When you're a kid, one of the first things you learn about feelings is that love is the strongest of them. For years and years, people will drill in your head that the power of love was the strongest thing, that it could move mountains and give you strength to do anything. Everyone grows up knowing about the power of love.
Why, by God, no one ever warns the kids about the power of guilty?
The crushing feeling of regret, the consuming void called guilty, the corrosive despair? Why, by whatever deity sadistically watching this cosmic play, no one prepared them for that?
(Would that have done anything? No one is ready for it, no matter how much you've felt that before.)
(Maybe the adults just held on the helpless hope their children would not go through that.)
The first one to break was, surprisingly, Pidge. She looked at the tears her fingers wiped away, for a moment every information she had about tears flashed in her mind, until the last one made itself present. People cry when someone who is important is dead. Lance was dead. Her big brother was dead. Dead and gone. His smile would be forever bitterly frozen in his face, he would never again joke with her, or hug her, or lift her up. Pidge would never again hear him call her Pidgeon when comforting her when the loneliness was too much. Katie would never hear his laugh when she rambled about her family. Katie would never hear his fond voice when he talked about his. And suddenly she wished she had listened more, hugged more, joked more. She longed for Matt to call her by her name for so long, Katie never thought she would long to hear someone, her goofy brother Lance, call her Pidge.
(She never again let anyone call her that. To everyone else, even to the Voltron team, she was Katie. That name brought no memory of him, for she never let him use it.)
(She died wondering if it was a good or bad thing. Her last breath was a whisper of the word "bad". Her son Lance wondered why for a long time.)
The next was Coran. People say there's no sadder thing than a parent burying their child, Coran wondered if they knew how much sadder it was for a parent to bury the child they helped kill. He was a father once and was forever grateful the universe gave him the chance of having children again. Granted, they were teenagers, but still, they never opposed his fatherly nature. Lance accepted it with open arms, his own childish soul resonating with Coran's fatherly one. Coran could see it now, all of the silent times the boy would sit and watch him do whatever needed to be done. The longing looks, the constant rambling about missing his family, the somber smile when he noticed the mustached man was too busy. When he thought the mustached man was too busy. The altean would've stopped everything he was doing if the boy so much hinted he needed something, no hesitation, no regret. But maybe he didn't let it clear, maybe he didn't show enough to the paladin how much he truly cared, maybe instead of waiting for Lance to come to him, he should've taken the first step. Once again, Coran the beautiful man was Coran the mourning father.
(He vowed to never again have children. He followed that vowel so vehemently; he was never able to marry again, for he didn't had the heart to tell his partner he had no wish of having their own children.)
(In his deathbed he asked out loud if he had ever been a good father. When Allura, holding one of his cold hands, said yes, he thanked her, but said hers was not the answer he wanted.)
Then Allura started crying. Ungrateful, useless, egoistical little girl, her mind screamed. She couldn't save him that time. Because his death that time was more than just his consciousness leaving his body, his life, his everything was gone. Everything that was Lance McClain was gone. She could see then. His bad pick-up lines and stupid jokes were his way to comfort her. He preferred seeing her annoyed with him than stressed because of the universe. For her he took the harsh words and eye rolls, for her he held his feelings back, for her he put a smile in his lips and a flirty joke in his tongue. Even when she disregarded his feelings, even when she fell in love with another in front of him, even when she asked him for comfort because of her heart being broken by another, Lance shallowed his feelings and put hers first. She wished he hadn't, she wished he screamed and cried and let her see all the hurt she caused and let her feel all the anger she brought and rightfully blamed her for both. Allura knew he would never do that. He was too selfless. He was too… Lance.
(She was never able to bond with someone like she bonded with him. She didn't even try, she had no reason to. No one was him. No one would ever be.)
(After her death, she was known as the Distant Princess, and her days of soft smiles and kind gestures were tales only the elders could confirm.)
Tears ran down Hunk's face, no matter how much he tried not to. How much he tried to be as strong as his best friend, his brother. Lance promised him the stars, he would sit in the kitchen counter, both in Earth and in space, while Hunk cooked and talk about constellations and the dreams they brought. He would smile, both sitting in his room near the window, lights off, and bask on the gentle light of the stars until Lance himself looked like a constellation full of dreams. They would share insecurities, their anxiety and low self-stem finding their way out of the boys' lips. The Cuban boy was always the one to make the conversation better, assuring his friend things would be better, they just needed to have patience. After all, they already had all the support they needed, right? Hunk had all the support he needed, just enough to forget he was also a leg. And Lance didn't bother to remind him, why would he? Lance was too selfless; he probably didn't want to bring Hunk back in the hurricane of self-doubt his friend was finally leaving behind. Hunk hated himself for knowing Lance enough to understand that, but not being able to hear the cries for help his best friend shoot his way. Hunk hated himself for forgetting that nothing is unbreakable, and his brother from another mother definitely wasn't. Hunk hated himself for leaving Lance behind in the hurricane.
(He rarely cooked after that. All the food had either the bland taste of emptiness or the bitter taste of heartbreak. His only exception was a cake on July 28, every year without fail. The cake was delicious and always left a bad taste on his mouth.)
(His last wish was to eat the last piece of the last cake he made. It was delicious. Left a bad taste on his mouth.)
Shiro tried so hard to keep it inside him. He was the leader, he had to hold the team and protect them. Nevertheless, he failed. In more ways than one. The worst was… he saw it. He saw the loathing and the doubt and the fear and the sadness and the forced smiles and the dimming shine in the blue eyes and the half-hearted attempts to joke and flirt. He saw it all for he was the same. He hid all the bad parts of himself to not worry the others. He understood Lance, even if their problems were a bit different. Shiro never loathed himself before, and he discovered he wished he didn't then. When you hate someone, you avoid them, however how will you avoid yourself? He knew Lance was strong, he had the eyes of a warrior, determined and powerful, but after his death, Shiro finally understood how much strength that boy had. Lance had to live with himself, the person the loathed the most, and he did it alone. He gave all the love he should have for himself to others, to them, without thinking twice, without regretting once. The leader was filled with so much admiration, he almost missed the little voice in his head calling him weak. Almost. Takashi didn't say anything before because it would've been hypocritical on his part. But if being a hypocrite was what he needed to save the heart of Voltron, then Takashi chastised himself for not being one.
(His eyes turned cold and his tone somber. He would always be found training, even long after the war, mumbling words like "weak" and "hypocrite".)
(For years to no end, people would ask themselves why he never accepted the title of hero.)
When Keith finally broke, the lions together with him, the team was relieved he hadn't been the first. If he was, they would've cried all together, the symphony of breaking hearts resonating among the stars. Because the cries, the almost inhuman howling that left his mouth, together with the sorrowful roars from the lions were too much already. He fell in his knees, his own pain be damned, and let the tears burn the floor like they burned his eyes. Lance was his closest friend, Lance was his right hand man, Lance was his support, Lance was the person he trusted just as much as his brother Shiro, Lance was the one who helped him get where he was and understand who he was. Lance was everything Keith was not for Lance. In a mix of rage and sorrow, he let the whole reality hear his voice, the let his throat be destroyed by the raw despair. He was angry at Lance for never coming to him, he was angry at him for never trying enough, he was sad for the loss of the Cuban boy and he was sad that he couldn't do nothing! Nothing! He was so absorbed on his own problems, and Lance, that goddamn selfless prick, held so little love for himself, he wasn't able to do nothing but watch the man Keith would trust his life without hesitation destroy himself. His hands pounded painfully on the ground, strong enough to bruise. The pain wasn't strong enough, though. Not if compared the pain their Blue Paladin must've felt.
(He talked never more. The others wondered if his vocal chords were really damaged that day, but no one asks, not even his mother. The permanent glare in his opaque eyes was enough to keep them away.)
(He died in the final battle against the Galra Empire, the legend says he died staring at the eyes of the Galra Emperor, both their lives fading at the same time. Legend says he died with a peaceful smile and contented sigh.)
(Legend says only two of the Voltron team died smiling.)
(Legend says the lions will never move again, diligently waiting for their paladins to be reborn. Some say if you stay near Red and Blue for long enough, you can hear them softly purring, as if comforting each other.)
Their cries together are so loud, so sorrowful, so desperate, weren't them crying so painfully, they would've wondered if the other realities were able to hear it. To hear their loneliness, to feel their guilty, to taste their regret.
(They could.)
(Sven and the others never had such desperate urge to hug Isamu before.)
Team Voltron forgot what mercy and kindness was that day, the tear washed everything out of them like the dirty in a shoe. And they let it. The only thing that would make them a little less ruthless was telling the tales of their hero.
(The legend of Lance McClain was known in every inch of that universe.)
(A story told by those Lance trusted, those Lance loved and those who never moved on.)