I finished it! So this is really all I had planned for this particular au, though I might include a bonus chapter or oneshot or whatever, depending on how you guys feel about this. It’s not really my favorite, and I’m realizing that a lot of my fics have a lot of holes in them but whatever, it’s good practice still haha. Anyway, this is the sequel to “I Died,” which should actually be probably the last story I posted on here. It’s been a very long time since I posted anything fic-wise, and for that I apologize! This guy’s a little longer to make up for that!
In other news, my life has finally got to a point where it’s calmed down and I have real time to be writing, so now all I need to push through is my motivation issues, which I can make no promises for, but I do promise I’m working hard to overcome it and make this more of a daily habit so that we can have more fanfics! Anyway, hope you enjoy the story!
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So. Apparently sharing it now was not okay. What was he supposed to do when even Pidge was crying? Seriously, it had been so easy to cheer her up when they were in space, but no matter what he tried to say to convince her he was fine, she just kept tearing up again.
And sure, Lance had known that his friends cared, that they genuinely liked him and probably wouldn’t be happy if he died, but he really thought that had been more because. He was necessary.
He was a paladin, even if it did seem a little too much like he was a spare. Even spares were useful! Voltron was able to continue even after Keith left to find answers about his past, and Lance was half the reason that was possible! So obviously, he was useful.
But with that logic, the way that they all seemed upset and devastated so long after the fact didn’t make sense. And Lance appreciated it, he did. But it also… Just didn’t matter anymore. Obviously he’s fine, and he’s living life. And yet….
“Why didn’t Allura say anything?” Keith demanded again. Although it was probably the fourth or fifth time he had done so, Shiro just gave the same response.
“Keith, we don’t know how it affected her, too, maybe she was too shocked to say anything. From the sounds of it, that could’ve been her. It’s fair to assume she didn’t know how to handle it.”
“Or maybe she forgot,” Hunk muttered mutinously. Keith nodded quickly in agreement. Lance gaped.
“Who the hell are you and what happened to Hunk?” he asked. Hunk glared back, and it was so unexpected that Lance nearly flinched back before remembering this was his oldest friend. They may not have seen much of each other in the last year, but there was still no one that Lance trusted more.
“Lance, none of that is okay. You were really struggling, and the fact that Allura knew about even a portion of that and didn’t say anything to the rest of us…”
“It’s irresponsible. Even if she couldn’t personally handle it, she should’ve told us so we could’ve stepped up in her place. Instead, she left you alone to suffer. That’s not how a leader should behave.” Shiro glanced at Keith, and ran his knuckles against the back of Lance’s neck. Lance startled at the action, but before he could speak up, he felt Keith’s hands settle on his shoulders, kneading and massaging at the muscles there. He couldn’t tell if it was a tactic to show support, or if it was meant to relax him, but truthfully? Keith’s and Shiro’s hands were warm and it felt like it had been ages since Lance had been touched so deliberately. So even though he wanted to speak up and ask what they were doing or why, he instead felt himself melt further in his chair, brain turning to mush at the warmth soaking through his jacket.
Keith spoke up before Lance could fight the fuzzy feelings invading his brain. “Did Allura ever bring it up to you again? While you were… dating?”
Lance ignored the hesitation, far too used to it (and he tried to ignore the pang in his chest at the disbelief that always colored questions or comments on their relationship). “Ummm… We didn’t really… get a chance to?”
Keith’s hands stopped froze. “What?”
“I mean, it just never came up.”
“You almost died, and it never came up while you were together?”
“Hey! We were busy, we were all distracted back then…”
Hunk spoke up, “Didn’t we literally play Coran’s game like. Not even a week later?”
“Wait, you guys had time to play board games but Allura couldn’t talk to Lance about his death?” Even Shiro looked guilty at that, which just wasn’t fair!
“Come on, Keith, they didn’t know!”
“And you!” Lance tried not to shiver when those fierce, fiery eyes were focused on him. “Why didn’t you say something about it?”
“I thought they knew,” even as he said it Lance knew it was feeble and weak. Ugh and now Pidge and Hunk were tearing up again.
“And what, you assumed we just didn’t care?”
“We were busy! I told you that already, we were already distracted!”
“Pidge and I were playing with robots!” Hunk roared. Lance had been half standing by that point, but as soon as Hunk stood he found himself all but slamming himself back into his seat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his friend look so imposing. Honestly, it was probably never. It was really hard to get Hunk this heated. “And there is nothing that should be more important than my friends, than my family. And I thought that’s what we were out there.” He glared at everyone, as if daring them to contradict him. Predictably, no one did.
“Okay, but that doesn’t answer why Allura never said anything, what happened there? What did you guys do when you were together?”
Lance shifted uncomfortably, moving as if to stand again, but Keith’s hands grew firm again, continuing to hold him in place.
When the silence stretched on, Shiro finally murmured a quiet, “Lance.”
“She was hung up on Lotor. I think.”
No one said anything for a minute. “You think?” Pidge finally ventured.
“I mean, she was distracted with the war and everything else that was going on, the magic, Haggar, all of it. But I know that she was spending lots of time with him planning missions and everything.”
“She was ignoring you,” Hunk realized.
“No, she wasn’t!” Lance protested immediately. “Lotor just had better ideas and strategies, so she didn’t really… want my help.”
Hunk looked like he wanted to continue that argument, but Keith spoke first.
“Okay, but like, what about when you guys had down time? What did you do to relax and just spend time together? Outside of battle planning?”
Lance wracked his brain, but couldn’t think of anything other than Monsters and Manna that might count, but did it count? It was in a group setting… “You’re one to talk, Mullet, did you ever willingly leave the training rooms?” His voice broke, and Lance winced.
Rather than rise to the bait, Keith simply moved to stroking against the nape of Lance’s neck. Shiro’s hands felt a little tight around the base of his skull, but rather than being uncomfortable, Lance found it comforting. They were still there. They weren’t ignoring the situation. As painful as it was, it was nice to have all of this in the open. Lance relented.
“We played that game with everyone. Coran and Shiro and everyone.”
Another pause and then, “Lance…”
“That’s it, okay? I can’t remember anything else we did, except for maybe dinner with my family. We talked a bit when it was the two of us, but… It never seemed like I had all of her attention. There was never a chance to talk about what happened.”
“Lance,” Keith started, but he was interrupted. Lance’s phone was ringing again, and this time Lance was ready to take it. He shrugged off the hands that had been holding him steady, and stood so quickly his chair toppled. He moved a short distance away, ignoring how his friends’ concerned eyes followed.
Shiro and Keith were heartbroken. How could they have known that their friend had been suffering so much for so long? Especially this friend? They had had such hopes for this reunion, had spent hours across weeks discussing how they might invite Lance to travel with them, how they would reveal their feelings for him. Instead, they find that not only are they not even worthy of his attention (what kind of friends or lovers wouldn’t notice something like that???), but that their plans were now going to take a lot more work to prove successful.
Because they weren’t going to give up. If anything else, this proved to them that Lance needed someone who could and would take the time for them, who would work to make him happy and make him feel loved and wanted.
And if their small talk about Lance’s death and relationship with Allura hadn’t proved that to them, then this phone call would.
Keith couldn’t keep himself from glaring over in Lance’s direction. Shiro’s hand had snuck into his own. Every time Keith snarled or growled at the conversation he could overhear, Shiro’s hand would squeeze just that little bit tighter. It was a nice sentiment, but Keith was done. He tugged Shiro over to the other end of the table, leaving Pidge and Hunk to fall into their own conversation.
“He’s not happy here, Shiro.”
Shiro gave Keith a disappointed look. “You can’t decide that for him, Keith.”
Keith growled, “I’m not, okay? He’s on the phone with his sister or mom or something and from the sounds of it, Lance has really been missing space and the missions and us.”
At that, Shiro perked up. “He’s been missing us? Really?”
Keith blushed. “Well, he’s been missing the team at least. And we’re on the team, so…”
Shiro chuckled, but Keith could see that the back of his neck was flushed, too. “Not exactly what I meant or what we wanted, but all right. So you think he would say yes if we asked?”
Keith thought for a minute, which Shiro appreciated. This was too important to ruin by rushing it.
“I think there’s a very good choice he will.”
After the phone call ended, it took Lance a few minutes to regain control of himself. He hadn’t realized his whole family had been so aware of the fact that Lance had debated asking to go to space again. He’d been going back and forth on the whole thing for a while, because yes he missed his friends and the adventures, but really, would his friends even need him? What help would he be, what could he offer them? Nothing, plus he felt it was wrong of him to spend all of the war missing Earth and his family, but then ditch them just because now he missed space. He’d thought that maybe he would use this dinner to gauge if he could still fit with the team, but now he wasn’t sure where he stood with them. Were they mad that he had (inadvertently) kept secrets from them? Were they going to be worried that he would be a liability? Or would they love to have him back because they’d missed him? Well, probably not the last one, but maybe…
Lance sighed and used his sleeve to carefully wipe away the tears from his face, hoping desperately that his eyes weren’t so puffy that everyone would know he had been crying. But when he turned to rejoin his friends, he could tell that they knew anyway. The sympathy and concern in their eyes made his own water again. He gave them a wobbly smile.
Lance rubbed his mouth, then tried to subtly swipe at his eyes again, “Yeah?”
“I know that we… we failed you. And honestly, I’m not sure that I could forgive that in your place, but we were wondering…” Keith faltered, looking to Shiro for help. Pidge and Hunk watched on in curiosity.
“Would you come with us this time?” Shiro asked smoothly.
Lance stared. “What?” he felt numb. Before he could even formulate another thought, Hunk gasped in excitement.
“Yes, Lance you should totally come out with them! Pidge and I are going out again, too, and we were going to meet them on one of the planets the Blade is working with right now, it would be so fun to have everyone together again and --!” Hunk broke off with a yelp. Pidge must’ve kicked Hunk to get him to stop rambling. Hunk glared at her halfheartedly.
No way in hell was one of his real life heroes actually asking him to come with them on a space mission. Sure, he’d completed several missions by now, but this wasn’t even just a personal hero! It was one of his crushes! And his other crush was asking the same thing? In what universe would something like that happen to Lance? Was this just because it was a group thing? In that case, he should say no, shouldn’t he? He’d spent all of the war being a 7th wheel, was he really now considering putting himself in that position again? Before his thoughts could spiral anymore, Shiro took his hand, settling himself in the chair next to his own.
“We’ve missed you, very much. And even though we don’t really travel in a group much anymore, Keith and I would love to have you come with us.”
“Well, what would you want me to do? I can’t do the tech stuff, or the engineering stuff, and Keith plays such a big role as is…”
Shiro shook his head. “We just want you, Lance. We’ve missed you. You make missions more fun, you always forced us to take breaks, you always knew when we needed a laugh or when we needed to talk, and you made sure you were there to help us with that. We don’t need you to do or be anything more than who you are. And if you really feel like you want to do more, we would love to have your help in planning the missions. You’ve always been good at strategizing, even if most of us weren’t able to see or acknowledge that at the time.”
Lance hesitated still, “What about Allura? Shouldn’t you be asking her about this first?”
Keith snarled, but when Lance jerked at the sound, his voice softened. “Let us worry about that. She’s actually been trying to plan her maternity leave for her baby, so she was going to be taking a step back, and she hadn’t decided on how long yet. Besides, Shiro is the captain of Atlas, not Allura.”
And even though this was something Lance had been dreaming of, he still wasn’t sure that he was ready for it. It felt daunting, almost like… Almost like driving a mecha lion through a wormhole with a group of people he barely knew. It felt like a beginning, an adventure.
And who was Lance to turn down adventure?
