I need you //klance

Day 7

Lance and Pidge sneaked into the base on Green while Keith and Hunk distracted the bases defenses from outside in their respective lions.

They'd planned to be radio silent as soon they landed at the base so the Comms only carried the occasional chatter from the Yellow and Red Paladins which seemed to eased Coran and the Princess' tension.

Pidge had managed to hack the base in record time. Lance guessed that all the time in Green had probably teaching her a lot more than she would have learnt if they'd still been at the Garrison.

 They hadn't come across any live crew members, just a few drones and sentries which Lance had shot done before they could raise the alarm.Despite the lack of problems, neither of them had broken the agreed radio silence. Making their way back through the base was unsettlingly easy up until Pidge turned their Comms back on to let the others know how it was going. 

Distracted by her helmet, she didn't notice a loose vent sticking out of the wall. She tripped, crashed into a wall and cried out. Lance jumped and turned back to check if she was okay and didn't notice the sentries turning the corner.

He had only just spotted them when they opened fire and activated the alarm. He dodged their first few shots and grabbed Pidge, dragging them out of the way as shots rained down around them.

They backed into the nearest corridor, Lance shooting as many sentries as he could while Pidge lead them on an alternate route. 

When they reached the hangars, they dashed to the Green lion with Lance still covering Pidge. Green's particle barrier dropped as Green lowered and began to open her head. While Pidge was focused on Green and reassuring the others, a sentry redirected their aim from Lance to her. 

The Blue Paladin automatically jumped to block it with his body, letting out a pained grunt at the impact but the adrenaline stopped him from feeling much pain. He quickly took out the hangar's doors that lead into the base and the rest of the sentries while climbing up Green's ramp.

Pidge flew them out to the others, not even bothering to cloak them. Keith was all over the place taking out fighters left, right and center, letting out a lot of poorly concealed anger. Hunk was attacking the base with a ferocity that made Lance glad he wasn't on the receiving end, the ion canons hadn't been operational since the start. Once they spotted Green, they pulled back, with a bit of hesitancy on Keith's end.

They got away with ease, Pidge had sent Allura the info on their way. Coran was going through it on the bridge while Hunk and Keith headed straight to the showers. That left only Allura to meet the space siblings.

Their giddy happiness quickly faded into a feeling of dread as they felt Allura's glare melting holes in them.

Pidge gulped and shuddered, she particularly didn't like being on the receiving end of lectures.

"Princess-" Lance started,
"What were you thinking."
It wasn't spoken like a question but the phrasing threw him off. He hated how Allura and Coran always spoke English so effortlessly despite them literally learning it in a few seconds.
You're part Altean, you should be able to understand it like them.
You can't even do that right. What's wrong with you?!

While Lance mentally berated himself Allura finished her lecture. She seemed more worried than angry.

She took a strong, calming breath and carried on talking to them, "I.. don't know what you did but please be more careful next time. We decided on radio silence for a reason,"  She glared at Pidge pointedly, who shuffled under her gaze, "Pidge, please go to Coran for a check up. We heard you get hurt over the Comms."

Pidge was about to say something in retalliation but decided against it when met with Allura's stern look. She shuffled out off the room with a quick look back to Lance, who still stood leant against Green's lowered mouth. The adrenaline was wearing off and the pain in his lower back was becoming more and more prominent. He held down the painful shudders his body kept trying to form in response to whatever Allura was now staying.

"-know it wasn't your fault but next time you need to pay closer attention to your teammates   or-" Allura cut herself off with a sad look and muttered a quick farewell before leaving the room.

Lance took some more shaky breaths as he waited for her to get a bit further away before heading to his own room.

It was a couple floors up so it took him a while with his injury but he didn't meet anyone on the way there.

Once in his room, he immediately went into his bathroom and peeled off his armor. The outer armor was burnt around the wound and had numerous scratches all over due to him not having got around to cleaning and repairing his armor since they'd first gone to meet with the Blades.
After that they'd just been too preoccupied.

The under armor had taken quite a bit of damage from the shot leaving a singed hole, it would definitely need replacing.
The wound itself hadn't been very deep and had been mostly cauterized from the start. All the twisting he'd done when re-adjusting his angle for shots had probably reopened the wound. It would probably leave a scar but that wasn't something he minded anymore. The majority of his back was decorated with a lighter explosion of skin from the time he went into a mini coma. 
Luckily he wasn't bleeding any more and hadn't seriously damaged anything.

Lance sighed in relief and stepped into the shower. He washed off the grime and blood and laid his head against the tiles letting the water spill over his body and drown out the tears.
So useless. If you'd done a better job taking out the sentries you wouldn't have gotten shot to begin with.
It's your fault.
You don't deserve to be a Paladin.
You've nearly killed everyone here at some point.
Hunk nearly died the first day cause you couldn't cover him well enough.
Coran nearly died in that exploded.
Your slip up with slav could've killed shiro, pidge and slav along with losing you the fight against the Galra.
You couldn't get Keith or Allura to listen that time at the universal hub and Allura got captured because of it.
And for all you know, Shiro's already dead. You didn't even realize something was wrong. Keith did, obviously, because Keith is better in every way. How you'd ever think he could even want to be your friend is beyond me.

Lance didn't bother with his skin routine again, he just updated the journal he'd been keeping for Shiro to read if he got back, changed into a loose hoodie and shorts and slumped into bed, tears still fresh on his face.

That's how Keith found him that night when he came by since he couldn't sleep. Curled up in a blanket cocoon, sniffling lightly in his sleep.

A/n:
I'm gonna do another short book for halloween. I'll still update this when I can. It's going to be a witch au.
Don't know if I should make it hogwarts or not tho. I could probably do that another time.