Two Wrongs (And A Right)

Chapter 1

Lance lay splayed out over his bed, lanky arms and skinny legs lazily thrown everywhere.

"You couldn't give us just a bit more sleeping time?" he asked the ceiling. It gave him no answer. That was an answer.

Grumbling, he rolled over and shoved his face into the pillow. Then his arm. Then his other arm.

When nothing would drown out the shrill alarm blaring in his ear ("Not the enemy alarm! That is different! A paladin should be able to tell the difference easily!" he could hear Allura telling him,) he kicked the blanket off of the bed and lay still.

Shiro's gonna have your ass if you don't get up, he thought, the voice sounding suspiciously like Keith.

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was green. Bright, bright green, staining the edge of his retinas. Stainless steel can still be stained.

True to form, Pidge kicked with all their might at Lance's door to open it.

"Time to get up, you stale bowl of cereal!" they yelled. Lance was mildly surprised they hadn't located two pans to bang together. "Coran needs help with castle repairs and I'm not getting stuck with all the work."

Lance sat up, only to flop back onto the bed once again melodramatically. "Pid pid, c'mon, you know I need my beauty sleep."

"You're up, you're talking, and I will kick you down the stairs if you call me that again. Get up or go drown in a bowl of milk!" They pulled at his arm and surprisingly, succeeded in moving him a few inches.

"Going with the breakfast theme today?"

"Get up or I'll go get Shiro!"

"I'd prefer the milk."

"Up!"

They departed with a hard punch to Lance's leg.

"Pidge!"

He did, however, push himself up. The alarm was drilling itself into his head and he didn't want to deal with that and Shiro's disappointed dad look together.

Lance pressed the panel on the wall opposite to his bed. The door slid open with a hiss, swinging back on seamless hinges.

He tugged off his nightshirt and grabbed the armor's undersuit, tossing it onto the bed before stepping out of his pants.

A few minutes later he stepped out of the room, wishing he had on his jeans instead so he had a place to bury his hands in. Crossing his arms made him look too serious and that was all he was not about. Serious was Keith's thing. He let his arms dangle awkwardly and started towards the control room.

A large majority of his peripheral vision was taking up by a storm of colors twisting together in a compressed circle. From this far away, everything was blended together, so they all swirled every which way. The way they mixed reminded Lance of a specific solar system they had gone through... god, how long ago? The system had been in a secluded area of space - it had only two planets and no close-by neighboring galaxies, but what it lacked in population, it made up in color. Pidge had immediately jumped on it. "The gases here, they interact to create all of this. There's at least twelve different types here, all swirling together to make a general aura. Different parts are denser than other, which are the ones that appear the brightest," Pidge had said, ever the scientist. The others expressed appreciation and watched a while, and then had gone back to work.

Lance had pressed his face up to one of the castle's windows and pretended that this universe had a personality of its own. It did, if you bothered to care.