Chapter Text
It was the little things that would always catch him by surprise. The special spoon they used for scooping cookie dough out of the bowl that was left on the counter top by the refrigerator. The mug drying upside down in the rack under the window by the sink or the spice cabinet door not closed all the way so it hung open just far enough to let the myriad of smells out. Sometimes it would just be the pair of shoes by the door that were no longer going to be pulled on in haste to get out the door to that appointment that didn’t even matter anymore. They were always in a rush. Why were they always in a rush? They had time, why were they always running?
This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.
They weren’t supposed to be grieving.
They were supposed to be running around laughing and having a good time. But that’s what happens when death comes knocking too early. And death was never kind in who it chose.
Lance took a deep breath and steadied himself. He could do this. For them. He’d be the strong one, the one to shoulder this responsibility when they couldn’t. He couldn’t let himself fall apart. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Dropping his duffel bag to the floor and slipping off his shoes as he looked down the corridor of his home, the pale yellow paint rubbed down in some spots, places where they’d drug their bags or bumped into it a little too roughly, Lance ran a hand down his face with a sigh, squeezing his eyes closed tightly.
Funeral preparations were going to be a long and tedious affair, but they had to be perfect. Music had to be chosen, flowers picked, displays organized. Pictures had to be sent to be printed; little pamphlets had to be designed. Hell, he had to figure out what to even write in it. How do you condense someone’s entire life down into a small paragraph? How do you convey in just a couple sentences everything that person had meant to you?
Oh god, he had to pick the casket.
Lance could feel the panic attack building up - the rock that settled in his gut, the boa constrictor that was wrapping around his lungs, the vice that was pressing on the his temples. Without slipping his shoes on he walked back out the door letting it slam behind him. He stared out into the empty driveway that was sure to fill up in the coming days. The sun was already beginning to set. His breath was getting short and he could feel his hands beginning to shake.
“For fuck’s sake, Lance, get it together,” he angrily whispered to himself.
The door opened behind him and his breath caught in his throat.
“Lance?” he heard his younger sister’s voice call.
Plastering a small, fake, but convincing nonetheless, smile on his face he turned around to address her.
“Maria, hey, I was just about to come in but the sunset was just too pretty not to watch,” he explained, trying to will his voice to be even.
He could see the concern flash on her face briefly before the tears welled up again and she rushed to him with her arms open.
“Oh, Lance,” she whispered as her voice shook with emotion and wrapped him in a hug.
“Hey now hermanita, don’t go crying on me just yet,” he whispered into her hair and he wrapped his arms around her tight. He surprised himself with how calm his voice sounded and how unrestricted his breathing seemed. Panic attack averted it seemed. For now anyway.
Maria sniffled and shook in his arms as Lance rubbed his hand up and down her back soothingly.
“We should go inside. The others are probably worrying about us,” Lance said quietly.
His sister nodded slightly, tightening her arms briefly before letting go to grab his hand. Using her other hand she wiped it under her eyes in a futile effort to get rid of the tears.
Lance smiled softly, his eyebrows turning up slightly.
“We’ll get through this, all of us, together,” she said, turning back to the door and pulling him inside.
Lance let his smile fall, an emotionless expression replacing it.
Upon entering the house again he could hear the sounds of voices from deeper in the house and the smell of food cooking in the kitchen.
He pulled his hand out of Maria’s grip. She paused in her step to look at him, opening her mouth to speak before Lance cut her off.
“I’m just going to run up to the bathroom to clean up. You know, just spent 6 hours on a plane and all,” he quipped, pulling slightly at the shirt he was wearing with a grimace.
Maria stared at him for a moment, her brows pulling together before she nodded.
“I’ll let papá and Isaac know you’ll be down in a few minutes,” she said with another nod and headed towards the back of the house where the kitchen was located.
Lance watched her retreating form and waited for her voice to add to the others in the kitchen before picking his bag back up and tossing it over his shoulder. With another deep breath he headed to his left and up the stairs.
His steps were heavy on the fraying carpet that covered the wooden stairs. How many times had he and his siblings slid down this on their blankets? He was vaguely aware of his phone buzzing against his thigh but his eyes followed the photos that lined stairway. He paused in front on the picture just before the second floor landing. They had taken it just a few months prior at Christmas.
His phone was buzzing again. He ignored it. Again.
His eyes focused on his reflection in the glass of the picture. He looked tired, the blue of his eyes dull. The bags under his eyes were prominent, looking foreign against his tanned skin, obscuring some of his freckles. In all honesty, it kind of looked like he’d been punched in the face. But that’s how it felt, really. Punched in the face, the stomach, had his feet swiped out from under him. He felt his lower lip tremble a little before he clenched his teeth and frowned. No time for this now. Keep moving.
He took the last step on to the landing and took the first door on the right. The bathroom wasn’t large by any means, how he, his brothers, and his sisters had managed to share this bathroom for so long was pretty amazing. But now it was just the two youngest left in the house. Lance and his two older brothers and older sister had already moved out into their own lives.
His oldest brother, Emilio, was 30. He’d married his high school sweetheart, Amanda, right after graduating. They had two little girls now, Alejandra, who would be 10 soon, and Isabella, who had just turned 4 a week ago.
Gabriel, who was turning 29 in just four days, had finished grad school just last year for his Ph.D. in medical science. He was going to develop medicines to cure diseases, he’d claimed. He probably had it in him too.
Lance sighed and closed the bathroom door behind him, leaning his back into it with his face in his hands.
His sister, Ana, just two years his senior, at 26, ran a small vintage shop in town. Her boyfriend of three years, correction – fiancé of 6 months, Aaron, had proposed at Christmas. They were looking for houses in the neighborhood.
Lance briefly wondered if they’d found one yet.
Peeling his shirt off and dropping it unceremoniously onto the pale green rug on the floor that covered the slightly discolored carpeting of the bathroom, Lance dug through his bag. Pulling out his deodorant, a new shirt, and a comb, he leaned over the sink. Turning the sink on he could hear the pipes rattle a bit before the water sputtered out. Cupping his hands and splashing the water onto his face and up into his hair he thought about his two younger siblings.
Isaac had graduated high school a year ago and, as far as Lance knew, still hadn’t decided what he was going to do. His father though, had put him straight to work in the family business - a small, but respectable, reality company, as the stand in for their receptionist after the last one had quit to start a family.
Maria, his sweet Maria, just turned 17 at the start of the New Year, still had one more year of high school to go. At Christmas she had said she was going to go to the local community college to get all her GED classes out of the way before transferring to Cornell in New York to get her degree in veterinary medicine.
His phone buzzed in his pocket again as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. The water dripped from the ends of his hair that hung just above his eyes. He mentally put ‘get a haircut’ on his list of things to do this week before the funeral. Was a week even long enough to get everything done? Probably not, but it didn’t matter. A week was all he had. He’d have to get it done.
Looking down again he grabbed the white hand towel that sat on the counter next to him and ran it over his head just enough to stop the dripping. He straightened up and pulled his clean light blue t-shirt on over his head, lifting the hem on either side just enough to put some fresh deodorant on. He ran the comb through his hair just enough to tame the damp mess before gathering his things and stepping back out into the hallway.
Turning towards the end of the hallway Lance found himself staring at the door to his parent’s room. His fist clenched around the strap of his bag and he sucked in a breath. The art he’d made when he was 6 still hung in the center. It was a crude drawing of his family at the time. Their house in the background, his family all lined up, before Maria was born, their dog Maximus next to the stick figure depicting him.
Keep moving, don’t stop moving, he repeated in his mind and pushed toward the door opposite the bathroom. The air in his old bedroom was a little stale when he entered. No one had been in there since Christmas when he’d come home. The pale blue of his walls was a welcoming comfort. The NASA poster on the wall just inside the door was a little faded from time, but it was still hanging on the wall in one piece. His ceiling was a dark navy blue; glow in the dark stars stuck up there showing the constellations you could see from his window at night. A small mobile of the solar system he’d made when he was 9 hung in front of his window, twisting slightly now that the door had been opened and air movement let in.
His bed was still a mess from when he and Keith had slept there over Christmas. Lance bit his lip and his eyes lingered on the bed. What he wouldn’t give to have Keith there with him now. But he was halfway around the world with Shiro visiting their parents who had decided to move back to Japan after spending most of their adult lives in the States; something about missing the familiarity of Japan and missing family – something that Lance understood and appreciated. Going to grad school for astrophysics at Stanford meant he was pretty much a world away from the rest of his family in Miami.
Sighing as he threw his bag onto the bed, he smacked his cheeks roughly before turning to head back downstairs.
“Get it together, McClain,” he mumbled.
It was time to join his family, be their crutch, their support, the glue that held them together, the one strong enough to hold fast and get them through this.
He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs as his phone buzzed just once more. Pulling it out of his pocket to check it, he has 12 missed calls from his friends, 3 voicemails from Keith, and 17 unanswered text messages from friends and family. Deciding to deal with it later, he slid his phone back into his pocket and walked down the hall into the kitchen.
Six hands wrapped around him tightly. Maria’s around his waist from behind, Isaac just next to her but under his arms, and his father’s from the front, one arm around his shoulders, the other on the back of his head pulling him into his neck.
Lance’s hands immediately wrapped around his father’s back and held him tight. He could feel his family's tears dampening his shirt, but his own wouldn’t fall.
He had to be strong. His mamá wouldn't have wanted him to cry. Her Lancito was born to bring light and happiness to people. And he’d be damned if he couldn’t do that for her. Especially now that she was gone.