#queer lance

LANCE IS NOT CISHET FUCKING FIGHT ME

LIKE IN THAT ONE CLIP WITH SHIRO GOING "these heroic men and women...and lance..." LIKE YES MF LETS GO

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

Lance's milkshakes bring errrbody to the yard

LANCE'S MILKSHAKES BRING ERRRBODY TO THE YARD

i am so honoured you like them and bc you’re so nice (and u took the time to send me an ask omg??) i wrote u smth special please enjoy!!

Hunk was making dinner when Lance slipped quietly into the kitchen, hefting himself up onto a part of the counter Hunk wasn’t using. Hunk didn’t even look up, as this wasn’t unusual — contrary to the popular belief, Lance wasn’t ‘on’ all the time, and often had moments where he just wanted to sit quietly with some friendly company.

Maybe if Hunk had been paying a little more attention, he would have noticed how still Lance was sitting. He might have picked up on the tenseness of Lance’s shoulders. He wishes he had been paying attention, because maybe he’d be a smidge more prepared for what Lance was about to say.

“Hunk, I think I’m a horrible person,” Lance blurts. Hunk freezes, dropping his knife.

Shit.

He swallows, carefully keeping his tone even. “Why, buddy?”

“I think I’m an attention-seeking copycat who’s incapable of feeling real emotions and having real thoughts so I just steal everyone else’s and pass it off as my own and I fake experiences for validation. So. A shitty person.”

Oh, so that’s what this is.

Lance has maybe the worst case of imposter syndrome of anyone Hunk has ever met. His self-esteem is so ground zero that it takes herculean effort for him to believe he is capable of anything good, so he tends to spiral if he thinks too much about his accomplishments.

Hunk specifically remembers the day the two of them received the results from their Garrison entry exams and accompanying acceptance letters. Both of them had done exceptionally well, scoring a ninety-six, because they were both exceptionally bright people. Lance, however, had gotten it into his head that he was much dumber than Hunk, and couldn’t reconcile that belief with the high marks, so he spent two weeks convincing himself he must have cheated off of Hunk’s paper, even though Lance had studied just as hard and would never put their academic careers at risk like that. In those two weeks, he was quiet and tense and miserable and afraid to argue or speak up for himself. It was like he thought that if he made himself completely complacent to everyone, they wouldn’t hate him so much for cheating — something that hadn’t even happened.

Hunk remembered how relieved he was when Lance had finally cracked and spilled everything to Hunk, and he was able to show him their tests side by side and assure him that he had not ripped Hunk off, but was equally as smart and deserving of his spot. He may not have fixed Lance’s insecurity, but Lance had at least started acting like himself again, endearing boisterousness and all.

Hunk had noticed the same thing happening over the past few weeks. Ever since the diplomatic mission on Exalceer, Lance had been withdrawn. He didn’t spend much time with anyone, and did an abundance of chores, like he felt as if he could make up for his very presence by being everyone’s servant. He wasn’t even bickering with Keith — Hunk knew because the Red Paladin himself had swallowed his pride and asked Hunk what was wrong, admitting he missed their petty arguments and was worried that Lance hadn’t started anything or even responded to Keith’s light goading in a while. Hunk was glad Lance was finally cracking and approaching him about it, even though it was always hard to hear what mean things were happening in Lance’s head.

“I’d like to say first off that I don’t agree with that at all, but I’ll hear you out. Why do you think you’re attention-seeking and incapable of being your own person?”

Lance but his lip. “You remember how the Exalceeran’s didn’t have males? Just women and non-women?”

Hunk nodded. It was kind of funny — they were completely floored by the mostly-male Voltron team, and referred to them either by name, or with feminine or gender neutral pronouns. They could not conceptualize a man — the idea was simply too foreign for them.

“Uh, well, they couldn’t really pronounce my name,” Lance continued, “The ‘ss’ sound at the end was too hard for them. So they mostly called me Blue Paladin or just with she or they pronouns. And. Well. It made me feel — different. Like, my heart kept pounding every time they did and I wanted them to keep saying it, which was weird, because I don’t feel that way for any other pronouns? I didn’t really know what to make of it, so I did some research and apparently feeling like that is called gender euphoria, and it’s mostly — um, it’s mostly a trans thing.”

Lance said the last part so quietly Hunk almost missed it. But he did hear it, and Hunk can feel his thoughts begin to race. He — he knows how to deal with the imposter syndrome thing, he’s done it dozens of times before. But this? He’s been waiting years for Lance to talk to him about this. Years.

Lance is generally a very observant person. No one else would have noticed that something was up with Rover, and no one else has the skills to look into an upcoming army of sentries that look virtually identical and notice which ones are deadlier and need to be killed off first. Lance truly has observational skills that are beyond the scope of normal or even good. They’re seriously mind-blowing.

But Lance’s skill does not work on himself. Lance is usually very bad at noticing something off on his own person — it took him years to realise he wasn’t straight. Hunk literally had to tell him point-blank that the ‘friendship letter’ he had written towards his tenth-grade crush was, in fact, a love letter, and he did, in fact, have a crush on the boy. It was something Hunk regretted, since it seemed to push Lance more into the closet instead of helping him come out. Hunk vowed to let Lance come to him, next time, so he wouldn’t drop the ball again.

That’s why Hunk has been waiting for Lance to come and say that he maybe doesn’t feel so much like a boy. He only wished that it wasn’t entangled in so much fear and self-hatred, although he supposes he shouldn’t have expected Lance to handle it with ease. Change tends to be hard for him.

Before Hunk could say anything, Lance spoke up again, voice a little shakey, the way it did when he was upset and trying to power through it.

“And so I figured I’d ask Pidge about it? ‘Cause she just came out? But she said she’s known she was trans her whole life because being called a boy always felt super wrong. And I realized I started feeling like this a couple days after she came out, and I’ve never felt… wrong, really, being a boy.”

Hunk felt the ball of dread in his stomach grow heavier as he sensed what was coming. His own breath hitched as tears started to drip down Lance’s face.

“So I must be faking. And what kind of jackass fakes being trans? God, fuck, am I transphobic too?” Lance choked on a sob, and Hunk couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Lance. You are not a faker. You are not an attention-seeker. And you’re especially not a transphobe because you realised you were trans after hearing a friend come out.”

“But I’ve never been anything but a boy before! I didn’t know anything was wrong!” Lance argued.

Despite the situation, Hunk couldn’t hold back a fond smile.

“Lance, do you remember Lela?”

The pain on Lance’s face morphed into confusion. “Who’s Lela?”

Hunk wiped his hands on a towel, then hoisted himself up on the counter next to Lance.

“I thought you might not remember. ‘Lela’ was the name you went by whenever you dressed up in your sisters’ clothes, when we were little.”

Lance looked bewildered. “I don’t remember that. I mean, I vaguely remember dress-up games, but not… that.”

Hunk grinned. “When we were really small, we’d play dress up all the time, and you’d almost always wear skirts or dresses, high heels, all that stuff. I was pretty happy wearing your brother’s stuff, but you loved wearing anything from your sister’s closet. And whenever you were wearing a skirt, you’d insist your name was Lela, and you wouldn’t answer to Leandro. Said you were a girl, and that was your girl name.”

Lance’s jaw dropped. “Really?” he asked breathlessly. Hunk nodded.

“There were lots of other things, too. I’m pretty sure every favourite fictional character you’ve ever admired has been a woman,” Hunk continued, laughing softly. “You got into a huge argument with Marco, once. He was saying something about Superman being the strongest D.C. hero, and you must have gone on for hours explaining how there were fifteen way cooler heroines that could grind him to the ground. You never really could see yourself in male characters.”

Lance had begun to cry again, but this time it wasn’t so self-hating. He honestly looked like he felt seen, for the first time in his life. He looked free.

“I don’t remember any of that. I didn’t know I was so… feminine.”

Hunk pulled Lance into a huge hug.

“Lance, buddy, you have got to stop invalidating yourself. Not every trans person feels dysphoric their whole life. Some of them are fine with the gender they’re assigned, but feel better when they identify a different way. And sometimes, maybe, they really did feel bad and dysphoric growing up,” Hunk suggested, “But they didn’t have a name for that pain.”

Lance’s shoulders shook, and he started to sob. Hunk reached up to pet his hair.

“Lance, I think you’ve been suffering for a long time, and didn’t let yourself realise. I think you repressed parts of yourself to save you from your own judgement. You struggle so, so much to just believe yourself, that I think you convinced yourself that anything you feel has to be stolen from someone else. You’re allowed to just be, Lance. You don’t have to convince yourself or anyone else that you’re worth the space you take up.”

Lance sobbed harder.

“I’m not a boy, Hunk. I’m not, I’m not, I’m not,” Lance said between hitching breaths. Hunk clutched him tighter, trying to convey all his love and support through their embrace.

“I know, Lance. I know.”

They held on to each other for several moments before Lance pulled away, wiping his tears.

“Lance,” Hunk said softly, “Do you want me to start using she or they pronouns for you?”

“God, yes,” Lance sniffed, rubbing her eyes. “Both. Please.”

Hunk grinned.

“I’m so glad my best friend is finally happy with herself,” he said, and the smile that lit up Lance’s face was literally breathtaking.

“That felt really good,” they admitted quietly. “I kind of want everyone to use those pronouns.”

Hunk hopped off the counter, and threw an arm around Lance’s shoulder.

“Sounds good! You can maybe tell them during dinner?”

Lance nodded shyly, grabbing Hunk’s hand to squeeze once before letting go.

“I don’t think I’ll change my name again, though,” she said thoughtfully. “I think my change from Leandro to Lance may have been a gender thing before I realized. That would explain why I like it so much, and why people using my dead —“ he tripped over the word, hesitant but determined — “deadname bothered me so much.”

Hunk patted Lance’s back, nodding.

“Yeah, sounds about right. Now — let’s go over how you want to tell everyone while we finish up the food — I love you, Lance, and I’m so proud of you, but no one is going to stand in this kitchen and not help me make dinner. Whether they’ve just come from an identity crisis or not.”

Lance grinned involuntarily at the pronoun, feeling the butterflies burst in her chest.