I need you //klance

Part sixteen

That morning Lance woke up in the lounge. He was alone but smothered in blankets and pillows so he assumed the others had let him sleep in. He was a little disappointed that they hadn't bothered to wake him but he did feel a lot more refreshed than usual so he wasn't going to complain.

After stretching and quickly heading back to his own room to brush his teeth get dressed and go briefly through his morning routine, he made his way to the bridge to meet the others.

They had arrived at the blade of Marmora's base and were planning their meeting with them. Lance attempted to lighten the mood and cheer Keith up a few times while they were there but it mainly resulted in them both just annoying each other further.

Keith felt kind of bad about snapping at the Cuban but he was anxious about what he'd find at the base and whether or not he'd like any answers he got.

———————-time skip————————

"How long has it been?" Allura demanded, Lance guessed that she was probably the most authoritative out of the group other than Shiro.
"Roughly ten vargas." Coran seemed worried despite his usual chirpy attitude.
Lance had done just about everything he could to do distract himself but was quickly running out of options with the way Keith always seemed to come to mind no matter what he was doing or where he was.
"We cannot just wait here."
"The path is closed for, like, I don't know, 30 more vargas or something?"
Lance answered absentmindedly. There wasn't really much they could do, they had to wait for at least  another day until Keith and Shiro came back.
"That's actually correct."
"Really?" Lance just about managed to suppress a wince at their surprised comments.

Lance cracked his knuckles and put on a smug mask. "Yeah, I wasn't born yester-quintant." 

Of course they're surprised. Since when was anything you say correct. I'm surprised they can even understand you, your English is terrible. 

"I-I have to know what's going on down there." Allura didn't seem to even see the reason in requesting it, it was just a plain order.
"There's no way to get a read on their base. Too much interference from the solar flares and the black holes."
"If we account for the gravitational lensing, maybe we can reduce the noise and interference and connect with the Red Lion's sensors, right? Th-That's right, right?"
Hunk looked to Lance and Lance looked between Hunk and Coran before the realization hit him.
Lance pointed at himself. "Are you looking at me?"
You're  the dumbest person here. He's just trying to make you feel better. It's pity that's all.
"We can give it a try."
"Get on it."

While Hunk, Pidge and Coran got to work, Lance wondered off to his new secret place.
Whenever Lance couldn't sleep, he'd taken to either training or exploring the castle.
In his adventures he'd discovered a lot of news places, including a dance studio and a separate training room made specifically for gun wielders, almost like a super high tech Altean shooting range.

Deciding to take his anxiousness on the targets, he made his way to his shooting range.
As usual it was empty and relatively clean, Coran didn't clean it since he was usually too busy with other parts of the castle, so Lance cleaned it. Off to the left hand side of the room was another door leading to a shower room and changing room.
The room was fairly large, not as spacious as the main training room but Lance preferred it. It was easier to train without the others for a lot of reasons, one of the more prominent ones being  the insecurities that training with them always managed to bring up.
He changed into his armor and took out his bayard. He'd recently managed to change it into a sniper rifle as well although he suspected the others had already managed to do that or something similar.
He stepped up to the center of the room, "continue training sequence."
"Continuing level 18."
Two larger bit dropped into the room along with five spherical drones.

Lance transformed his Bayard into his usual blaster and took out the two training bots before they came too close. While dodging shots from the drones lance activated his shield and changed his bayard into his sniper rifle and began shooting down the drones.

He kept training until he reached level 26 and he decided he needed to take a break.
He'd already missed dinner but didn't really feel like eating anyway.
He just trekked back to his room and took a quick shower, he didn't bother with a face mask since he'd already done one that morning and just collapsed into bed.
Only level 26. I bet Keith's on level 50 by now even Pidge and Hunk will be at level 40. You're so behind.
Weak.
Useless.
Can't you do anything right. If you'd just convinced Shiro...
no. He'd never have let you go. He knows how pathetic you are. He knows how useless you are. You'll never be good enough for them.

Left alone to his thoughts, he drowned in them alone, fair away from anyone that could hear him. Not even the mice came to check on him.

////time skip////

"Princess, we're coming back, and we're bringing someone you should meet."
"They're all right!" Coran noticeably relaxed while everyone else cheered. Lance sunk into his seat and let out a breath, letting his eyes wander to the Red Paladin's seat.

The Red Lion landed in the hangar. Keith, Shiro and Kolivan step out to meet the others. Kolivan's mask vanished to reveal his face. He pulled down his hood and knelt in front of Allura.

"Princess Allura, it's good to see that the rumors are true. You're still alive after all these years."
"So is Zarkon. Can we consider you our ally in the fight against him?"
"Yes, but we have little time to discuss this. I just received word from our spy inside the Galran hierarchy. They have become aware of our presence, so the timetable for our plan has been moved up."
"How soon do we need to begin?"
"Now."

Lance listened nervously from the side. He didn't say anything for fear of ruining their chances, so he took to observing.
Kolivan, like most of the Galra they'd met, was to be very tall.
Lance had a slight suspicion that Keith was part Galra. Ever since they'd freed the Balmera, clues had started to spring up. No one else seemed to notice but with each new clue Keith also seemed a bit unnerved so Lance had kept from saying anything that could ruin their still new friendship.

Speaking of Keith, he seemed to be leaning quite a bit on red. Is he hurt? Is that why the red lion attacked?
By now Lance was fully aware of Keith's lack of trust in him, although they both knew it was neither of their faults- Keith just hadn't known him long enough to trust him like he trusted Shiro, so he knew he'd have to be careful.

Allura and Shiro lead Kolivan to the meeting room while Keith hung back.
Lance convinced Hunk to go ahead, he thought he most likely wouldn't be welcome at the meeting anyway and decided to made his way over to Keith, who was now fully leaning on Red with his eyes closed.

"Keith? What happened?"
Keith's eyes snapped open and looked at Lance in surprise, maybe even with a hint of fear.
"Er I- what? What are talking about?"
"You're hurt. How?"
"What! I'm not hurt I'm-"
Lance poked his shoulder, unimpressed, but instantly regretted it when Keith hissed in pain.
"Damn." Lance muttered to himself, "Look you don't have to tell me what happened but at least let me patch you up." Lance looked to Keith pleadingly, he hated seeing Keith hurt and didn't see why he was letting himself suffer.
Hypocrite.
He doesn't need your help, you'll just make things worse.

Keith's violet eyes met lance's blue ones, they were full of poorly hidden uncertainty and fear. They searched Lance's face for any sign of deception before nodding softly.

A/n:
Yes we're diving deeper into the langst. Honestly langst just makes me feel so complete, not exactly happy I don't know to explain it really.