Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Part 6
The question wasn’t would Lance come back, it was simply how soon. How soon turned out to be very not soon enough in Lance’s considerable estimation. School, work, and family obligations conspired upon him in a clearly targeted and evil scheme to keep him from gaining internet fame through an exclusive friendship with a reclusive cryptid. All of which led to Lance standing by Keith’s pool nearly two weeks after his last visit.
It’s just as beautiful and serene as the first time he saw it: water splashing gently down the rocks; birds and frogs chirping their songs; trees rustling in a gentle breeze. The kind of place that could instantly relax a person — that is if the person weren’t a Lance person currently standing around waiting on a very conspicuously absent dragon.
“Um, Keith?” Lance hesitantly asks the forest. He feels like an idiot. If there were any other people around he’d die of embarrassment, but fortunately or not, he seems to be completely alone.
Is Keith here? Is Keith even its name? Keith seemed like a pretty bland name for a cryptid, maybe he’d heard it wrong. Maybe it was really like “Kyitth” or something more magical, and now he was offending the dragon by mispronouncing it. Or maybe he really had been poisoned by contaminated pond water and had hallucinated the entire exchange. The longer he stands there, the more he worries. Dammit Hunk, why weren’t you faster getting out that test kit? Sure, yeah, maybe he could’ve waited to dive in…
“You’re late.”
Lance spins to see Keith up to his chest in the water, glaring daggers at him.
“Whoa, dude, maybe give a guy a head’s up or something before popping up outta nowhere?” Lance only half jokes, trying to cover for the near heart attack he just experienced.
“You’re late.”
Lance huffs, “Look, we didn’t exactly put this little get together in our calendars or anything. Things were crazy, I came back as soon as I could.”
In response Keith sinks up to his nose in the water, and squints with ferocity in Lance’s direction.
“I really tried.” Lance throws his hands up in the air in exasperation, how did he forget how annoying Keith is? “I TRIED. I was BUSY. But, look, I’m here. I came back. Isn’t that what matters?”
At this Keith disappears beneath the water completely, leaving behind only a few delicate bubbles which dance across the surface.
Lance sighs audibly. Like what does Keith expect him to do? Instantly give up his entire life to be at Keith’s beck and call? Figures he’s somehow managed to find the world’s most entitled cryptid.
Loud splashing draws his attention back to the water as Keith vaults effortlessly out of the pool and onto the surrounding rocks, and, yup, naked again. But this time Lance has come prepared. Looking away, because again, his mama raised a gentleman, he reaches into his backpack and tosses some clothes in Keith direction. He hears a satisfying thump as the bundle clearly hits its target — he always had impeccable aim.
“Lance?”
Lance figures that’s his signal that it’s safe to look. Keith stands before him wearing black sweatpants and an old grey t-shirt he was willing to part with. And it’s, fuck, it’s cute, okay?
“You’re really attached to the clothing huh?” Keith is smirking again.
“People wear clothing, Keith. It’s just polite. If you’re gonna look like people, you gotta cover up. It’s non-negotiable.” Lance is dying on this hill.
Keith shrugs, “If you say so.”
“I do. Say so. Yes.” This is gotta be the one of the more ridiculous demands Lance has ever made, telling a cute guy to cover up, but Keith isn’t a guy, even if he’s cute. What he needs is a subject change, immediately. “So, ah, what do you do around here for fun?”
Keith frowns, “Fun?”
“Yeah!” Lance smiles, “I mean, I know you’ve got the whole guard duty thing, but it’s pretty quiet around here, you must do something to pass the time.”
“This water is my sacred responsibility, and my life-force, it’s not just a job.” Keith growls.
Ok, open mouth insert foot, Lance didn’t usually have such a hard time starting up a conversation. “Hey, I didn’t mean that what you do isn’t important. I mean, this waterfall, it’s beautiful. You do a good job taking care of it, I’m sure it’s a lot of work.”
Keith softens a bit at the praise, “It is. But I do what I can.”
Lance decides to come at the question from a different angle. “Does watching over this leave you any time for anything else?”
Keith cocks his head, thoughtful. “I patrol, swim, take care of the animals, repair damage to the land, and sometimes…”
Lance thinks he can hear Keith end that sentence, but it’s so soft he can’t make it out. “Sometimes you?” He prompts.
Keith looks away. Embarrassed? “Sometimes, when there’s time, I, read.”
Lance’s eyebrows shoot all the way up past his hairline. The cryptid, READS?! “You read?? Like, books?”
“What else do you read?” Keith fires back.
“Hey no,” Lance backtracks, “I didn’t mean… I just, I didn’t expect you to have books out here?”
Keith scowls, “Why? Because I’m just some monster to you?”
“What? No!” Crap, were all dragons this touchy or did Lance just get extra lucky? “I didn’t mean that, it’s just that you live out here in the middle of absolute nowhere. It’s not like there’s a library. I didn’t figure you’d have, I dunno, human stuff.”
Keith looks away. “They… were my father’s.”
Oh shit. Did that mean there was some even bigger and grumpier dragon around? No, Keith said they were his father’s, that means… Keith has turned almost completely away from him. This is definitely not a bear he should poke.
“Uh, sorry.” It’s a lame response, but Lance isn’t sure what the protocol is on consolidating a cryptid on the loss of a family member.
Keith shrugs, “I didn’t know him.”
In the awkward silence that follows Lance becomes convinced that Keith can hear the sound of the gears grinding in his head trying to come up with a way to salvage the conversation, because he quietly adds, “Would you like to see them?”
“I’d LOVE to!” Lance practically shouts in relief before attempting to regain his cool. “I mean, sure, if you want to, it’d be cool.”
Keith glances back at him, and, yep, there’s the eye roll again. But also a tiny smile? Lance will take the win.
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