Lance made sure to hide his notebook carefully.

He tried hiding it in many spaces before anxiously deciding to change the hiding spot after running over the possibilities of someone finding it in his mind. Lance eventually decided on stuffing the notebook under the mattress and hoping that no one looked there. They shouldn't because no normal person just randomly looks under people's mattresses, but they don't trust him. And why would they?

He's not trustworthy.

After checking and double checking that the book is not visible, Lance gives a sigh and travels through the castle halls until he hears speaking and decides to stop. He's always been a bit nosy, and can't help wondering what is being talked about.

"-are we supposed to do with him?" Lance hears Allura's voice. It's laced with exhaustion, and he can practically hear the anxiety in her voice.

"I... I don't know," Shiro says in response.

"I'm so worried about him." Now Hunk is speaking. Are they all in there? "He's been struggling for so long, and we didn't even know."

"I don't want anything to happen to him," Pidge says quietly. "How does he not see how important he is?"

"Look, you guys need to understand that despite his poor mindset, he still has self-control. He's completely able to control whether or not he... decides to... kill himself or not." Keith's voice is steady, but cracks a bit towards the end.

Lance knows that Keith at least partially understands what Lance is going through, but he prays to God that Keith doesn't understand all of it. He would never want anyone to truly and completely empathize with him. No matter what. No matter how good it might feel.

"But... Keith, what if he-" Allura starts to talk, but Keith cuts her off. He seems prone to doing that. Especially if he doesn't agree with what is being said.

"He won't." The response is short and sounds slightly strained. "He won't."

Shuffling can be heard, and then Shiro's quiet voice can be heard. "How can you know that?"

Then there's silence. Nothing is said for a long time, and Lance doesn't want to stick around to find out what will be said. He's- he- why are they- what? They were talking about him, obviously, but why? It's... embarrassing. It really is. They shouldn't have to worry about him. They have their own problems. Hell, they're in a fucking war. They can't worry about him. They can't afford to. They can't.

Pretending. He's practiced with it for years. He needs to put his practice to use now. He has to. He can't worry them. They don't deserve that. They don't. It was always too easy too pretend. Much too easy. Lance wondered whether he was simply that good at pretending... or if people really just didn't care. The latter seemed much more likely.

Lance went to his usual place in the castle, staring out the castle window. He was alone. Utterly alone. What is this? How can he live like this? How? How? How? The stars move slowly past, and Lance tries to focus on that. Maybe if he can focus on the stars, then he can forget all of the things that are in his head. Maybe.

This place is where Lance is allowed to relax. He doesn't have to make himself smile. He doesn't have to hide his tears. He can simply... relax. But never without being careful. He has to make sure that when he puts on Pidge's headphones with the music turned all the way up (he's honestly shocked that he can still access his playlist out here, but Pidge is a genius, so... he isn't that surprised), that he faces the door way to make sure that no one will walk in on his sadness. They can't see. He's trying to make sure of that. If he can pretend, then they can just forget him like they used to. It seemed easier that way. For everyone.

Keith refused to give up, though. Keith kept on asking him how he was. Kept on acting like nothing had changed between them when something obviously had. Why would he do that? There really wasn't a point. Lance just couldn't see the reasoning behind it all. Maybe Keith was just being cruel to Lance on purpose. That seemed likely. Why else would he do it?

Lance frowned slightly as song after song played over the headphones. All of his songs were incredibly sad. It makes sense, he supposes, but it's still a bit... pathetic. Is this the only way he can express the way he's feeling? And not even to anyone but himself. Just this once, Lance decided to turn away from the door and look out the window while he is deaf to the rest of the world. He let all of his feelings show on his face. There was anger, confusion, loneliness, and, of course, sadness. It wasn't something that anyone was allowed to see. He could only hope that no one would walk in on this: him watching the stars with matching spots in his eyes. It was okay, as long as no one walked in on him.

But, of course, life just had to send another "fuck you" in Lance's direction. Make sure that he knows that life won't go right for him. Ever.

Lance felt a tap on his shoulder and whipped his head around to see a concerned looking Shiro whose mouth was moving. Lance did his best to set his face right in just a moment before pausing his music.

"What?" He said slightly louder than he meant to. Sometimes he forgot how loud he played his music.

Shiro blinked a few times before repeating what he said. "I said: it's time for dinner." Dinner? How long had Lance been here? "Are you alright, though? You had... a look... on your face."

A smile. A smile is always a good choice. "Yeah, yeah! I'm great! Just listening to some music."

Shiro's face brightened instantly, but there was an underlying knowledge to it. He knew that that wasn't all that Lance was doing. "Oh, cool. What were you listening to?"

Ah, of course. An important question indeed. He lifted up the mp3 like device to show Shiro what was on the screen. It was one of his favorite songs right now. He related to it a bit more than he would like to admit.

"Afraid by The Neighborhood?" Shiro read aloud quietly. "I've never heard of that song. I'll have to listen to it!" His voice had a sort of forced cheerfulness to it. Lance didn't want Shiro to think that he had to do that.

Lance shrugged a bit, but his heart was beating fast. "It's not that good, you know? It's just okay." That was a lie, but Lance wasn't sure as to how Shiro would react to the song and was terrified about it.

Shiro seemed to deflate a bit. "Ah," he said shortly. "I see... well, anyways... dinner is ready. Come whenever you feel like it." Shiro's retreating footsteps could be heard, and Lance continued to listen them fade until they were so soft that he couldn't hear them anymore.

When Lance was sure that Shiro was gone, he sighed slightly and closed his eyes, leaning back against the window sill again. What will Shiro say if he actually listens to the song? It doesn't matter, he guesses, but it'll still stay in the back of his head for a while. After sitting peacefully for a moment in silence, Lance decides to get up and go eat dinner with the rest of the team. He figured that nothing else could go wrong, but, again, he was wrong.

"-this facial expression on his face... I don't know what he was thinking about, but he seemed so... sad." Shiro. Shiro was talking to the team about him. And for the second time in one day, Lance was caught outside the door of a conversation about himself that he really didn't want to hear.

"What was he doing?" Pidge asked worriedly.

"He said that he was just listening to music."

"Did you see what he was listening to?" Hunk now chimed into the tense conversation.

There was a silence, and Lance assumed that Shiro was nodding. "Yeah. He was listening to some song called Afraid by The Neighborhood, I think. I've never heard of it before. Have any of you?"

There was a chorus of "no"s, and then silence again.

Allura's voice could now be heard. She was always the person to take action. She never could stand to be stuck in situations that had obvious solutions. "We could listen to it, if we truly wanted to. With Pidge's technology, it shouldn't be all that difficult to access."

"Doesn't this seem like an invasion of privacy?" Keith's perpetually frustrated sounding voice asked.

A pause. "No, I don't think so," Shiro said. "He showed me what he was listening to, so he probably wouldn't mind if we listened. Right?" He sounded a bit unsure, and if Lance were brave enough to admit that he was eavesdropping, he would have readily said "no."

But Lance was not brave, and so the song played quietly over hidden speakers. God, this was embarrassing. It was so embarrassing. It felt like a deep, inexplicable part of Lance's soul was being examined under a microscope by a crowd of anxious scientists. They were eager to scrutinize every part of it that they could, and they did without shame, not knowing that what they were doing was wrong.

After the song ended, silence rang throughout the dining room. Lance was holding his breath outside the door still, waiting to hear their reactions.

"Wow." That was the first thing said. It was quietly followed by many agreements from everyone else.

"That's pretty damn sad," Keith mumbled under his breath. "Even for Lance." It was so quiet that Lance shouldn't have been able to hear, but he did. His brain always made sure that he tuned into those messages that would make him feel uncomfortable.

"Keith, are you sure he won't-"

"No. He won't." A pause. "I know it."

"But how do you know?"

Another silence.

"See, Keith. You don't know. You don't."

It's horrible that even Lance agrees with the others. Keith doesn't know what Lance will do. There's nothing about him that anyone can be sure of. Even Lance knows this. Why does Keith refuse to see it?

"Oh, God," Hunk starts with fear in his voice. "What if he's already planning something?"

Lance isn't. Yet. He has his note, but he doesn't have a concrete plan. Unless things go terribly wrong (which they tend to do), Lance is much too scared to actually create a plan and follow through.

"Lance probably isn't in his room yet. Considering he hasn't eaten dinner," Shiro says calmly. Shiro seems to think that his calm facade fools everyone, but it doesn't. Not even close. Lance wonders if it's the same way with him. Maybe he's not as convincing as he thought. Maybe he needs to try harder.

"Let's check his room," Pidge suddenly suggests, seeing where Shiro was going with his dialogue.

Wait... check his room? Really? God, the universe is really trying to deliver a message today: Rest in peace, Lance. You may as well kill yourself now.

"It might be safe to do so," Allura says without hesitation. "He might have some means of injuring himself in his room that we do not yet know about, and we don't want for him to..."

The ending is implied. It always is, but no one really wants to say it. It's been something that Lance has almost grown used to. He thinks terrible thoughts so often that he sometimes forgets that others don't. Others can be happy. Others don't need to search hard for a reason to live. For a reason not to just give up forever.

Lance doesn't want for them to look in his room. It's his room. Well, technically, it's not actually his room, but... no one else should even be aloud to go into it anyways. If the others look, then they might find the notebook. He doesn't want for them to find the notebook. He really, really doesn't. They would worry about him... well... unless they wouldn't. Maybe they just wouldn't care. With how they're acting, though... they would at least confront him about it, and he would have to talk about it. He doesn't feel like talking. He never does, but especially not now.

Walk away. That's what he's going to do first. They can't know that Lance was listening to them, so he'll just walk away.

Lance takes light and careful steps as he returns to his "safe space" in the castle. It certainly doesn't seem very safe anymore. He checks over his shoulder every so often to make sure that no one sees him leaving the scene and asks where he was. After getting about halfway there and not hearing anything, Lance slows down and takes less care in quieting his footsteps. He tries to stay calm as he continues making his way to his destination, but too many thoughts run through his head. Too many. Too many to focus on anything. He always seems to do this: lose himself in his thoughts at the most inopportune moments, and, in space, almost every moment is inopportune. Who knows what the fuck he's doing anymore. Lance has no fucking clue. He never has, and he probably never will.

The soft blue that emanates from the lights in the back halls of the castle gives the halls an eerie and sterile feel. Everything looks untouched and undisturbed with a thin layer of dust covering the light fixtures on the walls. Lance knows that people used to live here, even if it's hard to believe now. Altea was full of people, and, surely, a good many of them lived in this very castle to help the king and queen effectively run the kingdom. Maybe they traveled down this now abandoned hallway every single day. Maybe they thought the same thing as Lance about the blue lights. Maybe they were scared too. But, hey. Who knows? They might have just lived a normal happy life like people are supposed to. Well... until their planet was destroyed, and they were killed of course. They probably weren't as happy about that. Or maybe they were. Once again, who knows?

Lance finally reaches his "safe place" again, and decides to simply put on his headphones and act like he never heard anything at all. They probably wouldn't even find anything. He got rid of his blades a few days ago, and he doesn't have any other means of doing... that. The only incriminating evidence left would be the note.

It would probably be fine.

No normal person looks under someone's mattress.