"But I train every--"
"Not now, Lance," Shiro said. Lance gulped. Shiro was disappointed in Lance. Of course he was. Why wouldn't he be disappointed in the useless fuck up Lance? "Okay everyone, I think we're done for today. Not you Lance, I want you to get some extra training done."
Lance nodded, and fought against the stinging in his eyes. The team left, Pidge throwing another glare his way before they all left. Lance let a tear slip down before he wiped it away and turned back to the bots.
"Start Training Level 103."
Keith's POV
We were sitting at the table waiting for Lance to show up for dinner. He was ten minutes late. I growled. "What's taking him so long?" I hissed. "What on Earth could he be doing?"
"Probably flirting with Allura," Pidge said, equally angry. I nodded in agreement. Lance was so annoying sometimes. Why couldn't he just do as he was told for once?
"Hello paladins," Allura said walking in and greeting us, Coran following closely behind. "Where is Lance?"
"I told him he needed to train more," Shiro said. "But now he's missing."
Allura looked at us confused. "But why does Lance need to train more? He trains the most out of all of you."
I laughed. "Lance? Please, he doesn't train except for when we force him to."
"No," Allura said with a shake of her head. She walked over to the control panel and a hologram appeared on the wall. It was a training record. I expected Shiro to be on top, myself in second and Lance somewhere on the bottom. Instead, Lance was at the top, his level at...103?! I was only at level 52! "It says here that Lance trains from eleven to four every night. Except for two nights ago when he left the training room at three. That's strange he's usually so punctual."
I just stared. "Woah, I had no clue he did that." Pidge said. "I heard someone training every night but I assumed it was Keith or Shiro."
"Hey guys, dinner's ready!" Hunk said coming out of the kitchen holding a plate of what looked like spaghetti. "Where's Lance?"
"Training." I said gruffly.
"He needs to eat," Hunk pouted. "I'll go get him." he said before walking out of the room. He came back in a few minutes late with a very exhausted Lance. His usually mocha skin was pale and his legs were shaking.
He was limping and gritting his teeth in pain whenever he put weight on his left leg. I narrowed my eyes. "Lance, are you hurt?"
He looked at me in surprise. "No, no, it's fine. It's not bad."
"Lance, if you hurt yourself you should go see Coran," Shiro scolded. Lance nodded.
"Don't worry I can handle it," he then swayed.
"Lance?"
"I'm...a little...dizzy.." he said before he collapsed on the ground. Everyone jumped up and ran to him. Shiro lifted him gently and ran to the med bay. Coran took him and placed him in the pod and waited for the medical diagnostic to print.
"Oh dear," Coran said softly.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Well, Lance did injure himself. Pretty severely too. Looks like he got stabbed with a bot sword in his leg two nights ago. He wrapped it up himself but didn't go in the pod. But it was a deep cut, down to the bone. Why didn't he come to anyone?" Coran said. I stared at him uncomprehendingly.
"Lance hurt himself and didn't tell anyone?" Pidge asked.
"He's very malnourished as well." Coran added. I snapped my head up in surprise. "It says he hasn't eaten in four days. That combined with the severe training he's been putting his body through it's a miracle he hadn't collapsed sooner."
We all just stood in stunned silence. Why hadn't Lance been eating? And more importantly how had we not noticed? I turned to look at Lance through the glass. He looked bad. I can't believe I never noticed. There were dark bags under his eyes and he looked like he lost a lot of weight. His muscles were more pronounced but at what cost?
The pod beeped and Coran frowned. "What's happening?" I asked.
"The pod needs to keep Lance in for another week but Lance is forcing his way out now."
"You can do that?" Shiro asked. Coran nodded.
"It's not a good idea, in fact it's a very bad one. Yet, lance won't stay in the pod." Coran said and as if to prove his point, the pod door whoosed open and Lance fell into Hunk's awaiting arms. Lance goraned.
"Fuck, my head hurts," Lance said. "Did I get hit by a bus?"
"LANCE!" Hunk wailed. Lance jumped in surprise and then looked around slowly.
"What happened? Why are we in the med bay?" Lance asked. He tried to stand but his legs wobbled and he fell once more. I growled. Why was he forcing himself to move. He should be resting!
"You collapsed. Lance why haven't you been eating?" Shiro asked. "And more importantly, why didn't you tell us you were injured?"
"Because then I would've been out of commission and you wouldn't be able to form Voltron." Lance said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I narrowed my eyes.
"Who cares about Voltron? You could've gotten even more hurt." I said. Lance laughed.
"Yeah okay, but like Voltron's actually important," Lance laughed. I froze and looked at him. Is this what this was? What did he mean Voltron was actually important? The way he said it made it seem like he wasn't important...then it clicked.
He didn't think he was important. He probably thought that the only thing he was here for was Voltron. Did he think we didn't care if he got hurt? "What are you talking about, Lance? You're way more important than Voltron."
Lance scoffed. "Alright guys I get it, I'm valuable. Now I gotta go train. Don't wanna fall anymore behind right?" Lance said before pushing himself off of Hunk.
"No Lance, I don't think you do get it," I said. "Get it through your head. You're important. And now you're going right back in that pod and getting healed up and after you get out we are having a serious talk." I said before grabbing Lance's arm roughly and shoving him in the pod. His protests were silenced as the pod closed.
"I don't like the way Lance was talking about himself," Pidge whispered sadly. "The way he talked. It was like he believed every word."
"Well, Lance has always been insecure. He never truly believed he'd amount to anything. But I thought Voltron had cured those insecurities. I didn't think that it would make them worse," Hunk said sadly. I looked at Hunk in surprise.
Lance was insecure? But all he ever did was boast about what he could do. How awesome he was. Lance was full of himself. Unless he wasn't. Unless all of that was a ploy to get us to believe he was happy. How had we fallen for it?
"We're just going to have to convince him of the truth," I said. Everyone nodded. I turned back to his pod and placed my hand on the glass. "No matter how long it takes."
Exhaustion killed the cat
Comincia dall'inizio
