#Sorry that this is longer than the previous one TuT i never wrote a soulmates au before and really wanted to lol

[kirishwima]

Klangst Week: March 30th (Choice/Destiny)

@klangst-week

Hi again! :D This was really fun to write, hope you guys like it~

((This is a soulmates AU! I wasn’t sure if AUs were okay to write, so I hope that’s alright! :))

*****

He woke up to the feel of small feathery kisses on his eyelids, trickling down to his nose, his cheeks, his temples.

With a bleary gaze he looked to find a dark pair of eyes adorning him, small smile on the person’s lips that he could’ve sworn stole the light from the sunlight flooding from the window behind him.

“Good morning sunshine.”

Lance smiled back, looping a hand around his boyfriend’s neck.

“Speak for yourself. It’s too early in the morning to be a sappy romantic mullet head.”

Keith grinned, taking no offence to the insult, their old banter nothing more than soft teasing now. “Can’t help it, you’re the one that rubbed off your romantic sappiness onto me.”

He laughed, lightly smacking the back of Keith’s head, making the other boy sit up with a huff, Lance already missing the warmth.

“I got a morning class today. Shiro’s going to have my head on a silver platter if I don’t get there soon.” he sighed, moving from the bed and heading towards their shared bathroom, “And you have lab work to do today right?”

Lance sighed, fighting against himself the urge to billow his head back in the pillows.

“Please, we both know Shiro would never get pissed off with you. Professor or not, we both know he got a soft spot for his little brother.” he grinned at the groan he heard from the bathroom, knowing Keith’s dislike for his brother’s favoritism, “And yeah, I have labs until late today.”

He watched as Keith returned back into the room, now dressed with a simple t-shirt and jeans, his hair their usual mess. He made his way back to the bed, bringing a hand to Lance’s hair, giving him another soft smile, those that Lance could’ve sworn were reserved just for him.

He turned to kiss the knuckles grazing his head, coming face to face with that.

Lance’s lips met the inner side of Keith’s wrist, before leaning back to glare at the sight in the corner of his wrist.

A small mark of a violet sat uncomfortably on his skin, reminding Lance the one thing he never wanted to remember.

Reminded Lance that Keith wasn’t his.

He noted the look on his boyfriend’s face, the way he brought his hand back, cradled it to his chest, a hurt gaze locking with Lance’s.

“I love you.”

They both knew he did. Lance only wondered for how long he would.

“I love you too.”

Keith shot him another puzzling look before getting up.

“I’ll see you tonight yeah?”

Lance nodded and Keith left, quietly closing the bedroom door behind him.

How long has it been? How long has it been since Lance realised he was living on borrowed time?

He’d met Keith a few years back, him being Hunk’s best friend whilst Keith was a guy working the evening shift with Hunk at a local coffee shop. To say they bonded instantly would be a blatant lie. They were nothing if not rivals at first, throwing sly remarks and causal insults to each other at every opprotunity, until eventually that rivalry turned into friendly banter, and before either of them realised it, into something more, something gentler.

It was after their first kiss that Lance noticed the horrid mark on Keith’s wrist. The soulmate mark.

He knew it’s a given, knew that the large majority of the world had a mark, a soulmate. Some people ended up finding their soulmate faster than others, whilst others took years, some dating others over the years until they found the person to call theirs.

Lance didn’t. Since the first time they were taught about soulmates back in middle school, he’d searched every crook and premise of himself to locate his mark, a bubbling excitement in his chest, only to turn to deep anguish when he found no mark on his skin. He’d asked Hunk, begged him to check as well, make sure that he was indeed marked but perhaps didn’t notice it, but to no avail; Lance had no mark.

He had no soulmate.

It took years for him to accept it, hiding the pain behind his ribcage whenever a friend of his met their soulmate, hated the part of himself that turned green with envy whenever he saw the pulsing glow of the soulmate mark coming off of couples that had already found the love of their life.

It hurt, but the pain was now a constant. He didn’t know the wounds he tried so hard to suture would rip open at the sight of that horrible, disgusting flower in his lover’s wrist.

Keith had a soulmate. He had a person he’d meet and sparks would ignite, a person who’d match his mark, a person who’s pulse would increase and their own flower-marked wrist would glow to match Keith’s, a person who’d spend the rest of their life with him.

He realised he was only a collateral, a chapter of Keith’s story until that person appeared. Every morning he’d wake up with a lodge in his throat, wondering if this was it-if today was the day Keith would meet them, the day he wouldn’t return home, the day Lance’s heart would break into pieces  he’d never be able to put back together.

Everyday he’d wish for that person to disappear, begged every god he could name for Keith to return to him, to never meet them; he’d swallow the thought everytime, quilt pooling in his stomach at the awful thoughts swimming in his head.

He wanted Keith to be happy. He just knew that that happiness wouldn’t stem from him.

******

It was past ten, pitch black already settled in the sky, and Keith was nowhere to be found.

He gulped down the fear at first, blaming it on his own irrational thoughts. Maybe he got caught up with his work after class. Maybe Shiro invited him out for drinks at the last moment and he forgot to mention it to Lance. Maybe traffic was bad.

Maybe he’s not coming back.

With a shake of his head he let the lingering thought slide away. Keith would come back. He’d come back to him.

Will he?

*****

It was past midnight and his chest turned to stone, his breaths were churned lead. He let tears slide down his face like liquid chaorcal, his lungs no longer able to sustain themselves.

It hurt, of course it did. Even if he prepared himself for it, even if he thought about it every single day for the past two years they were dating, it still hurt because this was it, he felt the finality in every part of him;

Keith wasn’t coming back.

Keith was no longer his.

*****

It must’ve been early morning when he heard the main door unlock, realising he must’ve fallen asleep on the couch, his crying draining all the energy out of his body.

He heard Keith’s footsteps coming to a halt at the side of the couch. He didn’t trust himself to open his eyes, didn’t trust himself to deal with the situation despite knowing he had to.

“Lance.” It was a small whisper, as if anything louder would break the boy.

“Lance. Wake up, please.”

He didn’t stir, didn’t turn to face him.

“You met them.”

He heard the intake of breath from Keith, assuming the boy must’ve kneeled down by his side.

“Yes.”

There was another stab in his chest, a final blow breaking each of his ribs and puncturing his heart.

“You met your soulmate.”

A small pause. A silence that Lance felt would envelope them whole.

“Yes.”

He felt the tears prickling beneath his eyelids once more, silently relieved that he was facing away from Keith, not trusting his expression to not betray him right now.

“So this is goodbye then.” he breathed, the tears now foreign a new tract on his cheeks.

“No.”

“No Lance, it’s-it’s not goodbye.”

It…wasn’t? He shifted at that, hearing the sharp intakes of breath coming from the boy behind him.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust in the dark, barely noticing the outline of Keith’s shilloutete, but he could see it, see the tears pooling into the eyes he loved to look into.

“It’s not goodbye I-I met them and all I could think of was you.”

There was little light coming in through the open windows, reflecting the gleam of their tears, of the small smile on Keith’s lips, the quiver on his own.

“I couldn’t-I know they say meeting your soulmate is a dream come true but it wasn’t Lance. It wasn’t.”

He sat up, bringing his hands to cup Keiths’ cheeks.

“I woke up every day dreading it, fearing that I’d meet them and wanting nothing more than to just run back to you.”

Lance brought his forehead to rest over Keith’s, their huffed breaths intertwining.

“I don’t care about soulmates or destinies or whatever. I just want you. You’re my choice. My destiny.”

He leaned in, kissing each eyelid, tasting the salt of tears in each one, uncertain if it was from his own cries or Keith’s.

“I love you.”

He wasn’t sure who said it, but the moment the words were uttered there was a profound pain in his body, a welcoming tinge of pain coursing through his blood, pooling and heating the corner of his left wrist.

Through half-lidded eyes he noticed it, the small glowing pulse emitting from them both, his own lighting the side of Keith’s face with it’s glow, noticing the widening of Keith’s eyes.

Keith moved back, bringing his own wrist up to his face.

The violet on his wrist was fading, scabbing a thick scar over the mark, a small glow tracing a new shape over the scab. Lance’s wrist was pooling an ethereal glow as well, a mark forming onto his dark skin.

They looked at each other with cautious excitement, uncertain of what was to come.

Lance looked down the moment the pain stopped, noticing the glow refused to wear off.

In the inner side of his left wrist lay the mark of a small crescent moon, it’s glow pulsing along the flow of Lance’s blood. Keith looked up with a smile, showing Keith his own wrist; a matching crescent moon pulsing over the scar of his old mark, now long gone and hidden beneath the eminence of his new mark.

Before Lance could react there were arms wrapped around him, Keith’s face hiding into the crook of his neck.

“You’re my choice Lance. Anytime, anywhere, I’ll choose you. Again and again, no matter what it takes.” he breathed onto his skin, ignoring the tears falling anew from Lance, “I love you.”

There were no words Lane could say, no language in the world to help express himself in the moment, the love, the pain, the bittersweet hurt all swirling in his chest and flowing from his eyes, from his touch, from his whole entity. He just held onto Keith, letting the glow from their marks light and intertwine their pulses.

He was Keith’s choice, as much as Keith was his. They were each other’s destiny, one they picked and formed for themselves.

No matter the place, the time, the universe; they were there for one another, their fates holding each others’ hand along the way.

It was a destiny of their choice.

****