Chapter Text
Lance has been at the market in his usual spot, performing with a tip jar at his feet since leaving the Apothecary this morning.
This is typically the busiest day of the week, and today is no exception. The crowds seem even more dense than usual, as everyone pushes past everyone else trying to complete their shopping for the week, occasionally stopping to listen through to the end of Lance’s song.
Lance almost feels sorry for challenging Keith into this mess, assuming he comes today, that is. Almost, but not quite.
He’d considered simply asking Keith to meet, but didn’t want to risk scaring him out of ever replying again. It’s clear based off his preferred method of communication that Keith is a very private person. So instead, he devised this plan, to challenge Keith to the market and be there himself in the hopes that Keith will find him. This way, Keith has the power to decide whether to approach Lance or not. And to help ensure Keith will recognize him, well…
“Lance, this is the fifth time you’ve played this one, and you never repeat a song in one day!” Allura whines from Lance’s side, quiet enough that those listening to Lance’s song won’t hear her.
“If you don’t like it you can leave you know,” Lance replies through a smile as he plays the opening chords.
Allura often accompanies Lance at the market, occasionally adding her voice to his tunes, but often as not simply keeping him company and providing colorful commentary on the townspeople who go by. Her brilliant white Fae hair is great for grabbing attention, and her voice isn’t half bad either. They’ve been friends since childhood, Allura is always the first to hear Lance’s new songs when he finishes one.
As Lance begins to sing, he scans the crowd for any unfamiliar faces, as he has been all day.
“When a love will come to me, both radiant and true, then will sun shine bright again in skies forever blue.”
Allura doesn’t join him this time, not that Lance is surprised. Even if this is one of her favorites, it seems four times in a day is her limit.
“Clouds that shroud my daytime be banished from the land, long as love stays near me within reach of my hand.”
So far Lance hasn’t seen anyone that he’s thought could be Keith, but he refuses to give up hope! And if this plan doesn’t work out, maybe he will simply ask him to meet.
“Though the rain falls constant, I know that someday soon love will dry the crying skies and join me in this tune.”
Suddenly, someone pushes through the crowd, and a boy around Lance’s age appears. Ink black hair falls over a striking face, fair as though he’s been rarely in the sun. His dark eyes pin Lance in place, and if Lance hadn’t sung this song four times already, he may have tripped over his final stanza for the intensity of the boy’s gaze.
"When a love will come to me, both radiant and true, then will sun shine bright again in skies forever blue."
Just as Lance plays the final notes of the song, and begins to consider if maybe this stranger could be who he’s been waiting for, the boy crumples to the ground as though all his muscles have given out at once.
Something falls to the ground beside him, and a dark smoke begins to rise from his form, though no flame is present.
The people around the boy scream and push away from him–from the smoke–but Lance is moving forward without thinking, though he has no idea how he could help.
As the smoke begins to dissipate, Lance catches sight of the object that fell beside the boy. A very familiar notebook, once again bound with a leather strap.
“Keith,” Lance breathes as he rushes the rest of the way to his side, his heart filled with ice and mind whirring trying to understand what happened.
Just as Lance reaches for Keith’s prone form, a broad man with a shock of white hair at the front of his head pushes through the panicked crowd.
“Prince Akira!” the man shouts, face distraught, falling on his knees and pulling Keith into his lap.
“The prince?!” Allura exclaims from just beside Lance, he hadn’t even known that she was there, so focused on Keith, on getting to his side.
Now all Lance can do is stare at the unconscious boy held in this man’s arms, at the notebook–the notebook–still lying on the ground, and try to piece together the fact that Keith is the prince and the prince has collapsed in the middle of the market square.
Lance crouches to grab the notebook, and the man cradling Keith seems to notice him for the first time, expression turning fierce as he exclaims, “That is the property of the prince!”
“He was bringing it for me!” Lance replies as the notebook is roughly ripped from his grip.
This seems to give the man pause.
“You’re Lance?”
Lance nods, though his eyes have shifted back to Keith, “Is he…. is he going to be alright?”
“Maybe I can help,” Allura says, stepping forward to the man’s side, “I know some healing magic. If you know what ails him, I may be able to speed his recovery.”
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do,” the man says, and the defeat in his voice is palpable, the barely contained tears evident in the tightness of his throat.
“What do you mean?” Lance asks, but before the man can reply, a short person with wild brown hair and large glasses runs up to them.
“Shiro! What’s going on, why is Keith here? I was heading to the castle with a break through on the curse when I saw the smoke.”
“Pidge,” Shiro says, face crumpling as he looks up at her, his grief no longer able to be held at bay.
“No,” Pidge says, stepping past Allura to crouch at Shiro’s side, grabbing Keith’s limp hand in hers and shaking it gently. “Keith, Keith wake up. Wake up you idiot! You have to wake up!”
The gentle shaking has increased, and Lance fights the urge to tear Keith’s hand away from her. They are clearly close if the wrecked expression on Pidge’s face is any indication.
“I have to tell you what I learned! We have to update the tapestry, so you need to wake up. There’s hope! There’s hope dammit, it can’t be too late!”
Pidge stills in her attempts to wake Keith and looks up suddenly. Her tear-filled eyes are bright with determination as she stands and looks around as though searching for clues.
"Shiro, did you see it happen? Who triggered it?"
It seems to take a colossal effort, but Shiro raises his head and looks directly at Lance.
"You?" Pidge asks, "Who are you?"
“Lance,” Lance says, and he can tell he’s in shock because his voice comes out breathless, as though he just completed a sprint across town.
“Lance, you’re the only one who can help Keith.”
“What? How?” Pidge’s words shake Lance from his shock, the background noise of the market rushes back in–though he’d not even noticed its absence–and he focuses in on her, scooting closer, “I’ll do anything, please, just tell me!”
“He fell in love with you. You need to fall too.”
“He…what?”
“When he saw you, he fell in love and it triggered his curse,” Pidge continues, a hint of panic in her voice. “The curse says ‘Love must too at once requite, heart given and received, lest thou fall to ever night til love descends with thee.’ We always thought that ‘til love descends’ referred to ‘ever night’, that the person Keith fell in love with would need to succumb to his same fate in order to release him. But I found a new curse theory that suggests these kinds of conditional curses do not require the source of the trigger to be in a similar state as the cursed, but to experience the same event that triggered the curse in the first place. You need to fall in love with him!”
Lance looks back to Keith’s face. He looks so peaceful, dark eyelashes spread against his sharp cheekbones, face smooth and expressionless, a stark contrast to the fierceness Lance had first seen from him across the square.
Lance reaches forward and takes Keith’s hand in his. His palms are slightly callused, and there are in fact ink stains on his fingers. The back of his hand is smooth and soft, and it looks delicate cradled between Lance’s dark fingers.
Keith is the cursed prince. Lance has written songs for him, has felt heartache and hope for him, has dreamt of the day when he would be free to live and love and maybe even hear Lance’s songs.
Keith is the mystery riddler. This is the boy who writes stories, the boy who loves the single hybrid flower in the gardens, the boy who asked Lance to take care of himself, the boy who is lonely.
Lance’s chest feels tight as emotions war within him. He reaches to brush a lock of hair back from Keith’s face, then gently traces his cheek.
“Keith,” Lance says in a hushed voice, his words meant for Keith’s ears only, “I wanted to meet you so badly today. I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel like I’ve always been waiting for you to arrive.” Lance takes a deep breath, he feels the pressure of tears gathering behind his eyes. “When I solved your first riddles I didn’t know what to think of the lonely person who left challenges for strangers. But even then, I couldn’t resist.” Lance chuckles wetly, and the first tears fall to his cheek.
“You know I’ve been wanting to play a song for you since I started writing, but I never pictured it going like this. Please wake up Keith. We finally met! I want to take you to the Red Lion Pub and figure out what’s your favorite thing on the menu. I want to go back to the archery range and show you how much better I am than you with a bow. I want to see how much better you are than me with a sword.”
Lance moves his hand from Keith’s cheek and settles it on his chest. He can feel a faint pulse, slow, as though Keith is only sleeping. “But you have to wake up Keith. You have to wake up so I can see how your face changes when you smile, and I can know which of my cheesy lines will make you laugh, and I can learn which of my songs will be your favorite. You have to wake up so I can tell you that I…” Lance swallows, heart racing, tears streaming freely down his face, fear almost closing his throat in its grip, “I love you, too.”
As Lance says these words, he feels his heart thump more strongly than before, and with the hand on Keith’s chest, he feels Keith’s heart thump in unison.
Several gasps sound around Lance as a light begins to glow from both him and Keith, a shining that nearly blinds Lance as he holds Keith’s hand tight, as he feels the strong pulse of Keith’s heart still in time with his own.
As the light begins to fade, the four gathered there collectively hold their breath, watching the prince as though to look away would mean death.
After a moment that Lance feels stretches to infinity, Keith’s eyes begin to flutter open.
“Lance,” Keith says in a quiet mumble, and Lance relishes hearing his name from Keith’s voice for the first time.
“Keith?” Lance asks, part of him still not daring to hope, but hanging on only by a thread.
Keith’s eyes blink open fully, and he looks up to Shiro, then over to Pidge, til finally his eyes land on Lance.
“What happened?” Keith asks.
Shiro immediately crushes Keith in a hug, crying into his cloak as Keith asks what’s wrong, panic clear in his voice. Pidge is quick to worm her way into the hug, grabbing Keith in a vice grip and calling him an idiot repeatedly.
After a few minutes they release him, and Keith gives them worried looks but Lance can’t wait any longer.
“Keith.”
The prince turns, looking at Lance with wide eyes, as though seeing him for the first time (though Lance is eternally grateful they are past the first time).
“Lance?” Keith asks with a hesitant voice, “is it really you? Why are you crying?”
Lance’s tears start up anew as he lunges forward and pulls Keith into a tight hug. “Don’t you ever do anything like that again! I don’t care if you are the prince, I command you never to scare me like that ever, ever again!”
Keith hugs Lance back after a moment of surprise, automatically moving to run a soothing hand up and down his back and Lance adds more tears to Keith’s cloak.
“Can someone please tell me what happened?” Keith asks.
Lance refuses to let him go as Pidge speaks up, “It was your curse, Keith. You were unconscious, and we couldn't wake you, we thought you were–” she cuts off abruptly, unable to finish, but Keith seems to understand as he stiffens in Lance’s hold.
“But I’m awake now,” Keith says, gently moving Lance back so he can see his face. “How…”
“I um,” Lance sniffles and wipes at his face, trying to regain some of his composure, “well Pidge said that to break the curse, the person who triggered it had to experience what you did. I did this whole speech and everything, but you missed it.” Lance laughs at Keith’s expression, a combination of shock, confusion, and mortification, “That was pretty rude of you by the way, I thought princes were supposed to have manners.”
“I was unconscious!” Keith exclaims, disbelief and affront written blatantly on his face.
Lance laughs again, and can’t keep from smiling, delighting in how expressive Keith is, every emotion plain to see as he shifts slowly to realization.
“Wait, you…you triggered my curse which means I…and then you…you–”
“I love you, and now I’ve told you twice,” Lance says, laughing again as joy fills his heart, “all you’ve done is collapse and release a terrifying smoke into the air, scaring away everyone in the market. So it sounds to me like I’m winning.”
Keith’s face blooms into a magnificent shade of red at Lance’s words, and Lance can’t resist reaching up to cradle that face in his hand, to feel Keith awake and animated and safe.
For a moment, Keith only stares, and Lance can practically track the thoughts all connecting in his mind as he pieces everything together.
“You’re winning?” Keith asks, slowly leaning closer and pining Lance with a smirk that sets his blood aflame, “I think I can change that.”
Keith’s lips meet Lance’s in a gentle kiss. Lance barely registers the cheers from Allura, Pidge, and Shiro as he winds his arms around Keith’s neck, twining his fingers into that dark, silky hair, and kisses Keith back with every ounce of emotion that he’s felt since their eyes met across the market square.
Lance thinks his wish for the prince has finally come true. He’s free from his curse, and Lance will make absolutely sure with every day that passes from this point on, that he is a love worth waiting for.
The End.