Chapter Text
The sweet heady smell of summer was strong, the heat of the sun releasing stronger the scents of the junniberries and wildflowers on the sleepy hills. There was a soft cool wind that blew away all the worries of man and rejuvenated his soul.
The green grasses are disturbed by giggling imps; children run through the blades and dance around like fairies. A day of no schooling or strict regulations have made them wild things.
“Not too far,” a loud voice calls, and the children let out their affirming cheers before forgetting all about the adult at the top of the hill.
Lance McClain lets out a soft sigh as he sets his hands on his hips, head tilting. Blue scales embedded into dark cheeks softly glimmer in the sunlight.
This man, who was littered with scars of notable and honorable battles, and was once a Paladin of Voltron, now petulantly plops down onto the grass and watches the children he is in charge for. Far be it from his lofty dreams, Lance now owns a small farm and teaches at the Museum of Lions - a reconstructed building meant to mimic the destroyed Castle of Lions which Voltron resided in. Halls upon halls mark the gritty tales of the over 10,000 year war between the Galra Empire and those who rebelled. Sections are dedicated to the three pillars of the war effort; the Rebels, the Blade of Marmora, and Voltron. Lance has taught at such an establishment for so many years he has memorized every single fact to the war effort.
“They misbehave,” a gentle and deeper voice murmurs from behind, and Lance’s eyes light up. He cranes his head all the way back, exposing his throat, and smiles sweetly at a very tall Galra woman. Her raven-like hair blows softly in the cool breeze as she reaches for him and plucks some grass from his hair.
“I rolled down some hills today,” Lance explains, and his companion snorts.
“You misbehave equally as much,” the Garla remarks. Lance gives her an amiable grin in reply and his hand comes up to grab the piece of grass in her hand. On their fourth fingers, matching bronze rings reflect the sunlight. “I’ve brought you some fruit from the farm; I put it in the lounge inside the museum.”
“It’d be nice to have you join the tour,” Lance says instead of giving an answering reply to her, but he kisses her palm in thanks. “The kids always love you. I have a few Galra guests, having you would make them feel a bit less heavy during the second part of the tour.”
The woman hums benevolently, but Lance can see her disagreement and he dramatically leans back even more until his head hits legs. “Solak,” he calls, almost whining.
“No,” she firmly replies but she is smiling just slightly. “Mateo is being watched by Zaenid and I need to relieve her of him. He always gets fussy during the afternoon.”
“He does,” Lance grumbles, but his sulking is alleviated by the thought of his child. Their child. Lance grunts and slowly stands back up, leans against the taller woman. “Tell him I’ll grab a treat on the way home today.”
Solak raises her brow, smiling, “A treat, you say?”
Lance rolls his eyes and gestures with his hand, “Yes, for you as well, dear.” Then he sets off down the hill, “I should get the kids back inside, we have the second floor to complete; I love you.”
Solak waves her arm as he sets off further down the grassy mound, and Lance smiles at her figure. Her traditional Galran dress is fluttering in the wind with her hair, blockading the smile he knows she also wears.
“Alright, mongrels, in we go,” Lance yells out, grabbing one child by the torso and picking her up. She shrieks with delight and squirms in his arms. “We can’t play outside all day.”
“I want to stay, Mr. McClain,” one child grudgingly says.
“No can do~,” Lance ruthlessly knocks down the child’s wishes of more play with a sneaky smile, and he is tailed by a school of children as they all file back into the museum. Its cooler inside, which makes the children sleepy as their small bodies begin to lax and cool down like too hot coils inside a machine finally resting. He takes them to the lounge, where he finds a basket of fresh fruit, and he shares them with the kids. Their little hands become sticky with juices soon enough, but they gain back their energy.
“I grew these peaches,” Lance proudly proclaims while holding a half-eaten one in his hands.
One child, of alien race, curiously tilts their head at the name and regards the soft fruit with newfound appreciation. Another takes a second peach, greedily, and announces, “I want to go to your farm.”
Lance laughs, “You want a field-trip to my farm?”
“Yes! It sounds fun. From the third floor, you can see your farm. I like all the flowers there.”
A girl looks inquisitive. “You can see it? Mr. McClain, can we go up and see it?”
“The third floor isn’t on the checklist,” Lance dryly remarks. He is given wide, pleading eyes in response. “But if we finish 30 doboshes early… maybe.”
The children give each other secretive glances of alliance, a plan brewing inside their little brains to get their way. It makes Lance want to laugh but he barely holds it back by chewing into his peach.
A soft buzz in his pocket alerts Lance to an incoming call. When he pulls it out and looks, he sees Keith, his thumb pauses before the answer button before he shifts it back into his pants with a small shake of his head. It stops buzzing for a second, then continues. Lance ignores it all as the smiles as his charges.
“Everyone ready to continue?”
After various sets of cheers and a bathroom break to clean little sticky hands, they restart where they left off. With every stall they stop at, Lance injects his own personal tidbits, which equally annoys and enraptures the children. The buzzing in his pocket is incessant enough that Lance has to silence his phone when the kids aren’t looking.
A soft rumbling shakes the windows and walls and Lance frowns as he turns his head to look outside. The children have quieted and the hairs on his nape rise.
“Must be a loud ship-” he begins to say but is interrupted as piercing sirens blare the surrounding air. At once, the children begin to panic, tears forming in their eyes, and Lance presses his hands to small backs as he pushes them forward.
“Alright, we need to go to the shelter now, single file everyone,” he yells over the sirens. His heart beats violently in his chest and he trembles at the thought of his family, but he forbids the thought until he’s led the children to safety.
The rumbling becomes violent enough his feet skids across the floor and he nearly trips. Fearful sobs fill his ears as he makes eye contact with the ejector rack of a ship as it releases a bomb.
It’s too late.
Lance’s hands yank out to grab the nearest children and pull them close to his body. They scream with fear as the building’s glass fixtures break and mounted pieces of art tumble to the tiled floor, which was beginning to split and crack.
“Everyone, get over here-”
His voice is drowned out by screams and breaking apart pillars. His vision doubles and he gasps as his head is hit by a piece of fallen rubble from the breaking ceiling. His body is a ragdoll, helpless and limp, as the floor opens up in a maw and devours him.
All he could see was white. Feel the color along this skin, his hair.
It reminded him of Allura’s resting place, and the last memory he ever held of her before her story was cut like cloth.
“—ance!”
It’s only been several years, he sees her statue all the time; so why can’t he remember her face? He hears her, somewhere, but he can’t understand her. Her hands curl through his hair, dusting away stars and grief. He’s reminded of when he was little, clutching his mother’s skirt, enforcing the evils could not get to him by her warm, calloused hands.
“Lance!”
Lance’s eyes snap open.
They meet a grey sky, and as quickly as he opened his eyes he’s grimacing as ash falls onto his face and he makes a miserable noise as he shakily rolls to his side, a coughing fit taking any other thought he has for the next few moments.
His eyes water, nose smarted, and he finds his gaze sluggishly looking forward to the voice that summoned him from the void.
Ah, Keith.
When did he come? They haven’t seen each other in six months. Wasn’t he supposed to be on a mission?
“Lance, get a grip,” Keith hisses, panic pinching his face, and Lance groans in pain as hes grabbed and forced to stand on trembling knees.
And then it floods all back to him.
Lance removes himself from Keith’s grip, staggering as he looks around, eyes darting around. The courtyards are being tainted by the ash falling from the sky, the air filled with sulfur, and that distinctly burning smell of laser fire.
“Kids?” He yells, and his voice is so dry, like he’s eaten asphalt.
They were attacked by - by something. Someone.
He remembers he was just resting with the children, just for a second, and then the ceiling just fell on-top of them, like angry shards of heaven, and-
Lance’s broken body stops in place as his eyes slowly trail down to his feet. They widen and go glassy. He kneels and vomits on the spot, eyes burning and blockading his vision.
At his feet was a tiny dismembered hand.
He scampers back on his legs and a choked noise comes from him, eyes squeezing shut; afraid to open them and see the little hand again, or discover more. He’s not allowed that peace. Keith is already yanking at his shirt again.
“We have to get into my ship, this planet is going to collapse!” Keith is shouting in his ear, but hes suddenly so distant to Lance, because the man’s mind comes back to him.
“I - I need to go home,” he faintly says, then, louder, “Solak’s with Mateo.”
Solak, his beautiful wife of many years. A retired soldier of the fallen Galra Empire; a proud woman with beautiful eyes. She’s with Mateo, their little boy. He’s only six, he must be so scared and confused. Lance lurches foward, fighting against Keith’s hands on his shoulder, eyes trained on the dirt path that lead home.
“We can’t!” Keith’s scream is piercing and Lance stops all his struggle, body stilling to stare at the smaller man. Keith’s body is beating up and down from his pants. “We can’t…because your farm was hit first.”
The hot, thick humidity of the air around them is lost on Lance as icy spikes wash down his spine.
A crooked, scared smile plasters his face, “What?”
He might be concussed, he can’t make sense of anything. Because, if that first air shattering noise was a bomb that hit his home, then-
Keith’s dark indigo eyes only look into Lance’s own, beseeching him to trust him. Its not an unfamiliar gaze; it’s something they have shared many times and every time Lance would stand by his side. It’s that look that Lance would never admit to himself makes him feel powerful and drunk off the faith his beloved Keith had in him and want even more.
These feelings are long behind him now. He - he has a family, and they must be hurt and confused.
Lance steps back, breaking their eye contact. Something cracks in Keith’s face. And then Lance runs away as fast as his legs carry him through the fallen pillars of the castle, tripping over rubble but never stopping once as he skids and stumbles and scrapes himself. He does not look back to see if Keith is following, only keeps going. Goes down the road that leads to his farm full of beautiful juniberries and yellow carnations. His farm with soft sloping hills and the crows of cattle; the dirt road that climbs up to his cape cod styled country home that was designed to look exactly like the one he grew up in. The one that his child and family would grow up in.
A lightning bolt thunders behind him, carrying a gush of wind that whips his hair and the ends of his shirt forward as he nearly falls from the vicious earths shaking, but he stays in place as he is met with a sight unthinkable.
He’s descended into Hell, hasn’t he?
It’s the only conclusion he can come up with as he is forced to see the collapsed, sad form of his once beautiful home. The white-washed wood is splintered, burning from whatever struck it. A storm of anguish has hit this happy sanctuary, turning it into a red and sinister nightmare.
Lance walks, not runs, up to it.
He knows there’s no point.
Time is slow as he passes the shredded fields of flowers, then the tarnished gates he hand-painted. He arrives at a doorway that his wife had to slump under with her infamous height. The actual door is gone, somewhere in the front yard, and the doorway is cracked and crumbled. He slides under it and enters the rubble.
Lance is silent as he crouches before a lain figure. Matted and bloody hair is smoothed out of a face and he weakly smiles as he looks at the face of the one he loves. It falters and he curls over a crushed body, trembling hands cupping a face.
Solak is so pretty, even now. Parts of her are missing and her dark maroon blood is quickly bleeding into his clothes, but he accepts it as he nuzzles into her face. She had been impaled by a ceiling beam while running to Mateo’s room.
The room that Mateo was born in and grew with is gone now. It was directly hit.
A tremble waves over Lance’s body as he begins to rock, hand messily combing through Solak’s hair. Slowly, he picks her up, holds her burned entrails, and stalks to the bedroom. He can’t get much farther then the entry way; wood and plaster block the way, encasing his child in a terrible tomb. Lance lets his legs buckle and slam onto the ground. He holds Solak tighter, soaking up her leaving warmth.
“No, no no no,” he whispers feverishly, tears swarming in his wide, empty eyes. “Please no, not again.”
As Keith finally reaches the farmhouse, he is met with the sobbing wails of a mourning man. They are wretched and pitched low and high, mere warbles of madness.
Lance McClain doesn’t die with his wife that day, but something much worse dies inside him.
“We…we need to go…”
Keith’s voice is so small and frail, much like how flesh was impervious to the sharpness of a blade. It would bleed and bleed, so terribly weak against it.
A long, barking laugh comes from Lance.
Keith’s face flickers from guilt to fear as empty and eyes full of loathing turn to him. Tears flow down Lance’s dirty face.
Why was Keith here? How did he know to come?
It’s because he knew this would happen.
That everything would be torn from Lance.
Nothing tethers Lance from snapping as he stares at Keith with wide eyed hatred.
“This is your fault, isn’t it.”
That day, something also dies in Keith Kogane.
A softness has begun to settle in. The type that one felt whilst dreaming; like the floating by motes of the late afternoon sun peaking through white lace curtains. There’s a certain stillness that comes with it, a haze, and Lance stares at everything yet nothing as yelling sizzles in and out of his hearing.
“Why were the system defenses down - why didn’t you get alerted to the battle cruiser!?” Keith is yelling at the top of his lungs, voice straining with it. It could also be from his previous crying. Lance couldn’t care a damn about him.
“Why didn’t you investigate the suspicious activity of the Galra Rebels?” Shiro’s voice is calmer, but no less vindictive and heated. His dark eyes are like molten obsidian, freshly born from a cradle made of furious lava. “Because of your lack of vigilance, we didn’t know Lotor was alive.”
Keith’s mouth is open and he looks truly angry, betrayed, as Hunk and Pidge intervene with their bodies and reasoning voices.
“Look, we all-”
Lance’s eyes slowly shut.
He doesn’t care about any of them.
He doesn’t remember leaving Solak. Doesn’t remember how he ended up on a ship and in a conference room. Everything is a blurry mess, all except the vivid and frightening memory of a peeling face, of organs - organs which had been the stuffing to the one he swore everything to. Lance turns his head and stares out the long window of the room.
The floating remains of New Altea are in full view, like a mockery of God’s will. Lance had left his rosary at home when he first entered the Garrison - never looked back, but now he finds himself wishing he had it in his grasp. He might have prayed, he might have not. As it is, he only stares at the collapsing planet he called a home for several years.
“-the survivors have no homes, we need to properly evacuate them!” Keith’s voice is high and warbling now, grating on Lance’s increasing migraine.
“You’re naive, Keith.” Shiro’s voice is venomous. “There won’t be any survivors if we don’t go hunt that bastard down now.”
“You’re being stupid! We can’t rush in-”
A dry scoff. “Oh, look who’s talking.”
As he moves his hand up to the glass, ignoring the increasing loudness, he sees a glint in the light. A pain unlike anything physical can bring washes over him like a typhoon. A bronze beaten ring curls around his fourth finger snugly. When Solak had found out humans expressed ownership of mating by wearing rings, she had crafted a set on her own. She’d mistakenly given him the one with the gemstone, a tradition usually only for women. He had refused to take it back; liked the stone from some distant planet that had the same hue as her beautiful wine maroon eyes. A dark crimson with swirling violet.
Lance suddenly stands up and the shock blanket on him (who had placed it there?) falls to the ground. He ignores - or more accurately, doesn’t register the looks he’s given as he stumbles out of the room. The hallway is quieter, but it is no safe haven from his thoughts.
All he can think about is the smell.
Burnt flesh was revolting.
A soft gag echoes in the halls and Lance slowly crumbles, letting his body take him to the floor in a mess of limbs.
Why did God take everything from him?
“Lance..!”
And shove the one thing he can’t have in his face?
Lance’s blank eyes lift up to look at Keith, who is jogging towards him. The half-Galra kneels down and checks him. The worry brings Lance a flood of irritation. He slaps the hands away.
And truly heinous words come from his lips.
“Why couldn’t it have been you instead?”
Why was it her and not you?
Keith stills. He looks pathetic as his head tilts down and he tries to contain his fresh tears from the hurt of Lance’s words. The implications are not lost on him. That’s just fine. Lance would rather Keith know. He wants Keith to hurt just as much as he is, for taking what he curated and raised into the perfect family.
“Look, I - I know that you’re grieving-” Keith tries to talk but a loud clang of Lance’s fist hitting the wall stops him in place, that look of fear and hurt appearing in his beautiful eyes once more.
“You can’t know because you’re all alone,” he hisses. He hope it hurts on a level deeper then surface, truly stirs up the wall that Keith kept up around himself.
When Lance looks up, Keith is crying. Openly and raw, he is crying from the pain, and hunches into himself - those walls will grow even higher now, surpassing any building man has ever created. The men Keith considered friends and brothers have tarnished the no doubt rose tinted view in Keith’s eyes. Keith had always been too naive; vigilant to the world’s horrors, but blind and ignorant to those he chose to trust. Like a dog who’d come back with its tail wagging after being struck.
Lance thinks the dog is finally irreparably damaged to do so.
Keith stands up in a shaky, fast motion. He stares at Lance, like he wants him to take it back, but when Lance only coldly stares, fresh tears overflow indigo eyes. He takes a step back. Then another. Silence prevails.
And so Keith suddenly bolts, running from Shiro, running from Lance, running from the hurt and pain - even if they’ve been deeply embedded into his soul and could not be outrun.
In his shadow, Lance sees Solak. And under Solak’s shadow, he sees something long lost.
Looking at his back, Lance pretends not to feel that forbidden emotion buried underneath all his hatred. He’s done so well locking it away, he can’t falter now his everything is gone. Several locks and chains contain it within his heart, but nothing can eradicate it, even now, after ruining it all.
He claws at his chest, ignores the heat behind his eyes.
Pretend its hate, pretend its jealousy.
Pretend until you die.
Lance tries at first to help.
He avoids Keith, pretends he doesn’t exist, and works solely on piloting the ships based upon the jets the MFE pilots used. He’s a Lieutenant - no Red Paladin, no leader, but he’s never been one, and he works to keep order between the new soldiers who cry and try to desert when their comrades are burned to dust in their own ships; the vessel their coffin and the accumulating graveyard the black splotches of space which humble them to their mortality.
He gets used to hearing the wails and pleads of teammates as they burst into flames or they are shot in the heads by precise, sharp guns. Its different then the war he had grown up in. This war; this wasn’t politically driven. There was no real motive behind Lotor’s schemes. Hilariously, Zarkon was at least a man who valued resources and power - and notoriously, to have power meant you had to have an audience.
Lotor didn’t want a single person to live through this.
Lance doesn’t ever count how many people die on a mission, doesn’t ask Shiro or Pidge how big the death toll is on the coalition’s side. A part of him doesn’t care anymore.
Lotor already took what was most important to him.
After his first team ends in a bust (haha, literally), he’s introduced to four new ones. At once, there is a painful ache filling his chest.
“You’re a hero, Mr. McClain! It’s so nice to meet you, I’m Jesse,” a short dark haired man is smiling at him like he’s hung the stars, his tanned and calloused hand outreaching. He can’t be any older then twenty, and the thought brings Lance some shame. Why did the young always have to carry the burden that their elders started?
Lance hesitates.
“Just go ahead and confess already, you’re such a creep,” a woman mutters under her breath. Jesse snaps his head to her and glares.
“Shut up, Avery, you’re such a pain in the ass!”
A tall, quiet man clears his throat. “Can you two please behave?” He asks quietly, with politeness, but there’s an authoritative demand hidden under his words. It’s so much like like Shiro when he was younger that Lance finds himself staring the man with wide eyes.
“Statistically unlikely,” a young man - nearly a child - mumbles. He’s too busy messing with his watch which emits a holographic graph chart of something. “Name’s Alex by the way. Big dude is Charlie.” Still won’t look at Lance.
For a second, he sees Voltron. Of a younger, far away past, where love triumphed and determination could not be weathered by evil. Where joy was so easily shared as well as sadness and Lance could look in any direction and find a companion by his side to protect and be protected by. Jesse and Avery yell at each other while Charlie tries to shut them up. It’s embarrassing - are these supposed to be soldiers?
But a flash of simpler times pervades his disgust and for whatever reason, Lance finds himself laughing.
Everyone stills and looks at Lance with astonishment. Lance wasn’t exactly known for laughing his merry ass off (not to these people, anyway).
A strange feeling is fluttering inside Lance’s chest, like a bird scrambling to fly away, and he wipes tears from his eyes as he holds out his hand invitingly.
“It’s nice to meet you all. I’ll be sure to torture you into something more respectable,” he says with amusement and mirth.
Jesse’s eyes sparkle and he grabs the hand in his, holds it tightly. Alex and Avery look dismayed by his words, but they are so young they can’t hide their excitement either.
And so Lance gains a team that will be invaluable to the coalition against Lotor.
Lance is worried this is going to take a lot more effort then originally thought.
Both Charlie and Alex are abysmal at flying - how the ever living hell had they even managed to get recruited, anyway? Jesse for the life of him can’t aim in the right direction. And Avery.
She was the most intelligent skilled of the bunch, but she was so stubborn. She refused to ever take criticism and outright didn’t take orders. A lot like a certain someone he knew. At least Keith had listened to Shiro though. Avery seemed particularly inclined to ignore Lance.
This comes to a terrible head when they’re cornered between a moon and a gassy planet made of torrent winds just ready to tear any ship that dared to come close. Lance is in the back of the formation shooting his artillery rounds at any Galra ship that gets through Charlie and Jesse’s piss poor defense, and Avery won’t just stop zipping everywhere and distracting her teammates with her frightening speed.
“Avery,” he warns, “Stick to Alex.”
“But I’m getting them!” She yells, frustrated. She’s too emotional. Her family had perished on New Altea. But this was a battlefield, and grief had no place here. It didn’t matter what your purpose was when you entered the playing field, as soon as you got in you were nothing but your mission.
Lance grits his teeth and his jaw clenches.
“Yeah?” He says, softly. Then he lets off on the controls to his canon guns. Alex notices immediately.
“Sir, what are you doing-”
“If Avery wants to talk like she’s the leader, then why don’t I give her due courtesy?” Lance gives a biting and sweet smile, just for the camera feed. “Go on, Avery; show us you can move the heavens.”
The next twenty minutes are absolute hell. Charlie and Jesse are dangerously close to being fatally hit several times and they scream at Avery when she thrusts herself away from formation and leaves a gap vulnerable to the enemy. Alex is particularly loud about it, using any and every obscenity known to humanity as he pleads Lance to rejoin formation. At one point, Avery nearly crashes into the cutting atmosphere of the gassy planet.
Suffice to say, after they return back to hangers of Atlas, Avery is utterly silent.
She, and everyone else, learns a valuable lesson, and then their learning really begins.
Lance can’t deny it, he’s a little fond of the terrible imps. He can almost say he knows why Allura was so harsh on them when she trained them; its a little fun.
It’s after a particularly harrowing but rewarding mission that Lance and his team, instead of reporting to a major, instead go to Shiro. Jesse is utterly ecstatic, gleeful to meet yet another hero of his. It reminds Lance of when he was younger and idealized Shiro almost as if he were a god among men for his achievements and virtues.
“Stop skipping,” he orders, though fondness bleeds into his tone as Jesse hops in front of them.
“You’re going to embarrass Mr. McClain,” Charlie sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, but Lance can tell hes nervous too. And then they enter central command.
Shiro is a formidable man, standing tall and rigidly at the control center of the bridge, and his prosthetic glows in thrums of power as he turns to the team and curtly nods, black eyes all-seeing, all-knowing. He smiles mildly, smiles with the same restrained a man of his stature ought to have. How bright that smile used to be. Now it’s waned.
“Lance,” he greets, “Still a teacher, I see.”
That brings a stab of pain and Lance’s own smile sharpens. The jab is not missed. Still upset about Keith, I see.
“A career I can’t seem to escape,” he dryly replies. He then looks at Jesse. The boy - because Lance has found out he’s only eighteen and Jesus its so young - looks like he’ll jump out of his skin before he smiles at Shiro.
“Reporting to central command, Jesse James,” he stands upright and salutes. “The East Theater is now under control. Platoons Cinder and Angels report no fatalities. They are securing the theater for any Resistance stragglers but as of two hours and thirty one minutes ago, the battle was won.”
Shiro doesn’t look impressed. He listens and then nods once more before spinning around. “At ease. Be sure to get plenty of rest, soldiers.”
Jesse falters slightly but Lance bumps him with his shoulder. When the disheartened boy looks up at him, he gives a tiny assuring look. That brightens Jesse a little and he collets himself.
Witnessing the scene from the corner of his eye, Shiro scowls.
“I really hate you,” Jesse mutters venomously.
Solemnly, Avery only hums. “So be it.”
Between them is a chessboard.
They’re in one of the common rooms on Atlas. Lance had been dragged there by Jesse, who is now too absorbed in a battle of wits to really care about his supposed hero, and Lance sighs boredly as he looks up at the ceiling from his seat. Really, what was he doing, entertaining some kids? He should be doing something else, like maybe having a drink with Hunk, or talking to Pidge.
But it’s been hard to even look at the two. They don’t know what happened between him and Keith, but its undeniable that they side with Keith; the poor little injured pup. It makes every conversation with them awkward, stilted. They try hard to never breech the subject of Solak and Mateo, yet somehow always end up talking about it in the end. They always end up offering pitying words and terrible condolences, as if Lance doesn’t just want to forget.
He thinks about them enough, he doesn’t need his friends to bring it up every single time they talk.
But… are they even really friends anymore?
Maybe they aren’t. Maybe they haven’t been in a very, very long time.
The thought brings an acidic taste to Lance’s mouth.
Alex isn’t too far from him and Lance peers at whatever he’s playing on a console. Great distraction. “Oh, I know that game,” he mumbles. “That came out when I was around your age.” Alex snorts at his blatant admittance of his age. Lance could honestly care less, but he glares anyway. “Hey, be respectful.”
“You look pretty young to me,” Charlie says, hoping to appease him. It makes Lance want to laugh.
“Pretty weathered,” Alex says and then he yelps when Lance grabs his console and haughtily shakes it.
“Just watch, idiot, I’ll beat this entire game in forty minutes and prove who’s weathered,” he says with challenge, a spark in his eyes. He feels childish, but he can’t help he small smirk on his face.
Alex looks aghast. “You can’t beat that in forty minutes!”
“That’s why you’re gonna watch,” Lance declares with great delight. Jesse and Avery have stopped their chess match and instead curiously wander over as Lance starts the game on a new save.
It only takes thirty minutes. Somehow, it earns more respect then any battlefield could.
“That’s a world record!”
“We’re on a ship, so isn’t it a universal record?”
Jesse and Alex debate about the technicalities of world records when on a space ship in the middle of nowhere and Lance watches; a silent, rare contentment throbbing low at the base of his chest.
The mission had been going so fucking good.
They’d managed to blow up a cargo port full of food and material goods for Lotor’s resistance. It would give them a step ahead - it would lower enemy morale and weaken the troops. They could launch an all out assault and they could win.
Lance manages a small smile as his teammates crow and laugh with relief as the bombs explode like children carrying sparklers on the 4th of July.
“I can’t wait to go home,” Jesse sighs with glee, leaning back as he raises his hands in the air victoriously.
“You have a father on Earth, right?” Avery asks. Its a rare moment she doesn’t look tense. A rare moment she looks relaxed, and not at Jesse’s throat.
“Yeah. He’s really sick but what can you do. Once we’re off duty, I’m going to go see him,” Jesse looks longing, sad, but its only brief. The kid is full of optimism and he turns to Charlie.
“And you! I know you have a girlfriend!”
Charlie turns a terrible shade of red. “How did you-”
“The walls have ears, Charles,” Alex drawls, and then he looks up at Lance. “Alright, we’re good to go, Sir.”
“Hey, Mr. McClain, what will you do when we’re off duty?” Jesse asks as they grab everything start their slow trek back to the ships they had hidden on this god-forsaken marsh world.
Drink myself to sleep, is his automatic answer. Any day that is not full of work reminds him only of his many regrets and the emptiness in his bed. Of the ring on his hand. But he hums and looks at his charges.
If he could share more joy with these kids who barely count for adults. If he could manage to give them better lives, and be able to see them succeed…Maybe he could let go of all the grief. If he could stop clinging onto regret so stubbornly, and oh, do these these kids make him want him to, maybe he could walk alongside their greatness.
“Maybe-”
A loud, whizzing threads through the air.
A second is all it takes for Lance to register the sound of a hot sizzling bullet, but it’s a second too late as his body lurches forward in panic and his mouth opens wide to warn the boy in front of him.
Blood splatters all over Jesse helmet’s visor and Jesse drops onto the floor.
Lance’s hand twitches in the air where they tried to grab. His ears begin to ring just as Avery screams.
Jesse’s face is a mess of bloody viscera, not a trace of the boy’s smile or twinkling eyes in sight. A jaw hangs loose, pearly white teeth stark against a bleeding mouth and lolled tongue. He can’t breathe, can’t move because his legs are full of painful static, and his eyes rove to the horizon. Angry, yelling survivors of the bombs are headed to them. A gun is raised again and Lance grabs Avery and turns heel.
“No,” she shrieks. Tears pour down her face, mouth agape with her wails as she tries to reach, tries to touch and hold Jesse, but Lance picks her up and they are running. He grunts as he’s shot in the shoulder but he goes on, runs as fast as he can, as much as his legs can handle.
Lance barely registers Alex falling down. He stops and goes out to grab a hand but Alex spits out red from his mouth as his spine is shot thrice. He’s dead almost immediately. Lance watches the smart glint in those green eyes swiftly die down up till there’s nothing, as if there weren’t ever a soul inside his body. As if he wasn’t there just a few minutes ago.
Lance almost cries.
“Charlie, run! Just keep running!” Lance is shouting, voice hoarse, and he can’t catch his breath as they try to make it to their ships. If they can just make it to one of them, they can escape. Charlie whimpers and collapses and it takes every single thing in Lance to not turn around and just keep going.
The white ship against the murky landscape is like a holy grail when Lance catches sight of it. All five are in a row but he darts to the nearest one. Blood - not his, not his - smears against the control panel as he opens it and he rushes inside just as lasers fire off and bounce off the metal. Avery is limp in his arms but he holds her tightly as he inputs commands and they’re off as fast as the ship’s engines can manage.
They’re out in space when Lance turns his head. “Avery-”
A neat, gaping hole is pierced through Avery’s pretty little forehead, her eyes rolled back.
Lance’s grip does not waver. Slowly, he presses his head against hers.
“That’s okay,” he whispers, voice cracking. “You just rest.”
He cries.
He has to be dragged away from Avery when they finally recover the ship. He is loathe to release her and he holds as tight as he can until his weak body finally gives up. He can’t do anything but sob and beg Avery to wake up.
Shiro is there, standing just as tall as he always does, and Lance is being carried away as he screams at him.
“It’s all your fault! You knew it was too dangerous!”
The room he has made his prison is beginning to smell of the salt from his tears and the sweat from his nightmares. He cannot sleep.
When Lance closes his eyes, he sees his beautiful little boy, his small legs running in the fields of juniberries. The wind carries Solak’s jingling laugh, and if he focused on the dream enough, he could feel her soft warmth. It is not their ending that haunts him; it’s the peace he lost. The peace he so tryingly fought for.
The slow mornings on the farm, Solak tired but happy, tiny Mateo in his arms, a hearty breakfast to begin the day. Or the nights, settling Mateo to sleep in his bed. Lance and Solak would tell him tales of their journeys. Lance would wish he knew her sooner (maybe he wouldn’t have been set for disaster if he had loved her first).
These beautiful memories are like hellfire in his brain, burning everything to ash.
When he closes his eyes, he sees Avery and Jesse. Sees them playing chess and bickering, so loud and annoying. Charlie is disassembling a gun silently besides them, amused by their antics, and Alex is in a corner, pretending not to watch, but he will smile when Avery says something funny.
So, rarely does he sleep.
Instead, he drinks.
He drinks until he’s sick, until the alcohol finally muffles the sharp pain he is constantly living with. He locks himself in his small dorm room within the Atlas, wastes away, and hopes that with every time he falls asleep, he doesn’t wake up.
Lance is drinking one such day when he hears a knock. It’s familiar, a secret rhythm and tat-tat, which is almost enough to make him smile, but he’s so sloshed all he can muster is a short huff and then he’s stumbling to the door. Hunk is there, tall in the doorway, and he looks so well put together compared to Lance it makes him actually laugh this time.
Hunk’s round eyes only reflect incredibly sadness.
“Care to drink with me?” Lance asks but is already forcing Hunk inside with a nudge. He knows he reeks of liquor, pulls out a chair from a dining table and sets it near the coffee table and couch where various bottles line themselves up. He plops himself on the couch and grabs the open bottle he has been drinking, swigging it disgracefully. Some liquor escapes and slowly rolls down his growing stubble; just slightly too thick to really call it that, too short to call it a beard.
“Lance,” Hunk slowly says.
“I know,” Lance interrupts him. “I need to shave. S’getting out of hand.”
“Lance,” Hunk says more firmly, and Lance finally looks at him in the eyes, despite his great hesitance. He was so soft for Hunk he fears he’ll break when he finally stops. He’s lucky that Hunk’s eyes are avoiding his - too engrossed in his unsightly state.
“You can’t continue doing this.”
A flash of irritation flickers onto Lance’s face, causes his nose to scrunch and his lips purse tightly.
“I can do whatever I like,” he slowly, clearly states.
“It’s breaking you!” Hunk’s voice suddenly rises and the dams break, “I haven’t seen you in weeks, you don’t talk to anybody, you won’t work with us; you’re - you’re just rotting here!”
“As opposed to..?” He dryly asks.
Hunk is offended, voice scathing, “Even if we don’t have the Lions, you have years of experience as a pilot. We need more leaders like you to guide-” he’s stopped by a loud, miserable laugh from Lance. He looks thunderous as Lance gets it all out, his narrow eyes full of mirth.
“Leader?” He says with utter amusement. “That’s a sad thing to say, Hunk. We both know there aren’t any leaders in this room.” Not after what he did. Not after his team. Jesse’s face lingers in his mind, all flesh torn apart.
“This isn’t about Voltron or the Garrison!” Hunk barks, “We’re at war with Lotor and he’s winning.”
“Hmm.”
Lance’s expression of disinterest strikes something in Hunk and he stands from where he sat, the chair squeaking with it. Heavy disappointment; that’s what Lance would call the face Hunk gives him. Maybe he’s too far gone, because he feels nothing in the face of such torrent emotions.
“You’ve changed,” he whispers in disbelief.
“And it’s time you do,” Lance remarks. “We’re not kids anymore. Things happen, things change.” He sets the bottle down onto the coffee table with a clink, and he looks Hunk square in the eyes.
“I’m not helping.” Not anymore.
There’s a slight quiver to Hunk’s lips. The Lance he knew, the one he loved, would have eagerly jumped to the depths of Hell if it were to save others. Would have boldly exclaimed he would end it all; charming vanity under a truly caring kid. A hopeful, smiling, glittering star which lit up the sky.
That kid is gone. A bitter, resentful man has replaced him.
Hunk is silent as he leaves, sudden, and Lance sighs as he sits back in his seat. He fakes relief, pretends to be glad to be alone once more. Slowly, he sinks onto his side, legs curling to his chest.
He stares listlessly at the amber liquid inside the long bottle, its soft movements with the sway of a ship the only company he has.
Tears well up in his eyes and slowly coat the shiny blue scales under them, sanctifying the marks with the tears of suffering.
Lance isn’t sure that he’s alive when another guest arrives at his doorstep. It’s been months. He doesn’t know when he last ate or drank anything besides alcohol and his joints are rusty when he’s roughly shaken.
“Ugh, the fuck?” He stirs, body tensing, and he glares at the intruder - almost tries to choke them out, but he smells the faint herbal scent of Pidge and he stills to instead stare at her in wonder.
When had she grown?
She used to be small, so curious and full of wonder. Her big eyes would glitter like Saturn. Now, they look like dying stars.
“We need to talk,” she says.
“How’d you get in my room?” Lance grouches, shakily sitting up. His entire body hurts - he only sleeps now. He’s sure his body is wilting at this rate, but, well…
“We found Lotor’s home base,” Pidge ignores his question. He looks at his door and it certainly wasn’t knocked down, so he assumes she hacked the Atlas system like the utter rat she was. “We need you to lead the charge.”
Lance snorts.
Pidge only stares on without emote, and he falters. Lance rubs his head and sighs, “Look, Pidge, I already said no to Hunk. Didn’t that James guy become the captain of the Fleet?”
“He’s dead.”
“Ah.”
“A lot of people have been dying,” Pidge callously says, and where did that little girl go that teared up with empathy? “Trust me, I wish we had other options, but all our pilots are fresh and we need someone experienced.”
“I…don’t want to,” Lance slowly says. He has nothing left in him. Not after Avery. Jesse. Charlie and Alex.
Silence cuts through the tense moment, Pidge’s face almost calm as she stares at him. Lance can only muster back a lackluster look. He might have expected it, but he’s still surprised when his head is twisted back from a heavy punch.
Lance’s nose crunches with it and he grabs his broken nose with a volatile hiss, glaring at Pidge furiously.
“What the fuck?” He growls, and it’s all the remaining affection he has for her stopping him from dragging her by the hair out of his room, the pain in his face throbbing like an open wound. Blood is beginning to thickly run down his face. Pidge staggers back, holds herself with her small thin arms, and Lance’s hands tighten into fists and his knuckles whiten from the pressure.
“You’re disgusting,” she gasps, and tries to laugh but its so twisted its more like puffs of air. Pidge’s voice is chopped and broken, her breaths ragged. They drag on every inhale, like her throat is closing, like her world is ending. Anguish and betrayal make a messy cocktail in Pidge’s swirling eyes. She trembles from anger and despair all the same - a deep, terrible disappointed resentment sparking her fury. “Do you think I’ll let you treat me like Keith?”
Lance stands up immediately, looms over her and points to the door viciously.
“Get out.”
Pidge holds her ground, her gaze is steady and cruel, “No, you need to grow the fuck up and stop punishing everyone just because you couldn’t admit you loved Ke-”
A bottle of whiskey whizzes past Pidge’s face and crashes against the wall. Lance is a heaving mess, blind rage reddening the edges of his vision; his eyes mad.
All proud pretenses fall from Pidge and she stares as him with a mixture of horror and offense. It bounces between the two before landing onto the third option: fear.
“I used to look up to you.”
Hurt, betrayal, bitterness, all congeal and form into froth at the back of Lance’s throat as he watches Pidge leave where she once came from. It’s as the door slowly hisses shut, Lance realizes that he won’t see Pidge ever again. That from this day on, they would be strangers. He isn’t sure if he feels relief or grief.
Time slowly congeals into one singular loop. The days are the same, the nights just as nightmarish, the bottles he drinks emptying themselves too quickly, and a terrible idea evades through the fog of his mind.
He gets up from the couch and tears off his sheets from his small bed. His muscles are sluggish and so tired, melting away in his isolation, but he slowly rips the sheets into a thin long white line which shall serve as his salvation.
Lance ties it in a knot he shouldn’t know, but was far more familiar with then he’d like to admit to anyone. This was not a first offense thought. The sheets aren’t cotton, they are something better - studier, and they won’t break from hundreds of pounds of weight.
Then he smooths and neatly folds it into a tiny square; sets it inside the very top drawer on the right underneath his shirts.
And he walks back to his couch to take a shot of cowardice. His hands tremble, but he drinks away the nerves, and proceeds to succumb to oblivion and forget about the object in his drawers.
There’s another knock at his door. Lance does not recognize this one. It’s small, hesitant, and he almost opens his door - until he hears the knock’s owner.
“Lance…”
Keith.
From his place in bed, Lance’s head raises, breath catching. A deep yearning draws his eyes to the door, beckons him to open it and glimpse such perfectness in the form of a man. He contains it only by the growing resentment in his blackened heart.
Lance turns his back to the door, presses his hands to his ears.
“Please, Lance,” Keith is pleading, voice teary, and Lance’s heart beats fast, in tandem with his distress.
Maybe he’ll forgive me, the thought pervades his mind like a pest.
Lance slams his head to the wall, lets the pain bring him clarity.
There’s no going back. There is no asking for forgiveness.
There is no redemption.
“Don’t do this, please, can’t we just talk?” Keith is louder now, so so desperate that Lance can taste it. He squeezes his eyes shut. The pleading and knocking goes on for minutes, minutes that feel like hours within purgatory. When they don’t stop, Lance gets up in a rush and slams the doors open with heaves, panting with his fast heart.
“What?”
Keith looks so small standing here. He looks like how he did when they were younger, unsure of himself and the world. But he’s also so different. His hair is long, tied up, and Lance hates the change. Hates that, even if hypocritical, the others have changed just as he has. This is not the Keith that he lov- cared for. This is the face of the person who’s mistakes caused Lance his entire family.
His resentment must show on his face, Keith looks humbled and ashamed.
“I’m going on a mission,” he starts, faking normal conversation. Well, as best as he could. He was still Keith. “It’s going to be really long, and, if it succeeds, we’ll win against Lotor.”
There’s a long pause as Lance only apathetically stares.
“I may die.”
Lance’s grip on the doorway falters, slips, and his charade of hatred falls. “Wait, what do you mean?” Lance demands, stepping forward. Despite Keith’s slight fear - and oh, how much it hurt to know he was someone to fear now (but he did that, he chose that) - he doesn’t cower away.
Keith’s eyes are skewed to the side, downwards. “Its above your clearance level, so I can’t tell you much. But a lot…a lot of people are going to die doing this.”
Realization dawns on Lance’s face.
“You’re going to the heart of Lotor’s base.”
Keith looks meek. Barely nods. And Lance grabs him by the wrist, furious.
“You can’t go!” He shouts. Don’t die like them, don’t die like every single person he’s loved.
“Lance, be quiet,” Keith hisses, struggling against Lance, but he tugs Keith closer him. “I have to. I have the experience, I have the skill. I’m…responsible.”
Something terrible stings inside Lance’s chest. Angry tears form in his eyes, “You can’t go,” he repeats.
A soft, tender expression forms on Keith’s face. He smiles, like hes relieved of something. “I thought you wanted me dead?” He asks rhetorically.
That feels like a slap to the face and Lance grimaces violently, almost into a snarl, and his grip on Keith tightens as throbs of guilt make his blood thick in his heart.
Keith is looking at him so gently, invitingly. Not an obedient dog, but a saint in human skin. Like the Apple of Eden, he taunts him, coaxes him to take a bite and bury his face into the supple flesh of the fruit underneath red skin.
Lance pulls Keith up and kisses him bruisingly. The smaller man shrinks back but Lance follows, meshing their lips, and soon Keith is melting into it, grabbing at Lance’s shirt.
When they separate, they’re panting.
“Your long hair is ugly.”
And Keith gives him the most beautiful smile.
“Ah…”
That’s the word - noise - that escapes Lance as Shiro appears at his door. His knock is authoritative, and brings great Omen. Lance’s trepidation dissipates when he sees his face.
Pale, gaunt, and with red rimmed eyes, Lance looks at Shiro with a blank expression. His hand on the wall slowly falls and he steps back, as if such a thing would allow him to escape from the inevitable.
“Lotor lives.” Shiro’s voice is hoarse, cracking.
A laugh breaks free from Lance, and once he starts he can’t stop. His hand comes to claw at his face and he shakes with his mad laughter. Tears dribble down his face.
Shiro only looks on at him with a empty, dissonant face. He says nothing nor reacts as Lance comes forward and grips his uniform top roughly in his fists.
“Are you sure-” Is Keith really dead?
And why is it that Shiro looked so old, standing there before him? His wrinkles are deep set. A permanent crease to his brow and frown lines make up a grim face. He’s so much older.
Life is so much harder.
Lance is pushed away harshly by a metallic arm and he staggers back. He raises his head to yell, but something is thrown at him and he lamely catches it.
Keith’s cracked Blade of Marmora dagger cruelly glints in the artificial lighting. Its preciousness makes him huddle it close to his chest and Lance can’t look away from its broken figure.
Oh, its so scraped and beat up. The tip is missing. It’s entirely broken.
“Tomorrow, we’re launching a full scale attack. Be there.”
Shiro is curt, cold, and he is no friend or leader - just some commanding soldier. Lance can only silently watch him leave from the room, silently count the badges on his chest and notice the rigid nature of his back. Another short laugh comes from Lance and he tightens his grip onto the broken blade. The jagged pieces pierce his skin and blood trickles down onto the floors, but the pain is needed. The pain brings him clarity.
Space is utterly silent, but spaceships are surprisingly noisy. Their cogs and engines gently whir underneath the loud bustle of all onboard personnel, the friction of space and the shiny exteriors crafting ethereal wind only heard out in the abyss.
Its entirely silent for just a moment, a blip in time, and then time resumes.
Lance turns and violently knocks over the coffee table. Bottles scatter and crash loudly onto the walls, the floor, and amber and red liquids fill the seams of the tiles as he shouts and raves while kicking the table over and over and over again.
He screams out curses at Shiro, at the world, at himself, and his words mesh into frothing nonsense as the room becomes prey to this abundance of vengeance bursting inside his chest. It squeezes at his organs, popping them and overfilling his insides with frenzied heat. The man’s hands tarnish anything he touches, the room quickly turning into a display of his inner mind. His arms shove aside his drawer with the ferociousness of a beast and it bangs down onto the ground, the shelves loudly clattering out their slots.
And Lance sees it then.
The neat little folded square he’d made months prior. It’s whiteness is so stark against the cool metal floors and the dark shirts around it, and Lance’s rage stops at an instant.
Ah, that’s right.
Carefully, tenderly, Lance picks up the cloth. It unwinds and falls in elegant ropes on the floor. In this very moment, he holds it like a rosary and kisses it as such while tears fall down his face.
“Why couldn’t you have come back?” He whispers to a figure made of dark space dust.
“Why did you die?” He implores a dead starry planet and its cracked moon by its side.
But then he notices his blood from the slit on his palm slowly seep into the pure white of the sheet. It dirties it, and that’s exactly what Lance always did, isn’t it?
His dirty, imperfect touch caused the ruin of all the things he cared for. Nothing he has cared for has come back unscathed, and now he stands alone, in a destroyed room of his own creation.
He’d mucked up a pretty little dove meant for greater things then him; brought her down, and in the end, she’d impaled herself on the Golden Bough and molted her pretty feathers to bring salvation upon those under her glory.
Lance married and tied down a free creature who loved to explore the wonders of space; his envy of her spirit when his own was crushed made him squeeze at her throat and ensure she’d lever leave the grime of his world; she would be forever bound to a measly little farm for the rest of her life. It would be her cage and eventually, her coffin.
He chased away all responsibilities which once brought him immense joy and pride, he stomped all over the flag of liberty and burned the ropes of his friendships to fulfill his flagellation.
Lance McClain, the Red Paladin. Lance McClain, the man who rusted every precious thing he loved.
He who could never say ‘I love you’ the the one it mattered to most. Who he really loved, and would until the last stars died out.
Slowly, Lance’s legs curl and he crumbles onto the floor. His pants soak up the alcohol and he weeps loudly, muffled wails like that of a sad child bouncing off the walls. He wishes to clutch tightly to his mother and tell her how hard everything has been. She’d kiss his head and say, ‘My boy, I am always here.’
But she’s not, his mother is not here and he is so alone.
Lance used to fear nothing more then being alone. He grew up sharing his bedrooms, he never once went without companionship or the soft breathing of another by his side at any time of the day. The first time he slept alone was in the Castle of Lions, and each night was cumbersome for he who so desperately yearned for camaraderie and acceptance. Each morning was the restoration of his heart; the merry laughs of Coran and Allura, Pidge’s snarky scoffs, Hunk’s gentle timber voice, Shiro’s happy silence, and Keith’s poorly hidden smiles. Each dawn of a cycle on that ship brought him memories so mundane to the others but which imprinted themselves deeply into Lance’s core.
How lovely it was, to embrace the presence of others. To belong. To foster something not physical but far more important then anything of material worth.
Hunk’s voice comes to him, You’ve changed.
And Lance has, because now he wants nothing more then to be alone.
He sits back, only for his hand to glide against sharpness and cut weak skin and he hisses before looking behind him. His angry eyes soften at once.
Keith’s blade.
Gingerly, Lance picks it up, and caresses it. Strokes the glinting edges and engraved symbol at the cracked hilt. And a finalization washes over Lance. Its such a sweet, terrible relief, tinged with peace.
This is fine, he thinks. Because it is. Finally, he has lost everything that made up Lance McClain. The broken blade is held up. The tip may be gone, but the shattered blunt is still sharp enough.
Red roses bloom from tan skin as it’s split open. Vocal cords and muscles are cut deep, so deep it hits spinal bone, and with quickness the broken blade is dropped as blood flows down like a river and Lance falls back onto the floor.
It’s quick, its soft and gentler then expected, and the faint lights of the Atlas become blurry in Lance’s vision before his eyes close shut. Perhaps death was too good of a fate for him.
How cowardly, he mindlessly thinks.
His person-hood is drained out from him and it is like a mercy for a man as sinful as he; it’s like being cleansed.
As everything starts to get cold (so cold), he dreams of a field of yellow carnations and juniberries.