Langst One-Shots

To Blood and Bone (Part III)

Lance sat on the edge of his bed, humming softly as he wrung his hands, desperately wanting something to occupy himself and keep him awake. His eyelids felt heavy- too heavy- and if Lance wasn't careful, he could pass out anytime soon and then he wouldn't get training in.

Lance didn't want that. He desperately didn't want that.

Lance shifted his body a little so he was able to look at the clock without straining his eyes. 8 minutes before Keith's nightly training session ever. Lance sighed, wishing he could roll his eyes. Couldn't a blue paladin train in peace? What was up with Keith anyway?

Lance groaned and threw himself onto his back. He put a hand over his eyes and used the other to fan himself. After the scolding Shiro gave him today- the one he fell asleep in- Lance had spent over an hour thinking up solutions for it. Caffeine? He hated coffee and only drank it when necessary. Pills? No idea where to get those. Eventually, Lance decided to at least get 2 hours of sleep each night instead of his usual half hour. He wouldn't let Shiro and his team down again.

However, that didn't stop Lance from feeling horrid and overthinking everything. The team was his family now. Lance sometimes thought of Shiro as his weird space dad, and he was pretty sure that Pidge and Hunk agreed with him on that. And fathers were supposed to regularly scold their children so they could get better. And rarely compliment the one child that was doing bad so they would have more motivation to get better. Dads did that, right?

Right?

Lance had been away from Earth for far too long.

***

The training area was finally freed. Lance grabbed his copy of "The Art of Self Defense." A few days ago, Lance had finished the chapter on Martial Arts and he felt he was doing rather great on it. Yesterday, he had completed the chapter on Knife Throwing (Lance was excited to show Keith that chapter when Lance was prepared to show off all his skills, not to be egotistical). Today, he would start the chapter on Varma Adi, which sounded pretty awesome.

Lance started off with warm-ups. He always laughed whenever he said it aloud, because he sounded exactly like his old gym teacher. He wished he didn't find everything about Earth funny, but being stuck in space made him too homesick. Yet Lance had to admit he had his moments. If only there were people to listen.

Lance slid into the splits, wincing. He was extremely flexible, but doing the splits has always been a struggle for him. He was getting better each day, though, and if there was something Lance was proud of, it was the fact that he was able to hold the splits for a full two minutes. He just had to be sure that he would soon be able to hold it longer- you never know what kind of situation you'll end up in (Lance didn't know what kind of danger would force Lance to be in the splits for ten minutes, but he didn't particularly care.)

Lance finished his stretches and opened up his book, tossing his shoes off, rolling his feet from the front of his toes to the back of his heels as he read the first paragraph. He sighed, scratching the back of his neck. This chapter kept talking about certain points of the body, what points were the most tender, how to hit those points, and all in all it just didn't make sense. Lance groaned, rolling his head, making sure to stretch his neck.

Usually, Lance would start off training by just practicing with the air or throwing stuff at certain points of the wall, ceiling or ground. But it looks like Lance desperately needed a body to work this out. Before Lance started the training session, however, he need to from his hand into what it looked like in the book. He turned the page over with his toe, looking for instructions on how to do it, and groaned when he realized that it didn't matter how he held his hand. He finally settled on keeping his hands in loose fists, almost like he was about to punch someone. That'd be interesting to use it for "pressure-point stunning" or whatever. The book said that certain pressure points were usually the tender spot between the shoulder and neck, between the shoulder blades, anywhere RIGHT under the rib-cage, in the middle of the separation between buttocks and thighs, etc. etc...

Lance's interest was peaked. This fighting style could be really useful. It said it could cause short term paralysis in the certain areas hit and surrounding the hit for quite a while... The dummies in the training were very anatomically correct. They should cooperate with Lance using Varma Adi on them.

"Start training level 1." Lance called, rolling his neck. Alright, starting off easy. Shouldn't be too hard getting to level 10 in 6 hours. Maybe higher. Most likely higher.

Definitely higher.

***

Lance, exhausted, retired to his room at 6:00 a.m. He wouldn't have to wake up for another two hours... that sounded nice. Lance knew he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Unfortunately, he couldn't do that.

The castle's security alarms suddenly blared, the room's lights shutting down and replacing them with flashing red. All Lance could do was groan as he slipped into his suit, and he reached for the coffee maker (he had bought it at a space mall, just in case although he despised the taste of coffee, along with pretty much a lifetime supply of coffee beans and cream for an insanely cheap price), taking the already brewed coffee and pouring it into a mug. He grabbed his helmet, spilling the coffee into his mouth before tossing it onto his bed and opening the door.

Already feeling more energetic, Lance shut the door using his left foot, leaving his room in the dark.

The prince of darkness is a gentleman! -William Shakespeare