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When faced with a problem, Keith's approach was always one: act, and fast.
So, taking advantage of one of their stops on the way back to Earth, while the other were busy with their things, he was left alone with Lance near the Lions, and he didn’t let him go to let him disappear to do God only knew what.
"We have to talk."
Lance looked at him in disbelief, "You? Do you want to talk? Why?"
"Because you're rude," Keith began, crossing his arms over his chest, "You ignore Pidge, you're contemptuous, even with Allura, you don't listen to Shiro, you made Hunk cry…"
"Did I make Hunk cry? For what?"
Now, if Keith had been a more attentive person, he would have realized the neutral expression with which Lance had asked for it, the total absence of emotion, like he was totally dread; but Keith had never been an attentive person.
"You know what for," Keith snapped, but the other looked at him with such coldness that the paladin shuddered, and said, "No, Keith, why should I know? It's not like Hunk told me about it."
"According to Hunk, it's something that's going to our heads for…"
"What a convenient excuse," the Cuban muttered through gritted teeth, and before Keith could ask him what he meant, he gave him the most fake smile he had ever seen him, typical of someone who was facing an unpleasant encounter but had to remain as diplomatic as possible, "If that's what you're worried about, I promise I'll try to be nicer. Now, if you want to excuse me…"
Keith, however, didn't let him go. He grabbed Lance by the wrist, forcing him to stay and speak, for heaven's sake. Why was it so difficult to get someone like Lance to speak?" Can you know what gets you? What problem do you have?"
"I don't see how that can be your problem."
"It is if you give problems to the rest of the team! We need to stay united, not cause scenes and…"
It was interrupted by a sound made by Lance. It wasn't laughter, it was unpleasant. Is sounded contemptuous.
Lance looked at him with eyes as hard as steel, "So it's okay if the rest of you treat me like an idiot, but if I'm rude, then is that a problem? What kind of stupid double standard is this? Pidge and Hunk can make fun of me for my crush on Allura, Allura can politely ignore me…"
"That's because you're an idiot!"
In retrospect, Keith would have understood that interrupting a person who was venting, who was on the verge of crying, in that way was an asshole thing. At that moment, however, he was more focused on solving a potential problem for the team and wasn't thinking about Lance. He hadn't thought about him for some time.
The punch he received after that sentence was more than deserved. Keith had to let go of Lance's hand, putting both hands over his left eye.
Since when did Lance know how to hit so hard? And how had Keith not seen the punch coming?
"What the hell, Lance…"
"Oh, so I can't even react if you insult me? What am I, the team's stress reliever? Is that the only thing I'm useful for? Allow you to unload anxieties, anger and so on and then pretend nothing happened? What does it matter how I feel afterwards?"
Keith had never seen Lance so vulnerable, so angry. Anger had always been something Keith was familiar with. But Lance? Even during their supposed rivalry, Lance had never been so angry. And unhappy.
"Lance…"
The paladin closed his eyes, and massaged them, trying to regain his calm… And were those tears?
"Look, you want the team stronger, I want to go back to Earth. Let's try to make things work, and then once on Earth, you'll look for another red paladin."
"Another … I don't want another red paladin!"
Lance gave him a sceptical look, "But what if you and others do nothing but complain?"
"That's because you don't try hard enough!" Keith accused, only to receive in return a grin that was out of tune on Lance's face. It was a bitter grin, dull, without any joy.
"Then it won’t be a problem to find another pilot who is committed enough."
Keith began to plot. Logically, he saw Lance's reasons. Heck, Lance was making a great point. If you think that a team member is not up to par, the most logical thing is to replace him. It has always been done this way. But something inside him rebelled, finding the only idea aberrant.
How could Lance want to leave? How could he?
"How can you be so cowardly…"
Lance interrupted him, "Coward? Me? I've been blowing myself up since day one because I know what's right to do. I protected Coran, I protected Allura, I helped you! But it's never enough, is it? All of you can make mistakes, but I can't. I'm tired, Keith. I am willing to fight, to protect those who cannot, and because it is the right thing to do. But I'm no longer willing to be the scapegoat as soon as things go wrong and you need someone to blame. I'm done."
"You can't…"
"What? Can't I leave? You did it. I don't see why I can't do it too. Or do you think I'm too stupid to make my own decisions?"
Keith didn't think clearly. The idea of Lance leaving the team, leaving him, filled him with a terror he couldn't understand, and that led him to say, again, the worst possible thing.
"I did it because of you!" he blurted out, without adding I wanted you to stay in the team, Red had already chosen you, Shiro needed someone reliable, you were a good choice, I wanted you to have your chance to prove who you were.
He said nothing of the most important things, and the effect was devastating.
Lance bit his lip, his eyes glassy. But he did not cry. He was in control of himself much more than Keith could ever be.
"Yes… my fault… Don't worry, leader. You won't have to make any more sacrifices because of me," Lance's voice was full of venom as he uttered those words, "I will step aside, as It was meant to be from the beginning.”
"No, wait…"
But Lance was not going to listen to him anymore. He was tired, not only of him, but of the whole team. And as Keith saw him go, there would be one thing that might at least convince him to stop and talk.
You are good. You aren’t useless.
Pride, however, stubbornness, pure obtuseness, made Keith completely blind, and he… He didn't say it. It was his only chance, and he wasted it.
So, Lance left, and Keith was left wondering where he had gone wrong, and finding all the answers he didn't want to give himself.
"Lance wants to leave."
It was the first thing he said when he and Shiro were alone. The tension of the team had not eased, Lance hardly interacted with the team, except to give monosyllabic answers. Hunk had tried to joke, to cheer him up, receiving in return contemptuous looks from the other paladin. But Lance had kept his word: he didn't argue, he just nodded and let the others speak. It was the closest to kindness he had been in recent times.
If once he would have considered this a good thing, now Keith understood, with excruciating clarity, that it meant something else entirely. Lance had surrendered to them, and he didn't even think it necessary to try to keep up appearances anymore.
"Did he tell you?" Shiro asked calmly, standing on his right side.
"We discussed, a little while ago. He hit me."
"Did Lance hit you? Keith..."
"I deserved it," the paladin cut short. If anyone was there to blame, it wasn't Lance, "I told him something I shouldn't have, and he reacted better than I would have done."
Shiro received the news in silence, reflecting. Then he asked him, "What did you tell him?"
Keith felt an unpleasant sensation of sand in his mouth, "I said he was an idiot... after he had complained about how he was treated by the team..."
"Keith..."
"I made a mistake, now I know. I shouldn't have said that. But sometimes Lance is so infuriating. It's normal for others to get irritated by his antics."
"Did you see him be irritating, as you say?"
The question took him by surprise, "What..."
"I rephrase the question: since you returned, have you seen attitudes in Lance that could justify the way others treated him?"
Keith started to open his mouth, but closed it again soon after. No, there had been nothing. Lance had been calmer, more poised, but despite his generally more reserved, Pidge still gave him a lot of shit.
It was as if he had left before. God only knew how much Lance deserved it, and how much of Pidge's work he had ruined, even if by accident.
But Lance almost never spent his time with the green paladin. Nor with Hunk, or Allura, for that matter.
Keith knew about Lotor's fallout, and this would perhaps explain the way Lance had stepped aside with her.
However, Lance had not once taken the opportunity to try to console Allura, or anything else that might suggest that he still harbored feelings for the princess. No, the way he spoke to her was cold, bordering on formal, appropriate for a paladin, but not for a friend.
He didn't treat any of them as if they were friends.
"No," he finally replied, feeling a strong pressure in his chest, "I thought he was the problem."
"Why?"
"You know why."
"No, Keith. I spent a good part of my time stuck in the astral plane. From what I can tell, there's nothing that can justify calling Lance stupid, or laughing at his expense, or treating him like Allura does."
"He's always so clingy with her... I mean, he was," Keith corrected himself, biting the inside of his cheek, "I don't think he's very close to anyone anymore."
"If you realize that you are not wanted, why would you even try? Isn't that what you told me at Garrison when he tried to tell you that you should try to make friends with your classmates?"
"It was different, and you know it," the paladin protested vehemently, "They were all Rich assholes and idiots! We are a team, Lance should know that we want him."
"But do you want him?"
Shiro's question irritated him, "Of course we do! Why shouldn't we..."
"Even after Bob?"
The paladin stiffened, "That was just a dream. It doesn't count."
"A dream shared by all. Where, if I remember correctly, you defined him as the dumber member of the team, and you said..."
I don't want to spend the rest of eternity stuck here with Lance.
Yes, Keith remembered what he had said. He also remembered why. It was a dream, it wasn't real, and Lance had been too nice in why he voted for him.
It was obvious that it was not real. The real Lance would not have said any of that. They were just Keith's pious hopes. And Keith was angry.
But Lance had really understood those things. They had really been stuck in some dreamlike dimension.
It had been difficult for everyone. Keith hadn't stopped to think about what it must have been like for Lance. He hadn't even thought about it.
"That wasn't real," but it was a pathetic excuse even to his ears.
It had been real enough to prove to Lance that the people he considered friends didn't think highly of him.
"You asked Lance why he was so upset, instead of attacking him right away?" Shiro's tone was gentle as he asked, "Were you patient with him? Were you kind?"
"I... no, Shiro. I wasn't."
"So, put yourself in Lance's shoes. You realize that you are considered as a liability by your own team. No one thinks highly of you. You try to talk about it, but you get criticized. You are coming back from a traumatic experience that no one wants to talk about. In his place, wouldn't you be angry?"
"I'd be furious," the paladin admitted in a low voice. "I would be unbearable with everyone."
"It's fortunate for everyone that Lance is much more controlled about this. His decision is perfectly logical."
"It's not!" Keith protested, his voice dropping an octave, "We need him! He may not be the best, or the fastest, or the smartest, but he is a member of the team! Two lions have chosen him!"
Shiro was unperturbed. He listened to Keith's tirade without batting an eyelid, and as soon as he finished he asked him, "Keith, is it the team that needs Lance or is it you?"
"What does that mean?"
"You know what that means," the older man said, "Lance is important, but you have to understand why his loss would be intolerable for all of us. If you don't understand it, you can't hope to make him stay."
"He is a good paladin, he cannot be replaced..."
"No, wrong," Shiro interrupted, "You're still missing the point, Keith."
"What other point would there be? We are fighting a war, the Earth is in danger, what else should be important now?"
"Then I'm afraid that if you don't understand him, you can't convince him to stay."
"This is ridiculous, Shiro," he said through gritted teeth, struggling with the desire to bang his head somewhere.
At least, when Lance was the one giving him the advice, he was direct, he really tried to help Keith, and he didn't judge him. He was a good right-hand man, he had supported him even when everyone would have preferred Shiro in his place, and he had supported Keith. Keith had felt safe with him, a security he hadn't felt since Shiro had disappeared, he was happy, an indecipherable joy that made him feel a little silly and he had thought that maybe that was the closest thing there was to loving someone...
Oh. Oh.
Was that what Shiro was trying to tell him? Lance wasn't just important to the team. It was important to Keith.
Keith never once thanked him.
"Shiro..."
"Hmm?"
"I think... no, I know... that I had not treated him well," the admission burned, stinged like a badly healed wound full of pus, "Lance is an exasperating flirt, he makes jokes in the worst possible moments, he is a pain in the ass..."
"Keith..." Shiro said his name as a warning, clearly dissatisfied with where the boy was going. But Keith wasn't done, "But he's also kind, resourceful, compassionate, a good tactician, and always has a plan. He is competitive, but so am I, and when I needed it, he helped me. He helped me, Shiro. He was everything I have always wanted, that I have always sought... And I called him an idiot. I told him he deserved the way the rest of the team treated him because it was his fault. Of course he wants to leave. Who in their right mind would stay?"
Shiro said nothing. He let him vent. Keith hated that understanding. He hated that he could vent without judgment, while Lance couldn't. Because he hadn't let him do it.
"So, now what are you going to do?"
Keith looked at him without understanding. Shiro said again, "You don't want Lance to leave. What will you do to make him stay?"
"Lance doesn't want to stay. It's not fair..."
"Keith, what do you want to do to make him stay?" the former paladin repeated. Shiro knew him. He knew everything about him. He must also have understood things that Keith couldn't say out loud.
"I don't know," the paladin admitted, ashamed. He was better at hurting people than making them stay, "Lance said he was tired of being treated like the team's stress ball. To be blamed for everything. ”
"Then talk to others. Find a solution together."
"What if we can't?" he asked, the very idea of it made him feel such a desolation as to be indescribable.
"Then, let him go."
"Shiro..."
"If things don't change, Lance won't stay. He doesn't deserve to be the support for everyone, only to be dumped when he needs it. It doesn't work like that in a team, Keith. “
"I know," he admitted, especially to himself. The answer had always been there, ignored, because it was not convenient. Because it was easier to think that Lance was weak, than to admit that the rest of them were not so blameless.
None of them were good friends.
And when he talked about it with the others and saw their shattered expressions, he realized that they didn't mean to push Lance away, either, or make him feel that way. Not that their intentions mattered in the end. Because it didn't change the reality: Lance wanted to leave, and they...Keith, didn't know how to make him stay.