Peeling Covers: Lance

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Lance blinks at the sight before him, ignoring the intrusive hands on him. He doesn't really feel Blue's calming presence in his mind either. It was blood. His hand was bleeding from where his nails on the other hand had sunk in deep enough to cut.

Lance hadn't even noticed. Taking the nails out, the five little cuts bleed quicker now, and almost instantly blood pools in his palms. Not one to panic at blood, the calm part of him reminds him that he'd always had thin blood and that it was shallow. Not that bad.

The rest of him though, was chaos.

I'm bleeding.

I hurt myself.

In front of the other paladins.

Swallowing back a sudden bout of nausea, Lance's knees bend to his chest as anxiousness hits him.

Oh lord.

Suddenly, there's a hand slapping his cheek gently but firmly. Lance looks to the culprit. Keith.

Keith doesn't say anything, just searches Lance's face. The latin boy was sweaty, as Keith could see up close. His jaw was slack and his eyes... were somehow hollow. Lance looked afraid, and it was a look Keith didn't know how to get off of him. So, the resident hothead pushes aside his nervousness with a practiced ease and scans Lance's face for any signs showing Lance was unable to control his muscles.

At the same time, the blue paladin doesn't know what Keith was looking at him so closely for. But Lance meets his gaze, somehow finding his intrusive stance but mellow presence comforting. And, he is surprised to see Keith looking... worried? In fact, Shiro was now standing behind Keith, looking at him with shock and focus.

As Shiro looked a bit intimidating from his angle, Lance looks back down, and then notices that he could feel large, warm hands pulling at his arms.

Hunk.

Lance notices his arms were still coiled around him, with his bloody hand at his chest; seeping and staining his shirt.

Lance loosens up his arms and hands for him and Hunk pulls Lance's hand to inspect it. His expression was oddly stern, with Pidge was handing him a white kitchen towel beside him.

"Lance?" Hunk asks gently, holding the towel down onto the injured hand and soaking up all the blood he could that hadn't overspilled. It doesn't even really hurt, but there was Pidge, still prodding gently at his nails; checking to see if any had cracked.

Some might have. With a force Lance hadn't meant to use.

Lance answers quietly, still denying he had done this to himself. In front of anyone. No-.

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?" Hunk asks, his warm brown eyes meeting his friends with nothing but concern and patience, to help. The look eases Lance's suddenly spiked nerves.

Hunk wouldn't press for anything right now. He was safe.

"I'm fine. Just didn't realize my nails were that sharp, haha. Didn't even feel it." Lance says truthfully to his lap, but trying to make a light joke. He feels hollow as he says it though, but hopes somewhere in his mind that'll it'll have the intended effect.

Hunk nods softly to his friend, still pressing on the towel. Lance keeps his gaze down and watches as the white towel gets tinted red at its center- Altean technology was pretty great. It kept towels clean, it could do the same to his clothes- they had spots of blood now.

A couple of minutes pass while Keith and Pidge get some bandages from the med bay. Lance's doesn't pay attention and keeps quiet as Hunk holds his hand still.