Lance Pov
There were days when I could just wake up and everything would be fine. I'd be with my boyfriends, Keith and Shiro, the most amazing boyfriends in the world. I'd be perfectly content to clean the house while they were out on the force doing their job and protecting the citizens. Other days I'd wake up in bed and fight the panic. The gut wrenching terror that he was coming back for me. That it hurt to breathe because the weight on my chest was just too heavy.
It was one of those days.
Everything was perfectly normal yesterday. Nothing went wrong. In fact, I had been doing so well. I haven't felt like this in almost three weeks. But I woke up this morning with the undeniable paranoia choking me. Keith and Shiro had already left for work, and I was just laying in bed and trying not to scream.
My ears were ringing.
The noise was just too loud. I could hear the screams. Too loud. I could hear the swoosh of air as the whip came down. It was too loud. I could hear my screams and his laughs. It was just too damn loud. I jerked up and crawled under the bed and cried, my hands clutched at my ears trying to end the noise.
It was too loud.
No one's POV
Shiro laughed as he pulled into the driveway. He had lost to Keith again. To be fair, Keith's motorcycle to could weave through traffic, but still. Keith smiled smugly at his boyfriend as he took off his helmet.
"I win," he said with a laugh.
"Yeah , whatever," Shiro scoffed. "You probably woke up Lance with that roaring."
"There's no way Lance is still asleep," Keith countered. He dug out the keys to their house and opened the door. Blue, their dog, was there waiting for them. Keith bent down to pet the dogs head but he whined and bit Keith's jacket and pulled. "Wha, hey!" Keith yelled trying to get the fabric out of the dogs mouth before it ripped.
"Wait," Shiro said. Keith stopped and looked at Shiro questionally. "I think he's trying to tell us something. Where's Lance, Blue?" Keith stopped and looked around. Lance was usually there to greet his boyfriends whenever they entered the house, but now Lance was nowhere to be seen.
Blue let go of Keith's jacket and walked into the shared bedroom. She stuck her head under the bed and whined again. Keith crouched down and saw Lance sobbing and clutching at his ears. "Oh, Lance.."
"Get him out from under the bed," Shiro said, his voice calm but you could see how anxious he was. "I'll go get some water. Who knows how long he's been under there." Keith nodded and Shiro ran out of the room.
"Lance?" Keith asked quietly. Lance's sobs got a little quieter and he lifted his head.
"K-k-Keith?" Lance gasped out.
"Baby can you get out for there? Come here," Keith stuck out his hand. Lance slowly let go of his ears. Keith sucked in a breath when he saw the bleeding claw marks all over his face. It was one of those days. Lance moved like molasses out from under the bed. The second he was out Keith embraced him. Lance whimpered and brought his hands to his ears again.
"It's...t-t-too...l-loud." Lance sobbed into Keith's chest. Keith rubbed Lance's shoulder trying to soothe him. Shiro came in holding a blue fleece blanket and a jug of water. Lance took the blanket and cocooned himself.
Shiro opened the walk in closet and opened a box containing earplugs and noise cancelling headphones. When they first rescued Lance, they had given this to him because the boy was, and still is, extremely sensitive to sound. They had to hide them though because Lance wouldn't take them off. It took a lot of coaxing just to get him to take them off. Shiro was glad he hadn't thrown them out last week like Lance had wanted to.
