I Hope Some Day I'll Make It Out Of Here (Even If It Takes All Night Or A Hundred Years)
Lance & Team Voltron (Voltron), Angst, Hurt/Comfort, 4.7k Words
Part of Langst Week 2022 (@langstron) – Day 1 (Isolation/Secrets)
Summary: The airlock incident may have fucked Lance up more than he’s willing to admit. Unfortunately, he does something about it.
Content warning for severe description of a panic attack.
---
“If you check your messages, you’ll find an Excel file – yes Keith, I know it’s not actually an Excel file, please hold the commentary – of our chore lists. They rotate every week, around our schedules. Look through them, and if there’s a problem, be sure to let me know.”
Lance turns on his holopad, opening his messages, and – yep! There it is. To Shiro’s credit, it really does look like an Excel file. He scrolls down his section, seeing he’s got laundry duty today, kitchen tomorrow, and – he tenses.
Pod duty.
Okay. Okay! This is fine. He can get around this. Scrolling through the file as a whole, brain whirring, he sees that the pods need to be cleaned every week for maintenance, and again after every use. He’s cleaning them first, then Hunk, then Keith, all the way to Allura herself. He thinks back to scattered conversations he’s had with the rest of the paladins. He knows Hunk cannot stand doing laundry. Pidge hates anything to do with vacuuming. Keith loathes doing dishes of any kind, and Lance has heard Adam complain enough to know Shiro cannot cook for the life of him. He’s not sure about Coran and Allura, but with a couple trades and a few strategic illnesses, Lance is certain he can get away with never going near those death traps again.
Not that anyone can know. He’s not… afraid of them, per se. He’s just logically avoidant! The clammy hands and laboured breathing when he thinks of the pods isn’t a terrorized trauma response, it’s just his hippocampus recognising danger and producing the proper chemicals to steer his body away from the potential life-threatening scenario!
Yeah, okay, maybe the haunted castle incident messed him up more than he’s willing to admit. Whatever. It won’t affect his life, he doesn’t need to tell anyone. He can for sure just avoid the damn things until the fear goes away. Right?
Right.
—
Luckily for Lance, he’s not the only person on this ship who grew up with siblings. Everyone here knows the art of chore trading.
He catches Hunk in the morning, holding a laundry hamper far away from his body and scowling at it.
“Hunk! Buddy, pal, light of my life!” he calls, forcing himself to sound cheerful and possibly even mischievous. He cannot sound desperate, that’s Negotiation 101.
Hunk squints at him suspiciously. “You only call me ‘light of your life’ when you want something,” he accuses.
Lance clutches his hand to his chest. “You wound me!” he gasps dramatically. “I am heartbroken! The disdain, the accusations – baseless, if I may add – maim me so! My heart! My feelings! My delicate composition –”
“What do you need, Lance,” Hunk interrupts, but he’s grinning.
Ha! Lance’s dramatics do come in handy, thank you ever so much. He made a grumpy Hunk smile.
“I have actually come to offer you something, from the generosity of my own heart,” Lance says. “You see, my dearest friend, my love, the man after my own heart –” Hunk rolls his eyes, but doesn’t stop Lance’s theatrics – “I know you despise laundry with every part of your soul. So I, the gracious do-gooder that I am, am offering a trade. A switcheroo, if you will. I’ll take your horrible laundry duty today, and you get to do the slightly less horrible job of cleaning the pods.”
Hunk raises an eyebrow, but he thankfully looks like he’s considering the offer. “What’s in it for you?”
Not having a panic attack, Lance thinks, but he obviously doesn’t say this. “You not telling Shiro we switched so I can safely and subtly snoop through Keith’s shit and he thinks it’s you,” Lance says instead.
He came up with this lie last night, and he’s pretty proud of it. It’s not even fully a lie, either – he’d love to snoop around Keith’s room a little, and he knows Keith will expect Hunk to do it, so he’ll expect his stuff to be messed up a little, and Lance will gain information to give him the upper hand in future bantering. Also, this way, no one else knows Lance is switching, so no one will get suspicious about his lack of pod-cleaning time.
Hunk ponders this for a moment, but seems to decide that he’s down, because he nods, nudging the laundry hamper over to Lance.
“Deal, but if you get caught with the laundry hamper, I’m not coming up with a lie, and you’re on your own.”
“Sure!” Lance agrees, picking up the laundry hamper and turning away. “You’re welcome, Hunk!”
—
The rest of the negotiations are much of the same. Lance comes up with subtle and believable little white lies to convince everyone to both switch chores with him and keep quiet about it. So far, it’s been seven months of being in space, and he’s only been back into the MedBay a handful of times (each time for minor injuries that he was luckily able to hide from the team. Although the injuries weren’t hugely disabling, or anything, they were big enough to land him in a pod if they’d been noticed – think broken ankles, deeper cuts that would need stitches on Earth, light concussions – which would have been disastrous, because Lance can’t get within one metre of a pod without feeling his vision blur and hands start to shake. The only other times he’s been near a pod have been after a deadly mission when he’d been unconscious or delirious – if someone tried to force him into one of those death traps while he’s fully aware of his surroundings, he knows he would have skipped right into the panic attack of the century and the ruse would be over).
Honestly, Lance is starting to feel a little guilty about it. Since he’s switching chores with people, he’s technically doing the same amount of work as anyone else, but he still feels like he’s been getting special treatment. Sometimes, someone will start a conversation about chores, and inevitably, someone will complain about the pods, leading to a group session of moaning and whining about the dreaded chore. Lance feels his soul weigh heavier every time he joins in with a false laugh and a fake story.
He is a fraud, and he needs to fix this.
The next time his turn to clean the pods rolls around, Lance takes a deep breath, and he doesn’t go to anyone else. He doesn’t fake a migraine, he doesn’t cajole Pidge into switching around their schedules, nada. He waits until everyone’s busy and won’t come find him (no one can know how bad he’s let himself get), grabs some cleaning solution and a couple rags, and marches to the MedBay.
As soon as the door closes behind him, he feels like the room gets smaller. His vision begins to narrow, and his palms start to sweat.
Shit. Usually he can go a lot farther than this. Just yesterday, he very nearly touched a pod before he started hyperventilating. He feels like he’s destroyed all his progress.
Fuck, maybe he should have waited a few more months. He still can’t touch the pods without visions of suffocating to death where no one can hear him scream.
He shakes his head violently, desperately attempting to force himself to get over it.
It’s a fucking pod. A machine. Shiro was tortured by Zarkon and his goons for a year and still manages to wake up and fight him every day, so what audacity does Lance have to be so batshit terrified of a stupid piece of glass and metal?
He grits his teeth, grabs a rag, and forces himself to walk over to the nearest pod. He blinks the tears from his eyes, wrenching his unwilling arms to move. He reaches out, touching the glass of the front and –
He gasps, doubling over. Fuck. He can feel his breaths coming shorter and shorter, can feel the cold sweat plastering his hair to his forehead.
Okay. Okay. This is fine. Twenty more seconds of panic, and then he’s going to get the fuck up and continue cleaning.
He desperately tries to slow his breathing, counting slowly to twenty, then pushes himself to move back over to the pod. He sprays the glass and starts scrubbing, hands trembling. Every couple of minutes, he has to remind himself to breathe, gulping in air with shuddering breaths. He can feel tears dripping down his face, and he gives up trying to hold them back. He’s too busy forcing himself to stay put.
After the entirety of the exterior has been scrubbed as much as he can (and he knows he’s done a shoddy job. There are probably streak marks everywhere, and he’s most likely missed several areas. But he can barely see through his tears anymore, and he’s only done one fucking pod – not even – so he’s going to cut himself some slack), he collapses to the floor, dropping the rag.
He presses his forehead to his knees, gasping for breath.
Okay. This is not great. He’s having a genuine, real-life panic attack, blurry eyes and all. He stays there, choking and wheezing, terror coursing through his veins, for who knows how long. This panic he’s feeling right now is a hundred times worse than any mission. A thousand times, even, and he hates himself for it. He faces horrible things everyday, getting shot at and fighting and everything, but cleaning one measly pod is his downfall? This is what will bring the Blue Paladin to his knees? A chore?
An indeterminate amount of time later, Lance manages to calm himself down enough to breathe a little better, although he can still see black spots dancing in front of his eyes and his limbs are still trembling. He shakily reaches out, grabbing the rag from the ground (which has almost completely dried up, yikes, how long has he been crying) and squares himself in front of the pod.
Okay, now the inside. Crawl inside, scrub it quickly, crawl back out. No more than five minutes. In, out, next few pods, then you can go to your room and cry for a few hours, Lance reassures himself. Everything will be okay.
He takes a shaky breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and quickly crawls in. He grips the rag, feeling his hands touch the inside of the pod when the texture of the floor changes. He forces his eyes open and starts scrubbing the floor of the pod, rapid-fire. He is so past caring if the pod is cleaned well.
Once he’s given the floor a cursory wipe-down, he takes one more deep breath and wrenches himself upright before he loses his nerve. He turns around, now fully in the pod, and begins wiping down the wall. He’s barely looking, washing blindly. He reaches up, meaning to scrub the ceiling, and his heart drops to his feet when he hears a soft ‘beep’.
He whips around, mute with horror, just in time to see the glass of the pod close around him.
Any earlier panic pales in comparison to what he’s feeling now.
He screams, at the top of his lungs, as loud as he can, but he knows it’s futile. He knows how the pod mutes noises, how it creates its own silent environment. He pounds on the glass, kicking and slamming and shoulder-checking it until he’s bruised to hell, but he can’t feel anything but the terror and panic clouding every one of his senses. He scratches at the seams of the door, pulling until his fingernails crack and bleed, to no avail.
He screams, and screams and screams and screams, but there’s no point. He’s alone. He’s going to die.
And no one is coming to save him.
–
It’s been a relatively normal day, so far. She’s organised a few Coalition meetings, drawn up some training simulations with Shiro, and finished her chores. All Allura has left to do now is meet with the rest of the paladins for dinner, and then she’s free for the evening.
As she enters the dining hall, she notices fairly quickly that everyone is present except for Lance. That’s… unusual. He is usually among the first to be here. He tends to be on the early side of punctual, uncomfortable with making others wait for him. His tardiness is a step outside the norm.
She shakes her head, dismissing her worries. He mentioned he was going to try and do some individual training, today, so he has likely simply lost track of time.
She greets the paladins (and Coran!) as she walks in, grabbing a bowl of goo and sitting down next to Pidge.
There’s a lull in the conversation as she joins them, so she starts it back up again. “How was everyone’s day?”
There are several comments, ranging from ‘meh’ (Pidge) to ‘super duper awesome!’ (Hunk), but Allura is pleased to note that no one has had a bad day at least.
“I managed to beat level twelve in the sim,” Keith shares. There’s a chorus of congratulations, and Allura smiles brightly at him.
“That’s wonderful!” she praises. “Oh, also, did you happen to see what Lance was doing while you were in the training room? I haven’t seen him in several vargas, and it’s unlike him to be so late.”
“Lance wasn’t in the training room,” Keith says slowly. “At least, not that I saw, and I’ve been in there for the past few hours.”
Allura frowns. “That’s strange. He told me he was doing individual training during this morning’s briefing, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“That is odd,” Shiro agrees. “Has anyone else seen him?”
Everyone shakes their heads, and an air of worry permeates the room. Usually, Lance makes a point of seeing everyone a few times a day. Out of all of them, except maybe Coran, he is the best at keeping a schedule and usually shoulders the responsibility of keeping everyone else on task. He does, occasionally, get caught up on a project, but he can often see that coming and will make sure people knows where he is beforehand.
“Okay, I’m kind of freaking,” Hunk says, wringing his hands. “Maybe we should go look for –”
Just then, there’s a powerful roar, so loud it shakes the very foundations of the ship. Allura whips her head to the door, eyes wide. “That was the Blue Lion,” she says, standing up. “Something is wrong.”
The six of them swiftly make their way to the bridge, tense. As soon as they arrive, Podge pulls up the castle’s systems, flicking through the cameras.
“When was the last time anyone has seen Lance?” Shiro asks.
“I saw him at the briefing, and that was it,” Hunk says. Keith nods in agreement.
“I’m loading the BLIP program now,” Pidge interjects.
Shiro nods at her, opening his mouth to ask another question, but Coran speaks up before he has the chance.
“I saw Lance briefly in the hallways a few vargas ago. He was carrying some cleaning supplies.”
Before anyone else can comment, Pidge jumps up from her seat. “He’s in the MedBay!” she yells. Everyone runs to the door, wondering what the hell is wrong and unwilling to wait.
Allura, shifting her legs to be longer, is the first through the doors, Coran and Keith right behind her. What she sees makes her gasp, panicked, and she sprints for the pod on the far left, where Lance is trapped and panicking. She veers to the side, seeing Hunk run to the pod out of the corner of her eye, and punches in the pod’s release sequence as fast as she possibly can. The glass door swishes open, and Lance collapses forward, sobbing into Hunk’s arms.
Hunk doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around his best friend, holding on to his waist and gently cupping one of his large hands around the back of Lance’s head. Lance is gripping onto Hunk’s shirt so tightly his knuckles have gone completely white, and Allura inhales sharply when she sees the blood smeared around his hands.
“Hunk, can you please take Lance to his room? Stay with him until he’s calmed down, message us as soon as he’s okay. We’ll join you.”
Hunk nods at her, and then scoops the rest of Lance up, holding him with the utmost gentleness. As soon as the MedBay doors close behind them, Allura turns to Pidge, who has tear tracks down her face and is picking her nails the way she does when she’s overwhelmed.
“Pidge,” Allura says softly, “can you access the MedBay cameras? I want to see if we can figure out what happened, so we can help Lance later.”
Pidge nods, sitting on the floor and pulling her laptop out of her bag.
As she types, everyone else sits in tense silence, wondering what the hell happened.
“That seemed… really severe,” Keith says quietly after several moments. “Do you think he’s claustrophobic or something?”
“You can’t be claustrophobic and qualify for the Garrison,” Shiro reminds him, equally as subdued.
“Yeah, but there was that airlock incident. I’d be kind of freaked in tight spaces if that happened to me.”
“The airlock incident?” Allura questions.
Keith tilts his head at you. “Yeah? When Lance got locked in the airlock and it was going to eject him, remember?”
Shiro, Coran, and Allura all give him a horrified look.
“What?!” they exclaim simultaneously.
“When the hell did that happen?” Shiro demands.
“During the haunted castle! Didn’t Lance tell you guys?”
“Lance very rarely tells anyone anything,” Coran says gravely.
“If he has developed claustrophobia – and I’m nearly certain now that he has – I can’t imagine the strength it would take him to clean the pods every few weeks,” Allura comments.
“I – I don’t think he has been,” Pidge says in a small voice. “You guys should probably see this.”
Exchanging wary looks, everyone crowds around Pidge’s laptop, which shows a paused video of Lance entering the MedBay. Hesitantly, she moves her mouse, clicking ‘play’, and everyone watches with bated breath.
Horrified does not begin to cover what Allura feels when she watches that video. Every part of her wishes she had never seen it, and is simultaneously relieved she has, if only so Lance doesn’t have to suffer through explaining it to them. Pidge could not even bear to watch, turning away when Lance really started to hyperventilate.
“How did we miss this? How did I miss this? I rescued him from the goddamn airlock! I should’ve known! I should’ve –” Shiro places a heavy hand on Keith’s shoulder, silencing him.
“We all should have been paying closer attention, but we know now. We’ll figure out how to help him, so he never goes through… that, again.”
Allura closes her eyes, breathing deeply, but nothing stops the images of Lance desperately scratching at the door, fingernails chipping off, screaming desperately for help. She knows the fear in his eyes as he slammed his body into the door over and over again will haunt her nightmares.
“It’s been half a varga,” Coran says gently, after a moment. “I think now would be the time to check on Lance and Hunk, make sure they’re alright, considering. We can make plans after.”
There are nods of agreement, and then everyone makes their way to Lance’s room, solemn and silent. They gather at his door, pausing, and then Shiro quietly pushes open the door, peeking in.
“Can we come in?” he whispers.
Allura doesn’t hear a response, but presumably Hunk says yes, because Shiro steps back, allowing everyone to make their way in.
“One at a time, so we don’t let in too much light. He’s asleep.”
They file in, gathering at the foot of Lance’s bed. He’s in a restless sleep, cradled carefully and protectively in Hunk’s arms. Hunk is rocking, slowly, petting Lance’s hair. Every few seconds, Lance lets out the shuddering breath, leftover from a long period of tears and panic.
“He only conked out a few minutes ago,” Hunk says quietly. “He could barely even get any words out. Just kept begging me to stay with him, kept sobbing. I –” Hunk chokes on his own sob – “I’ve never seen him like this. Never. He’s never been so afraid. I must’ve reassured him hundreds of times, but it hardly did anything. He wasn’t really aware. I don’t even think he fell asleep, I think he couldn’t handle it anymore and passed out.”
There’s another period of silence, broken only by Pidge and Hunk’s tears, as everyone absorbs this information. Eventually, Keith takes it upon himself to explain the situation to Hunk.
“He tried to force himself to clean the pods, even though he’s traumatised by the airlock incident – he got locked and almost killed in the airlock when the castle got haunted, sorry for not telling you, I thought Lance already did – and had a pretty major panic attack. He accidentally pressed the close button from the inside and locked himself in, which obviously made it a million times worse. We think he’s been trading off and avoiding the chore, but I don’t know why he decided to force himself to do it today.”
Hunk closes his eyes, exhaling deeply. He looks forlornly at his best friend. “Why do you do this to yourself?” he whispers. He turns back to everyone else, eyes sad and hurting. “I think that’s a conversation for tomorrow. He needs rest.”
“Of course,” Shiro agrees. “We’ll wormhole somewhere remote, make sure we’re not going to get attacked, and we’ll make a plan to talk to him about this. Are you going to stay with him?”
Hunk nods. “I’m not going anywhere. Even if he wasn’t sleeping on me, I don’t want to let him out of my sight.”
“Good. I don’t really want him to be alone, either.”
“If I may interrupt,” Coran says. Shiro nods at him, gesturing for him to continue. “I noticed Number Four’s hands were pretty torn up. I think it may be prudent to go get some supplies to dress the wounds.”
“Good idea, Coran. We should get them clean before they get infected. Keith, you want to go with him?”
Keith nods, and the two of them quietly make their way out.
“I think the rest of us should make our leave as well,” Allura suggests. “I need Pidge to help me recoordinate for the wormhole, and perhaps you have some ideas to discuss with Lance tomorrow, Shiro. After that, I think we should all get some rest. Tomorrow will most certainly take a toll on us all, and today has also been difficult.”
The rest of the team says a quick good-bye to Hunk, going off to complete their tasks before bed.
As she sets up the wormhole, Allura sends a wave of gratitude to the Blue Lion. As horrible as today has been, she’s beyond relieved they were at least able to help Lance before it was too late.
—
As the castle’s morning light filters through Lance’s room, Hunk wakes from his doze. Although he knows it would have likely been best to rest up appropriately for the heavy conversation that’s bound to happen today, Hunk couldn’t bring himself to leave Lance fully, wishing to remain available whenever he needed the reassurance that he was safe. And he did need the reassurance, frequently at that – Lance must have woken in a panic over a dozen times over the night cycle. Thankfully, Hunk was able to calm him back to sleep every time, but it wasn’t a truly restful night for either of them.
After about a varga, Lance jerks awake, wide-eyed and panicked. Hunk presses a kiss to his forehead, rubbing his hand along Lance’s back, silently proving to him he’s out of the pod, he’s safe, and Hunk’s protecting him. Lance calms down considerably, but is still pretty tense.
“Morning,” he rasps.
Hunk winces. Lance’s voice is wrecked, and no wonder. “Morning,” he whispers back. “You wanna get up and get dressed? Getting these dirty clothes off might make you feel better.”
Lance nods, and Hunk helps him dress, because he’s too shaky to do it on his own. After, Hunk offers to go grab him a bowl of food goo, but Lance looks terrified at the prospect of being alone, so Hunk wraps a careful arm around his waist and helps him make his way to the dining hall.
When they arrive, the rest of the team is already gathered. They all face the door at the same time, expressions a mix of relief and sorrow.
“Hey, Lance,” Keith greets quietly.
Lance shoots him a small smile, carefully sitting down next to him.
“Hi.”
Once he’s seated, Hunk makes his way to the kitchen, quickly grabbing two bowls of goo and hurrying back to Lance. Lance takes the bowl gratefully, and starts to eat, although slowly to work with his trembling hands.
The room is silent, tense. Some people are eating, but mostly everyone is just waiting for the right time to bring up the elephant in the room.
Shockingly, it’s Lance that speaks up first.
“I’m sorry for freaking out,” he says, and Hunk watches as everyone visibly tries not to lose their shit, himself included.
“None of us are angry with you,” Allura reassures. “We’re just… very worried.”
“And a little confused,” Shiro adds. “If you’re up for it, we’d like to know why you forced yourself to try and do something you knew was going to hurt you. Again, not mad, just worried.”
Lance sets his spork on the table, pushing his bowl away. He’s silent for a while.
“I got tired of being a deadweight fraud,” he admits.
Everyone blinks, shocked and obviously not expecting that, but Hunk recognises it for the insecurity spiral that it is.
“Why do you think you’re a deadweight fraud?” he asks before Keith can say something. Hunk knows the Red Paladin is only indignant on Lance’s behalf, but if Lance feels like he’s in trouble, he’ll clam right up and the situation will only get worse.
“My whole… thing, with the pods, is dumb. Everyone has worse things to be afraid of, like real traumas and fears, and I’m terrified of a fucking piece of glass and metal. It’s stupid. Also, it’s not fair that I keep tricking everyone into doing the pod cleaning for me.”
“...Okay,” Hunk accepts, because he knows dismissing Lance will only make him upset. “I see where you’re coming from. Objectively, I know a year in captivity, or losing your whole family, may seem like worse trauma. But you very nearly were suffocated in an airlock, Lance; alone, where no one could help you. That’s also terrifying. That’s a near death experience. Remember what that psychologist said? About the drowning?”
Hunk is beyond relieved to see a hint of understanding dawn on Lance’s face. “‘Whether it’s in a puddle or an ocean, you’re just as dead if you’re drowning,’” he recites dutifully. “Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Keith says. “You had a real reason to be upset. Even if you didn’t have a reason, it would still be okay for you to have trouble with something. You don’t have try and force yourself to not feel pain. It’ll only make it worse.”
Lance is silent for a moment, before bursting into tears. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I didn’t want to be useless. I don’t want to get left behind.”
Before Hunk has the chance, Keith wraps his arms around Lance’s shoulder, pulling him into a tight side hug.
“No one is leaving you behind, you doofus. Come to us if you need help. Especially me – I knew you had that issue with tight spaces. I would’ve switched chores with you any day, okay? Promise you’ll come to me if you have an issue again.”
“You can come to any of us,” Shiro adds.
Pidge nods frantically. “Yeah! We all want to help!”
Lance nods, sniffling. He wipes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Okay. I promise. I’ll ask for help if I need it.”
Hunk lets out a sigh of relief, because he can see Lance is being honest. He believes them, believes they’ll help him.
He knows he’s not alone anymore.
