Chapter Text
First days are always hard.
At least, that’s what she tells him as she’s gently placating him in a futile attempt to get Lance’s grubby little claws out of her sleeve. Through sobs and snot, Nancy McClain can only sort-of-kind-of make out the words of her very distressed five-year old son.
She glanced around hurriedly, hoping that someone, anyone would hear what was going on and come to help her. She had to be at work in 15—no, wait—14 minutes, and Lance wasn’t showing any signs of warming up to the colourful building consisting exclusively of other five-year olds. Mierda, she had at least 20 things to do today and none of them were supposed to involve spending more than 5 minutes at drop-off. Rachel had already wandered off to who-knows-where, and while she trusted her daughter to end up in the correct classroom, she was also relying on her a little bit to escort Lance to class. Where were the teachers?!
“Um.”
A small boy in a red shirt was suddenly behind Lance. Nancy felt her insides slide into a sludge comprised of a mix between relief at something else to focus on, and absolute dread at something else to focus on.
“Introduce yourself, honey.” Suddenly a dark-haired woman was next to the boy. Jesus, she needed to get her eyes checked. Or more than 4 hours of sleep. Lance stopped crying, suddenly feeling a tug on the back of his shirt. His watery eyes landed on the boy in front of him, slowly moved down his torso, and finally settled on his hip. No, not his hip, but a light pink plushie he was carrying. Was that a… rhinoceros?
“You have a plushie too?” Lance’s curious and hopeful voice fills the hallway.
The younger boy’s expression, which had been largely reserved up until then, brightened as he nodded his head vigorously. “Do you?” he asked.
Wrestling a baby-blue shark out of his bag in response (it was far too big to fit but Lance insisted and outright refused to go if he couldn’t bring his “best friend”), Lance announced its name was, “Sharkie!” Lance followed it up by mentioning, “I won it at the fair this summer.”
Not wanting to interrupt the moment but simultaneously having less than 10 minutes to make it to work, Nancy bent down to her beaming son.
“Mijo, why don’t you go find your teacher? You might be in the same class as your friend here.”
Lance turned to the other boy with vigor, “I’m in Mrs. Sandra’s class.”
The other boy’s eyes widened. “Me too.”
The two boys took off in a sprint down the hall, to which Nancy called out for them to be careful.
Without turning around, she could hear Lance yell, “BYE!”
Her kids had crazier mood swings than her sometimes. Sighing with relief, Nancy turned to the dark haired woman from before. “I’m so sorry about that, thank you so much for helping out. I’m Nancy McClain.” Extending her hand, the tanned woman shook it firmly. “I’m Krolia, Krolia Kogane. Helping out was no problem,” she said with a wink, “I’m just happy my son was able to talk to yours. Normally he’s so shy. I’d love to set them up for a playdate if they end up being friends.” Nancy smiled, already feeling comfortable around Krolia. “So would I. Here’s my number, call if you need absolutely anything. I’m sorry, but I really have to get to work, it was lovely meeting you!”
“Likewise,” said Krolia, waving goodbye from behind the glass doors of the kindergarten building.
She hoped everything went well for her boy on his first day.
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The first day of kindergarten was the day Keith Kogane met the love of his life.
Screaming and covered in snot, the first thing he’d said to him was Um. He didn’t even want to talk to him, but his mom said that he had to. Just once, she said. Just this one. We’ll be doing them a favour, she said. Keith never really got it, but something about what she said must’ve been right, because things went pretty well from there. Or maybe it was them. Maybe they were what was right.
He was quick to cry, but even quicker to accept Keith as his friend. Best friend. Lance still believes he did Keith a favour, befriending Keith’s “ lone wolf personality, ” as Rachel put it (and by extension, so did Lance). Keith doesn’t have the heart to correct him, but he knows the truth. Knows he did Lance a favour just as much as Lance did one for him. As they grew, and stretched, and changed, and fell into a never-ending rhythm of push-and-pull, they never truly stopped being there for each other. For every milestone, every fight, every build-up and breakdown they’d be there for each other. More than anyone else, more than any thing else. But we’re not quite there yet.
Keith doesn’t even know he’s in love yet.
Right now, Keith is eight years old, and the first day of kindergarten was the day Keith met his best friend in the whole world.
Right now, Keith is enjoying summer vacation on the McClain’s couch sipping a Kool-Aid, and wondering what to do next.
“I’m bored.”
“I know.”
Keith isn’t by himself, of course. Lance McClain, his bestest friend in the whole world, is sprawled on the living room carpet like a starfish. A starfish that’s really far away from any type of ocean and might be dying from too much heat.
“I wanna get ice cream.” Lance’s voice cut through the thick humidity of summer.
Keith thought about how far ice cream was. “I don’t want to”
“You never want to do anything. If we didn’t do anything every time you didn’t want to, we’d never even do anything.” Keith remained unphased.
“Cmooon, please?” Lance was terrible at a puppydog face, but Keith found himself never fighting it anyways, despite the fact he fought Lance on everything else. They probably fought as much as they agreed, Keith thought. Teachers were always trying to get them to stop fighting, whether it was over a lego piece, or a gusher, or a spot on the classroom story-time carpet. But it didn’t mean anything. Keith didn’t understand why no one understood that. Just because they fought didn’t mean they weren’t still best friends. He didn’t know why everyone got so upset about it.
“Fine. Do you have to ask Mrs. McClain for money?”
“How many times does she need to tell you to call her Nancy? And no, cause guess what?”
“What?”
“I get an allowance now.” Lance said, a smug smirk on his face.
What?! “WHAT?! No fair! My mom said I can’t have one until my birthday.” Keith sulked, velcro-ing his shoes by the door.
Lance cackled, “Sucks to suck, Keith.”
The walk to the ice cream parlor was calm. Peaceful. For all his (mostly internal) complaining about the heat, it wasn’t a terrible day outside. The breeze was nice, and the sky was blue. Keith felt a wave of contentment wash over him, happy that he was with Lance.
“Hey, Lance.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re my best friend.”
Lance smiled and puffed out his chest. “No need to tell me what I already know! Besides, it’s not like I’d ever let anyone else take that title. I’m gonna be your best friend forever, got it?”
Keith returned the smile. “Okay.”
Arriving at the ice cream parlor, Lance and Keith both got a 50/50 split of each other's favorite flavors, since they liked both dulce de leche and mint chocolate chip. People said it was a weird combination, but Keith and Lance both thought that meant they just hadn’t tried it yet. Since the place was deserted, the cones didn’t take long.
As they were eating, the cashier’s voice asked, “Is either one of you Lance McClain or Keith Kogane?”
Keith’s eyes narrowed at the exact same time Lance’s voice piped up, “That’s us!”
Keith whispered angrily into Lance’s ear, “Lance! Stranger danger!”
Turning up his nose, Lance responded with, “Well Mami said to be polite to strangers.”
“ Hmpf-”
The cashier’s voice interrupted what was going to be the comeback of the century. “Phone for you two. I think it’s your mother.”
Which one of us was he even talking to? They both wondered.
Lance grabbed the phone. “Mami? What’s going o-”
Her voice was the most serious he’d heard in his whole life. “Lance, come home now.”
Lance’s eyebrows furrowed. “Why?”
“ Mi corazon, don’t make this hard right now. Please.”
Lance wanted to know why so, so badly, but his mom sounded like she was about to cry, and Lance didn’t push it. He could hear Veronica and Luis in the background speaking quietly but hurriedly, and even though Lance strained his ears he couldn’t quite make out the shapes of the sounds.
“Okay.” He hung up.
He turned to Keith, who’d come over to stand beside him at some point during the call.
“What was that about?” his best friend asked.
“We need to go home. I don’t know why but I think it’s really bad.”
Keith’s eyes widened. He nodded, less verbose under stress.
By contrast, he thought Lance was a lot more verbose under stress. Like right now.
“I mean, why didn’t she tell me why? She always tells me why when I ask why. It might be really bad if she sounded like that.” He turned to Keith, his breath coming out in pants while they ran. “Keith, I’m scared.”
A drop hit Keith’s nose. The sky had turned a muddy sort of gray while Lance was on the phone, and now the suffocating boiling pot of humidity that had culminated while they sat in the ice-cream place was finally getting its lid cracked.
“Let’s go faster.” Keith knew Lance got what he tried to do. Like Lance gets him. Like Keith gets Lance. No matter what it was, they would be fine if they were together. It would be fine.
They turned onto Lance’s street sprinting.
Sprinting down the sidewalk, outrunning the now-downpour, running towards the growing feeling of dread.
The McClain's screen door swung open with a metallic sort of clank. Keith could see Lance’s mom in the living room doorway from the moment he burst in.
When Nancy McClain laid her eyes on him, she didn’t say anything. Her eyes welled up with tears, and she fell to her knees, pulling him into a hug.
Keith’s blood ran cold.
Waves crashed in his ears. What… He could hear something. Something about his mom. She-she’s… she’s not… Lance’s mom, she’s so sorry Keith, tesoro, she’s so sorry.
Keith tried his hardest to get a breath into his lungs. The walls felt too close. The air too stagnant, too hot, too suffocating, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe.
He broke away and ran out.
The moment he did, Lance sucked in a breath and fell to his knees. The feeling in his chest, he felt like he was drowning. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, what is this? What’s happening?
Though she caught her son as he fell, she couldn’t hold him as he ran after his best friend.
On a rainy day in summer, she watched her son wrestle his best friend out of the street, screaming and kicking and crying all the way. Even through the glass, even through the rain, she could make out one word. Mom.
On a rainy day in summer, Krolia Kogane departed from this world.
On a rainy day in summer, Lance and Keith’s soulmate bond forged.