Where's the family in this Feud!
Set immediately following Season 7 Episode #4 "The Feud!" – Spoilers!
Summary: Lance isn't okay after the Feud! and a routine stop ends up being more than just a break - Lance needs a chance to prove to himself he is valuable to the team and the team needs to remind themselves how much Lance means to them.
Rated: K+
Chapter 2
"So,Coran," Lance asked as Coran was walking back to the Blue Lion, "do you have like any like Altean burn cream or anything like that?" Lance rushed out the last part in embarrassment.
"Cream that burns? Hmm well I can think of a few that are combustible and one that would melt metal…" he pondered twirling his moustache.
"Um, no, not like that, like a medicine for burns on, you know, people?" Lance asked again.
"Did you burn yourself?" Coran looked at Lance in concern trying to detect any marks or sign or damage. "I didn't think the flame from the tarmtarm tree roots would cause human skin to burn?"
"Yeah well, I guess I'm lucky," Lance let Coran think he'd gotten burned building the camp fire.
"Well if applied right away I have a salve that will instantly heal a burn, long as it's done in a few dobashes." Coran smiled.
"And what if it's been longer?" Lance winced and looked down.
"Well then it would depend on the severity of the burn." Coran was somewhat suspicious at this point. "Can I see it?"
Lance sighed and pulled the plate from the armor on his arm and rolled up the sleeve so Coran could see the burns on his arm. The whole arm looked red with lines of deeper red covered in blisters.
"Oh, well that does look like a bit of a problem. You should have let me know right away, number three," Coran was concerned that Lance hadn't come to him with this injury. It was bound to be quite painful and there was really no need for him to suffer. "I think I know what will do the trick now, a good healing spray. You'll need to put it on twice an earth day, but within a couple it should be completely healed. I'll just pop into Blue and get the spray and be back in two shakes of a Bombozadors whiskers."
"Lance," Shiro called from the fireside. "We were discussing tomorrow's training schedule. Come on over."
They generally performed some sort of extra training or exercise when they were planetside. There were just only so many things they could do while flying and they got really, really boring after a while. Unfortunately Lance really didn't want to go over by the fire, and he really didn't want to sit with everyone, and he was really going to do it anyway, because Shiro had started giving him the disappointed leader look again.
"On my way, couldn't come up with a plan without me? Needed my amazing person to provide input?" Lance bluffed his way back to the fire.
"No, dummy, we already have a plan, just telling it to you know so you don't forget to get up in the morning and join us," Pidge snarked with a grin.
She didn't mean it, he knew that. She always talked with him like that and usually he just smarted back and everything was fine, but he wasn't fine and it was just a little more than he could handle right now.
"Whatever! If you would ever take your nose out of that stupid tablet you might notice that I haven't been late to a training on planetside, while you on the other hand have overslept what was…oh yeah…three times now?! Maybe you ought to look in the mirror!"
"Hey guys," Shiro cautioned.
Pidge snapped her tablet down and glared, "I've overslept because I'm the one coming up with the map and charts to get us home, I'm the one monitoring for signals from Earth, I'm the one staying up to get all of us home! What exactly are you doing to help with that, nothing, cause you're the dumb one, remember?!"
"Fine then you don't need me for this since I'm so dumb I'd probably forget before morning anyway." Lance spun around and started to stomp away.
"Lance?" Hunk started to get up to follow.
"Just don't Hunk," Lance yelled back.
"Lance, Pidge, that is enough, everyone come back and sit down. I don't know what is going on here, but let's focus on what we are doing tomorrow." Shiro held up his hands in an attempt to stop the escalating argument.
Lance stopped walking away, but didn't turn around and didn't walk back to the fire. He just stood there with his arms crossed and his frame rigid.
"Lance, just come back over here so we can get this over with. The longer you stand there the longer this takes," Keith tried talking him back.
"Guess you wouldn't want that, right, Keith?" Lance's words practically dripped venom. "Wouldn't want to get stuck with me for too long." He was no longer yelling but the anger in the words was plain to hear. "You know what, forget you." He walked away from the fire and back to Red, climbing into her waiting mouth.
No one said a word for several minutes.
"What just happened?" Romella looked confused.
"I was going to ask the same thing." Shiro looked around at the other paladins. Allura and Hunk looked sad, Pidge looked regretful and Keith looked downright guilty.
"We should share the entire story," Allura began and proceeded to tell everyone the tale of their time with Bob. By the time she finished, all of the paladins were looking a little guilty and Keith was cringing under Shiro's frown.
"I didn't mean it, I was kidding. I was just mad at Bob and the whole situation and so it just came out." Keith defended.
"And did you tell Lance that?" his mother asked.
"No, but he knows I don't mean that, I mean he should know that…"
"Hmmm..." she looked at him significantly, "doesn't seem like he knows, does it?"
"Keith" Shiro started.
"I know, Shiro, I'll go talk to him."
"Has anyone seen Lance?" Coran asked walking up to the fire holding a couple of small spray bottles. "I finally found that healing spray for his arm. It was much harder to fi…"
"What's wrong with his arm," Hunk asked alarmed cutting Coran off.
"Oh well, he had a rather nasty burn," Coran frowned. "Don't think I got a clear story on how it happened."
"He said it didn't hurt," Pidge blurted, "He said it was warm and exfoliating?" She looked around for support.
"That's what he said when he got put in the tank, but Bob also said it would start dissolving his skin soon, did anyone notice if he was okay when Pidge was trying to get us out?" Allura looked at the other paladins as they all shook their heads.
"He hugged me when we won?" Hunk offered. He was saddened at the thought he might have hurt Lance, grabbing him the way he did at the end. "I kinda thought it was like a dream, not really real?"
"So this Bob called Lance dumb, repeatedly, he failed at all of the games, he was nearly killed a couple of times, and then told you voted for him because you didn't want to be stuck with him?" Krolia asked.
"And none of you thought to check on him; see how he was doing?" Romella added.
"And no one confirmed if he was injured after he was put in a device designed to kill him?" Shiro threw up his hands.
"So he had more burns than just his arm? I'm going to get more spray. Someone please take these to him now." Coran held out the canisters and made to go get more. "It's not as though I can throw him into a healing pod, is it? Poor boy."