Time Moves On (Langst)

Training

He was surrounded in a liquid. It made it hard to breath, the thick red blood clogged his lungs and choked him from the inside out. Sweat poured down his face as he reached his hands to his throat only to find a much stronger pair of hands grasping it tightly. Soon enough the dark abyss called his name lovingly as he was engulfed into the darkness.
Lance woke suddenly to find he was still in bed safe. As the choking feeling slowly decreased Lance decided to walk the castle halls. As he looked for his friends at what he presumed to be 3 in the morning he felt sweat run down his brow. Did his father really frighten him this much? Still? Their in vast edges of space light years away from his father. Never the less he continued his search for one of his team mates. God knows Pidge and Shiro are allergic to sleep and will likely need some coaxing or consolation for whatever has them awake. Just as he is about to pass the training room Lance can hear his leaders deep grunts inside, when he walked in he could see Shiro' eyes swirling with emotion. Regret, pain, annoyance, anger, but most vividly sadness. A longing for a different life and in no way would Lance leave his hero in this state.
Slowly he walked over to Shiro and placed a gentle hand on his human shoulder to be sure he could feel his presence. He then began to pry the steel arm from the wall it was currently pounding upon. Once Shiro was safe he led him to the ground so he could sit beside him. They say patiently for minutes, Lance knew his leader needed time to calm down and let the thoughts run through his head. Soon the damaged man began to mumble words, "Lance I'm sorry. You can go to bed I'm fine." Lance waited a few seconds to encourage him to continue " I just, I just hate it Lance. I can't feel it, it's not real. I'm still just their experiment. Sendak was right it really is the best part of me, it's my weapon. I know I should be grateful for it for even having an arm but I hate it; and if I could have the real one back I would do it. No matter how much harder fighting the Galra would be."
"Shiro tell me if Pidge lost their arm would you be mad at them for wanting it back?" He continued knowing what his answer would have been. "Shiro we're all just human it's okay to not always be strong. And your right it's terrible what they did to you but that arm is not the best thing about you; the best thing about you is your mind. It's so complicated yet knows exactly what to do within seconds of a problem occurring. Shiro they don't own you. They don't own any of us and we are going to stop them from ever doing this" he then gestured to Shiro' Galra made arm "again."
The training room was quiet until you could hear a breath that clearly Shiro had been holding in be released "Thank you Lance, now go get some sleep." And with that they were both off to their respected rooms.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
A red light blared in his vision as he slowly sat up. Shit training. Lance quickly rushed to the designated room to find only two over the other palidens were there along with the princess and Coran. Shiro and Keith were talking lively about pranks the two pulled together back at the garrison. Huh I guess they were close before Voltron.
Hunk and Pidge soon rushed in holding modified pieces of the same equipment they used on their first mental trading exercise. That day had taken a lot of effort mentally to keep solely happy images in his thoughts, which was something Lance depression didn't like to think of.
Pidge was still pulling wires on one of the mechanisms while hunk slumped them over his broad shoulders." Hurry up will you? We've been working on these all night!" Hunks loud voice echoed across the large room.
"Yah yah okay just one second you big bab- ah hah! Got it! The perfect machine to not only look back upon and find important memories of an individual but also broadcast them for others to see. With added translators for viewers who speak different languages." The gremlin seemed pretty proud of their creation as they handed it over to the princess. So that's what we're doing for training today,this is not going to be pretty.
"Princess is this a mandatory session, I thought we bonded with our lions already?"
"Well yes Lance you have bonded with your lions but you must bond with each other to become a stronger team, in other words no your staying for this exercise." The way she spoke made it seem like this entire thing won't be a disaster.
"Alright palidens this is the order we will be using Shiro the Hero, wiz kid Pidge, ray of sunshine, emo mullet, and finally the flirt." Where did he even come up with those names? Lance begins to wonder to himself but he doesn't have much time to ponder as images of a small Keith appear on a screen overhead. Shiro currently looks like sleeping beauty with the way he's sleeping as image and scene after scene okay across the projector. Soon enough Lance and everyone else in the room can feel their heart break in two as they watch Pidge find out her family is most likely dead over the television. Oh come on Lance thinks why didn't they send someone in person when half the family goes missing. Image after image flash across the screen as the group watches hunk wave goodbye to his family to study at the garrison. While watching Keith meet Shiro his soon to be older brother for the first time the part of Keith's memories that stranded out the most were the ones all alone of him in the shack taking care of himself and searching for the blue lion. Lance wonders if he would have preferred that, a quiet place to live and search for your destiny with only one person to care for. Eventually he decides that no he had to be there for his familia even at the cost of his freedom.
Next it's lances turn to go under he can see the dried tear streaks on some faces, the memories of the team could be rather sad but all Lance could think before the darkness overcame him was, will they still be there when I wake up or will they have left.