Know your place and stay there.
Journal
Date: July 3rd Why am I even keeping track of the dates? Does it matter...really?
Of course I accepted Keith as the leader. What else was I supposed to do? Everyone keeps saying how proud they were of me for stepping back and allowing Keith to be the leader. But if I can’t pilot the black lion then there really isn’t an argument. I wasn’t meant to be the leader and we all know why.
So, despite me knowing that training is totally Keith’s thing, I decided it’s my turn. I waited until everyone was asleep and I trained… hard . Sure, I’m not Keith or Shiro yet but if I keep it up I might get there.
And I’m not really wanting to be as good as either of them. I just want to be good enough. Realistic expectations and all that, right?
Mama always said to hope big, dream high and pass the sky. My hopes were to get into the garrison. I did that. My dream was to be a pilot. Bingo, got that too. And, well, I’m pass the sky now.
But now I don’t want to be pass the sky. I want to be on the ground. On my ground.
Knock knock
Lance stops writing and gets up to answer the door. It has almost become ritual now. He opens the door and meets Keith’s gaze. Keith looks tired too. And, obviously with good reason. Today has been trying, to say the least.
He enters Lance’s room and says nothing. Lance knows better than to ask him anything nowadays. Instead, he just sits down beside him and starts to tell stories. Somehow, they have started to help both of them.
“There was this one time,” Lance starts as he leans back on his arms, looking toward the ceiling. “When I was...probably seven or eight, that I thought I would be a show off and try swimming all the way out to Miami beach.” He looks over to see Keith give him an ‘are you serious’ expression. “No, really. I thought I was gonna be the coolest kid ever. It wasn’t that far right?”
“You weren’t the brightest kid were you?”
“I’m not the brightest now, what do you expect?” Lance laughs again then waves his hand. “Anyway, after a few miles, I realized this was a horrible idea. So I turned back around, already tired, and figured I could make it back.” He scratches his shoulder. “And I did. I made it back to the beach, believe it or not. But I was so tired, I actually fell asleep in the sand.”
“That’s still pretty impressive for a kid you know.” Keith has relaxed back against the wall. He was curious where this story was going but didn’t show it.
Lance decided he would sit back the same way. “Well, my house was always so loud that they didn’t even realize I had been gone that long.” He stops and waves his hands. “I mean, I was gone for hours pretty regularly just playing outside, but this was like...half a day.” Lance smiles when Keith seems to have an epiphany.
“That’s why you’re so obnoxious.” He teases.
“No, that’s absolutely it.” Lance responds seriously. “You try growing up in a houseful of ten to twelve people at any given time and be quiet. I guarantee it won’t end well. We all got used to it. Multiple conversations going on at once, talking over another conversation so you can input on another. You have to be loud.”
“Oh.” Keith looks surprised. “I guess that makes sense.”
“Aaaanyway,” Lance starts again, “one of the neighbors found me covered in sand, still sleeping on the beach and wrapped me in a towel to bring me home. Mama was so worried until I told her what I tried to do. Then she just yelled at me saying,” Lance does his best to impersonate his mother, speaking in a thick, Spanish accent. “What were you thinking? If you want a vacation, you have to earn it! And at least take a rowboat!” Then he laughs again before sighing.
“So what was the point of that story exactly?” Keith looks over to Lance, watching him smile one of those different smiles and finds his heart skip a beat. At the start of this journey, Lance had been the most aggravating, self-centered jerk he’d met. But, over time, Keith has come to realize that wasn’t the case. He always goes out of his way to check on the others, help give a smile when he can or listen when someone needs an ear. Even if it’s just as small as helping Hunk try to cook some weird new meal or getting Pidge the tool she needs. Keith had to admit, it hadn’t taken all that long to question whether Lance really was as self centered as he pretended to be. Saving Corran had shown it couldn’t that black and white.
“The point is,” Lance yawns then stretches. “Sometimes we know what we want, but have to have others there to lead us to do it the right way.”
“But I don’t want to be the leader.”
“But you do want to help people. And you want to keep the team together, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, you might not want to lead, but obviously, out of all of us, you are best suited.” Lance looks over at Keith and smiles. “You might not want to hear it, but I think you’ll do great.” He watches as Keith rolls his eyes.
“Yeah, did great. Sure.” Keith’s voice is dripping with sarcasm.
“Hey, I’m fairly sure we can all say today was not our best day. It wasn’t just you.”
Keith nods but doesn’t say much else. The sign that he’s getting tired, the typically quiet man grows even more quiet. Knowing this, Lance decides he won’t talk anymore, rather, he will grab his headphones and just...sit. After an hour goes by, Lance looks over to see that Keith has fallen asleep, sitting up against the wall. Worried about Keith falling over and hitting his head, Lance is careful to lay him down before grabbing a spare pillow and blanket.
Reason #9 - Late night talks with Keith
