about her dedication to lifting up women. Some of that didn’t quite square with me — most of the crew that supports her creatively, spiritually, administratively seem to be men. But Monáe’s event felt like a mild insistence that she got it. This brunch seemed like a woman-centric version of a few rounds on the golf course — a space that emphasized the importance of networking, beyond film sets, parties and premieres as a means to lay the groundwork for future collaborations. Seeing her in that capacity reminded me that she’s still evolving into the woman she wants to be in the world and the role she wants to play.

A few years ago, the singer and actor Harry Belafonte was asked by a reporter for The Hollywood Reporter to comment on “members of minorities in Hollywood today.” Belafonte, a prominent civil rights activist who helped organized the 1963 March on Washington where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech, took the opportunity to express frustration about what he perceived as the political malaise of celebrities. “I think one of the great abuses of this modern time is that we should have had such high-profile artists, powerful celebrities,” he said, “but they have turned their back on social responsibility.” Until recently, few publicly stepped in to fill the hole he named. In the past, Monáe shied away from anything that could potentially derail her career. “I used to be a lot more afraid of going off script,” she told me.

She emerged as an activist in August 2015, at a demonstration in Philadelphia she led in support of the local Black Lives Matter movement. There’s a photo of Monáe surrounded by most of the artists in the Wondaland collective: Jidenna, St. Beauty, Roman GianArthur, Chuck Lightning and the producer Nana Kwabena. Their mouths are open, midchant, and the look on their faces is determined. They are holding drums, signs, one another. For Monáe, the times were too urgent to ignore. Freddie Gray and Sandra Bland had recently died following controversial encounters with the police. She realized she had a voice that she could use. That she needed to use. A few days later, Monáe released the anthem “Hell You Talmbout,” which is less a song than a chant. At nearly seven minutes long, it calls out the names of black men and women who were victims of police brutality, followed by the urging to say their names. It was a significant moment in her career: She would no longer be cautious when it came to social responsibility. The song came out almost a year before Beyoncé’s breaking-chains “Freedom” or Solange Knowles’s primal scream on “A Seat at the Table.” A few months later, Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler gave a benefit concert in Flint, Mich., to raise money for the clean-water-deprived city that was also a boycott of the Oscars. Monáe performed alongside Stevie Wonder, Vic Mensa and Hannibal Buress. Monaé told me that in the past, she tended to write anthems for other people. “I don’t always live them, I don’t. And I’m learning more and more to live them, to make myself live them.”

Her highest-profile moment came with the 2017 presidential inauguration. Monáe was invited to speak — as well as sing — at the Women’s March by Ginny Suss, a member of the organizing committee in charge of music. Suss wanted artists whose music reflected their personal politic. “When you look at the arc of her career, there has always been a moral core and ethical center to her music, that breaks down constructions of race and gender in our society,” Suss told me. “It’s a tool to imagine the world we want through the accessibility of pop music. Having her stand up and have that voice at the march was amazing.”

Monáe had heard that Lucia McBath, the mother of Jordan Davis; Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin; and Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, were going to be there, too, and she wanted to offer support. She herself was still reeling from the election, she added. “I just wanted to come and not only uplift, but I wanted to be uplifted, too.” As she made her way backstage, she got a sense of the crowd for the first time. “I saw, like, tens of thousands — hundreds of thousands of women and men and people from all around the world, babies and Muslims and trans and L.G.B.T. folks,” she recalled. “I was like, Oh, my God.” She hadn’t expected such a tremendous turnout, for so many people to care about what happens to women. The importance of the task hit her. But there was no privacy backstage, no place to prepare or gather her thoughts — just a communal room where the speakers were chatting and taking photographs. Monáe had no choice but to wing it. “That was just one of those moments where I was just, like, It might not come out right, but as long as your intentions are pure, as long as you’re honest,” she told me. She drew from the mixture of emotions stirred up by her recent role in “Hidden Figures,” about female African-American mathematicians suffering from discrimination even as they performed pivotal jobs for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration during the American space race of the 1960s. “Everything that was going on in January felt like that era, when we’re talking about a blatant war on women’s rights.”

She appeared calm as she addressed the enormous crowd. “Women will be hidden no more,” she said. “We have names. We are complete human beings.” For many people, the speech cast Monáe in a new light: she became more than a psychedelic Tim Burton character. The response galvanized her. “I just had to speak from my heart,” she said. “Not a lot of artists do it.”

This January, she took the stage at the Grammys, where she delivered a short speech to introduce the singer Kesha, who’d had a legal battle with her former producer Dr. Luke. A member of TimesUp, a Hollywood initiative to fight sexual harassment, Monáe wore its pin proudly on her black suit as she called out the music industry for its epidemic patterns of sexual harassment and assault. “We come in peace, but we mean business,” she said to the crowd. “Just as we have the power to shape culture, we also have the power to undo the culture that does not serve us well.”

In Atlanta, after our conversation at Wondaland, Monáe seemed to get a second wind. The band upstairs had resumed practicing for her forthcoming tour, and she wanted to check in on their progress. She invited me to join her. If the basement was where ideas began to gestate, then the room she led me to was where they were polished before leaving the house. It had a ballet barre and floor-to-ceiling mirrors. She disappeared for a few minutes before returning in black leggings and the same cropped moto jacket from the presentation in Los Angeles.

Monáe greeted everyone in her band — the drummer, keyboard player, guitarist and two backup singers — hugging them and taking a few moments to inquire about their health, their families, their side projects, before taking her position in front of them. She patted her pockets, searching for a missing item, which she spied on a speaker: mirrored sunglasses. She put them on and nodded to the band. They launched into “Make Me Feel” and then “I Got the Juice,” and she ran through them a few times, losing herself a little more in the music during each performance.

Despite the accolades and Grammy nominations, Monáe has yet to achieve significant commercial success. If there’s a moment that her entire discography has been building toward, it is right now, with this release. Her desire for a win shone nakedly. She sneaked coy peeks at me to see if I was paying attention. It was impossible to tear my eyes away, not to want for her what she so clearly wants for herself. At the completion of each song, Monáe would grin, breathless. “That’s going to sound so good live,” she said, happily. But then the perfectionist came out again. She asked the band what else they had prepared. The sheepish answer came: Nothing. She paused, letting her displeasure seep out for few moments, just enough for them to know that they’d need to step it up. “Well, all right, then,” she replied. “Let’s go through them again.”

In all our encounters, Monáe seemed as if she was bracing herself for anything, including the worst — harsh reviews, irrelevancy, dismissals. But all that carefully maintained composure fell away as she twirled and dropped to her knees. Earlier, I asked her what she ultimately wanted: awards? Album sales? Money? She referred to Prince again: He was in that “free [expletive] category,” she said. “That’s where I want to be. That’s where I want to ultimately be.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/19/magazine/how-janelle-monae-found-her-voice.html?smid=pl-share

[umbrarabbit]

Vagrant

Word count: 5024 | Pairing: Klance

Okay, so I wrote a thing finally. It’s been such a long time haha

It’s post apocalyptic klance, I hope you enjoy it! 

(P.s. you can read it here too: http://archiveofourown.org/works/9553040 )

It was quiet again. That sort of quiet that makes your ears ring. He’d fallen asleep to the crackle and spit of a small fire, but by now it had sputtered out of existence and he was left in the cold and the dark. He always woke up in the dark, tired, eyes barely open and his head throbbing. He missed being about to hear birds. Hell, he missed being able to hear people. With an exhalation of breath, Keith lifted himself up from the floor. His bones ached, a grinding click up his spine making him wince and a groan escape from his throat. He sat for a moment, legs folded under him, a dusty, dirty sheet the only thing between him and the cold floor. Another thing he missed – sleeping in a bed. Though he couldn’t. He knew he’d sleep too deeply, and a deep sleep could be the death of him. He’d found one once, not a bed but a mattress. Someone had used it as part of a barrier, it was usable and intact, if not a bit dirty, but somehow it had survived where the barrier hadn’t. It had been tempting to drag it all the way back to his hideaway, but the risk of just that getting him killed was too high, let alone sleeping on it during the night. No, it was much better for him to sleep on the floor, discomfort made him a light sleeper, and a light sleeper was much more likely to stay alive. He’d seen others, too careless, who hadn’t made it through the night, and he wasn’t about to make that mistake.

The sun began its slow rise from the horizon. A faded orange glow lighting up a corner of his room. Dragging a hand over his face, Keith finally pushed himself onto his feet. Stretching his body up as far as he could, he then leaned forwards, wrapping his arms around the backs of his legs. He went through a series of poses, sitting on the floor, standing, against the wall. Waking up his body, making sure the risk of spraining anything was smaller. It didn’t take long, and within fifteen minutes he had thrown a bag over his back and a rifle over his shoulder. A knife sat snug on his hip, but that was always there – like the rest of his clothes, it was something he refused to take off.

It was a climb, to get out of where he slept. He’d chosen somewhere high up. Somewhere the stairs where unusable. Infected weren’t smart enough to climb an elevator shaft. He wasn’t right at the very top of the building, but it was far enough for him to be happy with, and the climb up and down wasn’t too bad. A rope he’d secured made it easier, but it still set his heart going when he looked down. Jumping down the last foot into the elevator, he paused and listened. Silence was good now, as much as he hated it, so he listened, taking careful steps forward toward the open side of the elevator. It was clear. It was always clear now. For a long time, he hadn’t seen anything roaming about here. It was further in the centre of the city, where the dust piled up and the bodies were left. Something he’d made sure to do, when Keith had first decided to set down here, was clear away the bodies. They seemed to be drawn to them, and not only that it made him queasy to see them. It had taken a few days. A shiver ran down Keith’s spine, those weren’t very fun times.

The way into the city was easy. It was peaceful, calm. The sun had reason quite a bit by now, though there was a constant haze to the air. A dust that just never seemed to settle. Keith didn’t want to think about it, what he was breathing in, but it hadn’t killed him yet. Lifting a hand, he made sure the scarf he wore was secure about the lower half of his face. A makeshift mask, not that he reckoned it made much of a difference – his throat was always scratching, and his lungs always hurt to breath, by the end of the day. It was worse down at city level, but he had no choice. Food supplies were running low. Everything was running low. Everything was always running low.

At least there was one thing he was grateful for – after travelling so far, finding a place he didn’t have to fight others was nice. He’d had to kill too many people. Too many people just trying to survive like him, but to desperate and panicking to think of surviving with anyone they didn’t know. Not that that mattered to him, he was better alone anyway. Especially now.

He had to walk further than he had done during the past week. Every building close by, he’d already looked through. He’d looked through them twice. Sometimes going back to the same place over and over, in the vain hope something worthwhile would appear. But it hadn’t, so he kept walking. He hated having to go so far in. Hated that he started seeing more dead people. More people in their cars, more people laying in the street. His eyes scanned over everything, hyper alert at all times, and it made him feel ill. In so many places, he saw bloody drag marks, pulled off into dark alleys he told himself he would never go into but he knew he would eventually. Desperation makes people do things they don’t want to do. Passing the limits of his last search area, Keith stopped to look around. It was still unnerving, being the only one left in a city. Nothing had changed or moved, no footprints marked the dust – not that he would see them, a gentle breeze quickly rolling dust and dirt over his over. Sighing, Keith turned to his left, heading for the most appealing building. It was a shop, the metal shutter only open at the bottom, enough for him to roll under. It had been looted, of course it had been looted, but there was bound to be something good in there. There had to be.

First things first, Keith checked everywhere. He was as quiet as he could be, keeping each step light, his hand ready over his blade, body crouched slightly. It was darker inside, his eyes squinting as they focused to the hazy dimness, but there was nothing. Three people dead, but no sign of anyone, anything else. Keith exhaled the breath that had caught in his chest and set about searching the shelves.

He didn’t know how long he had been looking through the shop, time was a difficult thing to measure nowadays, but he had packed a number of things into his bag – cans mostly, baked beans and mushy peas. He couldn’t remember the last time he tasted fresh food on his tongue. What was it like, eating fruit? Vegetables? Meat? God he missed his, he craved things he couldn’t have anymore. Cravings that hung around, stagnant on the air, because there was no way for him to satisfy them.

Something scuffed against the floor. Keith’s ears focused in on it instantly, the silence suddenly broken. Someone muttered, feet crunching old, stale food. He ducked in an instant, hiding in an aisle close to the back of the store and cursing his lack of escape. Someone was in here. Someone alive. Slowly, he eased himself to the end of the aisle, peeking his head round to take a look. He couldn’t see anything. Keith cursed under his breath, retreating back, his thoughts racing. No one was supposed to be here! At least no one, you know, alive. Maybe if he was quiet enough, he could sneak to the exit without them knowing he had been here. Shit! They were bound to know, thick muddied boots and a dusty trail where hard to miss in a city that was supposed to be empty. He needed to at least try. Again, Keith inch himself to the edge, taking another look before keeping his crouch and slowly crawling forwards. He looked down every aisle, expecting to see someone standing there, holding a gun to his head, but so far he hadn’t. He could feel his heart beating uncomfortably fast and loud, his breaths coming slow and shallow as he held each one as he moved.

His eyes got stuck more and more at the door the closer he came, making the exclamation of surprise to his right all the more alarming when it came. Keith’s eyes widened, his head whipping to the side to see a tall figure in the shadows of the shop. Keith cursed, standing at full height, grabbing his knife and yanking it free in the same instant. He was quickly poised, ready to fight if he had to. The man stood still for a moment, his hand frozen still behind his back, presumably going for a weapon just seconds before. It was like time just stopped in that moment. The two of them staring each other down, unsure of what to do, how to act. Should he attack? He was close enough, taking him down looked simple enough. He was tall, sure, but he didn’t look too strong. Keith’s eyes flicked to follow the slow, subtle movement of the strangers arm, still closing in on what Keith was now sure was a hidden weapon. Then something struck against the shutter. The both jumped, both looked towards the exit, wide eyed surprise warping into fear. Why – how was there infected here? Why now? Another crash hit the shutter. Another. Keith grit his teeth, how many of them were out there?! The street was empty when he came down it, there was nothing, not here, not this close to the outer edges. His face dropped. Oh, but he’d come further in.

A hand grabbed Keith’s arm and in a split second his blade was pressed against the stranger’s throat, but he froze, seeing no hostility in the blue of his eyes. Feeling the pressure of the blade ease, the stranger spoke, his voice so quiet Keith almost didn’t hear him.

“A way out?” Keith repeating, slightly louder. The stranger nodded, Keith noting his hand was still gently clasped around his arm. He was tempted to yank it away, but part of his feared making any sort of sound. “No,” Keith shook his head, “that’s it. What did you do to draw them here?” He hissed between clenched teeth. No. Calm down. The stranger rose an eyebrow.

“Me? What makes you think I brought them here?”

“Because they weren’t here before!”

“Shhh!” The stranger looked alarmed as Keith raised his voice, and Keith cursed himself.

“What about the back door? There’s always a back door to shops.”

“Oh, smart idea genius, like I didn’t check that when I came here. No. The back door’s blocked.”

“Shit.”

Keith glanced back over to the entrance, a growing shadow of feet appearing by the gap.

“Well what are we gonna do?”

“I –” Keith didn’t know, and he could feel the panic rising in his chest. Maybe they would go away if they were quiet enough? No, stupid idea. All it took was one stupid infected tripping over another and before they knew it they’d be crawling under the shutter. There had to be a way out, if they could just get out they could lose the horde in the city. “Break the window.” He stated bluntly.

“What?”

“If we can break the window we at least have a fighting chance.” He pulled his arm free of the stranger, sliding the gun from his shoulder and aiming his sight at the window before the stranger could voice any objections. A shoot rang out in seconds, a ringing in his ears blocking the sound of shattering glass. The crashing against the shutter stopped, and suddenly the feet were shuffling to the brand new entrance Keith had so thoughtfully provided. Again, the strangers hand found its way around Keith’s arm and before he knew it he’d been dragged forwards into a run, the both of them leaping through the window and into the city street before the infected had chance to fully block their way. They didn’t break their moment, the stranger leading them further into the city. Keith panicked, pulling at his arm and forcing the two to a stop.

“Fu – We don’t have time to stop!” The stranger called, alarmed and watching the infected in the distance. They were good at following, and gradually picking up speed.

“You’re going the wrong way.” Keith replied, “the city centre will just be worse.”

“Then where do you suggest we go, pretty boy? If you hadn’t noticed, there’s infected blocking our way that way, and I don’t really want to be getting lost.”

“Pretty boy? Whatever, look, we have to get further out of the city, that way.” Keith signalled behind him.

“H-oh no. Not happening. If you have a death wish, that’s on you.” The stranger turned to keep going, but something drove Keith to grab his arm, stopping and turning him back around. The stranger growled in response, looking as if he were about to speak. Keith didn’t let him, instead pulling on his arm and this time he was the one leading them, full sprint, through the streets. He headed to the side, into one of those dark alley’s he really didn’t want to be down. But it was a way around, and right now it was better than nothing.

Only once did they have to fight their way past the infected, a smaller group than before, but difficult nonetheless. But eventually Keith’s building was in sight and relief filled his chest. Slowing down, Keith let the stranger go, not even bothering to turn around to make sure he was okay, and instead just carried on walking. He scanned the area as he went, but there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.

“Hey, wait up!” The stranger jogged to catch up, walking by his side and still a little out of breath. “Where are you going?”

Keith looked suspiciously toward the stranger, stopping. “Actually, that’s a point. Stop following me. Go back to wherever you came from.”

“What? No. No way.” The stranger gestured his hands wildly, shaking his head as he spoke. “Not going to happen. I don’t have anywhere to go anyway, I was passing through the city, not sightseeing.”

“Well, then, keeping passing through.”

“With a horde like that wandering about? I’m not stupid.”

Keith snorted, “Is that so?”

“Hey, mullet man! You’re the one who lured the zombies after us!” The stranger pouted indignantly, crossing his arms and straightening his back.

“Me? No, you’ve got that backwards. I was perfectly fine until you showed up.” Keith started walking again, intent on getting away from him. He was tired.

The stranger persisted. “Come on, it’s safer to be with someone else. Wouldn’t it be better for us to stick together?”

“No.” Keith glanced to the stranger, a stupid overdramatic pleading expression plastered all over his face. Keith groaned. “Fine. But if you steal anything, I will kill you.”

“Score!”

**

Keith was sat pressed into a corner, trying his best to seem busy when all he was really doing was watching Lance take a part and clean his gun. Lance. They’d finally exchanged names, though Keith had done so reluctantly. The last person he’d told his name told ended up dying, dragged down into the eager, hungry arms of the infected. Keith shuddered. But he couldn’t have not told him. The way he’d leant against the door frame, arms folded as he watched Keith enter the room, “the names Lance.” It was so casual, as if they hadn’t been seconds away from killing each other earlier that day. And the way he’d looked at him so expectantly afterward, it just kind of spilled out. Curt and sharp, just his name and nothing else. From that point they hadn’t said much else to each other, though Lance had tried. Conversations had a tendency to fall flat though, with Keith around. So they sat in silence, the light slowly drifting from the room as night approached. It occurred to Keith that he should start a fire, it got cold at night, too cold, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

It was the first time in a long time he hadn’t been able to drift off to the sound or sight of a fire. It made it hard to close his eyes, so he just stared at the wall, his back to Lance and his arms hugging tight around his body as he willed himself not to shiver. He heard movement behind him, Lance muttering something under his breath before he started shuffling closer. Keith didn’t move, closing his eyes tight, pretending to be asleep. Movement close to his back set his heart thrumming in his chest, and then Lance had shoved his arm around his waist, warmth filling the space between them. The very small space between them. Keith jumped, his hand clamping down on Lance’s arm as he moved to shove him away, but Lance was holding on tight. “What are you doing?!” Keith exclaimed, alarmed being an understatement.

“Trying not to freeze to death! It’s fucking cold and you’re about the only warm thing here, so stop struggling.” Lance just held on tighter, his body cold and shivering but warming and much nicer than just the cold air, as much as Keith was loathed to admit it.

“Just don’t try anything… Weird.” Keith mumbled, settling back down begrudgingly. He continued to stare at the wall, no longer having to stop himself from shivering, but instead his mind was all too focused to the weight pressed against him.

“In your dreams, pretty boy.” The words were muttered, slurred, Lance already quickly drifting off to sleep, his arm relaxing around Keith.

Keith couldn't settle. His face felt hot, his heart wouldn't calm down and he felt sick in his stomach. When was the last time he spoke to a actually living person? Let alone - Keith screwed his eyes shut. They were only doing this because it was so cold. That all, sharing the warmth and all that. So why did it make him feel so weird?

When morning came, it was the light that woke him up. His brow creased as he opened his eyes, sun shining across his face. It was warm. Keith blinked. Once. Twice. Staring up at the ceiling. His brain still fumbling through sleep addled thoughts. Lazily, he sat up, slapping a hand to his face and running it up through his hair. He still felt tired. But it was a different kind of tired, like he'd slept too much and his body was punishing him for it. Looking to his side, he half expected to see Lance, but he was nowhere to be found. Keith’s heart skipped and he jumped to his feet. It wasn't a big room, he should have been able to see if Lance was there but he wasn't. Keith cursed himself. Shit. Shit, shit! He'd been stupid, letting someone he didn't know into his hideaway. And why hadn't he woken up? Why was it daylight? Keith cursed himself again. Stupid. Keith rushed to check his belongings. Right, okay. Everything was still there. So - so what? Lance had just left? He didn't even – didn’t what? Say goodbye? Keith laughed humourlessly. They'd known each other for a day, and the only reason it'd been that long was because of the surprise infected party in the city. Lance was under no obligation to say goodbye. And why should Keith want him to? He was just stood in the centre of the room, a little lost as to what to do. Right. To the city then. Infected or not, he needed to make sure he didn't run low on food.

"I thought you were never going to wake up."

The voice was familiar. Startled, Keith turned to the door, a shit eating grin on Lances face. "Did the Princess need their beauty sleep?"

Keith closed the gap between them, swinging his fist and punching Lances arm, earning him a pained exclamation. Lance stood rubbing his arm, a question on his parted lips. Keith paused for a breath. He wasn't sure why he'd done that. "For last night, asshole."

"Oh please, you loved it. You were sleeping so peacefully and snoring so loudly this morning." Lance walked further into the room, leaving Keith standing by the door, arms folded across his chest.

"I don't snore."

"Oh yes you do. Not the most beautiful sound to have to wake up to."

Keith rose an eyebrow, suddenly remembering that Lance was, in fact, still here. And he wasn't mad about it. "Where did you go?"

"Aww, you miss me?" Keith stared at him blankly. With a sigh, Lance shrugged his shoulders. "To get something to burn, I figured you'd prefer to have a fire going." He indicated the wood he had cradled under his arm, which Keith had failed to notice before. It was a pitiful amount, really, but it was something. He had run out of burnable items. "Oh. Thanks."

They spent the rest of the day searching those parts of the city Keith had already searched, both to stubborn to admit the fact that they were scared of going any further. Keith couldn't remember the last time he'd ever gotten so frustrated with someone, but the competition to find more than the other kept his mind busy from the lack of anything to find. Lance cheered when he dragged a t-shirt from under the rubble. Keith rubbed it in his face when he found a packet of peanuts. It was stupid, but he felt laughter bubble in his chest more in that day than he had in months. Or was it years? Keith made any excuse to make contact, mostly when they bickered and fought. It was almost enough to make him forget everything else.

This happened a lot, for weeks. Somehow they stayed together, somehow Keith wanted them to stay together. Having no one around was easy, he got used to it. He hadn't needed anyone. But having Lance there... He was reminded of all those moments he'd been starved for someone. Talking to himself because the silence just got to be too much. Having Lance there, he kept catching himself staring longer and longer. At the smoothness of his skin, that stupid smile, how blue his eyes where, his long fingers. Keith was coming to the slow realisation of just how touch starved he had been. Lance’s body was more toned than he'd thought when Keith had first seen him, it made his heart throb and his throat go dry. He worried more now, that he'd left alone again. He didn’t say anything about it.

“Why where you in the city?” The question had left Keith’s mouth before he really had time to think about it. He stared into the fire that sat between them, arms hugging his legs close, chin resting on his knees. Lance looked up at him, half way with a spoon in his mouth. Questionably in date mushy pea residue on the corner of his mouth. Keith’s glaze flicked to Lance’s mouth, then back to the fire.

“Oh, I don’t know. Trying to find some people.”

Keith sat up a little straighter. “To find people? Who?”

“My friends. We got, uh, we got split up. Kind of lost them, I guess. We were heading somewhere. Apparently some sort of ‘safe zone’, military run. Well, from what we caught on the radio.”

Keith frowned. “Why haven’t you left to find them yet? You could have gone ages ago, why stay? They might think you’re dead.” ‘Or they’re dead.’

Lance put the can of food down, leaning back on his hands. “I’m not sure exactly. I guess – well this city’s on the way, they should pass through sooner or later, so I guess I figured we’d just – find each other again?”

Keith shook his head. That was stupid. “How do you know that?”

Lance shrugged, grinned. “Faith? Instinct? I am pretty brilliant.”

Keith snorted, shifting to he was sat cross legged, looking across the flames to Lance. The way the fire lit up his skin, made him glow, was distracting.

Lance leant forwards, arms resting against his legs. “I was scared, I guess.” His voice was a whisper.

“You? Scared?”

“Well, yeah! You know… Of not finding them. Or maybe, argh. I don’t know.”

Keith frowned, “what?”

“I was just thinking, maybe they weren’t even looking for me. It’s not like they need me for anything.”

Keith stared at Lance blankly, watching as his arms retreated up his body, folded across his chest defensively. “Don’t be stupid.”

Lance laughed, though it was a dry laugh. “I just got in the way. I’m surprised you’ve put up with me for so long.”

“Not like I can get rid of you.”

“Yeah, right.” Another chuckle, a little lighter.

Keith sighed. “You’re not – completely useless.” He whispered.

“Huh?”

“I said you’re not completely useless. You know, you’re actually pretty good at finding stuff. And you’re aim is much better than mine. I won’t say you’re stronger, because I can still beat you in a fight, but you’re not that bad.”

“Heh, you’re not too bad yourself, pretty boy.”

Silence fell over them again, the two of them losing themselves in their own thoughts. It was late. At least, it felt late. Tired, Keith sighed and stood, Lance’s attention drawn to the movement and now looking up at him. Keith signalled the makeshift bed by the back wall, “going to sleep.”

**

They’d gotten in to the habit of sleeping next to each other. Not like how Lance did that first night, but laying side by side the way they did now meant it was much warmer than if they slept separately. Keith couldn’t sleep though, and he was sure neither could Lance. His breathing wasn’t that slow, rhythmic breathing of sleep, and he wasn’t snoring. Not even quietly, like he did a lot. He felt guilty, even though he wasn’t the reason why Lance had stayed with him for so long. But still, he couldn’t help but feel like that. Keith rolled onto his back, looking from the corner of his eye to Lance. His back was to him, Lance laying on his arm, not moving except the rise and fall of his chest. Keith’s heart skipped, eyes following the lines of Lance’s body, the dying embers creating a halo around his body. “Lance?” Keith whispered, hoping he was actually awake.

“Mm?” He didn’t roll over.

“You should go look for your friends. They’d be worried.”

After a moment, Lance rolled over, facing Keith this time. “What about you?”

“What about me? I’m used to being on my own, was until you showed up and insisted on staying.” Keith shrugged, looking up at the ceiling.

Lance laughed. “You can’t just stay on your own all the time.” He paused. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“I don’t – I don’t know.”

Propping himself up on his elbow, Lance frowned down at Keith. “Come with me.”

Keith shook his head, “why? I’m just someone you stuck around because I was here. And I’ve – I’ve always done better on my own.”

Lance sighed. “I didn’t just ‘stick around’ because I was scared of going you know. Well, that’s not the only reason.”

Keith turned to look at Lance, his face shadowed, but his eyes piercing nonetheless. He swallowed.

“Shit, you’re killing me with that look.” Lance shook his head. Keith could see his pulse, hard and fast, against his long neck. His skin flushed and his brow furrowed. Lance’s head lowered, closer, but he hesitated and Keith didn’t move. He could feel his heart beat faster, skip, and for a moment his mind went blank. The exact moment Lance sucked in a breath between his teeth and pressed his lips against Keith’s. It was awkward, with how they were positioned, and their teeth clacked together, but after that initial pause, suddenly Keith couldn’t help himself but to return the kiss. He lifted his hand up, caressing the side of Lance’s face, fingers running through and tangling in his hair. He angled his body, pushing himself up and pulling Lance forward so their bodies pressed together. It didn’t last anyway near long enough, Lance pulling himself up and away, embarrassment a crimson shade on his face. “What was that for?” Keith breathed, finding himself out of breath, skin hot. Lance blinked.

“I uh, I’ve wanted to do that for a while. Thought you might punch me.”

Keith hesitated. Laughed. Sitting up, he shuffled so he and Lance faced each other, his hand reaching up to, again, rest on the side of Lance’s face. “With a kiss like that, I might have to.” Keith crawled forwards, awkward but confident in his movements as he lead Lance to his back, Keith straddling him. He leant forward touching his lips to the corner of Lance’s mouth, his jaw, moving down his neck and listening to the way Lance’s breath hitched. Keith opened his mouth further, teeth grazing over his collar bone, biting hard, sucking the spot red and bruised before moving on, leaving a trail over his neck. A sound escaped Lance’s throat that set a fire in his stomach and Keith lifted away, tangled his fingers in Lance’s hair and kissed him on the lips. They were chapped, but the way kissing him left Keith’s lips tingling made him never want to stop. How his tongue teased along his mouth. How he bite gently, how they pressed themselves closer to each other.

When they parted again, Lance looked how Keith felt. Buzzing, like they were dreaming. He opened his mouth, teasing. Red. “Come with me.”

Keith couldn’t say no.