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Lance walks out of his lion on numb legs. The helmet hangs from his fingers and the sound of his heart beating in his ears is loud but distant, impossibly slow. His blood feels like molasses in his veins. He feels like he’s underwater.
Shiro says something into the silence and Lance wonders how long they’ve been standing there. He thinks it’s supposed to be some kind of pep talk to make them feel better. Lance can’t hear through the numbness he’s buried himself under. He has to. It’s the only thing keeping him together.
Shiro dismisses them and Lance walks out the door. He doesn’t know where he’s going, where his feet are taking him but he doesn’t care. So long as it’s away from the lions and the other paladins.
He wanders for what feels like hours. He’d seen a painting in a textbook once of clocks melting, everything becoming strange and distorted. He feels like that now.
Lance winds up in some random hallway of the castle when his feet decide to stop, helmet slipping from his fingers. The sound of it cracking against the ground is what breaks him, the shield he’d just barely been holding together, shattering.
Lance stumbles over his own feet as a cry tears out of him. He careens sideways as his knees give way, catching himself on the wall as a sob rips through him.
The calm veneer he’d been holding onto breaks apart, rage and pain and grief bubbling up from under the surface. It sears him from the inside out, blackening his heart and leaving it split and bleeding. It fills his throat until he’s drowning in it.
A vicious scream tears out of him and Lance punches the wall as hard as he can. Every part of him is compressed with rage and he does it again, feeling his knuckles crack against the steel. It’s the only thing that cuts through the storm. It gives him something else to focus on other than the emotional trauma.
Pain bursts into stark clarity like white light in the darkness and he latches onto it. He drives both fists into the wall again and again until a sob takes him to his knees and he collapses.
“Lance?”
Lance lets loose a deep wuthering cry, curling into himself and sobbing. He feels sick.
Keith sinks to the ground next to him and Lance is too far gone to pull it back together. The sobs are wrenching out of him, falling from his mouth like black ichor, the sounds painting the air. He chokes and gags on them, saliva filling his mouth.
Keith touches his hand and Lance flinches against the pain. And then he realizes he deserves to hurt. He drives his fist into the wall again and Keith snatches his wrist, fighting with Lance to keep it still. Keith pulls it back down and something inside the glove slides like it isn’t supposed to. Like it’s filled with water.
Keith bites his lips, his stomach turning over before slowly peeling the gloves back. Lance doesn’t have the strength to fight him.
Blood splatters to the floor as Keith pulls the glove free, tossing it to the side. Lance’s knuckles are broken and bloody. They look like ground pulp in places and Keith’s stomach turns.
“Fuck,” he chokes. “Lance.” Both his hands are broken, cartilage and bone peeking out from the layer of blood.
Keith sets his jaw and pulls off his own gloves, opening the seals of Lance’s armor and tossing it aside, the sound half-drowned out from Lance’s cries. He’s changed into his normal clothes and some part of Lance is left to wonder how long he’d been walking.
“Come here.” Keith pulls Lance into his lap and Lance sobs, sick with grief. He wraps his arms and legs around Keith, holding on like he’s drowning. Blood drips from his fingers as he holds them away from Keith’s back, shaking in the air.
“It wasn’t- supposed to happen,” he hiccups, barely able to form words.
“I know,” Keith says softly.
“They’re dead.” He curls tightly around Keith, crying so hard he can’t see. “All those people. T-they’re dead. We weren’t- we aren’t supposed to fail.”
But they did. Voltron had been overwhelmed, horribly so. They’d been forced to separate and run as Haggar had harvested the planet, stripping it of all its quintessence. The only thing they could do was watch in horror as the planet slowly blackened, the energy syphoned out of it and into the cruiser.
Lance had screamed, barreling forward into the armada but Black had cut him off, herding him back, the other paladins shouting as they were both bombarded by laser fire.
They’d been forced to fall back to the castle during which Lance had gone quiet, a horrifying numbness setting in as the weight of what had just happened hit him.
Keith presses a hand to the back of Lance’s neck, cradling him close.
“They’re all dead,” Lance gasps, eyes wide and unseeing. He goes impossibly still in Keith’s arms, tears dripping from his chin. “Millions…” he whispers. “All gone.” He can’t even wrap his head around how staggering a number that is. Keith thinks he’s going to pass out.
He sits back and Lance’s arms fall to the floor. He doesn’t even flinch when his knuckles hit the ground.
Keith cups his face in his hand, the other looped around Lance’s waist to keep him upright. “I need you to come back,” he whispers, searching Lance’s vacant expression. “Lance. Come back.” He thumbs away Lance’s tears and his broken eyes settle numbly on Keith.
“They’re gone.”
“I know.”
Emotion comes flooding back into Lance’s eyes, cold and hard, sharp as the edge of Keith’s sword.
“How are you okay?” Lance accuses. He shoves at Keith’s shoulder with his ruined hands. “Why aren’t you falling apart? Why don’t you care!?” he shrieks.
“I do,” Keith whispers, holding Lance tightly. “But I can’t help them.” Something in Keith’s eyes flickers and it brings Lance back to the moment, helps to ground him. “They’re gone. I can’t bring them back.” Keith’s voice cracks and he shakes his head. “I can’t fix it.” He presses his lips into a thin line, tears filling his eyes and Lance realizes Keith is just as hurt as he is. His hand falls from Lance’s face to his shoulder.
“I can’t make it better.” Keith takes a deep breath and Lance realizes his hands are shaking.
“But you’re still here. I can help you.” Keith’s breath hitches and his grip on Lance tightens. Like he needs comfort and touch right now as much as Lance does.
“Please let me help,” Keith chokes. Lance sees the terror and the weight of what’s happened in Keith’s eyes. “I have to-” He swallows thickly, tears falling down his cheeks as he blinks. “I don’t know what else to do. I have to do something. ”
Lance pulls Keith back into his chest, holding him this time as Keith buries his face in Lance’s shoulder and cries.
Lance doesn’t know what to say. Nothing will make it better. Nothing will assuage the guilt. So he holds Keith tightly, legs wrapped around him and they both cry.
There’s nothing else to do.