At Dawn - Klance

6 - A Road to the Past

Cause it's a long road to wisdom
But it's a short one
To being ignored  

~

Lance paced back and forth throughout the room. He wanted to follow Keith, but he didn't want anger him any further. He felt stupid. I should have said something before he left. He hoped these people were truly as peaceful as they seemed, but Lance couldn't shake the uneasy feeling. He felt as if he had heard of them before. 

Lance sat on the bed and hoped Keith would come back already. He glanced at Keith's armor on the table. He frowned and picked up the helmet. It wasn't dirty at all. The aliens must've cleaned it. But something caught Lance's eye. The communication device built into the helmet was completely destroyed. It definitely wasn't like that when they fell. 

When they fell...

Lance had only recollected some memories from his drugged daze. He figured something was going on here, but honestly, Lance began to feel too tired to care. The rest of the team could probably find them before something too bad could happen anyway. Keith was really strong and experienced as well. They'd never be able to crack him, Lance thought to himself as he settled into the large, soft bed. 

Lance hated to admit it, but Keith was better than him. It was why he was Shiro's favorite. All that Lance could do better than Keith was probably just making a fool of himself. It completely threw him off when Keith said he supposedly liked Lance. What is there to like about me?

Lance thought about himself. He couldn't really see much. He was just a dime-a-dozen type of guy. Lance had good looks, he supposed, but his personality wasn't that original. Lance was a flirty, idiotic guy who probably came off as annoying more than anything else. Lance didn't mind it all that much though. He had friends who cared about him and that was all that mattered. Lance didn't mind the way he was most of the time. He had reasons for being the way he was.

-

Scars. This was definitely going to leave scars this time. A kick sent him sprawling along the gravel. The rocks bit sharply into his back and legs. His left arm was scraped harshly, blood beaded along the cuts. 

The sight of it shocked Lance. Normally, they just aimed for his chest and back, so his injuries were easily hidden, but the other kids seemed to be getting careless with their aim and more bloodthirsty with their strength. 

Lance never fought back. His mother always told him it was better to not aggravate them, that he was still a guest in their country and the tiniest mistake could get them sent back home. 

So, Lance took the pain. It was all his fault anyway. He knew that kissing a boy seemed wrong to others, but he didn't see the harm in it. It had happened so suddenly. The boy kissed Lance without any refrain, but once they were caught, it was all blamed on Lance. 

So, almost every day when Lance would walk home, the group of 8th graders, including the boy who kissed him, would find him and give him a lesson. Lance would then continue on home like nothing happened. At first, he'd only receive bruises, and afterwards, they would ask a single question. 

"Would you still kiss a boy?"

"Definitely," Lance would reply every single time. He was not going to change just because other people didn't like something that didn't even harm them. Or at least so he thought. 

But things got worse, just like now. They kicked and punched, but they now had pocket knives. Where they got them, Lance wasn't sure. They slashed at his back and chest. He thought after a while they would have stopped, but the kids began to enjoy the activity. When Lance's mom contacted the school principal, he simply laughed it off as boys being boys and something about Lance just needed to toughen up.