Klance - Beat Drop (Complete)

Chapter 4 Band Practice

"Hey, guys," Keith says quietly from the stairs leading down to the basement. The band sits in the basement, eating chips and listening to music.

"Keith!" Hunk says enthusiastically. He's thinner now, but still loveable and big. Shiro's shorter, he doesn't have his streak of white hair, and his jawline is soft. Katie... Katie looks tired. Her headphones hang around her neck, and she wears one of Matt's sweatshirts.

Keith makes his way down the stairs and picks up his guitar, strumming it thoughtfully. "We should write our own song sometime," he says quietly. The band looks up.

"I nominate Shiro. He seems like he's good with poems and lyrics," Hunk announces. Katie plays a few chords on her keyboard and looks up at Keith.

"I think that would be fun," she says hesitantly and makes space for Keith to sit between her and Shiro. He picks at the loose strings in the holes in his jeans and rubs his eyes, smudging his eyeliner. He puts on his glasses.

"We could be rock stars," Shiro jokes, and the group laughs quietly. It's a dream.

Keith paused, his knuckles inches away from Hunk's front door. He hadn't been here for years. Sighing, he smiled himself. Just some old memories.

He knocked twice, then stepped back.

Hunk opened the door within seconds and the smell of fresh chocolate chip cookies wafts into the warm air outside. "Keith! My dude! Glad you could make it."

"Wow, Hunk. It smells really good."

"Right?" Hunk beamed, "Everyone else is already downstairs."

"Thanks, man."

Hunk's house had the feel of 'lived-in'. Most things were worn (the sofa, the pots, the table), torn (the drapes, the aprons hanging up, the giant quilt on the sofa), or in some sort of disrepair (almost everything else). The kitchen was pretty much the only thing that was clean.

The basement stairs were carpeted and sunken, but soft. The basement 'studio' consisted of two large amps, a drum set, two bass guitars, a synth stand, and an electric and acoustic guitar. Hunk's uncle had donated most of the things, but all of the members had pitched in at some point.

"Hey," Keith said as he walked down the stairs into the dim light. Pidge looked up from her computer.

"Hey, Keith. I'm just reprogramming my synth. Was I even in high school when we started this?"

"No," Shiro replied, "Your brother- it's Matt, right?- introduced you to us. He was one of Keith's friends."

"Child labor," Pidge mumbled, adjusting the wires that lead from the synth to her computer.

Shiro sat in front of his drumset, patting his knees rhythmically. Keith handed him a set of mini congas, "Try these."

Keith made his way over to the acoustic and sat up against the wall. Chords, chords... it had been a while since he'd played but he still remembered the chords from their old songs. Voltron had mostly been a cover band, but they'd had a few original ones too, to make themselves feel established and not like some rip-off.

They'd dropped the band because of college commitments, but secretly they had all loved the careless recklessness of being in a band. They never made any CDs or put on any concerts, even for the neighborhood or their parents, but messing around was fun too, pretending they were big-shots in Hollywood with paparazzi and screaming fans.

They'd go to the park with Keith's guitar at night and play their songs where no one could hear, Pidge holding her cam-recorder, the screen flipped out. They had even taken Shiro's truck out and Keith had stood in the bed of the pickup, screaming their original lyrics into the wind as it ripped the words from his lips.