LANGST

The Hidden Flirt

Trigger warning: Mention of self harm

..................

Lance had a small problem, and by small he meant quite large. It was also a problem that he had to keep a secret from the others. Lance has Tourettes Syndrome.  He had it in the form where his hand would twitch and he would say the word: Beautiful. 

Lance was bullied a lot for it during school because it would happen at the worst of times when he'd be getting scolded by a teacher he would blurt out beautiful, or if the whole class was silent he would randomly say it and people would laugh. The teachers knew of course but that didn't stop them from being annoyed with it. It got to the point where the teachers wouldn't even stop other students from bullying Lance. 

oh god...

It would hurt Lance so much, he wanted desperately to be seen as just a normal kid but people didn't seem to care that there was more to him than his syndrome. 

After a few years of the bullying Lance had enough, he started to practice. Any time he would feel the urge to say " Beautiful " he would quickly pull out something and try to play it off like he was flirting. That helped in a lot of situations but it didn't help when it would be random points during class or something. 

In space that changed a bit. He already was a terrible pilot and a god awful fighter, this would just add on to his teammates hating him and thinking he was unfit to be a paladin. Unfortunately being in space didn't change the fact that he still had it happen. He was older now so he was better at playing it off as a flirty remark but now those remarks just got him yelled at or scolded. Either way, there was no way to stop it. People disliked him anyway. 

' Just have to get better at other things, compensate for it ' Lance thought as he tugged at his sleeves nervously as he paced his way to the training room, begging that Keith and Shiro had already finished their training. Luck seemed to have shined on Lance just a little bit today since the training room was empty. 

' perfect ' Lance thought before going over to the training customizer and using it to check in as himself and get a training bayard that Pidge had customized so they wouldn't get any serious damage to their real ones just from silly training. 

" Signed In: Blue Paladin, Lance Mcclain " The training monitor voice said. 

" Start level......beautiful " Lance paused as he twitched. When he was alone he just let his urges go without trying to hide it in a flirty remark. 

" Level: Beautiful, not found. Try level 1?" The voice said and lance scoffed. Level one was something even untrained altean children could beat. 

" Start level: 29 " Lance called before getting ready to fight. 

And so he did. Bots popped up all around him and started to shoot and lash out at Lance. Lance stayed calm and started shooting at each of them that had long ranged weapons and those with close combat weapons he dealt with mainly by kicking them hard enough and then turning to quick shoot. 

' Do better '

' Go faster '

' Keith is better '

' Stop being such a lazy ass ' 

Thoughts rang through Lance's head as he kept climbing up the levels, finishing at around 4 a.m Castle Time. " End training sequence " Lance called through his gasps of air. 

" ending level 41, " The voice said. 

" Worse than last night, piece of garbage " Lance muttered to himself before putting the training bayard away and signing out before Keith or Shiro came for their morning training. Lance dragged his way back to his room and groaned in pain as he laid back on his bed, his whole body screaming in pain.