#shangstweek2017

A frustrated sigh leaves his lips as he watches Lance throw insults at Keith during their current training exercise. He decided to pair them up to try and get them to work together but it seems that plan is backfiring on him. The moment he saw Lance open his mouth, he knew this wasn’t going to end well.

He watches with a blank expression as Keith rounds on Lance to argue back at him, then winces as Keith takes the gladiator’s staff to the side. It sends Keith flying across the training room and away from the battle. He continues to watch as the gladiator advances on Lance, easily dodging his uncoordinated and panicked shots, before the gladiator swipes him away as well. 

Shiro sighs as the gladiator shuts off automatically, sensing no threat nor opponents, before it disappears into the floor.

With steady strides, he makes his way over to Keith and helps him up before checking to make sure he’s okay. When he sees that he’s okay, he goes to check on Lance. Who is currently sulking on the ground but seems to be otherwise okay.

“Keith, go cool off,” he says with a hint of authority, refusing to take no as an answer. He sees the red paladin grumble under his breath, sees him wanting to defend himself and ask what Lance’s problem is, before stalking out of the training room; hopefully going to take a shower. There will be a time when they can all sit down and discuss this as a team but for now, Shiro knows Lance doesn’t want to deal with that after his humiliation. 

He sees Lance trying to escape as well, crawling away from where Shiro stands, and stops him with a stern “Lance.” There’s no mistaking the way Lance flinches at that but he makes sure to stay in the room, plopping his butt back down on the floor and awaiting whatever punishment he thinks he’s going to get. 

Which has Shiro relaxing, running his prosthetic hand through his hair before shaking his head. “What was that about?”

“What was what about,” Lance replies to his question with one of his own. It’s a defense mechanism and Shiro can see it a mile away, can see it in the way Lance crosses his arms over his chest, so he humours him with an answer to hopefully get one of his own.

“The way you were picking a fight with Keith,” he says patiently.

Lance would appreciate it if he wasn’t feeling useless already, “I wasn’t picking a fight with him,” he mumbles, shuffling on his feet.

“Then what were you doing?”

“I,” Lance starts, wanting to defend himself, but seeing Shiro’s expression he deflates and mutters under his breath. “I wasn’t trying to pick a fight with him.” He pauses but when Shiro doesn’t say anything further, he squirms in the long stretch of silence before letting out an explosive sigh. 

“I was trying to get him to pick a fight with me.”

Now that has Shiro’s brows raising in surprise. “What,” he asks dumbly.

“I wanted Keith to pick a fight with me!”

“Why?”

Lance flinches, and turns around just slightly, but otherwise says nothing.

Shiro lets the silence stretch on, hoping to get Lance to speak again but when it’s obvious Lance won’t say anything, he crouches down to sit near Lance instead of towering over him.

“Lance, what is this about?”

Lance doesn’t say anything but with the way he curls into himself, Shiro knows something’s wrong.

“Lance?”

He hears Lance whisper but his words are too soft for him to hear. 

“I’m sorry?”

“I said,” Lance says loudly but there’s no heat in his tone, “that I heard you and Allura talking. About me. About how...” His words fade off into silence.

Realization hits Shiro and he can’t help but feel annoyed. Lance was picking fights with Keith, a completely innocent person in this situation, because he overheard him and Allura talking about him? Their words suddenly come to mind and this just proves that what was said about Lance is right. 

In any other case, Shiro would’ve felt guilt about what was said about the Blue Paladin but with how Lance was treating an innocent person, he can’t help but feel like his words were justified. And since Lance already knows how they feel, that saves him the trouble breaking it to him any other way.

Shiro stands up with an air of disappointment and Lance curls into himself more. 

“Listen, Lance. If you want us to take you seriously, you can’t keep picking fights with Keith. What has Keith ever done to you to warrant such behaviour? If you can tell me honestly where Keith has ever wronged you, I’ll talk to him about it. But if you can’t tell me a single instance where Keith has ever done anything to you, personally, then I don’t want to hear it.”

Lance wants to point out Shiro is being biased, taking Keith’s side like that, but he bites his tongue. There’s no use disappointing Shiro further and proving their words even more true. Shiro is his idol, and his crush, and the last thing he wants to do is ruin whatever chances he still has left at being an asset to the team, and maybe something more to Shiro.

Shiro shakes his head. If Lance refuses see the error in his ways, in his behaviour, then there’s no point in trying to tell him. 

And to think he was starting to think he could rely on Lance. 

If Lance had stayed a little longer during his eavesdropping, he would’ve heard Shiro vouch for him, saying that maybe smaller missions would help the Blue Paladin gain experience before jumping into something bigger; but it’s obvious that Lance only heard a small part of the whole conversation. 

Shiro turns on his heel, ready to be done with this, before he pauses and turns back toward Lance. He can see the tears in Lance’s eyes but can’t muster up the energy to feel sorry for him, not after seeing him treat Keith like a villain for the nth time and getting Keith hurt over some trivial squabbling.

“Maybe you should figure out what’s more important to you, Lance. Is it your petty grudge against Keith or is it saving the universe -- saving Earth, saving your family, saving all of our families -- from Zarkon and the Galra Empire? We can’t afford to have a Paladin who would rather risk the lives of their team for some grudge, instead of focusing on what’s more important.”

The ‘or we will have to find another Paladin’ goes unsaid as Shiro turns again and exits the training room, purposely ignoring the quiet sobs he hears behind him.

In case you can’t read cursive or my handwriting:

“Lance?” “I don’t think he’s ready.” “He doesn’t take this seriously.” “Lives are at stake but all he does is joke around.”

Sometimes Shiro needed to take a walk around the Garrison. Just to clear his head was all. He always had so much to think about at every second of the day.

Shiro was to be deployed with the Holts to Kerberos in a matter of two weeks. All of the provisions and training had been completed and it was simply a waiting game for now.

It wasn’t that Shiro was nervous or scared but he just had so much energy pent up that he needed to go move around at ungodly hours in the night. His need for walks woke him up frequently from his sleep; He considered speaking to a nurse about it before he decided against it on the off chance they deemed him unfit to go on the mission.

It was a dream of his to go into the stars, to be able to get into space and conduct research. There was no way he would muck it all up just because he couldn’t sit still for a bit.

Shiro had a set route planned out. He’d walk by the dark offices and swing around towards the simulation decks. Through here Shiro could idly read the schedules posted by the doors.

It gave his eyes something to do other than track shadows in the dark hallways or think about negative things, like every possibly failure the Kerberos mission could experience.

Walking around during the night near offices also meant Shiro heard some pretty interesting conversations. Nothing dubious, but a few generals weren’t at all as nice as Shiro believed them to be if the way they trash talked the students were any indication of their feelings.

As it was, tonight was no different. Iverson typically was one to be loud and proud of his griping, complaining about his students unable to follow instructions or not grasping concepts quickly enough.

And he was never alone in it, enjoying the company of another general or two (and sometimes even three if Iverson broke out his liquor).

Shiro could hear Iverson and two other generals from down the hallway. Pearson and Manning. They were a duo that sent anyone’s skin crawling. Their happy smiles and white teeth were too bright to not have some underlying darkness. Shiro even dared to claim them worse than Iverson.

Pearson was in charge of an engineering study along with flight aerodynamics and maneuvering where Manning was busy doing office work all day and teaching one class on Tuesdays about discipline and rules of space flight and the academy.

Shiro had been in one of Pearson’s engineering courses and every time the man looked him over it had Shiro looking away and shuddering. It was no surprise rumors started about him coming onto students. It was a problem that the students were too scared to bring up to another teacher, fears of getting booted from the Garrison ran high.

Boisterous laughter suddenly startled Shiro from his reminiscing and he curiously went down the hallway. The door to Iverson’s office was cracked open just barely, enough for Shiro to lean into and peek inside through the crack.

General Manning was seated at Iverson’s leather chair. Leaned back far with his boots up on the pristine desk. He balanced a stubby crystal glass of amber liquid in a hand while his other supported his cheek. His gleaming, amused attention was focused on the other side of the desk. Where Iverson was standing.

Iverson’s back was to the door and so Shiro couldn’t quite see what he was doing. He’d obviously been drinking if the glass settled on the desk by his hand was an indication, the small ball of ice settled innocently in a few drops of whiskey.

As Shiro continued to look over Iverson, he noted that Pearson was standing by, leaned against the corner of the desk and looking down at Iverson’s front, or rather down at his legs.

Shiro was startled when he followed the three general’s lines of sight and saw the body of a cadet down on the floor. Whoever it was, they were on their knees and their hands were above their head, Shiro assumed held against the edge of the table.

All three men in the room were fixated on the cadet, chuckling drunkenly between each other before Iverson’s shoulder tensed.

Shiro didn’t need to see the motion of Iverson swinging to know he’d hit the person in front of him. It was hard enough for the cadet to go sprawling to the floor.

Shiro could now get a good look at his face. His lips were plump and wet with spit and a trickle of blood. Tears glistened in his eyes but his face was dry and free of them. His cheeks were dark with a blush, either from embarrassment or anger or fear, Shiro didn’t know.

Blazing blue eyes glared up at Pearson when his boot nudged him into the side. The cadet sucked at his bottom lip and tongued at the split before he sat himself up on an elbow.

“Get back up, boy. You’re not done.”

Pearson directed him with another nudge from his boot and the cadet swiped at the foot to get it away as he got himself back to his knees. the cadet it seemed was nothing but spitfire and challenging attitude.

Except Iverson wasn’t having the resistance. His fingers grabbed at the cadet’s hair and yanked, startling a cry from the boy.

Shiro was shocked to watch Iverson’s hips thrust forward. A motion that was unmistakable. Shiro’s gut clenched.

“That’s it,” Iverson hissed, tugging the cadet’s face in closer, “open that throat up for me again.”

The general’s body now hid away the cadet’s face but his reluctance wasn’t that easy to hide. During some point, Pearson had grabbed onto one of the cadet’s hands, holding onto his wrist mercilessly while he took another sip of his drink like he wasn’t helping the other man molest one of their cadets.

The boy’s other hand clutched weakly at Iverson’s pants leg at the back of his thigh. Trying to either get him to slow down or try and hold onto something for the trip.

The grip did nothing to deter the general’s thrusts however, backing the cadet’s head up against the desk so he had no place to go.

The boy’s chokes and gags were just as loud as the men talking, discussing the safety of the cadet’s family and the news they received about their son. All if he didn’t do a good job and if he caused too much fuss.

It was blackmail, all of this. Shiro wanted nothing more than to shove open the door and demand they stop right before he turned heel and told the dean about what had happened. The offices and hallways had cameras, surely he’d be able to have solid evidence.

But Shiro was frozen in place, unable to move at all as he watched the scene unfold behind the illusion of privacy. And surely a sense of security, what with three men of high power able to pull their word over anyone else’s.

Iverson finally reached for his empty glass and sipped at the last of the watered down alcohol before setting it down again. With the drink, his efforts were mindless.

Shiro could hear the cadet gagging around the cock in his mouth, being forced back to his throat. He would try and turn his head to cough but was met with a shake of his hair and a smack to the side of the face.

Luckily, Iverson didn’t last long drunk. He grunted as he pulled the cadet’s face in hard, an arm now hooked at the back of the cadet’s head as he curled over.

He came with a nasty grunt, growling about how good the boy’s throat felt working around him to try and swallow.

Once he was done, the general stepped away, taking tissue from the desk to wipe himself off and then tuck back into his pants, belting them.

The cadet on the floor coughed, trying to pull away his hand from Pearson. Cum and drool smeared on his chin as he swiped at it with the back of his free hand. He made no noise aside from his heavy panting but he was crying, angry little tears working streaks down his face.

The cadet made to spit on the floor before Pearson yanked his head backwards, grabbing his chin with a gloved hand so he couldn’t get rid of the bitter taste.

“Keep it in your mouth, slut. You know good boys don’t waste.”

Pearson’s grip in the boy’s hair tightened before he smeared his other hand up the boy’s face, taking with it all of the cum and drool and tears.

The cadet barely had time to clench his eyes shut, trying to get away from the slime. It was no use, and once Pearson was done he shoved the boy away roughly.

“Gonna go and finish up Manning there aren’t ya?” he said, not leaving any room for the cadet to think of any other option to do. The heavy threat behind the question was almost tangible in the room.

As he puts a hand on the table and makes a move to get up from his knees, Iverson makes a loud noise, stopping the cadet further.

Iverson was now seated in one of his chairs off to the side, one that guests used when coming to his office. He had his legs spread wide, one hand idly palming at his crotch while the other relaxed on the armrest. With a jerk of his chin he spoke, “He didn’t tell you to get up from your knees. Get over there the right way.”

Shiro watched the incredulity on the cadet’s face as he stayed on one knee, staring at Iverson as if he didn’t hear him right.

When Manning groaned and slammed the edge of his glass on the table, the boy startled, turning to look at him.

“He means to crawl, idiot. You dumb? How’d you get into the Garrison if you can’t even listen right?”

The cadet’s chest suddenly puffed and Shiro thought he might stand up right then and there. However, Manning speaking up again stopped him,

“Straight A’s and a perfect record and somehow you don’t even know how to stay on your knees? At this rate you aren’t even being considered for fighter class.”

Dread washed over the cadet’s face and immediately he deflated, dropping back to his knees. Shiro’s heart ached for him. Fighter class. And if Manning wasn’t lying, the cadet was perfectly qualified.

The cadet started to move, crawling around the corner of the desk and finally stopping to the side of Manning’s chair. His fingers were shaking and Shiro hoped it wasn’t because he was about to cry, he hoped it was him about to land a good punch. He may be a little scrawny but Shiro saw potential under the orange and white uniform.

Manning suddenly swung his legs off the table, chair spinning around so the general could now be facing the boy on the floor. In a tense moment everything was silent, still. But the rough slide of Manning’s glass on the table was loud in the room.

The cadet on the floor flinched as liquor splashed in his face and hair. It wasn’t at all cold, from the lack of ice, but it still sent his shoulders trembling.

“You’re a fucking mess.” Manning growled, boot being propped up on the cadet’s thigh.

He had turned his head down now, small drips of the liquor falling to the floor from his bangs and his chin. The splash had cleaned his face only a little from the all of the grime but ultimately did nothing to get rid of it all.

“Come on then,” Manning’s boot shifted as he pushed at the boy’s hip, “isn’t gonna suck itself.”

The general’s hand had at some point undone his belt and pants. His cock was now held out from his underwear and Manning gave it a wave with his fingers at the base to try and coax the cadet in.

The cadet sneered, not at all with any heat or fight left, and leaned in, taking the general into his mouth.

Be it from the alcohol, or just plain horny, Manning was impatient. He hit the back of the cadet’s head with a hard slap, shocking him into taking more of his cock. “Get to sucking, bitch, I don’t have all night.”

“You’re disgusting.” Pearson laughed, hip leaning on the edge of the table, he leaned to look over the desk, watching the action. Manning simply waved him off with his hand not holding his empty glass.

His other hand carded through the cadet’s brown hair, tugging every now and then as his mouth worked and sucked on the cock. His head bobbed softly, trying to do the bare minimum to get the general off and not worry about anything else.

Manning fisted his hand in the back of the cadet’s hair and suddenly pushed with a grunt, hips bucking upwards. The cadet was obviously not expecting the force and his shoulders hunched, trying to twist away as he gagged.

However, he wasn’t let up, kept down longer and longer. Shiro was scared that Manning would choke the cadet out but the general clapped the side of the boy’s face and told him firmly to swallow.

After a few moments of the boy reluctantly swallowing, Manning pulled him off. The cadet curled back as if he’d been burned, turning his head down to cough into his hand. The men found something funny about it as they shared a laugh, watching the cadet try and get his breathing under control.

“He needs to have a drink to wash it all down, huh?” Pearson came around the desk, bringing with him the opened bottle of whiskey. There was no obvious branding on it that Shiro could see and it could have only been smuggled into the Garrison. The only alcohol permitted into the Garrison was supposedly too weak for the general’s and officer’s liking. It wasn’t rare or even a secret that stronger stuff was brought in.

Pearson tapped the end of the bottle to the cadet’s downturned head, getting his attention.

When Pearson took the boy’s chin, Iverson grumbled, “Now don’t go wasting my whiskey, Pearson.”

The other general scoffed before wiggling the bottle in the cadet’s face.

“Hear that, boy? Don’t waste a single drop.”

Without waiting for the cadet to nod, Pearson put the mouth of the bottle between the cadet’s lips, suddenly tilting it up.

His hands immediately scrambled to hold onto Pearson’s wrist, forced to swallow mouthful after mouthful of the bitter liquid. When he missed a swallow, whiskey dribbled out from the corners of his mouth, signaling Pearson to pull it back.

The cadet’s cure for his cough ended up making the problem worse, but now his face was flushed, and the more he got jostled around from Pearson and Manning tapping him and pulling him up to his feet, the more Shiro saw him get disoriented.

Now on his two feet, the generals stood as well, crowding him up by the desk.

It was a flurry of words, threats to stay quiet, snide comments about his mouth, directions about what he was going to do next. The generals seemed to get their fill on touching the cadet as well, fingers pinching at the boy’s skin through his uniform and rubbing between his legs, obviously not finding anything worth attending to. The cadet just nodded to everything, eyes rimmed with red, unable to cry anymore.

Pearson was nice enough to wipe at the cadet’s chin, getting rid of the drying grime and alcohol. The three generals helped fix up his uniform, make sure it was spotless before Iverson was taking him by the upper arm and leading him towards the door.

Shiro, with his heart in his throat, yanked himself away from the door, finally able to move as if a spell had been taken away. If he was to be caught there was no telling what consequences could follow.

Iverson didn’t follow the cadet out past the end of the hallway, simply pushed him forward and told him to keep his mouth shut. Shiro stayed tucked around the corner, watching the back of the cadet as he stumbled down the dark halls. Finally he stopped, bumping into the wall with a small sob.

“Lance?”

Both Shiro’s and the cadet’s head turned, seeing another cadet through an open door. He was out of his uniform, already looking as if he were getting into bed.

The cadet–Lance– finally slumped to the floor, a broken laugh leading into quiet sobs; “I’m okay, Hunk. I’m okay, I’m fine-”

Suddenly Shiro’s view swirled, like water was filling the room and he was coming up for air. The kneeling Lance became a smear of color before Shiro’s vision went dark.

When he next opened his eyes Lance was standing up and tearing off his headset. He looked furious, staring right at Shiro who was seated on the training deck floor with wide eyes.

“You- ”

Hunk, next to Lance, look just as startled.

Lance looked like he was about to say something but then closed his mouth, rushing out of the room.

Shiro had no time to try and explain himself, feeling just as helpless as that night in the Garrison, having no time to stay and try and offer help before he was put into space.

But this time, Shiro didn’t have a mission looming over him and preventing him from chasing after Lance. With bewildered looks of shock from the other paladins, Shiro left the training deck after Lance.

It didn’t take him long to find the other paladin, ripping himself out of his armor, tossing it across the room. Their room.

Lance had somehow at some point moved into Shiro’s room after they started dating. It was a slow process, accidentally leaving pants in there, then leaving a shirt, a hair brush, his face mask. And just like that the rest of Lance’s stuff followed.

Shiro didn’t mind in the slightest, the castle beds were adjustable, able to slide out and make just enough room that both of them could lay comfortably on warm nights.

There was nothing warm at all about the room once the door slid shut behind Shiro. Lance whirled on him, blue eyes as piercing as ice. The room felt as such, and Shiro curiously wondered if Lance somehow picked up his lion’s attributes.

“You were there.”

Lance stated, disbelief thick in his tone, as if he couldn’t believe what he had just seen, as if the memory that had been shared was somehow made up.

But the mind melding never worked like that. The memories were strengthened if more than one of the paladins had experienced the same memory. And both Shiro and Lance had very vivid memories of that night.

Shiro was stunned into silence, scared of what to say.

“Shiro. You were there. ” Lance choked, speaking around the lump in his throat and the tears in his eyes, “you sat there and watched!”

“I-”

“Don’t you dare .” Lance snarled, glare keeping Shiro in place, unable to step closer. Lance couldn’t decipher what emotion he was feeling, it was a hurricane of everything. Too much, way too much.

“You were there, Shiro!”

“I was.” He said solemnly, calm.

“You were there!” Lance repeated, he didn’t know what else to say, the shock of it still hitting him.

“I know.”

Shiro kept still, let Lance call the shots first. The blue paladin turned and paced for a moment before he stopped where he was before, facing Shiro with hot tears now running down his cheeks. Shiro wanted nothing more than to come to him and brush them away.

“Why? ”

“Lance, I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to watch, I just- the Kerberos mission.”

Shiro watched the emotions switch on Lance, from disbelief and anger to dread. He didn’t know if that was worse or not. Quickly, he tried to explain better.

“I should have done something. I should have talked to someone, or at least to you. I didn’t know who you were at the time and I didn’t know how to find you again. How could I have said something if I didn’t know your name? How could I have barged into the room and stopped them without risking your success at the Garrison, or my plans for the Kerberos mission.

“I know that way of thinking is selfish, and it was. I was selfish back then. I was scared, I didn’t know what to do. Lance, I wanted to do something but I couldn’t. I was too much of a coward to-”

Shiro cut himself off, lips pursing tightly as he looked at Lance. Tears were still falling and Shiro took a step forward.

When Lance didn’t move away from him Shiro finally reached out and brushed warm fingers against Lance’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t do anything. I’m sorry I didn’t stop anything.”

Shiro kept his attention focused, but Lance didn’t say anything, just held still as Shiro brushed away his tears. Shiro cupped his face softly, bringing their foreheads together so that Shiro could close his eyes and still make sure Lance was there in front of him.

“Please say something.” He pleaded. Shiro braced himself for the worst, for Lance to completely blow up on him. He deserved it.

“We-” Lance’s voice cracked and he shook his head, fingers soft on Shiro’s wrist to pull his hands away, “We need to take a break. I-I need some time. To myself.”

Shiro kept his eyes closed for a moment, to keep the tears at bay so when he opened them, he could meet Lance head on.

Shiro stepped back, heart clenching with the small step. “I understand. However long you need. I’ll be here for you.”

The door slid open behind Shiro as he drew close to it. With anyone else he might have felt weird about leaving his own room, but it was Lance. Even if he had a room as the blue paladin, his room was with Shiro. And Shiro didn’t mind taking some time away from his things.

“Wait.” Lance called after him, stopping him from completely stepping out of the room. Shiro didn’t want to wait but his feet stopped anyway, body obeying Lance.

The other paladin drew close and Shiro expected…well he didn’t know what it was, but surely being kissed was the last thing on that list.

It was soft, barely a press of lips that reminded Shiro of their first.

Lance chewed at his own bottom lip as he stepped back, swallowing as he looked up at Shiro.

“I still love you, okay? Don’t…don’t go off and think badly of yourself or-or of me. There’s just- I- so much to think about.” Lance held onto Shiro’s arm gently, gave it a squeeze, and Shiro’s stomach knotted. This felt awfully close to a goodbye to him.

“I’ll be in your room. Whenever you’re ready to talk…”

Shiro knew Lance would be able to find him. And he knew they would work this out eventually. He just didn’t know how long it would take.

Lance nodded silently before taking a step back and the door slid shut, like a period on the end of a sentence, closing their conversation with a heavy air of finality.

Shiro didn’t know how long he sat there by his door, heart like stone in his chest as he listened to broken sobs and hiccups from inside. But he knew that he’d fucked up, big time.

Lance remembered the fight, Shiro was leaving and Lance had begged him to stay with him, to not go. What if something happened while Shiro was gone? What if he never came back? Lance hated that he had been right. He wished Shiro had listened and he hated him for leaving. For leaving him.

They’d been dating in secret for over a year, Lance sneaking into the older cadet’s room after curfew so they could spend time together outside of class. It was frowned upon for two cadets of different ranking to be in a relationship, much less two of the same gender.

For months, Lance had tried to convince Shiro not to go. It wasn’t that he wasn’t happy for him, and Shiro knew that, Lance just had an uneasy feeling about the mission. He was so worried that something would happen and Shiro wouldn’t make it back safe into his arms. Or if he did make it back, that he would be different, empty. Not to mention that it would be so long. What if by the time Shiro came back, their feelings for each other weren’t the same? What if their relationship couldn’t survive being apart for so long? Lance didn’t want to find out.

The day of the Kerberos mission, however, was probably the worst day of Lance’s life. The night before, Lance and Shiro had one more evening together, and they spent it making the most of what little time they had left. After, Lance had made sure Shiro's bags were all packed so he would remember everything. He didn’t return to his room that evening like he normally would. He stayed wrapped in Shiro’s arms the whole night.

When they woke up, however, Lance’s feeling of dread about the mission overcame him. He begged over and over again for Shiro not to go, pleading with him to change his mind. At first Shiro had tried to assure him that everything would be alright, that he would love Lance no matter what and would come back home to him, but that morning, something overcame Shiro and he snapped. For the first time in their relationship, Shiro yelled at Lance. He told him that he would be fine, that he didn’t need Lance to be hanging off of him like some child, that he was going no matter what Lance said, because it was his duty as a cadet and a pilot. Lance cried and told Shiro that he just cared about him and wanted him to be safe. Shiro said that he could take care of himself and didn’t need Lance to act like his mother. He told Lance to leave him alone. Lance told him that he would. He would get out of Shiro’s hair and never worry about him again. Shiro said good, he didn’t need him. Lance screamed that he hated him.

It was there in the open and Lance couldn’t take it back. He’d tried, but Shiro had already picked up his bags, full of everything he’d brought with him to the Garrison, and started to leave. As he opened the door, he turned back and told Lance goodbye. And that was it.

Lance ran after Shiro once what had happened caught up with him, but he was gone. Already boarding the spaceship to take him far away from Earth’s atmosphere, and away from Lance.

That was the last thing he’d ever said to Shiro. The last thing Shiro heard his boyfriend say before going up to space and never coming back. Lance hated himself for how he must have made Shiro feel. And he hated how he made himself feel. He would have to live with the fact that his last words to the person he loved most in the world was “I hate you.”

As the months passed after finding out about the failed mission, Lance tried so hard to forget Shiro, to forget their relationship ever happened and that they’d parted the way that they did. He hid all the pictures he had of the two of them. He didn’t want to feel like Shiro was watching him and making him feel guilty every time he saw his picture. Shiro’s room had been emptied when Shiro left, so there was nothing left to remind Lance of him. Everything of Shiro’s and about Shiro was gone. But, no matter how hard he tried to get over Shiro, to forget, he couldn’t. Why did Lance still feel his presence everywhere he went? Why did it feel like Shiro never really left, but had been standing right behind him this whole time? It was as if Shiro had left his shadow behind, a blurry shape of him that Lance couldn’t touch.

Every time Lance slept, he saw Shiro’s empty eyes, eyes that he'd begged so hard to stay with him, staring at him, telling him goodbye, but Lance had grown tired of trying to chase after false dreams. He just wish those lingering feelings of Shiro would leave him alone, just like the real Shiro had.

All around him people were talking about the mission, the pilot error, Takashi Shirogone, lost forever. He felt trapped in his own feelings. Unable to tell anyone what he was going through, and unable to get over it by himself. It was like he was locked away in a cage screaming "let me go!" but no one could hear him. No one but a shadow, a shadow that was the cage itself.

Because Lance didn't matter, in the bigger picture. His life and his needs and his desires were eclipsed by others. First by Keith, and again and again by Keith. And now by the Galra, by the need for Voltron. Lance had nothing out here, on Arus.

He'd kept their relationship a secret, both because he knew how it would look on the outside (Lance had still been a student, back then) and because he knew how unbelievable it all sounded. Takashi Shirogane, his hero, his light, his inspiration, showing an interest in Lance of all people? It sounded like a fever dream, one that Lance couldn't believe at times himself, if he hadn't had the little bits of proof – the little napkins Shiro had written notes on, the texts on his phone, the little mementos of the hurried dates they'd gone on – hidden away back in his dorm.

But out here, on Arus, out in the far end of the universe, Lance could almost believe that it really was a dream. Shiro had returned, without memory of Lance, and without any sort of proof – his phone had run out of battery, and Pidge still refused to even consider figuring out a way to charge it – there was no way Shiro would ever believe that they were on their way to becoming a couple.

There was also the chance that Keith would contest Lance's claim, if he ever did say anything. Keith seemed to know everything about Shiro, every little detail about his life, and yet he hadn't known or shown any clue that Shiro had ever been close to Lance.

Lance wanted to cry at the absurdity of it all. He wanted to laugh, wanted to rage, wanted, wanted, wanted.

He wanted to not feel anything.

He wanted Shiro to look at him fondly, softly – wanted Shiro to look at him like before.

He wanted to be pulled close, to be held, to be loved.

He wanted his heart to stop breaking, bit by bit.

Most of all, Lance wanted everything to stop.

The world felt too much, everything was too much – every gesture, every inch of distance, every time Shiro's gaze would glance over him or past him. Too often Shiro would let out a heavy sigh and say his name with none-too-fond exasperation. Too often Shiro would be cordial with him, would be curt, would barely speak to him – to any of them, but in Lance's eyes he felt singled out.

As time went by, Lance watched as Shiro learned more about them. He started opening up, started looking like the person he used to be. Hunk would engage Shiro in long conversations about the Icarus, the ship Shiro had flown to Kerberos. Pidge would sneak Shiro away for long and late studies of info stolen from Galra ships. Keith – Keith seemed to get everything. Shiro gravitated toward Keith, talked to him the most, trained with him the most, and Lance noticed how uncomfortable that made Keith. To be singled out all the time must have been exhausting, but Keith never said a word, not that Lance ever heard, only ever pushing past the discomfort because it was Shiro, back and here and alive.

What hurt the most was that Shiro still seemed to avoid him. They barely exchanged words when they crossed paths, barely did training exercises together, rarely sat near each other.

Lance wanted to hate that, wanted to hate that Shiro was pushing him away, but he couldn't. He had to push down his anger and his hurt.

"We will now have a moment of silence for the people who didn't survive the Kerberos mission," the chief officer of the Garrison said solemnly. Lance still could not believe it. Instead, he pressed his lips together in a hard line these previous days, trying so badly to make himself believe that they were wrong. But the news still echoed in his head since he first heard it. The pilot of the Kerberos mission, Takashi Shirogane, was presumed dead after months of intense search and rescue.

 Shiro was a legend. The Legend of the Garrison, or rather as he was called here The Golden Boy. He had the obvious beauty, brains and brawn and not to mention a heart of gold. He was essentially perfect. All Lance could do was just stare hopelessly at Shiro, most of the time when he wasn't looking in the hallways, across the cafeteria, in the training decks etc, but when he was looking at him, he could only without starting too deeply or else he would turn red. 

Well to be fair, a lot of people stared at Shiro but out of all of them, Lance was certain that he wanted his heart the most because in a universe of different stars, Shiro was Lance's lucky star that he would follow to the ends of the earth. One could even say he was Lance's hero. Lance considered himself lucky enough to be considered one of his friends but lately, he'd been feeling something more towards him.

 Lance wanted to tell the guy how he felt but it was all too late but now his star was gone, burnt out and missing in the infinite abyss of the darkness of space.

 Just as they were dismissed from the hall, Lance dashed away to his room, carefully closing the door behind him before sinking to his knees. At first, he couldn't cry, not a tear shed. He just sat there, eyes unfocused and pulse slow in his ears. Then, a single tear dripped down his cheek. Maybe that was it, he though, but he was wrong. It was the complete waterworks. He was lucky that his roommate was away on a trip because he would have seen the complete disintegration of Lance. He couldn't remember how much he cried but he remembered his voice growing hoarse and the sun setting that day. He was known as the fun and carefree kind of guy and definitely never in a million years the emotional type but that was the day he discovered he was indeed an emotional wreck.

 The next day, he disappeared completely and entered a world of curling up in the corner next to his bed and crying again. The following day, the rain seemed to have lightened a bit and he could come outside but during breaks, which was when he usually saw Shiro, he hid back in his room again and the rain continued.

 After about a week or so, he had, or rather seemed to have gone back to his normal cheery and jovial self, cracking jokes and being the life of the party. But maybe that was just because people started to mention a change, which he quickly denied as possibly the weather. But if one listened carefully to his laughter, one would have found out that there was something beneath it.