Chapter Text
The day Lance was supposed to get either his rejection or acceptance letter from the Galaxy Garrison, he couldn’t bring himself to check his email.
He went to school like he always did, and after, he and his friends went to the beach. The sun and the water distracted him pretty well for a while. At home, there wasn’t anything to distract him, not since Marco had taken to staying out at all hours – much to the consternation and anger of their Mamá – and Rachel had started shutting herself in her room to draw for hours on end. Papá was away working somewhere, Veronica was away at her new job with the WIA, while Luis and his wife Lisa were on vacation.
The house was too quiet, and it unsettled Lance more than he wanted to admit. He’d been home from Atlantis for the better part of a year, and it still felt inexplicably strange. It had only been one year away from home, but somehow, so much had changed. He touched the crystal he always wore under his shirt and sighed. He missed wearing it openly.
Lance walked in through the kitchen, all sweaty and with his hair still stiff from sea salt. His mamá was there, humming away over the stove. “Hola, Lancito,” she said. “How was your day?”
Lance mustered a smile, trying to ignore the niggling voice of fear and worry in the back of his head. “It was great, Mamá,” he began, and launched into a detailed recounting of the antics he and his friends had gotten up to that day.
“ – and then José tried to be all cool and wave at these girls on the beach, but he lost his balance and went down – it was a major wipeout, he took out Antonio too - and the girls were laughing at them and it was hilarious, Mamá, you almost had to have been there. Oh! And I got an A on that Pre-Calc test we had last week!”
Carmen stopped what she was doing to smile at her son. “Nicely done, mijo, I know you were worried about that. I’m not surprised, though.” She winked.
Lance smiled sheepishly, raising a hand to the back of his head. “Yeah…” he chuckled a bit. “I’m gonna go shower now bye!”
He ran up the stairs, leaving Carmen looking after him thoughtfully.
*
Later, Lance laid on his bed and stared up at his ceiling, covered as it was with all those glow-in-the dark constellations.
What if he didn’t get into the Garrison? What would he do? How would he tell Veronica – she was literally accepted to the WIA’s training academy when she was his age. She was the reason he had applied to the Garrison in the first place, helping him with his application and encouraging him every step of the way. And Thira – Thira had been listening to him talk for ages about how much he wanted to fly fly, up into space instead of just on a flier.
He’d told his friends at school that he was going to go the Galaxy Garrison next year, and that was why he’d spent last year homeschooling – a lie, to cover up for spending a year in Atlantis, but still, why had he said that? Why had he told anyone that before he even knew if he’d gotten in or not?
Lance sighed, rolled over, and smashed his face into a pillow.
There was a knock at the door to his room – well, his and Marco’s room. But Marco hardly seemed to be home when Lance was, these days.
“Lance?” his mother’s voice came. “Can I come in?”
He lifted his head enough to respond. “Sí, Mamá,” he called. His head thumped back to his pillow. “Sure, why not,” he said to it.
The door opened, and he heard her sigh. She came and sat on the bed.
“What is it, Lancito?”
Lance sat up. “It’s nothing, really, Mamá.”
Carmen looked at him shrewdly. “I noticed you haven’t mentioned whether or not you got into the Garrison,” she said. Lance sighed internally. She knew him too well.
“I can’t look,” he said.
His mother opened her arms. “Come here, mijo.” Obediently, Lance slid over and wrapped his arms around her waist. His mamá gave great hugs. She rested her head on his.
“You know it doesn’t matter to us if you get in or not, right?” Lance hummed his acquiescence. She pulled back a little. “Look at me.” He did.
“Even if you didn’t get in, you are not a failure, Lance. You will find something else, and we will love you anyway.” She held his gaze until he nodded.
“But,” she continued cheerfully, “They’d have to be idiots to reject you. So let’s look and find out together, okay?”
“Okay, Mamá.”
He grabbed his laptop and opened his email, and there, at the top, was a message from the Galaxy Garrison. His mother squeezed his shoulders encouragingly.
He tapped the message, and saw the words ‘we are pleased to inform you’ somewhere in the first line. He jumped up with a shout of joy.
“I got in! Mamá, I got in!”
Carmen smiled proudly. “I’m not surprised,” she reminded him, and he laughed.
*
A few months later, not long after his fourteenth birthday, Lance packed all his things and went with his family to the airport. He waved good-bye to his parents and his abuelita and all his siblings and his nephew Sylvio and his baby niece Nadia, and then he got on a plane and left Cuba.
The airport he landed at in America was large and busy, and he lingered by the gate, looking for the Garrison officer who was meant to pick him up. There was a crash behind him, and something knocked into his suitcase and nearly sent him sprawling.
“Sorry! Sorry!” The source of the crash was a large boy who looked about his age, and whose face was horrified as he apologized again, lifting his suitcase off the ground. Lance laughed, reminded suddenly of Thira, and held out his hand.
“No worries, buddy. Name’s Lance. What’s your name?”
The boy hesitated, then reached out his hand too. “Well – everyone calls me Hunk?”
“Hunk, huh? Nice, dude! Bet the ladies love you,” Lance waggled his eyebrows.
Hunk huffed in surprised laughter. Lance smiled at him, noticing how he seemed a little less nervous.
“You waiting for someone?” Lance asked.
“Yeah, I’m supposed to get picked up, by someone, I guess. I’m going to this new school. I - I’ve actually never been to America before.”
“Really?” said Lance. “Me too! Wait, are you going to the Garrison too?”
“Too? You’re also going to the Garrison?” Hunk asked, astonished. “Man, what are the odds – I mean, I guess they’re not that low, ‘cause obviously we’d arrive at the same airport and today’s the day we’re supposed to get here, but there’s so many people here - ”
Lance laughed delightedly at Hunk’s rambling and put an arm around his shoulders. “Hunk, my buddy, my pal, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship.”
Hunk stopped a moment, and then smiled at Lance blindingly.
They talked until the Garrison officer finally found them, and later, they ended up in the same dorm.
That night, Lance smiled up at the ceiling. There weren’t any constellations on the ceiling here, but that was okay. He’d get to see the real ones soon.
*
On the first day of flight classes, the sixteen cadets who had been accepted as pilots were sorted into groups of eight for their first go in the simulators.
As the students milled around, waiting to start, Lance saw one of the other cadets was standing by himself, lips turned down as he stared at the wall. Everyone else seemed nervously excited, but not this kid with the weird mullet hair.
So, of course, Lance decided to introduce himself. “Hey!” he said brightly. “I’m Lance. Are you excited to try the simulators?”
Mullet kid looked at him. “Fuck off,” he said flatly, and returned to staring at the wall.
Lance stared, offended. What a jerk.
*
The mullet jerk’s name was Keith Kogane and during their first go on the simulators, he broke formation, knocked into Lance and jarred him hard, and then went off to fly like a crazy person and got all eight of them stuck running drills for the next three weekends.
He was also the favourite of Lance’s hero, Takashi Shirogane – he told the cadets to call him Shiro - and within their first month as cadets, Keith Kogane had earned the highest flight simulator scores of any first-year cadet ever, including Takashi Shirogane.
Lance hated Keith Kogane.
He quickly developed an obsession with beating him. Lance checked the class rankings every week, comparing himself and Keith, while Hunk looked on exasperatedly.
Lance was first in their year in history, eighth in physics, tenth in math, third in self-defense, fourth in astronomy, and ninth in flight classes. Keith outranked him as seventh in physics, eighth in math, first in self-defense, and always, always, first in their flight classes.
There were forty-eight cadets in their year and sixteen of them were pilots. Hunk kept pointing out that he wasn’t doing badly at all, but none of that mattered if he couldn’t beat Keith. Hunk had the top spot in physics and Lance didn’t begrudge him that at all, but Keith’s seventh place drove him nuts.
*
Mostly, though, Lance enjoyed his time at the Garrison. Hunk was one of the most amazing friends ever, and he was quickly rising up in Lance’s list of favourite people to the level of Thira, and Thira had been Lance’s best friend since he was six years old.
He worked hard in his classes and laughed with Hunk and obsessively tried to one-up Keith, and his crystal stayed hidden under his uniform, just like always. He missed his family, he missed Cuba, and he missed Thira and Atlantis, but it was bearable.
Lance liked the Garrison.
By the end of the year, he’d risen to the seventh spot in their flight class, and was holding onto it solidly. The pilot cadets would be sorted into fighter class and cargo class before they started their second year, and Lance was desperate to qualify for fighter pilot.
When the rankings and results went up in the last week of classes, Lance rushed to check them, with Hunk hot on his heels.
Hunk was top of the engineering class, and he would be an engineer for a fighter pilot.
And Lance…Lance was…
Hunk saw the look on his face and hugged him. “It’s alright,” he said.
It wasn’t alright, but at least Lance managed not to cry about it until they were back in their dorm.
*
Lance spent half his summer in Cuba, and the other half in Atlantis.
Thira was delighted to see him. She’d gotten her tattoos when they were thirteen, light blue marks on her face and shoulders that told a story about her life. Lance had left right after she’d gotten them, and he still wasn’t used to seeing them on her.
If he lived in Atlantis, he would have gotten his own tattoos back then as well, ones that told a different story. Looking at Thira, Lance felt a kind of longing pang for them. But Lance lived on the surface, so he couldn’t get Atlantean tattoos.
He told Thira everything about the Garrison and Hunk and Keith. She approved strongly of Hunk, hated the thought of how strict the teachers were, and laughed when he told her about his rivalry with Keith.
When Thira looked at the pictures of him in his Garrison uniform, she looked revolted. “They’re hideous,” she complained, “And they look so uncomfortable. I can’t believe they make you wear those!”
Lance laughed. “They’re not that bad. Besides,” he smirked, “I can make anything look good, don’t you think?”
Thira hummed. “Of course,” she agreed sarcastically, and then she shoved him in the side and sent him flying off the ten-foot drop they were sitting beside to land in the water.
He sputtered to the surface. “Thira!”
She peered down at him and laughed.
*
It was a good summer. Lance wore his crystal outside his clothes, and he put the things he had learned in the Garrison to proper use. He and Thira pulled off tricks in the fliers that made Thira’s father Milo yelp - and in turn, caused her mother, Queen Kida, to laugh long and hard.
He spent time with his amat and his abuelo and made face masks with his cousins. Thira roped him into pranking her older brother and spending a creepy night camped out in the lava tubes.
When he hugged his family and Thira goodbye to go home to Cuba before heading back to the Garrison, Lance felt a good deal lighter.
There was still a chance that he could be promoted to fighter class. He was going to do his best, and he was going to hang out with Hunk, and it was going to be a good year.
*
Halfway through the school year, the Kerberos mission launched. Lance watched awestruck as the rocket flew up into the sky. Takashi Shirogane – Shiro – was on that ship. Maybe one day, he’d be on one just like it.
He threw himself back into his coursework (into beating Keith) with new enthusiasm.
Two months later, tragedy struck. The Kerberos mission was declared lost, and the pilot and crew were assumed dead.
Classes at the Garrison were more subdued. Lance heard that a couple kids even dropped out – if Takashi Shirogane could die doing this, what chance did anyone else have?
Lance tried not to think about it, and just focused on his classes and spending time with Hunk. He was improving in most of his classes, but he still held only seventh place in flight class. Only the top six pilot cadets were in fighter class. He was so close.
A month before the end of the year, Keith Kogane snapped.
The rumors were wild, suggesting that he had done anything from stealing classified information, sabotaging the Kerberos mission, or even punching Iverson himself in the face. No one knew for sure, but everyone knew that Keith Kogane, the record-breaking pilot cadet, had been expelled.
The next time Lance checked the rankings, his heart soared.
“I made it, I’m a fighter pilot!” He exclaimed to Hunk. They were still in the hallway, but he did a little dance in celebration anyway.
“Hasta la later, Keith!” Lance rested an arm on Hunk’s shoulder. “And look, you’re my engineer.”
“Cool…” Hunk laughed nervously. “Uh, can I do that from the ground?”
Lance gave him an unimpressed look, and turned back to the board.
“And our communications officer is…” Who?
“Who the heck is Pidge Gunderson?”
“Right here,” said a voice behind them.
They turned. Pidge Gunderson was a short, pasty, skinny boy with wildly cropped brown hair. Lance grinned.
“Welcome to the team, Gunderson! I’m Lance, your fighter pilot.” Saying those words totally gave him a thrill.
“Hey, I’m Hunk,” Hunk chimed in.
“We got a lot of great times ahead,” Lance said, “So we should probably start bonding now. How do you feel about pizza? Maybe sneaking out to meet some cute girls…”
Gunderson wasn’t looking at him, but was instead peering behind him. Lance gave him a petulant glare for ignoring him.
Then, Gunderson lifted a hand in a timid salute. What –
“Wrong arm, cadet,” Iverson growled has we walked past. Hunk and Lance stiffened in surprise, and quickly snapped to.
When Iverson was out of earshot, Lance bent down toward Gunderson, who was still ignoring him.
“Hello? Pizza? Girls? Astronauts?” he asked.
Gunderson wrinkled his brow and turned to walk away. “Sorry, I don’t have time to mess around with you guys. See you in the simulator.”
And he was gone.
Lance looked after him, frustrated. “What’s his problem?”
Whatever. Nothing was going to ruin this day. He walked off, with Hunk right behind him.
He was a fighter pilot.