strangerous

When his dad was alive, he was Keith’s home, until their house beside the shack burnt to the ground, taking his father with it.

The next one was not really a home; it was the home, an orphanage.

And then, as fate would have it, he was whisked away to the Garrison after stealing Shiro’s car. Shiro and Adam became his home thereafter, never giving up on the lost boy who was not ready to be found.

When he finally gained confidence in what a home was meant to be, Adam broke up with Shiro for choosing the mission, the Kerberos mission whisked him away, and everything fell apart piece by puzzling piece. He took refuge in the belief that he would forever be the lost boy without someone to hold on to.

So he went back home, or what was left of it: the shack. He spent days and months out there collecting fragments, searching for some kind of meaning to it all: tracing Fraunhofer lines, newspaper clippings, marks on a cave.

As fate would have it, even though he found Shiro amidst the rubble, a new contender for home stood out to him: Lance.

Lance: the boy wonder, the lover boy, the pilot of the Blue AND Red Lion, the glue that held the team together, the one who fought with him in a food goo fight, brought a cow onto the Castleship, basically invented the word stability.

The one who sometimes doubted his own abilities, broke himself, and became stronger each time and time again with every fractured piece of himself that he glued back together.

Time out in space went quickly (do not even mention the Quantum Abyss), and suddenly they were back on Earth, then back in space again. Reality reset itself, and it is all a blur how they ended up here.

But, they're here now.

And no matter how many times life tried to strip home away from him, no matter how many times they lost and got back up again, there was one constant star orbiting in his gravity.

It was Lance, spooning him from behind on the cusp of sunset’s peak, napping within the warmth filtering through the bedroom window, the light illuminating their scars in gold, reflecting sunlight off their tissued-skin like a beautiful, war torn kaleidoscope.

It was always Lance, the Icarus to his sun, who made him feel cosy, safe and warm. Almost as if he invited his heart's warmth in, letting Keith subconsciously know that it was all right to rest now. No wars. No fights.

Just a cosy bed, a blanket over their hips, a pillow beneath their heads, and someone who understands your every move and thought.

Safe, warm and cradled in his arms, Keith is finally home.

Basking in the wonderful warmth that is Lance ☀️💙❤️

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