I.
Lance has his good days, but he has bad days, too.
Let there be no wrong impression: The Blue Paladin cared deeply about his teammates and on their quest to liberate the universe, he'd shared many irreplaceable moments with them.
But he had bad days, too.
In part, it was simply to be expected given that he was only human, and at that, one who had only recently gone from being an unpromising space academy reject to being caught at the center of an age old intergalactic war, cut off from everything he had ever known, but more specifically, his current mood had taken a turn for the sour earlier this day, when his hopes to squeeze in a little R&R into the whole 'defender of the universe' schedule had been rudely dashed –
As if it were his fault that he was the only one around here who liked to spend his precious, limited chill time actually relaxing instead of, say, disassembling machines or showing off on the training deck, or perhaps simply because he didn't excuse himself fast enough, he'd found himself once again recruited by Coran to help with various maintenance tasks around the castle, which, in itself, wouldn't have been that bad – in the end, it was something that needed doing, and generally, he found the company of the older Altean agreeable enough, having establishes a good enough rapport despite their differing backgrounds.
It was more about a casual comment he'd made about everyone having to contribute their best, and how it has connected with a chain of thoughts that had been idling around at the back of the Blue Paladin's mind for some time now – though he might protest it in jest, he couldn't truly deny that kicking back with some tunes was less important than any of the more productive tasks his fellow Paladins had taken up.
He could argue that a good dose of chillaxation had a positive impact on his personal equilibrium, but he was aware that it didn't contribute to their survival the same way as, for example, Pidge's tinkering – and on a better day he might have concluded that this left him free to help whoever needed an extra hand, stated that he was conserving his energy or gone to the training deck for some compensatory target practice, but today, the sinking feeling that came with contemplating his dubious role in the team just ended up nudging a bunch of free-floating associations about how everything reminded him just how out of place he felt, and by extension, just how far he was from what he once called home.
And once he'd gone far enough on that train of thought, it was hard to muster the enthusiasm necessary to appreciate whatever Coran was rambling on about – Lance had adjusted well enough to thinking in ticks, vargas and doboshes and even thought he'd picked up the basics about the various Altean creatures that the castle's original inhabitants kept referring to, but on days like these, all those mentions of different time units, alien creatures and the constant stream of anecdotes featuring various outer space mischief from faraway times just represented pricks that kept him away to the distance between his current whereabouts and any frames of reference he'd ever known before;
Of course, he'd expected to be away from home for a while when he signed up for the Galaxy Garrison, and at first, he'd fared well enough on the homesickness front, his mind far too occupied by dreams of fame of glory, but now, even tiny details he'd taken for granted without a thought since he was a little boy were now replaced by unfamiliar words; For the last seventeen years of his life, he'd never ventured beyond the Earth's orbit, and the most he'd hoped to see in the absolute best case was the rest of his solar system; He'd had half an idea of becoming a renowned ace pilot and perhaps striking it rich as an asteroid miner later on, and he would have considered his life pretty much complete if he'd found himself chosen for a mission meant to venture to the outer edges of the solar system, but that boundary would have represented the edge of the world as far as he was concerned – what was once considered the furthest frontier of exploration was now part of Earth's most immediate neighborhood, now that his life took place at scales encompassing large parts of the known universe because he'd flown his way to a marvelous, mystical craft left behind by an ancient civilization – mystical in the most literal sense because as it would turn out, magic was real, too.
Just a few months ago, he hadn't known if aliens were real and considered the whole concept somewhat outlandish – Now, Lance usually encountered minimum of two and a half aliens every day, and one of them frequently enlisted his help to scrub various futuristic contraptions that, for all their advances, apparently still required scrubbing.
All things considered, he didn't resent this activity that much, he understood the need for everyone to participate to the best of their ability, irrespective of whatever that happened to be or whether the tasks required were particularly glorious, he was glad if he could contribute somehow, but he wanted to contribute, something that couldn't just be done by everyone else – It wasn't just a matter of his superficial pride: Hunk's personal niche of taking over the kitchen, being the best defensive fighter, a skilled engineer, the cautious one with the common sense and the one dishing out the emotional support whenever Shiro was otherwise occupied might not have been exactly 'glamorous', but it was irreplaceable and no one in the team would want to be without him, least of all Lance himself, who'd considered the Yellow Paladin his best friend even before they'd all embarked on their unexpected intergalactic adventure.
As for him? He supposed he was a good shot and had a cool frost ray, and he liked to think he was the funny one, but as he scrubbed away at the ancient crystalline machinery, he once again found himself wondering if the others saw it that way.
Coran, for his part, seemed too absorbed in the incident he was recounting to take note of the Blue Paladin's vaguely dejected state, perhaps not registering it as more than an understandable and not unusual lack of enthusiasm that might be remedied with even taller tales, and Lance wasn't sure if he resented or appreciated this.
Had he been in a better mood he might have joined in with some yarn of his own or at least tried to sneak in a funny comeback or two, and the time would have flown by in an instant despite being filled with drudge work, but right now, the Altean's chipper accounts just reinforced the sense of distance , disconnect and loneliness Lance was experiencing at the moment.
He knew, of course, that Coran tried his best, and that he, too must be missing his home; He was practical about things and focused his attention on looking after Allura and continuing their mission, but even so there were moments where he would have a distant look in his eyes whose meaning seemed universal – Compared to what he and the Princess had gone through, Lance's own homesickness seemed almost like a frivolous, pusillanimous complaint, after all, the Earth was still very much out there, and whether it would stay that way was up to their actions; If he wanted to set foot there again, the logical thing to do was to suck it up and scrub whatever needed to be scrubbed.
He understood this, and so that was what he did, but the resignation this entailed added to his bitterness – by the time the onerous task was done with & Lance was released to enjoy himself at last, he was no longer really in the mood to do so.
Excusing himself with a few vague, mumbled words without noting the half-puzzled, half-concerned look that was shot after him, he left the room with no clear intention of where to go – on a better day, he would have gone to find one of his teammates and the ensuing antics would surely have tipped his thoughts into another direction, but from his current, jade-colored vision, he only forsaw himself annoying and pestering them, or otherwise keeping them from their More Relevant Activities, besides, the prospect didn't seem as appealing as it otherwise might;
Lance cared deeply about his teammates, but he had his bad days, and on those, he would keenly feel the differences that existed between them. Allura existed in a completely different context than him to begin with, and in a different way, so did Shiro, though he wouldn't want to call attention to that sentiment in the man's presence; Some things about him could be strange and unsettling sometimes, marred by a past that none of his teammates had access to, but most importantly, none of this was his fault and if Lance's admiration for him had changed at all after he'd come to get know him, it would have been in the manner of a clear increase; Besides, he'd immediately pick up on his fellow paladin's distemper and ask him to talk about it, and he wasn't sure whether he wanted to be in that situation at the moment.
Usually, he'd always find respite in his friends Pidge and Hunk, whom he'd known from his days at the garrison, but when he pictured them now, he imagined Pidge bent over her laptop, immersed in some topic or the other as if she were as if she were half absorbed into a walled-off space where there was only her and the latest object of her fascination, as impenetrable as the string of nerd words she'd be sure to sprout if he were to address her, only to be reminded that he didn't understand it.
On the other hand, there was Hunk, who, while a brilliant engineer in his own right, tended to express his ideas in more simple terms that went with his more down-to-earth, common-sense-ey way of thinking and could generally be relied upon for some earnest, good-natured support... but it was precisely because of his unpretentious, accepting nature that he wouldn't really understand or fathom Lance's predicament; He was the sort of person who could be content just being surrounded with harmony, friendship and the safety to live another day... well, that, and an abundance of decent snacks.
Hearing him rave about food sounded little more appealing than Pidge's excited nerd ravings; It would just remind him that they both had worlds of their own, things he couldn't understand and made them feel as distant as Coran's ramblings of distant times and alien worlds, even though they were both through and through ordinary, red-blooded, flesh-and blood humans much like himself.
As distinct as they might be from each other's, they had their own roles, niches and strengths where he was still looking for his own specialties and he even thought he was succeeding in parts, if Shiro's recent acknowledgments were something to go by, but one could not look at his teammates and picture them playing any other role than what they did;
Between their talents, personality and inclinations, their places in the team's structure seemed inevitable, almost like a kind of destiny, all the while Lance was still trying to carve out his own.
It wasn't even that he didn't see or know that his teammates did not mind him just as he was, or that they cared for him just as his birth family had; It was that he wanted to be more than this, to be someone, just like Shiro and the others – why else would a person with a comfortable life and a warm, close-knit family leave their beloved home in search of fame and adventure?
In truth it had taken him a while to put a name and label to this need, simply followed one juicy opportunity after another with his characteristic openness, be it a poster for a space recruitment program or an ancient magitech lion telling him to guide her home, but as he'd had more time to think about it and as he continued along this path, he was forced to consider what he was even doing here.
Well, what were any of them doing here?
Shiro and Allura had experienced the brutality of the empire firsthand at great personal cost, long since involved in this strife as part of something bigger than themselves by the time they crossed his path; Meanwhile, Pidge and Keith had already been pursuing quests of their own, on their own, each of them with their own methods, heroes of another story until their stories intersected.
The team member whose situation was the closest to Lance's own was probably Hunk – He loved to talk about himself while the Yellow Paladin had been content to listen, so it was hardly surprising that the flow of information had mainly gone in one direction – besides, the stocky mechanic was an uncomplicated, humble person not in the business of drawing attention to himself, but even so, Lance had picked up on his occasional mentions of still having living relatives on Earth that he probably still missed every bit as much as Lance himself missed his own;
Like any normal person suddenly thrown into a crazy, out-of-this world situation, he was at first none too enthusiastic about being conscripted to fight in a war he'd never signed on for once the initial novelty of aliens and mythical robot creatures had worn off – It was witnessing the suffering of those conquered by Zarkon and his earnest, sincere intention to protect them that made him choose to stay.
But Lance had been different; Though he'd hidden it better, he'd hadn't had a much easier time adjusting to being out here on his own than Hunk did, not after being ejected from his once comfortable life, but even so, he'd been positively hyped about the whole space magic part, and eagerly jumped into the role of the dashing adventurer, or the best affectation thereof he could conjure, for as much as becoming a Paladin had disrupted his life, it also represented an even greater opportunity at what he'd likely been seeking when he'd signed up for the garrison in the first place: A destiny of his own.
He thought he'd find a continuation to his big dreams of outer space, but now that he'd found his way here, he almost wished he was back to those days when his mother's lap was the center of his world and its edges didn't extend very far past the nearby seashore, only a few minutes away from the family home -
And yet, he could not go back. Not because he was forced to stay, but because he wanted to, for the team, for the cause, for himself, and that, unfortunately, was probably the harder thing to remedy.
So he'd stayed behind, but when he was finally free to go (from the space chores, not to Earth), his steps through the castle ship's corridors were as aimless as he perceived himself to be in this moment, extending from their uncertain ping-pong journey back to various less than stellar attempts to stand out and make a name for himself, wandering, dithering, vaguely staying away from areas he'd expect to be in use, until a sound caught his ear.