Langst: One Shots

Rain.

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Rain was truly unbelievable. Lance didn’t know until now how much he had truly underestimated the essence that was rain. The way it fell, but never the same way.

There are times when the rain would come in thick, wet droplets to replenish the Earth it fell to. But the downside of all that is that the rain only lasted a couple of minutes. Maybe less. Then the sun would come back and soak it back up.

It was like the Earth was granting a gift, as if teasing a small child, only to take it away to resume elsewhere. For it is proven, it’s always raining somewhere in the world. But no one can hog Earth’s gift for themselves. It must be shared.

Other times, the sky would be a dark grey, and the Earth would grant a light sprinkle. Maybe a steady fall. Something only so significant that it makes the world muggy and sticky. Days like these were spent quietly, lazily.

Lance remembered staying indoors with his siblings, maybe playing a board game or two and listening to 90’s Latino rock bands. Maná had been his favorite.

Sometimes, the rain brought danger. Hurricanes, tsunamis, cyclones, whatever one would call it depending on where they were in the world. Rain, something that can be so sweet and comforting, but could also bring the worst of disasters.

Rain is funny, in that way.

Lance stood now, frozen to his spot and could feel the cold drops on his skin, gliding down his suit. The drops were definitely different than the ones on Earth, but it was so close to the same that he believed it for a second.

Rain.

This planet, this random planet that the team had stopped on just to make minor repairs to the castle, had rain. One of the things Lance had missed so much.

Pidge, Lance, and Shiro had come out to scout the surrounding territories, Hunk and Keith off to find any possible inhabitants. Lance stood utterly still, paying attention to the rain instead of the voices within his helmet.

“Ugh, it’s so muddy! My pants are soaked…” Hunk complained, his grumbles muffled.

Keith was making several grunting noises, frustrated as he tried to walk through the sog.

Pidge kept complaining about how cold she was getting, and Shiro was doing his best not to slip every few moments. It was all complaints.

“Let’s just get done scouting, then we can all go back inside where it’s dry.” Shiro informed.

That seemed to please the others, but Lance despised the idea. Hadn’t they missed rain too?

The way it sounded, especially, so many sounds at once. Light splats as it made contact with harder parts of the ground, the steady sound of ‘wet’ as the water formed puddles and droplets fell into them. The hum of the downage that seemed to be the most natural sound in nature.

The sound of rain was consistent, no matter how hard or how long it fell.

Shiro and Pidge had walked off, leaving Lance on his own to stand amongst the light underbrush and stare up at the sky.

“Maybe Coran has some ponchos or something…” Hunk.

Lance didn’t quite process when he noticed it, but at some point he had realized not all of the wet streaks on his face were cold like the rain. Some were warmer, and when they made it to his lips the blue eyed man could taste salt.

Tears.

A shaky hand went to his cheek, brushing them away with a light smile. His tears melded with the cold drops of precipitation, and Lance saw this. He could see their differences, and was surprised when people said that rain could hide tears.

To the mere glance, yeah, they looked just the same.

But there was a true, divine difference that Lance could see now and it was beautiful.

Tears had a simple form. Smear them, and they disappear. Drop them, and you get a simple circle. Tears have a short life span, a fall down the cheek with an unchanging form in a single line and then their life was over.

Rain, however, was so incredibly different. They fell, and as they did there would be an ever wavering form. When they hit solidity the form would be drastic. A splatter pattern.  They hit, and when they streak they dance.

Rain drops dancing on a window, a view everyone has seen. They dance and join each other, go in groups, twisting and turning. You would never see a tear do that, now would you?

Lance chuckled softly, looking up towards the sky and grinning. He’d blink a few times, droplets on his eyelashes, then continue to look. Rain.

He even stuck out his tongue.

Without shame, and with a stunning grin, Lance stuck out his tongue to catch the droplets like he had when he had been a child. The blue paladin could remember that.

Lance remembered going out in his muddy field of a yard with his brothers and sisters, telling them all that they needed to practice. Practice tasting rain, because sometimes it would get really hot and there would be no water. They would have to survive on drinking rain like the survivor men in the movies.

He would survive.

Lance let a few drops, rare drops, hit his tongue, then he looked back to Earth. He could enjoy the sky later. Right now, the rain mattered to him. The memories it brought, and the pain it yielded.

The tears it wrought from the very crevices of Lance McClain’s soul. Rain.

Yes, he was really crying now. The emotions that a simple earthly accurance was overbearing, and Lance hugged himself. He hugged the rain, keeping it there so it couldn’t leave him again.

Sniffles were heard, his light sobs. Lance didn’t want the others to hear this. This was a personal moment, between Lance and the rain. Only the two of them in reflection. They would make fun of him and he didn’t want that. Lance wanted to relish this while he could. Lance wanted even closer, closer than the way tears fell from his eyes and his sobs echoed to join the droplets and sounds of the rain.

So he took off his helmet, and the rain was gone.

Lance shot up in bed, immediately erupting in the tears similar to that off his dream.

He wheezed, panted, hugging onto his pillow.

It took him a moment to realize what was going on, to realize there was no rain. That it had all been a dream and he was now sitting alone in his bedroom on the castle. Rain.

The rain wasn’t there when he checked out of a port window.

The rain wasn’t there when he started packing up his things.

The rain wasn’t there when he left a few of his belongings for his friends.

The rain wasn’t there when he said goodbye to Blue.

The rain wasn’t there when he climbed into the pod.

The rain wasn’t there when he opened the airlock and was cast out into the vast space.

The rain wasn’t there, and neither was Lance.