Klance cursed au

The universe has moved for us

"Oh, thank you so much," the woman says, clutching a sachet with cinnamon, dragon's blood, and cypress to her chest. Keith nods his head absently, writing instructions on a slip of paper for her to take home. "How long will the effects last?"

"As long as you only keep it on you when you're specifically using your magic, it should last a while -- I know you want to strengthen your magic, but you'll wear yourself out if you try to do it too much too quickly. No more than two hours at a time, okay?" Keith underlines this part of the instructions twice, just so she won't forget. "I know you're in school, so I want you to take care not to overdo it."

"I won't," she promises, taking the piece of paper and folding it carefully into her purse. "I've just got so many projects right now, and I don't want any of them to suffer because of the others--"

"I get it," Keith tells her, smiling slightly. "My boyfriend's in the same boat."

She makes a face, tucking some of her wispy blonde hair behind her ears. Her eyes have dark purplish shadows beneath them. "I hope he's doing better than I am. Anyways, thank you. I'll probably be back in a few weeks." She lays her money down on the counter and weaves her way through the shop, making her way outside. The bell above the door chimes gently, and the hanging plants sway gently from the breeze that flows around the shop.

Keith carefully waits until the bell stops ringing and then makes his way to the back of the shop, into his office, where Lance is slumped over the desk with a dozen books spread out in front of him. A huge red and white cat is laying on top of the keyboard of the laptop shunted off to the side, her tail flicking back and forth. They both appear to be asleep.

Keith approaches as quietly as he can, tilting his head so he can see what Lance was working on -- some sort of paper on philosophies of magic, which is enough for Keith to immediately avert his eyes. Lance still isn't quite sure what he'd like to do, so he's taken a broad swath of subjects for his first year at school, but it's had the adverse effect of making him stretch himself in all different directions, and he's been exhausted for the last two weeks. Keith has taken to mixing acai berries in green tea to give him enough stamina to stay awake while he studies at night, as well as giving him his own amber necklace to replace with one that burned up all those months ago.

Lance has assured him that as soon as midterms are done, things will go back to normal, but Keith still worries; he doesn't wake Lance up as he moves around the room, hoping that he'll at least get a little bit of rest here despite the awkward angle of his neck, and despite the fact that Red's tail keeps flicking across his face.

He goes back to the front of the shop after he fails to gingerly wedge a leather jacket underneath Lance's head, deciding instead to drape it over his shoulders and pray that Lance won't suffer permanent neck pain because of his inability to wake his sleeping boyfriend from the first solid sleep he's probably gotten in three days.

Up front, he tinkers with a few cursed items that have been left for him to work on, not really devoting a lot of his attention to them. He's too distracted by other things -- Lance, mainly, but also various chores he's been putting off, like finally adding protective spells to his garden for the approaching winter, and the dinner he'd promised to attend with Allura that he still needs to procure a suit for. He's idly spinning a stick of birch between his fingertips when his phone rings -- his cell phone, not the shop.

"Hey, Hunk," Keith says, using the stick to nudge the silver teaspoon he was supposed to be working on away from him as it starts to twist itself into bizarre shapes. "What's up?"

"Lance is with you, right?" Hunk asks, sounding worried. "I can't get ahold of him."

"He's sleeping," Keith says, glancing at the door that leads to the office and hoping that's still true.