Langst: One Shots

McClain.

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The little boy sat quietly in the rocking chair, covered in blankets and flipping through a little picture book. This little boy sat alone, legs folded, in a dimly lit room. Everything had an orange glow.

It was raining outside, clouds hung heavy and dark in the early afternoon atmosphere.

A dreary day, unless you were one who loved the rain. Thunder would clap loudly, but the child would only look outside with a seemingly awed expression. Thunder was so cool.

Once, a particularly loud boom of Mother Nature’s wrath sounded out, and the little one cried out. Maybe that one was a little scary. He cowered under the covers, whimpering for his mother.

And, as mothers do, she came to the rescue.

“Hijo?” A woman said, peeking her head into the room to gaze at her youngest child out of three.

That was, if you didn’t count the twins on the way. This woman was pregnant.

Lance, the little boy, looked up with a sniff. He had a cold, or more-so, was recovering from one. And he may or may not have been a little teary from fright.

His big, round blue eyes were full of curiosity, what could his mother want?

“Lance, can you help me in the kitchen?” She asked, smiling at the child. It was a loving gesture, and one that allowed for distraction. The mother had heard her sons fright, and came to save the day.

Immediately, the kid smiled, showing a missing front tooth. He loved to help her in the kitchen, and his book was getting boring anyway.

“Sí, Mama!” With renounced energy, Lance untangled himself from the blankets.

The child was a bundle of excitement, and he was at the stage where his limbs were starting to string out. He would be tall, like his father. The child fumbled, them fell off the chair and onto his bottom.

“Oof! Mama, I fell!” He had a strong accent, not completely attuned to the English language yet.

She peeked in again, making a face of surprise. “Oh, dear! Are you okay, little one?”

Lance grinned, hopping up quickly and nodded. “Yes! I just felled a little bit.” He ran over to his mother, hugging onto her leg. “See? Okay!:

The woman’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and the start of tiny crow’s feet appeared.

“I see. You are so strong, Lance.” She gently caressed the top of his head, bending over to scoop him into her arms. “Now, will you help me?”

The seven year old boy nodded, sniffed, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “Yes. What can I do?”

The woman smiled again, grabbing the end of her apron to clean the child’s face.

“First, how about you go clean up? If you work in the kitchen, you must ot have any germs.” She advised the child with a slight warning, like this was a sacred rule.

Lance shimmied from his mother’s arms and nodded, racing off to his bedroom. “I be right back! I’m gonna get clean, and then I help Mama!”

This woman watched her son run off out of sight to his bedroom, and then turned back to the sink to finish the dishes. She knew the child would become preoccupied with many other things by the time he remembered to wash up.

That was her Lance, her little son full of happiness and joy.

It was devastating when she lost him.

Lance had been off to the Garrison, to become the pilot that would make the family proud.

He would go on missions, go to space, and be the explorer his younger siblings dreamed of.

He was supposed to come back after six months.

And he did, actually.

But not physically.

Lance Charles McClain, his mother’s oldest son, came back to her in the form of a letter.

It wasn’t even a letter written by him; merely a default, typed letter.

She stood in the living room with her two eldest daughter, Lance’s older sisters. The twins, and her youngest son stood at her feet.

Tears were in her eyes, dark chocolate eyes skimming the crinkled paper.

“We regret to inform you that…”

It was screams after that. From all parties, in all forms.

Screams of despair, agony, agony of a lost brother.

Screams of anger, fault, of a fault that wasn’t true.

“You let him go! Now look what happened! IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!”

“Why did he go?! STUPID!”

There were tears, many of them. There were sobs, and there was hurt.

Lance was dead.

The letter informed them of a crash at the Garrison, an escape.

Lance hadn’t been in his bunk, and they presumed him dead after the search of the premises.

He had died, with two other members.

The mother, who had so fondly recalled of her eldest son, was now without.

She would blame herself for years to come.

She would set up a table in the living room, like a shrine to her lost child.

She would hope, for the first few weeks, that her son was just missing.

But when that week turned into a year, she would mentally deem him dead.

The mother would be without her son.

Her heart would break.

She would become sick, and her remaining children would have to go each day watching their mother grow weaker and more sick. They would watch her die.

Lance, who had been off adventuring as the Blue Paladin of Voltron, would come home nearly 3 years after he disappeared.

And then the son, would be without his mother.