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"What happened to your squad, anyways?"
He asks, feigning casual interest while being very intent on every word. Lotor gives him a half shrug, not even glancing up from the console, where he taps in commands with his clawed hands. Nice hands. Big hands that could tear him apart without a second thought. The idea of that probably shouldn't be so hot. But Lance pushes those musings to the side for the moment, opting to drape himself over the edge of the work desk to make himself as hard to ignore as possible. He was good at that.
"I believe I mentioned it before," Lotor says curtly, "We parted ways."
"You don't just 'part ways' with a team like that," he shot back, including air quotes for emphasis, "What really happened?"
Lotor does look up this time, with his face blank and eyes catching the reflections of the data displays. They're nice eyes. A little weird, maybe, with the yellow sclera and violet-blue iris slitted like a cat. His pupils were wider in the dim control room, distinctly a galra feature, but causing them to look a little closer to human. Altean? Same difference. Still pretty. Lotor pauses for half a second-- something he would missed months ago, but now Lance picks up on like a second language.
"Why are you so interested?"
"I dunno," it's not entirely untrue, it's a line of questioning fuelled more by curiosity than anything else, "It's just, I guess, you seemed pretty close."
Lance is assuming a bit, based on a handful of encounters they had before Lotor had literally flown in to their doorstep. But he liked to think he was pretty good at reading people when he put his mind to it. And there is a lot Lotor isn't telling them. He gets it on some levels. There's a ton Shiro doesn't talk about, and pointedly refuses to elaborate on, even if it kills Lance to know he's keeping things bottled up deep. There are petty fears that he would rather shove under the proverbial bed than let anyone else deal with. But he also can't help pressing, testing boundaries between them, because there's still so much about their new ally that he doesn't know.
"The empire called for my death," Lotor begins calmly, "My generals were implicit in my perceived crimes. They did what they believed they had to if they wanted to survive."
"What does that even mean--"
"They intended to trade me for their lives and leniency."
The way he delivers the statement is even, but there's that edge of bitter cold to it that Lance would have heard even with cones over his ears. But it's the implications, everything he doesn't say, that has him speechless and reeling. The very concept is almost unfathomable, how could people turn on each other like that? Though the obvious answer is right there, because they're galra, and their world is a violent and cruel one where they're just as likely to stab someone in the back as they are to execute planetary takeovers. It's a twisted society that's been functioning for the better part of ten thousand years-- it's all many of their people have known. That still doesn't make it right.
"They did what?"
Lotor blinks at him, then gives him that look he uses often with Lance, one that speaks of someone who's being very patient with a child. He's lucky Lance is too focused on his own outrage at the moment to tell him to stop being so infuriating.
"You see, when entering negotiations, it helps to have something to bargain with--"
"Oh my god, I know that," Lance climbs over the console to invade Lotor's personal space, "It was a rhetorical question. Or I'm rhetorically pissed on your behalf."
"I don't blame them for it--"
"You should," He starts bitterly, "They were your friends. Friends don't sell each other out to galactic warlords. That's, like, super shitty."
Lance is angry because he can suddenly see the path that's lead so many to pain and despair. No wonder the universe is such a hopeless place, if this is the currency of survival. There's no room left for softer things, compassion and comradery and tolerance. How can you do anything but survive? It tears at him, unsettles him on a deep level, rattles him in the way only things on a grand scale can. Instills that existential dread that only hits when Lance really thinks about how they're the only thing standing between the free peoples and the looming oppression of a dreaded empire.
Its not the first time he's come across someone who doesn't realize it can be any other way. He knows it won't be the last. It's equal parts disturbing and heartbreaking, and it doesn't help that he's become kinda attached to their local prince in exile. Sure, Lotor is a smug jerk on a good day-- but he's scary smart, one of the few people who can go toe-to-toe with Allura and not get his ass completely kicked, and even though he goes out of his way to try to convince them he's just a cold, calculating prince shunned from his homeland, he ends up doing nice things for all of them. (Maybe some are on accident, or a manipulative front like some of them seem to think, but that doesn't change the fact that Lotor remembers when Pidge is looking for a specific piece of tech and finds it at the swap market, or lets Lance tell him all about a distant blue planet he probably doesn't give a damn about. Those things still mean something.)
Lotor is quiet. His hands still above the console, as if waiting for something. For what, Lance couldn't tell, though the hesitation grew the doubt that maybe he had gone too far. Said too much too soon, maybe twisting a knife that hadn't been fully removed yet. It wouldn't have been the only time he's let his mouth get ahead of his common sense.
"You certainly have peculiar notions on things like 'friends' and 'duty'," Lotor murmurs, "Though I'll refrain from mentioning the idealized reality you all seem to live in."
"Except you just said it anyway!"
The prince flashes him a toothy grin. "Did I? Oh, my mistake."
The tension in the room eases, but doesn't dissipate completely. There are still a lot of things left unsaid, and Lance tries to decide when would be the best time to speak them into existence. He begrudgingly comes to the conclusion that maybe it's best to quit now, before he touches on a nerve too raw to be ignored or lost in idle banter. Yet, he also can't leave it lie-- that's just not in his nature.
"It doesn't have to be that way," he starts softly, pointedly looking at the floor, "I know that's how it's always been but that doesn't mean it has to stay that way."
Shaking up the status quo is what they do on Team Voltron. Hopefully, it's for the better, though he personally thinks things can't get much worse. And even if it's only a little, bit by bit, maybe they can make a difference. They have to make a difference. And maybe Lance's pet project can be Lotor-- if he can show him, of all people, that there's a different, *better* way of doing things, then they might just have a chance with the rest of the empire. If he can only help one person, then this whole crazy space adventure would have been worth it.
Lotor catches his gaze when he finally lifts his head. It's intense in a way he can't place, murky but also piercing. He's got a lot of different emotions doing laps around his chest and he can't chase any one of them down to put a name to them.
"It's going to take a lot more than pretty words and ideas to win this war," Lotor says at length, "But, I suppose, they can't hurt."
Lance grins. "We gotta use every assets we got, right?"
Lotor goes back to typing in data, but he notices the hint of a smile that peeks out. "It's a start."