#lukasmash

okay i figured lance would be the one who ended up figuring out what’s going on with shiro (eventually), but i didn’t think it would be like this. shiro choosing to confide in him after dismissing him so many times? and lance just listening and trying to comfort him without any resentment?

although lance insulted keith before the mission...

...during the mission, at the first sign of keith being in trouble, it was lance who expressed the most obvious verbal concern. 

here’s what’s interesting to me about it--this doesn’t match lance’s usual behavior. 

despite fanon perception that he wears a mask, lance is actually very open with his emotions. 

when he does try to hide emotions, usually by attributing his reaction to unemotional outside forces, he doesn’t fool anyone because he’s completely transparent.

lance wears his heart on his sleeve. usually, he’s completely honest about how he feels, but when he isn’t, everyone knows the truth anyway. 

i thought that lance’s denial of the Bonding Moment’s existence was based on pettiness/teasing/simple lack of desire to acknowledge it. this would explain how he was able to successfully lie about it--there wasn’t that much emotion involved. it seemed to me that it was a much bigger deal to keith than it was to lance, so why would it be a challenge for him to just dismiss it? 

but canonically, lance’s denial of the Bonding Moment stems from not being emotionally ready to go there. so, yes, there’s a lot of emotion involved, apparently. 

that does make sense. i mean, there was a lot going on in the Bonding Moment. keith asking him if he’s okay, the extended completely unnecessary hand-holding, “we are a good team”, the mutual smiles... yeah. 

all of this leaves one important question: 

how is it that lance was emotionally ready to acknowledge that he misses home/might not be good enough to be a paladin/might be a seventh wheel/will miss blue but not that he bonded with keith? 

when it comes to keith, lance’s behavior is just unusual. he was antagonistic towards keith at the beginning despite being very friendly to every other character except lotor, he intellectualized his feelings when he did approach keith to talk to him even though he doesn’t bother using such coping mechanisms when talking to anyone else, ...

...and now we know that he buried his emotions to avoid dealing with where they may lead even though he is shown to be incapable of that despite his best attempts. 

so what is it about interacting with keith that makes lance act so weird? 

it can’t just be the intensity of the emotion, because bonding with keith during the beginning of the series isn’t as significant as his feelings for his family. (nor, at this point, can it be the lack of intensity of the emotion.) it can’t be how fearful he is of the truth either, because acknowledging that he might just be Not Good Enough is way more terrifying than acknowledging that he might be friends with keith. so...what is it? 

three theories (of sorts):

lance had time to freak out about the Bonding Moment before keith mentioned it, so he was more prepared than usual when confronted with it, and thus was able to successfully deflect despite all the feelings involved. that’s the simplest explanation.

keith makes lance feel Weird so he panics and acts Weird about it. that’s the disaster bi explanation.