Lance's insecurities follow him into the void, shadows dancing at his heels that grow ever larger.
This isn't going to work. They haven't been able to make contact with Shiro since that one time Hunk did well over a week ago. And if any of them are going to, it's not going to be Lance, who isn't all that good at anything.
Lance can't even claim to be the team's sharpshooter anymore; now that he's taught Allura how to use a gun, she can match him shot for shot. It's a good thing, of course it's a good thing, though it hasn't exactly helped his self-esteem. Some people, like Allura and Coran and Shiro, seem to excel in just about everything they set their minds to. Lance's only special talent seems to be messing things up.
Today, Lance managed to get Pidge injured and singlehandedly wreck relations with an entire planet, destroying any chance at an alliance, all with a single pickup line. It hadn't even been a good one.
Allura had warnedhim to keep his mouth shut before they left, and yet the words slipped out of his mouth anyway when he saw the stunning Xaranthian Princess. Affronted, the Princess had screeched like the Queen of Hearts, calling for his death. Pidge had to dive to protect him from one of the guards' spears, getting hurt in his stead.
Allura and Keith had reamed him out all afternoon, tongues harsh and patience worn through. Coran had just sighed in disappointment, as if he didn't expect any better from him. The worst had been when Pidge refused his assistance in walking afterward, not wanting to be anywhere near him, and the silent treatment that followed. Hunk hadn't made things better, either, prattling on about all the things that could have and did go wrong, and listing all the valid reasons Pidge could have for hating him.
It's times like these that Lance really feels Shiro's absence. It's not that the others are necessarily unkind, but they do lack tact. Without Shiro, there's no one here to tell him, hey, you made a mistake today, but here's the silver lining; you did all these other things well and you're important to the team and I still have faith in you. There's no one to give Lance the encouragement and praise and validation his admittedly fragile self-esteem needs.
The shadows grow as he searches for Shiro in this empty place. They shift and stretch and multiply, clawing and tugging at him. He can't escape their grip. They pull him down, no matter how hard he tries to resist.
He's sinking, and the shadows grow darker, stronger.
Awful thoughts worm their way into Lance's head, horrible words forming worse sentences. He tries to drown it out, but it's impossible.
He clutches at his chest. There's a hollow ache that grows worse and worse. It's overwhelming. It hurts.
The shadows continue to twist and contort, merging together. Twinges of ineptitude and mild incompetence have fully transformed into vicious self-hatred and feelings of utter worthlessness.
The feelings are so strong he thinks he might suffocate.
Lance has felt insecure before, but never like this. He's made mistakes, sure, but he's never felt unworthy of being loved because he's inherently a bad person, unworthy of being the Black Paladin because—
"Oh," he breathes. These thoughts, these feelings…
Lance stops resisting, stops trying to run. He stops trying to block the thoughts out; he lets himself feel all the ugly things he usually tries to hide and hide from. He closes his eyes and lets the shadows draw him in.
At the centre of it all, he finds the Black Paladin.
Shiro drifts listlessly among the stars. He tumbles further and further away from the maw of the Black Lion after being spit out, rejected.
Lance wastes no time in flying to him, propelled by his jetpack, and grabs hold of Shiro's broad shoulders. "Shiro!" He's so relieved. He found him.
"Lance?" Shiro's voice is unsteady.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here," Lance reassures him, keeping his voice calm and giving him the biggest smile he can muster. "Not exactly sure where here is, but I'm with you, and that's what matters. I've been looking all over for you, man. We all have."
Shiro doesn't ask how. Instead, he asks in a small voice, "Why?"
"Wha—what do you mean, 'why'? How can you even ask that?" Lance splutters. But he knows. He felt it. "Because you're Shiro! You're our friend, our leader, and the rightful Black Paladin."
Lance follows Shiro's gaze as he looks over at the Black Lion, her eyes vacant and empty as she submits to Zarkon's pull.
"Black chose you. Not Zarkon," Lance reminds Shiro. "Remember what happens next here? After this, you get back in Black and swoop in to save Keith's butt."
The darkness around them fades and a vast, rocky terrain stretches out before them. Shiro's badly hurt. He's in danger. Snarling dinosaur-like creatures encircle him, huge and tusked with razor-sharp teeth, and Black… Black isn't doing a thing to help him.
"She comes for you," Lance insists. "I know how this story goes."
When Keith had first told them about what happened, Lance's initial reaction had been irritation. He'd been so infuriatingly nonchalant about his ability to save Shiro and pilot the Black Lion; Keith was just so used to being able to do whatever he put his mind to. Much as he doesn't like to admit it, Lance has always been jealous of him.
Shiro's not jealous of Keith, but Lance can still feel the sting of rejection when Black opens up right away for the Red Paladin.
It looks easy, but Lance knows now that it wasn't at all. He's seen this scene play out from behind Keith's eyes many times now, thanks to all the mind-melding practice he helped him with. He's also seen Keith's subsequent struggle to get Black to work with him after Shiro vanished.
"She responds to Keith, sure, but only because you're in danger. And besides, the Lions take a little while to self-repair," Lance adds. "She would've saved you before Keith got there if she could have."
Shiro is sceptical. The rock below them crumbles, and the scene shifts again. They're surrounded by stars and nebulae, though there's a solid surface beneath their feet. The astral plane? It would be pretty, if it weren't so cold and frightening.
A shudder runs through Lance as he sees Zarkon up close for the first time. He's massive, every aspect of him radiating sheer power.
Zarkon attacks Shiro without hesitation, hitting him, smashing him into the ground, choking him. It's a devastating assault. The Black Lion is there; Lance has the vague understanding that she's the one who brought him here to face Zarkon. She does nothing to help him while her paladin is being brutally beaten.
Lance hasn't seen this before, but he knows how it ends. "She chooses you!" Lance shouts above the grunts and painful crack and thud as Zarkon's massive fist connects and Shiro's body tears up the ground's surface in a plume of cosmic dust. "She brought you here because she believes you'll win. And you do! You take control."
The fighting pauses, Zarkon's gnarled claw a vice around Shiro's neck.
"Remember? Through your bond with Black, you're the one who lures Zarkon into our trap. You disarm him and take the black bayard. You're our leader, and you convince us not to give up. Shiro, we take Zarkon down because of you," Lance insists.
Zarkon's grip releases and Shiro collapses to his knees, struggling for breath. Zarkon fades, though the oppressive weight smothering them both does not.
Lance wraps an arm across Shiro's shoulders, guiding Shiro to sit down next to him. He keeps his arm around him.
Even after he's had a chance to catch his breath, the tension in Shiro's body doesn't fade. "Tell me what you're thinking," Lance coaxes as soothingly as he can.
"...I don't deserve to be a paladin, let alone your leader," Shiro says eventually, his voice quiet. "I'm not worthy of any of you." The fact that he even answers is a bit worrisome in itself—Lance is glad that he does, but it's so far from his usual 'it's nothing.'
"Do you not remember those things I said, like, one minute ago?" Lance frowns. "You should see how bad we're struggling without you. Believe me. You're irreplaceable."
Keith is not their leader, and he's made it very clear that he doesn't want to be. He's been trying, he really has, but he doesn't know how to inspire the others the way Shiro can. He's trying but he's still Keith, still critical and blunt and brutally honest by nature. His attempts at motivational speeches have been hilariously bad. (Shiro should've seen the time Keith tried to use the compliment sandwich. Total disaster.) Keith takes command in battle, he provides direction, but he's not a leader.
Allura is a leader, and she makes the decisions outside of battle, but her leadership has been struggling lately without Shiro there to balance her out. Rather than balance, Keith and Allura serve to amplify one another, and together their calls are even riskier, their plans more extreme. They never think about their own limitations, running headfirst into danger. Without Shiro, there's nobody to tell them to rest, and so the others don't get to either. Keith and Allura need Shiro to anchor them. They all do.
"And worthy?" Lance says, addressing the second part of Shiro's answer. "Of course you're worthy, Shiro. How could you not be?"
Shiro doesn't look at him. "If you had any idea of the things I've done…"
"It doesn't matter," Lance interrupts, wrapping his arm around him more tightly. Thankfully, it seems to distract Shiro enough to keep his mind from taking them somewhere worse. "You've done so many more good things, but regardless of that, you are more than your actions. You're more than what you have or haven't done."
It's something he'd told Keith not long ago, when the interim leader was in a bad place after a series of botched missions. It wasn't for lack of trying, but to Keith, actions were everything; intent didn't matter.
Lance isn't sure where Shiro lies on the matter, but he's guessing it's towards Keith's perspective—prodigy he is, he's probably been defined by his abilities and accomplishments his whole life. Lance was as guilty as anyone of contributing to that back at the Garrison with his hero worship. Shiro is still Lance's hero, though for different reasons now.
"Do you remember what Hunk told you?" Lance asks, when the crease in Shiro's forehead and bewildered expression don't fade.
"It's… it's okay to be scared," Shiro says quietly.
Lance nods encouragingly. "You're strong, and you are brave," he finishes. "Remember that?"
"Yeah," Shiro whispers.
"That's you, and that's not gonna change," Lance insists. "You're also kind, and dedicated, and patient, and selfless, and I could go on for ages. But the bottom line is that, regardless of your actions, you are a good person."
It seems that at least some of Lance's message gets through to Shiro. His expression has softened slightly. He's not exactly relaxed, but his muscles are less taut than before.
Everything is starting to fade. Lance clings to Shiro; he doesn't have much time left. "You're the Black Paladin, and we need you," he reiterates. "You will always be our leader. We'll follow you to hell and back."
"You shouldn't—"
"Too late," Lance interrupts lightly as he looks at the destruction around them. He swears he catches the beginnings of a smile. "But seriously. You're Takashi Shirogane, and you are enough. You are more than worthy."
Shiro's eyes are grateful, and he leans against him. "Thank you," Shiro says, voice barely a whisper, and then he disappears.
-x-
The room is empty when Lance wakes, but there's some sort of commotion coming from down the hall. He slips the metal headband off and follows the sound of excited voices.
He ends up in the hangar of the Black Lion and is promptly tackled when he enters. Pidge throws her arms around his waist, squeezing hard. "You found him!"
"Great work, paladin!" Coran commends, standing next to one of the several machines cluttering the hangar. His tone is proud. "Thanks to you and Hunk, Shiro's much more stable now. So much so, in fact, that we were able to bring his physical form back to this realm."
Hunk nudges Lance in the side, just above where Pidge's arms are firmly planted. "Not bad, fellow leg! Told you we—oh oh oh, they're coming out!" he says, gesturing to the Black Lion.
Allura emerges from Black's mouth, Keith trailing closely behind. "Excellent work, Lance!" Allura praises. Keith shoots him a grateful smile, small but genuine.
The appreciation is nice, but what fills him with warmth is the solid body in Allura's arms.
Shiro is strangely pale, drained of colour, and Lance swears he could see through him if he looked hard enough. He's awfully still. But he's here.
"There's still a ways to go before we can fully bring him back," Allura says, steps graceful as she crosses the floor, even with a body in her arms. "But he's much closer now, thanks to your support."
Support. Maybe that's what Lance brings to the team. Maybe that's his thing.
The others begin to file out of the hangar to follow Allura to the infirmary. Pidge's arms hook around Lance's neck and shoulders. "Carry me," she demands.
Lance hoists her onto his back with ease. "You don't still hate me?"
"Tch. Hate? I'm still kind of annoyed, but I don't hate you," she snorts, adjusting her arms. "You can make it up to me by carrying me everywhere until my leg's healed."
"Everywhere?" he groans loudly, their dynamic falling back into familiar territory.
"Everywhere," she says smugly. "And you can make me a sandwich too."
He heaves an exaggerated sigh.
"C'mon. Let's go," she needles, kicking him in the side with her good leg.
"Ow! Okay, okay," he grumbles. But really, he doesn't mind at all.
-x-
Pidge stares at the emptiness in front of her, wishing something, anything, would come to her. Hunk and Lance had both brought Shiro closer to being within reach. It should be easier now, shouldn't it? But the past several attempts have been unsuccessful.
The others have come close, catching snippets from his mindscape, but Pidge hasn't so much as caught a glimpse of him since he visited her in her nightmare all those weeks ago.
Hunk and Lance have each found and helped him, and Keith went through hell to contact him that first time. Pidge, on the other hand, hasn't done a thing. She's completely useless.
She barely even contributed to the machines they built to bring Shiro back. Her role mostly consisted of passing tools to Coran or Slav as they worked. As hard as she's tried to make sense of it, most of this stuff about other dimensions and realities goes over her head. And if her brain's of no use, what good is she?
She wants to help, she really does, but she just doesn't know how. Her skills are useless here. Everything is so big, and she's so, so small.
"The key is empathy," Hunk had told them, and Lance had confirmed it, but empathy is not Pidge's strong suit. And even if she did manage to find Shiro, what would she even say? She doesn't know how to comfort people. The last time she'd seen Shiro, she'd snapped at him when he was just trying to help. She probably made things even worse.
She has so many regrets. There are so many things she should have done. She should have used that time with Shiro to help him, not hurt him. She should have been more supportive, to Shiro and to the rest of the team. She should have tried harder to help. She should have figured out the link between the dreams sooner. She should be able to do this, why can't she do this?
The walls around her are closing in. A glass cage; a steel trap. She can't move. She can't do anything. She curls in on herself and squeezes her eyes shut.
It's just like when Matt and her dad disappeared in space, and she was stuck on Earth. Shiro's so far out of reach, and she's just so weak and helpless and useless…
The words float around her like clouds, taunting her, refusing to leave her alone. It's… strange. They don't feel right.
Something awful tugs at her heart. It's like a gravity well, pulling her in. It's more than a little unpleasant, but curiosity tells her to follow the sensation. She clings to the words and follows them into a storm.
The feeling gets worse the closer she gets to the source, buffeted by something harsh and unrelenting. She's completely disoriented. She can hardly see, tears blurring her vision. Every step is a struggle.
Weak. Helpless. Useless. She repeats the words to herself, letting herself feel the sting of each one.
She pushes her way into the eye of the storm, and she falls.
Pidge lands on the floor of a pod, bathed in dim green light. She looks up and out the pod door and finds who she's been looking for. "Shiro!"
He and Allura are desperately trying to keep whatever's on the other side of the huge metal doors behind them from getting past, Allura holding the doors together with her bare hands and Shiro trying to weld them shut. There's loud banging as metal strikes metal, each impact denting the doors. It won't hold.
Allura realizes the same, and she picks Shiro up with one hand and throws him inside the pod. The pod doors begin to shut as soon as he's inside the vessel, before he even hits the floor.
There's a narrow window in the door, and through it, they watch a hoard of sentries break past the doors and surround Allura. The Princess looks up and gives Shiro a calm, sad smile.
Shiro's distress is clear, pressed up against the window as the pod takes off. "Shiro, we save her," Pidge insists, tugging at his wrist. "We come back for her; you insist on it." She tugs a little harder, urging him to look at her.
"...Pidge?"
"Hi," she says, offering him a small smile.
He glances back out the window. "I shouldn't have left her," he says quietly. "She could've been killed, or worse."
"Didn't look like you had much choice," Pidge snorts. "And she wasn't."
"I should have found a way."
"Sometimes there isn't one," she says. "Sometimes it's impossible."
"You said yourself that there's no such thing as impossible," he says, and quiznak, she totally did say that last time she saw him.
"Anything can happen, but it's not on one person to make it so," she reasons slowly, working through it. "So many other things have to line up. It's not a matter of not trying hard enough; the idea that you can do anything if you try is a load of bull. Sometimes, you do everything you can, and it won't be enough. It's not your fault."
The pod melts around them, and Pidge finds herself kneeling in something soft. Sand.
Looking around, she spots Shiro just in time to see him get buried by debris as a glowing ball of violet energy smashes into the pillar he's hiding behind. A strange humming sound emanates from the weapon.
The sound is drowned out as cheers erupt all around them. An audience, and a huge one at that. This must be Zarkon's arena.
A massive alien roars from the other side of the arena, his club raised in triumph. He's ridiculously strongly built, and sharp teeth line the mouth of his skull-like face. That must be…
"Shiro!"
Pidge's mouth goes dry at the sound of Matt's panicked voice. She traces the voice and finds him in the wings, knees quaking.
"Shiro, please, you have to get up," Matt stammers. "They're gonna make me fight. I'm not going to make it. I'll never see my family again—"
The rubble shifts and slowly, Shiro emerges. He just barely manages to stand.
Before Shiro can get out of the way, the weapon strikes again, this time hitting him directly with a devastating blow to his ribs.
He can't get back up. He's too weak. Sentries drag him out of the arena, and Matt is pushed into the ring in his place.
"Shiro!" Pidge shouts, running over to him. "Shiro, that's not how this goes!"
"Pidge?" Shiro whispers.
"You save him," Pidge says, throwing her arms around his crumpled form as best she can. "This memory is distorted. In reality, you save my brother. He never has to fight this thing because you intervene. You keep him safe."
Walls shift around them and the bright lights of the arena dim to a faint purple glow. Shiro isn't in her arms anymore. Her stomach drops when her eyes find him shackled to an upright metal table.
He's hyperventilating, eyes wide, entire body trembling. "P-please, please, I swear I've told you everything I know," he begs.
There's a cloaked figure in the room, face concealed by a pale, oblong mask with glowing yellow eyes. "We shall see. Bring them in," he says in a low, menacing voice.
"No, no, no, no," Shiro mutters frantically, utterly distraught. "Don't hurt them."
Pidge reaches for his right hand. His palm is still made of flesh, clammy and sweaty.
Her grip tightens when Matt and her dad are brought into the room.
"Tell us what you know," the druid says. Sentries forcefully strap Matt and her dad down, across from Shiro where he can see. Matt is panicking, muttering incoherently; her dad is ghost-white and utterly still.
Pidge doesn't know if this is a memory or just one of Shiro's fears, but she knows that this isn't something she can bear to watch.
"Please, Shiro. Please," Pidge chokes, clenching Shiro's hand. "Focus on something else. I-I can't watch this."
"Tell me where the Blue Lion is," the druid commands, floating over to the control panel at the side of the room. A clawed hand hovers over a switch.
"Shiro, please! You can control this. I know you can!" she gasps.
Shiro's eyes are fixed on her, desperate. He's trying. The scene flickers, but it cuts back in.
"Think of something else. Anything else!" she pleads. "Think of—think of something before everything. Before Kerberos. You… you came over to our house for dinner before. Remember that?"
The scene flickers again.
"There's a—there's a green rug in the dining room. There's wooden paneling on the walls, and a long table with rounded edges, and chairs with these hard seat cushions that do absolutely nothing," she says, trying desperately to keep her voice level. "There's a big window on the west side of the dining room. The sun always gets in my eyes around dinner time."
Harsh purple fades to warm yellow. The druid and sentries start to disappear.
"Mom probably made roast beef and mashed potatoes and a salad, that's her dinner party go-to," she continues. "And she serves this bread that looks fancy but is kinda dry. It's okay with cheese, but she always buys way too much of it."
Matt and her dad shift from being strapped to an examination table to sitting around a dinner table, joining her mom.
Her grip on his hand loosens into something more comfortable. "Yeah. Matt and Dad and Mom were there, and our dog, Gunther, was probably there too—he loves guests. They were all probably dorking out about biology and making bad jokes. …Well, maybe not Gunther, but the others for sure."
The shackles around Shiro's wrists dissolve.
"You weren't there," Shiro remembers. "I never got to meet you. You… you stayed in your room the entire time and locked the door," he recalls with a hint of laughter.
"I'm not proud of it," she snorts. But she is proud of Shiro. She takes a good look around at the dining room he's recreated in his mindscape. It's meticulously constructed, almost like the real thing. There isn't a trace of the horrifying torture chamber they'd been in before.
"You did it," she says. "Thank you."
"Pidge, I… I'm sorry you almost—"
"I didn't," she cuts him off, shaking her head. "You protected me from having to see that. You did that. Maybe you can't control everything, but you're not powerless. There are so many ways in which you can, and do, make a difference, Shiro."
She pulls him into a hug. He seems to breathe easier.
He's starting to fade.
"You're strong, and you are brave. You're a good person, and you are worthy," she recapitulates. "And there are some things that are beyond your control—beyond anyone's control—but you are anything but useless."
A slight smile makes its way to Shiro's face. Pidge helped put that there. Maybe she's not so useless, either. Maybe everything is going to be okay.
"We're gonna get you out of here," she tells him before he slips away, offering him a smile of her own. "See you soon."
