Chapter Text
It‘s too early.
The moon is still high in the sky, the birds aren‘t even chirping yet, no one in this godforsaken village is awake. It‘s just too early.
And Lance is awake.
Days like this he hates owning a guesthouse. Days when he has to get up super early to prepare a nice breakfast for the people who paid money to get a nice breakfast. Who paid money for the nice room and the nice view right towards the nice river in front of his garden and some nice shelter for their bikes and, like he said before, a fucking nice breakfast.
An incredibly fucking nice breakfast they want to enjoy at seven in the morning.
Gosh, days like this one right here.
Okay, while Lance is trying to burn his skin off with a nice, way too hot shower, you guys deserve a little background check: Three years ago, Lance‘s abuelita died.
Wait— let‘s rephrase that.
Three years ago, Lance‘s stinking rich, freaking loaded, extremely frugal abuelita who never bought anything for herself since her husband passed away in order to give as much as possible to her children and grandchildren, died.
And she left Lance and everyone else in their big ass family with a small fortune.
Lance’s twin Rachel saved it in a fond, his sister Veronica invested in some shares. His big brother Luís started a company that sells the hottest surfboard designs, his parents put it in their pension, and what his thousands of cousins did is not really his business. Lance‘s biggest brother Marco and him, they bought houses.
Marco for his family, and Lance for himself.
A lovely, L-shaped house for himself and four to eight guests, depending on how keen they are on sharing beds. The house has two stories, a spacious living room, kitchen, dining room, a porch and Lance‘s room on the ground floor, and four guest rooms with a little bathroom each upstairs.
Outside he has a lovely front yard with enough parking space for cars and a chestnut tree that provides lovely shade in summer, and an even lovelier backyard towards the upcountry flowing river with a dock for boats, some beds for fruit and vegetables and the most beautiful wooden terrasse Lance could build with the little money he had left from his inheritance.
With all that, Lance provides a bed and breakfast for tourists who pass his village by bike, boat or car. They either spend a few days in the lovely nature reserves all around the village, or rest a night before going on the next tour, towards the sea a couple hours in the north, or the mountains far away in the south.
Sixty bucks a night might seem a bit high for a room, but with the nice view, the nice garden, and the nice breakfast Lance puts on the table every day, people seem to think that it‘s totally worth it.
And that‘s how we got here: Lance in the shower just before sunrise, trying to force his body and mind into a semi-awake state to get on his bicycle and get some fresh bread buns from the bakery in the next village.
This is literally the best life anyone could ask for. Minus getting up at crack-ass in the morning.
When Lance is not cleaning rooms, making meals, drinking with guests or tending the garden, he enjoys the two hundred square meters towards the river that he rents from the state and uses for sunbathing, cooling off in the water or— when he‘s really bored— reading.
How could anyone wish for something else than that?
Anyway. Lance is showering, the hot water is burning his skin, the sun is not rising yet and he has to go out to get some bread rolls in five minutes.
And in the middle of soaping himself up in his favorite coconut shampoo, he hears an unholy loud bang outside, followed by the uncanny sound of his cat, Blue, screaming as if all hell broke loose.
Lance doesn‘t even flinch. He listens to the sounds, finishes rinsing off the soap and exits the shower with a sigh. His sixteen-pound whopper of a cat just loves picking fights with the local raccoons, keeping him off his— or rather her— property and making sure that they don‘t get near Lance‘s trash.
This also leads to an awful sound scenery at ass-crack in the morning, which Lance does not appreciate when he has paying customers in his house. He could really do without her screams, or the low, brutal hisses and snarls and—
Wait, that doesn‘t sound like Blue! And it doesn‘t sound like the local raccoons either!
Lance freezes— his hands in the middle of pushing cream over his cheeks, his hair a wet, disheveled mess, the towel around his waist loosening up— and listens.
The telltale sound of Blue meowing, hissing and growling away is the only thing he can hear for a while. The birds outside are still asleep after all, or just silent in the proximity of a cat. The water from the nearby river is swashing against Lance‘s little dock, the strong west wind that has been blowing for the past week is swooshing through the crowns of the trees around his house, two noises that he can easily drown out after almost three years of living here.
It‘s just Blue, and—
And—
Another hiss, another growl, another meow, and Lance knows for sure that Blue is not fighting the local raccoons this morning. Blue is fighting another cat!
Lance forgets his face cream and the fact that he still has to shave, forgets the towel around his waist that is still way too loose, and his guests that are about to wake up to get a nice, hot shower themselves.
Lance forgets everything because he knows that Blue will easily win every fight against the local raccoons, or the local dogs, or even the local fox that comes every now and then to get a few chickens from the neighbor.
But a cat— yeah that‘s kind of troubling.
Blue never had to fight a cat before. All cats in this village live on the other side of the river, and Lance‘s usual guests don‘t have any boat-cats to bring along. At least he doesn‘t accept any guests with boat-cats out of fear of startling his lovely sixteen-pound whopper.
Blue doesn‘t need that kind of stress in her life.
And honestly, neither does Lance.
Nevertheless, he rushes out of his bathroom and through the living room and the door in his kitchen that leads towards the side of his property to start looking for his cat. Right outside the little door are his raised beds filled with herbs and a couple of strawberry plants he‘s growing this summer. A few steps further down where his winter garden starts are his lemon trees planted in big terracotta pots, and his oranges right behind them.
Blue isn‘t hiding between them.
Another growl comes from the riverside, and Lance follows the sound carefully.
He rounds the little shed he built for his gardening tools and the pretty wooden bench he put there to stare at boaters as they pass his house to anchor at the pub’s dock at the other side of the river. Passes the flower beds he filled with blue hydrangeas last year and another one with blueberries.
From here he can finally spot the white and light-red fur of his cat on his wooden dock, and he rushes over to her. She doesn‘t pay attention to him as Lance steps up behind her, hissing at not only one, but two intruders who are standing at the end of the dock instead.
A big, black german shepherd and a tiny, vicious-looking red cat, both pretty much strangers to Lance as he never saw them before. The two glance between themselves, then towards their opponents and back at each other, not knowing what to do.
Ironically the cat has a collar and the dog doesn‘t. Ironically the cat is ready to fight and the dog ready to teleport away, tail between its legs and ears pressed against his head in submission.
Ironically, Lance is ready to fight those two animals as well. They are on his property after all, on his dock, and right in front of the boat of his guests.
Who the hell are those guys even? Where did they come from, and where do they plan to go after they are done here?
Another deep growl from Blue makes not only the two intruders flinch, but Lance as well. What the hell has gotten into his sixteen pounds, usually so gentle, whopper? Did these two piss her off? Did they steal her food, or her prey, or her favorite potty spot?
Or are they just at the wrong place at the wrong time?
The pair seems to think about that too, somehow looking puzzled over the situation they brought themselves in. As stupid as this sounds, Lance swears they are talking through looks only, hacking out a plan to get out of here.
Why else would they choose to run towards them at the same time, confusing Blue and Lance about who to take on first?
Why else would the red cat jump over right over Blue and scare Lance in the process, giving the dog the perfect opportunity to slip through Blue‘s blind spot, grab Lance‘s towel with his muzzle while passing him and running away?
Why else would they make Lance stand here at asscrack in the morning, sun still down, birds still asleep, and him butt-naked?
„What the fuck?“ Lance whispers, trying to hide what he has to hide between his two hands. He has to decide between his butt or the forward part, takes the second because his back is facing his house, where his guests are sleeping, whereas some of the retired people on the other side of the river could already be wide awake.
While his body gets into a ‚try to hide as much as possible‘-pose, his mind is scrambling to catch up. Until Lance finally realizes what those two stupid animals did. Until he realizes that he should be freaking pissed off! And that‘s exactly what should piss Blue off the most!
„Blue,“ Lance hisses, the hand that‘s not trying to hide his crotch raised to point at those horrible villains, „get them!“
And, like the properly trained cat Blue is, she doesn‘t.
Decides that now, that the strange dog and even stranger cat are off her lawn, it‘s the perfect time to circle her naked owner's legs and demand some pats.
Only that Lance doesn't think so. If his cat won‘t help him, he will do it himself.
Furious he stomps back to his house, ready to tackle the owner of those two mischievous animals as soon as he gets a pair of pants and maybe a shirt on his body.
He gets to the door, opens it—
Opens it—
He opens it—
Ooooooooooooooopens it—
Wiggles the door handle like a naked man dying to get inside, realizing that… that—
„Oh no.“
That the door is closed. Locked. From the inside. The broken lock he wanted to change for the past three months finally biting him in his butt.
And Lance is so freaking fucked.
„Oh no no no no no no no!“ His brain needs a minute to catch up, or is it his body? He keeps on wiggling the door handle, trying, hoping that it will change something. „No no no nonononononononono!“
Of fucking course it doesn‘t.
„Pleeeaaase!“
Lance is left wiggling the handle like an idiot, refraining from kicking the door and possibly spraining his foot like an idiot.
Instead he panics. „Okay,“ he whispers, leaning against the door and slipping down while ignoring the burning pain this stupid motion leaves on his naked back. „Okay okay okay okay,“ Lance repeats over and over again, trying to calm himself. „Okay!“
But nothing is okay.
Nothing is fucking okay!
He looks to his side, to where those stupid animals walked off. The dog is following the cat over the rented lawn from his direct neighbor towards the old, ugly, rotten, almost-falling-apart house from the old guy Lance buys some expensive herbs whenever he has trouble falling asleep…
… which is totally not often. Nope. Nu-uh. Only happened once, or even less!
The guy who is surprisingly very good with plumbing, the guy who has never moved his flower pots even once since Lance bought the house, the guy who never left his home towards the backdoor to look at the pretty river and the plants he doesn‘t take care of and the sun that would do his complexion a whole bunch of favors.
The guy that has no idea Lance hid a spare key under one of said flower pots.
Lance is pretty sure— and with pretty he means 100%— that the guy never found that key and that it‘s in the same place he hid it two years ago after he successfully locked himself out the first time.
Less naked, but just as desperate back then.
So, Lance sneaks over his neighbor‘s lawn, thankful that neither Shiro nor one of his two husbands thought about getting some solar lights for their garden like Lance did. At least they don‘t have to see his naked butt while he runs over their property.
When Lance finally gets to the dirty patio of his neighbor, he sighs in relief. He starts searching the flower pots, one after another. It‘s been two years of not needing this fucking key after all, and Lance isn‘t quite sure which of those roughly five thousand three hundred pots hides his key.
Lance finds a couple of spiders first, then a couple of other insects and a proper, two feet snake, swallowing a few screams and lots of curses to not wake anyone up before finally, finally, he finds a key.
But not his. His key is round, not square, and the color is off as well.
Fuck!
So, Lance searches even more empty fucking flower pots. It‘s not under the biggest one, and not under the smallest one either, but finally, after going through three dozen empty and half-empty pots, almost screaming a couple of times when he sees spiders and whatnot other insects he would much rather never see again— or not have seen at all— finally he finds his fucking key.
Hold it up in the sky with a wide grin and does a little celebration dance, the exact time as the door of this old, rotten, creepy house opens with a loud squeak, and Lance gets flashed with the picture of the most gorgeous, black-haired, tall, asian man he‘s ever seen in his whole life.
This guy is not his neighbor.
Which isn‘t even the worst problem here, because Lance is still naked.
So.
Freaking.
Butt out.
Balls out.
And whole ass noodle out.
Naked.
The gorgeous guy squints at him, looks him up and down, takes in Lance‘s naked body, the flower pot in one hand and the key in the other and his lovely face distorts into the worst frown Lance has ever seen.
Lance panics again. „Uhm—“ Tries to babble, talk himself out of it, but the sun isn‘t even thinking about touching the horizon yet, and the moon is still out, and the people in the village are still asleep, and Lance didn‘t even get the chance to finish his morning routine before locking himself out of the house and he‘s—
He‘s kind of speechless...
The traitorous dog and the cat push through the legs of the guy to get inside the house, almost running them over in their quest to get away from Blue‘s sleeping figure.
„Kosmo?“ the guy gasps. „Red?“ The intruders— probably this guy's pets— don‘t answer him. A second later the tell-tale crunch of dry food between canine-teeth roams through the walls of this guys‘ house, and he turns back to Lance. „And who,“ he raises an eyebrow, looking everywhere but Lance‘s eyes, „are you?“
Rude.
That guy is a god on freaking earth, but not with that attitude! It makes Lance‘s rapidly beating heart come to a complete stop and his mind sober up in less than a second. He frowns right back at him, his go-to reaction to rude people, even if he shouldn‘t interact at all, you know, naked like he is.
Lance holds up his spare key as if that was any explanation before turning around and marching back towards his own house, ignoring the stare that‘s burning into his back— or rather on his butt.
Only when he finally closes the door in his kitchen behind him he allows himself to have a minor breakdown.
„Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god!“
Yeah, minor.
Lance slides down the door, his naked ass hitting the floor. He‘s glad that he mopped the whole kitchen yesterday. While his butt starts to freeze on the tiles, Lance runs his fingers through his hair, breathing hard. „What the hell?“
It‘s too early for all of this.
Too fucking early for any of this.
And Lance still has to get those stupid bread rolls.