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Tic-ing Time Bomb

Summary:

Lance and Keith's domestic life. This could be read as canon divergence or just completely separate. Premise: Lance gets ADHD tics/tremors which if contained for too long worsen when they all come out at once.

Notes:

Didn't really do a last check before posting this. Sorry there's going to be a ton of mispells. Still working on showing and not telling, so the beginning's a bit rocky.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

Lance wakes up and takes care of breakfast usually. Since they recently moved in together, and the fact that Keith is normally woken up by Lance after he’s prepared breakfast Keith has no knowledge. Keith knows about Lance’s ADHD and has some general knowledge as well as knowing Lance’s needs in some situations, but Lance never disclosed this to him. When Lance accidentally burned his forearm due to a tremor, he’d told Keith it was just a simple slip of the hand. The rare times that Lance gets injured instigated by a tremor Lance always finds a plausible explanation.

This goes on for a while until one morning his hand mobility is so bad he can’t hold anything. Increasingly frustrated at his inability to do simple tasks unnerves him further and only increases the magnitude of the tremors. He holds his wrist and silent pleads turn into whispers under his breath for the tremors to stop. He usually takes his medicine with his food, but seeing as he couldn’t even open the refrigerator that wasn’t going to be happening any time soon.

After struggling a bit he was able to get the medicine cabinet open with his elbow. Now, all he needed to do was open that damn bottle. Push and twist. Simple. The pills rattled around as he was able to sort of bat the bottle out of the hood of the cabinet. His trembling hand holding the bottle “still” (still as possible) began to shake and turned into small wrist flicks and his other hand couldn’t get a grip on the lid with the constant movement.

He was literally playing cat and mouse with his own hands.

He huffed at the thought, feeling his rejection dysphoria and frustration creep up his neck, his breath becoming more rapid and heavy. Fuck! Before he could even register what he was doing he threw the orange plastic container against the wall and slumped down the kitchen cabinets as the rattle of pills coming to a still taunted him. Lance didn’t know how much time had passed until,

“Lance? I heard a crash. You okay?”

Lance stiffened. No, no, no, no, no, no Keith can’t see him like this. Weak, pathetic, useless. Unable to complete the most simplest tasks. Head in knees trying to steady his hand with the other. He could hear Keith pad over past the kitchen island and to his location.

Now fully awake his voice without a trace of goggieness,

“Baby what’s wrong?” As he sat down in front of Lance, but still leaving some space.

“...It just won’t… stop.” Lance’s voice quivered and cracked. He bit his lip as the tears started falling onto his lap.

Keith made a sound of acknowledgement, stretched his legs out and pushed himself to lean up against the cabinets parallel.

“Take all the time you need.” and turned his head slightly away.

Keith always hated whenever people stared at him (especially with pitiful eyes) when he needed a moment to himself, but still wanted the presence of someone else around. He figured that might be what Lance needed, so he calmly waited until Lance was ready to speak.

He heard Lance sniffle and sigh in a way signally he was ready to talk. He turned his head towards Lance.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“You have nothing to apologize for”, as he looked at Lance sternly and he held out his hand. His gaze softened as they locked pinky fingers together, then he took Lance’s hand thumbing over his hands with a smile.

“I’ll do the cooking today.”

Lance raises a poise pointed eyebrow, “Oh, boy if you’re cooking, then you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

Keith huffed with no actual offense taken and knocked his knee into Lance’s playfully. Keith cooked while Lance supervised and acted normally when Lance needed to take a step away to fizz out an oncoming tremor. Then Lance could resume laying his chin in the crook of Keith’s shoulder, and sometimes wrap his arms around Keith’s waist and give him light kisses from time to time as they proceeded with breakfast. Lance was so relieved Keith wasn’t babying him and trying to panic accommodate him, and waited if/when Lance asked for help.

They sat down and dug in with comfortable silence between them. Lance struggled to use his utensils a bit.

“Shit!”

Keith looked up to see the spilt water on the table, Lance frowned as he set his glass down with controlled force.

“Here let me just” as he walks to the pantry and grabs the sponge, Lance followed Keith down to his hand as it plopped a straw in his drink.

Lance blinked, processing what just happened as Keith wiped the table and tossed the sponge into the sink.

Lance smiled sheepishly

“Thanks,” as he drew in his glass hooking his forearm. Keith nodded briefly before he shoveled more food in his mouth. Lance bust out laughing as Keith’s head shot up in confusion, with his cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk. Lance stopped for a second, processing his face before he bursted out laughing again.

“What?” he said, muffled. Which only had Lance laughing even harder.

“Is there something on my face?”

“No no, it’s just, ugh, you’re so adorable.” He wiped an imaginary stray tear from his cheek.

Notes:

I rushed this fic (if it isn't already glaringly evident.) However, I've been toying with the idea of adding a prequel to this. Thus, entailing the exposition of the duo signing the lease-to-moving-in shenanigans. Would any be interested? I know I scuffed up the exposition real bad on this one, so I offer thee a rehash+prequel. Sorry this ended up being such a long message.