Langst One-Shots

His Heart Beats For Two

Lance knew he was different from a young age.

Well, it was not very hard to tell, especially seeing as his abnormality was tied in with one of the bodys' most vital organs.

Alright, let me explain:

Lance McClain, the Cuban heartthrob, has no heartbeat.

Now, he DOES, in fact, have a heart. A fully functional four-chambered heart, as a matter of fact. It just never beats.

It sits, silent and unmoving, in his chest. The only way you could be able to tell he was alive was that his body was perfectly stable at all times. He had the normal body temperature, his lungs still worked to bring in Oxygen, and his skin was in perfect health. In fact, some might even say he is glowing.

This weird condition of his left scientists baffled; how could a living, breathing human not have a heartbeat? Many people around the world wanted to know how, but none of them wanted an answer more than the Cuban male himself.

He was always tormented by his classmates. Poor Lance couldn't go down a hallway without some vile nickname being thrown at him. The threats and stupid names were shot out like bullets from a gun with never-ending ammo; ranging from 'freak' and 'mutant' to 'Heartless whore', and everything in between.

The kids had fun beating him up after class, too. A kick in the ribs here, a punch in the face there.

Lance never had the courage to tell his mom how he really got the bruises that littered his body. Instead, he blamed it on clumsiness. He thought that she didn't need to be stressed out over his problems; she had six other kids to take care of, for Gods' sake! His troubles wouldn't matter. They would just bring even more attention to him, which he didn't want. His heart without a beat would draw enough unwanted attention as it is.

Speaking of attention, there is one other thing that Lance never told anybody in fear of prying eyes:

He could hear heartbeats.

Now, everybody can hear heartbeats if you get close enough.

What made Lance different was that he could hear any heartbeat he wanted to. All he had to do was sit silently and listen for the telltale thuds of life.

Lance tried to see how far away he could hear it from by listening for his sisters' hearbeat as she was leaving for a trip.

It measured just past six miles before it stopped.

Sophia McClain died six miles away from home. She and her two friends were hit by an oncoming driver that swerved into the wrong lane.

Lance never had the heart to try and measure the distance again after that. He learned to tune them all out to prevent something like that happening once more.

♤♤♤♤♤

Up in the Castle of Lions, Lance McClain stood in the middle of the training room.

Currently, the team was doing an exercise where one person was blindfolded in the middle. The person in the middle had to protect themselves from being struck lightly with a wooden sword. Right now, Lance was in the center, waiting for the other paladins to begin their advances on him.

Without using his heartbeat sensing, he knew he was the worst at this. He felt himself get tapped on the left shoulder by God knows who, and he spun around in that direction, flailing his own fake sword around aimlessly.

"Come in, Lance! Listen!" Shiro yelled at him from the corner of the room. The three attacking paladins quietly snuck around the poor Cuban boy.

Said male felt a sharp tap on his head, and he swore quietly.