Marks or masks

All They Could Do

"Lance, you don-"

"No, Hunk! You should just leave me! Just like they did back then.  It's this stupid mark and my stupid brain that made me this way,  and you shouldn't have to deal with it,  so why do you?! Why do you want to deal with an  arrogant,  loudmouth bother like me!?" Keith was taken aback,  he couldn't believe what he just heard. 

At this point, Lance was in tears,  his normally glistening blue eyes dark and empty.  Hunk walked over to Lance, embracing the the shivering Cuban,  and gesturing for Keith to do the same.

Hesitantly, Keith made his way to the yellow paladin's side, wrapping his arms around the blue one.  Lance barely registered that anyone was there until now,  but suddenly buried his face into Keith's shoulder and cried.

"You do deserve the help, " Keith started,  looking to Hunk for help. "You deserve to live and have a good life as much as everyone else."

Hunk joined in,"Especially after everything you've gone through." Keith gave him a questioning look,  but Hunk shook his head as a sign that he would tell him later.

•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•

Eventually, Lance fell asleep,  eyes puffy and red, with a bonus of tear streaked face.  Hunk carried the blue paladin to the living room,  laying him on the couch.

Keith followed behind and sat on the couch opposite to Lance, staring at Hunk and waiting for answers.

Hunk made his way next to Keith and sat down,  taking a deep breath. "When Lance was young," he started. "He was a crybaby,  he really was.  He had five older brothers,  three older sisters and four younger sisters, so there was a lot of "play" fighting.

"But Lance was never a fighter.  And he was pretty weak and insecure,  but because of that stupid mark,  his parents thought he was supposed to be the strong one.  The confident one,  the, the one who was going to be a big hero and save the family from financial troubles.

"But when they figured out that Lance wasn't like that,  boy were they pissed. They took Lance  in the car,  drive him to the desert and left him there,  with only two bottles of water and half a granola bar.  They left him there to..." Hunk choked up,  breaking his gaze from the floor to look Keith in the eyes.

"They left him there to die,  Keith. That's when my mom's and I found him, we were in a road trip and saw him,  took him in and-"

"That's bullshit!" Pidge came bursting through the door, making her way to Hunk.  The rest of the people on the ship also emerged from the doorway,  trying to calm Pidge.

"Language, Pidge," Shiro said calmly.  Pidge sent him a glare that could kill, so he backed off.

"I don't give two fucks about my language,  those cunts left Lance in the desert to die,  all because of a mark!?" The short girl was close to tears,  falling down on the floor to her knees and banging her hands on the ground.

"All that happened,  and he didn't fuckin' tell us..." It was Keith this time,  and he sounded furious. Not with Lance,  but with himself. And Shiro felt the same way. And Allura. And Pidge. And Coran. All of them felt at fault.

They all looked at their own marks,  feeling even worse. Why couldn't they have been the ones with the incorrect mark? Why had they been blessed with even slightly easier lives?  Why did they deserve a good life more than Lance?

Those were all rhetorical questions,  ones that not only weren't to be answer but we're unanswerable.

In the end,  they all found themselves kneeling next to Lance,  waiting for him to a awaken. That was all they could do.