Hunk was worried about Lance. This was not exactly an abnormal state of affairs. Hunk worried about a lot of things, and Lance was often near the top of the list. But this was...more than usual.
After the incident with the Ustarese, Lance was subdued. This wasn't particularly surprising. Hunk still shuddered when he remembered the way Lance's cries had echoed around the Ustarese government house when he was locked up in that ice cell. Apparently it was part of their justice system that anyone awaiting sentence would be able to hear the pained cries of those currently being punished. But coming from Lance, it had been absolutely chilling. No pun intended.
After Lance gave up on persuading the Ustarese to free him, he kept yelling for Shiro and Allura, his voice getting increasingly panicked and desperate as time went on. Eventually, Hunk had had to put his hands over Pidge's ears so she couldn't hear it anymore, her own hands clamped against her head beneath his palms. Worse had been when Lance went too quiet for them to hear. They knew he was still talking; they could hear the tone of his voice, low and despairing, but they couldn't hear the words anymore. And when he went completely silent...
The entire thing was a mess. The Ustarese physiology tolerated cold much better than human, it turned out. Being locked in sub-zero conditions was painful for them, as suited their brutal justice system, but they recovered in moments once they were released. But Lance... Lance had almost died.
It was no wonder he was traumatized. The next day, while Lance was sitting curled up on a sofa in the lounge wrapped in his jacket with the hood drawn tight, Allura had tried to mitigate it. She sat next to him and looked into his eyes and apologized for the bad intel, for the fact that they hadn't known that Lance's natural inclinations could lead to such a disastrous result. Lance stared at her blankly, barely reacting.
She even reached out and squeezed his hand, which under normal circumstances would have ignited all of Lance's horn-dog tendencies and sent him into an ecstasy of flirting and crowing. But this time he only smiled, small and faint, and apologized in return, taking all the blame on himself. It was his fault, after all, for intruding on a culture without learning about their current mores. He would take care to be more circumspect in the future. Allura frowned, but she couldn't argue with his reasoning.
No one was surprised when Lance refused the invitation to come back down to the planet and meet with the Ustarese again. Once the planetary leaders had been convinced that Lance's mistake had been innocent, and that locking him up in those temperatures had almost killed him, they had been apologetic. At least some of them. Others hadn't been so easy to sway, and Hunk did not want to expose Lance to their judgmental gazes, not when he was feeling so fragile. He needed time to recover in more ways than one.
Turned out they didn't really need Ustar in the Voltron Alliance, anyway. Or so Allura had decided after a couple of days of talks, as their demands kept outstripping the use of the resources they could offer. In the end, Allura stomped back to the ship and started up the wormhole with tight lips and fiery eyes, shaking her head whenever someone asked her what the final straw had been. They'd been leaving it up to Allura, after the incident with Lance soured the planet for them, so no one had any problem with her decision.
It just made it even worse, though, that Lance had been wounded in a fruitless quest for something useless.
Because yeah, Lance was wounded now. Hunk couldn't think of a better way to describe it. He moved more slowly around the castle, and he didn't talk as much. He still joked and boasted and quarrelled with Keith at any time for any reason, but there was strain in his voice. And he always kept his jacket closed and the hood up, as he was trying to protect himself from something. Hunk wasn't sure if the others had noticed something was off, but he certainly had.
So far it hadn't affected their ability to form Voltron, at least. When the time came, Lance was able to buckle down and dismiss whatever was bothering him internally, at least for a while. In fact, when they were fighting was when he seemed to come the most alive, yelling and bragging and revelling in his ability to take on the foe. Hunk was tempted to use those moments of psychic bonding to try to dig into Lance's head hole and figure out what was troubling him, but he didn't want to ruin the balance. Plus, he was pretty busy during those times.
Hunk left it alone for a while. Lance was resilient. He might bounce back on his own. And if not... Well, Hunk had learned that Lance could be like a cat, sometimes. If he chased him down and demanded something Lance wasn't ready to give, he might curl up tight, put his ears back, and hiss. But if Hunk waited, eventually Lance might come and open up on his own. It had worked in the past.
Hunk was starting to get nervous. It had been a while and Lance still hadn't come. He seemed to spend most of his downtime in the bays hanging out with Blue. And well, he'd always done that before, but it had gotten to be kind of obssessive lately.
Then one night it happened. Hunk was sitting at his workbench fidding with a bunch of small wires and tiny crystals, trying to integrate an amplification circuit into an Altean radio. He was hoping to pick up signals in space on a small device, just for fun. He thought he was making progress, but he wasn't sure at the moment. He might have to ask Coran for more of these little red doohickeys.
Hunk heard a scuff at the door and glanced back. Lance stood there, hands in his pockets and hood pulled over his head, as usual. He looked half-asleep, like he wasn't sure what he was doing. Hunk smiled and looked back to the bench, afraid to alert Lance to where he was. Lance shuffled over to Hunk and sat down sideways behind him on the floor, curling up with the side of his head resting on Hunk's upper back. And he let out a sigh, then relaxed into Hunk's warmth.
Hunk felt himself relaxing at the touch, too. It was nice to have Lance back, even if it wasn't quite all the way. "What's going on, buddy?" he asked softly, still sorting through his wires and crystals.
Lance heaved a sigh that Hunk felt along the whole length of his back. "'Snot working," he mumbled. "I don't know what to do."
"What's not working?" Hunk asked. "Something I can help with?"
"I don't think so." Lance's voice was morose. "I think it's something I gotta figure out on my own, but I'm so tired. I don't want to give up, but..." He sighed again. "I just wish I could stop feeling this way for a while. I want a break."
A lump rose in Hunk's throat, and his hands stilled on his materials. He stared straight ahead, trying not to move in a way that would dislodge Lance, possibly make him realize what he was doing so he could stand up and run away. "What are you tired of, buddy?"
"Just...this. Trying. Fighting. Being cold. I'm tired of being cold."
"Because of space? It's cold in space, you know. Kind of a given."
"No, not space. Just...being outside." Hunk felt Lance moving, like he was gesturing with his hands, trying to describe what he meant without words. "Being outside the circle."
"Hmm." Hunk rubbed his finger beneath his nose, trying to think, to put together the words. Well, no time like the present. "Do you think you might be a little depressed?" He spoke as softly as he could and just hoped that Lance had the wherewithal to answer.
"Yeah, a little. I haven't been hungry much lately, and I'm always so cold and tired."
Hunk was heartened, both that Lance could recognize that about himself and that he was willing to share. He had noticed that Lance had been off his feed lately, that he was starting to look a little pale and shaky. Much longer like this and Shiro or Allura would have intervened, he was sure, if only for the good of the team. But it was better that Lance had been able to express it on his own.
"Is it about what happened on Ustar?"
This was the big one. Lance was quiet for a long, long moment, and Hunk bit his lip, hoping that he hadn't pushed too hard.
But Lance leaned his head a little harder on Hunk's back and stayed where he was. "Yeah." A quiet admission, soft and ashamed. Hunk would do anything to take that shame away.
He remembered the way Lance had babbled when his body was recovering from hypothermia, delirious and uncontrolled, an outpouring of words that usually made little sense. What Hunk had understood, though, was that Lance was sorry, it was his fault, he didn't mean it, he would take it back if he could, please forgive him, he wanted to be good. He wanted to be better, he wanted to be an asset, he wanted to do his part. It had been heartbreaking to listen to, horrible in a way.
If the Ustarese justice system was meant to make their criminals repent, it had certainly succeeded with Lance. By torturing him nearly to death, but yeah, they had gotten what they'd wanted. A broken young warrior begging like a child for the pain to stop.
All Hunk could do was sigh. "I'm sorry, buddy. You didn't deserve that."
Lance sniffled. "I kind of did."
"No." They were both a bit startled by the vehemence in Hunk's voice. He sat still for a moment, blinking ahead. Lance had gone still against his back, but Hunk could feel him trembling. With cold, or something else.
This was too important. Hunk pushed the mobile bench a few inches away and slowly shuffled around, putting his hand on Lance's arm to support him as soon as he could reach back far enough. He ended up still sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing Lance and holding his shoulders in his hands in a strong, careful grip. Lance blinked at him, drooping where he sat, and the bags under his eyes were big enough to smuggle candy into a theater.
Hunk tried to smile, but it dropped off his face almost immediately, so he gave it up as a bad job. "That wasn't your fault, Lance. You didn't deserve to almost die just because you violated a cultural taboo."
Lance's eyebrows raised in tired surprise. "Um. I know that. Their response was way over the top."
Hunk nodded. "Okay. I'm glad you know that." He squeezed Lance's shoulders, then just sat there for a moment, studying him. Quiznak, the guy really did look peaky.
Hunk didn't know what to do about Lance being depressed, about him feeling like he was "outside the circle," whatever that meant. But there was something else he could fix, certainly. Something he was good at fixing.
Decision made, he climbed to his feet, then reached down a hand for Lance. "Come on, let's go."
Lance blinked at his hand, then looked up at his face. He didn't move. "Where?"
"To the kitchen, of course." Hunk shook his hand in the air, waiting for Lance to latch on.
"I told you I'm not hungry, dude."
Hunk snorted. "You think that's gonna stop me from feeding you? Especially when you're looking like that? C'mon. You should know me better by now."
Lance hesitated for a moment longer, but a fleeting smile curled up the corner of his mouth, and he clasped Hunk's hand, palm to palm. Hunk pulled him to his feet, then put an arm around his shoulders and herded him to the kitchen. It took some effort to get Lance to eat—Hunk resorted to hand-feeding him the first few bites—but it was a start.
Sometimes Hunk didn't know what to do. But he could do this. If he could help, even a little bit, it was worth every effort.