Chapter Text
Lance is tired.
He is…
So.
Very.
Tired.
Tired of feeling tired. Tired of not even being able to feel tired without feeling guilty. Guilty. Guilty. GUILTY.
He couldn’t help it. Every time he found himself in his room, alone, thinking about anything and everything, he would end up so anxious, that sleeping wasn’t an option. Unpleasant thoughts kept running a mile in his head, and as much as he wished they would quiet down with time, like they usually did, they kept getting worse and worse each day, or rather night..
He couldn’t sleep. Not in the evening, not at night, not in the morning and not during the day. So it’s not like his internal clock was simply messed up, he really couldn’t sleep . On the rare occasions he managed to let go of his usual troubles and fall asleep, he never managed to stay asleep for too long. Every time he would wake up feeling like he isn’t where he’s supposed to be. Or rather, the place he’s at, the role he’s playing, shouldn’t be played by him, should have never been played by him.
The guilt was burning deep in his gut every time he closed his eyes for as much as a few minutes, not being active, not training or something. Being lazy, or that’s what Shiro seemed to think about him anyway.
That’s not fair.
He couldn’t help but feel that way. He was trying. He really was. Just as much as everyone else. Maybe even more. But it was difficult. His friends were geniuses and he couldn’t exactly catch up.
Hunk, that teddy bear of a boy, the sunshine of their team, Lance’s best friend,was pretty much a genius, and his physique gave him a huge advantage, he was as strong as an ox, but certainly softer then one… With only a little time and motivation, he can do anything.
Give him a wrench – he’ll build you anything, absolutely anything. Anything going from an MP3 player to a goddamn spaceship.
Lance can testify.
He still listens to the one Hunk made him all those phoebs ago. The music is all weird, because most of it isn’t even close to the music from Earth, but well, music is music and when Lance’s head gets too loud, he takes his MP3 player and his earbuds, and loses himself to the beats. Better do that then lose time moping somewhere. The earbuds were in his pocket when they took off from Earth in Blue, but they got damaged when landing. Hunk repaired them as well. They work nicely, and have been for so long. Hunk really is a genius. Yeah, anyway, so, MP3 players, earbuds, and ships, spaceships…
No wonder he’s the one repairing the Lions after every battle. Those who warrant repairs, by the very least. Lance can’t even be trusted with a screwdriver… he will somehow manage to screw everything up. Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny, Lance. What a joke…
Either way, back to Hunky Hunk, the sunshine boy.
Give him his canon – he’ll demolish any Galra. No, not any, and not only Galra… He’ll demolish any enemy, yeah, that’ s better. How could I even think that? We have Galra allies now, and He is half-galran too, so… no. He won’t touch the good guys, but those who hurt others, well, Hunk never did like bullies.
So yeah, he is an absolute beast. Hell, don’t give him his canon, give him some scrap – and he’ll build that damn canon. Or don’t give him anything, and he’ll punch his way out of any situation, albeit apprehensively. Because even being one of the strongest in team Voltron, he is soft. So, so soft. He’s still not too fond of blood and battle. Which, honestly, valid. Lance isn’t either, but it doesn’t look like they have any choice. Poor Hunk, he still gets nauseous every time he smells burnt flesh. Is it fucked up that I can tell when it’s human flesh burning? When it’s galran? Or when it’s neither?
He could still remember the smell from the time he got blown up. Like an idiot, his mind added with such an impassive air, that it resembled far too much the truth.
If only I realized the fucking drone wasn’t Rover but a goddamn BOMB DRONE a tiny bit sooner… Coran still feels guilty, that god of a man, losing sleep fo r something that isn’t in the s lightest bit his fault.
Great, just great! Lance thought to himself, turning in his sheets, now I can feel guilty for making someone else feel guilty. What a joke. Really.
On some days he would catch Coran’s eyes on him. Following his every move. And that’s not a big deal. Except it is when it’s with this look in his eyes that makes Lance uncomfortable in his own skin. Makes him wish he could crawl out of his skin and be swallowed by endless space. Coran is the one who could have died because I wasn’t careful enough. Wasn’t smart enough. And I just got blown up because of my own stupidity.
“It wasn’t your fault!” is what he usually says when Coran mentions the incident, of course not, it’s yours is what his inner voice usually adds helpfully. This incident that still seems to torture Coran by its memory. That incident that has once and for all marked Lance? He’ll never be the same boy he was before it happened. Never once in his life did he come as close to death as that time.
This instance has shown him how easy it could be to just… disappear. He still had trouble saying the word, imagining how one’s heart could just… stop, eyelids closing one last time, hiding eyes full of fear and pain, pupils small and frantic from painful panic and awareness in the face of death, or large and dark, hazy from deliriousness, blurred by tears left unshed.
His back still throbbed sometimes. It never lasted too long, and was never too bad, but sometimes, after a long day spent training and fighting, and then training once again, when Lance finally knocks out for the night, in the morning he wakes up with a throb, sometimes a sting or anything really that reminds him of his own mortality.
It never hurts too much, but just enough to show him that all the times he pretended it didn’t bother him… well all those times he was lying. Lying to everyone else, certainly, but most importantly, he was lying to himself. The pain comes as he once read in some French book “souvent mais peu à la fois”, Proust was it?
[often, but little at a time]
Imagine what Pidge would say if she were to find out that I used to read books, like other books then those required by the school… classics, and foreign ones, no less. She would laugh her ass off, that’s for sure.
When Lance was 12, he met a girl in school, she was a foreigner and had trouble making friends. Her name was Naomie, and she came from France, from a small town Lance could no longer remember the name of. She was a beautiful girl with black pigtails and very pretty, dark blue eyes. He really liked her eyes, dark at first glance, but with a little light, they shone in so many colors. Thinking back on it, I really do have a type… huh.
Trying to impress her, the young Lance decided to learn French and quickly realized that he was in way over his head.
He was about to give up, but then he saw how alone she was.
Lance knew well enough that kids weren’t too fond of those who weren’t like them. Of those who looked different, those who spoke with an accent or simply not fluently enough.
But other then being made fun of, which was difficult enough as it is, Naomie seemed to have difficulties making friends, even among those who were decent human beings. In other words those whose parents did an okay enough job raising them, and taught them not to bully others.
Not wanting her to feel alone, on one of those nights he spent thinking, Lance decided that he would not give up so easily. Would he deny having a tiny crush on the girl? Fuck no, I’m not as emotionally repressed as McMullet, I’m capable of saying that I did, in fact, have a crush on that girl.
As difficult as it was, after he got the hang of it, and started seeing all the similarities between Spanish, his mother language and French, it became easier. He persevered and after a few months he knew the basics and had a fairly good conversational level in French.
It took him a few more weeks to practice and gather up the courage to just come up and talk, which meant that for those few weeks he kept more or less stalking her, in a totally non-creepy way! Thank you very much!
Doing that he soon found out that while her English definitely got better, the kids, in fact, did not.
The next morning after being finally able to speak a sentence without feeling like he might throw up from stress, Lance decided that it could no longer wait, so he ran up to the girl and quietly mumbled a shy “salut”.
The look on her face was equally dumbfounded and happy. And what a good beginning for a love-story would it be? Except, Naomie had to leave the town soon after, so he couldn’t exactly get as fluent as one would hope, but they did manage to have a fair share of simple and slow conversations. On her last day in school she told Lance how much it meant to her that he tried to understand her and to keep her company when everyone else didn’t.
Their farewell was filled with tears and promises to stay in contact, much to Lance’s big siblings’ amusement. Luis certainly had a blast, and Lance is pretty sure he and Veronica were betting on how long would they actually stay in contact.
They did, in fact, not stay in contact for too long, and their “eternal love” wasn’t as eternal as Lance believed. But hey, Veronica ended up getting 10 dollars from the bet and to stop Lance’s whiny ass from, you guessed it, whining, because his “soulmate” wasn’t responding to his messages anymore, she bought him an ice-cream, and not even a scoop of chocolate ice-cream later, Lance had all but forgotten everything about his soulmate.
His “first love”, a term that he himself uses very carefully, now that he knows for a fact that it wasn’t anything even remotely close to love, actual love, didn’t last, but Lance ended up making a decision, on one of those nights he spent thinking. He decided to learn other languages, so that no one would ever feel alone on their first day in school.
His resolution didn’t really surprise anyone too much, his family being used to the results of his nightly thoughts, having heard, one too may times, existential questions like “do you think bats have feelings?”, because apparently everyone always wonders if pigeons have feelings, without taking into account any other animals. And Lance always did like bats, for some reason, saying that they are just emo pigeons, and deserve recognition and that it’s apparently not a phase?
And if a few years later Lance met someone whose shiny black hair reminded him of those emo pigeons, which he exclaimed very loudly one evening in his bed, while talking to his roommate, then well, Hunk has been sworn into secrecy by the ultimate bro-code, so no one shall ever know.
Either way, that is to say that Lance’s siblings didn’t really believe him when he said that he would learn other languages. Lance’s mother, on the other hand, believed in him, she always did. I wonder if she still does...
His Mama was proud. “You’re a good boy, Lance. You are kind and considerate of others, I couldn’t have wished for a better son. I’m soproud of you.” she said, her eyes watering in a look that made Lance so very happy about himself.
My Mama thinks I’m good.
It made his lips curl into a smile on those nights, when it felt like everything was going wrong. I failed this test, I’m so stupid… But hey, at least my Mama thinks I’m good! He would say to himself on those nights, staring at his ceiling with a bittersweet smile, voice not quite reaching the air around him, voice too quiet, too unsure and too shaky.
By the age of 17, he could understand French, Italian, and Portuguese well enough to read books and hold a casual conversation. He really wanted to learn some other languages, Russian and Chinese, or maybe Japaneseor Korean but those were still causing him trouble, being too different to just jump right into them. Either way, he never got the chance to even try before leaving Earth.
When Lance decided to go to the Garrison, it became his goal to get even better in all those languages, in case he ever had foreign members in his team when in space. That didn’t exactly happen the way he intended it to. It was difficult to stay motivated when his application as a fighter pilot got rejected, but at least he got to read in so many different languages, it was nice. It helped him understand the multitude of cultures and histories of his Planet, which in turn might have helped him be more open minded towards the many alien cultures he has seen since he got thrown into space.
These days however, he has no time to read anything else then rapports, sometimes in English, sometimes in Altean, and even in Galran. He almost got the hang of the Altean language, and Galran wasn’t too different phonetically so one day he might even speak them both. But today, he understands enough of it to be able to read more then two or three lines, without checking in the dictionary, which… isn’t a lot, but it has to be good enough for now, and it might come in useful one day.
Or not, Pidge did say that it was silly of him, since they had automatic translators, that transformed any alien language in their well known English.
Either way, nowadays he opts for the training deck every time he has any free time, rather then the library. Pidge and Hunk are the smart ones, and Lance is… he knows he’s not dumb, or at least he thinks he knows, but to survive in this war, he has to get stronger. Knowing five languages didn’t save Lance from getting blown up on Arus, did it? Nope.
So yeah as he was saying, the smell was horrendous, and the pain overwhelming. It’s a good thing he passed out nearly instantly. His flesh burnt and bleeding. If he were still awake, he would’ve been screaming from the sheer agony, and it really wouldn’t have helped the team. And he would have felt really embarrassed afterwards.
But even after a few hours in the pod, his wounds were healed, his back was healed, and only the scar was left in their place. His beautiful skin, that had always been so smooth, is now covered in scar tissue. How can I be so shallow? We’re fighting in a war, of course we’re bound to get hurt. And once the war is over, assuming we survive long enough to win, how much of my body would stay clear of any scars? How many of them would be a constant reminder of how I nearly died, again and again. Of all the blood I saw on the floor, whether it is mine or not, and of all those times I’ve been the cause of it.
Sharpshooter… huh.
Just thinking about it made him nauseous.
He shivered under his blanket, his hand clutching its soft surface in a fist. Fuck. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts… Hunk, Hunk, HUNK… yeah let’s think about Hunk. What was I saying about him again? He’s kind. Yes, kind. He cooks so well, too. A culinary genius. As if all his other qualities weren’t enough.
So yeah an all around genius… In time of need he can be a beast, he can fight and destroy, just like he can build. Fuck, what was I saying… don’t think about the blood, don’t think about the blood… Give him tools and he can do anything. Whether it is on the battlefield or in the kitchen. Lance can’t help but think that if Hunk wasn’t there to cook actual meals once every few days, they would have all jumped out of the airlock. Yes, goop is that nasty… No matter if it’s green, blue, purple, red or fucking rainbow covered with stardust and unicorn shit… it’s disgusting…
With a knife, a spatula and a pan he can make all their dreams come true. Lance has yet to understand how Hunk made those garlic knots for him, a few phoebs ago, like really, there is no garlic in space, the fuck…
Lance has always believed that having Hunk as his best friend must have used up a whole lot of good karma… Wonder what I did in my previous life to deserve him?
We were the best duo, and then Pidge joined in, which is once again a miracle. What did I do to surround myself with such great people! The duo was good, but having Pidge changed everything, they completed their trio. The Garrison Trio!
They had so much fun together! They all got along so nicely, especially Hunk and Pidge, but hey, Lance was always there with them, even if he didn’t always understand what new project they were talking about.
Just like Hunk, Pidge is a genius. Maybe even more so. She is smart, like crazy smart. She may not know how to cook or to punch with the force of a grizzly, like Hunk could, but her mind is something else, she is simply brilliant. If someone can get Sam and Matt back, well that’s definitely her. Actually no, not if, when someone will get them back, it will be Pidge. Lance can only hope he would survive long enough to see it happen.
Lance can still remember the time Pidge managed to hack into the inner system of a Galra base, it was incredible. Lance could barely contain his admiration for his space sister.
Hunk and Pidge are closer then ever now, and Lance feels a little left out, but hey, it was only a question of time, they are so alike, of course they have more things to discuss. They are probably tired of explaining things to me.
And then, there was this weird thing going on with… Keith. He is strong and agile, courageous and loyal, resilient to no end. He has suffered much more in 19 years then many would in all their lifetime. Despite this, he keeps going, never looking back.
Lance, who has been following in his steps, admires this trait, just as much as he despises it. Turn around… please, look at me… look at me… I’m here… I’ve been trying to reach you for so long… He keeps thinking on nights like this one. On nights when everything is so dark, so filled with despair and self-doubt. Am I not good enough for you to turn around for a second? Just a second…
“Of course not” he would answer himself with a scoff, “why would he possibly stop for someone like me?”
On nights when things are bad, but not unbearably so, he would turn over, hug his pillow to his chest and start thinking of his Mama’s pies and hugs.
But on some other nights, when no light can be seen in the end, his mind would lead him elsewhere.
“How pathetic can I get before someone stabs me in the gut, and all these conflicting feelings poor out from the wound along with all my blood? Huh” he would ask himself with a smile on his face. A smile so wrong and twisted, that he would undoubtedly scare anyone who would dare enter his room in this instant.
No one ever does.
When Keith was still with them, before he… left, Lance would hear him sometimes in the other room, or in the hallway, coming back from the training deck. It would reassure him just enough to go for a walk around the Castle’s hallways, or even to go see Hunk.
But since he left, things have been weird in the Castle.
Those nights are becoming more and more frequent, and he can no longer go pester Hunk with his problems. The sunshine boy needs rest to be able to shine so bright, and if Lance keeps bothering him, he won’t get to sleep. That’s why Lance now deals with his issues by himself. Or rather then dealing with them, he ignores them as much as he can, and then some more.
That’s why on one of these nights spent alone and so far away from his ‘rival’ and friend, Lance’s mind sent him back to the day that changed everything.
Or not really.
It didn’t change anything except his perspective, and that, in itself was more then enough to change everything for Lance.