Outer space | klance au |

2: glow in the dark stars

Lance shifted his phone from his hand to his shoulder. He stuffed some of his papers that fell from his notebook into a green folder that he found somewhere in his desk. Finally, the ringing stopped meaning that Katie picked up. "Hey, Pidge." A long sigh that could have been a groan broke his speech and thought.

She spoke before he could continue."What do you want Lance?" Lance shoved his blue notebook and new folder into his backpack and left it on his desk chair. He hastily zipped up his bag so that it would be ready for his classes tomorrow. It was one less thing he had to worry about later.

"Oh ouch," Lance winced jokingly. "No, hi or how are you? Especially to your best friend. It's insulting." Lance grabbed his phone with his hand and crossed the room to flop down onto his bed.

"I know you have ulterior motives here so let's just get this over with now," Pidge snapped.

"See I was trying to care for and about you and this is how you treat me." Lance's eyes wandered towards his roommate's empty side of the room. He was never there.

"Lance,"  the younger girl warned.

"Fine," he paused. "So how long is this update going to take?" Lance bit his lip as he stared at the peeling glow in the dark stars that decorated his ceiling. From the other end of the phone he could hear the tapping of keys of a keyboard. The sounds washed over him in a familiar way.

"It'll be really late tonight or early tomorrow morning," Pidge sighed again. He could practically feel her eye roll. "Latest being six a.m. Earliest being two a.m."

"That's a long wait," Lance whined as he glanced over at his clock. The red numbers told him it was only a little after eight. "Too long," he whined out again.

He could hear Pidge's annoyance grow. Her tapping became angry and faster. "You understand that this isn't like an app on the App Store. It's gonna take a few hours for everyone's phone to catch up and run the same program. Especially because of the way I'm doing it," Pidge paused like she knew he would express his worries. "Don't worry about it. It's just some minor bug fixes so that the app will run smoother," she said matter of factly. "Hunk already said that his app crashed when he was trying to play music. Do you want to listen to music and chat?"

"Yes," Lance replied softly because he felt like he was being scolded.

"That's what I thought. So just give me a minute to think about what I need to do and change." Pidge's voice seemed a lot calmer.

"A minute?" Lance said hopefully. He rolled over so he was laying on his stomach, the few stars that were left disappeared before his eyes as they did each and every morning.

"A hot minute," Pidge's voice was serious and he groaned. "Shut up. You're being a big baby."

Lance feigned hurt. "Your words wound me," he grabbed at his chest, "My heart is broken! I cannot live any longer!"

"Toughen up," the girl replied coldly and Lance laughed. "I'm serious! I have second-hand embarrassment for you." There was a laugh in her voice and he could hear her cease typing. A comfortable silence fell between the two old friends and he didn't mind it. Eventually, it was broken by a small cough from the younger girl.

"Are you alright?" He momentarily forgot about the app update to worry about his friend.

"Yeah. My throat is just dry." He could hear a gentle swishing of something in a can. Then heard her gulp down the drink.

"That better not be Red Bull," he playfully poked.

"Mind your own damn business." Lance rolled his eyes at her words. "Besides it's Mountain Dew."

"Like that's any better," Lance rolled back onto his back, for some reasoning not finding the usual comfort in his bed.

"Believe me it is." There was a grin in her voice as she said it.

"I'm serious though. Start taking vitamins or something. You're probably deficient in something." He gripped his phone tighter in his hand. "Your body can make a lot of things but it can't make vitamins."

"Blah, blah, blah blah. Shut up, Lance. You take some vitamins." He could hear her fingernails tapping on the metal can. She couldn't keep the beat or melody of any song but it brought him back to the nights before college. Laying on the Holt's trampoline as she taught him all the names of the constellations. Hunk always brought homemade cookies and soda. He would give anything to do it again. It just seemed so far away now.

"I'm just looking out for you. When you're dying from influenza or the bubonic plague don't come crying to me." She stopped tapping and laughed. "I'm serious Pidge. I'll get you some Flintstone vitamins if you need them!" he joked.

"I'm not getting sick so don't worry about it." She yawned like the fatigue had finally caught up to her.

"You sound like you're getting sick," Lance mumbled out.

"I don't leave my dorm. What makes you think that I came into contact with a disease-causing germ?" Pidge crushed the can and he heard a dull thump of a can hitting the carpet behind her. She did the same thing in high school and it made him happy that she still did it.

"Oh my god, just call it a pathogen you freak." Lance felt the smile creep back into his voice. "You immune system is depressed because you don't have healthy habits," he scolded her playfully.

"Then my immune system and I have that in common," Pidge said.

"Have what in common?" Lance asked seriously.

"We're both depressed and apparently can't keep annoying things the hell away. Bye Lance!" A small click brought him out of his trance. He brought his phone away from his ear to find it was at the home screen. She had hung up on him. He frowned at his screen and let his phone fall to the sheets of his bed, getting entirely lost within the tangle of blankets like he wanted to.

Lance knew he needed to study but every cell of his body seemed to fight against the idea. Studying would be there tomorrow. He grabbed his phone again, some part of him hopeful that what Pidge said was a bluff. He knew that the gremlin didn't lie but he didn't want it to be true. The app was greyed out. Some part of him wondered if the app granted her access to his phone. She was a hacker and disguising a software as a chatting app did seem like something she would do. He pushed the thoughts away with a soft sigh.

He stared at the icon, it was just a little planet and star because for some reason the Holt siblings knew everything there was to know about space. Pidge loved space more than she loved him. She wanted to be a teacher, an astronomy teacher to be exact, but he knew she'd settle for earth and space science. From the exact moment, he met her she knew what she wanted to be. He had skipped around before deciding that he didn't just want to be a pediatrician. He wanted to specialize in emergency medicine.

The phone screen dimmed. The vision of the monochrome planet disappeared right before his eyes. Something in his chest painful squeezed at the small sight.

Lance plugged in his phone and set it on the nightstand. He glanced back up at the remaining glow in the dark stars and counted them until he fell asleep.