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He wakes with a jolt, jagged breaths shaking his whole body. The room is silent, as it always is, something about the walls silencing the sound of his panic.
He'd experienced it again. That dream. Where pain fills his every crevice, where panic flows through his every vein. It always feels so real, as if he has experienced it before. He knows he hasn't, but every time he wakes up Blue and Red are in the back of his conscious, guilt radiating from their presence. One way or another, despite their wishes, they have something to do with the dreams.
Knowing he won't be able to fall back asleep, Lance gets up out of bed, dreading the coming day. He knows he will be slow and drowsy from exhaustion, and one way or another Keith will find something of that to complain about.
He always does.
Lance makes his way to the training bay, figuring he might as well make himself useful if he can't sleep. Maybe then there will be less things for the team to complain about.
He starts a low level with the bot, knowing he can't risk an injury alone as he is. He does still have some self preservation left in him.
It hits him a few levels later.
The shock of the sudden pain makes him freeze, and the bot lands its hit. The session ends automatically as his body hits the floor, but Lance can barely register it through the pain.
It's like his dreams, the exact same feeling, the exact same realness. It scares him more than the pain coming out of nowhere. He's awake, he shouldn't be able to experience what he does in his dreams now.
In the back of his mind Blue and Red scream, their worry for him evident.
He's mostly calmed down when the doors to the training bay slide open. He's still on the floor, his limbs exhausted from the pain - at least it's gone for now.
"Lance?"
That's Keith's voice. While it is the training bay, and Keith spends most of his time in here, Lance wouldn't have expected it to be him considering the concern lacing ever crevice of his voice.
Blue purrs in the back of his mind, and Red lends him reassurance, assuring him that Keith knows something is wrong.
Oh, so they let Keith know about this?
"Are you okay, Lance?"
Keith is closer now, kneeling on the floor next to him.
"I just caught a hit," Lance rasps.
"Bullshit, Red is worried."
"Blue too." Lance doesn't know why he confides that bit to Keith, but he does know he wants whatever this is to stop.
I'm not done with you.
Lance freezes, his every muscles tensing. Something about the voice feels so familiar, but he can't place it. It's that realness of something he knows he hasn't experienced before, back again.
Blue keeps purring, sending him the feeling of a warm blanket. Red growls, and Keith shifts next to him.
"Did you hear that voice?"
Lance opens his eyes, not realising he had closed them. "You heard it too?"
Keith shakes his head. "No, but Red sent it through to me."
"I've been having these dreams," Lance says, looking up at Keith. "They feel so real, the pain, the fear. I felt it again now, when I was training."
Keith stares at him, seemingly unable to say anything. After a while he says, "Red feels guilty."
"Blue too. I don't know why."
Keith doesn't look at him, just stares out over the training bay. "They seem to think it's their fault you're experiencing this." He falls quiet. "Black especially."
Just then Lance is hit with a new wave of pain, this one followed by images, by flashes of light and water and white hair and a galra arm.
When it finally passes he gasps for breath, slowly realising Keith has cushioned his head in his lap.
"Are you okay?"
"Shiro."
"What?" Keith looks worried, his forehead creased under his hair.
"I think, whatever this is, it's what Shiro is currently going through."
Keith stares at him, his eyes wide. He opens his mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. Eventually, he's able to speak. "Black seems to agree with you."
At least, Lance thinks, they know Shiro is alive somewhere out there