Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
― Bruce Lee

'Wha-? You're a girl?' Lance yells. He is dumbfounded, needless to say.

His friends - the people Lance needs to trust if any of them wish to live to see the end of this war alive - are not as perturbed.

Pidge is a girl. She has been this whole time.

There’s a swell in the tide. The waves reach up high. Lance can feel it when Keith teases him about his obliviousness. Another swell of mixed emotions surge up to grab at Lance. How can everyone just accept this revelation?

'How?' He yells. He doesn’t bother to keep his surprise (and slight outrage [directed mostly at himself]) from bleeding into his tone.

It’s not just - there's so much more going on in that phrase then Lance is letting on. Sometimes he just gets swept away in the moment. Feelings and thoughts were getting a little overwhelming, but not in a dangerous way. Just. Overwhelming. All he can manage to think is -

'It was my fault,' Lance says, back straight, feet shoulder width apart, and hands behind his back in parade rest. 'Pidge tried to warn me that something was interfering with our sensors.'

It’s a classic simulation exercise and an easily solvable one to boot.

This particular day was an evaluation day, so the stakes were a little higher than usual, but the scenario would have to be something they've seen before. Honestly, it should be an easy pass. The way the program designed this evaluation is simple. The scenario was going to be randomized so that even the instructors didn't know what the cadets would be dealing with until or unless the cadets found the problem and fixed it. That last detail is what Lance needs to take advantage of right now. Otherwise this on-the-fly plan isn’t going to work.

'I didn't listen to my technician and continued to fly. I ordered him to fix the problem and he did. So the sensors got shut down.' Lance didn't believe a word coming out of his own mouth. 'Which meant I was flying blind which meant I was going to crash...' Lance's confidant tone petered off into something meeker. He couldn’t help it. Not with Iverson suddenly all up in his face.

Iverson, a man built like a tank, isn’t above trying to intimidate Lance, a teen who has been affectionately and less affectionately been described as a 'bean pole', in that manner. The temptation to step back and give in is like water pressed hard against a creaking dam. Lance grits his teeth and hold his ground defiantly.

'Do you know why you’re here cadet?'

An obvious rhetorical that Lance isn’t going to give Iverson the benefit of a reaction.

'One of the finest fighter pilots the garrison has ever seen had left a spot open for someone else to take. You,' Iverson emphasised the word with obvious disgust. 'Are his replacement. Don’t think for a second that we won’t replace you if we see another evaluation like that again, cargo pilot.'

Lance has been called a lot of things throughout his life. Mostly family members who get bored of calling Lance by his given name and start messing with the sounds until Lance has learned to respond to nicknames that don’t even remotely sound like his name. So what has happened is that Lance is very quick to respond to anything that’s directed at him. Upon meeting Iverson, he figured out very quickly that he shouldn’t be so reflexive when the nicknames get derogatory. Unlearning that reflex is a lot harder than you think.

Lance just stares Iverson down. If he’s expecting an apology out of Lance, he’s going to be sorely disappointed. The dam creaks again but it does not give.

'Dismissed.' Iverson spits with finality.

With that Lance turns on his heel and leaves. He doesn’t need to look over his shoulder to see if his teammates follow him, they make their presence known by moving up next to Lance on either side.

'What the hell was that?' Pidge demands in a hushed tone. He knows better than anyone that the walls have ears and Lance doesn’t blame his caution.

'You’re just going to let that slide?'

'Yes. What choice do I have?'

'I don't know, maybe tell our Instructors we were sabotaged?' Pidge says with an exasperated tone like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

It’s true. Someone had taken control of the flight sim from the outside. The controls in front of them were rendered useless as they watched the sim go from bad to worse to catastrophic. Lance suspected something was up. The timing was barely a tenth of a second off at takeoff and Lance noticed. With his back to the monitoring cameras and their view of what he was doing with his hands hidden away, Lance was able to confirm his suspicions going so far as to try a weapons discharge and failing. Pidge and Hunk caught on too when Lance uncharacteristically cut Pidge off before he could get a word in edgewise. He was stalling until the sim crashed and then took the blame for it.

He didn’t give Iverson the benefit of getting a rise out of him and he won’t give those other cadets the satisfaction either.

'If you haven't noticed Pidge,' Lance says Pidge's name with a little more bite than he intends. 'I have a reputation with the Instructors. I'm not exactly known as the best pilot in the program.  I know now for sure some cadets think so as well. If what happened back there is any indication. I'm pretty sure most people are convinced I'm the worst.'

'That's not true,' Hunk says from Lance's other side.

'Doesn't matter,' Lance says. 'What are you going to believe if you were Iverson? That I screwed up or that we were sabotaged by some other cadet with a sadistic sense of humour?'

'Why don't you take it to Captain Fokker then?' Pidge suggests.

Captain Fokker is a well-liked fighter pilot instructor at the Garrison. He'll readily lend his ear to any cadet that needs it. But he doesn’t hold much sway among other instructors.

'Or Commander Hayes?' Hunk says evenly.

She'd be the better choice. As the Program Overseer, she can overrule other instructors, and launch an investigation.

'I wouldn't get to her in time,' Lance halts suddenly, having realized they've reached their quarters far more quickly than he remembers them moving. 'We hardly ever see her anyways. Chances are Iverson would get to her before I do.'

'We,' Pidge corrects.

Lance raises an eyebrow at that. It’s the first time he's ever acknowledged that he was part of their squad. Then again, he has a stake in it this time.

'Besides,' Lance sighs. 'Commander Hayes doesn't like fighter pilots.'

That's only a half truth. Her animosity towards fighter pilots is playful banter at worst. If anything, she's the most fair out of all the instructors. His teammates don't comment further. Lance knows they came to the same conclusion he has.

'Is it really not worth defending your worth as a fighter pilot?' Pidge probes.

Lance looks him in the eye. Lance has seen that look before. It's that crease between his eyebrows that shows up when he's sitting on his own staring at a tablet with news articles or when he's working on his personal project. Whatever that is. Pidge has never offered what he does in his spare time so Lance doesn't ask. Hunk usually beats him to it. All instances of doing so have been met with flat rejection.

Now here he was, giving Lance that exact same look. Like Lance is a puzzle that he wants to solve.

'I don't think it's best to draw any more attention to ourselves,' Lance responds. 'We shouldn't make more enemies than necessary.'

Pidge's eyes go wide. So he wasn't expecting that kind of response out of Lance. He supposes he shouldn't blame Pidge. Lance is the guy who fits the 'class clown' stereotype to a tee. Y'know, the opposite of not making a fuss.

'Oh,' Pidge says. 'That's... smart.' Pidge's shoulders drop just ever so slightly.

It's such a small thing but Lance wonders if he's ever seen Pidge relax before. The answer is a quick no. The idea of attending the Galaxy Garrison is to be impressive enough to stand out, but Pidge has been coasting through the semester without so much as batting an eye and he keeps his personal projects under wraps. He is approving of Lance letting this slide under the radar. Interesting.

Then again. Lance understands Pidges desire to keep a low profile.

'I'll uh, see you later.' Pidge leaves without saying much more.

Hunk and Lance enter their quarters in mutual silence. Lance toes off his boots and collapses onto his bed. He lets out a low groan while rubbing his hands down his face.

Another moment passes.

'Are you okay?' Hunk asks.

'Yeah,' Lance props himself up on his elbows to look across the room at his friend. 'Why?'

'Iverson said all that stuff about you being a replacement...'

For Keith.

'And he called you a, er...'

Cargo pilot.

'And then you were just...'

Shutting down.

Hunk nervously fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt. He isn't looking at Lance and Lance has his lips pursed. When Hunk looks back up, Lance smooths his expression out into something more pleasant.

'It's no big deal,' Lance does a one shouldered shrug.

'I think it's kinda a big deal, dude,' Hunk says flatly. 'It's unprofessional of Iverson. And it's not fair to you.'

It's not fair to Keith either, Lance thinks. It's not fair to him or to Keith.

Lance trusts Hunk. So he heaves a sigh and drops back down onto the flat mattress. He throws an arm over his eyes and says a barely audible, 'no its not.'

Lance trusts Hunk a lot. It’s a good thing for a lot of reasons and right now that means Hunk knows not to press the issue further but the company is appreciated. Having Hunk to count on has made a bigger difference than Lance initially anticipated. It doesn’t make the next bit any easier. He needs a moment. He breathes in deep through his nose and lets it out through his mouth, counting to ten when he does. He needs to sort some crap out in himself if he’s going to be dealing with Iverson again.

He tries his best to let go of his anger at the injustice and biases set against him. He can’t solve the problem, but at least he can ease off on the pressure that’s been building up inside.

Goddamnit, Lance is beginning to really hate Iverson.

He eases the floodgates of the dam open.

It's none of Iverson's business that Keith dropped out, and he shouldn't make it out like it's Lance's fault that he did. Iverson keeps projecting this awful assumption on Lance and Lance hates it because he knows the truth. Or at least part of it. Better than Iverson anyways.

Keith was giving off vibes like he was going to drop out in the first semester despite flawless flight sim scores. It’s like his heart wasn’t in it. No, his heart definitely wasn’t in it. Then something changed. In second semester Keith was giving it his all in every course they were taking. Iverson teaches the first year pilots in second semester. He’s got this idea in his head that Keith's turnaround in motivation and effort had something to do with him. But that's wrong. Lance knows that's wrong because Keith was doing better before the end of first semester. Otherwise he would have dropped out and never taken second semester to begin with. Something changed. He was sitting up straighter in classes and actually listening to instructors instead of shrugging every single person off. Something changed and it had nothing to do with Iverson.

Except Iverson thinks it does and now he's taking it as a personal offense that his star pupil had dropped out and was left to work with Lance instead.

The whole situation is messed up and it’s not fair to him. Or Keith. It’s not fair. It’s not fair! That's -

'Not fair!' Keith shouts over his shoulder as he jogs to retrieve the ball.

Lance is convinced there must be an easier way to do that. Retrieve the ball. That last maneuver has Lance return the volley without actually touching the ball with the paddle. Some flick of the wrist motion that activated a magnetic (or maybe even gravitational) field that interacted with the ball in such a forceful way the ball launched across the table and further still across the room before either of them could blink. So maybe there was a way to use the same technology to retrieve the ball too. Keith had stood there, mouth agape, and his own paddle hanging loosely from his grip. Lance is not sure if it was the strange maneuver or the speed in which the ball was launched across the room that caused that. Probably the former, knowing Keith's reflexes.

'Yes it is!' Lance yells back.

'No, it's not!' Keith smartly counters. He has the ball in his hand now and casually bounces the ball a few times on his paddle.

'Yuh-huh!'

'Nuh-uh!'

Keith is back on his side of the table.

There's no actual net on the table. So Lance improvised with some scrap panelling that was probably originally intended for the walls of the castle. The dimensions of the scrap was oddly convenient. A narrow strip just tall enough that it wouldn't impede gameplay too much. Getting it to stand was another task altogether. One that Hunk fixed with duct tape. Space duct tape.

'It's not,' Keith huffs. He bounces the ball on the table a few times too for good measure. He's in perfect control of it. Lance admires how quickly Keith had picked up on table tennis. The improve space table tennis has only been a thing for like, a few hours. Lance needed a victim to use his 'crazy awesome tennis skillz with a z' against and Keith was quick to take that bait.

'Well,' Lance says, 'I never ruled it out,' this is true. 'So it counts,' this is debatable. Lance actually agrees with Keith on this one but doesn't say so.

'Lance,' Keith shots him a look, visibly frustrated now. 'You- you never told me- ugh! Just-'

Oh. Too far. The reaction hits Lance like a wet slap. That's his cue to pull back.

'Okay,' Lance says gently to grab Keith's attention. 'Er, you're right. That wasn't fair of me. We won't count it.' Even though counting it would have tied Lance's score with Keith's, but that's not what this is about.

'Okay,' Keith says. It’s a little on the stiff side though.

Lance can't have that.

'Er, I'll try not to use the magic space paddle trick again,' Lance lands some emphasis on the word 'try'.

'Try?' Keith asks suspiciously.

'No promises though,' Lance waves his free hand out toward Keith. 'I actually didn't know they could do that until just now so I'm not sure how good I'll be at not doing it again. I- Don't look at me like that! These magic space paddles are weird and I'm only just finding that out now!' Lance hold up his paddle between thumb and forefinger with both hands like that would prove his point.

Keith's face screws up as he struggles between being confused, or annoyed. Keith gives up and passes the ball the Lance.

'Wait, is it mine or yours?'

'I don't know?'

'Look how good we are at this!'

Keith snorts and huffs out a laugh.

There, that's more like it.

They start up another volley. There's a satisfying, rhythmic tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap as the ball bounces back and forth between the two boys. The game continues like that for a good few minutes until Lance says, 'You should know, I'm the table tennis champion back home. There's no way you're going to win.'

'Oh, please,' Keith says. 'I only need one more point to win.'

'I've been going easy on you,' Lance says.

Lance doesn't know how he does it, but Keith somehow rolls his eyes will still hitting the ball at the same time.

'It's true!'

'Oh yeah?' Keith challenges.

'Yeah,' Lance tips his chin up and says. 'Watch this.'

Lance makes the ball go wide. Keith lunges and hits the ball with more force than necessary.

'Ho shit!'

The ball goes off on the opposite side of Lance so he makes a dive for it. Except not really. Lance pitches forward. There's a loud thwack! The ground is rushing up to meet him. He twists. He doesn't land a good footing. Oh, look. It’s a nice view of the ceiling.

Only his right ass cheek hurts and Lance is a little mad about that. He lets that feeling pass while he lays down flat on the floor. He turns his head and sees the ball comfortably rolling across the floor next to him.

Lance giggles. Then he’s chuckling. Then he’s laughing. The kind of full bellied laughing that makes your gut ache and occasionally snort really attractively. The waves roll over him easy. Energetic but not sweeping him away.

'Erm, Lance?' Keith is standing over him now. 'Are you okay?'

Lance reaches a hand out toward Keith, who unthinkingly takes it and hoists Lance back up to his feet.

'Yeah, dude, that was hilarious,' Lance dusts himself off. Keith is still giving him a look. 'Dude, come on, I tell you to "watch this" and then immediately eat shit. I mean, after all my hype and build up? That's funny.'

'You don’t care that you lost?' Keith asks.

'No dude that was too much fun.'

'Yeah,' Keith breaks out into a smile. 'That was fun.'

'Dude, you picked up on table tennis so quick. I need you to stop being good,' Lance jokes.

There’s a beat.

'My ass hurts now,' Lance whines.

'Whose fault was that?' Keith throws his arms up in the air. He shakes his head and turns to retrieve the stray ball and forgotten paddles.

'Next time I'm gonna totally kick your ass,' Lance goads.

'Next time?' The way Keith’s voice lilts up gives away how excited he actually is at the prospect of a next time.

'Yeah dude,' Lance says. 'I was going easy on you today.'

'Sure you were, mister "watch this",' Keith laughs. 'Maybe next time when you're thinking about sucking, how 'bout you just. Y'know. Don't.'

'Yeah, thanks for the advice,' Lance says in a mock tone where he stuffs his voice in his nose.

It’s all in good spirits. Keith knows this now.

Keith was the one who approached Lance with this table tennis competition after all. (Would you believe that?)

Or, stars had aligned in a certain way, and Keith was the one to finally ask to try out the game. Lance had built the mock table after finding the ball and paddles. He was about ready to call it a day and move on to do something marginally more productive until Keith wandered in and asked him what he was doing. Lance explained, which lead to Keith admitting he never played, which lead to Lance teaching Keith how to play, which lead to Keith issuing the challenge.

The word 'rival' was not mentioned once. (Could you believe that?) The whole rival crap was a fake ruse Lance had made up anyways. It was just a thing he had said early on but Keith had reacted so violently that Lance noticed and then they both got hung up on the concept and never really let go. They still haven’t let go. They just go about it differently now. Less misunderstood intent and misplaced malice.

It had taken them a few tries to get to this point. Keith is his own way and Lance his. Their relationship has a tendency to spawn a lot of miss steps. It was well worth the work in Lance's opinion.

Learning the right way to insult each other was actually the easy bit. Keith is blunt about things that upset him. Maybe the words come out not quite right but his meaning is still there. Keith is very emotive in other ways and Lance works well with that. The boundaries for ‘things that are okay to bully your friends about’ between them was very clear, very early.

It makes Lance so happy that they manage to jive so well now. There’s a swell of happiness in Lance that reminds him of that giddy feeling as  kid when he played with the tide on the beach. That tiny thrill when you just barely manage to outrun the incoming tide, only to chase it right back out again. He likes that he can be that way with Keith. That he can be so-

Star struck.

Lance is just so unbearably star struck.

It’s so bad that he feels like he has to deflect his nervous energy by flirting with the alien princess. If he can focus on that, then he can hold it together enough to not be reduced to a stupid, stuttering mess in front of everyone.

It’s a training exercise. He barely pays any attention. It’s a repeat of an exercise they’ve already done. The invisible maze one. So lance takes the opportunity to sort himself out.

Lance figured out pretty quick that he has to deal with this. It’s a pretty big must actually. Putting people on pedestals is not a good way to start a relationship. It’s definitely not an ideal foundation to build a team on. There are certain feelings that need to be set aside.

So lance just. Let’s himself feel.

It’s like throwing yourself into white water rapids. There’s no point in trying to fight the rushing water. The best you can do is keep your head above water and hope you hold out long enough until the river spits you out calmer, more manageable channels. The other option is to resist and drown.

Lance will not drown.

'It’s imperative that you learn to trust in your bond to your fellow paladins,' the princess' voice cuts through Lance’s thoughts. 'This exercise is designed to help draw you closer to each other.'

'I wouldn’t mind being drawn closer to you princess,' Lance says on a reflex. He's already mentally berating himself before he even got halfway through his line. 'I think I can trust in our bond already.' He nods in the princess' direction.

Dumb. That was dumb. The rest of his team thinks so too.

It’s that dumb deflecting he’s doing again. He’s ignoring the white waters.

The princess looks cross with Lance and rightfully so.

'Good,' she says pointedly. 'In that case, you’re up first.'

She purposely mistook Lances phrasing to mean “our” as in Lance and the team and not “our” as in Lance and the princess. So now he's top of the princess' shit list and first up on the chopping block.

Welp. To be fair. He kinda had that coming.

'Keith,' the princess addresses the younger paladin. 'You will be instructing Lance through the maze.'

Lance sucks in some air through his teeth. Keith is excellent at following orders. He’s not built for making them. It doesn’t help that they don’t understand each other.

Keith's baseline treatment of people is to shut them out immediately. Lance's knee-jerk reaction to that was to try and get a rise out of Keith any way he could. It was the wrong approach. Now Keith is under the impression that Lance hates him (this isn’t true in the slightest) and Lance keeps reacting badly because something in him jumps the gun and another stupid comment comes out of his mouth. The whole 'rivals' thing was a mistake and he can’t seem to let go because it’s the only way he knows to get Keith to talk back to him.

It’s obvious to everyone that they need to work on that. The princess seems determined to stomp that out of them herself.

Hunk gives Lance a good luck pat on the shoulder before moving off to the side with Pidge who says nothing to anyone. Pidge. Ever since they left Earth it’s like Pidge has his back even less. Lance sets that observation aside for later.

Right now, Lance is nervous. He glances at Keith who watches him with an uncertain wariness that makes Lances gut twist. It’s not like he doesn’t want to try and make this work. That’s not it.

The real problem Lance wants to address at the moment something else entirely.

Space has made such a mess of Lance.

Lance glances over to the root of his troubles right now. Shiro watches them from Allura's right hand side. That was a mistake. Now Lance can keenly feel the eyes on him. There's a nervous energy that washes over Lance. Ever sat under a waterfall? It’s like the water is trying to drill into your body and the force is unrelenting.

He honestly hasn't felt it this bad since his early days at the Garrison. That burning need to prove his worth. That drive to prove himself. It doesn't help that it's being compounded by the fact that he literally needs to prove himself with the whole magical space robot dealio they've got going on.

Lance shakes his head, stubbornly willing himself to pull it together long enough to get through the exercise. There's a small hope that this might not go as badly as last time.

It goes as badly as last time.

At least Lance thinks so for himself. In what he's now learning to be typical Allura fashion, the training gets more strenuous as the day wears on. Lance takes a few extra moments to himself in the showers. No one seems to be bothered that he does that in the castle. Basically, as soon as Allura is done with the paladins she's done with the paladins. It hands the paladin a lot of free time. Weirdly enough, that was almost just as difficult to get used to as all the other space magic bullcrap. Lance had acclimated to the restrictive time table the Garrison put out, and in defiance of that, Lance was comfortable enough with his surroundings to find things to do that were definitely not on the time table. The castle is too foreign. He's gonna need to find a way to make the place his own.

Who knows, maybe he has time to start up his self-care skin routine up again. He'd just need to get a collection started. There's got to something he could use. The castle would need resources. If they make a supply run, that could be a chance to ask for a few luxury items...

Whatever. Lance can't do much about that now. At least it's something to think about and look out for.

Lance strolls to what is unspokenly agreed on to be the common room. There he finds Shiro - Of course it's Shiro - lounging on one of those curved couches. For a second Lance is undecided about what he wants to do. Then something catches his eye.

There's a worry wrinkle between Shiro's eyebrows. For a brief moment Lance panics. He knows Shiro came back to Earth with more baggage than a passenger plane flying international and Lance is too poorly equipped to handle that. Then Lance takes another look. There’s a sudden familiarity about the scene set before him.

Shiro has a tablet in one hand and a pen hanging loosely from between his teeth. He hesitantly brings the pen from his mouth to the tablet, writing something down before immediately scribbling it out. Lance knows that look. It's the 'I totally understood this concept in class that happened like thirty seconds ago but now that I’m doing homework it might as well be written in Greek' look. It's a feeling he's intimately familiar with.

'I can't remember,' Shiro begins slowly. He hasn't looked up at all but knows he's not alone. 'The Drake equation.'

For a hot second there Lance is reeling. The what now? The goddamn Drake equation??

'I remember there being like, five f's in the equation,' Shiro continues to muse.

'There are four f's, actually,' Lance corrects.

'You remember what each of them are for?' Shiro looks up to meet Lance's eyes. There isn't a hint of scepticism in that question. Just genuine curiosity.

Curiosity. The driving force of human ingenuity. The life blood of the space program. Shiro is just curious.

Gone are the white waters.

'Yeah dude,' Lance easily slides in next to Shiro. For a second, he forgets the white waters.

He sets the tablet on the coffee table and hands Lance the pen. He scribbles down the formula but not without noticing the notes Shiro has down. It has more question marks than Lance would have ever guessed.

'Can you remind me what that variable is for?'

Shiro's question almost startles Lance out of his seat.

After a few more prodding questions, Lance ends up giving Shiro a complete rundown of what the whole equation represents. He's a little surprised how much he recalls. The Drake equation was presented to him in first semester, and wasn’t really expanded upon beyond the basics of the theory. (‘Alright cadets, this is the theory. It exists. Any questions? Moving on.’)

Shiro was always praised for his exceptional flying skills. It made it so easy for Lance to get swept away in all the hero worship everyone used to do. Until. Well.

Its honestly eye opening experience. Lance is reminded that Shiro was barely a graduate when he left earth. Kerberos was more a laboratory with rockets strapped to it than an actual space ship. Following in the traditions of NASA, Shiro wasn’t just a pilot, he doubled as researcher.

Up until this point, Lance had been so star struck by Shiro the Pilot. But this Shiro? Shiro the Fresh Garrison Graduate? It's very humanizing. Almost nostalgic.

The water is calmer here.

He reminds Lance of the days when he’d just shoot the shit with the other people in his program. Half the time they’d end up talking about lecture topics. They’d allow themselves to explore the nuances of theories and concepts at their leisure. No pressure from instructors to give decisive and clear answers. Honestly? That helped Lance through exams more than actual studying.

'Shiro, I'm impressed,' Lance says. 'Even stuck in space, you still find time to think about stuff like this.'

'I figured,' Shiro says, 'that while I’m out here, I could actually prove and disprove old theories. Even collect enough data to change our assumptions in the Drake equation to real figures.'

'With enough data you could even extrapolate and give a rough estimate of the number of civilized races throughout the whole universe,' Lance says.

'Wouldn’t that be something to take home,' Shiro laughs at the idea.

Home.

Shiro stops short.

Lance smooths over his features but he knows he's realized it too late from the pitying expression on Shiro's face.

'I’m sure we'd bring a ton of amazing stories home when all this is over,' Lance says. He knows he's trying to downplay his own misgivings about leaving Earth.

'And you’d have a lot of people to tell those stories to,' Shiro says.

That’s something about Shiro Lance wasn't surprised to learn. Shiro is amazing at being receptive to people's needs and wants on a personal level. Yeah Shiro has his own shit that keeps him distracted a lot of the time but the moments in between? Shiro is like... well Lance can't really describe Shiro yet. They don’t know each other well enough.

That’s a lie. Volton has become the defining foundation of their relationship. It’s made it so that the five of them are learning each other backwards. The mind meld exercises have only happened a couple times, but it has proven to have odd and confusing side effects.

A lot of the time, deeper memories are not about the thing that happened, but the sensations of that experience. Lance will often find himself in those sessions with some of the heaviest emotional baggage dropped right onto his lap. Sensations so keen he can almost identify individual grains of sand and dust collecting on his skin. (That is kind of a bad example. Lance doesn't know who that particular sensation belongs to.) What ends up happening at the end of the day is that Lance will know how each person thinks and feels and experiences the world at their core, but he has absolutely no context to attach to those strong emotions. How can anyone be truly understood like that?

River, meet Ocean.

Lance has wondered what parts of him the others have experienced. The fact that he doesn't get to know scares him a little. Shiro, in his effort to respect an unspoken boundary - which Lance is grateful for - has also given him a hint as to what the others have experienced of Lance.

'Yeah,' Lance says slowly. 'I have a big family waiting for me back home.'

Shiro makes no comment. He just sits and waits for Lance to make the next move. Ah. Lance gets what he's doing. Shiro must already know how deeply lance feels about his family on Earth - and deeper still about leaving them - so he’s letting Lance set the pace for what and when he wants to unpack those parts of himself.

Maybe not now, Lance decides.

'I'm gonna get going,' Lance says as he stands up and dusts himself off. He even makes a show of stretching.

'Alright,' Shiro nods. 'Take care.'

'Yeah, you too Shiro,' Lance says over his shoulder. There's a bounce in his step when he leaves.

They've hardly been in this crazy space castle for more than a week tops. It’s going to be hard to adjust to this new life but for the first time, Lance thinks he could maybe call this place home one day. It'll take some work. It'll take a lot of work. The first thing he'll really need to do is-

Get comfortable.

Those were Coran's words.

As a general rule, Lance likes Coran but man oh, man, some days are harder than others. Coran has a certain style when it comes to briefing the team on missions. Everyone kind of assumed that it would get better with time. Either Coran would adjust his manner of speech (which in hindsight, was a stupid thing to hope for) or the team would get used to how he talks. The latter point was especially frustrating. It seemed like the closer you listened to Coran, the more difficult it was to parse out what he was saying. Coran is just so... eccentric.

It also turns out Lance isn’t the only one who thinks so. As soon as the team - sans Shiro - was turned loose, the dominating topic of conversation was discussing a lot of Coran's strange behaviours. Pidge at one point wondered out loud how much of his behaviour stems from Altean culture, and how much is just Coran. Lance pointed out that any cultural norms Coran would exhibit would technically still be Coran things anyways. Pidge grunts in response and they moved on from that idea.

Then the conversation drifts and floats off in another direction.

It’s relaxing in its own way. They all let the tide of conversation pull them this way and that. They don't really get a chance to just chill out and be just guys being dudes.

Get comfortable, Coran said.

Which brings us back to the point of why they’re out here in the first place.

This particular moon is home to a dozen or so different stations. From ship harbours, to warehouses, to agricultural green houses, to merchant outposts. In between all that are hub spaces where all the people just passing by can mingle and take a break from whatever journey that brought them here in the first place. It’s a very temporary kind of space. From what Lance understands, very few people actually live here.

Which is why this mission is so... ehhh? After that whole long conversation about Coran, the team seems to understand that the mission boils down to just keeping their eyes and ears open for uh, everything. A disgruntled Keith even asked Coran if there’s something to be suspicious about here and the wishy-washy answer he got seems to suggest they’re on the lookout for everything…

While they were doing that, Coran was doing a supply run while Shiro and Allura took a more direct approach to digging around. Dragging the whole team to do that would have been too inconspicuous. So they were told to hang around instead.

And get comfortable. Allura, Shiro, and Coran aren't exactly doing quick errands now.

At first, Lance was most worried about Keith. He's the type to get restless.

'Dude, you’re gonna have to use your knife to do that.'

'I don't like whipping out my knife in public. Y'know, a place full of people.'

Except Keith takes Lance's advice almost immediately anyways and pulls out his switchblade from one of his pouch pockets. The motion is quick and its obvious Keith is familiar with handling his knife. The ration packet failed to open the first time so Keith cuts along the seam and is met with no resistance. The knife disappears. With that success out of the way, he offers Lance a piece first. Lance is sitting the closest.

'Hey Keith,' Lance says.

Keith looks up, still chewing on his piece.

'I woulda thought you'd've been the first one to ditch and go off on your own.'

'So?'

'Just curious as to why you stuck around is all.'

Keith's expression goes from neutral to grimacing real quick. He doesn’t meet Lance's eye anymore.

'So this ration bar's not so bad, huh?' Hunk tries to cut in but it doesn’t work.

'Maybe because I thought this could be nice? What's it to you?' Keith's tone is defensive.

Lance can feel Pidge and Hunk go tense on Lance's other side.

Tread lightly Lance.

Lance opens his mouth to say something then closes it again. Lance has known for a while now that he needs to reconsider his approach with Keith. So instead of biting back like he initially wanted to, he instead says, 'I think it’s nice too.'

Keith's defensive posture falters while he lets Lance's admission sink in. All three of the other paladins watch as Keith chews it over. 'Okay,' Keith says, accepting Lance's peace offering.

When Keith settles back into his seat, the rest of the team follow suit. The tension dissolves and the silence between them is companionable.

Lance's thoughts wander off as the team breaks off a second piece of the ration bar for each of them. The idle chatter of the hub station comes and goes. There are so many different kinds of people. There must have been a hundred different languages that passed them by and they wouldn’t even know it. The Lions apparently serve as a universal translator. Would that still work if they went back home?

Lance glances over at Pidge. He's like Keith and doesn’t handle doing nothing very well either. ('Hurry up and wait!' was Sergeant Johnson's favourite joke and Pidge hated it.) Pidge gets antsy and impatient very quickly. Except something changed. He seems to have settled back into being part of a team again.

'It was Shiro,' Keith says, breaking into lance's musings. 

'Hmm?'

'It was Shiro who told me that I should make an effort,' Keith clarifies. 'Said I should give you a chance. All of you.'

Oh. Huh.

Hold on a second. Maybe Pidge and Keith are more similar than Lance realizes. Lance glances over at Pidge at the consideration. Yeah. Suddenly Pidge and Keith as the arms of Voltron make more sense. Those two have even gotten better at syncing their actions in and out of their Lions, as well as being more receptive to the rest of the team. They have Shiro to thank for that. Voltron has a very worthy head on its shoulders.

'Soo,' Hunk draws out the word between bites. 'Do we pass?'

'I- what?' Keith sputters.

'You're giving us a chance right now,' Hunk says. 'Do we pass?'

'Of course you pass Hunk, you’re easily the most incredible human to grace the universe.' Lance says smoothly.

Keith shrugs and nods along with Lance's assessment. Pidge humms his agreement as well.

'D'aww thanks buddy,' Hunk nudges Lance playfully on the shoulder.

'I mean it dude,' Lance says. 'Same goes for you too.' Lance nods to both Keith and Pidge. 'You guys are so amazing. Honestly if I were to pick who I'd want to be stuck in this whole mess with, I'd still pick you guys.'

Lance almost doesn’t see it. He would have most certainly missed it if he wasn’t paying attention. Except he was, so he sees the way Hunk rolls his eyes and sighs ever so slightly. 

'What?' Lance says.

Hunk shakes his head but says his piece anyways. 'You don’t realize you do that, do you?'

'Do what?'

'Just now, you didn’t include yourself in that compliment.'

'And?' Lance didn’t see the need to.

'I don’t think team Voltron would be as good as it is right now without you.'

Lance has like, so many arguments on the tip of his tongue against that, but Hunk has this look that makes Lance keep his mouth shut.

'Lance, you’re really good at making people feel comfortable hanging around you, because you’re really quick to tell people all the good things about them. Sometimes you mess up,' no one misses that glance in Keith’s direction. 'But you still put forward an effort to make sure everyone feels like they belong.

'But there’s one person you always forget about. You’re always going on about how awesome we are, but so. Are. You.' Hunk punctuates each word with a jab of his finger to Lance's chest. Hunk sighs again and even looks a little sad when he says, 'You don't need to put yourself down all the time.'

'He's right you know,' Pidge says.

Lance isn't looking at any of them. He knew he had an issue but he kinda hoped he wouldn’t need to have this conversation. Not with these guys. Lance was honestly convinced he had perfected his ability to keep it on the down low. It’s something he’s already dealt with just about his whole life.

Rationally, he knows Hunk is right. About everything. Except his self-confidence issue is such a core part of himself, or at least Lance is pretty sure it is at this point, and he knows it won’t change overnight. Not with a single affirmation.

It would be like trying to convince a river to flow backwards.*

Lance braves a glance at each of his teammates. Hunk he was expecting, but he could never quite prepare himself for that intensity, that steadfast, determination that tells Lance he has no room to argue on the matter. Hunk is strong in a way that is different from the rest of the team. He shines the brightest in moments like these, in the quiet between the hectic motions of daily life (and boy is their strange space life hectic). Hunk is the kind of person who gently ushers you to take a break, the kind who sits you down with a hot drink and without really saying so, gets you to drink slowly for once. God, you never know how much you need something like that until it happens.

Its grounding. Lance is so grateful. He’s also a little sorry. He'd often forget how Hunk is so good to him like this. There’s a lump in his throat from the swell of emotions. He doesn’t trust his own voice enough to speak, but he has a feeling whatever Hunk sees in Lance at that moment is satisfactory, because his eyes soften and he breaks out into a signature Hunk smile that warms Lance's heart.

Lance turns his attention to Pidge. His expression had shifted from passive and observant to something closer to- oh, yeah Lance's familiar with that look. Pidge wears it often enough, but it had only been directed at Lance once before. That crease between the eyebrows. He’s using that on Lance now of all times?

The Lance chances a peek at Keith, not really sure he can handle that paladin in particular. He's not sure what he expected, but he's pretty sure 'analytical' wasn't on that list. It's like he's being evaluated. Or... Re-evaluated? Keith notices he's being watched (was Lance staring? Oops.) and Keith's eyes soften ever so slightly as he gives him the tiniest of nods.

Lance swallows around that stubborn lump in his throat and manages to say, -

'Okay!' Lance practically yells. 'Can you lay off for like, two seconds please?' Lance is fully aware of the wariness and exasperation in his tone.

And everyone does. Some more wide eyed than others at the outburst.

'Alright,' Shiro says. 'That's enough teasing.' Shiro has his hands slightly raised, as if to shepherd the paladins out of the room in order to get them to move on.

Lance shoots Shiro a thank you look while also internally groaning. He knows his friends. They're not going to drop this any time soon. It's been like a week and anytime anybody wants to take Lance down a peg they throw a 'you didn't notice Pidge was a girl' line at him. It's not like it bothers him too much it's perfectly in line with 'things that are okay to bully your friends about' zone but some days it's just. Come on. You gotta be more creative than that. Make fun of like, his super pointy chin or something, shake it up a bit. But alas, his friends are not going to let go of that incident any time soon. Okay, like, fair. He did make a fool of himself over that. Ah, well.

There is one thing that Lance is still miffed about. The driving force of his surprise did not stem from his ignorance, it stemmed from his awe.

The Lions really did pick an amazing group of people to pilot them.

Lance is a very tactile person. He greeted Pidge with a handshake, but it wasn't long before Lance would drape himself across his - er, her - shoulders in an attempt at camaraderie. Lance had tried time and time again to physically steer Pidge away from her personal project and into a bad game of hooky with himself and Hunk. (In hindsight, he understands her reluctance.) So Lance would have a hand on her back or shoulders occasionally and he knows a binder when he feels one. Lance had known. Lance had known almost from the beginning.

He thought he was respecting boundaries, is all.

The part that amazes him the most is that she managed to pull that stunt with the Garrison off in the first place. For a whole year. It meant she would have had to forge file records. Those dig deep into people's history. Lance almost flunked the interview because he was almost caught right off guard when they asked him questions as far back as kindergarten. Knowing Pidge better now means Lance totally gets that that part would have been a cakewalk for her.

The part that really impressed Lance is that she would have needed to fool the biometrics. The systems of which are fairly advanced, and students are regularly screened in medical. Having the data register her as trans would have made her disguise flimsier. On top of all that, she was regularly breaking into frequencies that are well above her clearance level. The keys for those networks and channels were changed weekly, and were run by people who like to break into Garrison networks and are paid to do so. (The idea was that if you want to protect from break ins, you hire the guy who knows how to break in.) Pidge still received new data almost daily.

Lance was in awe at the realization. She did all that. Right under everyone’s noses.

It was like being hit unexpectedly with a huge swell of water the first time. The kind that threatens to wipe sailors right off the decks of their ships.

There were so many things Lance was impressed with all at once and all he could articulate was "You're a girl?"

It's been a week and Lance is still impressed. He wants to make a point of pulling Pidge aside and asking her about it but he figures the subject might be too close to a painful memory. He knows this because it's a strong sensation in Pidge during the mind meld exercises, and it's a similar hurt to one he knows in himself in regards to his own family. He doesn't want to make Pidge talk about that part of herself unless she invites him, and, truthfully, Lance isn't sure he's ready to share that part of himself either. Maybe one day. There's a lot of other things they - the whole team, really - need to explore first. Like the ocean, you really ought to start with the shallows before you’re ready for the depths.

His friends are vast. So, so vast.

Lance is... a little intimidated to be perfectly honest.

Sure as hell isn't going to stop him anytime soon.

There's too much ocean to explore.

*What Lance doesn’t know is that reversing the flow of a river is something that can happen and has happened before. A prospective oil well was being drilled in Lake Peigneur in 1980. However, an engineering miscalculation had the rig workers accidentally hit a salt mine instead. The water from the lake flowed into the salt mine, filling in the massive space the miners had already made, and dissolved salt to make even more space for water to fill. The drainage was so intense the Delcambre Canal that normally flowed out of the lake began to flow backwards in order to refill the lake. The whole ordeal was pretty disastrous.

The bright side of all this is, of the fifty some odd people present that day (almost all of them in the underground salt mine), not a single soul was lost. Not a single injury occurred either.