Story belongs to Elireide @ A03
Smiling is the best way to face every problem, to crush every fear and to hide every pain.
Lance wakes up the same way he always does. Alone. And while he always pretended it was the alien girls he wished to wake up with, he knew it was more than that. Or maybe it was less than that? He just wanted to wake up to someone again. He felt so repetitive, missing the same family, the same sunset, the same ocean and the same boring rain. But every day that he wakes up in space, millions and billions of miles from Earth, Lance realizes his longing is the only thing that has remained constant.
The others have all improved. The others have goals and desires. But, Lance doesn’t have a goal in mind. He cleans his face, knowing that it hasn’t really gotten dirty. It’s not like there’s dust all over. Or dirt. But the reason he cleans his face isn’t so much because he’s worried it will be dirty as much as it is, he wants to be able to wipe something clean every day. He wants to pretend each day isn’t such a challenge. So, he washes his fears away.
Letting the others see that fearful face isn’t something Lance will let happen easily. Even when he had protected Coran from the explosion and Lance was certain he was going to die, he hadn’t let it show. He couldn’t let it show. In everyone else’s eyes, he was the jokester. Lance couldn’t be afraid now. Not now, not ever.
So, as with every other morning, he would get dressed and ready before heading out to have his breakfast. Hunk would usually already be there, either eating or cooking. Either way, his friend would usually greet him boisterously before returning to his food. Sometimes he would run into his hero and they would share a couple of calm words before continuing on their way. Coran had become a pretty good friend already, in his...very Coran way. So they would sometimes talk and joke around while sharing a meal. On the rarer occasion that Allura happened to be in the kitchen, Lance would sling some sort of flirtatious line, knowing full well it would annoy her.
But this particular morning wasn’t like the rest. On this day, his rival sat at the table, quiet - as if he was anything but - but somehow still frustrating. Keith was always one step ahead of him as far as being a pilot, a paladin, a soldier, a….well, basically anything but being silly. The red paladin had been so upset that Lance couldn’t remember their “bonding moment” as he recalled it. Maybe one day he would admit he could remember it.
“Morning Mullet.” Lance grins with his devilish greeting before filling his plate with the goo he’d learned to appreciate.
“Good Morning, Lance.” He responds in his calmly irritated voice as he seems to try to hurry and finish the rest of his meal. Not looking in Lance’s direction, Keith waits for whatever annoying scheme Lance would come up with to bother him. But Lance doesn’t say anything.
Finally, Keith can’t take the unusual silence, so he looks up to see Lance standing over his plate of food, staring out one of the castle windows into the galaxy outside. Keith quickly looks to see what he’s looking at, but doesn’t spy anything out of the ordinary. So he squints his eyes and looks back to Lance curiously.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” Lance responds quietly before snapping out of his trance and turning to Keith with a smile. “Just not all the way awake yet, you know?” He sits down at the opposite end of the table and props his feet up as he eats. “Not all of us can be as perfect as you.”
