Chapter Text
The dread that came from waking was all too familiar to Lance, but that didn’t ease the anxiety that strummed through him as he caught his breath.
The dream played out in his mind as he got up to go to his bathroom.
He was shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the cracks of a shut door. High pitched screeches seeped from under the cracks and Lance rushed to open it. On the other side of the door was a blue eyed cat, marred with blood, holding a canary in its jaw.
He didn’t have a particular reason why, but he knew he needed to save the bird. The paladin surged forward reaching for the canary, but before his fingertips could reach, the cat’s jaw clenched and swallowed. The cries that had echoed through the room silenced in a second.
Lance felt like retching.
And then the dream repeated.
Again.
And again.
Each time he ran through the door he was met with blue eyes and blood. The poor bird’s feathers strewn around the cat in a yellow halo.
He was never quick enough. No matter how fast he was, or how deftly he caught the cat, he was always too late.
He wasn’t enough.
He splashed his face with water and met the blue eyes staring back at him in the mirror.
He didn’t sleep much the rest of the night.
Lance wouldn’t admit it, but after the dream he started avoiding sleep.
As much of a poet he liked to be when trying to impress cute aliens during their travels, he didn’t do metaphors. Especially not metaphorical dreams manifested from his anxieties.
So, in the following days the team saw a lot more of him than usual after dark.
He’d asked Hunk to join him in the kitchen to make late night snacks, arranged movie nights for the group, and bothered Pidge when she was up late working on the latest upgrades for their armor. Some nights he would met with red and sit in her cockpit for hours. He’d even joined Keith once or twice in the training room when he’d found him there.
Once everyone had gone to sleep, he’d pace in his room till he was too exhausted to think. On more than one occasion chucking out the idea of falling asleep in his room entirely. On those nights he’d walk out to the observatory where he’d sit and stare out at the projection of Earth, comforted when he could see the outlines of where his home would be.
The comfort was almost enough to lull Lance into peaceful sleep. However, the dreams still followed. Sometimes he’d catch the cat just after it dealt the final blow onto the bird. Sometimes he’d find just the bird, bleeding out, only able to cradle it as it took its last breaths. Other times, he’d open the doorway to find one of his teammates laying there instead. Their bodies crumpled underneath a looming figure with blue eyes he’d come to recognize as eerily similar to his own.
Those times were the worst.
Eventually, someone had to notice something was up.
“Dude,” Pidge yawned, “as much as I love staying up to hang out with you, even I need some sleep sometimes.”
Lance looked up from where he was sprawled out on her floor playing some game they picked up from the last space market they visited.
It was long into the night, far past when he’d normally catch Pidge still awake.
“Am I keeping you up?” he asked, worry ebbing into his voice.
“No man, I mean-“ Pidge cringed, “A little. It’s just, usually you’re the one stressing the importance of ‘beauty sleep’ and all that but lately it seems like you’ve been doing the opposite.”
Pidge adjusted their glasses.
“Don’t get me wrong I love our hang time!” they put their hands up, “But I’m a little worried about you.”
Yikes. Lance did not want to make Pidge worry about him.
So, he scrambled to make it better. “You’re right,” he said, moving to get up.
“I guess I got a little antsy lately since we haven’t been doing much fighting over the past week or two.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. He placed the game down on one of the piles of tech Pidge had stacked in her room.
They eyed him curiously, “Yeah, I guess we have all been a little stir crazy waiting for a new mission,” they said as they set the project they were working on down.
“Still, we need be on our best game to form Voltron, and that’s means getting at least a little sleep,” she lectured.
“Ironic coming from you,” Lance laughed.
“Yeah yeah, well only fair I get to say it to you when you do the same to me. Gotta pay it forward somehow.”
Lance chuckled and made his way over to the door. “Well g’night Pidgeon, I’ll go make sure I’m in tip top shape to form Voltron if the Galra decide to make some trouble for us tomorrow.”
He mimed a battle stance and let out a few ‘pew pew’s’ for Pidge to laugh at before leaving.
After departing, he reached his part of the hallway and paused at the door.
He was not exhausted enough yet to trust that he’d fall asleep soundly. Maybe a trip to the observatory would help?
Upon his arrival, he quickly realized that he was not alone.
Keith was messing with the machine, the stars moving and shifting to form different galaxies.
In a lame attempt to stir something up, Lance goaded Keith. “Typical of you to be all alone planning our next move when you should be sleeping.”
The remark rolled off of Keith’s back. Instead he turned to face him with a lilt of concern in his voice. “Oh, Lance. It’s not like you to be up this late.”
They had long since lost the heat in their conversations after switching lions. This dynamic was new, and Lance hadn’t quite yet worked out what to do with it.
He sighed and sauntered over to where Keith was positioned by the projector and peered at the stars.
“So what’s the battle plan you’re mapping out now?”
“Oh uh-“ Keith stumbled. “I’m actually looking for the planet Axion.”
“Axion?”
“On the last planet we saved, one of the leaders mentioned that they had a pretty amazing view around this time of year. I wanted to see if we could fit it in between the next couple of planets we’re heading to,” he fidgeted with a knob on the controls.
“Wow, Keith considering a vacation? That’s a first” Lance remarked and nudged him.
Keith chuckled and shoved Lance back. “It’s not like that, I thought it could be kind of a mental health day for us. You mentioned how we all needed a break the other day and the more I’ve been thinking about it you’re right, I’ve been pushing us pretty hard.”
Lance was stunned for two reasons. For one, that one of his ideas had been deemed important. And two, that Keith had deemed it so.
After a bit Keith stopped messing with the controls of the hologram and plopped down on the couch staring at the stars. Lance dumbly stood where he was for a tick before moving next to him on the couch.
“Why’d you decide to work on this so late?” he questioned. It was past what any sensible paladin would consider an acceptable hour to work. “I’m sure Allura could’ve helped you locate it if you asked.”
Keith sighed, “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Why not?” Lance asked, but he was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“Nightmares, is that what’s got you up too?”
Lance made a face and nodded. It was hard to beat around the bush when Keith was being honest with him.
“Do you…” Keith trailed off awkwardly. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asked, less like a suggestion and more like he was leaving the option open for Lance. As great of a leader as Keith was, he was still no Shiro, and Lance could see pep talks were still not his strongest suit.
“Nah,” Lance answered. “Do you?”
Keith shook his head, and they both silently stared at the stars.
In a way, Lance was grateful that Keith was the one to see him like this. He didn’t think he had the energy to explain why dreams of dead birds were freaking him out this much.
Keith, he noted, was good for this kind of thing. Plus a lot of other things if Lance was being honest.
As they sat there, Lance considered figuring out an excuse to go back to his room. Him and Keith were close, but not ‘confide your feelings and waste away the night together’ close. He was about to make a comment about heading back to his room when he felt the gentle pressure of Keith’s head rest on his shoulder.
“Keith?” he whispered.
The man was out cold, and Lance didn’t have the heart to wake him.
So he waited. A few minutes couldn’t hurt right? Just until Lance could figure out how to worm out of the couch without waking Keith.
But a few turned into more, and soon Lance found himself being lulled to sleep by the hum of the castle and the warmth of the paladin resting on him.