Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

   Lance was used to rejection. As a middle child in a huge family, you could never expect to always get what you want. You would save up your chances, skipping out on Tuesday’s soccer practise just so you could have a better chance of getting to swimming on Friday. Lance was used to being the kid that suffered the worst, always sacrificing his chances for his siblings. Benji needed to get to play practise on the other side of town as Lance’s soccer game? I guess his team’s gonna have one less striker. His older sister needs to borrow the car for reasons when Lance needs it as well? I guess he isn’t hanging out with his friends tonight, sorry dude.

   He was also used to the rejection from his father. While his mother supported his bisexuality, his father ignored him and made Lance’s life hell because of it. Too many times did Lance end up missing something important because his mother wasn’t home and he couldn’t drive yet, or one memorable time he was starved when it was only him and his father home; his mother had taken his siblings to the city for new clothes and school stuff or something but with so many kids it would take more than one day. The trip left Lance alone with his father for almost a week, in which he only bought food for himself and forbade Lance from leaving the house even for school, where Lance fell behind and almost had to repeat a year. Pure rejection.

   It wasn’t a huge surprise when Lance got the short straw on this mission. Just a simple one, a drop for information and a virus on a couple newly conquered planets and what the Galra have on them. Sadly, the team had only got back a few hours ago from forming Voltron and fighting in a different quadrant, but because Lance had been the only one to grab an hour of sleep after the fight, he was sent out on the mission. Just because he said he got sleep doesn’t mean he actually did.

   While transferring the information onto a little drive, Lance is momentarily distracted by the sound of a large ship above the base. The base walls seem to be thin, so he could easily hear everything that went on above and around him. Hell, if he tried hard enough he would probably be able to hear the Galra in the next room. He couldn’t even hum the Mission Impossible theme song while sneaking around, but that was mostly because Pidge yelled at him through the coms every time he did. They were angry that they had to stay awake and monitor Lance’s mission.

   Lance taps his boot against the metal floors, nervously waiting for the information to finish duplicating and transferring.

   “Hurry up, Lance! We don’t have all day.” Pidge is chirping words and complaints in his ear, not watching him but instead the maps that they created. They must not be able to see him except for his probably blue cue dot, or they would know that he was waiting for the drive.

   “Sorry, Pidge.”

   “Whatever, just focus. Whatever information is on this base is important, and we can’t afford you making a mistake and losing it because you saw a twinkling star.”

   Lance can feel the sting in his heart at their rejection, and it hurts more every time. Offhand comments ache just as much if not more than intended ones.

   Lance watches the pink bar slowly grow inside the rectangle area it was given, and Lance looks around, just a little scan. He checks the door to make sure the carts and junk he piled in front of it will hold; his exit is through the vents anyways. Built like a swimmer, Lance is flexible and malleable enough to easily worm his way through vents and small spaces. He distinctly remembers Allura calling it his only useful skill besides stalling. Well at least he’s useful in one way, and his stalling has bought value time before...

   Lance turns back to the drive, and is ready to pull it out and leave when a voice behind him makes his blood run cold.

   “What an elegant surprise...”

   Lance jerks his head around to see a hooded figure on his side of the blocked door. A long chin marked with red juts out from under the hood, and so does long white hair. Pink and black energy curls at clawed hands. The witch.

   Lance tucks the drive into a chink in his suit; he’s not supposed to, Altean armour attributes that Allura didn't really explain to him and all, but he’s seen Keith do it and Allura’s never gotten mad at him before so it should be okay, right? He's also pretty sure he's going to need his hands free for this. His fingers curl around his Bayard, but he doesn’t want to change it to a blaster, not when the witch is so close. Maybe Keith would be proud for his logic.

   The witch raises her head, and Lance can just see her smirking face. “Oh, Blue Paladin. So much turmoil inside of you. So much pain.”

   Lance grits his teeth. “Shut up!” That energy around her hands pulses, and the witch cackles.

   Lance can feel something worming at his ears. He reaches up to pat his helmet over his ears, feeling mildly self conscious, but keeps his stare on the witch. Haggar stares back from under her hood, and Lance squirms in his spot as the pressing in his ears becomes increasingly harder. He scrunches his face, makes a sound, and backs away from Haggar with his hands clasped over his ears under his helmet. He can hear Pidge complaining about his time through his fingers.

   “What are you doing to me?” Lance hisses the words, hopefully quiet enough so that he doesn’t alert Pidge. No reason to give them another chance to hate on him.

   Haggar’s smirk grows, and she raises her hands. The energy bundles in her palms, facing Lance, and Lance flinches away. His ears pop, and a cold comes over him like someone dumped water on him. That’s happened before, when Lance was asleep after a nightmare. He had a note from his sister on him, one that he kept with him always. It got ruined by the water Shiro nearly drowned him in. Seriously, Lance inhaled a bunch of it, waking up so suddenly on his back. It feels like that now.

   Suddenly, the witch is gone. The room is empty except for Lance, his ears ringing and aching. Wait- no, there’s the witch’s voice.

   “It is done, Paladin. Enjoy your pain, for you bring it upon yourself.”

   Lance stands there, gaping like a fish, before Pidge screams in his ear.

   “Lance! For fucks sakes, listen to me! Get out of there! The witch just arrived on that ship!”

   Lance shakes his head hard, hoping to get rid of the ringing that seems to be hiding in the back of his head now. Just a faint sound, but he knows it’s gonna drive him crazy until it goes away. He smacks at the back of his helmet, scowling when it doesn’t even touch the ringing. “Got it. I’m coming out now.”

   “Took you long enough.”

   The comment sounds like it wasn’t for him. It’s quiet, like Pidge was walking away from the mic. He’s done now, and apparently he’s on his own for getting out of the base. Lance expects the stab of pain to his heart, but when his cheek starts stinging, he winces and frowns. Touching it, he stutters in his steps when his fingers come away bloody.

            ~~~

   Lance leans on the counter below his mirror. Each Paladin has their own attached bathroom, but the showers are in an actual shower room. There is, however, a long bathtub that fits Lance’s long legs perfectly. It was one of the reasons he chose this room. He’s pretty sure Keith has one too, since he’s right beside Lance.

   He can sink down to his nose and still have everything perfectly submerged. Maybe if he gets his ears under the water too then the insistent ringing in his head will go away. Whenever he tries to bring it up to Allura, she brushes him off. God, it’s been two days since it started and he’s going crazy.

   Lance sighs, and lifts a finger to poke at the scabbed up cut on his right cheek. He still doesn’t know how he got it, and now there’s a bruise forming underneath it to match. He knows for a fact that when Keith nailed him with the butt of his sword during training, he definitely didn’t hit his face; instead, Lance had doubled over as the hard metal slammed into his stomach. Keith apologized after, helping him up as Allura laughed from afar. So how...?

   Glancing at his array of makeups and moisterizers and masks, Lance sees about three things he could use to cover up the bruise. Good. Maybe then Pidge won’t tease him about being a baby. He knows that they're tough cookie, but it’s not his fault he bruises easily.

   Pain shrieks from Lance’s left hipbone.

   Gasping, Lance immediately rips his sweatpants off and halfway down his thighs, boxers coming with. There, forming along the line of his hipbone, is a cut. Lance watches in shock as the wound creates itself, opening up and bleeding as it goes. Lance wheezes, reaching a shaky hand to come and touch the blood that drips down his thigh.

   That’s what you get. Such a wimp, a weakling.

   Lance jumps nearly a foot in the air. The voice was so clear, so loud but so quiet like the person was whispering in directly in his ears. Again, living in a huge household made you desensitized to random sneak-whisper attacks from ninja sisters, but when the voice was your own...

   That’s right...tremble for me. It’s all you ever do anyways. Tremble in fear, locked up and useless. You’re so fucking worthless like this.

   Lance makes a strangled noise, a cross between a whine and a gasp, and grips the edge of the silver counter hard. He drops his eyes from the mirror, staring instead at the sleek water tap. True to the voices’ - his - words, his knees shake under him.

   Lance’s body just magically cut himself. From the inside? Or was there a force from the outside? No, there’s nobody here but himself. Magic? He did have a run in with Haggar... but that wouldn’t explain the voice in his head that sounds exactly like him. No, it’s not even in his head - it feels like it’s hovering on his shoulders, pressing down into his ears.

   The voice chuckles, echoing and bouncing off the walls in his head. It rises in volume, turning into a laugh that could belong to a maniac; uncontrolled and unrestricted.

   Lance stumbles backwards, grasping at the sides of his head and yanking at his hair, anything to make it stop. The laughing nearly turns into shrieking, like when you just can’t hold it back and all you wanna do is scream and laugh and it comes out as one serial noise. His pants are still down, and with his restricted movement, his heels hit the side of the walled tub, and Lance crashes down into it.

   He cries out as his back comes in contact with the opposite wall, and instead of getting up, Lance curls into himself, nearly crying, as his own voice laughs and screams inside his head. His lungs are heaving, only allowing him little breaths that leave him dizzy. Fuck, he can’t even move.

   Lance doesn’t know how or when he fell asleep, but he wakes up in the tub the following morning, head pounding and throat hoarse like he’d been screaming.

            ~~~

   It’s early as fuck according to the Castle and it’s minutely changing lights. Lance stayed up all night talking with Blue, and he knows he shouldn’t have but Allura is always harping on him about bonding with his Lion, so... they bonded all night and into the morning. His little voice stayed quiet the entire time, so that’s a plus; it only seems to pipe up when Lance is alone. Solution: don’t be alone.

   Sadly, it’s easier said than done. Shiro is quickly weirded out by Lance’s personality which stings. Allura has no reason to chat with him even though he’s long since stopped his flirting; he gave up after about two weeks upon meeting her, and hasn’t made a move towards her since, but whenever he moves closer to her she gives him this disgusted look like she would at a piece of shit on her shoe. Coran is cool but usually needed by Allura, so Lance doesn’t bother asking for his time. Pidge soon gets tired of Lance asking questions about their work and what things are and do, and sends him away after about ten minutes. Hunk is normally with them, so double whammy, and he and Keith can’t stay in the same room for more than five minutes without fighting.

   The only option is Blue. Blue accepts him for his flaws and insecurities and even shares some of her own. Obviously, she struggles to communicate through words so she sends images and feelings as Lance plays a guessing game to decipher them. Soon, he recognizes the certain images she sends as key words, like Green’s metal as yes or a fire as his heart. Sitting on her shoulder all night, Lance and Blue were closer than ever.

   Now, when the team works on maneuvers inside their Lions, it’s beyond easy to let Blue know what Lance wants, and it’s beyond easy for her to let Lance know how to do it. It’s instinct or relfex, whichever kicks in first. Sometimes, she even flies herself while Lance focuses on weaponry.

   While Hunk and Pidge struggle with the quick darting between stone pillars, Lance zips through them just as fast as Keith. When he finishes, he whoops out loud and congratulates Blue, patting his dash with a grin. “Nice flying, girl.”

   “Oh, shut up Lance. We know you’re just complimenting yourself.”

   When Lance tries to reply to Pidge’s biting comment, he’s met with a crash of dull pain on the side of his left knee, like someone just tried to kick in his kneecap from the outside. Lance slaps a hand over his mouth, stifling the groan that threatens to come boiling through. What the fuck?!

   Blue roars around him, cockpit trembling with the force of her cry, and Lance can hear the other Paladins questioning and commenting. Apparently, the power of her voice had caused the crumbling pillars to collapse.

   Stupid Lance, always boasting. We know you’re just compensating for nothing.

   Lance’s entire body jerks forwards as Blue lands on the uneven ground. Lance groans out loud this time, and the ringing in his head grows. He rips his helmet off and throws it somewhere, not giving a shit. He just wants the voice to go away. Doesn’t it only come when he’s alone?!

   You’re wrong, Lance. Always wrong, never right.

   Lance pulls his knees up, growling into his kneecaps. The left one throbs and for some reason Lance knows that if he looks at it he’s gonna find a nasty bruise. He knows. He was right the last time, and he’s gonna be right this time.

   Lance takes a deep breath, and uncurls his legs. He collapses back in the pilots chair, staring at the roof of the cockpit. Blue growls, swinging her head back and forth which makes Lance slide around in his seat. His head rolls back and forth, and the voice isn’t piping down anytime soon. It’s giggling now. Lance massages his knee, ignoring Blue and ignoring his voice and gets up to find his helmet.

   Three feet away from it and he can hear the angry voices of his teammates.

   “Control your Lion, Lance!”

   “Well, what do we do now?”

   “Congratulations Lance, you just messed up the entire training sequence.”

   Lance notices absently that Keith doesn’t say anything, but he might have before Lance got here; the ringing was too loud. He also notices that Blue hasn’t moved since she shook like a dog. Lance puts his helmet back on, hearing the tail end conversation of the team going back to the Castle. He sighs, and collapses back in his chair. If they’re angry, they definitely don’t want to see him. He wouldn’t either, if one of them had just fucked up so badly they couldn’t even train. Lance takes his helmet off again and sets it (read: chucked aimlessly) to the side.

   Lance knee throbs again, and he doesn’t hold back his groan. Blue whines.

   “It’s okay, girl. It’s okay...” Lance lets his eyes close as he tilts his head back. The ringing is so loud.

   Such a disappointment.

   Lance grits his teeth. Blue growls, spurring into action. She jumps around, shaking her head and sending Lance flying through the cockpit. He smashes into the wall to the left of his seat, crying out in pain. Still, Blue flings her head back and forth. Lance only tries to absorb most of the blows.

   When she stops, finally, he’s battered and bruised but the voice is gone. Lance lays on his stomach, panting and aching, when his head is flooded with images of a hospital room, a white blanket on a clothesline, and the glowy blue of the Castle. Lance huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, I’ll get in a pod. Thanks for worrying, but I could’ve done without the blender treatment.”

   Blue growls, and Lance gets images of Galra pink, a black sweater, and then an image of himself. But it’s not himself. He’s got glowing pink eyes and a twisted smile on his face. Lance shivers. “The voice...it’s because of Haggar?”

   The scraped metal of the Green Lion shows Blue’s confirmation.

   “Shit...” Lance drops his head back down, cheek pressing into the cold floor. “But why the pain? Why do I get hurt when I don’t do anything?! I don’t understand!” Lance’s voice rises into a wail, and he curls into himself.

   Blue floods his head with Pidge’s angry face which makes Lance flinch, Shiro’s disappointed glance, and Allura’s snarl. Lance can’t even shy away from them. Then, a burning fire, and a computer like the one he shared with his siblings a home. And then the cut along his hipbone.

   “What? Blue, I don’t-“ Blue replays the images, accompanied by a feeling so strong that Lance could only describe it as pure angst. Lance grasps at his chest, nearly choking with it through their bond, and relfects over the images.

   “Okay, well I guess I feel like shit when I get looked at like that by them... and a fire means my heart. It hurts my heart when they hurt me?” A rumble from Blue passes for approval. “But what’s the computer? My family?”

   The Red Lion passes through Lance’s head. No.

   “Uh, okay. Um... Oh! My brain?” Blue nods, letting Lance roll back and forth. “Okay, okay. And my cut? Yeah. It opened by itself. Literally, I watched it make itself and the bruise and cut on my face and-“

   Lance is cut off by a more insistently image of the sweater. He groans, and covers his face with his gloved hands. “I know Haggar has something do do with this! I just don’t know how.”

   Blue shudders, her version of a sigh, and pushes an image of the fire and a simple picture of Lance’s skin into his head. Lance doesn’t speak, but something clicks.

   “My hearts pain...is becoming physical?”

   Green Lion. Gotcha.

   “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.” The team grates on Lance constantly and even though he’s a pro at hiding his feelings, if his emotional pain becomes his physical pain...

   Blue whines, ending in a questioning tilt. Lance brushes it off with a sigh, and pulls himself back up so he can sit back in the politschair. He pats the armrest comfortingly.

   “It’s all good Blue. I’m just gonna be in desperate need of healing pods for the next few days until we figure this out.”

   Alone. All alone because nobody wants to help you, poor Lance. Useless Lance. Nobody cares, Lance.

   Lance just directs Blue back towards the castle, already feeling the starting of his heart aching. This is gonna be a long ride.

            ~~~

   Lance gasps and slides down the wall of his bedroom, bloodied palm leaving a dark streak as he tries to stay on his feet. Lance whines, eyes burning and throat constructing as he twists what was a white towel tighter around his left thigh, covering the deep slash there.

   Coran had yelled at him. Lance had forgotten to clean an important part on one of the healing pods and when Coran has checked them and found the oil like substance covering the wires, he had hunted Lance down and tore him a new one in front of Shiro and Keith and Hunk. Lance had been playing with the mice while Allura was doing something that required all of her attention, keeping them busy and teaching them tricks. When Coran had slammed his palms on the table in front of Lance, Lance had almost flinched but still looked up with a smile. It dropped quick when the murderous face on the Altean made his heart race. 

   Lance whimpers, his head throbbing and fingers shaking as blood quickly soaks through his makeshift bandage.

   Coran started with a scary low voice that dropped with barely restrained anger, beginning his sentence with asking Lance how he think he cleaned the pods. Lance had answered that he did good, fingers frozen midair as the mice dangled off them, and Coran snapped, yelling and blaming Lance where he sat for potentially ruining his teammates life and killing them and how could you have been so ignorant?!

   Lance didn’t speak after Coran finished; the entire dining room had been shocked into silence, Lance’s teammates switching gazes between Lance and Coran quickly. 

   Lance winced as he pushes himself to his feet, unsteady, and brushes the mice off as he walks towards the door. Behind him, Coran is slowing his breathing and slowly coming to his senses and just as Lance turns the corner to leave he catches the wide eyed stare of Coran and the mauve gaze of Keith, but it quickly drops as soon as Lance finds it. 

   Lance didn’t see the way Coran reached for his retreating figure. Lance didn’t see the broken look on Coran’s face as the Altean clued into the gravity of his actions. Lance didn’t hear Coran’s explanation as to why he was so passionate about the pods. Lance didn’t hear in all his time around the Altean advisor that he had lost his own son to a malfunction due to inadequate cleaning. Lance didn’t see the terror on Coran’s face when he believed and feared the same thing happening again. Lance didn’t know.

   Lance hadn’t wasted any time: he hobbled to the nearest storeroom which is luckily by his room, focused on breathing and making sure the blood from the gash in his upper thigh didn’t drip on the floor. He hadnt looked at what he grabbed when he made it to the oversized linen closet; it was a lucky snatch when the item he found was a white towel. Already feeling dizzy as blood soaked down his entire pant leg, Lance tied the towel around his leg with a guttural groan and hobbled back to his room, collapsing only when the door slid shut and Locked behind him. 

   Lance pants hot breaths into the dark of his room as his head and vision swim, and he can hear that voice chuckling in his ears. It hasn’t said anything yet, not yet, but it’s just...there.

   With trembling hands, Lance yanks his jacket off and tosses it to the side. He needs to bandage the wound, but first he needs to slow the bleeding and pressure isn’t helping.

   Lance’s mind flashes to the roll of surgical thread and a curved needle on his counter. He had stole it from the medbay in case of emergency, and fuck if this isn’t one; Lance is going to bleed out long before he closes this wound with a strip of tape. Even if he does manage to suture it, will it even work? He's not a doctor...

   Lance groans as he drags himself to his feet, not bothering to hide his pain or damage to his room as blood smears over his wall. Lance slumps against the same bloodstain, pulling himself along the wall and into the bathroom. God, he's gonna have to try because he might actually die this time.

   Good. Good. Die, Lance. Nobody needs you here, you fucking waste of space.

   With his vision floating somewhere between black and fuzzy, Lance luckily smacks his supplies and a bunch of others off the countertop before he collapses next to them, crying out as the movement twists his leg. His elbow smacks against the side of his tub, echoing, and his bloody palm scrapes over the needle pack. 

   Lance gasps as he pulls himself to a seated position, bracing his back against the cupboards of his sink as he collects his supplies again. The towel isn’t doing anything now and Lance needs to hurry.

   Gritting his teeth, Lance snatches the thick scissors off of his floor so he can cut his pant leg off; there’s no way he’s getting the jeans off and cleaned again. It’s not like the Castle can’t make another, and they aren’t the ones he came to space in. Lance clumsily moves his fingers as he tosses strips upon strips of soaked denim away in the direction of his previously discarded towel.

   Lance spends too long threading his needle and he spends too long trying to wipe his fingers off on the floor so it doesn’t slip. When he finally gets the course thread through he lowers it to his leg, where blood still weeps from. Spots dance across his red skin and Lance blinks hard.

   The tip of the needle nears his skin. He grabs a nearby shirt and shoves it between his teeth and cries into it as the needle pierced his skin, centimetres from the wound.

   Lance works as fast as he can manage, gagging as he tugs the string taut and whimpering as his skin pulls. His fingers slip constantly and the shirt is wet with his saliva and tears. The ringing seems to have increased tenfold. It’s always there but it's so loud right now...

   Lance trembles as he twists and closes the knot on the end of his slash. His stitches are messy and uneven and ugly but they’re holding and stay that way as Lance grabs antiseptic.

   He doesn’t hold back his scream as he wipes his leg off, sobs wracking his body as he wraps it quickly, probably too tight, but with the way he lost blood, Lance doesn't worry too much. If Shiro can survive with a prosthetic arm Lance can survive without a real leg. Lance clutches his bloody hands to his chest, and sitting against the cupboard, he falls asleep in a pool of his own blood.

            ~~~

   Lance got better at hiding the pain. He’s always been good at hiding the pain in his heart, but after the curse, he got real good at hiding the ones on his body as well. Bruises were disguised with makeup or accidental bumps because Lance was just so clumsy Allura couldn’t believe it! How he ever became a Paladin must be a mystery. Lance had felt something wet on the inside of his shoe when she said that, later finding out there was an inch long slit on the inside of his right foot.

   Speaking of cuts, they were covered by slips of a razor when he shaved his legs, glued with something Lance stole from the medbay, or hidden under clothing and wrapped bandages until they closed. Sadly, the cut on Lance’s cheek seems to have scarred, hurting esteem even more. He knows some chicks dig scars but the reason behind this one...

   Lance didn’t have much to do. He finished training, cleaning and eating, so now he resorts to wandering around the Castle And finding things undiscovered. Last time, he found a small room containing buckets of gems. When he asked Coran about it, he found that none of them had any curses or charms on them so Lance may or may not have gone back and grabbed a beautiful oval stone, about the size of his thumb. It’s a gleaming black but it glitters a blueish purple in the light. He always has it in his pocket, and when bored or anxious, rubs it with his thumb. It’s grounding.

   Lance hums to himself as he walks down the hallway. Allura gave up on enforcing curfew when Lance broke it so many times, getting caught up in helping the mice or a Lion. He still hasn’t told Pidge about the time he helped Green get untangled from the wires dangling from the ceiling; the oversized cat had gotten her front paws stuck when playing, according to the images Blue translated for him, so Lance spent a good chunk of his sleeping time helping the Lion. Worth the lecture about only being useful to the universe with sleep from Shiro and the baseball sized bruise he found spread over his calf the next hour.

   Tossing the stone in his hand, Lance takes a left when he comes to a T, tracing the glowing walls with his eyes. There’s no doors down this way, but Lance presses on. If he gets lost, there’s always Blue to help him.

   “Lance?”

   Lance stiffens at his name, but relaxes just as quickly when he turns around to see Allura. Her hair is down, and she has a robe wrapped around her body. Lance can see her bare feet, and he’s pretty sure the mice are darting through her white hair and across her shoulders.

   Lance tries for a smile. When he shifts, he can feel the bandaged wound on his stomach that opened only yesterday. He needs to change them soon, and add to the growing pile of bandages in his bathroom because he can never find a good time to sneak them to the incinerator. “Heya, Princess. You should be in bed.”

   Allura narrows her eyes at Lance. She crosses her arms and taps her toe. “As should you. Go to bed, Lance.”

   “I can try.” Along with the physical-slash-heart pain curse thing, Lance has had the worst round of night terrors and nightmares the past few nights. Every single time, it features not-him and not-his glowing pink eyes. That maniac smile is drenched in blood as he laughs, the blood of Lance’s teammates staining every tooth and dripping from his gums. Every single time, Lance watches himself kill Hunk, kill Pidge. He watches them beg for mercy. He watches himself torture Shiro, taunt Allura, strangle Coran. He watches them scream and writhe under his hands. He even kills the mice. For the most part, the ways he kills them changes and rotates so every night is something different. 

   But Keith. Oh, Lance watches himself break Keith, and it hurts the most; when he wakes up, all he can see is the light fading out of nearly purple eyes. Every single time and every single night. The ways he might ruin Keith vary, but the end result is always the same: Keith screaming, Keith crying, Keith begging, Keith breaking.

   You don’t enjoy your dreams Lance? Too bad. It’s gonna happen. You're gonna do it. You can't stop it... hehe...

   Lance shudders, and drops his gaze from Allura’s. He turns away, but not before offering a small smile that burns with unshed tears. “Sorry for disturbing you. Goodnight, Princess.”

   “Wait- Lance?”

   Lance stops and angles his head to the left side but doesn’t turn. His foot throbs and a stinging tear rubs down his cheek, crossing over the new scar.

   “Don’t hinder in training tomorrow. Voltron needs to work as a team, and that can’t be achieved if a Paladin slacks off. Actually try.”

   Lance pulls one corner of his mouth up. It’s a tight smile, but in the hallway you can’t tell. “Of course, Princess. See you.” Lance continues his path slowly, but when he hears the door behind him close, he collapses where he stands, nearly biting his fingers off as he shoves them in his mouth to keep from screaming. His stomach feels like someone doused little strips in gasoline and set them on fire. Never has there been more than one wound at a time before and never have they crossed over themselves!

   Lance allows more tears to fall, hand pressed to the rapidly growing blood spot on his shirt. He’s gonna have to scrap it; there’s no way to get the blood out by sneaking past his teammates. Like they would even care anyways. They blatantly don’t care about Lance.

   That’s right.

   He’s just a body to fill a Lion. Allura could pilot easily if he was gone; Blue is adaptable.

   It would be so easy find a new Paladin; ask anybody. You’re replaceable.

   You’re trash.

   I’m only a body.

   I’m just a body.    

            ~~~

   Lance sinks down in the tub. It’s hot, and he knows that he shouldn’t have gotten in so early but the warmth feels so fucking good against his bruises and sore bones. His stomach burns though, but Lance ignores it in favour of the water. It should help clean it too, since Lance is running out of antiseptic.

   The lights under the tub make it glow blue around the outline of his body, and there’s little floating plastic balls on top, about the size of a bath bomb and cloudy in the centre. Lance taps one from under the water with his fingers and it bobs in place.

   Lance shifts, careful not to let the water overflow, and turns off the tap. Instantly, his bathroom is filled with the serenity of trickling water and his own breaths. Vaguely, he can hear Keith moving in the room next to his. Lance sits back, dropping his shoulders under the water. He stretches his legs out, and sighs when the twinge of pain from multiple little bruises ache.

   The tap stops dripping, Leaving Lance with only ringing. He can’t help the little smile, though, when he hears Keith close by.

   He’s always found Keith endearing. He could be screaming at him, mopping the floor with Lance’s sore body during training, or even just sitting curled up in the lounge and reading an Altean book (he’s insistent on learning Altean), Lance would find him so fucking cute that he needed a breather before continuing.

   It was only a matter of time before the admiration spiraled into a hard crush.

   Lance has never believed Keith likes him. While Lance knows Keith’s mannerisms and his expressions like the back of his hand, he’s never seen any that could mean Keith wants what Lance does. And what Lance wants, he doesn’t think Keith could give him without it being forced. You never really know, Lance muses to himself as he stretches out his toes, but he has a pretty good idea.

   Lance rolls his head back, letting it drop on the back of the tub a little too hard, but the slight ache is nothing compared to his last two weeks. Not even! It’s only been a week and just over a half and Lance is used to feeling pain constantly. He hardly remembers a time when there wasn’t any pain. How did Shiro not go crazy?

   Because Shiro is strong. Unlike a little someone. 

   Lance clenches his jaw. “Shut up,” he grinds out, “And let me enjoy my goddamn bath.”

   Lance doesn’t wait for a reply; he reaches for his ocean scented soap bar when suddenly, he has an idea.

   Dropping the soap back on the little platter, Lance quickly rinses his hand and looks around, paranoid, even though he’s the only one in the locked bathroom. Lance grips the edges of the tub, and leans backwards. Water creeps up his back, his spine, before soaking the back of his head and hair. His hands tremble, and Lance feels the strain on his muscles. Finally, when he covers his ears with the surface of the water, Lance closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He lets go.

   Submerged, Lance completely melts into the bottom of the tub. His eyes aren’t squeezed tightly, only closed, and he can feel bubbles leave his mouth when his lips part. It’s beautiful. It’s silent.

   Lance can’t hear the ringing. The constant, shrill bell in the back of his head is gone. He nearly laughs, but holds his air in. Living near the ocean all his life, Lance got used to holding his breath. On a good day, he can hold it for a minute. On a great day, nearly two. When his lungs start burning, Lance releases the breath through his mouth and rushes back up.

   Water drips down his face, off his chin and nose and in his eyes when he opens them and the ringing’s back but fuck if the temporary silence wasn’t glorious. Lance pants slightly, chest a little sore, but he gasps in hard and ducks under the water once again. This time, he keeps his eyes open.

   The water burns for a second and everything is blurry, but Lance can make out the balls floating on the water and the circular light above his head. There’s only two in the bathroom; the one above the tub and the one bordering the mirror. Lance opens his mouth again, a couple bubbles escaping, and stays under for a little longer. He wrenches up and a shudder goes through him when air rushes into his lungs.

   Suddenly, a growl echoes in the back of his head. It’s his own growl, a low scary sound Lance hasn’t heard for years, not since his little fifth grade brother got beat up by some seventh graders and Lance, who was in grade twelve at the time, took it up with them afterschool one day. It was safe to say that they never looked in Benji’s direction again.

   Little shit. Found a way to block us out? How clever. Sadly, you can’t do that forever. We’re always going to be here when you come back up. Unless, of course, you drown. Maybe that's your solution, Lance. Drown, whore.

   Lance feels his lips pull back in a snarl, and he slams the outside of his fist into the wall of the tub. It doesn’t move, just creates a loud bang. Lance watches the surface of the water ripple. “Shut. Up.”

   You can’t get rid of us, Lance. Let us in. Don’t fight us and just accept it.

   Don’t fight us? Lance frowns deeply before inhaling deeply and going back under. He closes his eyes and mouth intently, focused on staying under for as long as he can. Maybe he will drown. Maybe then he won’t be able to hear the voice all day. Maybe then the pain will stop.

   Lance has considered suicide before. The news of his bisexuality in school turned countless people he thought were his friends against him in an instant. Lance had come to school one day and found the words FAG and SLUT and WHORE written all over his locker. He found his gym clothes in the urinals and his shoes in the toilet bowl mixed with bleach, damp and reeking with urine. He had bruises on his shoulders from being shoved into lockers, on his shins and toes from people ‘accidentally’ kicking him. More often than not, Lance would come home roughed up or with a black eye or split lip. Any class was torture, and Lance would sit in the dark of his small room afterschool, holding a small straight razor that he stole from his father with trembling hands.

   When he entered in the Garrison, he didn’t tell anyone. Nobody on the team knows, not even Hunk although Lance knows he suspects. Lance forced himself to become an over-the-top flirt with only the girls because it was easier than dealing with who he really was.

   Lance squirms. He fills his cheeks with air from his lungs, and sucks it back. He slowly releases a couple bubbles at a time. The uncomfort in his chest grows into pain, and Lance can’t help but gasp in the water. He barely pulls himself up, coughing and sputtering. The voice is laughing.

   Stupid Lance. You can’t run from us and you can’t run from your problems. Let us take over, and we can fix everything. You just break things, you fucking slut.

   Lance’s blood runs cold, and a wave of emotion crushes him. He can feel his eyes sting, and buries his head in his wet knees. He doesn’t bother washing anything, and blindly uses pruny fingers to pull the plug. Lance doesn’t move until the water is completely gone, listening to his own laughter on a loop in his head. When he does finally look up, it’s to the blank metal wall his bathtub is attached to. 

   It’s perfect to write on.

            ~~~

   So what is it today, Lance? More denial? Rejection? Ooh, maybe Pidge will insult you. You’re such a sucker for pain. That's why there's little white lines on your thighs just like all your little white lies to everyone you think cares.

   Lance slides along the floor, between the legs of the training dummy, and lands a harsh punch to its spine. Like a human, it falls flat on the floor and Lance presses a foot into the middle of its back, grabbing its wrists and pulling them towards him. Lance hears the shoulders crackle; in a human, Lance just dislocated both shoulders and rendered their arms useless.

   Instantly, the floor around the dummy sinks and Lance jumps off as it is lowered into the floor. Lance turns, hands up and wrapped in white tape, ready for the next bot. His blood seems to hum; he’s completely prepared. 

   Maybe you’ll fuck up a mission. That would suck. You could make someone die. How would you live with the guilt? Answer...you couldn’t. Drown, drown, drownnn...

   It falls from the ceiling to Lance’s left and runs at Lance with a long sword; Lance immediately lowers one fist for a more defensive stance. He slides one leg a little farther back, and prepares for whatever the bot has to offer.

   Oh, how you will hurt today. Don’t strain too much, Lance; we left a nasty slash on your shoulder you know, and those little stitches you put in probably won’t hold. Oh well. You deserve it. Shiro definitely seemed to think so. He's better than you will ever dream of being and you know it.

   Lance steps to the side neatly as the dummy slashes vertically, and keep an eye on its other hand. He knows that with the level he’s on, the bots have the ability to switch sword hands without a fault. It wouldn’t be a problem if Lance had a sword, but right now, he’s weaponless, sweaty in his loose tank top, and itching for a fight. Vance is only egging him on.

   Ooh, we love our name. Voice and Lance? So original. So simple. So deadly.

   Lance steps backwards as the bot swings the sword at him again, and Lance takes the time the bot has on it so followthrough to get right in its space, grab its swordhand, and smash it down into his knee which drives up. The robot doesn’t make a sound, but it does stagger away and drop its sword. Lance kicks it away by the hilt, and returns to his original stance as the bot comes at him barehanded, single eye glowing brightly.

   They meet in the middle, hands clasped around opposing forearms, and Lance grimaces as its cold thumb digs right into a purple bruise. Lance can feel the stitches in his shoulder pull, and he growls deeply before wrenching the dummy to the left and using the bottom of his foot to kick in the outside of its knee and then basically crushing its hipbone beneath his foot. If it was a real person, there’s no way they’d be running anywhere anytime soon or ever, depending on how bad Lance destroyed it.

   Dirty move, Lance. Even Keith told you to leave that alone. But he doesn’t care what you do anyways. He just wants to impress Shiro. You'll never have him because he doesn't want you. Who would want you?

   Lance drives his elbow into the skull of the bot, and it collapses into the floor facefirst before sinking down like the last one. Lance pants in his spot, and wipes the back of his hand at his forehead. “End training sequence.”

   “Endurance Training Sequence ended. Trainee: Lance McClain. Level: Twenty seven. Breaks: One. Fatality Factor: Ninety-eight percent.” The mechanical voice of the Castle training deck calls out Lance’s stats plainly.

   Scratching at his hands, Lance blows a breath out that tickles the hair sticking to his face. Twenty seven. Twenty seven bots consistently destroyed with only one break. Out of the twenty seven dummy’s, Lance theoretically killed ninety eight percent of them sometime in battle. He sits down on the bench, and pokes a straw in the water pouch. The training deck is mostly dark except for the glow coming off the walls; Lance keeps it that way when he does night training so that nobody interrupts him.

   Ladies and gentlemen, we have a killer on our hands. Hehe... literally.

   Lance clenches and relaxes his fist absently, the tape pulling at his skin. He took advice from Keith and wrapped his knuckles and fingers because last time he tried to fight a bot in hand-to-hand he completely destroyed them. Plus, the last time he did the drill, he only reached level nine and had a fatality factor of about thirty two percent. He doesn’t even think about the breaks. Now look where he is.

   The record on the ship is twenty nine with one break and a ninety nine percent FF, and Lance is pretty sure it’s Allura or Coran. Alteans dont fuck around, but now neither does Lance. He normally deletes his recent history so that the other team can’t see who was practising last, but he’ll do it later.

   Lance smirks to himself, and uses the bottom of his dark grey tank top to wipe his face, momentarily revealing the jagged X of a white scar across his stomach. The top of the first line reaches the middle of his ribcage on the left and down to his right hip, and at the bottom of his right rib and down to below his bellybutton. His joggers feel restricting now, but he doesn’t hit the showers just yet; there’s one more drill he wants to do.

   Lance stands up, and checks his shoulder; there’s a litttle bit of blood seeping through the large white bandage, but it doesn’t worry Lance. You should see the rest of his body. Along with creating wounds, his body heals them faster than an average persons would. Only, his leave definitive scars. There’s one on his cheek, another on his hip, a slightly discoloured splotch on his knee, a multitude of white lines over his stomach along with the X; Lance looks like he went though a blender. He doesn’t wear tank tops around the team anymore and he never showers with others. He always wears his jacket, and after a mission, never unzips his flight suit until he’s alone.

   Shaking out his hands, Lance shifts his weight from foot to foot as he gathers himself and sits cross legged on the floor, but not before he slips a headset on, the same one that grants mind melds during team bonding. At least they’re over that part of exercises.

   “Begin Vance’s training sequence. Level one.”

   Lance’s world is doused in darkness. It’s like he closed his eyes, but when he looks down he can still see his body, cross legged. Lance stands up, breathing in shakily, and sets himself up in a defensive stance; one hand protecting his face, one down lower by his ribcage, and shifting his weight on his toes. He never knows what to expect during this sequence.

   A crazy, uneven laugh echoed through the darkness. Lance grimaces, and watches as Vance materializes out of the shadows surrounding him.

   He looks the same as Lance, from the scars to the hair to the build of his body, but there’s also the major differences. First, Lance is only wearing the loose tank for night training with his jacket wrapped around his waist. He doesn’t wear tank tops out and about, not now. All of the scars and bruise splotches make harsh designs all over his skin. Second, Lance has never seen himself smile like that in his life; his mouth is stretched so wide it looks painful and from behind it comes that laugh. Thirdly, Lance’s eyes are blue. Not Galra pink.

   Vance shifts his weight onto one leg, cocking his hip and smirking at Lance. Lance damn near growls. He hates this sequence but it’s the only way to get answers.

   Breathing shakily, Lance stands and brushes himself off before facing Vance fully. It’s unsettling, seeing a perfect reflection of yourself and not having it move in time with your actions.

   “Heya, Lance.”

   “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

   “Oh, Lance. There’s just so much In you’re pretty little head that I can’t leave alone.” Vance twines his fingers behind his back and walks circles around Lance. “Secrets, poisoned thoughts...me.” Vance chuckles, the sound echoing through the darkness. "I'm in your head and you can't get rid of me. no matter how long you hold your breath."

   Lance doesn’t take his eyes off his double. “Why do you look like me?”

   Vance laughs again. “Oh Lance, I can look like anybody. I just like this form cuz then I’m so much closer to you.” Vance trails his hands down his body almost seductively, but then traces them back up to caress his own head. “I especially like everything in here. So alone. So dark. So vulnerable."

   “Are you magic?”

   “Yep.” Vance pops the p, and a smile stretches his face. Lance grimaces. “A pretty little witch made me. I think she brought out the best in my eyes.”

   Vance claws at his face, fingernails leaving red streaks down his cheeks. Lance gags; he’s watching himself self-mutilate.

   “W-what do you mean by ‘let us in’?”

   Vance throws his head back and cackles. Lance can see the blood from his cheeks drop down his jawline. His pink eyes seem to glow brighter, and Lance whimpers. “It’s just that. Let us in. We want control, to not just be a voice in your head or in this simulation.” Vance spreads his arms, and Lance flinches back. He’s been hurt so many times in this simulation that he can’t help it. It’s like an abuse victim reacting to someone shouting; ingrained fear that can’t be changed.

   “We want to own your body. We want release and freedom and everything in between. Haggar kept us cooped up in her little arsenal of tricks for so long...” Vance’s voice turns wistful, and Lance grimaces as pink eyes focus on him. “We’re taking this chance we were offered. You’re just useless collateral damage.”

   It’s then when Vance strikes. Lance’s defences are just down a little, just a small chink, and Vance runs at him with a sweeping kick.

   Lance gasps, and just barely jumps over his doppelgängers leg. Lance blocks against fists, elbows, and knees in a flurry of damage, finding that the tricks that he uses on the defence are useless; Vance gets past alll of them because he knows them. He’s in Lance’s head. He can see everything Lance wants to do and is going to do. If Lance wants to try and punch lower? Tough shit, Vance just raised his knee. Lance wants to try and kick out his knee? Well Vance just sidestepped him and now he’s out of reach. But now he’s coming back with his hands outstretched, and Lance ends up in a position very similar to that of the training bot.

   Lance grapples with him in place for a couple seconds, Vance’s scentless breath smacking him in the face. With a scream of frustration, Lance tries to shove away Vance so he can get some sort of control. It doesn’t work, and Lance groans as a stab of pain in his shoulder makes his arm buckle, and suddenly Vance is throwing him over his shoulder and fuck-

   Lance hits the floor hard. His breath is knocked out of him and he gasps and claws at nothing because that’s all that’s in this dreamscape: fucking nothing. Lance claws up at his head, concentrating hard with what little oxygen he has, and pushes up, knowing it will push the headset off.

   “Cow-“ard.

   Light that’s so different from pure nothingness surrounds Lance. He can’t hear anything but the ringing and the sound of his own breaths. His shoulder stings and aches badly, and the surface of his stomach feels tight and there’s going to be bruises everywhere and god is he crying?

   Lance sniffles, and throws an arm over his face. He hasn’t moved from the floor, still having trouble breathing. Now, hot tears run down his temples. Lance feels his breath hitch rapidly, and a pathetic mewl escapes his throat. “Fuck...stop it...”

   He curls into himself, feeling the gross tape on his hands slowly turn damp as he brushes tears away. It stings, the tape against his face, and Lance realizes that he hasn’t done his skincare routine for days. He just hasn’t had the motivation, not with Vance chirping in his ears with every step.

   Lance doesn’t move until he can breath properly, and leaves the training deck without touching any of the equipment again. He slowly walks back to his room with puffy eyes and a sinking feeling. He knows what it is, and all he wants to do is sit under the water of his bath until he can’t feel anymore. He just wants the ringing to go away and Vance and everything needs to go away!

   Lance snarls, and before he clues in to his own anger, he’s slammed his fist into the wall in the hallway by the dining hall. Full pain rocks up his arm, like a shin splint in his forearm, and Lance grinds his teeth. However, Lance does clue in that the wall shouldn’t have crumpled like that. Lance freezes, and pulls his hand away.

   The wall is curved now, bent slightly around the imprint of his knuckles. Altean metal, strong for ten thousand years and infused with magic, was just damaged by a punch. Lance makes a high pitched sound of confusion in the back of his throat, and hightailed it back to his room. His head is full with ringing and his laughter, and Lance wishes for definitely not the first time that he had the ability to end it all.

            ~~~

   Lance swings his feet lazily from where he sits on a stool in the kitchen. Hunk moves around the kitchen, baking something from the array of ingredients Coran found him. The Altean advisor is such a kind guy; never once has he ridiculed Lance for anything, and yet Lance still has nightmares about killing him. 

   Lance stares into the oven-like thing behind Hunk, who is extremely focused on measuring some yellow liquid into separate holes of a tray, like a muffin tin. Only, this muffin tin has about forty different spots for food. 

   Hunk has his concentrated face on. Lance saw it the most in the Garrison when Hunk would study for exams or when he was tinkering with an especially delicate or complicated piece of metal. Lance allows his gaze to wander freely, noticing small things in the kitchen and on him. For example, there’s a smudge of black marker on his index finger, and there’s a pile of napkins on a shelf that look like the perfect material for making paper airplanes. 

   Inside the oven is a quickly rising ball of something that makes Lance uneasy. He glances at Hunk, who doesn’t pay him any mind, and then back to the oven. It’s a little bigger than a standard one on Earth, but the clearly red loafy thing is flowing over the sides of the bowl it was supposed to be contained in. Lance pulls a nervous face, and raises his hand like he’s asking a question in school. Hunk is concentrated. Don’t interrupt him. 

   Hunk doesn’t even look his way. Lance shifts in his seat, and looks back at the oven before back at Hunk. As Hunk carefully drops in a couple drops of the yellow stuff, Lance whispers tensely, “Hunk!”

   “Hold on.”

   “Hunk!”

   “Just- just wait.”

   “Hunk, buddy, your ov-“

   Hunk slams the measuring spoon in his hand onto the counter. Lance nearly falls off the stool and his heart jackhammers. He can't stand sudden and loud sounds; the memories from his childhood and Vance's simulators are wrecking him.  “Goddamnit, Lance! Can’t you just shut up for one second?! What's your problem this time?” 

   Lance doesn’t answer; he’s too busy staring at the measuring spoon clenched tightly in Hunk’s large hand. It looks like it hurts; Lance knows that the burning stinging sensation of a new cut opening on the inside of his left elbow sure does. Lance turns his arm in so that if he does bleed through his jacket, Hunk can’t see.

   A fleeting thought passes Lance’s mind as Hunk makes a scoffing noise and smacks his other palm on the counter. His eyes are bright and angry and a stab of fear runs with Lance’s thought.

   Would Hunk hit him?

   Lance opens his mouth, and closes it again. He can feel his hand trembling where it floats next to his head, and pulls it down to his lap so Hunk can’t see. His best friend is still staring at him expectantly and leans forwards as if to instigate an answer, but when Lance physically shrivels into himself at Hunk’s advance, the Yellow Paladin instantly recoils.

   “Oh my- shit, Lance- I didn’t-“

   Lance just smiles wobbly at Hunk, eyes watering as his heart aches as much as his arm. He slips off the stool, tucking it behind his back discreetly. “No worries, buddy. Just make sure you keep an eye on your oven, alright?”

   Hunk tossed a glance at the said item. His eyes instantly widen and he scrambles for oven mitts; when he opens the door, the red bready foodstuff billows out and Hunk complains through a groan.

   He doesn’t notice Lance slipping out of the kitchen, cradling a bloody arm.

            ~~~

   Lance doesn’t know what he did or what he didn’t do, but the mice are avoiding him now. Like every morning, Lance snuck a couple orange berries under the table from his plate for them because hey, they like them. Normally, they wait on lance’s thigh or by his foot, so he just drops them down, but this morning the berries hit the floor quietly. Lance stiffens.

   With the rest of the team distracted by a story Hunk is telling, Lance sneaks a glance at the floor. No mice. He sighs, and drops back in his chair. He rolls his spoon in his food goo. His hands smell like Sharpie.

   They didn’t come to his room last night. They didn’t visit him after training, and they missed their weekly storytelling time slot. Lance has become pretty fluent in Altean and even Galra (having a Galra entity in your head apparently has one [1] perk) so he reads to the mice in the library. Lance sticks his hand in his pocket and thumbs his worrystone.

   They just hate you, Lance. It’s pretty simple, but of course, you don't understand. Typical. 

   Lance grits his teeth. Normally, Vance is easy to ignore but he’s been grating on Lance’s nerves ever since the simulation, which was a couple days ago. Two days, seventeen hours, fifty seven minutes, and thirty two, three, four seconds to be exact. Or about two quintents, nineteen vargas, and now sixteen tics. Lance can nearly see the clock in his head, driving him just as crazy as the ringing.

   After the mice were a no show, Lance stuck himself in the bathtub again. He spent nearly two hours in there, watching his skin turn wrinkled and gross underwater. He didn’t care. Anything to drown out the ringing.

   Lance let’s his eyes fall to half mast. He stares at the green goo blankly, thumb’s movements becoming more and more vigorous. It gets to the point where he can’t keep his hand in his pocket, so he just sets it on the table next to Keith. He doesn’t stop rubbing it.

   Lance hasn’t slept since he got out of the simulation again, almost two days ago. Vance didn’t fucking shut up when he tried to go to sleep, so he just read some ancient Galra books he found in the library all night. When the Castle’s hallways slowly lightened to show the day cycles, Lance had realized he’d wasted a night. He didn’t even block out Vance; the voice had basically read to him because he relayed the words back to Lance as Lance read them.

   Lance clenches his other hand around his spoon, hardly noticing the creaking of the metal under his fingers. His stone feels warm from the constant friction.

   We love when you talk to us, Lance. Makes us all tingly that you’re paying attention. Maybe we’ll let you have front row seats to our control.

   Lance doesn’t feel his lips pull in a subtle snarl. The spoon handle starts to bend. Hunk keeps talking. Keith glances over at Lance, but Lance doesn’t see.

   Maybe we should kill the mice first. They seem to be reacting to us. There’s a few of them, too. So many ways to squash tiny animals... drown them, crush them, drain them. Ooh, we just got shivers.

   Lance’s eyes drop further. He makes a sound that doesn’t sound entirely human. That Keith notices. He frowns, turning towards Lance. “Lance?”

   Those tiny bones beneath your hands, shattered and bent and mm, so good. They would rip the skin from underneath, maybe bleed out. Wouldn’t you like that?

   Lance doesn’t respond to Keith. His hand tightens further and his stone feels legitimately hot from the constant friction. His thumb speeds up. Keith’s brow furrows more, and he faces Lance completely, waving a gloved hand in front of his face. “Lance? Hey man, your spoon...”

   The other’s seem to notice Keith’s little issue. Lance isn’t responsive when normally any words from Keith would set him off in a rant. Now, he doesn’t even look like he belongs at a table; he has the look of someone who belongs in a hospital.

   Maybe you could eat them. Wouldn’t that be great? Having those little bodies squirm around in your mouth, clawing at your tongue, and then you just bite down with a CRUNCH.

   Snap!

   “Lance!”

   Something touches his hand, and Lance flinches back violently. The corners of his vision are dark. His lungs feel tight. And what...why is his hand bleeding? Did someone insult him? He was paying attention, wasn’t he?

   Lance turns his head towards his teammates. They all have varying degrees of shock and worry on their faces. He’s never had them look at him like that before. It’s probably not even for him. He blinks and lets his gaze fall on his bleeding hand. Oh. The spoon.

   Lance broke the spoon. He shattered it, to be exact, inside his hand. Lance squeezed it so hard that he bent the ends down so they curled into a C, and then the utensil shattered into tiny pieces. Odd, since metal doesn’t usually do that. Lance turns his hand over, palm down, and he feels his lips curve downwards. Pidge gasps, and Hunk makes a sick noise.

   A piece went straight through his hand. Lance furrows his brow, and brings his hand up for closer inspection. Blood drips down the three inch long metal shard and into his food goo. Vaguely, he hears Hunk gag. Keith moves next to him.

   “L-Lance, what did you do...?” Lance pays Keith no mind, and scowls at the metal. His vision is still framed black.

   Stupid metal.

   Stupid strength.

   Stupid Vance.

   Pidge suddenly shrieks in shock when Lance lifts his other hand, stone clacking to the floor and spinning under the table. Everyone ignores it. Lance pinches the widest end of the metal, and with a growl, rips it out of his palm.

   The pain he feels hardly affects him; he’s been hiding cuts and bruises for the past two weeks, what is this compared to them? So why are his teammates making such a big deal out of it? Lance sends them a small smile as Hunk runs out of the room. Allura looks green.

   “What’s wrong, guys? It’s not a big deal, I just broke a spoon.”

   Shiro pushes himself to his feet. He, too, looks uneasy. “That went through your hand, Lance! Can you even move it?

   He just wants to know if I can still pilot Blue. A pilot and a sniper with an injured hand is no good, Lance. You’ll be even more useless.

   Lance shrugs, and pulls himself to his feet via the empty chair beside him. “I’ll be back. Sorry about the mess. I’ll clean it up later.”

   Keith grabs the back of his jacket as he walks away. “Wait, I’ll help you.”

   “O-oh. Okay.”

   “Here, wrap your hand in this so you don’t make a bigger mess.” The oh-so familiar pain of a wound opening somewhere on his body at harsh words strikes Lance across his right arm, a couple inches above his wrist. Lance doesn’t even react to it. He and Keith make their way down the halls in silence, a cloth stopping his hand from dripping. Lance knows they’re going to the medical room, but really he just wants to sink underwater. Maybe he should head to the pool instead of filling his bathtub every night. He can clean this on his own.

   Keith tugs Lance by his good hand into the medroom. The smell of antiseptic hits Lance, not unlike the smell of his own bathroom. He gave up on his skincare routine; the things that occupy his counter now are bandages and disinfectants and some concealer. He doesn’t even bother to cover up his dark circles anymore. The nightmares occur too often.

   “Sit here. I’ll get something to pull out any other metal slivers.” Keith sits Lance down on a bed with blue blankets and a white frame. The nightstand has an empty bowl thing and a couple rolls of bandages, and Lance is pretty sure the things in the drawer underneath are pills. He can see clear cylindrical bottles, but they turn opaque towards the bottom to conceal their contents.

   Lance unwraps his hand from the fabric napkin that Keith gave to him. Blood has soaked through the soft cloth, and Lance pulls a face when guilt courses through him. He made a mess. Keith told him not to make a mess. He sets it aside when Keith pulls up a chair and a rolling table with an attached light.

   Keith pulls his hair up into a ponytail and sheds his jacket. He pulls the moveable top part of the table over him so it reaches his chest and makes a move to grab Lance’s hand. Lance flinches on instinct, eyes gaze dropping and heart clenching.

   Keith stops. Lance doesn’t look at him. How could he? He can’t even be threatened with touch without panicking, images of Vance and the pain of his wounds surfacing in his mind. It’s fucked.

   Keith reached out again, this time with his palm up, and offers it to Lance. His fingers are spread, and it looks so easy to just grab his hand, thread their fingers together and press the warmth of his palm against Keith’s. What would their skin look like in comparison? Lance’s is naturally tan, and Keith’s looks like ivory. Lance wants to clench his hand but he knows that it’ll just make it bleed more, so he settles for carefully reaching to Keith. As Lance sets the heel of his hand in Keith’s palm, he can see himself trembling.

   As Keith slowly transfers Lance’s hand to his left one so he can focus with his right hand. Lance watches Keith’s fingers brush near his palm, staring at the hole that’s modtly closed up by itself. Blood still oozes from the edges, though, and Keith sucks in a breath through his teeth. He doesn’t let go of Lance’s hand, but reaches over to the nightstand and grabs the box of square tissues and a bottle off of the top. He gets Lance to hold the box with his free hand, and unscrews the lid of the white bottle with his right hand. There’s a smooth ball on top, like roll on deodorant has, that glistens when Keith rolls the ball a few times. Lance doesn’t meet his eyes.

   Keith sets the bottle down on the table and grabs a couple tissues out of the box. Unlike Kleenex on Earth, these tissues are actual fabric and soft, good for cleaning wounds because they don’t break apart.

   “This is gonna hurt.” Keith wipes a tissue on the ball, and then folds it so he can dab at Lance’s palm.

   Lance scowls deeply as the sting rushes through him. It’s no different than the antiseptic he uses in his bathroom. He keeps glaring at his palm, seemingly deep in thought as Keith glances at him repeatedly.

   Keith wears his own frown as he clean up Lance’s hand, tossing the bloodied tissues into the metal platter. Neither of them speak as Keith picks up the tweezers and uses the pinky and ring finger of his right hand to carefully spread the jagged wound. Lance winces, and Keith notices.

   “Shh, it’s okay. Do you need to bite something?” Lance’s head jerks up at the soft words, and the tops of his cheeks are brushed pink. Keith doesn’t poke around in his wound yet, absently stroking his thumb along Lance’s wrist bone.

   “No, I’m alright.”

   “Okay. Deep breath for me?” Lance nearly melts at Keith’s words, unconsciously sucking a breath in slowly as the raven spreads the wound again and presses the tweezers to the edge of the hole. It feels like it’s been ages since someone spoke so softly to him, without any twisted desires. He wants to cry.

   Lance’s brow scrunches as Keith slowly moves the tweezers deeper, and at one point he tries to jerk his hand away, it hurts so bad. Keith doesn’t remove the tweezers, but he does look up to met Lance’s gaze and hold it. Lance stops struggling.

   “There’s one piece in here. Can do hold on for a few more seconds? I promise it’ll be quick.” Lance hesitates, licking his bottom lip nervously. He doesn’t like pain, not by any stretch, but it’s all he’s been able to feel for the last couple weeks And now Keith is here promising that he can make it stop after a few ticks. Lance wants to cry when he nods, willing his body still from a trembling shudder when Keith smiles at him and his calloused thumb runs constantly over Lance’s wrist. “Okay. Okay. It’s okay, Lance.”

   Keith drops his nearly purple eyes from Lance’s, but Lance doesn’t move his from staring at Keith. He just watches the minuscule tremble of Keith’s bangs as he moves, watches the way the tip of his tongue pokes out to touch his bottom lip when he concentrates. Lance doesn’t even pay attention to the pain of him ripping a sliver of metal out of Lance’s hand; he’s too busy wishing for this moment to last forever.

   Keith has a soft but triumphant grin on his face, eyes lit up with life and victory as he brandishes a slightly bloody medical tool. His other hand comforts Lance, soothing and calm with the strokes of his thumb. Lance glances down and yes, the contrast between their skin tones is perfect and when he glances back up Lance tries to take a mental picture of Keith. He tries so hard to memorize the dimples in Keith’s cheeks, the glint of the medroom light off of his iris’, the way he looks at Lance like Lance matters.

   But you don’t. Remember Lance, we went over this and we decided that you’re just a body in a Lion.

   Keith reaches to Lance’s other hand for the tissues to clean the wound again before dressing it. Lance watches him carefully, still memorizing every feature he can. It’s so weird...here he is trying to memorize Keith’s face when he can’t even recall most of his family’s...

   Oh Lance. Oh, Lance. Poor, poor, Lance. Pining for the boy who will never love you back. Don’t worry, he’ll hate you soon enough and you won’t have to worry about him anymore.

   Lance bites his lip. Keith’s hands are moving dangerously close to the cut on his wrist. Lance swears he can feel a bead of sweat run down his temple. What if Keith finds it? Will he think Lance cuts? Would he ignore it? Would he tell the team? If he told the team then they would know somethings up and they would confront him about it. Vance would like that. He likes anything that hurts me. Maybe he would. Take the chance to take over cuz I know I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Maybe all of the things he told me would come true. Me killing the mice and everybody else. Maybe the mice already know about Vance and that’s why they’re avoiding me. Maybe they can tell something wrong with me.

   Maybe now is the moment. Maybe he’s gonna take over now. I don’t know, do I? Vance never tells me in the simulator. I-i don’t know...

   Keith wipes the cut again and quickly wraps a bandage around it. He goes to fasten it on Lance’ss wrist with tape but suddenly Lance is standing and pushing to get away from Keith and snatching his hand away like Keith burnt him.

   Lance scrambles off of the bed backwards, keeping a wide berth between him and Keith. His eyes are wide and fearful and glazed, like he’s not all there. When Keith gets up, dropping the empty bandage roll on the bed, Lance flings his newly bandaged hand out. Stop. Please, Keith. I don't want you getting hurt.

   “Don’t come near me.” Keith feels like someone is squeezing his lungs in his chest, but Lance sounds like he’s the one being strangled. The tan boy pants, Uninjured hand clenching his shirt at his chest and looking wobbly on his feet. “J-just dont.”

   Keith holds his hands out, Palm up, so similar to a couple minutes ago when he needed Lance’s trust. He needs it again and so does Lance because Lance looks like he’s on the verge of a mental breakdown; he’s shivering and muttering and backing up towards the door-

   “Lance-!”

   But Lance is already gone.

            ~~~

   Allura waves her hand to the side to move the zoomed in image of the planet Veliy 52. In its place, she pulls up the image of the inhabitants themselves. Lance studies them, standing to the side of Pidge.

   The entire team is in full gear, ready to head down to Veliy 52 on a moments notice. The planet had been in control of the Galra for nearly the entire time the Alteans had been trapped in the Castle, but somehow they had managed to overthrow the Galra on the planet and even those surrounding their atmosphere. They had sent word to The Castle a few Vargas ago, requesting the Lions to help rebuild their cities.

   Veliy 52 is a cold planet, the surface made of rock and ice. There’s hardly any green plants that grow naturally, but the aliens grow crops in thick glass green houses that take up acres of land. It’s very interesting, actually; Veliyans are sensitive to the cold although they are surrounded by ice, so they live inside the greenhouses. Their cities are surrounded by glass walls, and any paths or trails are lined and enclosed with glass. The glass is electronic as well, and you are able to darken portions to block any light to simulate a dark night, Or put them on maximum absorption to gather as much sunlight as possible.

   The glass nearly never breaks, but after the fight against the Galra, the Veliyans are stuck in the cold because they can’t rebuild fast enough without the workers becoming sick. Allura wants to send down Keith, Shiro, and Lance to build; Keith for warmth, Shiro for strategy, and Lance for the glass. Pidge altered Blue’s ice Ray to make the ice solid and sturdy, and to act as an adaptor to the rest of the glass. There’s more to it, but as soon as the fancy words broke out, Lance didn’t understand anymore. He opted for learning as much about the Veliyans as possible.

   From the picture Allura supplied, the Veliyans are vaguely humanoid aliens with a face shape not unlike a thin persons. However, they have no nose, only a smooth slope leading down to thin lips and a pointed chin. Scales lead up the sides of their faces and dusts their soft cheekbones, gleaming slightly. Their hair varies from alien to alien, and in the image the Veliyan has coarse looking green dreads tied up into a bun. While the colour of hair is unique to every alien as well, their skin tone stays similar. Honestly, the light ice blue is the only hint that they live on an ice planet.

   In the middle of what would be the aliens forehead is a closed horizontal slit that is decorated with green and black makeup. They do have regular eyes, located in a normal place like on a human, and are completely black without any pupil or iris. That doesn’t mean they look soulless; just dark. However, the third eye, according to Allura, is hardly ever opened and is used for deep mind searching. The Veliyan don’t like violence and fall to it only when desperate, but the Deep Eye, as Allura called it, can be used for mind manipulation and interrogation.

   They have the ability to read the thoughts you project to them, and as they hardly ever speak, that is their main form of communication. Allura assumes the Galra utilized them for interrupting messages from across space as they traveled near the planet.

   Lance suddenly doesn’t want to go down to the planet anymore. Vance laughs in his ear, and the ringing makes Lance shiver. It’s only been two weeks.

   “Alright team, lets make this clear,” Shiro crosses his arms and stares down Keith and Lance. Lance drops his gaze immediately; Keith doesn’t. “The Veliyans are very sensitive to fighting and unnecessary violence. If you two are going to brawl it out, do it now and get it over with before we go down there. You have about five minutes before we leave.” Shiro turns away from Keith and Lance. “Pidge and Hunk. You guys have got the transmitters installed in our helmets?”

   Lance keeps his eyes trained on the floor. Shiro thinks so little of you. Why wouldn’t he? Lance grinds his teeth hard as a dull thrum echoes on his right ankle. That’s gonna make this mission harder, thank you Vance.

   “Yep. They should allow you to translate the waves the Veliyans give off, or their language. If you want to take your helmet off, but I don’t know why you would, just transfer the clip into your ear. Simple.” Pidge holds up their helmet to show as an example, deft fingers quickly detaching a little piece from the bottom left corner of the helmet and sticking it in their ear. Lance glances at his own helmet, finding the same piece in the same spot.

   Allura pulls the image of the planet back up into the centre of the bridge. Lance purses his lips as she’s stares pensively at the planet, but she seems to dismiss any doubt she might have had. “Go to your Lions, Paladins. Prepare for anything.”

   Lance hardly thinks as he walks out of the main bridge area. He hardly thinks as he slips into Blue’s cockpit and they launch into space. He hardly thinks as Shiro and Keith converse through the coms. He doesn’t want to think. Maybe the aliens won’t be able to hear Vance? It’s not like hes projecting his thoughts.

   As they break through the atmosphere, Lance’s view is instantly filled with blowing snow and thick clouds that make up the outside of the greenhouses. If he looks hard enough, Lance can vaguely see the explosions of yelllow that are the spiderweb cities of Veliy 52. Lance can hear Keith grunting and complaining about how he can hardly control Red in this weather, but Lance doesn’t seem to have any problem. He guesses that the increased ability in water extends to ice as well.

   Shiro’s voice cuts through the coms. “Land next to the dome Sector 3. We can go inside and start a plan from there.”

   Blue touches down on the icy planet next to the dome moments after Keith. Blue sends him comforting images, but underneath all of them is the ringing. Lance sighs, and pushes himself away from his chair. as he walks out of his Lion, the harsh wind bites at his nose and freezes his cheekbones, but for some reason it feels so good. The initial sting is a little shocking, but it fades to a dull ache. If Lance stayed here, would the wind block out the ringing?

   Lance doesn’t jump out of Blue like he normally does. He carefully walks down her ramp and onto the rock surface where he landed. His ankle throbs, but he ignores it as he follows Shiro and Keith through a door seemingly lined with black tape. A ice-skinned, redheaded Veliyan that is nearly as tall as Lance waits for them, large hand spread wide against a blurry panel beside the door. As Lance walks through, it snaps close down behind him and the Veliyan lets go of the panel. It’s a lot like the Olkari, only with glass instead of plants.

   The inside of the greenhouse is a stark difference than the outside. It’s hot but not sweltering, and the tall buildings look like a modern Earth city. Imagine if the busiest part of Manhattan or Toronto was cut out of the city, dyed mostly pasty yellow and ice blue and stuck on an alien planet inside a giant glass dome. Oh, and multiply that single city chunk by about twenty, and then add farmland for the rest of the 32 domes. That’s Veliy 52.

   Lance nearly cracks a grin as a Pidge sized Veliyan runs around the gathering crowd with a tiny Veliyan on thick, muscular legs with inverted knees, like a dinosaur. Lance is pretty sure there’s even scales along the outside, acting as a natural armour. He watches as the tiny Veliyan opens their mouth and raises their arms in a victory pose, the bigger alien slowing their pace to a bouncing jog. The little ones screeches, but the sound isn’t released into the air; it’s released into Lance’s head.

   Keith and Shiro, who are on either side of Lance, flinch. Their hands fly to their head as the child laughs, and Keith looks mildly uncomfortable. Lance doesn't react; he’s had a voice in his head for the last two weeks. The only difference with this one is that it’s a child and doesn’t have impure intentions. Lance does grin this time as the child pair comes closer, wondering about the creatures that arrived in giant beasts.

   Although he’s never spoken to the creatures before, Lance crouches down and thinks back to what Allura said. ‘Project your thoughts’. Lance shrugs to himself, and makes eye contact with the larger alien.

   “(Hey there. I’m Lance. Can you hear me?)”

   The Veliyan smiles wide, and so does the smaller one, both of them nodding viciously. Well. That worked. Lance can’t help the laugh. This is so neat.

   “(What’re your name’s?)”

   The smaller Veliyan points to themselves with a thick hand. “(Bepla.)” Then, they point down to the Veliyan carrying them. “(Frey.)”

   Lance lifts his hand to wave although the aliens are mere feet away. They don’t really have a concept of personal space, and inch closer to Lance with every passing tick. Lance stands up straighter, and offers a grin to the large crown of Veliyans. One of them steps forwards, taller than Lance and even Shiro and dressed sparingly in yellow cloth. Their black hair is braided long over their shoulder, and the blue staff they brace themselves on has multiple carvings and stones dangling off of it. Their black eyes are decorated with black makeup, and Lance gets the feeling that this alien is very, very old.

   “(Paladins of Voltron. We thank you for coming. I trust that you can help rebuild our home.)” Again, Keith and Shiro flinch but Lance stands unmoving. Shiro doesn’t look like he got any of the greeting so Lance jumps in. He’s not the best with diplomatic issues, but at least he can communicate.

   “(And we thank you for allowing us this opportunity to learn about your kind. Our Princess said that other than what you offer, there is very little information about Veliy 52 and the people who live here.)” The aliens gaze snaps to Lance, and a laugh reverberates within Lance’s skull, but unlike Vance’s, this one is kind and soft.

   “(You are the Blue Paladin, yes?)” Lance nods, and Shiro’s gaze snaps to him as Lance offers a little bow. Right, Shiro can’t actually hear the conversation. Keith looks like he’s trying, and seems to be getting some parts of the conversation. The transmitters on their helmets must not be that reliable, so why is Lance’s?. “(Are you to be the translator for this trip?)”

   Lance laughs, and lifts his arm to rub at the back of his neck. “(We had translators, but they don’t seem to be working. Apologies for that. If they don’t work soon, I might just have to be.)”

   “Lance!” Shiro hisses. Lance jerks and so does the alien, and turns to his left to stare questioning at Shiro. The aliens seem alright wth waiting, even if some of them watch Shiro with unbridled curiosity. “What are they saying? The transmitters are fuzzy.”

   Lance shrugs. “Project your voice out but allow others in. It feels weird, I know, but just do it. I don’t think we need the transmitters at all.” To price his theory, Lance pulls his helmet off, and stares back out to the aliens. “(Can any of you still hear me?)”

   The tall alien nods, and Lance grins. This is so cool. “(Awesome. We don’t even need the transmitters. If you would allow me some time, I can get the rest of my team used to this form of communication?)”

   The Veliyan noods again, the stones on their staff shaking. “(Of course, Blue Paladin. My name is Orrin, but if you need assistance, please feel free to call upon anybody.)” Lance bows his head, and Orrin turn away, directing the crown with them. Lance watches them for a second before turning back to Keith and Shiro.

   Shiro looks like he wants to burst, he’s so red and Keith just has an awed but neutral expression. How? He must still be freaked out from their last encounter, when Lance broke the spoon and Keith helped him. However much that might have freaked Keith out, the moment stayed as one of Lance’s favourite memories. For some reason, he’s struggling to recall any other better memories.

   Lance can’t help but flinch as Shiro steps close to him, dreading the conversation. He just brushed Shiro off before, so now he might pay for it.

   “Why are they leaving, Lance? What did you do?” Lance feels his brow tug down when Shiro’s angry eyes reach his. Lance puts his hands out unconsciously, a sort of defender against anything. He’s slowly advancing on Lance, playing right into Lance’s personal space. Lance doesn’t like this. It’s too crowded. Vance thrives off this feeling so Shiro needs to back away or else Vance is gonna come back...he’s been silent up to this point, but with every growing sting on various places inside Lance’s flight suit, he’s definitely gonna come back. Shiro’s angry words allow his hot breaths to touch Lance’s nose, he’s so close. “Did you mess this up again? How-“

   Suddenly, Shiro is cut off by a flash of red. Lance balks as soft hair brushes his nose, and suddenly instead of Shiro in his face, all he can see is the back of Keith’s head. Lance’s mouth opens and closes soundlessly; Keith is standing up for him.

   “Back down, Shiro, seriously?!” Keith pushes his hands against Shiro’s chestplate, taking a mildly defensive stance in front of Lance. Lance leans to the side so he can peek over Keith’s shoulder at his team leader. He can kinda see the side of Keith’s face as well, and boy, does he look mad. Something curls in Lance’s gut at the thought of Keith standing up for him, but it’s squashed down by the truth. He hates Lance, and Lance knows better to get his hopes up. “Lance is communicating with them. Give him a chance to speak, Christ!”

   Instantly, Shiro’s face morphs into that of pure guilt and his stature shrinks back. He raises his hands in a surrendering position and glances between Keith and Lance. “Okay, okay. God, Lance, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-“

   “It’s fine, Shiro. Don’t worry about it.” Lance comes up beside Keith, standing as close as he can to the Red Paladin without actually touching him. The minuscule distance between their shoulders burns. Keith is grounding, and if Vance decides to join the party, Lance is gonna need the support.

   Lance offers a small smile to Shiro, and tips his head towards the city. “The Veliyans are giving me some time to help you guys with communication. Orrin, the Veliyan with the blue staff and black braid, is basically the leader and they seem chill.”

   Lance tosses his helmet in the air and catches it again, but he winces when the edge of the helmet lands in his palm, where the scar from the spoon is still sensitive. Superhuman healing apparently doesn’t extend to wounds that he creates himself, so the morning after the spoon incident, Lance tried to hold his Bayard and nearly dropped it, it hurt so bad. He’s kinda got to live with it, though. “The transmitters don’t work, apparently. My theory is because instead of sonic waves or a twist on echolocation, the Veliyan probably thrive off emotion and that’s how they communicate.”

   Keith nods. He hasn’t moved from where Lance stepped up next to him. “That makes sense. It’s still a telepathic form of speaking, but instead of sound waves they project emotions as words?” Keith looks to Lance for confirmation, and Lance shrugs.

   “I don’t know, man. Allura said sound waves, so I’m probably just talking out of my-“

   “Well maybe Allura was wrong.” Shiro cuts Lance off, but not unkindly. “Her information is kinda outdated, and the Veliyans could have evolved to avoid transmissions being interrupted. They rarely speak, as well, and they seem to be a very close bunch.” Shiro motions with a hand to a group of Veliyans sitting in a close bunch, nearly sitting on each other as they play with toys or something that glows and seems to buzz. “Mind helping us with communication, Lance?”

   Lance nods slowly, crossing his arms and taking the weight off of his ankle. His scowl deepens. “I don’t know exactly how I did it. They didn’t ask to be let in my head, but I was able to hear them. Maybe because you have to want to hear them?”

   “But I wanted to talk to the leader, and I still couldn’t make out anything.” Shiro’s eyes narrow, and Lance can’t help the shudder of those eyes being narrowed at him.

   “Our theory is emotions, right? So maybe you have to have no hidden emotions?” Keith turns towards Lance a few inches, but Lance is already shaking his head. That warm twist in his gut is back. Keith looked to him for confirmation- no. Stop Lance.

   “I don’t think so. Honestly, I think that you just need to relax and let them in so that you can let them out.”

   Hmm, sounds smart Lance. How long did it take you to figure that one out?

   Fuck fuck fuck. Lance tenses, and forces his posture back into something serious. He wants to leave this goddamn planet before Vance starts chatting up any locals because he’s an emotional train wreck, isn’t he? Acting out in anger against Lance, hurting him and using Lance’s emotions against him.

   “Okay, so we just have to chill around them and the words should flow?” Keith looks to Lance again, but frowns when Lance looks too pale.

   “Y-yeah. Yeah. If you want them to try and talk to you make a conversation with them first. I asked the kids names and I got answers.” Lance rubs his thumb against his index finger, aching for his worry stone. He lost it after the spoon incident and normally he would get the mice to help him but they won’t go near him. “And if you do have to speak out loud, do it softly. I didn’t see any ears, but if they’re sensitive to emotions then I’m guessing that they’re sensitive to words as well. I don’t wanna accidentally hurt them. Remember, Allura thought it was soundwaves. Maybe some things stay the same.”

   Shiro and Keith nod with hard faces, and Lance waves them off with an easy (read: forced) grin. “Seriously guys, loosen up. I know the Galra were here recently but if you’re all stuff around the Veliyans then you’re never gonna understand them. Just...offer your thoughts.”

   With that said, Lance shrugs, walks away to explore deeper within the city. He’s surrounded by the quiet sounds of people walking and just going about their daily business; in his head, Lance hears the blend of voices and words that you would in a general busy city. The buzz in his head feels so different than the ringing and the harshness of Vance’s voice, and Lance welcomes it with open arms.

   “(Lance!)”

   Lance turns to see the same pair of child Veliyans, this time with the smaller one on the stone ground. He’s been walking for a couple minutes, getting lost and familiarizing himself with the area. Vance is quiet.

   The small one - Bepla - has icy skin a shade darker than their possible sibling, and their flaming orange hair is braided similar to Orrin’s. Frey’s hair is a deeper red colour and cut into a soft looking pixie bob. Lance grins at them, crouching down on one leg.

   “(Sup, kids. Bepla and Frey, right?)” Bepla grins wide at Lance, and runs forwards to wrap their thick arms around Lance’s waist. A child’s laughter echoes in Lance’s head and Lance gives some of his own back as he lets the alien crawl around his waist and onto his back. Lance carefully wraps his hands around Bepla’s wide feet that resemble a cartoon dinosaurs and helps them up onto his shoulders, where they giggle with glee. Frey watches them, but soon enough they’re clinging onto Lance’s leg as the Paladin walks around, ignoring the pain in favour of playing with the kids. For how sturdy they look, Veliyans don’t weigh very much at all.

   The mental laughter of Bepla and Frey seems to resonate and attract the attention of others in the city; Lance did just start playing with them in the middle of a street, but the attention is happy. Lance feels as though happiness is pushing at him from all sides, but there’s still an edge of worry. Emotions. He was right, and maybe he doesn’t have to worry about anybody finding out about Vance, because while Vance toys with emotions, he’s magical. A spell. And spells can be broken.

   Spells can be broken. But not this spell. Lance hasn’t scoured every Galra and Altean and whatever other language based book there is and never has he found anything like Vance. He’s given up.

   Lance chuckles, making sure to express that through emotions. He’s happy. He’s playful. When Bepla shrieks with glee and cards their fingers into Lance’s hair, he knows it worked.

   Lance spends the next varga or so running around with Bepla on his shoulders and Frey clinging to his back, meeting with the locals and getting more information on how to deal with the domes. He doesn’t flirt; ever since Vance, he hasn’t had the motivation, and when he tried to do it on a different planet, Vance crushed his mental stability like a bug. Lance had spent the next day in his room under the guise of being heartbroken, but really he was trying to drown out Vance.

   According to Frey who is in fact Bepla’s older sibling, the domes were built when the planet suddenly froze over. The Veliyans has thrived in the open, soaking up the sunlight with their light skin and darker hair and playing between fields. The storms had started it, trashing the fields and buildings because they simply had never had to deal with the cold before, and after decades of struggling, mechanics and whiztechs got together to create the domes, all 52 of them.

   Like Allura said, 32 of the domes were designated farmland and the other 20 were for the people. Labelled by sectors, Lance is currently in Sector 3, so the largest dome meant for the public. They get progressively smaller so you reach number 20, and then grow back to the size of Sec 3 for the farmland. Sectors 1 and 2 are scopes out for the rich and royal, and have the underground safe houses in case of emergency. Currently, there’s about seven public domes broken and eleven farmland ones destroyed. Frey says that when they finally rebelled against the Galra, they lead them out to the farmland and outer public domes where people were scarce and they didn’t have to worry about collateral deaths.

   Lance nods, and adjusts his grip on Frey so they don’t slide down his back. Bepla seems perfectly content to chill on lance’s Shoulders and Lance is cool with that. They are slowly making a circle back to where they dropped off the Lions cuz Lance wants to check on his teammates, and nobody is really talking anymore; the silence is comforting. The siblings already told Lance all about their family and their oldest sibling named Len’aay, a darker blue skinned Veliyan with apparently beautiful blonde braids; Bepla and Frey speak highly of their makeup skills.

   Lance stretches his neck up, searching for one of his teammates. He finds Keith first, and smiles at him successfully conversing with a Veliyan. Bepla giggles in his mind, and tugs softly at his hair. “(Who’s that?)”

   Lance pats their leg before securing it back on Frey. “(That’s Keith. He’s my...partner.)"

   “(Your leikal?)” Lance glances down at Frey, who stares at him with a smirk on their face. A brow rises.

   “(What’s a leikal?)”

   Frey nods at a passing couple of Veliyans. They have their arms wrapped around each other, eyes locked on only the other and the emotionally charged air around them screams happiness. Lance watches as the taller one leans down to bump foreheads above the Deep Eye with their lover, and Lance watches as the shorter one laughs freely and winds their fingers into the original aliens clothes comfortably. “(They are each other’s leikal. They are happiest together and while have other relations, the care for each other is unique. Very rarely do leikals split, and there can be more than two Veliyans in a leik relation. Our parents are Toye and Miko, and they are leikal’s to each other and to Klai’leo, who is theirs in return. A leikal trio. I assume you and the Red Paladin are leikal pairs?)”

   Lance smiles sadly, and shakes his head. “(No, we aren’t leikal’s. I wish we were, though, but don’t tell him that. It’s too complicated right now, and I don’t wanna hurt him.)” Frey nods, black eyes gleaming with understanding, and they continue wandering. All that’s left is the happy silence of satisfaction.

   Hmph, you wish. You can still hear that ringing, can’t you? Isn’t is harsh?

   Lance hardly has a chance to react when Bepla suddenly yanks his hair, crying out in his mind as they fall to the side violently. Lance gasps, and reaches an arm out to catch them and thank god Veliyans don’t weigh much because they koala into his arm desperately. Frey does the same, landing on the ground roughly as they back away from Lance. Dark eyes from passerby’s lock into Lance, and confusion surges through the air. Lance’s brow furrows; out of the corner of his eye, he can see Keith standing with the local. There’s a smile on his face, and he nods every couple seconds, but when Bepla wails and jumps away from Lance to Frey’s arms, he looks over.

   “(Woah, what’s wrong, pequeño azul?!)” Lance crouches down to Frey’s height, and shock runs down his face when they flinch away. Keith is jogging over now, pushing through the growing wall of people as they crowd around Lance and the little Veliyans. Lance lowers himself onto his right leg, wobbly, and furrows his brow. “(What’s wrong? Can you tell me?)”

   They can’t. Such a stupid race, can’t even speak properly. The only use they’ll ever serve is to interrogate, and there’s tech for that now. Useless, just like you, Lance.

   Bepla buries their face into Frey’s neck, and Frey’s black eyes stare at Lance. They’re filled with pure terror. Lance glanced around the crowd, and finds that they’re staring at him with the same emotion. The air feels like it’s been infused with electricity, and all Lance can hear is the whispers of the people.

   The people who can hear him.

   The people who can hear Vance.

   Lance sucks in a harsh breath, and jerks away from the kids. Frey holds onto Bepla like a lifeline. Lance, already shaky in his stance, falls backwards towards the stone ground but before he makes contact Keith is there, scooping him up under the arms and pressing right into the newly formed wound high on his ribcage.

   Lance cries out and tries writhe away from Keith. Never has anyone touched those type of wounds before, and never has Lance touched them so immediately soon after they formed. It hurts.

   “Lance! Lance, what’s wrong?” Lance just groans, his head swimming with pain. Keith slings Lance’s arm over his shoulder as he brings him to his feet, but his knees buckle. Lance looks up to see Orrin parting through the crowd with Shiro close behind, black eyes narrowed. Do Veliyans blink?

   Keith’s breath feels hot against Lance’s ear. Lance can feel his entire right side becoming soaked with blood, and as Keith wraps his arm around Lance’s waist, Lance knows there’s no hiding it.

   There was never any way to hide it. You can’t hide anything from them, just like you can’t hide anything from me.

   Lance feels more than sees Keith go stiff. What Lance does see is Orrin recoiling in shock, Frey and Bepla being tugged away by a Veliyan with navy dreadlocks, Shiro’s face contorting in confusion. Lance can feel the terrified air infused with the emotions of the aliens, he can feel Keith gasp and pull his bloody hand away from Pance’s side. It must have soaked through his suit, and that means it’s deep. Shit.

   Lance leans bodily into Keith, edges of his vision going dark. How fast is he losing blood? Or is it Vance making him lose consciousness? Lance decides he doesn’t care as Keith pats his cheek harshly, trying to knock awareness into Lance.

   Lance groans as the ringing increases, and flinches away as Vance starts to chuckle. The slow, quiet laughter rises in volume until he’s shrieking, and Lance nearly sobs, it grates against his head so bad. It isn’t until Vance momentarily calms down that Lance realizes that he’s moving towards Red, limp body supported by a Veliyan with black hair and a Paladin with his arm wrapped around his waist. Lance blinks hard, bringing spots to his vision. The Veliyan is named Orrin. The Paladin is Keith.

   Lance passes out as soon as the glow of Red’s cockpit touches his face.

            ~~~

   Lance can’t move. He’s running but he can’t move. His body isn’t responding to his wishes, and it feels like he’s trapped in a moving suit.

   His hands are bloody. Why? Why do his knuckles feel like cracking because the blood has started to dry on them? Why does the blood splatter up his elbows and dot his biceps like freckles? Why can Lance feel it dripping down his chin?

   Why are the mirrors black? All Lance can see is himself but it’s not him. Lance knows that he doesn’t have pink eyes and that he doesn’t wear tank tops around anyone, so it’s not him. But it is him. It's always been him and it's all his fault. He can't remember why, though. It's dark. 

   Why is Hunk stumbling out of that mirror? He replaced Lance’s shape with his own unsteady self, but there’s something wrong. Hunk wears yellow, not red. Why is he clutching his throat? Why did he just fall at Lance’s feet? Why do his kind brown eyes look like glass and why does his warm skin feels cold under Lance’s touch? Why is his throat torn out? Hunk? Hunk? Where did you go? Where is the life in your eyes?

   What’s wrong with Shiro? His arm is missing again, but this time the stump is higher and he’s bleeding. Shiro, why are you bleeding? Why is your scar dripping red? Why are you screaming at Lance? What did Lance do? Why are you crying? Shiro? Don't cry, Keith will worry. Don't worry, Lance will take the blame for your arms and your face. it was probably his fault anyways. 

   Allura? Allura, Why are you clawing at your eyes, you’ll hurt them. Here, take your hands away. Allura? Oh, Allura...where are your eyes? Why are you collapsing on this black floor? That can’t be comfortable. Allura, get up. Please get up. The team needs you. Get up. Please, Allura, please...

   The mirror looks green...oh, that must be Pidge! Maybe she has something for Lance’s eyes. Pidge! Pidge...? Where are your fingertips? Why is your chin bloody? Is that vomit Lance smells? Why are you missing the tip of your nose? Did someone take it? Oh...you ate them. Why? Why? Why? Why? What did you do that for? Don't do that. No, don't. 

   Why are the mice so limp, Coran? Why do they look like pancakes against the floor? Why is there white and red sprouts coming from under your skin? Why do they rip your clothes? Those are your bones? Are they not supposed to be inside your body? Oh. Lance broke them all. Lance. It's Lance's fault. He knew it. 

   Oh Keith. Keith. Why do you have the same scars as Lance? Why is there tears in your eyes? Did you escape Lance? Come here. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt for long. Just let Lance grab your neck...isn’t that better? Oh. The tears are falling now. You won’t be able to see with your tears. You can’t see. Keith, please. Keith. Lance remembers Keith. Keith is special to Lance. Lance can remember every single time they spoke and every single memory that Keith is mentioned in. But now Keith can't see. He can't see. 

   How can you not see that this is what Lance is?

            ~~~

   Keith hasn’t left Lance’s side since he first closed his eyes on Veliy 52. He had felt the blood on his hand that belonged to Lance and immediately steered Lance towards Red so they could get back to the Castle. He didn’t know what happened; he had only just gotten the hang of the emotion speak that Lance told them about and was getting more info on the planet when he had heard the cry of a child and the gathering of a crowd. He didn’t expect to find Lance there, begging to know what was wrong with the kids. He didn’t expect to hear Lance’s voice calling the Veliyans useless.

   Keith runs the cloth over his blade again. The hospital-like machine Coran hooked Lance up to neeps with every beat of Lance’s heart.

   It’s been about three quintents since Keith flew Lance back to the Castle from Veliy 52. Orrin had wanted to come, but Shiro convinced them to stay on Veliy to continue planning the repairs of their planet. Keith wasn’t needed for that, and hasn’t left the med deck since. Coran periodically brought Keith food and drink but never spoke a word, andalways left with a sad glance towards Lance and a hand on Keith’s shoulder. The Altean didn’t want to put Lance in the pod when Keith told him about the voice that wasn’t Lance, but he didn’t tell anyone why.

   Keith sets his knife down on the nightstand next to Lance’s head. He looks so pale, the scar high on his cheek jagged and harsh looking. When Coran and Keith stripped Lance of his armour and flight suit, Keith almost puked.

   Scars. So, so many scars littered Lance’s body. Pale lines, both thick and thin, crossed his arms and his legs. They ripped across his stomach, dragged roughly down his shoulders. Patches of discolouration splattered his knees and his joints and the hard muscle of his thighs, cloudy looking sections that Coran balked at.

   When Keith had wondered about how much Lance trained, Pidge has checked the training deck logs and found only one time when Lance trained. She had read out the stats with a shaky voice, her computer balanced on knees that quivered. The boy laying broken on this white bed and hooked up to machines galore is a brutal killing machine.

   Hunk had checked Lance’s room to look for clothes for him, and wandered into his bathroom. Allura has run down because she heard Hunk scream.

   Lance’s bedroom was trashed, clothes strewn and little trinkets missing from their original spots on shelves and tables. The bed was stripped of the sheets and smeared on the metal walls of Lance’s room was the word VANCE. Hunk would have been worried and reported back to the team regardless, but he screamed because the word was written in blood.

   Lance’s bathroom was in no better shape. His skincare products were completely absent and some were even crushed around the centre, making room for rolls upon rolls of clean bandages and sterilizer sprays and needles and sutures and tape. A pile of bloody bandages sat in the corner, abandoned and old, and Lance’s bathtub was filled with cold water and blood flecks on the sides and something that Allura identified as vomit. There was a marker floating in the water, slowly bleeding it black.

   Above the tub, Lance had written multiple sentences and paragraphs with - luckily - a marker or something, but that didn’t make them any less heartbreaking.

the ringing won’t stop

i listen to myself tell me im going to kill my friends daily

its magic

hes magic

haggar is to blame, blue says so

make it stop i just want it to stop

im just a body

the voice is named vance

i named him

its me hes me im him 

i cant take the ringing

he sounds like me

rejection hurts me

my hearts pain is my bodys pain

dont hurt me anymore

please

im used to the burn

the sting

the pain

its not me

replace me

i c ant do it 

my eyes arent pink theyre blue

why dont i remember

drowning makes it stop

SHUT UP SHUT UP GO GO GO

i want to drown

let me drown DO IT NOW

drowning makes it stop but not forever the ringing always comes  back and it always there in the back of my head

im a killer

killers need to di

i want to die

GOGOGOGOLEAVEGETOUTNOW

let me kill me

im cruel

im going to kill, VANCE says so

NO

it hurts but im numb

kill them all NO

VANCE NO NONO N

i dont want to

i cant remember help me

strangle pidge he says

i can see it every night and it never stops why me why doesnt it stop

crush the mice no

GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT

who is my family who what do they look lik 

bleed coran

OUTOFMYHEAD

NO

i dont rem   ember

DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT DONT

dro  wn a llura he says so

NO cr ush shiro

i dont want to but he says I have to its loud i n  eed to sto p the pain do    esnt stop   please stop hurting me

STOPSTOPSSTPO STP        STO  p

stop tal kin g stop  hu  rtiNG NO

gut h   unk NO NOON

i fo  rg      et

WHERE AR EE YO    U NO

bre ak ke    ith g    od no    pleas

it hurts N O 

its gone NONOONNONONONONO

GETOUTOFMYHEADOUTOUTOUTNOWNOW

h es t ak  ing o ver

NONONONONONONONNONONONOO

I m     so sor  ry I m so s orr

I WILL KILL ME BEFORE THEM

   Hunk had puked on the spot, aiming into the bathtub. Hunk knows what Lance’s writing looks like, how he hates to use capitals and punctuation. The Galaxy Garrison hadn’t been able to lecture and punish that habit out of him. Allura had pulled Hunk out of Lance room. Neither of them got Lance clothes and they closed off Lance’s room with a vow to burn the entire room.

   Keith watches the blue line on the machine leap and drop rhythmically, displaying Lance’s heart rate. The yellow line underneath apparently shows brain activity and Keith is no doctor but he’s positive that the line shouldn’t be composed of such shallow waves. There’s more Altean script against the floating holographic screen, but Keith can’t read it. He drops his gaze and lets it wander over Lance instead.

   The tanned line of his jaw and nose cut clean against the white background, and his eyelashes rest completely still on his skin. His arms are limp to his sides, long legs stretched out under the blanket Coran had tucked around him gingerly. Keith hadn’t said anything while the Altean has done so; the look on the poor man’s face was heartbreaking, as though he lost a child.

   Keith shifts in his chair, slouching in place and letting the toes of his boots touch the frame of Lance’s bed. He doesn’t speak. The only sound that fills the silence of the white room is the beeping from Lance’s machine.

   Keith sighs, and he doesn’t move, but he must doze off sometime because the next time he looks up, Shiro is sitting across from him on the other side of Lance, expression broken and defeated. Beside him sits a Veliyan, one that Keith doesn’t recognize from the planet. Their darker skin and bleach blonde hair make for a striking combo, the lighter skin of their face decorated with black and yellow makeup. The tighter clothes that they wear gives no hints for any conforming gender, but Keith can tell this alien is very slender and strong. Like Lance.

   “Keith, this is Len’aay. They were sent from Veliy 52 to help with diagnosing Lance.” Shiro’s voice is soft, but with a firm undercurrent. Keith knows it well; it’s like talking to a frightened animal and that’s definitely what Keith feels like. His support is laying broken on a bed before him, covered in previously hidden scars and dripping in pain and unconsciousness. He’s beyond frightened at this point.

   “(Hello, Red Paladin. How are you coping?)” Keith shrugs one shoulder, keeping his eyes on Lance. There’s been no change since he last checked. 

   “(Your team has asked me to assist with the Blue Paladin. Is it-)”

   “(Can you fix him?)” Keith knows it’s rude, but he makes eye contact with the black orbs of Len’aay and sends his question out with shaky emotions. Emotions worked for contact, and Keith has much too many right now.

   Len’aay doesn’t appear disgruntled at Keith’s interruption. They level him with a firm gaze that reminds Keith so much of Shiro; they must be an older sibling. “(I am here to try. I can use a certain method of investigation that allows me to view his memories without much invasion. When on our planet, my youngest siblings were with the Blue Paladin during his stay. They told me of a voice that belonged to him, but was not him. Did you have any knowledge of this?)”

   Keith shakes his head, and Shiro glances at him. He must not be in the loop with this conversation. “(No. He didn’t tell me much of anything.)” Keith drops his gaze to Lance, brow furrowing as he tightens his jaw against the sting in his eyes. 

   Len’aay’s eyes thin slightly, as though they dropped their own brow. “(You care deeply for him, I can see. For a bond like this between beings, we call our partner our leikal, a soulmate if you wish. It’s unique and something to be held closely...you’re hurting greatly, Red Paladin. Please do not blame yourself for this event. Focus on helping the Blue Paladin.)” Keith doesn’t answer. “(May I touch him? I will open my Jrikapp Siol, or the Deep Eye as you call it, and search his memories. It will not hurt him.)” 

   Keith slouches and crosses his arms. He doesn’t like the idea of a stranger shifting through Lance’s head but if it tells what’s wrong with him, why his room is in the state that it is, and who Vance is...

   “(You’re sure it won’t hurt him?)”

   “(I am postitve. It is merely a viewing of images and emotions that are already present. I will not be able to alter or take anything, and neither will I be able to place anything. No harm is potential.)”

   “(Okay. Okay...use your... Deep Eye.)” As Len’aay nods, Keith shuffles so he sits on the edge of his seat and slides his hand under Lance’s. Keith sees Shiro’s brow rise but luckily he doesn’t comment on it. Lance’s hand feels cold in his tight grip, and Keith wishes that he could feel it when Lance could squeeze back. 

   “(Red Paladin, this will take less than thirty ticks. Do not fret.)” Keith nods tightly, and tucks his fingers between Lance’s as Len’aay stands on thick legs and leans over Lance. They touch Lance’s temples with their large hands, and Keith watches in curiosity as the horizontal slit on their forehead opens like an eyelid to reveal a stark white orb with a tiny black pupil. The pupil swirls and fades around and out of the eye, similar to their makeup. Keith holds his breath as seconds tick by.

   By the time the Veliyan pulls back, Keith is dizzy.

   When the look on the aliens face is scrunched and their eyes are glassy, Keith wants to curl up into a ball.

   When Len’aay lifts a hand and Keith can see their fingers tremble as they cover their mouth, Keith can feel the tears burn his eyes. 

   “(Well?)” He demands, “(What’s wrong with him?)”

   Len’aay jerks at Keith’s words, and slowly turns their head towards him. Their eyes are no longer glassy, but instead filled with a deep sadness and...grief? Keith watches their Deep Eye slip closed, and their normal eyes fall shut soon after. His heart clenches as Len’aay runs a tender hand down Lance’s arm and then to his own, sorrow replaced with a seemingly blank look, but Keith can see the determination simmering. 

   “(You’re leikal is in immense danger.)”