Chapter Text
Lance is a failure, there's no doubt about it. He's had (and lost) countless jobs - from barista to cleaner; baker to waiter; accountant to assistant. You name a job and he's been fired from it. Despite the seemingly infinite number of interviews he's attended, he hasn't been able to keep a solid job for more than a few months. And today wasn't any exception. On April 11th, Lance was fired from yet another job. Apparently being a mechanic wasn't a good fit for Lance, dropping one too many car parts on his boss's toe. He wasn't surprised though, he only applied for that job because his current roommate and childhood friend Hunk vaguely knew the owner. He had recently lost half of his staff due to a fire in the garage a few weeks prior. Lance completely disregarded the clearly suspicious working conditions, only caring for some sort of income.
It was an understatement to say Lance felt terrible. He shuffled away from the garage with a mopey frown, pink slip in pocket, thinking of what to tell Hunk this time. Just the thought of the exhausted yet pitiful look Hunk was sure to give him was enough to deter Lance from going back to their apartment. And so Lance wandered aimlessly through the semi-familiar town he was in, his already battered shoes being further torn apart as he dragged his feet with each step he took. Lance's fingers absentmindedly ran over the cobblestone wall as he ambled along, fingertips numbed from the scratches from the rough surface. Lance was abruptly woken up from his auto piloted ramble as his fingers suddenly found themselves sweeping through an empty space. He looked up to find himself peering through an empty archway. The archway was almost unnoticeable when observing the surrounding wall, easily standing two metres tall and stretching further than Lance's eyes could see. Inside the arch there appeared to be some sort of garden, without another soul by the looks of it.
Lance was born stupidly curious and so naturally he invited himself into the mystery garden. It looked abandoned to Lance and it only took him a moment to find a place to settle: a stone bridge that was surprisingly high above the river it transversed. Lance couldn't help but lean daringly over the edge, unable to resist the intrusive thoughts surging through his mind. He and his friends used to jump off a bridge similar in his hometown when the weather got warmer in the spring. However, ashamed as Lance would be to ever admit it, the reason Lance thought of jumping from this bridge was far from the carefree and juvenile adrenaline he craved when he was younger. Of course, Lance wouldn't ever actually jump. He would feel too guilty. He would much rather continue his own miserable life than let his family and friends suffer on his behalf. Plus, if he were to do that now he felt that the sacrifices his friends had made for him thus far would have been worthless. So simply staring over the edge of the bridge, temptatious as it is, is as far as Lance dared to go.
Lance heaved a heavy sigh, pulling himself away from the edge and dropping down to sit on a wooden park bench a few steps away. He closed his eyes, doing the breathing exercises his old doctor showed him. The technique wasn't perfect, it sort of had a 50-50 chance of working. Or maybe Lance was just doing them wrong, it had been a long time since he was able to afford a session with her. Thankfully it seemed to be doing its job this time.
"Afternoon." A foreign voice chimed, so sudden it almost made Lance jump out of his own skin. He did his best to hide the fact that he got the fright of his life, amazed at the fact that he didn't hear the man approach. Maybe those breathing exercises worked a little too well, sending him into a deafening state of nirvana. Lance turned to look at the person beside him: an old, hunched over man wearing a worn knit jumper.
Lance let out an awkward giggle before flashing the old man an sheepish smile. "Hi. Sorry I uh- I didn't hear you coming..."
The old man let out a chuckle, waving his hand as if to brush away the tension that had been building up between the two. "Are you coming from an interview? You're dressed quite handsomely."
Lance's head dropped. Usually he would have taken such a comment as an insult, his suit was old and tattered, threads sticking from seams and buttons missing. But after looking at the old man's clearly sincere smile, Lance tried to shake off his paranoia and replied to the man. His eyesight probably isn't the best anyway. "I wish," he started, hopelessness practically dripping from his lips, "but I'm pretty sure there's no more interviews left for me to take. I think I've tried every job this country has to offer."
The old man let out a chesty laugh, a bright grin spreading across his lips. "Well, the world is full of possibilities." Lance lifted his head, surprised the man could have such a jolly response to Lance's depressing confession. "There are endless chances and opportunities, you just have to grab them at the right time."
Lance shook his head, his eyes dropping once again. "With all due respect sir, I think I'm fresh out of good chances."
"Well then," began the old man, "Maybe you just haven't found the right person to give you the right chance."
Lance paused as he tried to debunk the old man's riddle, but who was he kidding, he's never even finished a crossword without help. "I don't know where you're trying to take this, sir. Unless you're my long list uncle about to bestow his multi million inheritance upon me.”
The old man's chest bobbed with hearty laughter as Lance’s comment, his hands adjusting their grasp on his walking stick. “Sorry to disappoint you, son.”
“A man can dream.” Lance said with a smile.
The old man sighed, a sigh that sounded as if he couldn't be more satisfied with life. "Maybe you just have to go back and try to make an old chance work again."
Lance couldn't help but find the old man's pep talk - cryptic as it was - surprisingly uplifting. "You’ve got a way for me to get back one of my old chances?"
The old man glanced at Lance, a mischievous glint flashing in his eyes. "Perhaps I do."
Lance sucked in his breath and stared at the old man with barely contained horror. “You're not trying to recruit me into your cult, are you?”
The old man’s content didn't fade, but he curtly denied that he was in a cult. Convincing enough for Lance. “Wouldn’t it be nice to go back? To start again. To talk more with those we never really got the chance to talk to. To be more positively involved in the lives of others."
This nostalgic pep talk had Lance in such a drowsy state that when his phone chimed in his pocket he felt like he had been woken by his alarm clock. He couldn't help the guilt that welled up in his chest when he saw who was calling. Lance apologetically looked over to the old man who only smiled, as if granting Lance permission to answer the call, which he promptly did.
"Hey Hunk-"
"Lance! Thank god you answered! Where are you?" Hunk interrupted, anxiety lacing his voice.
"I'm in some park by the garage." Lance replied nonchalantly.
"A park? In the city? I've never seen one." Hunk mumbled. "Never mind. We have to leave for the reunion in an hour , just hurry back."
"Reunion?" Lance ran his fingers over his stubbled chin. He really needed to shave, but with his ridiculously low income he had no money to spare on such privileges as razors, he could barely pay his half of he and Hunk's rent.
"Wow, you seriously don't remember?"
"Dude I am not following."
Hunk sighed, clearly getting agitated. "Keith? Ring any bells?" Lance fell silent, his chest suddenly hit with a sharp pang of pain and his palms quickly clamming up. C'mon, you seriously didn't forget did you?" Hunk's voice was laced with discontempt.
"No! No, of course not! It just... slipped my mind..." Lance felt himself break into a cold sweat.
Lance figured Hunk was probably nodding on the opposite end of the phone because the line was silent for a few seconds before he spoke up again. "Alright man, just hurry back. I don't wanna be late to something as important as this..."
"Yeah, I know. I can't believe it's been ten years already." Lance's eyes dropped to his collapsing shoes.
"I know." Hunk hummed.
"I wish I could’ve gotten to know him a bit better, you know?" Lance sighed.
"I wish we could go back in time. I would have acted so differently." Lance's heart felt tight in his chest, his eyes slowly roaming over to the old man who sat a few feet away, a peaceful look across his ageing face as his fingers tapped on the knob of his cane. He thought back over hi previous comments.
"Yeah," Lance said, quickly diverting his eyes. He could almost feel the gaze of the old man burning on the side of his face. He fought with every nerve in his body to keep his eyes straight ahead, "if only."
"Anyway, why were you in the city?" Hunk asks. Lance's legs began to quiver nervously.
"Oh you know..." He scratched his neck. "Work stuff..."
"Oh yeah!" Hunk begins, "How’s the new job going? You've already lasted a week in this one!" He sounds proud as if it's a wonderful achievement for Lance to keep a job for such a short amount of time. It wasn't exactly a boost for Lance's self-esteem.
"Oh, it's going just... swimmingly."
Hunk seemed to be distracted by something on his end of the line before quickly muttering back to Lance, "Oh man I bet that's the food I ordered. Gotta go Lance."
"Dinner at noon?" Although Hunk is a total foodie, even this was a stretch for him.
"Hey, its a two hour drive back home and the food there will probably be stale tuna sandwiches. A hard pass for me, so I'm filling up now." Hunk defended.
"Alright I'll be home-" Before Lance could even finish his sentence Hunk cut him off with a hasty 'later man' before hanging up. Lance shrugged, guess he didn't want to keep the delivery man waiting. Lance drops his arm, slipping his phone back into his pocket.
"You say you wish you knew him better."
Lance looks over to the old man again. His hands rest on his knees, his eyes still resting on a pair of chirping birds. Lance nodded.
"An old friend?"
"I guess..." Lance spoke, swallowing back a lump him his throat. "I guess I never let us get there."
"What would you say to him? If you could go back."
Lance shrugs. He hadn't really thought of that. Not recently, he thought up an almost endless list of things he would have done differently when he stood beside Keith's coffin at the funeral. There was a rumour that Keith wasn't inside, that his body was never found. It didn't matter to Lance. All that mattered was that Keith was gone, and although nobody knew how he died, Lance couldn't help but blame himself.
"I don't know." Lance admitted, his eyes darting around different things in the park before stopping on the birds again. They had stopped jumping around, standing almost still as statues.
The old man hums. "I could recommend some icebreakers for you."
Lance shot the old man a confused look. He decided to brush off the odd comment, his brain growing too tired to attempt to decipher any more of his riddles. Lance let out a grunt as he mustered the strength to pull himself to his feet. "Well," Lance began, brushing creases out of his trousers, "I gotta go. But I enjoyed the company." Lance grinned graciously as the old man whose eyes remained fixed in the same spot.
"Ah yes, I understand your hurry. You wouldn't want to be late for class now, would you?"
Lance's smile faltered, the corner of his lips tugging downwards in the uncomfortable remains of a smile. The only plausible explanation he could think of was that the old man was deranged in some way. He only gave an awkward nod before beginning to walk away. But he didn't go very far, in fact he only got a few steps away before he froze, leaning closer to the bridge wall/
He walked over to the birds, the subjects of the old man's attention. He hadn't noticed from the bench, but now as he bent down to really get a close look he realised the birds weren't just not moving - they were frozen still as if they had been turned to stone. "Holy crow..." His jaw slacked in pure astonishment, turning to ask the old man if he was also seeing this. However, only adding to Lance's shock, the man was nowhere in sight. Lance quickly straightened up, frantically looking around him to see if he could spot the old man walking away. Lance wasn't too sure why it was so important to find the old man, maybe to prove Lance hadn't been hallucinating the whole encounter, that he wasn't going insane. But he was nowhere to be seen, and Lance only further questioned his own mental state.
Lance took a step back, reaching behind himself to try to stabilise himself on the stone wall. But his hand made contact with nothing, only sailing through air as his body fell backwards and off the edge of the bridge. His heart sank to his stomach, his brain becoming so light his thoughts became a blur, too shocked to even let out a cry. He didn't even question how the wall of the bridge vanished, he couldn't piece together a single coherent thought before he felt himself become completely engulfed in the freezing cold.
It wasn't even a second after Lance had been swallowed by the cold that his head slammed against a hard surface, a loud bang immediately following. His brain throbbed at the sudden contact and his hands quickly shot up to cradle his aching head. "Mother of..."
"Ah, thank you for joining us again. Lance. This time please try to stay awake until the end of class." An old, wildly familiar voice chimed.
Lance forced his eyes open, squinting as he took a moment to adjust to the brightness. He had just closed his eyes yet he felt like it was his first exposure to light in years. It took him a while to finally be able to see his surroundings, yet that only caused the pulsing of his headache to get worse.
Lance could feel his blood run cold and drain from his face, his eyes widening so much he wouldn't be surprised if they rolled out of their sockets. He slowly looked around the room scanning each face, finding each one familiar yet his brain was too scrambled to pinpoint any of them. And then it hit Lance like a punch to the gut. He saw Hunk, his closest friend for as long as he could remember and also his roommate; Pidge his best friend who was always happy to give Lance a reality check; Allura, his high school crush that he struggled to ever have a normal conversation with; Shiro, Lance's idol throughout highschool; and Matt, Shiro's friend who was equally as intelligent as his comrade but only a fraction as wise. Matt and Pidge are siblings and, weirdly enough, have two years between them. It was odd to say the least when they ended up being in the same class when Pidge skipped a year thanks to her ridiculously high IQ and Matt, not being any less intelligent, took a year out with Shiro about two years before senior year to take part in some advanced space programme. Though Pidge didn't find the move very difficult. Pidge naturally gravitated towards Hunk and Lance, making the several year old duo evolve into a more more balanced trio (which also resulted in a massive average IQ increase).
Lance's head was spinning with the pure uncanniness of what was happening, wondering how in hell he ended up in a room with all of his old classmates. But his inebriated state was quickly washed away when a pair of dark eyes locked with his own. The emotion Lance felt in that very moment would be difficult to put into words, but it was something similar to terror. In the seat in front of him, that pale skin and dark hair, those dull violet eyes sharply glaring in his direction. When Lance was eighteen that look would have evoked some sort of cataclysmic reaction, like a volcanic explosion. That look always set him off, he got it every day in school. And for the last number of years it haunted him every night in his sleep.
"You..." Lance managed to force out of his mouth, only intensifying the look from the other boy.
He spoke back, but Lance couldn't process any words. It all hit Lance way too fast, and it was way too much to process. He debated whether or not it was a dream, but wasn't the fact that Lance was considering it already a clear answer? Lance knew what had happened, but right now he couldn't think about anything. All he could do was sit there, his voice caught somewhere in his throat, and stare at Keith who, in only a few weeks, was going to be dead.