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Keith often joked about his Galra heritage. It was a coping mechanism, Lance guessed. The poor guy already felt enough like an outsider, like a freak, and then suddenly he’s not even human like the rest of them? No wonder he tried to find humor in it.
Over the years, though, it just became commonplace. Less of a coping mechanism, and more of just a personality trait. The Galra jokes were so deeply embedded within Keith that no one even blinked when he cracked them. No one found them funny, still, but it wasn’t as though they were exactly annoyed by them.
Well, that was a lie. There was this one that Lance didn’t like. It pissed him off for some inexplicable reason, and it seemed to be the one Keith made the most. It was never the same every time, but he knew the formula well enough that he could probably recite a ghost of it by memory.
“Hey,” Keith would always start out, “don’t be afraid to cry, it’s human to cry!”
He would always make this joke after a battle. Particularly the bloody ones, fought up close and all personal. Or the ones where they all had almost died. Or both.
“But wait!” he would then gasp. “I’m not human! I guess I can’t cry then.”
And then he would smirk as his eyes went all glassy and he would take off his armor slowly in a dissociative state like the rest of them.
And that, Lance guessed, was what pissed him off. Because none of them cried after battle anymore, not even Pidge or Hunk. Not one tear, not even a hiccup, after taking thousands of lives in one go or after ripping out the guts of a Galra grunt soldier all up close.
None of them cried.
None of them felt anything.
None of them were human, per se, anymore.
And that’s what annoyed Lance. Though “annoyed” probably wasn’t the right word.
“I don’t cry!” Keith would always say with some uncharacteristic cheerfulness as his forced smile hurt his face and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. “I guess I’m not human!”
“Are any of us?” Lance always planned on responding. “Are any of us human anymore?”
But he was always too much of a coward to do so.