Chapter Text
Hunk was not having a good day.
He had spent all morning trying to get Pidge to move from her computer screen and eat something. It hadn’t worked.
Then he had spent well over four hours baking with weird space ingredients he couldn’t read the labels of, only to be told (by a confused Coran) that he was using powder for rashes. Why the hell was it in the kitchen cupboard then?
Oh and one more thing. His best friend had been sucked through a dark and suspicious wormhole and had been missing for four days, with not even a trace of his existence left behind.
So when Pidge had called through the castle comms saying she had found something Hunk had been ready to burst into tears right then and there.
He actually did burst into tears when Lance’s face, alive but not so well, had appeared on the screen.
Hunk couldn’t be happier that Lance was alive but watching his friend talk about all his injuries and his lack of food, water and warmth was not something Hunk liked to hear.
“Let’s watch the next one” Allura’s elegant accent brought Hunk out of his slump.
And for the third time, Lance’s face appeared on the screen.
“Hello, my paladin bretheren~”
Hunk couldn’t help but snort at Lance’s cheer.
“Day two of being on this planet, though I’m not really sure how time works here,” Lance contemplated his statement, “well it got dark, I slept and it got light again so I’d say it’s been one day now.”
Lance sighed, “Feels like it’s been forever. It’s really boring here. I haven’t come into contact with anything, not even a weird alien animal, also Blue’s still not responsive. I fixed her up a bit but I’m pretty sure the self reboot systems activated.”
Hunks could feel his heart squeeze thinking about how lonely Lance must have been in the four days he had been missing.
“But! I did find water, so one problem has been checked off! I’m still rationing the food but water isn’t an issue anymore.”
“I’ll cook all his favourites when he gets back!” Hunk said to the others in the room.
Shiro smiled, “It’s good he found water,”
Shiro’s sentence was cut off as the attention of the room was quickly brought back to the playing video as Lance sharply inhaled.
Lance tensed, hardly even breathing he was so still. His eyes moved sharply as his head tilted slightly towards the back of his Lion. It was almost as if his ears had perked up like he was prey listening for a predators attack.
No one in the room let out a sound as they waited in cold suspense for whatever Lance had zoned in on to make an appearance.
Hunk let out a silent prayer that it had been the wind but the unlikeliness of that possibility settled heavily in the bottom of his stomach.
Lance stayed in his unmoving position for several minutes before his shoulders loosened slightly and his eyes swung back to meet the camera.
In a voice, just a little over a whisper he said, “I swear I just heard a scream... It was probably too faint for the audio to catch… It didn’t sound human.” Lances voice dropped even lower, “Crap, I think somethings out their and I really don’t want to run into it,” his voice faded away.
Lance chewed on his lip before he gently clasped his hands together and looked back at the camera.
“Log #3 Signing off now. If this is the last video you know what got me,” Lance joked darkly with no real humour in his voice.
It sent shivers down Hunk’s spine.
“See you.”
“What the hell was that” Keith burst out as the video ended, looking towards Shiro for answers but quickly moving to Coran as he noticed Shiro was just as muddled as him.
“It could have been many things, Number 4.” Coran twisted his moustache. “Hopefully it will avoid Lance’s presence.”
That didn’t sound convincing.
“If we could hear it in the video I could have run a comparison search but there’s nothing in the audio file,” Pidge said.
Great, so they had no idea what Lance was stuck alone with.
Lance had already been injured enough, Hunk just hoped whatever had been out there didn’t make an appearance ever again.
“We must remember that Lance continued to make videos, Paladins,” Allura said moving to press on the next video.
Lance appeared on the screen.
“Holy crap!”
“What the hell happened!?’
Lance wheezed as he retracted his hand from the record button on his dashboard.
He looked about ten times worse than his last log.
The gash that had been on his forehead was now twice the size and blossoming in purple bruises, not only that there were at least three other suspiciously claw-like slashes going down Lances right cheek.
Hunk couldn’t see most of lances body because of the video being cut off at his chest and the underarmour suit but he was sure the injuries extended from his face all the way down.
The look of pure pain on Lance’s face was not helping the situation.
“I feel like I start every log like this but bad news guys.” Lances voice was breathy and weak.
“You remember that thing I heard earlier? Yeah well, I saw it as well. Even managed to touch it.” Lance winced before muttering, “well more like it touched me.”
“I'm ticking off all the senses here, next thing you know I’ll be smelling it.”
Lance’s small amount of energy seemed to run out as he rambled.
Hunk looked over, eyes meeting Pidge’s, neither said anything but there was a mutual understanding that they needed to get to Lance immediately. Lance had a tendency to ramble when he started to get overwhelmed and this had been a video from only day two of his four days alone.
“-my older sister always wanted to be a doctor, you know she would practice fake injuries on me when we were younger. When she got into medical school she actually showed me some stuff on dummies!”
Huh? How had Lance spiralled into talking about his sister? Hunk thought.
“Why’s he talking about his sister?” voiced Keith
“Good thing she did now I kind of know how to deal with this.”
Apparently, they were about to find out.
Lance lifted himself from the pilot seat twisting his torso slightly so his side would be in view of the camera. Sitting just below his ribs was a slash, only about the size of a pinky finger but obviously deep from the amount of blood that was coming from it.
The occupants of the room gasped at the sight. The wound was not unlike injuries the paladins had experienced before, with all their more than dangerous mission, but after all those missions they had stepped right into a pod and an hour later they were back to new, Lance didn’t have a pod.
“I have a first aid kit, I was looking through it earlier, can I just say thank god Shiro was responsible enough to think of putting these things in our lions.”
It really had been a smart move.
Lance cut away the already ripped underarmour around his injury. Using the ripped piece, he tried to clean the wound as best he could, wincing every time he pushed too hard.
Hunk felt sick. Lance shouldn’t have had to clean his own injury, he shouldn’t even be in the situation.
Lance rummaged through the box before he pulled out the needle and medical thread, even in pain Lance‘s hands were as steady as ever. His sister had always told him he would make a good doctor with his steady hands, apparently, that also applied to a sharpshooter.
As Lance tied off the end of the thread he took a breathe trying to recall everything his sister had showed him before he started to stitch his wound.
The paladins watched as Lance stitched the cut, wincing every time his face scrunched in pain, bit down on his lip and sharply inhaled.
“Did you know Lance could do that?“ Shiro asked Hunk.
“I knew his sister was studying to be a doctor but he never said anything about knowing things himself.”
“He’s doing a good job,” Keith said awe in his voice.
He was right, Hunk looked back at the screen, Lance was doing an amazing job. Usually, when Lance got injured he would complain and lay around all day, but looking at the Lance on-screen Hunk could barely recognise him. This was a side of Lance they had never seen before.
Hunk noted that he would have to tell Lance how cool he looked the next time he saw him.
Hunk looked over at Pidge, she hadn’t stopped typing away at her computer the whole time. She had a frustrated look on her face but she wasn’t as tense as she had been for the last few days.
Hunk hoped that meant she was getting closer to locking on Lances location.
Lance tied off the end of the thread finally letting his shoulders relax as he slumped back in his chair. Sloppily he moved to bandage his side.
“If this gets infected I swear I’ll cry.” he huffed.
“That’s it for this one, Pidge, you better find these. I’m not spending the rest of my life alone with a wild beast that doesn’t know how to play nice.”
Hunk faintly heard Pidge whisper, “I will.”
“Ending Log #4.” The video closed with Lances pale and tired face in a small smile.
The Voltron team had been holding tight onto the fact that there were videos from all four days but Hunk knew that didn’t mean Lance was okay. Lance was alone on a planet surrounded by forest and apparently, beasts, not even his lion was responding. Lance’s Logs were his only option and probably the only thing keeping him going.
Hunk wondered if he could be as strong as Lance if he was in the same situation.