A birthday drabble for my wonderful friend @not-so-sunnie
Klance Soulmate AU. Cover by Interstelklance on Twitter. Enjoy!
A soulmate is a melody stuck in your head. Never on repeat but always the same; a familiar tune that Lance has been humming since he was six years old.
That’s early, or so they say. But Lance cannot recall a time when he didn’t feel the brush of the notes, a chord, an echo of a song without language that passes through his mind as snatches on the wind.
It isn’t the same as actual music, not something anyone can explain or tell, record or sound out. It’s not the same as having an actual earworm, keeping you up at night and having to listen to it until you’re bored and know every line.
You hear snatches. Pieces. Bars and verses, notes that flow out of one ear and in the other, your own theme tune of connection. Lance cannot say how it all connects, or beat it out in perfect time, or recall its entirety. He can go for weeks without truly hearing a sound he remembers, then spend two days humming along to something wild and brilliant that marks his every step.
For that’s always his melody. Theirs really, his and his soulmate’s. It rumbles and crescendos, beats inconsistent and tripping, then smooths; is subtle, diminutive. He likes the way it energises and spins, takes twists and bounces in his head for days.
He loves their sound. So loud and yet delicate, so fast but hesitant. It’s all the beats in his heart, and all the wills of his mind, and all fears faced in one elongated song.
It dims as he grows, which is natural, for connections are always heard more often in childhood, when the mind is open to magic and potential. He loves what remains though, a background as he does his homework, as he studies for Garrison entrance exams, as he preps for swim practice; those notes that flow, unstoppable in his head, even if they are no longer so frequent.
Everyone’s is different. Hunk taps out his with one foot, explaining with a shy smile he feels more of a rhythm than a song. Veronica snaps her fingers in a weird way which produces a sound he’s never been able to emulate, and even she finds a little disturbing.
“It’s...different,” is all she says one day when their songs are particularly loud, and yet she smiles as if she’s certain her different will be incredible, life changing and worth all the challenges in the world.
He can relate. His own mind is set too.
But then he’s in space, in the Blue Lion and suddenly staring at the stars with a deafening harmony as his only accompaniment, and he wonders how being separated through planets can still mean their connection is as sharp and bright as ever.
“I’ll come back. I promise,” he whispers to the glass, feeling the notes fall through his fingers as he reaches out into nothingness.
It’s not strange at all then, when less than a day later, he hears their melody. He is, after all, dying.
He always imagined death would be cold, that’s what so many novels and movies with awful endings say. Yet they usually don’t involve being blown up, so it’s no wonder his body is so incredibly, itchingly warm as he fires his gun and slumps back down.
His fingers twitch to the soothingly familiar group of notes in his head, and it’s then he realises that another hand is placed over his. Keith is there, by his side, helping him stay grounded.
Alive. Good. His actions mattered. He looks at that ridiculous hair, and those strangely coloured eyes clouded with worry and a brightness he wants to compare with stars, for he’s romantic like that.
And for the first time, he knows the words to the song.
He can’t really be sure if they’re said aloud, but he closes his eyes shortly after and hums, an ode to the person he cannot reach, before his body lets go of the world.
When he wakes, it’s quiet.
There’s pandemonium, and Lance doesn’t remember much of the before, except pushing Coran out of the way, and shaky images of Keith of all people, so he’s happy to brush off any insinuations of what might have been.
Silence is for some reason, a burden. Lance is still tired from the healing pod, a little shaken from the experience as a whole, and would like to nestle into the sound of his soulmate, but of course it’s never given when asked.
That is until he hears the notes. Just eight repeated in a lilting call, and breathes a sigh of relief, slumping next to the wall nearest a common area. He closes his eyes and just indulges himself for a second in the peace and calm of the-
His eyes snap open when he realises the song is not in his head.
The voice is softer, the singing more throaty and melodious, yet what makes his fingers tremble is the fact that he knows the voice so utterly and completely. He practically trips over his own shoes to run into the common area, and Keith almost drops the holoscreen as he crashes into the room.
They both just stare at one another. Then, Keith smiles, that same fledgling thing that Lance now knows with clarity he saw before collapsing
“Took you long enough. I’ve been singing for nearly an hour,” he says, as if Lance can’t see the way his cheeks are turning red.
Lance though, scoffs and plays along. “I’ve been singing since I was six, so I think I have you beat their, mullet,” he says, and the smile he gets in return is so bold and bright that he knows it from the very song they’ve both been singing.
He edges closer, one foot, then two. For they barely know one another, have barely spent time together and right now don’t exactly get on. But.
They’ve also been waiting for this for years. So know, without question, that with time and practice, they can build on this moment’s beginning.
As Lance takes a seat next to him, Keith begins humming. And Lance grins, then joins, his own voice flowing across a well worn music sheet he’s never seen, as he reaches out and intertwines their fingers.
Their melody soars, a duet in formation.
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