"I'm just saying," Lance raises her voice over the groans of her fellow paladins. "When am I going to get my own Mighty Morphin' Lion Power-up?"
"That is not what we're calling it," Pidge snipes, still picking plants out of her hair with barely contained irritation. Extracting her from the little circle of spring had been more effort than any of them had expected.
Hunk had to hold her above the ground while Lance carefully—carefully because Pidge actually screeched when Keith yanked on an ivy vine—untangled her as quickly as possible. After, she had to be carted around because it wasn't like they could just put her back down.
Of course, Hunk carrying her around on his shoulders didn't stop the trees from trying to lift her off his shoulders, but no plan is perfect.
"Oh, you hush. You don't get a vote, bellsprout."
"We're not calling it that," Shiro repeats.
Pidge shoots her a smug smile and flicks a leaf in her direction. It hits her in the face with more force than any leaf should rightly have. She squawks indignantly, swatting at the offending plant before turning heartbroken eyes on Shiro.
"But, Shiro-"
"No."
Lance gasps at the betrayal, hand flying to her neck like a highborn lady would to clutch at her pearls. Shiro frowns at her so she goes the extra mile and falls against Hunk's side dramatically.
Well used to her antics, his arms come out automatically to catch her so she's elegantly draped over them like he's some sort of fainting couch. "Oh, woe is me. To have to bear the weight of being the only Paladin with a sense of humor."
Hunk's shaking against her with silent laughter, but gives a mock-offended 'hey!' when she says that. Abruptly, her support falls away and she's dropped to the ground.
She hits the dirt with a startled eep! as everyone laughs around her.
"Hunk!" she shouts accusingly, glaring up at him. He feigns innocence with his wide eyes and guileless shrug. She scowls, punching at his shin.
But not like, really punching because he's still in his paladin armour and she'd break her hand trying to hit him, the fucking tank.
After rolling his eyes at her and letting her suffer on the floor for a few more seconds he offers a hand to help her up. She takes it but sticks her tongue out at him when she does so he knows how displeased she is.
"Are you ever serious?" Keith asks flatly.
Lance doesn't even think about it. "Not if I can help it, no."
The celebration thrown by the Olkari as a thank you for helping run off the galra was lavish if short. It wasn't by any means done in halves, but Lance gets the idea that these aliens are of the 'more work, less play, frighteningly efficient' kind.
She and the other paladins are given shiny new medals by the newly dubbed Queen Ryner—again with the terrifying efficiency bit. They're all unique thanks to the Olkari's magic ability to shape materials, but Lance is pretty sure Pidge's is the most elaborately done. Which, favoritism, but Lance isn't gonna pout about it or anything.
(Even if hers does look so pretty with all the vines and flowers and things.)
The Castle Crew even come planet-side for it. Though Lance suspects Rolo and Coran are just here for the tech, and Allura is definitely off shmoozing locals and doing diplomatic things instead of having fun like a sane person.
Lance… isn't sure where Nyma ran off to. Which, historically, doesn't mean good things. Her only hope is that she doesn't cause some sort of scandal while they're here.
Lance spends most of the party laughing and dancing with any Olkari she meets, having a good time and enjoying herself. The only proper reaction when someone throws a party in your honor as far as she's concerned.
Hunk teasingly calls her the 'bell of the ball' and she shoves him for making fun of her.
The thing though, is that Hunk isn't quite wrong.
Lance sweeps across the room, laughing and charming and dancing her way into the spotlight without trying. She talks to everyone, genuinely excited and joyful to speak with them and learn. She joins conversations with ease, builds camaraderie with the locals after only a few words, complimenting and curious at all the right times. Barely stumbling when she missteps, easily falling back into rhythm.
Lance listens, learns, and adapts.
It's barely been twenty dobashes before there's hardly an Olkari who hasn't noticed her. You'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to.
There's a vibrancy she brings with her. A certain type of life curled beneath her bones that blossoms in the air around her. Lance was made for being around people, made to be surrounded and spoken of— born to be the center of attention.
Allura curiously watches her the whole time, eyes tracking her progress across the floor sharply.
Lance throws back her head to laugh, loud and long, and half the hall turns towards the sound like it has its own gravitational pull.
Allura watches and she wonders.
Later, after all the celebrations and nerding out and important science projects have died down, Allura drags them back to the Castle. They're going to stay near Olkarion for a few more days because Pidge is doing some sort of thing with Ryner about Galran tech, but according to Allura, that's no reason to slack off.
Lance is about to head off to her room for some deserved shut-eye when Allura puts on her team meeting face.
She holds back a sigh. In her experience, good things never come from Allura's team meeting face.
"You've all been doing an admirable job fighting against the galran forces," she starts, hands clasped in front of her and shoulders pushed back. Like she needs to look any taller. "I'm proud of you all and am sincerely grateful for all the hard work you've done and will continue to do. You five have come far as Paladins and grown into your positions faster than I or Coran had thought possible."
"Am I the only one sensing a 'but' here?" Hunk asks them all at large when she pauses just a second too long.
Allura sighs. "But, I think it's time we stopped putting this off. You're strong individuals but your strengths lie as a team. You must learn to form Voltron. It won't be long before Zarkon stops playing with us, and we need to be ready when he does.
"We've freed but two planets from galran rule. There are hundreds of distress signals we've yet to answer the call to, hundreds of planets that still need our help. But I cannot rightly continue on this path if you five are not prepared to face the trials ahead. Tomorrow morning, you will form Voltron. Whatever it takes."
Lances lips twist.
"Of course, princess." Shiro nods his head in acknowledgement. "We won't disappoint you."
It can't be that easy. Otherwise, they would've done it the first time. She wants to say something, wants to give voice to the worries heavy on her tongue.
Allura's smile is warm. "I know you won't."
She stays silent.
Lance dreams that night of wildfires and unforgiving summer heat.
She wakes up more than once, sticky with half-dried sweat and too hot for her blankets. Azura croons in the back of her mind worriedly and if Lance wasn't so out of it, she might've seen it all for the warning it was.
"Okay, team," Shiro's voice rings through her cockpit, commanding and sure. Her eyes are drawn to his Lion, or at least where she's sure she is. Amaterasu all but disappears into the backdrop of space, just barely a shimmer to be seen. "We'll start out slow and steady this time. No raging battle to distract us right now."
Allura's face appears on a screen before her, face pressed close to the camera as she speaks. She's dressed in her training clothes, loose battle suit showing off her biceps and hair pulled up in a large bun on top of her head. "He's correct. Connect to your Lions first. Hear them, feel them, become them. See through their eyes."
Lance wants to make a snarky comment about how she already is seeing through Azura's eyes but bites her tongue. She knows that's not what Allura means and, really, she feels too nervous to be properly annoying right now.
She still remembers all too well what happened last time they tried to form Voltron. The fire, the burning, the pain. She's not exactly excited for a repeat performance. But maybe she's worrying for nothing. Maybe it was a one-time thing.
She's sure they'll be fine.
Not that they really have a choice. Allura's threatened to withhold lunch until they form Voltron and Lance is not missing out on that. Hunk promised to make stir fry.
So, Lance closes her eyes, reaching out to Azura with her thoughts. She lets her Lion wrap around her mind and feels the line separating them bleed and blend until it's murky and hard to see, until Lance can only just tell where one of them ends and the other begins.
When Azura purrs, it feels like it's come from her own chest. When Lance grins, she knows Azura's baring her teeth too.
Hunk reaches for her first, solid and real and hers. Then comes Pidge, green and growing and sharp as whip. When Shiro sweeps across her, less wispy than before—a gale of wind and breath in her lungs—she smiles.
She hesitates this time on the last bond, can feel the answering echo across it. Everyone's waiting, holding their breath. A spider web waiting on the last string, waiting on her, on them, and Lance reaches forward feeling for all the world like she's poking a sleeping dragon.
Wasn't there some saying about not doing that?
For a long moment, it's okay.
For a long moment, Lance is warm and bright and filled with a pleasant heat that reminds her of campfires and s'mores. Joy and triumph rolls through them all. A web of connections that hums with victory, with success.
They did it! They could really-
The moment ends.
The thread grows hot in her hands and before she can drop it—before she can do anything—the inferno is upon her. Just as- no. More angry and terrifying than last time. Absolutely furious that she hadn't learned her lesson the first time.
The dragon roars in her ears and it almost— almost— drowns out the sounds of her screams.
The connection shatters and Lance curls forward over herself, hands clawing at her chest, tearing at the anchor burning her from the inside out.
It's only her chest plate that keeps her from tearing at her skin, only the not-leather of her gloves that keep her nails from breaking at the force.
She's shaking so badly she can hear her armour rattling against her seat.
"Fuck." Her fist slams against her armrest. "Fuck."
They can't stop.
Lance can't hold them back from forming Voltron. They need Voltron, and Lance won't let herself be that liability.
She takes two shuddering breaths, ignores the worried voices of her teammates and grits her teeth. "Let's go again."
She draws Azura to her again, her dear Lion soothing her aches. She takes longer to bask in her embrace, lets her mind diffuse and meld until it's little more than scattered drops in the wake of a much larger ocean. Takes longer to calm down, to wrap herself in her Lion and the bond they share.
The deep thrumming of mountains and dark soil call to her. Stability and rock and the place where earth meets sea. It reaches for her, begins twining itself around her before she forces it to stop.
Instead, she hovers near the scorching heat of forest fires. Of the midday sun and dry desert air. She reaches out to it gently, open-palmed and non-threatening. She feels it reaching back, just as hesitant and tentative.
The bond hums pleasantly. Stable and warm and filled with so much potential. So much—maybe too much— power.
They meet in the middle, brushing up against one another, and she puts her everything into not letting the crackling power between them get out of control, into keeping it balanced. It's working, for the most part, and she's already halfway to grinning when the whispering of trees and deeply planted roots brushes against her, breaking her concentration.
She loses focus for just a second -
But it's enough.
It explodes. A ball of heat and magma and ash knocking straight into her chest, burning through her like a collapsing star. Agony tears through her, a bomb lighting beneath her skin only there's no cool escape into unconsciousness for her this time. The flames that eat away her flesh and steal her air so she can't scream, can't breathe.
The cacophony in her head melds with the one taking place outside of it, voices layering over each other and the echoing boom between her ears.
It's a long time before she can open her eyes, and longer still until she can make sense of what's before her. There are four screens on her dash and five worried faces staring out of them. Keith's is missing and, for just a moment, Lance experiences the vicious satisfaction of it, of knowing he's feeling whatever this is just as much as her.
The unwanted feeling is quickly pushed aside by her frustration and sympathetic worry.
"Lance?" Shiro asks and his voice feels like nails on a chalkboard to her over-sensitive ears. "Are you okay?"
Hunk echoes the question, his voice even louder than Shiro's.
She thinks she might flinch.
"No," she croaks, chest aching and sore. "Not really, but just… just gimme a sec. Why does that keep happening?"
"I'd like to know that too," Keith pipes up, sounding like he's fighting for breath.
Nobody offers an answer, not even the Lions when they all mentally prod at them. Which, frustrating and rude, but not the first time they've done something like that; kept silent about things they so obviously know about.
They're ancient beings that play by rules she doesn't really understand—okay, fine. Lance doesn't like it, but she can understand.
By why be silent about this? Something this important? What are they doing wrong?
Lance doesn't get her answer.
What she gets instead, is three more failed attempts at this whole Voltron business that all inevitably end in a fiery blaze of pain that gets more and more vicious every time. To the point where she can't feel anything but pain and rage. Rage at the situation, rage at her uselessness, and most importantly, rage at the damned fire roaring in her chest.
Lance is in the middle of coughing up ashes and black smoke and she's lost count of the number of times someone has asked her if she's okay and when she's so very obviously not. She doesn't even know who asks it this time, and it doesn't matter because she just snaps.
"No!" she screeches and it nearly sends her coughing again but she keeps going because she's pissed and too hot and something in her wants to lash out. "No, I'm not good! I'm not okay! I am so fucking far from both that I'm not even in the same galaxy as them! How many times do I have to torture myself before we realize it's not gonna work?"
"You just need to keep trying-"
"There is no trying, Allura!" Lance snaps. "There's success and there's failure and it's pretty damn obvious which category we're in! Each time it just gets worse and I'm being burned from the inside out by my own goddamn teammate and we just. Keep. Doing it! Over and over and over again!"
"I'm b-burning you?" is the answering reply, Keith's voice still rough and angry over the chattering of his teeth. "Y-you're the… the one who k-keeps trying to drown me! I'm going to get f-fu-fucking hypothermia!" A wet, choking cough overtakes him as if to prove a point. He sounds like he tried swallowing the ocean. "So don't t-te-tell me, what's n-not okay!"
The bond between them surges without her touching it at all. Hums and crackles like a live wire and Lance can taste the ozone and dry heat of magma on her tongue. Feels her skin cracking like sun-baked earth. It burns in her hot and thick and the words spill from her like acid.
"Oh, boo-hoo. Poor, little Keith with no one in the universe to give a shit-"
"-just l-like you. Not taking this seriously, as usual-"
"-you self righteous-"
"-shallow. Get-t us all killed-"
"-violent dropout-"
"-arrogant and dramatic-"
"Enough!" Shiro all but roars and Lance flinches back like she'd been hit, collapsing as her knees hit the back of her chair.
She hadn't even realized she was standing.
"Everyone, back to the Bridge. We need to talk. Now."
The elevator door opens and Lance steps from it at the exact same moment as Keith.
Their eyes lock and she can't help but think he looks horrible. Deep purple bags hang beneath his eyes and his face is drained of all color except for blue-tinged lips. He looks like he's been dragged through hell forwards and backwards before getting hit by a truck. Multiple times.
He looks like a sorry excuse for a human. A kicked puppy, a whimpering kitten.
It might've (would have) been enough to stop Lance's aggressive advance if she hadn't felt the exact way he looked, only with red, blistering skin too hot to touch.
Allura tries to get their attention but falters at their appearances.
Lance ignores her and grabs Keith by the front of his shirt, distantly noting he's not in armour. Neither is she and she can't remember when it folded away.
"What is your deal?" she snarls, face only inches from his.
He both knocks her hands off him and forces her to step back in one sharp move of his arms. "Me?" he shoots back, just as venomous. "What's your d-deal? One moment you're fine and the next you hate me! Enough to send the whole ocean crashing down on me, apparently."
She grits her teeth. "I've already told you, I don't hate you!"
Keith snorts. "You have a funny way of showing that."
Her hands curl into fists at her sides and she shoves a finger into his chest as hard as she can. "Alright, you arrogant prick-"
"Oh, name-calling," he drawls sarcastically. "How scary."
"You're insufferable!"
"And you're self-contradictory!" He takes a step closer, shoving his face into her own with a sneer.
"Have you ever once in your life used that brain you're supposed to have?" she quips. "Or is it all just air between your ears?"
"Oh, you're one to talk."
"Excuse me?" she says outraged. "Oh, wait. No. Because we all know how 'highly' you think of me right?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that you throw around how much I 'hate you' but it's clear that whatever you feel towards me certainly isn't warm and sticky, either." She plants a hand on her hip, cocking it out as her lip curls. "I mean, from the first moment you met me you told me I wasn't worth your fucking time! You didn't even know-"
His face twists into harsh confusion as he cuts her off. "What are you talking about? I never said that to you."
"Uh, yeah," she snips impatiently, "You did. You were pretty dickish about it too."
"No, I didn't. I was a bit busy saving Shiro at the time. What are you even-"
But Lance has already gone utterly still. She stands, cold and breathless and wide-eyed. She doesn't hear anything else he says, the roaring in her ears that's either her blood or Azura, echoes too loudly.
She feels sick. Like she'd been sucker-punched or swallowed a golf ball.
Because he doesn't remember. Even now. After all this time. He can't remember something so critical to their relationship, so important to her view of him.
Had she truly been so unmemorable? Or so unimportant he had never even noticed her? After everything she tried to do? After everything she's done?
Was she right in that he never cared about the Garrison? About the dream she so desperately wanted and he just threw away?
Lance wants to laugh and cry and scream all at once.
Of course. Keith hadn't cared. Didn't care. And she didn't know why she'd ever expected differently. Ever allowed herself to stupidly hope he might remember, that he might understand.
She'd all but told him in the caves, and if he hadn't gotten it then he'd never get it. She shouldn't have cared so much.
But why did she? Care at all? Why? Why? Why?
She takes one quick step away from him, and then another, and another. With each one, the fire that steadily stokes her anger and clogs her throat builds until it's scorching her once again. A laugh forces its way from her throat and sounds more like a sob than anything. It only makes her angrier. Her arms come up to wrap around her torso protectively, like she can keep out all the ugly with just that one motion.
Her chest burns. Hot and demanding and painful and Lance has the overwhelming urge to rip the cord connecting them together out by the root. To tear it out and throw it in his face like the garbage it is.
Her eyes raise from where they'd fallen to the floor and lock with Keith's. She doesn't know the expression she wears, but it must be something horrible because Keith looks even more surprised than usual at the force of her scowl.
"You're a self-centered dick who can't see what's right in front of you, you know that?" she starts, voice low and poisonous. "You don't even see or care about the people you hurt with your actions. Don't give a fuck if it's not your precious Shiro, right? You'd leave us all to rot if he weren't here because you don't give a damn about helping anyone but yourself." She laughs, bitter and cold and sharp. "Some hero you are. You disgust me."
"Lance!" Shiro snaps. Looks like he finally found his voice. And oh did he sound pissed. Too bad Lance was too angry to give a damn. Not even the uncomfortable prickling in her spine is enough to make her back down. "That is enough. Both of you."
Her mouth opens, a scathing retort on the tip of her tongue—she's too lost to the heat and burn of it all to think clearly, to realize what she's doing—but thankfully Hunk is there before she says anything she'll regret later. His hands land on her shoulders, tugging her against the familiar comfort of his chest.
"Lance, stop."
And she does. Even as the words sting her tongue and smoke presses against her teeth. She stops.
Hunk is the bedrock of her being, the gem of her soul, the container she needs to hold herself so she won't go too far, become too thin. When he asks her to stop, she does.
"What is going on with you two?" Shiro asks them both. "I thought we were passed this. I thought you started getting along."
Lance snorts but there's no humour in the sound. There isn't a single funny thing about this situation. "'Fraid not, Colossus. Seems fire and water still don't mix."
"That isn't how the Paladin bonds work, my dear," Coran tells her, voice soft like he's speaking to a wild animal. "They're built on trust and understanding. Built on balance-"
"Well then we're never forming Voltron, are we?"
"Keith."
"What, Shiro?" he snaps back. "You said it yourself. We don't understand each other. And we certainly don't trust one another."
Lance bites her tongue to keep from spilling her guts, to keep from saying she had trusted him. With her life, with Azura, with a little vulnerability even. Even when she couldn't stand him, she knew she could depend on him when it came down to it. Couldn't stop herself from placing that trust in his hands.
And, oh, how it stung to know that had apparently only gone one way.
"If Voltron hinges on us getting along, it won't form. Not when she-" he throws a hand out at her, "refuses to even try and be friendly."
"Oh, like you're a paragon of effort," she snipes. "What have you done to get on my good side?"
"I've saved your life!"
She distantly registers Shiro stepping between them, hand pressed against Keith's chest in warning.
"And I saved yours! You would've been shot in the Balmera's heart if I wasn't there, so try again, asshole."
Instead of a coherent retort, Keith growls at her again, loud and impossibly deep with his vocal chords. That sound that had been becoming the sound of her victory, now only fills her with a sick sort of feeling. Her lungs fill with smoke at the sound, her bones charing black with the force of his glare and sound of his snarl.
The pain serves only to ratchet the heat of her anger up even higher. How dare he still have this control over her even as he rejects her time and time again.
It's not fair!
She snaps her teeth at him in retaliation—an animal instinct born from the weight of Azura's rage in the back of her mind—and is almost, but not quite, surprised by the water that spills from Keith's mouth when he coughs.
"My Goddess!" she hears Coran shout, followed quickly by Allura's horrified gasp.
Hunk's hands tighten on her shoulders, hard enough to bruise as she watches Keith gasp for air, eyes glittering. Then suddenly Hunk's hands drop her, a pained yelp coming from behind her as her knees hit the ground.
The air around her shimmers with heat and Lance can almost feel the sweat on her brow turning to steam.
"Paladins, stop!" Allura commands, but her voice sounds far away. "Stop it now!"
A racket of yelling and worry swirl around her but she can't focus on any of it. Can't focus on anything except Keith and the water pouring from his lungs. It's getting hard to breathe.
Then suddenly, she's staring into her own eyes again.
"Naughty, naughty little Yin," CORINN coos, "rejecting all that Yang inside you. How silly you both are, thinking a moon can shine without a sun."
The world around her swoops nauseatingly, Lance abruptly pulled to her feet by the hologram. She sways dizzily through the air for only a moment before the floor is rising up to meet her.
Except, no. Not the floor. She crashes into Keith, harsh and jarring.
It hurts for a second, all steam and boiling water and pain-
And then it's gone.
The inferno beneath her skin recedes to that island in her chest, tucked away and calm, and Lance goes boneless with the relief of crashing waves and saltwater on her lips.
She shudders at the sensation, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm, and she can feel Keith doing the same, his hand coming to grip the side of her neck like an anchor. She'd be bristling at the contact if she wasn't already tangling her hands in the front of his shirt, or her forehead wasn't already dropped into the junction of his neck and shoulder.
The anger leaves her like it was never there. Just lifts off of her like a veil so Lance can see the world clearly once more. Only, now that it's gone, she's left confused as to why it was there in the first place, her addled mind trying to make sense of it all.
She was annoyed and frustrated, sure, but not… not furious like that. What was-?
"That's better," CORINN's voice cuts through her fuzzy swathe of thoughts. "Maybe now you two can be civil without the weight of ghosts behind you."
Lance tilts her head but doesn't lift it. "Huh?" she asks, and her voice is smoke roughened and raspy. She feels more than hears the confused hum Keith gives at the same time.
"What just happened?" Pidge demands. "What is happening? Why'd they just stop like that?"
Lance still hasn't moved her head and so she can't see anyone, but when Allura speaks Lance can easily imagine the way she's wringing her hands in front of her. A nervous tick she vehemently denies she has.
"They were… were resonating. But I- I've never heard of one like…" she pauses when her voice shakes. "Coran do you think-?"
"I don't…" Coran sounds shaken, off-balance in a way Lance hasn't ever heard, "I don't know, princess."
"Resonating?" That's Shiro. His voice is close enough that she thinks he might be standing right beside Keith and her. "What does that mean? Is that like the fugue states?" he asks and only lightly stumbles over his words at the mention of their shared panic attack.
"But it didn't affect all of us," Hunk points out. He's right behind her. He sounds worried. But then, she thinks, he's always worried.
"It wouldn't. But, they shouldn't even- They hadn't even done it on purpose. It was an accident and- and it was- Goddess, it was killing them."
"Killing them?" Hunk yelps, panicking.
That catches Lance's attention enough to lift her head. The world is still kind of hazy and she's sure she's still flushed with too much warmth, but she forces herself to look at Allura. The princess looks horrified and grave as she stares at them.
Everyone is looking at them like that, actually.
Keith's hand tightens where it's still curled around the back of her neck and one of hers reaches up to grip at his wrist. Her eyes turn back to his and she sees the same fear and guilt there in his eyes that are settled low in her stomach.
She- well. The words were her own, that she admits. But they were things she never would have said if her mind wasn't clouded with anger and pain as it was. Bile rises in her throat and her forehead falls forward once again.
"'M sorry," she rasps into his chest. "'M sorry. 'M sorry."
For letting her anger consume her, for saying such cruel things that should have never passed her lips, for almost killing him with them apparently. For the pain and drowning him and everything else. She doesn't want to hurt him. Not like this.
Perhaps not at all anymore.
She almost laughs. What kind of fucked up did they have to be to get here?
"Me too," he says in a voice that causes her pain just to hear.
Her other hand crawls up to the front of his throat, and her still warm fingers pressing against the fragile skin there, like she can heal the damage if she wishes hard enough. He coughs again and she flinches at the even more painful sounding wretchedness of it.
"Sorry," she says again.
A deep rumbling from his chest in the only response she gets.
"Does resonating normally almost kill people?" Hunk asks, because of course he does.
"Cor, no!" Coran says. "No, resonating is meant to… it's meant to bolster the paladins. Make you stronger by combining your strength. It's- You shouldn't even be able to resonate at the stage you guys are in. You haven't even formed Voltron yet, for Our Lady's sake. I don't… something is wrong. Very wrong."
"What's wrong with them?" Shiro asks and his voice is tight with worry he's trying to hide. It's mostly for Keith, she's sure, but she likes to hope some of that's for her. Especially after the other night.
"What's wrong with them?" CORINN laughs like she can't fathom the question. "Look at them. Breaking bones and dislocating joints just to try and get away from the ropes tying their fates together. They think they hate each other."
There's a moment after she speaks where it's quiet. Enough so that Lance is about to turn around and look at their faces before Pidge breaks the silence.
"But, they do hate each other… Don't they?"
Lance's spine goes taut at her words, and she feels Keith's muscles jump beneath her hands.
"A half cannot hate that which makes it whole," CORINN cryptically tells them all. "No matter how hard it rails against its nature. And anyway, they couldn't ground each other if they truly did, so…" she trails off with a musical hum.
"Grounding like… like what Lance and Shiro did on Olkarion? For me?"
"Precisely, little sphinx," CORINN praises, booping Pidge's nose. "Plants can't survive on their own after all. You need air and water so you don't wilt like a starved little flower."
Huh. If Lance had the energy, she might've been able to make sense of that.
Lance wanted to think that the… grounding or whatever might've fixed—or at least soothed—whatever temporary insanity had occurred between her and Keith. She didn't want to fail like that, didn't want to deal with those kinds of repercussions.
That hope dies a fiery and painful death the moment she lays eyes on Keith.
Something in her chest shifts, ragged and broken and just a bit wrong, and suddenly Lance can't decide if she wants to throw Keith across the room or crawl into his skin. To smother and drown and drag him beneath the waves until he learned his lesson or to let him boil her insides until they were nothing more than steam, until she was spread so thin she'd never come back together. Until, until, until-
She exits the room as quickly as she came in.
She skips breakfast that day.
It's like for every step forward they'd taken, they've been pushed back three.
Lance doesn't know what they did, what went wrong with forming Voltron or their accidental resonance, but it's broken them in some way.
Keith does little more than snarl and snap at her if he's not outright ignoring her. And Lance has caught herself growing irate and furious for no discernible reason, lashing out at him like a cornered animal. The uneasy teasing and slow acclimatization to one another had tumbled back into biting insults and harsh swipes at vulnerabilities.
Half the time, Lance doesn't even realize what's happened until the words have tumbled from her mouth, until her hand is halfway raised to hit him. She's stopped before she's gotten physical, and Keith only gets as far as growling before shaking himself from whatever spell they've fallen under.
She hadn't realized how well they've been doing until they were sent right back to the start and Lance wants to scream because she's never been more frustrated in her life.
Her only solace is that, at least, Keith seems just as pissed by this as she does.
"Wait, so let me get this straight," Keith says and Lance distantly realizes that he gave her the perfect opportunity for a gay joke. "We almost kill each other trying to bond-"
"Resonating, actually," CORINN points out helpfully.
"-and your solution to that is to make us spend more time together?"
"Yes," Allura says firmly, looking every bit the leader she's meant to be. "As far as I am concerned, you two are back at square one, which means pair bonding and sorting through whatever is holding you back. And, considering you two are the only ones able to ground one another during an… incident. It's better if you two are close anyway."
Lance doesn't bother pointing out that there won't be any 'incidents' if the two don't interact because, as much as she hates to admit it, Allura is right. They can't just keep going on like this. They've been lucky so far, but how long until that runs out?
She looks at Keith, and sees annoyance tugging at his lips, something else she can't quite see spinning behind his eyes. He catches her eye and the expression only sours further.
She bristles immediately, the hissing and spitting of boiling steam rearing its ugly head.
Allura is right, but that doesn't mean Lance has to like it. She said this was all fate, but did it have to be Keith? Did it have to be them?
Fucking destiny.
It's been two days and while Pidge, Hunk and Rolo get to hang out with the Olkari doing gods know what, Lance gets stuck with double-time training. Only now, with the addition of Keith tied to her side—sometimes literally—as they go through them.
Keith's sparring with Allura when she pulls Coran aside. It's one of the few times they're allowed breaks from one another and Lance latches onto it with both hands.
She could probably have asked this question in front of Keith but it's the reaction she'll have that she doesn't want him to see. (She very pointedly tries not to think about how wants like that might be exactly why they're in this mess.)
"Were there others like us?"
Coran looks at her, lips pulling down at the corners. For the first time since she's known him, he almost looks his age. "There's never been anything like you paladins before."
Lance frowns, arms crossing over her chest protectively. "Is that why we're… why we can't…" She stops, frustrated and embarrassed and angry about it all.
Coran understands anyway, hands coming up to cup her shoulders. His thumbs rub circles into her skin and it's comforting even if she doesn't relax.
"I don't know, my dear, but… but I know it's not your fault. Not completely. The way you five have bonded to your Lions is unlike anything we've seen. It's… powerful. Perhaps too much for where you both are right now."
Lance sighs, forehead falling into the space just above the bottom of his ribs. "Something changed," she tells him. "With our bond when we tried to… to do the thing. It's… angry, I think."
"Angry?"
"Maybe. I, it's hard to describe. But it's different and Coran I-" She grits her teeth hard enough to crack them. "I don't know what to do."
He's silent for a long moment, pulling her closer. Her hands clench in the fabric of his fancy shirt, holding on like he can fix it, waiting for him to help, to tell her what to do.
His hand raises her chin gently, forcing her to look him in the eye. "Whatever it is, dearheart, whatever you must do, I'll stand beside you. We'll figure it out together."
Lance nods, because what else is she meant to say?
gradual tonal shifts? I don't know her.
lol but how many of you thought they'd form Voltron? haha you wish *evil cackling in the distance*
fun fact tho! I've had that fight scene written since chapter... 15? I think? it's been /forever/ at least. it was a pain trying to integrate into this chapter lemme tell you. But! they can only go up from here, folks!
fun fact #2: the original chapter title for this was 'Relationship Status: It's Complicated' but I changed it in favor of being a fucking troll lol. read into that title as you'd like
this was such a strange chapter to write ngl. like, the middle is really the important part but the scenes around it are also kinda important but not in the same way and I lowkey wrote this all out of order honestly and it's just a great big mess so here! I can't just keep staring at it!