Voltron One Shots

Bottled

Prompt: Lance bottling up his emotions, as he does, but way too much. It takes the tiniest, littlest passive-aggressive comment in his direction for it all to spill out.

A/N: his is mostly just Lance ranting but ;; whatever.

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Lance was never a very emotional person. That may be hard to believe, because of his over-the-top personality, but he was actually a pretty closed off person. He kept all his thoughts and emotions inside, bottled up. It wasn't healthy, but he didn't know any other way. Normally, everything was okay. Back at the garrison there wasn't much to bottle up, a snide comment from a classmate or an unfair grade from a teacher. But then all he would have to do is call his mom, and everything was okay.

But up here?

Up here everything was building up. No one had personal space. They were all lashing out at each other, mostly at Lance, or at least it seemed that way to him. Lance didn't know how to deal with all of this, so he bottled it all up. He just shoved everything away until every little comment, every weird look had piled up in the back of his mind. Lance wasn't sure how much more he could take.

It seemed that things were getting progressively worse in the last few days. Everyone was picking on Lance more and more, it seemed like. He didn't understand why. But he ignored it. Until finally he couldn't anymore.

It happened when he went to train one day. Keith was in there alone, like he usually was. Lance wanted to turn around and leave, but Keith had already spotted him.

"Hey," he said, cleared his throat. "Do you mind if I train in here with you?" Lance asked. Keith stared at him blankly and then shrugged.

"Whatever." He didn't look like he thought it was fine. Lance shifted nervously.

"Really?" he asked. "Because I can come back later and—"

"It's fine" he replied flatly before going back to training. Lance uncomfortably dropped his stuff on the bench and then turned on the training robot and began sparing with it.

He trained for a few minutes in silence, trying to ignore Keith's glares. He clearly had a problem with Lance being there. After a few more minutes Lance had had enough. He threw his hands up with a defeated sigh and marched to the edge of the room to grab his stuff.

"What?" Keith snapped. Lance gritted his teethe and ignored him. "Lance why are you being weird?" Lance turned around. Keith was only a few steps away from him.

"You're mad cause I'm in here, so I'm leaving" he explained, slinging his bag on his shoulder.

"I'm not mad"

There was a beat of silence, and then—

"I just—" This was the last straw for Lance.

"You just what Keith?" he growled. "What do you have to say now that you couldn't say before? Why does no one around here say what they really think? If you have a fucking problem with me, just say it!" he shouted. Keith blinked in surprise.

"Wh- what?" he asked in confusion. Lance clenched his fists at his side, taking a step forward.

"Why do you all hate me?" he asked. Keith looked around in confusion. "Is there something wrong with me, or do you all just need someone to take all your shit out on? Is that it?" he knew he was raising his voice, but he couldn't help it. He had completely snapped.

"Lance, I honestly don't know what you're talking about" Keith said, gesturing for Lance to calm down. "I don't know why—"

"You guys always make fun of me" Lance interrupted him. "All your stupid comments. I hear all of them! I'm not deaf!" All his yelling was attracting attention. Shiro and Pidge poked their heads into the room to see what was going on. "You know the things you say to me have an effect. I'm not an emotionless robot!" Keith was staring at him in compete shock. He had no idea where this all was coming from.

"What's going on in here?" Shiro asked as he crossed the room. Lance crossed his arms and stared at the floor. Yelling at Keith was one thing, but yelling at Shiro? He wasn't sure he could do that.

"I don't know!" Keith said honestly. "He was yelling at me for... being mean or something?" He was completely lost.

"Lance?" Shiro asked, turning to him. Lance stubbornly glared at the ground, refusing to answer. "Why would you think Keith was being mean to you?" he asked. "Did you do something to provoke him? You know he comes in here to train and be alone—" Lance was fed up. Shiro had just assumed that Lance had done something. They always assumed everything was Lance's fault.

"I know!" he shouted. "I know that! I asked him if it was okay, and he lied to me"

"I didn't lie to—" Lance moved until he was only a few inches from Keith's face.

"Yes, you did! You lied to me! You all lie to me! No one takes me seriously" he fumed. "You all act like I'm less than you in some way, and I understand that you all need some kind of punching bag, but does it have to be me?" Keith's eyes widened. Shiro put his hand on Lance's shoulder threateningly, forcing the two apart.

"Whoa, Lance, calm down. There's no reason to overreact" he laughed shortly. Lance turned and got into Shiro's face. He poked his chest.

"I'm not overreacting! You all put me down, constantly."

"Lance, we don't do that" Shiro said defensively.

"You do- You do! You give backhanded compliments, and you're always doing passive-aggressive shit and I'm tired of it! Stop telling me that I'm 'good at piloting for someone like you' like what does that even mean!?"

"I- I didn't mean it like that!" Shiro sputtered. "I meant that—" Lance shook his head, practically in tears. He didn't want to hear it. He didn't want to listen to their feeble excuses. They were all being mean and petty with each other for no reason.

"Wh- whatever" he sucked in a sharp breath. "I just- please stop doing it. Stop saying all those things. Your words matter" he hunched in on himself and backed away from Shiro and the everyone else who was crowded around him, staring at Lance like he was crazy. "Please. Please stop treating me this way. I can't handle it" he pleaded as he backed out of the room.

He just wanted people to treat him fairly.