A/N: this came from last night. I swear, it wrenched my heart out of my chest right there… so heart shattering. So anyways, here is what came from watching Lance's tortured childhood. Lance's POV
Disclaimer: I own no part of Sym-Bionic Titan whatsoever.
Every Night
I bolted upright again, feeling my mind wide-awake. I blinked a few times, hearing my voice saying "Dad?" weakly as it did back when I was a kid.
I could never sleep. I had come back into some kind of routine. And every night, I was up at two AM, eyes bright as I waited for my dad to come in through my bedroom door with a snack of cookies and start telling me more about the Manus armor or the riff gate.
I hung my head in my hands, ashamed that I could still be thinking he was still alive after all these years and that he could still come in through my bedroom door with warm milk and endless stories.
It was wrong for me to keep believing. It was wrong for me to see things in any sort of hopeful light, especially with it being something near six years at this point.
I ran my fingers through my hair, hoping for the best and praying that I could let it go.
Six years. Six. Years. I didn't need to keep anything close to hope alive. I didn't even keep a flicker of love in my heart for him anymore. It was an empty void. Losing one thing was painful. To relive the loss every night...
It was like hearing he was dead all over again.
Every night, now that it had started up again, I did push-ups until I couldn't feel my arms. The pain was the punishment that I deserved for feeling anything for him again. Physical, self-induced suffering. I needed it. Desperately. It trained me against my waking up in the middle of the night. I couldn't do it anymore. I needed to sleep. I needed some peace of mind.
The next night was the same. "Dad?"
And I regretted saying it every time I woke up.
My eyes found the clock. Two AM right on the dot. I hissed to myself and dropped to the ground, three hours of push-ups putting me into unbearable misery until I couldn't take it any longer. Some time around five AM, I dropped back into my bed, tears searing my eyes as pain ripped my muscles apart.
I was living in Hell. "Dad?"
The words passed my lips again. And this time, I took sit-ups by storm, letting myself go for about two hours before crashing back onto my bed in pain. My chest ached and my stomach felt like jelly. But I slept soundly, knowing that I deserved it.
I didn't want to hear my father's voice anymore. I didn't want to imagine him coming in and telling me all these new inventions with an ice cream sundae in his hands. Because it wasn't going to happen. There wasn't going to be another invention. He was gone. And gone meant for good.
It got so bad that after two or three weeks of it, I couldn't get up right away in the morning. It took somewhere near an hour just to start moving. I put his picture in the drawer of my bedside table, hoping that would get rid of my ideas and memories of him. I didn't want to remember. I didn't want him to come back. Never again.
I did push-ups until I could hardly breathe. And on nights where I was feeling especially awake, I went to do more. I did another hour worth of sit-ups until I was going to be sick.
And a few times, it did get to that.
Octus came in one night, watching me as I did my push-ups around three thirty AM. He said my vitals were off the charts and that I needed to stop. He demanded it, saying my health was at risk.
I yelled a little. I demanded he go away. I felt my arms burning. I still didn't stop. He didn't understand that I was trying to forget things. Robots didn't have emotions. He wouldn't know. No one would understand.
I watched him leave and I couldn't help but wish it were my dad leaving to go back to the lab to work on the riff gate.
I woke up feeling sick one morning, having done a solid three hours of push-ups the night before and another two hours of sit-ups added on to it. I wanted the pain. I wanted to forget about everything else. I couldn't move. I couldn't budge. My arms were so sore I could hardly roll over to try and block the sun from filtering in my window.
Ilana came in, her attitude fierce as she stormed in with her dark eyes alight with fury. "Lance, we're going to be late for school," she fumed, staring at me coldly. "I can't believe you overslept."
I just closed my eyes nice and tight and wished she'd go away so I could get some sleep before two AM slunk around the corner again, waking me from my peaceful slumber and knocking me back into the world of suffering that was my reality.
"Ilana," came Octus's voice from outside the door, "you won't be able to get him up. His body's too strained. He can't move right now, let alone go to school." Then he walked in, body covered in the hologram of Newton. "He's been working out too hard the past few nights."
"Months," I managed to stammer out as my heart pounded in my chest. I clutched the blanket tighter to my chest, wanting to die. I didn't want anyone to know about my misery. I just wanted to live with it.
Her lips formed a little 'o' and her eyes widened. "Lance?" She put a hand on top of mine and I shied away from her, trying to get her to stop touching me. Everything hurt. I felt like my body was on fire and that at any second, the flames would overwhelm me, eat me up until I was nothing more than a carcass of bones. "Are you okay?"
"I want to forget," I breathed, finding pain coming as I tried to speak.
She ran her fingers over my forehead, brushing a few stray strands of my ebony tinted hair away from my eyes. "I know you've suffered a lot, Lance, but no one ever has to forget anything. Whatever doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."
And I hated to say it, but Ilana was right.
And having her by my bedside every night made me stop pushing my limits. And eventually, I stopped waking up at two AM. And the pain went away. Because Ilana helped me forget better than any added pain could.
A/N: came out to a lesser grade than I expected... But I guess I'll have to suffice. I can't find a better way to put it up. Please review. Thank you for reading.
~Sky