#the ones he was sworn to protect; Allura cannot control herself nor remain diplomatic; keith cant trust his mind nor his body

[swagging-back-to]

whump idea thats super messy and trash

cw ableism and canon typical sadness.

the usual seventh wheel asshole team behavior

something happens and everyone but lance is severely injured or altered in some way

pidge has vocal atrophy, hunk has Hyperesthesia making it impossible for him to touch other people or smell and taste things with too much flavor. Shiro is like normal but x10000. Keith develops seizures, muscle tremors, and hallucinations. coran has severe amnesia and hostile delusions, similar to dementia. Allura displays symptoms of conduct disorder.

hunk and pidge are the only ones who can act somewhat normal, keith is sane most of the time.

obviously being the only able bodied and able minded person on the ship, lance has to be resident nurse to 4 traumatized humans and 2 extremely overpowered toddlers. at first he can handle it, his abuelo had dementia, and he practically raised all his nieces and nephews. But of course, after time, the edges start to fray.

it started with hunk, Lance letting it slip more than once that he wishes he could taste hunks cooking and feel his strong arms wrapped in a tight hug.

it progressed to pidge, with Lance snapping during a particularly slow evening for the teen to "just say something, anything! i dont care if you say how much you hate me, or how stupid i am, or how im the weakest link and cant do anything to help anyone---just please say something." all pidge could do was stare in shock at the outburst until an eternity had passed and Lance stormed from the lab with bloodshot eyes.

Next, it was Shiro. It had been during a collective outburst by both Allura and Coran, with both of them screaming and wailing and throwing their (entirely too strong) fists at Lance's face. The violence caused Shiro to start wheezing to the point he turned blue, digging his fingers into his throat like he was being strangled. It was anything but brag worthy, but Lance was unable to do anything but hiss "Shiro i cant deal with your bullshit right now! Get the fuck out of here instead of strangling yourself" by the time he had managed to get Allura and Coran calmed down he was too busy sewing his split eyebrow to realize what had slipped from his mouth.

Unsurprisingly, Allura was the next target. She had been acting particularly defiant all day, purposely sabotaging all the preparations Lance had made in order for everyone to get what they needed (food, sleep, showers, meds, physical therapy, training, etc.) It wasnt until she had purposely started spraying purfume in Hunk's quarters did he truly rip into her, slamming her wrist against the wall halfway through her dumping an entire bottle on hunks bed to the point it left a bruise for a month. There were too many harsh words and insults to be remembered by either of them, but allura couldnt ignore the way her wrist clicked everytime she rolled it now.

Coran's berating didnt come until much later during the peak of a galran ambush. The ginger was completely unable to help, standing around mindlessly while Lance ran from the bridge to the controls. Halfway through inputting coordinates for an impromtu wormhole, Coran suddenly went back to a specific point in time and recognized nothing else besides *random alien using control hub, ship alarms blaring* and went on the offense. Lance had to dislocate one of corans shoulders in order to get him to stop long enough to create a wormhole--with another severe concussion.

Keith had been given most of lance's patience, able to provide Lance with some normalcy half of the time and keep him sane...until the hallucinations started up. Keith's own frustration over not being able to help, not being able to train, not being able to exert himself even a little bit before he ended up on the floor convulsing, how he couldnt keep his hands steady enough to hold his blade did not help matters at all. He started snapping at Lance everytime he awoke to Lance's hovering and concerned questions. Eventually Lance stopped waiting around for the seizures to stop--he had 5 other people depending on him. Eventually, he stopped trying to break Keith from his delusions, leaving him to be stuck in them for days or weeks. it wasnt until Keith hallucinated him as Zarkon did Lance have a problem with it again, snapping about how Keith was more like Zarkon than he, a full human, ever could be. How Keith was a bloodthirsty alien, and if he couldnt pull himself together and stop being "fucking delusional" then he might as well die, "that's your people's motto, isnt it? at least then i wont have another problem to clean up."

what lance failed to remember over time was that the team wasnt mentally gone, they werent deaf or blind, they didnt just forget. They had moments of lucidity, some more than others, and watched his spiraling descent into raged insanity.