Work Text:
If he was being honest Lance really wasn’t sure about when he started losing it. (Then again, when someone begins questioning their sanity it usually means they’ve already lost it- because Lance’s seen movies, alright? He’s got a gold membership card to his town’s theatre- he knows when the main hottie onscreen was about to start pulling the whole ‘incoherently babble to himself in the mirror.’)
But given the fact that Lance had like six people to talk to on any given day, it made sense to him that at least one of them would eventually go all ‘cabin fever’ on the others.
Although Lance had his money on Hunk that would crack first because for a guy who was going to a space school he really hated staying in the simulator for too long. (Pidge clocked in at a close second but that was mainly because Lance still hasn’t fully forgiven them for electrocuting him.)
For a moment, Lance wonders how Keith did it .
Being stranded out in the middle of desert by himself for an entire year.
Lance couldn’t imagine being able to do the same because in the three hours he’d spent out there while they’d looked for Blue he felt...unnerved by how...different it was.
How the sun beat down on them mercilessly, the wasteland offering no refuge from the heat. And growing up on the coast, Lance had felt slightly anxious at the lack of available water because what if Keith had been pulling their leg? What if they’d all just get stranded out in the middle of nowhere with no one looking for them?
Their bodies breaking down, the heat forcing them to snap at each other in short tempered anger as they kept walking with some delusional hope that they’d somehow get back to where they came from- but the desert just kept stretching, far into the horizon and they’d think to themselves ‘just one more hill, one more hill and we’ll be home’ . Just them...stuck walking in an empty land..forever.
Shit, Lance had rarely even left the Garrison for that exact reason, only sneaking out to party (which were always in the opposite direction of the desert) because there had always been the small lingering fear that he’d somehow get lost- and that he’d somehow fall into quicksand but that was a whole other set of worries.
So yeah, maybe Lance is a little overly paranoid- worrying about becoming some wandering soul or some shit. (Secretly, Lance sometimes wondered if it wasn’t really him that had felt so uncomfortable at the prospect of entering the desert- but that it had been Blue who was somehow still able to connect with him, miles away. Sending him wisps of her own feelings as a silent cry for his attention because if it hadn’t been for Keith, Lance probably would have never found her (never even looked for her).
All that aside, at least he was still rational enough to realize he wasn’t being rational enough, because if Lance is the person on the team who’s gunna pull a Nicholson on everyone else in the castle, the least he can do is give them a fair warning.
XxX
“Hunk if I tried to gank you would you try to gank me?” Lance asks, torso pressed against the counter as he watched Hunk intently fumble with the Castle’s oven settings.
“Probably not.” Hunk replies absently over his shoulder as he balanced a tray on one hand while he punched in a series of odd symbols that would apparently spit out their dinner.
“ Really ???” Lance asks, half disbelieving and half touched. Hunk pulls open one of the doors and swiftly pops in the loaded platter before turning to face Lance with furrowed brows.
“Of course man, I could never hurt you.”
“Not even if I axed down your door and said ‘Here’s Daddy’?” Lance can’t help but ask because even for Hunk that’s probably reaching the line.
Hunk’s lips purse, eyes crinkling as he stared back at Lance with the closest thing to judgement the yellow paladin could probably fathom. Just as he began to open his mouth, Pidge strolled in, laptop curled tightly to their chest and eyes shining with Hunk’s unvoiced judgment.
Lance didn’t even get a chance to voice a greeting before Pidge was sliding into the seat next to him, staring up at him with gouging eyes.
“How come whenever I walk in on you and Hunk you’re always doing something weird like calling yourself ‘daddy’ or asking if he would be able to tell if you were a pod person?”
Lance carefully doesn’t react the the latter because he’s still trying to work out if he is, in fact, a pod person because if he was he was gonna go after Pidge first.
“It’s called ‘friendship’ Pidge, look it up.” Lance replies, making sure to sound purposely snotty about it.
Pidge grunts and pushes their laptop onto the counter, their elbow pushing briefly into Lance’s ribs who tries to hide the slight wheeze of breath that leaves him.
Based on the smug smile that immediately plasters itself on Pidge’s face, he didn’t do a very good job.
“So what were you two talking about?” Pidge asks, short legs swinging as they tried to slide in closer to the counter. Lance deftly wraps a knee around the leg of their stool to stop it from moving and ignores Pidge’s small grunts of frustration.
“I was testing the team’s loyalty.” He states matter-of-factly. “Would you shank me if I tried to shank you first?”
“Yes.” Pidge immediately replies, hands braced against the counter as they tried to pull themselves closer. Lance’s mouth falls open in clear offense even though a tiny part of him was applauding Pidge. If he ever tried to blow the Castle up at least he could count on Pidge to go full Rambo on him.
Rather than saying that, Lance instead pulls his leg away from Pidge’s stool and watches with a wide grin as the Green Paladin ends up half-sprawled on the countertop.
The immediate glare from them was enough of a warning for Lance to get up and bolt.
So he did.
XxX
Lance’s suspicions that he’s steadily campaigning his way to the mayor of crazy town is reinforced when it finally hits him that he hasn’t been sleeping.
Sure he and the other Paladins had the occasional sleepless night, be it because of stress or excitement or some weird herbal drink that Coran would insist they throw back before bed to increase their ‘strength’ and ‘mental fortitude’ (even though Lance had the sneaking suspicion that he was the only one of them that was ever actually suckering into drinking it).
But Lance is also pretty sure that humans can’t go a week without sleep and not suffer at least some sort of consequences.
“Maybe I really am a pod person.”
The words echo through the observation deck like they're trying to prove a point about how dead the rest of Castle really is. The fixtures lining the walls went out a while ago and Lance’s lack of movement hasn’t activated their sensors, leaving him sitting up by one of the Castle’s space viewers in complete darkness.
Lance hasn’t stepped foot in his bedroom for the last five days, only having stopped by once for the thickly woven Altean blanket on his shoulders almost a week ago.
Something about sleeping has put him into a certain unease. Like the thick syrup of childhood medicine that would swim deep in his gut whenever he’d get deathly ill.
It was just a reminder that something in him didn’t feel right.
So Lance had been spending the last couple of nights cozied up on the deck and staring out into the endless expanse of space, somehow finding comfort in the vast darkness, the distant twinkle of suns billions of lightyears away soothing the hasty beating of his heart.
Which is weird because Lance hated space now that he actually got to meet.
An itch under his skin slaps that thought away as soon as it had come. Almost without realizing it, Lance feels his forehead rest against the cool panes of the deck. A longing ache rumbles lowly in his gut in place of the bubbling resentment that had been forming.
Lance lets his eyes slip closed for a brief moment.
He wishes he could sleep.
XxX
Being a cadet in the Garrison which specialized in space exploration means that of course Lance had heard all the stories about ‘space madness’.
They were the barely audible whispers in the cafeteria during Sunday night dinners. Cadets would always lean in close, barely visible tension in the line of their shoulders, eyes occasionally shifting around as if an instructor would sneak up behind them to refute any of their mumbled gossip.
Mainly because it was absolutely ridiculous .
Like the story of the first manned mission to Neptune.
Lance remembers hearing it for the first time, the ‘Cadet secret dorm Halloween party hosted by Jason Erglett from Cargo’ had been the only time Lance had heard the words ‘space’ and ‘madness’ conjoined into a single phrase.
His mouth had been gummy from over gorging himself on chocolates, and he’d been in the middle of trying to push out stuck pieces of jelly beans from between his braces when Margot from Fighter, 3 years older than him and probably drunk from the secret flask the older cadets had been passing around started launching into a long winded spiel about the 2056 Neptune exploration.
How the first astronauts to reach Neptune went completely nuts on the expedition. How when some of the men came home, they were unhinged- telling their spouses about how they’d heard someone( something ) knocking on the walls of their ship when they’d sleep. How communications would phase in an out for no reason. How the shadows of space would mess with their heads. Their suspicion, their paranoia digging into the trenches of their minds because they kept telling themselves there was nothing out there-
It was so stupid.
So Lance blew it off- as if aliens didn’t have better things to do than just following ships around to harass a bunch of random humans.
Bullshit.
But after the eight consecutive nights of no-sleep spent curled up by the Castle’s observation deck staring blankly at the void of space, some deep part of his mind becoming convinced that something ( someone ) out there was staring back-
Lance began to maybe reconsider his stance on Margot from Fighter’s drunken story.
Because he thinks he might be losing it.
XxX
“Do you think we’d know if someone was following us?” Lance asks, cutting off Allura as she was slowly explaining to him the new additions to his station from the recent updates that Pidge and Coran had recently put on it.
Allura stops, finger frozen in the air as she was trying to air-draw some complex shape Lance would forget in five minutes. Allura’s brows furrow in brief thought, and Lance can see her eyes weighing the question with actual consideration.
Man, all those sleepless nights might actually be taking some toll if even Allura was giving his usual meaningless questions some thought.
“The Castle would be able to detect any attached transmitters..” She begins, finger to her lip as she turned to give Lance a slightly confused look- which makes sense since Lance never really enquired about the Castle’s defense and contingency systems before. “And wormhole jumps would prevent anyone from being able to follow us if we were suddenly 7 systems away.”
Lance lets out a slight ‘oh’ of understanding before letting his gaze shift to the main deck’s display, thick yellow gas swirling on the screen in front of them.
It’s what’s been blocking his view of space for the last two nights.
Distantly, he hears Allura slowly ease back into her explanations, fingers tapping at several new upgrades on his defense drone.
Lance’s eyes follow the stretched particles of the cosmic storm the Castle is currently flying through. It looked like pulled cotton, thin wisps, curling together into a big ball of puff. Lance wonders if it’s as soft as it looks.
‘No. Hard’ He thinks with sudden confidence. ‘Like little glass. Itchy.’
Lance feels his spine tense for an indiscernible reason and forces himself to look back at Allura. Pretending like the thought that had just drifted through his mind was something he’d think of.
Lance is probably losing it.
XxX
That night, for the first time in a week, Lance spends the night in his room.
He lies stiff in bed, thighs clenched against the mattress as he stares up at his ceiling. His eyelids sag slightly, probably the closest he’d gotten to sleep in the last couple of hours.
On the observation deck, the hum of the ventilation system had meant he hadn’t been stuck in dead silence the whole night, but in his room with nothing but himself stuffed inside- all he hears is a persistent beating in his ears.
It’s the kind of sound that thrummed through his ear drums right after the high of forming Voltron, the kind that throbbed whenever Iverson would rip into him, the kind that crescended whenever he felt like his heart was in his throat, cutting off his air supply and choking him where he stood.
Lance lasts all of two minutes before he’s ripping off his blanket and making his way back to the observation deck, the only place that seems to soothe him lately.
Lance is getting closer to losing it.
XxX
“So how’d you last in that desert all by yourself?” Lance breaks out and then immediately winces because no matter how he said it, it still sounded kind of derogatory.
Thankfully, Keith doesn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just doesn’t care based on how he doesn’t look up from where he’s pushing another load of laundry into the Altean washing machines, which are really just fancy light-ovens that kill any bacteria and organisms on them with fancy ‘wavelength energy’ or some junk like that.
Keith sets down the collapsable basket he’d had propped on his hip and hops up onto the machine, reclining back like he was posing for Teen Girl’s Magazine Top Five Laundry Hotties.
He offers Lance a quirked brow in question but doesn’t say anything else before replying.
“Wasn’t that hard.” He shrugged nonchalantly, fingers tugging at his crusty gloves as he eyed Lance with something that vaguely resembled curiosity. “I still had some savings that my dad left me to pay for food and gas. Plus the house ran on a generator so I had running water to shower with and stuff.”
He says it with such calm dismissal that Lance wonders if the most important part of his question just went over the other boy’s head.
“I meant alone .” Lance emphasizes, kicking the door of his own washing machine closed, the Altean blanket having begun to smell of nervous and anxious sweat.
At that Keith’s brows furrow.
Lance takes that as his cue to elaborate.
“I mean what if you’d gotten hurt or something?” Lance asks, something like fear twitching in his chest. It wasn’t for Keith, and it wasn’t for him- Lance wasn’t sure what it was for. “I mean if you’d fallen down and broken your leg, no one would’ve known you were out there…”
Something about being left injured and alone, strikes something in Lance, like an uncomfortable tingle that travels up his legs and down his spine in discomforted remembrance.
“I had an emergency radio.” Keith says, breaking Lance out of his thoughts and forcing him to look up at the other.
Keith is staring down at him with something resembling befuddlement. “If I’d gotten hurt I could have been airlifted to the nearest hospital...if I needed to.”
Lance doesn’t need him to say anything more to understand the silent ‘but I never need to.’
“Well then… didn’t you...” Lance continues, eyes settling on the grey of Keith’s iris, the dim sparkle briefly reminding him of the stars billions of lightyears away. “...ever get lonely?”
The last part of his question is said in a breathless whisper, like the air had been pulled from his lungs at the last second. A beat of pain pulses through Lance’s chest, and he’s cried enough to know he should begin blinking and get rid if the strangely forming tears in his eyes.
Keith, thankfully doesn’t notice, instead he’s contemplating Lance’s question- like he actually has to stop and think about whether he was ever lonely being in the desert by himself for a year.
“Not really.” He finally shrugs, shoulders flexing slightly without the presence of his usual red jacket to block the view. “I mean it’s not like the desert’s empty.”
“It’s not?” Lance asks, confusion flooding into his voice because this was news to him . Whenever he thought of the desert all he could envision was the loneliness, the fear, the desperation as he drifted along- stretching and reaching and thinking to himself ‘just one more hill-’
Wait. What?
Lance shakes his head, a sudden spell of dizziness hitting him.
He’d never been in the desert.
Save for those couple of hours when they’d rescued Shiro and found Blue.
“-tons of life.” Keith’s voice slowly phases in and Lance immediately snaps back to attention. “There were cactus, snakes, the occasional coyote- the desert was full of stuff so it wasn’t like I was alone .” Keith says, saying the word with such emphasis that Lance just knew he was trying to push some kind of technicality.
Almost by instinct Lance feels a smirk begin to creep across his face.
“Aww.” He begins and he can already see the annoyed twitching of Keith’s brow. “Are you trying to tell me you became friends with a cactus while you were out there?” The slight mocking tone in his voice is enough to incense the other paladin.
Keith’s eyes narrow, mouth opening to throw back his own comeback. Just as lips are curling to form the beginning words of ‘fuck you Lance’- his machine beeps. The shrill sound makes Lance’s ears ring like it was a sharp sting to his ear drums and making him let out a slight whine of discomfort.
Keith must accept Lance’s pain as satisfactory justice because he hops off his perch with a barely visible smirk and begins stuffing his ‘de-contaminated’ clothes back into his basket.
Lance watches him with a slight pout and turns back to his own machine, letting out a huff of acknowledgement when Keith throws him an absent ‘goodbye’.
Lance watches as the bright red lights of the washing machine shine down on his blanket, and absently thinks about how the wavelengths of energy bearing down on it looks so similar to the wavelengths of energy that sparkle from Keith when he gets annoyed.
Lance is definitely losing it.
XxX
Lance sorta figured that his sleepless nights would be discovered eventually.
He always imagined it would be by one of the other paladins who got up for a late night snack and just happened to spot Lance at his usual spot.
They’d ask what he was doing up so late, and tell him that he should be in bed in a tone that was vaguely chastising.
And Lance would tell them that he couldn’t sleep. That he didn’t remember how to and so he just didn’t anymore.
And they’d get concerned, they’d tug the blanket off his shoulders and take his hand in a firm grip and would pull him to Coran or the kitchen, babbling about how maybe Coran could give him some sort of Altean sleeping medication for the night so he could get some rest or maybe he just needed some food to help him go to sleep.
And Lance would nod, following along obediently and trying to ignore the thrum of resistance that briefly coursed through him because he wanted to keep watching the stars, watching how the small wisps of light that were so young but still shining so brightly, which was good because that meant they were healthy!
But Lance would keep those strange thoughts that no longer felt so strange to himself because the others were too young, they wouldn’t understand, the starlight in their eyes were so dim that Lance sometimes worried for them. They were so small, maybe they wanted some of Lance’s starlight to help them?
But they didn’t, no one came across him, wondered what he was doing up so late.
But Lance wouldn’t really care if they did.
He didn’t need sleep.
He was starlight.
XxX
Lance loses it on Vir-Ir.
Their planet is dying. Over-mining from resources not by the Galra, but from their own people.
Sucked completely dry of its water.
Plants haven’t grown from their soil in decafeebs.
Their animals died long ago from starvation and the people are close to suffering the same fate.
And they’re fighting.
Lance remembers sitting in on the briefing, mind phasing in an out as it’s been doing recently.
Allura explained to them how half the population has chosen to abandon ship, find a new planet, start anew.
The other half refuse, insistent that they remain, that the cosmos had made that planet for them , that they belonged to it and if they were supposed to leave then the stars would align for that to be so.
Lance thinks that’s stupid. You can’t force the starlights to align for you, they are perfect just as they are.
Lance watches from a crumbling rooftop as groups of starlights load their belongings onto ships with something that he doesn’t recognize weighing in his heart.
Their land has become a wasteland, barren and dry. Lifeless and empty like the deserts Lance used to fear.
Lance can feel the starlight of the planet underneath his feet, it’s beating so weakly that Lance almost wants to cry.
A fleet of starlights begin approaching from the west.
Lance glances up, confusion on the tip of his tongue. Allura and the leaders of Vir-Ir had already accounted for those who wanted to leave, why would the starlights be over there?
It occurs to Lance much later that he probably should’ve been paying closer attention as to why they were guarding the citizen of Vir-Ir who were loading their ships to leave while they were in the middle of a civil war.
An explosion rips through a set of buildings several meters away from Lance and the other starlights he’s watching over. Lance swears, feet immediately launching him over the edge. Several Vir-Irians are scrambling in a panic, their belongings lying scattered as they begin running with loud clicks of panic and fear.
Lance’s feet carry him to where he can see some of the starlights flickering.
Several go out by the time he arrives.
The shadow of the Yellow and Black Lions fly overhead and Lance doesn’t even need to look to see they’re raising their particle barriers to protect the remaining ships and fleeing Vir-Irians
The red spark of Keith and green of Pidge are approaching him, racing in his direction as Lance reaches the sight of the explosion. The already dilapidated buildings have been reduced to rubble.
Lance can see the starlights encroaching on him, vibrating with excitement, rage, regret, and hesitance.
Lance summons his shield just as one of them fires a blaster at him. Lance returns the shot, saying a silent apology as the starlight begins vibrating in pain.
Keith and Pidge run into another group of starlights, surrounding them both. Lance can hear their yelled warnings to Hunk and Shiro, their yellow and purple lights approaching Lance as he ducks behind half a collapsed wall for cover.
He can hear them yelling for him to respond, to report his position, but Lance can’t. Offering just the occasional murmur to let them know he was still alive.
He was hurting starlights, couldn’t they see how difficult it was for him already?
Lance can feel as his four other starlights get closer, their wavelengths drawing them closer to him and he to them. It’s Keith he spots first, his jet pack activated as he was kicked off the third level of a building by another starlight.
Lance makes his way over to him, able to feel the pulsing of concern and confusion beating through his light.
Keith spots him almost immediately, grey sparkling eyes locking on his. Lance thinks Keith is his favorite starlight, it looks so much like his.
Rather than relief blooming on his face, anger festers, mouth pinched back in a furious snarl.
“Why haven’t you been answering?!” He bites out. Lance is about to open his mouth, about to offer something though he’s not sure what- apologies, requests for a pardon, for forgiveness.
But Lance sees a starlight begin flickering from above. Lance hears the fire of a blaster from above, moves before he can think.
His hands press against the chestplate of Keith’s armour.
Keith’s starlight latches onto his wrist trying to pull Lance along with him as he shoves him out of the way.
A fierce pain erupts in Lance’s stomach.
His starlight begins flickering.
And the galaxy in his chest explodes .
XxX
Technically, no one could accuse Lance of not telling anyone on the team that he was housing a cosmic deity if he didn’t know either.
Lance doesn’t so much see it so much as he feels it.
Fireworks exploding inside him, shining bright, brighter than any starlight he’d ever seen.
The lights that break off, soak into the ground and Lance briefly wonders if the starlight under them will get better because of it.
Lance feels it leave through every pore in his body, the tips of his fingers and toes, to his mouth, to his eyes.
He can feel the starlight bleeding out of him.
And Lance nearly asks it to stay.
‘Bright’ it supplies. ‘Bright together’
‘Yeah’ Lance agrees. ‘Bright together’.
The starlight radiates with affection, it’s tendrils stroking across Lance’s cheeks and forehead. Love blooms within every cell of Lance’s body.
Lance remembers floating alone. Drifting in space, hurt, and small, and flickering.
Remembers feeling so cold and helpless and reaching for help from the other starlights.
And then one came. Hearing him, it’s light so bright and blue and warm. And Lance couldn’t resist, his fear and pain so strong.
He latched. Clinging to the smaller light. The two of them.
Brighter together.
Lance remembers growing bigger, growing stronger, reaching out for the other sparks, aching for them in the distance and wondering if any of them heard him.
Lance remembers the blue light also growing, but also becoming hesitant. Lance worries over the small blue light, wonders if it’s ill.
Wonders if he’s causing it to be ill, it is after all such a small spark.
Surely it would be alright if he shared some of his light and they could be brighter together?
Become stars?
Create stars.
Become a star.
Lance remembers the smaller light becoming soothed and- oh.
Oh.
That’s me. Lance realizes with some muted realization.
I found you.
You found me.
And we were.
Brighter together.
Oh.
The last of the starlight escapes him.
Lance falls, his back thumping gently on the ground as starlight lowers him down with careful tugs. From the ground, Lance can see starlight for the first time, sees that they’ve grown so much bigger.
Their snake-like heads peering down at him with shining blue eyes ( his shining blue eyes), bright fireworks glittering off them as they slithered in a large mass and Lance can’t imagine how something like that possibly fit inside him.
‘Brighter together’
He hears it.
It talks.
They can talk.
“Brighter together” Lance feels himself mumble back.
His eyes feel heavy and Lance realizes that he hasn’t slept for weeks. His bones feel heavier and his mouth is dry.
A heavy weight lands on his chest and Lance is able to lift his head enough to see Keith, hovering protectively in front of him.
He can’t hear what the other paladin is yelling but Lance can’t imagine it’s something particularly nice given the kind of person Keith is and also because he probably thinks that that starlight was hurting him.
But starlight wasn’t trying to do that. Would never do that.
Lance wraps a weak hand around the other paladin’s belt, tugging gently. Keith’s eyes, wide in concern and wet with something probably resembling tears flicker over to him.
“Don hurt them.” Lance slurs. “They’re ma friend.”
Keith’s expression is uncomprehending, like he doesn’t understand the words Lance is saying. The starlight underneath their feet begins beating faster. Lance feels starlight, his starlight begin reaching out, their concern and curiosity for the other seeping deep and deeper into the earth.
Keith kneels beside him, expression tight as he wearily watches starlight begin to sink down.
‘Help’ He hears starlight’s tendril whisper to him. ‘I help.’
‘Brighter together’
Man talk about paying it forward, Lance thinks idly. He can hear Keith speaking into his comms, he’s not sure what he’s saying but he can still feel Hunk, Shiro, and Pidge begin heading in their direction- their concern beginning to flicker the further down that starlight went.
Lance’s energy begins waning the closer the two lights became. Lance’s lids are heavy, limbs heavy with exhaustion and Lance realizes.
Sleepy.
He’s sleepy.
“Keiiiith,” he whines. “I’m sleepy.”
Keith’s eyes immediately go wide in panic, hands wrapping around Lance’s shoulders with a sort of urgency that’s unlike him.
When Keith begins shaking him, urging him to stay awake Lance only whines louder.
“I haven slept in weeks man!” Lance cries. His mind is drowsy and he can practically feel the fingers of Hypnos sinking into him. “I wanna sleep!” He says it with such a tantrum-esque voice that he almost feels five again.
The starlight beneath him is beating faster.
Lance wonders if his starlight will be able to do anything. Wonders if the empty wasteland this planet has been reduced to could ever beat brightly again.
‘Well yeah.’ Lance thinks to himself, face curling closer into where Keith is cradling him. ‘Brighter together’. He thinks, smiling softly as he feels Shiro and Hunk land down beside them, followed immediately by Pidge.
They were brighter together.