#whumptastic

They’d all listened intently as he described things they might encounter, and ways to resist. Then he’d paused. Closed his eyes and taken a few deep breaths. Keith had quietly said his name, and Shiro had shaken his head, opened his eyes, and barreled on.

“If you encounter a Druid.” Shiro’s words had been strained, quiet, and all the paladins had leaned in slightly to be able to hear him. “If you encounter a Druid, it will be unlike anything else. Of course resist as much as you can; do your best.” Shiro’s metal hand flexed, and he looked down at it. “But when you break, try not to feel too bad about it. Nobody can last forever against that.”

Not if they broke.

When.

Shiro’s words echoed and swirled through Lance’s mind as he was dragged down a hallway and into a room- no, a lab. There were tanks on the edges of the room glowing pale purple, and when Lance caught sight of a table with glowing restraint points he dug his feet in, trying to slow his forward progression. The sentries dragging him weren’t remotely bothered by his attempts to slow their movement, and far sooner than he’d have preferred, they were picking him up and depositing him on the table, holding his arms and legs in place for bright purple restraints to pop into place around his wrists and ankles.

Lance clung to what Shiro had told them. Ways to resist.

“Try to stay calm. I know it will be hard; you’ll be scared, and that’s ok. Try not to let it overwhelm you. It’s easier to resist if you’re calm. Try some of the breathing exercises we’ve been working on, and if you need to, think like Peter Pan. Find your happy thought, and stick to it.”

Lance closed his eyes and tried, reaching for the breathing exercises Shiro had taught them- in for 4, hold for 7, out for 8. Once the Druid arrived it would be useless, but it could keep him calmer right now. He’d thought it was kind of silly at the time, but now that he was using it, he could grudgingly admit it worked. He felt calmer.

Then the Druid arrived.

Shiro had described what they looked like, and Keith had corroborated, but nothing they described could account for how thoroughly creepy Druids were. Lance didn’t know if it was the feel of the corrupted quintessence they exuded, or if it was his own mind fucking with him, but the closer the Druid came, the more Lance’s skin crawled, and god, he wanted to be literally anywhere else.

The Druid floated over, silent, and came to a stop at the side of the table. Lance tried to keep his breathing even, controlled, but he could feel his heart hammering in his chest, and there was nothing he could do about that.

“Will you tell us where the Castle is?”

Lance tried to make his response as forceful as he could. Fake it til you make it, right?

“No.”

“Will you tell us where your lion is?”

“Hell no.”

The Druid tilted it’s head to the side, in what Lance assumed was contemplation.

“You have the chance to save yourself much pain.”

“Fuck you.”

The Druid raised a clawed hand and let it rest lightly on Lance’s arm. He tried not to look, but couldn’t help himself. There was a brief pause, and then Lance’s world ignited in purple fire.

He couldn’t even scream at first, the pain was so overwhelming. Shiro was right, it felt like nothing else he could have imagined; he’d been tagged once in training by Pidge’s bayard, an accident, and he’d thought from Shiro’s descriptions it would feel like that. To an extent it did, but it also felt nothing like it.

Lance’s eyes screwed shut and he could still see purple lighting up behind his eyes, the feeling of electric wrongness traveling through him. Eventually it stopped, and Lance realized somewhere in there he’d started screaming. His throat already felt ragged, everything else hurt, his muscles still twitching here and there.

Fuck.

“Will you tell us where the Castle is?”

“No.”

“Will you tell us where your lion is?”

“No.”

Lance closed his eyes as he felt the Druid’s hand move, and tried to focus on what else Shiro had said.

“Remember we’re coming for you. If you remember nothing else, trust in the fact that we won’t leave each other behind. It might take time, but we’re coming. Have faith in that even if you’ve got nothing else to hold on to.”

Lance fought to hold onto that thought as pain lit across his nerves like lightening, feeling like he was lighting up purple from the inside. They were coming for him. They were coming. It might take time, but they were coming, they were coming, they were-

“Will you tell us where the Castle is?”

Lance’s answer was a whisper now, his voice already rough and patchy from screaming, and he knew the Druid had barely started.

“No.”

“Will you tell us where your lion is?”

“No.”

Lance started to lose track of how many times the Druid asked about the Castle, about his lion, but he always answered the same way.

“No.”

Objectively he knew he couldn’t keep this up forever. Shiro had, gently as he could, explained to them all that everyone had limits, and everyone’s limits were different. That there was no shame in breaking, that nobody was meant to endure that kind of pain indefinitely. At the time, Lance had tried hard not to think of all that Shiro had endured, that he was teaching all this from experience, and he knew from the looks on everyone else’s faces they were thinking the same thing. At the end of that training session, Shiro had been exhausted, for all they’d just sat there talking, and they’d gotten the afternoon off to process.

As time wore on, Lance tried to do what Shiro had said, tried to find his happy place- the beach, the sound of the waves crashing against the sand, the laughter of his sister, Veronica, as she splashed around, sun-warmed hugs from his mama- but inevitably the pain pushed through, disrupted his memories, and he was dragged back to the present.

The Druid kept asking, and Lance couldn’t speak anymore, his voice ravaged from screaming, so he just shook his head. He’d keep resisting, even if he couldn’t say it. And hey, this wasn’t so bad. If he couldn’t speak, then he couldn’t say anything he didn’t want to. Almost a win, really.

Lance didn’t know if the Druid got bored, or if a predetermined length of time had passed, but the Druid pulled back, signaled to the waiting sentries. “We will continue later.”

When they released the restraints Lance didn’t have the strength to try to fight, and would have fallen flat on his face if they hadn’t held him up between them. They dragged him back through the halls they’d passed through before, and Lance was absurdly grateful when they tossed him into an empty cell and locked the door behind him.

He managed to crawl into a corner and pull himself upright against the wall. He was ok, for now. The situation wasn’t ideal, and that had sucked every bit as much as Shiro had said it would. But he’d held out, longer than he’d thought he’d be able to, if he were honest with himself.

Lance closed his eyes and breathed, and remembered.