#i don’t even know what this is. i was listening to ceilings by lizzie alpine on repeat and the next thing i knew i was writing this

[autisticlancemcclain]

Lance opens his eyes to white nothingness.

It takes him a moment to adjust, for the sight in front of him to focus into a plaster popcorn ceiling rather than a block of bright white. He blinks rapidly, clearing the bleariness, steadying himself on the steady couch cushions in the castle common room.

He stills.

The castle?

He glances back up at the ceiling, but it’s as smooth as it’s always been; dozens of feet above him. No bright plaster, no textured popcorn ceiling. He squeezes his eyes shut, wondering what he’ll see when he opens them again, wondering where he even really is.

But when he opens them again, it’s still the castle. He’s still in space.

“Did you fall asleep?”

He drops his gaze from the ceiling, landing on Keith, who’s looking at him in fond amusement.

“No,” Lance says, because he doesn’t remember losing consciousness.

“Yes you did,” Keith responds, grinning. “Loser.”

Lance rolls his eyes and tries to kick him, but Keith grabs his foot easily, tugging it towards him. Lance gets the hint, lifting his feet and placing them in Keith’s lap as he reclines back into the couch cushions. Keith rests his hands on Lance’s ankles, tugging up the hem of his pants to brush his fingers on cool skin. Lance matches his breathing with the steady movements.

“You can go back to sleep,” Keith murmurs. “I don’t mind.”

Lance almost protests. It’s lovely to be sitting with him. He’s cute when he’s soft, when he’s not worried about what they’re doing next, when he lets his guard down. Lance only wishes things were less slow, less lethargic, so his eyes weren’t so heavy.

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The rain starts to come down harder, faster, and it gets harder and harder to see. Lance squints, trying to see through the sleet of rain. It’s hard; he can barely see the shadows in front of him even though it can’t be past noon. The wind is icy, blowing at the soaked fabric of his orange uniform coat. Strangely he’s not cold. He’s hot, actually, suffocating in a blanket of heat, even as the rain pelts his skin, drops down his nose.

“Taylor! Come on!”

A boy appears in front of him. Lance startles — it’s so hard to see in the storm that it’s like he’s popped out of thin air. The boy’s long black hair is plastered to his head, and he’s soaked to the bone. He reaches out and wraps a glove-covered hand around Lance’s wrist, pulling gently.

“Come on, it’s freezing, you’re going to get sick. Let’s go, Taylor.”

Taylor?

Lance’s sneakers are soaked through, and usually that would bother him. But for some reason he can’t bring himself to move, to walk away. He hasn’t felt the rain on his skin in two years.

That doesn’t make sense. It’s the middle of the rain season in the Arizona desert. All students are forbidden from going outside. He’s not supposed to be here. This boy isn’t, either, this boy who calls him Taylor.

Lance followed this boy. Didn’t he? That’s why he’s out here in the first place, against Garrison orders. He always gets in trouble for following this boy into trouble.

His shoes are heavy with water, but slowly he picks up his feet, crossing his ankles. He smiles slightly and lets himself twist, holding his open palms out to the sky, closing his eyes and tilting his head back. A raindrop hits his cheek and slides down to his lips. It tastes of salt.

“You’re ridiculous! It’s a storm, Taylor! We need to get back before we get caught! Or hurt!”

Lance looks over at the boy. His indigo eyes are narrowed, clouded over with frustrated, strong brow furrowed to protect his eyes from the water.

He looks troubled. He’s too young to be this trouble. They both are.

Lance shifts their hands, so they’re entwined, and pulls the boy forward. He stumbles, but doesn’t fall.

“What are you doing?”

Lance smiles, grabbing his other hand, and twirls him around to imaginary music. For a minute the boy stubbornly resists, then a small smile cracks his face, and he relents.

“You’re crazy,” he says.

Lance just smiles. It’s kind of nice to be rained on with this boy, whoever he is.

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A hard bump in the road smacks Lance’s head to the window, dragging him awake.

“Fuck,” Keith curses. “Sorry, Bluebell. Go back to sleep, we’re still a little ways away.”

Lance yawns, shaking his head. “No, I wanna stay awake. Don’t want to lose any time with you.”

It’s clearly the right thing to say. Keith smiles, wide, showing the crooked incisors Lance loves so much. He reaches over and grasps Lance’s hand in one of his, bringing it up to his lips and pressing a kiss to one of the knuckles. Stubble tickles the back of his hand.

“Me either.”

Neither of them speaks after that. Keith’s broken car radio lets out a burst of static every couple of minutes, but it’s drowned out by the sound of rain pelting the windshield. Keith hums slightly as he drives, tapping a finger on the steering wheel. It feels familiar, almost, like the start of a movie Lance has seen a thousand times. He supposes he has, with how often they’ve made this drive.

The drive takes another hour, but it feels so short. Too soon they’re driving past the farm fields, turning onto a long gravel driveway, stopping in front of a brick house with blue paint peeling from the door.

Keith parks the car, pulling off his seatbelt and shifting to face Lance. His smile is kind of melancholy. He cups his hands around Lance’s face, and the leather of his gloves feels too soft, almost blurry, somehow, corporeal. He leans in and kisses Lance gently, reverently, sadly.

“Tell your family I said hi,” he murmurs, pulling away slightly.

“You could come in for a while,” Lance offers. He doesn’t want to leave. He doesn’t want Keith to leave.

But Keith is already shaking his head. “You gotta go, Lance.”

His words are muffled. Far away. Lance isn’t sure that’s even what he said.

Lance blinks and then he’s slamming the car door, running to the porch with his jacket hiked over his head. He turns back when he reaches the front door, but Keith is already gone.

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Lance wakes to sunlight warming his bare skin. His sheets are smooth on his legs, resting on his thighs and belly, barely really covering him. Most of the sheets are tangled around toned, pale legs, knobby knees. Lance follows them all the way up to a wide chest, covered in scars, and a well-defined jaw, thick black hair streaked with grey. A man stares at him, bleary-eyed, smile making his crow’s feet more defined. A long purple scar stretches across his cheek. Lance realises he’s leaning on the man’s chest, fingertips tracing shapes on his rough skin.

“How long’ve you been ‘wake, sweetheart?” the man mumbles, slight Texan accent bleeding into his words.

Lance shrugs. Truly, he has no idea.

The man says nothing more, only pressing a kiss to Lance’s hair before leaning back into the pillows, holding him tightly. Lance takes the time to look around the unfamiliar bedroom, trying to find out where he is. There are pictures everywhere; the man, Lance, Lance and the man, Lance and the man and a group of other smiling faces. Lance recognises none of them. There’s a large vanity table by the window, surface covered in various bottles and lotions, obviously not the man’s. It’s all as familiar as it is foreign.

The man runs calloused fingers over Lance’s ribs, slowly, and he shivers. No one has ever touched him like that before; intimately, quietly, adoringly. Touching for the sake of touch, like there’s nowhere he’d rather be than in Lance’s space.

He’s cute. He makes Lance feel safe.

Lance should probably find out his name.

But the man traces what’s clearly a heart on Lance’s sternum, and Lance is so comfortable. He feels like all his worries are a step away. Something’s wrong, he knows it is, but it’s lovely to sit between this comfort and chaos.

He doesn’t want to ruin the moment.

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This time there’s no rain. He’s not asleep beforehand. He simply comes to awareness in the car, hand clutched in Keith’s, static playing gently through the radio. They’re driving to Lance’s family’s house again, and the sense of deja vu is stronger this time, the sense of wrongness. It slips out of him, the feeling.

“Something’s not right,” Lance says quietly.

Keith snorts. “Yeah, no kidding. You could just move in with me, you know. Then we wouldn’t have to do this every couple of weeks.”

That’s not it. It’s not — separation. That’s not what Lance meant. He opens his mouth to say so, but as he does, he feels something hook around the inside of his ribcage, yanking him backwards, out the car, out of his body, out of the space. He hovers above, watching himself settle back into the passenger side, clutching Keith’s hand. Neither of them say anything for the entire drive.

Lance watches as his body presses Keith against the door when they park, kissing him soundly, laughing about something, then standing to get out. There’s no rain this time, so he lingers, leaning against the car door and sticking his head through the open window. He says something. Keith laughs, then leans over and kisses Lance again, gently, softly, hand sliding through his hair. Lance feels that, far away, from where he’s floating above them, the phantom hands in his hair.

As his body walks back to his family’s house, turning back and waving at least six times, Lance realises that it’s not real. None of it. Not the car, not the kiss, not Keith. None of it is. He presses his fingertips to his lips and they slide right through, like he’s made of air. He can’t remember the last time he was kissed. He can’t remember anything. The realisation is familiar, like the end of something, like watching the last scene of a movie and realising as the credits roll that he’s seen it before.

The familiar wrongness of it all bubbles up in him. Suddenly he wants to scream as loud as he can, but he finds he doesn’t have vocal chords to do it. Or a mouth.

Slowly, the world around him blinks in and out, the colours fade, the shapes and shadows disappear. All that’s left is a bright, endless white.

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Lance opens his eyes to white nothingness.