Peeling Covers: Lance

04. Break and Gain

Walking into the kitchen, Lance confidently continues his story while being followed by Hunk, Pidge, and Keith. His feelings of insecurity and thoughts about his life, himself, the team - the overall silence that occurs almost everyday and seeped into this morning - were currently out of mind, exchanged for enthusiasm in lieu of making the story of his first ballet class interesting.

"- And I was the only boy in class!" Lance adds on, glancing to see how much attention Hunk and Pidge are still giving his retelling deserved. At the moment, they both looked to be listening intently.

Which is great, Lance had worried for a moment that they wouldn't be as interested in the story after they split to quickly shower and change out of their armor.

"Just imagine: A room full of very talented and bendy girls, and then young me in ballet shoes, surrounded. I couldn't even touch my toes that day."

"Hmm." Hunk hums, wordlessly saying 'go on'. Lance obliges, happily.

"My instructor Samuel had to pull me aside and walk me through all the ballet positions and stretches we would do in class; stretching young me's body specifically because it was my first time attending a class-" Lance pauses, shuddering partially for affect and partially due to the memory as he leads them into the kitchen while walking backwards.

"He treated my muscles as if they were taffy." Hunk smiles at him while Pidge raises a knowing brow as if to say 'Yeah, you just said it was a ballet class. What did you expect him to do?'.

Reaching the kitchen, Lance spins around and opens the cupboard, passing three plates and pieces of silverware (just spoons, they were the only utensils needed for food goo) out with renewed energy from the shower. Lance hoped to get settled quickly to tell the story with everyone still present.

"How old were you?" Hunk asks, taking a dish and spoon for himself from the stack and handing two off to Pidge. Pidge takes her own set and passes the bottom dish and last spoon to Keith, who accepts it with ears focused on Lance's answer.

"Twelve. Which, let me tell you," Lance adds on the way to the food goo dispenser on the wall, "Is late to the game for an art like ballet."

"Twelve is pretty young though, isn't it?" Keith asks, just to interact since it seemed like Lance was talkative and in a mood that meant he probably wouldn't mind Keith asking questions.

Lance turns, raises a hand to his mouth, and looks flabbergasted. He shakes his head, saying, "Not for ballet, no." Then Lance considers Keith's expression and concludes Keith wasn't saying that with any particular motives in mind.

"Well, fine arts especially, it can take years of practice to learn the basics. So many start early early, like preschool age." Lance explains, proving Keith's thought that Lance would be talking a lot today is correct.

Keith lets the response process, picturing little kids in tutus and ballet shoes with little Lance as one of them. 'Huh.' No wonder Lance was light on his feet. If he's been dancing, which seems like a very hard thing to Keith (whose total dance knowledge consisted of how to sway and step side-to-side on beat), that would explain Lance's ability to read and anticipate other people's movements.

Keith is still assimilating the pieces of knowledge about Lance from the Garrison that Hunk and Pidge shared in the panel room to the Lance Keith knows now .

Lance sees Keith digest that, expression serious, and suspects Keith probably doesn't know a lot about social atmospheres (their re-meeting in the desert confirmed that), or anything really 'out of the ordinary' like ballet given what Lance now knows about Keith's home life. Thus, Lance wanted to tread gently when he could.