Summary:

Lance didn't like being alone. It was a common fear, a very understandable one at that. On the other hand, being in a room by yourself shouldn't trigger anybody. And yet, Lance felt his throat tighten ever so slightly as he found it more difficult to breathe.

Shit-

He slid down the wall he had previously been leaning on, curling in on himself as he warped his arms around his knees.

He sobbed.

There was a certain sadness to the silence and emptiness of a room. How your nerves would react to the lack of noise, or how unnerved you felt when no one was around. Nothing, just you…and your surroundings. To be…in the void. At first being alone didn't matter that much to Lance. Sure it was weird and unusual, especially when you'd reconsider the fact he comes from a large immediate family. But now it was…just not the same. Well, that was an understatement. Almost everything is different now. Here he was, in space with some other people and aliens, fighting an entire race with color coordinated mechanical sentiment lions, and forming a gigantic robot. Sounds like something straight out of a bad anime. But the statement still stood strong. Being alone in a room now just seemed more menacing in a way. He couldn't describe it; it was hard to put into words. To do that was like trying to climb up an endless flight of stairs; you're not gonna make it. Or perhaps it was just the fact that he didn't like being alone anymore. It only made him more fidgety at first. Then it escalated, anxiety started to wrap itself around him. Giving him small kisses along his neck as if to mock him. When he couldn't take it, he would seek out the nearest person around. He didn't care who was, he just needed to be in a room with somebody. Lance wasn't sure why this happened, all he wanted was for it to be eradicated. He didn't like the feeling at all, no one did. On the other hand, Lance did have a theory. Perhaps it had something to do with the time the castle got corrupted by the Galra crystal. When he almost got shot out into vast empty space; had it not been for Keith…

A dry humorless chuckle escaped his lips. If Keith hadn't been there… If he was even one minute late… Lance would've been dead, frozen corpse floating out into space. The others wouldn't even have known what had happened to him until God knows how long. Or maybe they would've thought that he had abandoned them. Went off and left them all behind in the cosmic dust. He didn't want to think about what was worst. The others thinking that he went AWAL, or them knowing Lance was dead. Knowing that they couldn't stop it from happening, already being too preoccupied in their own ordeals. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, huh? Lance shook a bit the more as he pondered on about it. Why was he over thinking things? Why did this matter so much to him? Why couldn't he just stay in his own fucking room by himself god damn it?! This shouldn't matter! This shouldn't-!

And yet it did. It mattered more than he would ever love to admit. It was so painfully true.

Lance gripped a handful of his hair and tugged. The stress was building up on him. He didn't want to deal with this. The others had went through worst, Allura and Coran losing their entire planet and people, Shiro being held prisoner by the Galra, and Pidge was still chasing after half her family. Regardless of such, Lance could still feel the sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach, the non-existent breeze that nipped at the surface of his skin, that trailed down past his muscles and deeper into his bone, into his very being. The feeling of wet trails gliding down his tan cheeks. Oh? When did he start crying? He didn't recall busting out the waterworks. Oh well. At this point, the blue paladin knew that trying anything to stop what was clearly happening was futile. His hand reached up to wipe away a few of his tears. He took a sharp breath. He was shaking lightly and quietly crying. If the tightening in in his chest didn't indicated it, he didn't know what would. Lance couldn't hold it together anymore; looking up at the plain gray ceiling, slightly blinding him with its bright artificial white lights, he heard nothing but his own shaky breaths and soft sobs.

It was deadly quiet aside from the noises the lankly teen would make every few seconds. The gray room was well lit, barren of any furniture beside a bed built into the wall. Although there where personal belongings shoved into the far corner, left of the metallic sliding door. There was just something about a room like that. Quiet; empty for the most part, a lack of people. It brang a certain amount sadness with it; it hung blatantly in the air. Weak people couldn't take that...and Lance was discreetly one of them.

Not now, come on! To say that Lance was freaking out was an understatement. He was flat out panicking at the moment. And he wasn't even sure why this time. He had just woken up from napping after a particular tiring mission involving one too many headaches and slip ups. He figured he had passed out on the circular couch thingy after hitting the showers since he didn't smell like sweat, nor did he have any of his armor on. Just normal clothes, although his favorite hand-me-down jacket was missing. Not the time to be worrying about that! The air around him felt heavy, his body following ensue. He slid down the front of the couch and desperately tried to even out his breathing again. Damn it, he was shaking already. It was coming faster this time. Lance's mind was a jumble of 'what if's and 'could've been's. His brain telling him what can go wrong and what will go wrong. It was too much noise quite frankly. Even in the quite dull lounging room, he found it unbearable. You can't just shut out this type of noise. And it was only amplifying inside his head. Ugh, this was annoying. He could control his emotions better before, no one really noticed a thing. So why couldn't he do it now, when he really needed it? Fuck. He had to get out of here, but he was glued to the spot. His limbs refused to move an inch, and while his finite has been pushed before; he couldn't seem to do it right now. Anyone could come in at any second now and discover him like this. He hoped to whatever cruel God out there that everyone would be too busy to bother with him.

In an attempt to try and calm himself down, Lance thought of other things. Anything really. Like trying to decipher what time of day it was. Was it morning? Was it night? Did it really matter? Probably not. But that wouldn't keep him from trying. What were the others doing? Where were they? Are they sleeping? Did they even notice he was gone? Would they even care about his absent?

...

Shit, this wasn't helping.

"It's been a few hours, shouldn't we check up on him?" Keith randomly asked out of the blue. He and the others were all in Hunk's room, as the yellow paladin was the one that decided that the rest of the team needed to 'chill out for a while'. In response Pidge looked up from painting her nails green with some type of alien version of nail polish.

"Isn't Lance sleeping?" Her eyes scrunch up in confusion. Couldn't he just let him sleep? After all, Lance was the one to take the bulk of the damage. For some ludicrous reason, those aliens really didn't like the color blue. Putting the small brush thing that she didn't know the name of aside, she pushed up the hem of her glasses. "Besides he passed out on that gray couch thing. If you can fall asleep on that, I have respect for you. It's not exactly comfortable ya know."

Keith shrugged. He guessed. He wasn't really paying attention when they all got back to the castle. He was still pretty pissed off about what had happened earlier. Stupid aliens and their stupid fancy tech. They think they're so awesome. Ugh. If there was one thing Keith had a hard time tolerating, it was people with big egos. Like Lance, but a whole race with an ego that big? Time to die. Keith scoffed at his own thought process and looked to Hunk for an option.

Said person caught on and made eye contact for a few seconds. "I don't know man, just let him sleep. If he wakes up he'll find us." Hunk paused for a moment, as if reconsidering. "Eventually." he added as an afterthought. "He usually wanders into my room anyway."

Pidge snickered beside him. "You say that like he's going into hibernation mode or something."

"He might as well be." Hunk joked, holding back a laugh that threaten to arise. "He might actually be a space bear inside! We may never know."

"Sea bear." Pidge corrected. "Since he's the guardian of the water, he should be a sea bear."

"Does that mean we have to draw a sea bear circle?" Hunk questioned, and the two went off about Spongebob references and things of the like. How childish.

Keith grunted. He felt something was off, and the others were just being so laxed about everything. He didn't know why, but it was a persisting nagging feeling in his gut. He didn't like it, it made him feel uncomfortable. This time around he looked over at Shiro for an option. Shiro was sitting quietly against the wall, slipping on a drink. He made eye contact with Keith and sat his drink down on the floor. "If it really brothers you that much; check up on him. Just don't wake him up." Shiro gave him a faint smile and nod. With that, Keith was out the door. Not bothering to reply to the shouts of confusion from both Hunk and Pidge.

Lance didn't notice the noise of the door sliding open. He didn't notice the voice asking him what was wrong, or if he was okay. He didn't even notice the hug of that very same person wrapping their arms around in him a comforting embrace. What he did notice, was the rubbing motions on his back. Someone was rubbing circles along his backside and it made him snap out of it. Another person was actually here; and on instinct his latched on to whoever it was. Lance tried to focus on evening out his breathing, tears still streaming down his face. Man, this was hard.

"Hey, it's...it's alright."

A voice whispered softly to him, trying to be comforting and smoothing as it could. As much as Lance hated being cooed at, he really didn't mind at the moment, it was nice. Lance tried to focus on the voice, his eyes still fogged up from the remaining tears.

"Shhhhh-"

More tracing of circles. The quite hum of the Altean tech deluding in the background. Shaky breathing and shushing. Noise, simple noise.

When Keith went to check up on Lance, he didn't expect what he saw. Not at all. He expected Lance to be passed out on the couch-thing. Or to find no one here at all. Just an empty common room and he would just shrug it off and assume that Lance went to retire in his room. Instead Keith found him curled up in a ball; shaking and crying. To himself, this wasn't all that uncommon of a sight. Being a paladin was pretty stressful and it would get to you at times. But shit, this was Lance. The worse he's ever seen him freak out was that one time where everyone thought Hunk had gotten crushed. Lance had flipped his shit the most out of all the others. And when it was discovered that Hunk was fine, Lance latched onto him like a koala for 3 days. Everyone understood why, even Keith did. Lance had been friends with Hunk for god knows how long. They had years to forge a strong friendship, a profound bond if you may. But...nothing has recently happened. What...? Why is he...?

Ugh, he didn't have time to scrutinize the situation like he usually did. He had to...help. Uhhhh. What was he supposed to do anyway? He wasn't exactly Shiro. Or Hunk for that fact, comforting people wasn't exactly his thing. He wasn't really sure what to do. Well, for starters, you should probably ask the person if they're okay. If they're not responsive to you; help them calm down or even out their breathing. He recalled a piece of advice Shiro had told him back in their Garrison days. It was well worth a shot. "Lance, Lance. What's wrong? Are you okay? Can you...? Can you hear me?"

All Keith got back was more quite sobbing, and a small whimper here and there. He sighed. Now what was he going to do? Should he get the others? He really didn't know how to deal with this situation. Ok, maybe if I... Keith wrapped his arms around the culled up ball that was Lance in an attempted hug. He wasn't one for the touchy-touchy kind of things, but he knew Lance was. When this didn't seem to work, he began to rub circles on his back. Shiro used to do this to him often, and he still did it; albeit the fact it was less frequent but still...

Lance seemed to tense up from this and Keith took this as a good sign. If it works on me I guess it works on him too. "Hey, it's...it's alright." He cooed, not sure what else to say as he felt the other late-teen latch onto him. He heard him trying to even out his breathing, holding back sobs he could tell were trying to escape. This made him flinch. No matter how long he spent being a paladin, the sound of someone holding back their sounds of crying was...

He shivered.

He hated it so much, and right now he just wanted to help his friend with whatever demons he was fighting. He would not fight alone. Keith of all people knew how that felt and he'd be damned if he'd let somebody else slip by with that.

"Shhhhh-"

He shushed him. Still rubbing circles on his back, focusing on the barely noticeable sound of the Altean tech humming in the background, falling into silence. Falling into...the background of everything.

Hunk hugged Lance tightly in his arms. Everyone was around them in a messy semi-circle. Watching and wondering what had happened earlier. They were all worried about their friend after all. Lance loosely warped his arms around his friend as well, slightly exhausted from the previous 'episode'. Earlier, when Keith had successfully calmed him down, he had gotten up to notify the others about this ordeal. Although, due to Lance's sudden raise in panicking when he realized Keith was going to leave. He had been forced to say and ended up using the Castle's voice command code to alert the others to get their asses into the common room.

And they did just that.

"Buddy, what happened?" Hunk quietly whispered. He looked down at the blue paladin who, at the moment, had his face buried on Hunk's shoulders. Lance didn't reply. He looked back at the others. "Guys..." He began. They all started to look at Keith in expectancy.

Keith sighed and ran a hand through his hand out of habit. "I have no idea, I just came in to check up on him, and I found him curled in a ball crying."

Shiro's gaze directed back to the crying boy in the center. He crouched down to meet his level, and reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder. "Lance. Lance, are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?" A soft smooth tone rolled off his tongue as he spoke, it was obvious that he was using his comforting voice. There was no response for a few seconds, then Lance tried to clear his throat. "I'm...sorry." Shiro blinked. Sorry? Sorry for what? "Lance, there's nothing to be sorry about. This happens, it's okay."

"No!" Everyone was strayed by Lance loud outburst. "No," he continued; oblige much softer, "it's not—; you all have valid excuses. And I just-!" A few moments of silence, as he sharply inhaled. "I just...fuck. I don't... I don't have a valid excuse, I just freak out."

"What is that supposed to mean? Whatever happens to you isn't invalid. Nobody's eh... 'Excuse' is valid or invalid. Just...there." Hunk reasoned. Lance looked his friend in the eye. The team tensed at that moment, expecting something else to happen. This time Lance only whispered something to him. Hunk nodded and told everyone to leave, that he would handle this. Reluctantly, they all left within a few minutes. Now it was just the two of them, the gray couch, and the sweet bitter monotone hum of Altean tech in the background. How deluding it was. Soft to the ears, yet it drills into your mind if you listen long enough.

-time skip BC I really just couldn't write this part-

"Lance, if that's what's triggering your anxiety you've could've just told us."

"Hmmm, as if; I don't want you guys to have to baby me. It's too much trouble. I would be wasting your time."

"Wasting your time—?" Hunk repeated. "Lance! Your mental well-being is more important to us than—...you wouldn't be wasting our time." He finished off softly. A hand firmly griping Lance's shoulder. His friend wouldn't look him in the eye. Finding the floor more interesting to look at; even if it didn't have any patterns to it. "Lance... Look at me, please?" When his friend wouldn't do anything but place his hand on top of his own, he sighed. "Come 'ere." Hunk mumbled, and pulled Lance into a warm embrace.

Notes:

Ok, ending it here. I don't know what to do. I have no idea how to end this. Ugh, good God. This whole story is terrible. (Expect maybe for the beginning, I actually kinda like that part.) But everything else was BAD.

Also, I wrote this because I read something a while back (before season two) and had to write something similar? (It was something on Wattpad. It was actually really good.) ((To that person, I am soooo sorry this took me months, I planned for it to take me 2 weeks to write, tops. It came out so late because I kept getting stuck and I had long periods of time where I wouldn't write for this at all. [Since I was writing other things or just didn't feel like it.] There was also times where I just kinda forgot this existed?))

Again, sorry. :(