#im just gonna reupload this as a post to build up the blog shhh

[old-livin-la-vida-langst]

Stars in Your Eyes, Death at Your Throat [part 1]

[Read on ao3]

NOTE: I’ve moved to @livin-la-vida-langst , make sure you follow that blog and not this old one! :)

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To be honest, Lance felt Keith pulling away long before he announced that he would be joining the Blade of Marmora - running off to Marmoran missions instead of training with the team, late night reports to Kolivan, and just being holed up in his room instead of spending the time with them. He felt it coming, but that didn’t stop it from hurting any less. The team, while sad that Keith was becoming a full time Marmoran, were quick to adjust their roles - especially since they had a Black Paladin on standby. It made no sense and the thought of it left such an uncomfortable taste in Lance’s mouth; Keith was their leader and left, and everyone was moving on like it was no big deal.

What was worrying, was that if they could do that to him, it was more than easy to imagine them doing that to Lance.

He tries to be strong after Keith leaves, he really does, but it's just so lonely. Without the common factor of school or classes, Hunk naturally gravitates more often than not to Pidge instead of Lance and works on various projects. Allura and Shiro work on building strategies for the coalition. Neither group particularly needs or wants Lance's input; Coran is amicable enough, but there is only so much Lance can clean.

Shiro calls a training simulation for the team. He walks through different battle behaviors he wants each of the paladins to practice - Hunk needs to focus on his tenacity, Pidge on her drones input commands, Allura on her long distance, and Lance on his melee. Coran inputs the training sentries objective for each paladin above the training room with Shiro watching attentively. Everyone breaks off into the separate sections and gets to work.

Lance takes a cuff to the chin and lets out a startled shout. Shiro turned on the speech communication from the observation deck and says, “Lance, when facing taller opponents, make sure you stay out of their Danger Zone. You have to either come in behind his throw, or under it in order to cross the firing zone.” Lance wipes the spit off his chin and nods, his eyes never leaving the sentry.

Most of the time is spent with Shiro throwing the occasional piece of advice towards Pidge and Allura, he offers Hunk soft suggestions for how to strengthen his mental fortitude when handling an enemy. The robot facing Lance grabs his forearm and swings the paladin off his feet and onto the ground. He begins to writhe in pain as the robot applies pressure to his caught arm.

“Lance!” Pidge squawks and drops her control, the three drones she was commanding scatter off in different directions. One hits Hunk square in the face, making him freak out and collide into his practice sentry. Another drone slams into Allura’s back and she shouts out in surprise, falling to the ground in a very undignified manner. The third drone flys straight for the doors. They slide open and Shiro catches it before it has a chance to crash into anything. He walks in short strides with the drone in his human hand before grabbing the sentry on Lance and yanking it up with his Galra hand.

Lance withers under Shiro’s gaze. “End Simulation.” He announces without breaking eye contact. Hunk and Pidge run up to Lance, “Are you okay?” They both frett, scanning his body for any broken bones. He nods, shame closing his throat.

Allura gets back on her feet and harshly pats dust off herself. She walks up to Lance and looks down at him with a tired, frustrated expression. “Lance,” she began, “This kind of performance is unacceptable. It is one thing to be incompetent in a singular setting, but to have your incompetence affect your teammates could very well cost our lives. Voltron can’t afford that. The universe can’t afford that.” His mouth is dry, and his stomach won’t stop twisting; before he can fumble out an apology, Shiro sighs and places a disarming hand on Allura’s shoulders.

“The Princess is right, Lance. If you’re not helping around the Castle, training should be your top priority.” Shiro looks at him, more disappointed than frustrated, and God does that sting harder.

The red paladin tries to smile, and he hates how he can feel the burn of approaching tears. “Y-yeah, I… I know, I’m sorry, I’ll work harder.” He gets up without the help offered by Hunk’s hand and rushes off to his room with a mantra of ‘Don’t let them see you cry’ ringing in his head.

Lance finds safe haven in his room, clutching on to the communication tablet that was assigned to him at the beginning of their journey. He shuffles to the wall of his bed and idly taps his fingers over the frame while he ponders his next step.

With a deep breath, he unlocks the tablet, dials the access code for the Blade of Marmoa’s line and waits.

Each ring sends more and more chills down his spine, and anxiety begins to eat at his shaking hands.

Just as he’s about to end the call request, the line connects, and Lance feels a bubble of relief burst in his chest. “Hey Mulle-”

“Red Paladin.” The happiness inside him is snuffed out like a match in the rain. The leader of the Blade had answered instead, his large frame and stern face covering the screen. “Is there a situation at the Castle of Lions?” Kolivan shifts attention to something else off-screen, and stretches his hand out to enter some commands into his network, “I’ll send over a team of Marmoan’s within a quarter varga.”

“Wait! No, no, no, Kolivan, it’s chill here, don’t send a squad!” Lance screeches out. His hands are flapping around, trying to emphasize there was no alarm. Kolivan’s pulls his lips to one side of his face, clearly confused.

“Chill? If there is no alarm, why have you reached out? The Princess and Champion are responsible for relaying communications.” He says.

Lance rubs his left shoulder, suddenly feeling a lot more self-conscious. “I know. I, um. I wanted to see if Keith was around? I know he’s probably super busy, but I was just wondering what he was up to... if he had some time to talk, or whatever.”

Kolivan peers into the screen and thins his lips. He studies Lance for a moment before lightly shaking his head. “This access line is reserved for serious matters, and Keith is performing his training vigorously. I hope you understand this enough not to break proper Communication Protocol again unless it is a dire emergency.” The Galran ends their line before Lance can respond, leaving him to stare at a darkened reflection of his pitiful face.

His room suddenly feels so small and suffocating.

Lance curls into a ball, covers himself with his blanket and cries.

The next night, around the same time, Lance is laying down on his side. He skips dinner because the team tends to talk about what they've worked on for the day and Lance can't bear the air of uselessness when silence lingers around the table when everyone is finished speaking and Lance finds he has nothing new to say because he hasn't really done anything.

He rolls on his stomach to bury his face in his pillow and hears something buzzing. The tablet at the foot of his begins to vibrate and Lance leaps to answer it.

Keith - beautiful, amazing, Keith is on the screen glancing at something off-screen. “Hey, Kolivan mentioned you tried to reach out yesterday.” The half-Galran rolls his eyes playfully, “Are you that bored over there that you're trying to find ways to pest-” His eyes dart around the screen, looking at different parts of Lance’s face, “What the hell, Lance? Are you okay?” He gulps as he sees tears streaming down his friend’s face.

He's never seen him look so sad before.

Lance is hiccuping and furiously trying to wipe the tears away. “It's r-re-really good to hear your voice mullet!” Lance's voice cracks multiple time, but he can't find himself to be embarrassed right now.

Keith is waving his hands around frantically, as if there's some way his hands could go through the screen. “Lance, what's going on? Is everyone okay, what happened?” He asks.

His former right-hand man shifts, his gaze lowers. “Everyone’s good. Nothing’s wrong.” Lance’s voice is low, cautious, and it pisses Keith off.

“Bullshit, you’re crying Lance, stop lying and tell me what’s going on!”

Lance chokes on air and goes into a coughing fit. Keith is looking so intensely, that his purple eyes almost look like their glowing. “I, um… it’s been pretty rough without you here.”

There's a moment of pause as the Blade-initate digests the sentence.

“Uh, what?” Keith shifts his positioning and cocks his head to the side.

Lance meets Keith’s confused stare and continues, “I mean! Our system, you leading Voltron, and me being your right-hand man, it was good! I felt,” He sighs, “I felt useful. Now? I feel like I’m just a body to operate Red.”

Keith chews on his bottom lip.

“I don’t know what you’re going through, or why the team can’t help get you out of thinking like that, but I get how you feel.” Keith says. He scratches the back of his head nervously when Lance’s eyebrows furrow in concern, “The Blade is rough. They eat and work with each other, and have such strong conviction about what they believe; but it's so intense, they’ll fling themselves into the fire and hope their teammates will use their body to get to their goal without a second thought. You can’t really make friends here, because literally everyone is dispensable, and it’s hard.”

“You’re not dispensable.”

Keith’s eye widen, and his jaw goes slack. Lance is staring him down with red-rimmed eyes. “You’re not dispensable, you know that right?” Lance is gripping his tablet so hard, he swears it's going to crack. “We- we all care about you so much. If there’s ever a moment where you think you are, or you think that you need to be to complete a mission, I want you to remember me telling you this. Promise me, you’ll remember me saying this.”

Keith doesn’t really know what to say, or what to do. No one’s ever really told him that, but hearing it out loud… kinda makes sense. He smiles, “Thanks, Lance, I-” A puff of air leaves his quirked up lips. “I’ll try extra hard not to die if you remember to take your own advice.”

Lance huffs, and closes his eyes as he whips his head to the side. “Whatever. You better,” He says it sternly, but Keith sees his grin. “If I find out you died, I’ll kill you.”

The recent Malmora initiate’s smile is spread out so far, his cheeks are hurting, but he can’t quite stop it. “Oh really? Duly noted.”

Their eyes meet again, and they soon find themselves in a giggling fit.

“Oh!” Lance straightens up, “Did you hear what Pidge did on the scouting mission in Selticon?” Keith shakes his head. “Oh man, so wild, let me tell you. So, Pidge and I are rustling through a Galra-occupied village...”

The two end up talking through the night, sharing stories and making each other laugh. By the time they both realize its time to go, they also realize they don’t want this to end. They promise each other that they’ll schedule some time to this at least once or twice a movement. They end up sneak in video transmissions almost every other night to hear each other's voices and see each other's faces. Neither say it out loud, but it's such a cathartic way to vent their emotions, that they both can't help but look forward to the next call.

It’s really hard to deal with the chaotic mess of an intergalactic war. The fact that death is quite possibly around any corner they take is a little stressful to say the least, but the calls definitely make it easier to bear.

And... if, after every call, they end their night smiling and thinking of the other… well, there can't be much harm in that.