TREES | klance ✔︎

08 | lance

edited.

it wasn't common that the household was quiet.

either one of his sisters was screaming about a lost hair products, a brother was shouting random bets about sports teams, parents were fighting, and a dog was barking due to one or the other. it didnt make his head hurt like it should, he was used to this.

when he wanted the quietness, he would come to the forest. he'd bring a notebook and his favorite pencil. during that time, he was in middle school; the treehouse only had a floor and a stair ladder. tiny thirteen year old lance would dangle his scabbed, no-hair legs on the treehouse floor. the sun would be setting as soon as he got comfortable. his notebook and pencil assisted him as he jotted down random words and sayings, random poems he made up. one time he was so angry at how loud his family was that he pierced through three pages writing so deeply onto the paper about how much he despised his parents and siblings.

everyone hates their family sometimes.

lances unhappiness started to grow that year. although writing was helping, he had no one else but that notebook. he lost motivation in everything else. he realized, overhearing a bunch of materialistically spoiled kids in school, not everyone hates their family. kids talked about the shit their parents brought home from their anniversary vacations, or business trips - talked about how their nannies brought them to the coolest amusement parks when their parents attended meetings. what their parents cooked. never about how they argued. or how their siblings fighting scared them so bad they were starting to think someone may get killed.

lances family was different, but there had to be someone out there with the same dynamic.

hunk and pidge had to transfer to his middle school when their other school district got too far to travel. they all met on their first day. lance met pidge in the cafeteria when she was trying to code a mini trash can robot in the corner alone. then they met hunk in the library after school. he had gotten lost, he was huddled in between shelves, crying and munching on a peanut butter granola bar. they all became one after that. but that sense of loneliness and despair still made itself cozy in a dusty corner of his chest.

he didnt know what pulled him to keith even after all these years. he was as average as they come (minus the motorbike obsession, never not coming to school with bruised knuckles, and being a annoyingly depressing lone wolf to the point where lance wanted to also have that mysteriously confident visible aura). he just didnt know what it was. everyone knew shiro even before keith adopted into his family. shiro was an all-rounded sweet guy. he welcomed anyone into his friend circle no matter who it was. the girls and guys that found him so charming wanted to be him or be with him, but he only wanted a friendship in exchange of his kindness. people were drawn by his generosity, and lance was a victim as well. 

except, shiro wasn't faking it. and when he befriended lance, he wanted to almost father him. lance was this kid with ideas brighter than any planet and knees with band aids on them, and all shiro wanted was to be the older brother he never got to be. keith stole the spotlight not long after. lance felt intimidated, so incredibly jealous that the palms of his hands would have crescent nail marks anyone shiro would talk about him. 

seeing keith for the first time at school was like how it felt to see elsa reveal her dress in the second frozen, when she figures out the voice calling her was her mother. he was unlike what he expected. this cold exterior made him seem like a rabid animal stuck in a cage for it's whole life. perhaps that's how he felt too. lance observed this highly talked about individual, waiting to see the greatness. he lost track of his curiosity when he tried to make friends with keith.

he tried to get keith to notice him throughout these times. through the rest of of middle school, and now in high school. now that they're seniors, lance is almost confident he has to force himself to leave his comfort zone of being confident just for keiths attention. so far it was worth it.