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The day is a beautifully warm night in the middle of a month that could have been somewhere between April and July. The air is not as hostile as it had been since the start of the year, and the entire population of this tiny little corner of the Earth thanks whatever God may be out there for these equally small blessings- and Keith, after spending day after day after day holed up in the shop, steps out onto somewhat-clean air for a definitely-not-clean cigarette. He watches the few stars that appear through the layers of contamination that cover anything a human has ever touched, and even considers calling Shiro out so that they can share this blessedly quiet moment together, but winds up not being able to finish the thought- or the cigarette- because suddenly, there are lights on the horizon and they mean trouble .
He can see the slumped, lanky figure that screams Lance before he can even smell the burning. This has to be, at least, an improvement.
The fact that he even thought it was an improvement at all should not come as a comfort, really, and yet here he is, covered in grease with over a thousand unfinished commissions waiting for him back at the shop and, with an air of resignation, watching Lance and Hunk make their stingingly familiar way up the sand dunes and metal parts that make up Keith’s lawn. He really doesn’t want to deal with any of this right now, but still puts out his half-finished cig like a good samaritan and waits. Hunk smiles apologetically the whole while, even when he’s still too blurry to be more than an imposing yet colourful blob in the distance, his pretty human eye blinking owlishly at him while the other stays a steady light all the way. Keith doesn’t even bother pulling down his goggles, even in the grit of outside, only waits for the start of a routine he wishes he was not accustomed to.
Lance, on his part, raises a left hand with only three fingers at him in greeting, and his jaw is set all wrong when he tries to say hello!. Keith blanches but doesn’t quite gag, almost already completely used to the limp and missing side and other gross paraphernalia that comes from years of having Lance around.
He would feel proud of himself, if the flickering and buzzing of light behind him didn’t remind him of how little time he has to deal with this : the mess that has been Lance’s existence, ever since he was built oh so long ago, not that it even was his problem until the little idiot managed to break into his shop as a mere head-torso-and-one-three-quarters arm; although, now that he thinks of it, he’s not really sure he can even consider the battered robot now leaning into his arms Lance anymore, since every single part of him has been replaced at least twice. He thanks whoever is upstairs for small miracles, although they sometimes only come in the flavours of ‘Lance not coming back all undone and unstuffed and bloating at the almost new stitches like a ragdoll’ or ‘More rain than expected this week’.
“Yes, hello, how’s your day been, too?” He says, just in case Lance didn’t realise how little Keith appreciates his visit. Hunk snorts, and a sound like dying rats and another aborted hi! leaves Lance’s torso. It’s so pitiful and ridiculous that Keith is almost- almost- compelled to not roll his eyes, but yet he does and (as it has come to be in their oh-so lasting relationship) gets to work.
It’s easy to fall back into routine after having been doing this for as long as they have, the three of them. Shiro- who’s sitting on his bench with his arm a spectacular show of wires and wheels and bolts, frozen mid-tick with one thing or another- nods over with that little smile of his at Hunk and then at Lance, who is now definitely trying to accidentally swallow his own tongue like the little asshole he so obviously is.
“So,” Keith starts, taking Lance’s half-hand from his latest adventure and looking it over. “What did you do to yourself this time?”
Hunk rolls his eyes. “I found him on the stairs near my apartment building, half-dead.”
“Ch was- planet,” Lance tells him, glitchy and condensing, a dopey smile on his wiry mouth, weird still with the dislodged jaw. “Keith!”
Keith snorts, his fingers already stained with grease and robot-juice of wherever Lance has been since they last saw each other over a month ago. “Sure, Lance,” he says, and instead of giving it any serious thought, tinkers a little with the ventilators and whatnot in the back of Lance’s throat (the image of which is pretty odd, but sadly familiar).
Shiro snorts somewhere behind him, his conversation with Hunk muted until that moment while they both pour over the meticulous handiwork that is anything that Keith has ever built. “He was off planet again,” Shiro says. “You know, doing his thing.”
“Oh, military again?” Keith asks, distracted, resetting and pulling and cursing under his breath.
“It’s always military, Keith,” Pidge pipes in, from somewhere within their tangled piles of wire and electricity. “Mornin’, by the way.”
Keith nods over in acknowledgement, still immersed in Lance’s innards, but he faintly hears Hunk and Shiro express their morning greetings even if the clocks still don’t mark anywhere near six A.M. and Keith hasn't actually gone to bed yet. It’s not morning until after you wake up, or something like that.
“So, Lance,” Keith starts, just to make conversation. “What was so important that you had to go away for over a month without any kind of message?”
Lance frowns down at him from his metaphorical high horse, and moves his good leg over so Keith can start working on the ankle he always manages to fuck up. He’s tilting his head a tad too robotically in the way androids are not supposed to, and it takes him a second to focus his eerie eyes and formulate something akin to an answer.
“ -Defenders of the universe, Keith,” Lance’s voice is still all soft and weird and wire-y, and Keith has heard this over a thousand times. He isn’t exactly sure what it is that Lance does to be so banged up sometimes over three times a month, but whatever it is seems to be a pretty big deal, if the looks Shiro gives him the times they come in together are anything to go by. Kind of like awe, but not quite, bordering on ridiculously worrisome after Lance pulls off some stunt that leaves him missing half his side and an entire eye (socket and everything), in one memorable occasion.
The worst part really is not knowing . Lance has tried to recruit him but refuses to tell for what until he accepts- And Keith is yet to say yes, because his days of flying are over and the ever-present glow of Hunk’s mechanical eye is a sound reminder. The whole situation pisses him off, even if it could be so simple to know, even if it risks his mental health and possibly another eye.
“Oh, right,” He still says, for what seems like the hundred thousandth time. “The robotic lions. Is Allura still in on it?”
“And Coran,” Lance nods, already back to normal, except for his crooked jaw. Keith sighs and stands up, shakes his head, and puts his hand on the side of Lance’s jaw that’s still attached to the rest of his head, staring into Lance’s pretty glass eyes.
“I was worried,” He says after a while of Pidge snickering at them from behind their newest project.
“I know,” Lance answers, and presses against Keith’s hands even though it makes his face look ever more wicked. This, of course, is a terrible turn off for Keith, who just can’t really get it into his head that this boy is an actual, celebrated military unit and not just some dumb android he has to fix every other week and sometimes gets to kiss.
Keith shakes his head and doesn’t say anything else, only lets the chatter of Shiro and Hunk’s latest problem wash over him. He concentrates on the bolts and wires of Lance’s mouth, and spends so long thinking about what on earth could’ve hit him so hard he doesn’t really notice his eyes stinging and, strangely, swelling with liquid and feelings he has been too familiar with for most of his life.
Pidge clears their throat. They say, “I think Lance is as good as new, Keith,” and then walk out of the room, covered in wires and electricity and with Shiro and Hunk at their heels, leaving Keith with a heart three sizes too small and a whimpering little voice in the back of his mind.
Keith hiccups awkwardly in the absence of their friends’ footsteps and mutters, and he feels like he’s in an airlock again, with everything around him cold and silent and only his scared, ragged breathing as company. He can’t help but think about eyes and blood and disembodied fingers floating in empty space.
“Keith-” Lance tries to say, but he’s stopped by the aborted, jerky movements of Keith slamming his face aggressively towards Lance’s. He falters, and then says, “Oh, shut up,” with an air of desperation. His teeth click against Lance’s porcelain own, and then their lips are touching, pressing warm and soft against each other. Keith’s hand tangles in Lance’s always-perfect hair, and Lance’s new fingers clutch at the cloth on Keith’s waist, and they shift their angled positions this way or the other just so they can feel as much as they can of them. It’s always weird, kissing a robot, but Keith is meticulous and nobody would be able to tell Lance doesn’t know beyond burning and pressure- pleasure, on the other hand, comes impossible, but as their mouths dislodge and they keep a constant state of closeness, it has never been a problem. Keith stands between Lance's legs, and Lance is still sitting on the table Keith always has clear for emergencies (which mostly consist of Lance-related problems). They stay still, refusing to let the moment go awkward, with the muted sounds of their friends beyond a metal wall behind them and inside what Keith knows to be the kitchen.
Keith pants into Lance’s mouth, with an embarrassed twinge to his breath, and Lance sits against Keith as relaxed as a robot can be. They don’t talk and they don’t kiss again, preferring the intimacy that such a rare moment brings, Keith ravelling at Lance’s inability to stay out of harm and Lance marvelling at Keith’s ability to stay in a constant state of worry.
“I don’t have a heart,” Lance whispers against Keith’s ear, his voice-box almost back to normal if not for the permanent hitch it emits on the h s and r s, and it’s almost like he has an accent. “But if I did, Keith, it would belong to you.”
Keith snorts, and just like that he breaks away from the blissful not-reality he’d managed to pull himself into and says, “That’s awfully corny, coming from you,” with his voice shallower than it was a moment before and uncomfortably aware of his own heartbeat. “You’re a fucking robot.”
Lance laughs, all mechanical and windchime-y, and it sounds so real it still unnerves Keith, whose head is still buried within the maze of wires and spare parts that make up Lance’s chest (and arms, and legs, and entire being). “I’m a- fucking robot.” his voice is suddenly all glitchy and mechanic, and it makes Keith frown with almost instantaneous concern.
“How’s your neck doing?” he asks, and takes a few extra seconds to compose himself and get back into the shadows of his professional, emotionally unattached self. “Is it still-?”
“Nah,” Lance says. His voice back to normal once more, and his smirk is just as human as it was when they first met, electric and bright and oh so enchanting. “‘m fine. Just old.”
Keith’s frown deepens, and he sweeps away Lance’s hair to look at the back of his creaky neck, anyway. “We should replace these soon,” he says, tugging at some of the stray cables and strategically-placed tubes that surround Lance’s main computer box. “At least they lasted for a few more weeks, eh.”
Lance hums, and it still sounds like the lights in a hospital room rather than what could be considered normal for an android. “Yeah,” he answers, still with the school-hallway-light-undertone.
“Y’know, I still don't understand why you keep coming here,” Keith says, part for conversation, part for curiosity, part for the laughs. It’s something they have talked about since Lance was built and they found each other.
Lance, with his toybox of a voice and half an eyebrow, mumbles a because and nothing more, as it has always been.
And even after so many years and so many government-paid repairs, Keith still has no idea why Lance insists on getting him to bring him back from the brink of what can be considered death, or can be considered re-building and re-assigning. Pidge calls it obliviousness, but Keith is sure it’s just wishful thinking on behalf of himself and all of their friends, mechanic or otherwise.
And so Keith ignores it, since it’s the thing he knows how to do best, beside repairing Lances and some one thing or another. He pours himself into his work and pretends not to notice the raising sun and Shiro's apologetic look as he comes back into the main shop with a box full of sweet-smelling somethings so obviously from Hunk and words to sink ships: Allura called. It's-quite urgent, Keith, I'm sorry.
He sighs and wraps everything up, pats the skin on the back of Lance's neck lightly to signal tat he can get up and get dressed, and says, "At last, you're leaving again."
Lance sighs even though he doesn't actually have lungs. "You know I don't want to," He says, and the worst part is that Keith does.
“Are you coming with?” Lance asks, as he’s dressing himself in the blues and whites that his uniforms call for, his old clothes far too ripped to be of any use- Like captain Kirk’s, Lance pointed out with a boisterous laugh, even if not many people got the joke. “There’s always one more seat in the shuttle, you know.”
“Yeah,” Keith says, since he knows so many, so very troubling things. “I know. Are you gonna tell me where we’re going?”
Shiro watches them from the door and Lance stays with his silent android face on, as always, as Keith smiles at them and leans up to plant a chaste, sweet kiss on the corner of Lance’s mouth. “Good luck, Lance,” He says, and Lance smiles at him with a sadness pulling at the tips of his silicone lips.
“I’ll be back,” He says, walking backward. “I promise.”
Keith has yet to stop smiling, even if he feels heavy and resigned inside. “You better,” He says after Lance stops beside Shiro to await an answer. He knows Lance will be back, because he really always is, whether it is in a box of clattering, indignant limbs, or whole and just to say hi. It's only always the goodbyes that leave aching blisters on the walls of his heart.
And Lance smirks at him and taps Shiro’s metal arm amicably. He doesn’t look back again after he turns his back, and Keith knows that it’s because, otherwise, he would be compelled to stay.
Maybe next time, he thinks, and tells Pidge to mind the shop while he goes to sleep off his seething, nonsensical resignation.