Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Underneath the skin there's a human
Buried deep within there's a human
And despite everything I'm still human
But I think I'm dying here.
Human, Daughter

--

Facing down opponents in the arena is nothing like Shiro ever said it was. Maybe because Shiro didn't talk about it much. All that could be garnered from his few words about the subject was that it was a scary place, that it had changed Shiro forever, turned him into a weapon.

Lance feels the same.

How many times has he done this, now? Every day, one galra gladiator after another, days on end. Time runs together. Sometimes they don't let him sleep. Sometimes they put him on drugs till he's hysterical. Others he's trapped on a table surrounded by druids, losing and regaining consciousness every two seconds. He doesn't know anything anymore, except survival. Keep your head down. Don't talk to the others. Stay in your cell, don't yell, don't tell anyone how angry you are. Comply in their training exercises, excel in the arena. Don't scream when they plunge needles into you, don't cry, don't beg for your mamá. You take everything they give you and you make yourself stronger. Every drug dose, every cut up limb, every fight becomes another layer of steel over his body, a layer of ice freezing his heart. Nothing matters any more so long as he keeps fighting.

Keeps fighting, and eventually, someone will come for him.

Someone has to.

He doesn't know how long he's been here. He forgets fear, and kindness. Rocks live where his blood used to flow, he has no feeling of anything. Is he in pain? Is he hurt? Is that blood, or did they give him new clothes? No, it's blood, it comes off on his hands. Why can't he feel it? What are they doing to him?

Making him better. Making it so he can fight.

Shiro spoke as though the arena was terrifying, but Lance stands there a champion against every gladiator they throw at him. He doesn't mean to start killing them. He'd knock them out cold and leave them be, but then the gladiators turned to monsters before his eyes and suddenly Lance had blood all over his hands.

Has it. He doesn't get out of these fights injury-free. Sometimes the galra will pour ethanol over him to check he still can feel, and it's those moments that he really thinks he's in hell, buffeted on all sides by blazing fires. In those moments his head clear and he thinks what am I doing here but then they run water over him and the pain dies down and Lance forgets himself.

He dreams in black and white, old film reels. One of his sisters was a film buff, the type to collect any classic in any fancy way she could. She'd rope Lance into her viewing sessions, mostly because he let her. She doesn't show up in his dreams. Maybe she's sitting beside him, watching also, critiquing aloud so her phone will write it down for her, this scene uses too much shaky-cam, the protagonist is very unsympathetic, not sure what the theme here is meant to be except lose everything and give up hope.

The thought of her doesn't prompt sadness. It feels like a waste, to feel that, to miss her, to miss anyone. Missing people doesn't help him here.

Nothing but compliance helps him.

He keeps complying.

He didn't used to. That's what he'll tell everyone, when he gets out. At first, he screamed and shoved and kicked his legs, and he struggled against his bonds, he yanked his arm when they tried to stick needles in it, he refused a weapon and refused to fight in the ring.

But none of that was his decision.

Now, he lets them lay him on the table. They've already removed one of his legs mid-thigh to make way for a galra prosthetic. It's fancier than Shiro's arm. If you didn't know it was there, you wouldn't be able to see that it's any different from Lance's old leg.

It is, it's far better, and it looks like they're kitting out his other leg, too. They restrain him, thick heavy chains, and something different, a cleaner, shinier metal around his enhanced leg. Another cocktail of drugs in his neck, but he stays conscious. The machines they use are refined - what is essentially a huge pizza cutter slices his other leg cleanly, mid-thigh just like the other, and they get to work installing the prosthetic.

They also explore. Is that the right way to word it? They've discovered the effect fire has on human skin, and they're burning something into his left arm. They prick at his stomach with knives, seeing how many tiny cuts will lead to a gashed open gut. They run a knife down his lips to his chin, slicing open the flesh, parting the cut to dig deeper.

Nothing hurts. Just another day in the druids' room, Lance is used to it, he's a little tired of it. Give him his leg and let him be off with it; he's bored of sitting and watching the world fuzz in and out of focus. Today, bubbles appear in his vision, shimmering around the druids working on him, leaving their mouths when they speak. They turn green, pink, blue. Lance's heart feels too heavy for his body, and his body feels hollowed out completely, as though he is a person-shaped balloon and only these restraints keep him from flying into the air.

His thoughts, though clear, turn slow and sticky in his head, hard to concentrate on any one thing. He follows the druid working on his lips, bubbles escaping her lips and ears, the crest of her hood, how strange she looks, how similar. If Haggar is Altean, does that mean all druids are? Or was it just her? Lance doesn't know. He just knows she looks familiar. They all do. How long has he been here? Long enough to start recognising his doctors.

What he doesn't recognise: the flash of red that sweeps through the room. A pause, then another. Instruments are dropped and picked up again. Too late, sound bursts; an alarm, off-beat with the flashing, but Lance thinks it's just the drugs.

The druids, after a moment, keep working, and Lance assumes it's all the drugs.

They work fast, they plug in all the tiny wires and morph the prosthetic and his flesh into one, but he can tell they're missing something and getting frustrated. Someone yanks on his right leg, points at something.

Bubbles are flying around the room, irridescent and carefree, Lance thinks if he goes still enough he will rise along with them.

He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again - five seconds or ten minutes or three hours later - he's being carried somewhere. Which is a little unusual. Even if he's unconscious, they'll just drag him along the floor, or force their smaller, weaker alien prisoners to try and haul him along. Maybe it's to do with his legs. The one they were working on still isn't quite right - maybe they need to carry him somewhere else, where they have the right equipment.

Every few minutes, Lance catches the alarm still going, but it's drowned out with bubbles and wild colours sparking out the ceiling. He shuts his eyes again, only because the combination of the bubbles and the colours are excrutiatingly loud and he needs to block them out, and when he opens them again, he is facing Shiro.

And then the healing pod door closes on him, and the world finally stills.

--

Is he different when the doors open and he steps back out? He doesn't feel different. Maybe he looks different. The healing pod can't prevent scars, and Lance knows he has a fuck ton from the galra. They shaved the sides of his hair every now and then but he never got to check a mirror. He's better- stronger from all the fights. Is that it?

Everyone looks...kind of the same, except more worried. Hunk is in tears and so is Pidge and Shiro and Allura and-

Uh, they're all in tears. Even Keith is wet-eyed, and Lance can't comprehend it.

He asks, "Did they fix my leg?"

Hunk whispers, "Lance."

"They were having trouble with it," Lance clarifies. "I think they were missing a piece?"

"Lance," Shiro says, and Lance looks at them all for a moment before checking himself, stretching his leg out just a little to better admire the prosthetic. Something is wrong - it looks like his leg, but it's also visibly not. The outlines of it remain purple, every gear and screw transparent, the same white as the cryo suit he wears.

"So something is wrong," he says. "Do you know what it is? Is it gonna impair my abilities or just look weird?"

"Lance-" Allura says, but she's cut off when Hunk rushes forward and hugs him.

...Right. Hunk is his best friend. His main man. That'd be bearable, but everyone takes this opportunity to dogpile onto him, even Keith pressing a hand against his shoulder and smiling, and it's...weird. Waste, it's a waste of time. This...emotion. Lance has questions he wants answered, and he knows they'll have the same for him. Isn't that more important?

"Can I get a mirror?" he asks when they let go, and despite looking concerned, they try to laugh and do the whole typical Lance thing, but he doesn't pay attention. At least Shiro understands, and makes way for him to brush through the others to a wall-length mirror set up on the wall behind the pods.

He does look different. The galra gave him an undercut so that they could dig a little into the back of his neck, and he can hear some of the others gasping as they seen the scars from that. His face is...blank. Eyes still blue, features still sharp. The cut from his last visit to the doctor has become a thick scar across his lips; he has two parallel gashes on his right cheekbone; a thin incision all round his neck. The cryo suit doesn't offer much for what scars live elsewhere, but he can see the bulk of his body is a little broader. Muscle where it didn't exist before. The unfinished left leg purple at all its edges.

Turning back, he nods to the others, and starts heading out the room.

"Where are you going?" Allura asks, hurrying to his side and taking his arm. Her hand is so human in comparison to the galras'. "You're still unwell!"

"I feel fine," Lance says, and her features drop.

"But- even with a healing pod, the, the drugs that were in your system- the leg- you should be in agony!"

Lance shrugs. "I think they got rid of that," and continues down the corridor to the dining room.

"What," Keith says, at his other side, "what do you mean?"

"Pain," Lance says. "I don't feel anything anymore."

Allura halts. "You don't- what?"

He keeps walking, and Keith grabs his arm to stop him but Lance just wrenches it out his grip.

"Lance, are you okay?" Hunk asks, drifting a pace behind them.

"Where are we going?" says Pidge.

"What did they do to you, Lance?" Shiro asks, sounding so heartbroken that Lance can't believe they're both products of the same environment. How did Shiro keep sane? Why is he so...feeling?

But he doesn't bother replying until they reach the dining room. He sits at the head, since he's apparently the most important topic, and the other fan out on either side of him, Shiro and Hunk closest to him, Pidge sticking out on the end and Coran at his shoulder.

"Explain," Allura asks, "what you meant. About feeling no pain."

"I think they got rid of it," Lance says. "It didn't serve them, and there were other kinds of torture, so they just got rid of the ability."

"To feel pain?"

"Anything."

They all stare at him, but Lance has nothing more to say. It's just a theory; he could be wrong.

"...Maybe you should go back in cryo."

"What for? I feel fine."

"You just said you can't feel anything."

"The healing pod let me out."

Allura tries to speak against it, but Shiro asks, "Lance, what happened to you? What did they...do?"

"New legs," Lance says, "they injected me a lot, but I think most of it was temporary. I trained a lot. They put me in the arena. Uh...I don't remember much else, honestly."

"The arena," Shiro repeats, white-faced.

"Took your title," he says. "Sorry, buddy."

"You- the Champion?"

Lance shrugs. "It was that or die, and I figured someone'd still want me around."

Shiro closes his eyes, and Keith puts a hand on his shoulder, darting worried glances from Shiro to Lance and back again. Hunk is still leaking tears. Pidge seems thoroughly shaken. Is it that horrifying?

"Lance...do you know how much time has passed?" Allura asks.

He shakes his head. "No idea," he says.

"Five phoebs," she says, and it takes a moment for him to dig out the translations of Altean time words before he can realise what that means.

"Huh," he says, and looks over their outfits. Shiro and Keith are back as the black and red paladins respectively, and Allura's still in her pink outfit, which can only mean she's still piloting Blue. "What have you been doing? Have you dealt with Lotor yet? I never saw him there. I think. I...don't know."

"Yes, we've...been dealing with him. We haven't taken him down, but we've hampered his team. We've also been coordinating with the Blades of Marmora to free and protect more planets, and it took a while for everyone to settle into their lions..."

"We were looking for you," Keith says, rushed, and Lance frowns and looks over at him. "Between all that. We never stopped looking."

"Okay," Lance says, and thinks maybe he should be happy at this news or bitter about how long it took, but it feels like none of that matters. "Did someone look after Kaltenecker?"

"I did," Hunk says, "he's fine."

"Cool."

Pidge speaks up: "Are you going to...tell us anything that happened?"

"Pidge," Shiro says.

"I don't remember a lot," Lance says. "I think they went through a lot of the classic torture techniques, but once I stopped feeling anything they kind of became useless. They had to pour ethanol on my wounds to get me to feel anything, I remember that."

They all collectively flinch.

"Sometimes they'd use quintessence to heal me so they could keep, like, digging into me, but...only rarely." Lance shrugs. "Guess they had a lot of ground to cover."

"And...how was the arena?" Shiro asks delicately.

"It got kind of boring after a while."

They all keep staring at him. He gets it, he's changed. But it's just so...quiet. They all seem to be expecting something of him, a joke or a smile or a hug, but Lance can only stare blankly. He doesn't remember his old self. He killed it in the arena along with all those other galra warriors. That Lance is gone just as surely as they are.

Five months, huh? That's not so bad. Time was so slippery, Lance could've been underwater for years and he wouldn't have realised. He almost wishes they'd waited a little longer. Just enough for his leg to fuse with his flesh properly. It's not an issue now, but he's no doubt that problems will crop up in the future because of it.

"...Maybe you need some rest," Allura suggests gently. "You've been through quite the ordeal."

"Yeah," Lance murmurs. "I guess so."

"I'll walk you-" Hunk says, and Keith has also stood up as if to join them. The two of them exchange looks, nodding, and Keith sits back down.

"Whatever," Lance says, and gets up and leaves.

Hunk trails after him. "Hey, buddy," he says as the door slides shut behind them. "I hope you're not mad at us. We didn't mean to take so long- everything happens so much, you know! We were doing everything, breaking into galra bases and stealing info and trying to find you, but they had nothing on you anywhere. We were really lucky that we stormed that base and f-" Hunk takes a deep breath, and when Lance glances over he realises he's near tears. "Found you," he finishes with a wobbly smile, and Lance's brows furrow.

"Found me how?"

"Uh- well, Allura can fight druids, so she went to hold them off, and, uh, found you...getting your leg put in. But it was done wrong. And your guts were spilling out and they were burning something galran onto your arm and slicing up your lips and-!"

"Oh," Lance says. "Yeah, I was so high at that point. I couldn't hear shit."

Everything Lance says just seems to distress Hunk further.

"Look, dude, if you're mad at us-"

"I'm not mad," Lance interrupts. "I just don't really care. I dunno, dude."

"...Oh."

"Yeah," Lance says. "See you later." He presses a button and his bedroom door slides open, everything inside it still and quiet. He doesn't look back as it shuts, and he goes to his bed, pulls off the cryo suit and jumps into the best in his boxers, falling asleep instantaneously.

He dreams, though. Black and white. Classic film lens. Nothing good, nothing happy.

At least he sleeps.

--

There is nothing to do in the castle. The day after Lance is rescued, they're found and pursued by some of his old doctors, but they're clearly weakened by something, maybe Allura's attack on them the day previous, they can never quite catch up, and after the castle hurls only a few ion beams their way their ship lilts just enough for Allura to wormhole them out of there. They all huddle round him, asking if he's okay, if it was scary, if he needs a moment.

He doesn't. He thought it was sort of obvious, and it must become clear as he raises his brows at him and they slowly return to their previous activities. Apparently the rescue mission meant the castle had taken quite a beating, and everyone, not just Coran, is on clean up duty. Allura is dusting down the control room when she turns to him with a fake smile.

"You know, Lance," she says, gently as if speaking too loud might cause him to crack like an egg, "if you're looking for something to do, we finally filled the pool up. Since everyone's busy, you'll have quite a lot of time to yourself down there!"

He's on the metal protrusion at the front of the main control console, watching her flit from one paladin chair to another, wiping them down before pressing a button to return them to the floor. Coran passed through a while back, talking about their weakened defence systems, but no one else has come by since.

"Sure," he says, since it seems she wants him out the way. "Which way?"

Though her smile doesn't falter, her left brow drops and yanks itself back up again; she says, "Oh, if you just follow the main corridor, it's the third lift on the right."

"Cool," he replies, gets up, and leaves, and as the doors shut behind him, he can hear her sigh. No one is around as he goes to his room and changes out his clothes, taking a moment to eye himself in the mirror. It's not a pretty sight, but every inch of him is a sign of a survivor. Of a fighter. Someone dangerous, someone you don't want to touch.

That galra did that to him. For him.

He knows he shouldn't think that way. There's no denying it's the truth.

He pulls on the blue swim trunks from months ago. They still fit, but they're tighter than before. Grabbing a towel, he leaves, and the wander down to the pool is again entirely undisturbed. Lance wonders if everyone is avoiding him, or if they really are that spread out across the castle.

Probably avoiding him. They seemed so distressed the night before, and no one could quite meet his eyes this morning, as if he unnerved them, as if maybe he even scared them.

They look at him in a way they never did Shiro, even though it sounds like Lance and Shiro had very similar experiences. Tortured, experimented on, put in the arena, limbs replaced. So why have they come out so different? What did the galra do to Lance that they didn't to Shiro, but allowed him to still retain some sense of self, of life? How has Lance lost that? Why?

Because he had to survive. Everyone has to sacrifice something in the fight for survival, so he gave up everything he didn't need: humour and idiocy and patience for other people's stupidity. He is still himself. Can they all see that? Is that what scares them?

Or maybe they think he is someone new, someone they don't know. Maybe they regret rescuing him, expending so many resources on this. He can't feel Red in the back of his mind anymore; she faded out not long after he was taken. So he can't even pilot the red lion, or even the blue, and Lance has no doubt Keith and Allura are doing a terrific job of it anyway, so where does that leave Lance?

Floating face-up in the pool, apparently. If he closes his eyes, it almost feels like he did back in his prison, light as air, barely held down by the restraints on his wrists and ankles. He is back on the table, his doctors poking and cracking open his bones, refilling them with concrete and sealing them shut to see if he hits any harder. There are holes in his neck and his arms and his hips from past injections, he is dizzy, heavy, lazy, messy. He hits with rabid precision or he faints at the sight of blood. He jumps higher and moves faster, he slumps, he stumbles, he crawls. He dreams up a world that doesn't exist.

They cut off limbs like felling trees and plant newer, stronger seeds in his weeping wounds. They pluck his eyeballs from his head and replace them with pure glass. His lips cut off to make room for a grim set of sharp teeth. His ears amped up a thousand times, he hears cries for help from systems away.

He fights, he fights, he keeps fighting and keeps complying.

Nothing scares him anymore.

Isn't that what he always wanted?

He can't remember anymore. He knows bits and pieces of his five phoebs in galra imprisonment; he does not know his past self's desires.

He knows, factually, that the water is there, and holding him up, keeping him afloat, even his legs. It doesn't feel like it. It feels as though he floats on air itself, and the air is neither too hot nor cold, and when he turns round and breathes in, his eyes don't burn, his throat barely chokes. Still, he turns back over so he can breathe easy, pushes absentmindedly off the wall he has drifted towards. The water then rushes over his arms, his chest, but he can only feel the slight weight of it, the pull as it returns back to itself.

The water has always reminded him of home: rain during the storms, the waves at Varadero, puddles in the sunshine. Now it reminds him of a different kind of home, being drugged-up with the druids, and isn't that ten kinds of fucked up?

But it feels like comfort.

"Lance?"

He'd almost enjoyed not being able to hear in those last few moments. No one to yell at him or scream. The world filtered into something easier to understand and contain; he could trust his body to find the threats for him.

"Lance?"

He didn't have to bother with words; his actions spoke for themselves, and gradually, people would stop trying to engage with him. That sounded like real peace.

"Lance!"

Upon opening his eyes, he discovers Keith at the very edge of the pool, jacket off and the neck of his t-shirt in his hand, as if he intends to rip off his clothes and jump into the pool after Lance.

"Hey, man," Lance says.

"Lance," Keith murmurs, and lets out a huge sigh, balling up his jacket and holding it like a teddy in his arms. "I thought you were- I thought you- thought something had happened, you weren't responding, o-or saying anything-"

"I was thinking about home," Lance says, and Keith's features freeze, then turn soft, his eyebrows pulling up as he kneels at the edge of the water.

"If you...want to talk about anything-" Keith tries, but Lance just raises a brow.

"Don't you hate me?" Lance asks.

"What- no! That was you! You hated me and you made up that rivalry and- and forgot we had a bonding moment and everything!"

Wow, he really seems worked up about this. Lance moves so he's no longer floating in the water, but submerged up to his chest. "Maybe," Lance says. "I guess that sounds like me."

Keith rubs his lips together, looking utterly lost. "So...you're okay?"

"I'm not drowning," Lance says, "or already dead."

"So...you are okay."

"I don't know why you care," Lance says. "I thought everyone was avoiding me."

"No! We've just been busy! You don't understand, rescuing took up all our resources- we had to use the Blades as a distraction and Coran was doing everything he could with the castle, half our lions were almost wrecked-"

"Then why did you bother?" Lance asks, and starts slowly taking strokes down the length of the pool, keeping his head above water so he can hear Keith speaking. "You had five paladins, and Coran works the castle. You have the Blades, you were apparently making progress with Lotor. So why bother coming back for me? There's no place for me. You wasted a fuck ton of resources looking for me. And you have no idea what the galra have done to me. They were tracking us through Shiro's arm, right? How do you know they won't do the same with my legs? What makes you think it's safe, keeping me around? You have no idea what they've done to me."

"Lance," Keith says, eyes wide and brows high, gaping just a little. He doesn't look scared...horrified, maybe. "What- of course we would look for you, you're part of the team, you're our friend-"

"This isn't a fucking sports day at school," Lance says, the words echoing eerily in his memory, "this is a war. You have your best pilots and your best leader, you have backup, and you had leads. Sometimes you make sacrifices along the way."

"You weren't a sacrifice we were willing to make."

Lance speeds up a little bit, then glances again back to Keith. His knees are teetering on the pool's edge, probably getting wet as Lance moves and the water ripples out from him. "That's not how you win wars."

"Why are you- why do you care so much about this war thing?" Keith asks, and Lance scowls.

"Because we're in a war."

"Yes, but- it doesn't have to be as terrible as you make it out. We don't have to sacrifice anything we don't want to."

"And what did you lose, by coming after me?" Lance asks, and sits up on the ledge beside Keith.

Keith doesn't answer, because he's too busy staring at Lance's arm. His left arm, the one that was burned with galran words. Lance asks, "Do you know what it says?"

"No... The Blades haven't taught me a lot of the language yet." Keith reaches a hand up to trace it, eyes wide. "Did it hurt?"

"No," Lance says. "It was only yesterday they did it."

"Yester-" Keith says, and frowns. "Lance, you were in the healing pod for a week."

"Oh... A week ago, then."

Silence reigns as Keith stares, and stares, and stares. Lance doesn't stare back, just watches the water rush and ripple as he kicks his heels against the wall. He already knows what Keith is looking at. The scars. There are so many scars. He has a ton about his gut, because they were obsessed with cutting him open and checking out his insides, not to mention the little party they had with it a week ago, apparently. He has a square of scars over his heart, scars lining his ribs, flog marks on his back, burns there, too, laser beam marks littered about his arms, his legs, everywhere. Half of it just for fun.

"Did...none of this hurt?" Keith asks, voice hollow and lips trembling just a little.

"No," Lance says. "It was a gradual thing. So I must've felt some of it, but...I don't remember."

"And you can't feel anything now."

"Nope," and pops the 'p'.

"Can you feel the water?"

Lance shakes his head.

"My hand?"

He's still touching Lance's arm.

"I can feel the weight of it, but not...temperature or pressure or anything."

Keith seems incredibly unnerved. "There has to be someone we can go to about this," he says. "We can't- there has to be something we can do."

"It's a good thing," Lance says, and Keith's mouth drops open. "If I can't feel pain then I'm not distracted by it, or muscle exhaustion, or even the weather. I can keep going regardless of the conditions around me."

"A good thing," Keith says, agape.

"I can keep fighting," he continues, because that's what's important. "So long as I keep fighting, I'm fine."

"Fighting," Keith repeats, quieter. "...You fought in the arena, like Shiro?"

"Mmhm. The doctors- druids cooked up a lot of bad guys to compete after Shiro disappeared. They wouldn't give me a gun at first, so I had to learn hand-to-hand. They made me train for hours. When I started winning they let me have a rifle. But that took a long time."

"But they gave you Shiro's title?"

"There was a... A mini version, of the monster we fought on the Balmera. It had killed every person it faced. I fought it three times, and I almost died the first time. But the second time I did some damage, and I killed it the third time. I think it managed to focus all its lasers into one and shoot my leg off, under the knee, so that's when they decided to replace my legs."

"Lance...how can you tell me all this? When Shiro talked about it- I mean, he couldn't. He kept getting flashbacks, he couldn't...talk about it like you do."

Keith's eyes are heartbroken. Windows to the soul, indeed, Keith's eyes reveal the fire burning in his heart, smouldering, puttering, confused.

"It's not scary," Lance says. "Nothing is scary anymore." The conversation suddenly feels boring, Lance impatient - Keith keeps looking sad, and Lance isn't used to that, he's used to exhausted prisoners, frightened opponents, tormenting doctors. He wants to escape, and at least while swimming as fast as he can, he can pretend he's escaping. If he shuts his eyes, the world around him is his to create. This isn't a swimming pool on a castleship, it's the still ocean off Varadero, and he is free, and he is gone.

He has always been a good swimmer - one of his few talents, although it fell flat at flight school - but now he's even better. His legs push him faster and his arms are stronger to pull him through the water, he hurtles off one end of the pool and surfaces halfway along it. Exhaustion doesn't touch him. Nothing can. He pushes harder and harder, faster and faster. This is what he's good for, now - pushing himself to the limit.

Whenever he glances up for breath, Keith is still there.

What is he doing...? Pretending to clean, Lance thinks. Keeping an eye on Lance, in probability. Allura said he'd be left alone, but she must've pretty instantly realised her mistake and decided to send someone to check on him. Who knows what he could do?

Swim a lot, apparently. He hadn't fought for a few days before his left leg's surgery, they were prepping him, or trying out drugs, or...something... And apparently he's been locked up in cryo for a week, and it feels good to exert his strength, feel that power thrum through his muscles again. He has to keep pushing. If he reaches a breaking point, then what's the point of him? Endurance can't have a breaking point.

He stops opening his eyes when he takes a breath after a while. It's always just Keith, pretending to be wiping the floor instead of just full-on staring at Lance, and it ruins the dream of being on Earth. Eventually, he fades from the castleship entirely. Even though he has to push off the walls of the pool, he just imagines it's some rock in the sand he's using to power himself deeper into the ocean, into the world he loves. The blue pool floor transforms into sand and seaweed, eventually falling away into endless navy. This is how he makes the world beautiful.

This is how he makes it his.

--

His name being yelled repeatedly brings him back to the castleship. He keeps swimming, but cracks an eye open, and realises it is no longer just Keith, pretending not to stare, but all of them, quite obviously gaping at him. Hunk is the one calling his name.

He slows down and asks, "What's up."

"Uh," Hunk says, somehow thrown off-guard at Lance replying, "it's dinner time."

Lance is tempted to blow it off, but in reality he knows he needs food if he wants to stay strong. "Sure," he says, and swims over to the ledge and hauls himself out in one smooth movement. They all keep staring, this sad and heartbroken gaze trailing over Lance's body, at the ugly scars, the new muscle, the mess of it all. Lance finds himself very impatient indeed, grinding his teeth before pointing: "They tried to cut my heart open, but they stopped pretty quickly when they realised I was dying. I got all these in a fight with a mini-version of the monster on the Balmera. These were just for fun. I tried to escape a couple times, so I got shot a lot. They found whipping really fun. They also liked burning galran words onto me, to show that they really owned me or something, but I don't know what any of it means. These are just to see how deeply into my face they could cut. This was to differentiate the flesh of my lip from the rest of my face. They used a garrotte with a razor edge to choke me to see what would happen. The legs came after-"

"Stop," Hunk chokes out, and Lance rolls his eyes.

"You obviously wanted to know."

"That's horrible," Allura says, barely. "But Lance, have you any idea how long you've been swimming?"

"Well, if it's dinner time...six vargas, give or take?"

"Yes. You need to come to dinner immediately, dry off, just- relax. Rest yourself. There's no reason to work so hard, now."

"We're in a war, princess. We have to be in top condition."

Allura blinks furiously, unable to speak, and Shiro comes forward and places a hand on Lance's shoulder. "Lance," he says, "I understand you've been through something terrible, but please remember that we are not the galra. We're not going to force you to train constantly, or anything like that, to earn your keep. You're our friend, and you need rest. You don't have to overexert yourself like this."

"I wasn't overexerting anything," Lance counters, statuesque beneath the hand.

"Six hours, Lance! We haven't even trained that long."

"Not here. The galra didn't really give a fuck, though."

"...How are you not exhausted."

"Can't feel anything, dude. Exhaustion included."

"Do you even feel hungry?"

Lance shakes his head. "But if I want to keep fighting, I need to eat, so."

"You're not with the galra anymore. You don't need to keep fighting."

Lance pulls away from Shiro's grip, grabs the towel he brought down, and starts drying off. "Fuck," he says, "did we even get captured by the same alien race."

"Lance-" Keith hisses, but Coran keeps him back.

"Maybe we should leave," Allura says diplomatically. "We'll make sure dinner is ready when you two return."

And so all but Lance and Shiro recede from the room, Keith looking back the whole time and Coran ushering everyone through the door, Pidge hurrying through it, Hunk teary-eyed at Lance.

"I know it's not easy-" Shiro says, and Lance stops him.

"I don't care, Shiro," he says, and Shiro crosses his arms. "It's probably because they didn't know you were going to be a paladin of Voltron when they had you. And essentially, they got me in return for losing you, which is a pretty shitty deal, so they made it so I could never participate in Voltron again."

"But- of course you can-"

"I lost the connection to Red. I think that was their aim, whatever they did to stop me from feeling stuff, it cut off my connection to her."

Shiro's eyes widen, his gaze drifting as he processes Lance's words. Lance uses the lull to dry off completely, tossing the towel over his shoulder and making to leave, Shiro trailing him. "Is that possible?" Shiro asks. "You should tell Allura and Coran - they'll know if that's happened before. Lance...this whole...'not feeling' thing could have a lot of consequences you might not have realised yet. Maybe exercising for hours without being tired sounds like a boon, but you could really overwork yourself, you could forget to eat, or sleep, or..."

"Probably," Lance says.

"You're not worried?"

"I don't really care."

"Why-" Shiro stops himself, shaking his head as he walks alongside Lance. His hands twist together and he darts looks over, but it takes a long time for him to finally ask, "Please, Lance, tell me how this happened. What is it they did to you that caused this? Do you remember? Have you any idea?"

"I think it was all the drugs," Lance says. "They shot me up pretty regularly. I don't know what with, they changed it every time. I was high when you guys got me... It altered my hearing and- everything, really. I didn't realise it was a rescue. I thought they were moving rooms to get the right equipment. They also might've dug into my brain, but I can't remember."

Looking a bit shaken, Shiro nods. "They probably did," he admits. "Although it might be worth doing a blood test or- something, see if there's anything there that could help."

"Whatever."

They reach Lance's room, and Shiro stays outside as he changes, then when he emerges Shiro says, "You know, Keith was with you almost the entire time."

"Bit weird," Lance says. "Weren't there repairs to do?"

"He was worried about you."

"Cute."

"...Really, Lance. He's been worried sick over you."

"Why?"

"Because he cares for you... Look, just...go easy on him."

Lance shrugs just as they enter the dining room, where everyone is sitting round plates of food goo, leaning in and whispering all hushed right up until the doors shut behind them.

"Lance! Shiro! You joined us!" Allura says, like it's the best thing to ever happen to her.

"Of course," Shiro says, and sits by Pidge, leaving Lance to sit with Keith. "Lance just had to change."

Lance nods, and starts eating, and as if that was a signal, everyone does so too. Then they talk as if the world is normal. It's almost amusing, but Lance doesn't smile or laugh, just listens in case anything is important. They escaped to a fairly distant system with very little activity in their area; they plan to alert the Blades of their presence, and start looking for nearby planets in distress. The castleship is still in need of some repairs, and Coran thinks they might need to visit some junkyards or malls to pick up what they need.

They don't refer to Lance, don't ask him his plans or try and figure out where he fits in all this. He's glad. He doesn't think there'll be an easy answer. Maybe he'll just help from the ship, like Coran. Maybe Hunk'll teach him how to be a mechanic, and he'll do manual labour whilst everyone's off fighting. Maybe they'll try and get him on the ground. He'd be most useful there. No one's as long-range as him; put the other five on the ground and hide him in the hills, and he could do serious damage. Now that he knows hand-to-hand, he'd be good even at the fore.

The only thing he can do for them is fight. He's useless elsewhere. He is a blunt knife; he can kill, but he has no point.

Not anymore.

--

After dinner comes sleep, classic films of his childhood playing in black-and-white: the telenovela of his sister dumping her boyfriend because she fell in love with his ex; the silent comedy of he and his brothers trying to sneak past their sleeping parents to the kitchen for midnight treats; the futuristic sci-fi where he learns to fly a rocketship into space. The tiniest ache wells up in the depths of his chest, but by morning, it is gone, and when he joins the others, he is sentenced to the clean up crew.

No more mishaps like yesterday, where swimming for six hours is apparently something to gawp at.

It's fine. He works with Hunk most of the time, since he's the expert, and they take a few breaks and Hunk tries to joke with him but time just passes, sometimes Lance has to stretch out his muscles just so they don't get too restless. He does as Hunk asks, drifts from himself, until he's needed again. But he's not needed again. Yes, the others ask him to do things and yes, they sometimes ask if he's okay, what he's staring at, is he hungry thirsty tired in pain and then they catch themselves and say have some water anyway.

It all just...fades away. Even sitting down for dinner, their faces become blurs, their words slick together into nothing, even the food he's eating dissipates before him. His legs are humming, his body thrumming, his veins thumping with need; he has to get to the training deck. He's not stupid enough to just go, though. The others have already expressed their disapproval at him doing anything remotely physical; he needs to sneak in when everyone else is asleep.

He just has to get through this...but how? He can't keep track of them. The world is a white screen, he moves the fork up and down and he eats and drinks but none of it feels real. He tastes, sees, feels nothing. Is this his life outside galra imprisonment? Is it really preferable? At least back there, he could fight and fight and win. Even high off his ass on drugs he didn't know, he had something.

There are no restraints holding him down anymore. He floats, he flies, he disappears into the sky. He has no substance.

And he comes back to himself on the training deck. He checks outside, but the lights are all dark, so he presumes everyone is in bed.

With that at rest, Lance focuses, and looks for the weapons. It doesn't take long; there's a door opposite him, and when he opens it, he finds a long, narrow room with two dummies wearing plain white armour, and racks of different weapons. Lance first puts on the armour; a black undersuit like the paladin uniform, but the shoulders are white, and the armour also. Then he faces the weapons.

The sword he chooses is a little longer than Keith's bayard; long and thick, double-edged and sharp, a sure weight in his left hand. The gun he picks, a rifle like his old bayard, is certain in his right. Dual-wielding like this was a gift the galra gave him; he could've never done it before.

Now, he excels. Stepping out onto the deck, he calls for the training to begin, and a gladiator drops out and starts fighting him.

Badly. Lance stops, frowns, and asks the next level up. And again. Again. Level five is alright. Level ten gives him some trouble. Level fifteen keeps him preoccupied more than five minutes.

Level twenty he starts to burn, and he grins, and starts using the sword.

Fighting is natural to him now. Strange to think it wasn't before. He side steps and leaps and charges and shoots, he wins, he kills, he keeps winning. He barely breaks a sweat for the first varga. These gladiators are like children, it is funny to think a single one of these once took down his entire team.

Funny to think he could ever be scared of something like this.

He doesn't know what level he's at when he has to really start working; when it's multiple gladiators, all the time, swarming him, he gets one down and another pops out, and he relishes it, this challenge, finally something worth conquering around here-

"End training session!"

And they drop beneath the floor, and when the room clears, Lance sees Keith in the doorway, eyes wide, fixated on Lance. Takes in his stand, his face, his weapons. Catch on the sword.

"What," Keith says, and comes in properly, the door sealing behind him, "are you doing here?"

Lance doesn't dignify that with an answer, just blows some of the steam off his rifle.

"It's the middle of the night."

"Night doesn't exist in space."

"It exists in a time-regulated castleship."

"Not on galran ones."

Keith's stare goes incredulous for a half-second before turning incredibly sad. He moves closer, and Lance wonders at how he ever saw this boy as a threat. He is so soft, in his boxers and t-shirt and socks. His hair is in a messy bun, his brows upturned, hands bare.

He cares about you.

And he's the one who's half-galran - does he know nothing of weakness?

"Lance, come on," Keith says. "Go to bed. Or see Kaltenecker. Or- something!"

"I need to fight, Keith," Lance says. "It's the only thing I'm good for."

"That's not true-"

"I need to do it. I'm not leaving here."

Keith keeps coming closer. "Lance, what happened to you? You can just talk to us. Explain- you don't have to...do all this."

"Explain what, Keith," Lance says. "Explain what? I've already told you everything I remember."

"There- there has to be more-"

"There isn't anything more."

Lance is getting bored; Keith seems to be getting desperate; he says, "Fight me instead."

And Lance eyes him up and down. Keith is strong, and a good martial artist, no doubting it. But he's shorter than Lance by a few inches, now, his shoulders naturally not quite as broad. His preferred weapons are a single sword and a shield; he doesn't know how to use long-range weapons at all.

He's nothing.

Lance asks, "Do you really think you're much of a challenge?"

"You never won a spar against me."

Lance snorts. "Maybe. But I'm not that person anymore."

This makes Keith's face fall; eye Lance up and down in retaliation. What does he see? Someone bigger and stronger than before. An opponent with two weapons, not to mention hand-to-hand skills. Someone Keith thinks he knows. That is a grave error.

"Let me try," voice soft, cheeks pink. Lance sees this, and immediately comes to a revelation.

"Oh," he says dispassionately. "Were you in love with him?"

Pink to red. "Who?" Keith says.

"The old me. Before I was taken. Were you? Is that why you care so much?" And it is, Lance sees it in his lowered eyes, his flushed cheeks. He can see it in their past interactions, whatever Lance remembers of them: Keith's reminding him about the bonding moment they'd shared, teasing him, eyes wide when Lance backed him up as the black paladin.

"So what if I am?"

He's too hopeful. "I'm not that Lance anymore," he says, and hopes Keith realises he means it. "He's dead, Keith. I killed him with the rest of them."

"Don't be stupid," Keith says, but his voice is a little shaky. "You're still you."

"You don't know who I am anymore." But Keith is shaking is head, so Lance says, "You want to fight? Then let's fight. Get your armour and your weapons. I'll wait."

His armour will be back in his room, but even wearing the plain armour Lance wears, Keith only has to clench his fist by his thigh for his bayard to appear and shift into a sword. He raises his left arm to call up the shield, then stands opposite Lance, knees bent, ready to run, hide, charge.

He doesn't have a chance. This poor boy, Lance almost thinks, in love with what Lance used to be. Thinking, perhaps, he can change him back to that.

He has no idea, does he?

Well, Lance is about to show him. It isn't even hard. He entertains Keith ten, fifteen minutes, just because it's fun, interesting to fight another human again. To see Keith's galra side come out, in bits and pieces, tiny manoeuvres, the way he moves. Perhaps he's been spending more time with the Blades, learning how they fight. Perhaps it was always natural to him. Lance can't remember.

Wearing the white armour, it becomes easy to forget that it's Keith he's fighting, despite the bayard. He is just another gladiator in the ring, and Lance has to win. His prisoner's rags cling like film to him, the weapons heavy in his hands, but he needs them, and he needs to win this next fight. Some galra general, if Lance can take them down he'll get a reprieve. He just has to keep fighting. It isn't hard. It isn't. Hunger, thirst, pain? It glances off him. He exists without restrictions. This galra is fast and angry and skilled, but Lance is better.

He's better, now. More than better, he's the best, he's so good they remembered Shiro and then they forgot him, and passed that title to Lance. He is the Champion now, and he will win no matter what.

He has to win.

It's the only thing he can do these days.

A sword hits the armour on his arm, Lance laughs. It slices his unprotected hip, it doesn't hurt. A shield shoves against his chest, Lance doesn't stop advancing. He keeps going and going and going, until his opponent is on the floor and Lance has the gun poised up their neck, ready to take the shot.

"Stop it!" they beg, and Lance laughs again. It is so good when they beg, he loves hearing it. He feels power like never before. "Just- stop! Get off me! Lance, I swear to god-"

"This is what you deserve," Lance tells this galran gladiator who really thought he could achieve what countless druid creations could not. "You knew this would happen."

Finger on the trigger, Lance is grabbed from behind, and the shot goes off inches above his opponent's head.

Suddenly, a cacophony of noise; colour splashes into the world, his opponent turning from shimmery white to black and pink and red. Several people are grabbing him, and he yanks out of their grip before someone is able to take his arms and fling a pair of handcuffs on him. Lance only has to kick his leg back against them for them to break, and then the voices yell out again, screaming.

His opponent has not moved from the floor. Maybe, Lance realises, the galra do not want him to kill the general after all.

Stilling, Lance asks, "I thought I was supposed to kill him."

The first voice says, "What? No, Lance-"

"There is no room for weakness in the empire. If he can't defeat me, why are you keeping him alive? I can kill him. It was arrogance that made him come into the ring."

The hands loosen. The voice says, "Oh, I think he's... He's back with the galra. He doesn't realise it's us."

"He doesn't?" says another.

"Do you want me to kill him or not? It's easy. He fights like a little child. He is of no use to anyone like that."

A figure kneels beside him. "Lance," they say, "do you know where you are?"

Thousands of galra aliens roar from the stands. A group of galra stand at his back, discussing the situation. The general sits up on his elbow but says nothing.

"I'm in the ring," Lance says. "Aren't I?" Or is he on a cocktail of drugs, the chemicals spinning this world before him?

"No," the voice confirms. "You're in the Castle of Lions, with your fellow paladins. You're on the training deck. You just tried to kill Keith."

That does sound something like the drugs would cook up. "Right," he says dryly. "I see. So the paladins really did come and rescue me? And now they're all here worried about me? And I guess Keith really was in love with me, huh?" He rolls his eyes. "Just tell me what drugs I'm on and leave me alone."

"Lance, please. This isn't a- hallucination, or, or the result of drugs, or anything- we got you off that ship, don't you remember?" He does, actually. And that does sound a lot like Allura - looks like her, too, her hair wild and fluffy from being asleep, still in her nightgown with a navy blue robe on top. Her mice sit on her shoulders, wide-eyed.

Shiro stands to his other side, white-faced, looking near tears, and when he turns around, Pidge and Hunk are huddled together behind him, staring.

And that is Keith, laid out on the floor, covered in bullet marks and slices up his armour. He looks absolutely terrified.

Lance did this. When he looks down, he has injuries, too; his chest plate cracked open, a mark on his shoulder armour, deep cuts on his unarmoured hips. Keith did all that, presumably trying to slow Lance down, but Lance can't feel pain; he is able to keep going.

"I thought...I was in the ring," Lance says. "If I don't kill my opponent, they don't let me sleep. Or they punish me- I can't remember. I was supposed to kill him."

"You're not there anymore," Shiro says, rough and ragged, kneeling down. "Lance? Okay? You're not there anymore. You don't have to- play by their rules anymore."

"What do I do instead?" Lance asks, staring at his hands. The weapons he was wielding have vanished somehow."I don't know who I was before this."

"You're still you," Shiro says, unknowingly echoing Keith's words from before, but Lance can only shake his head, speak what he knows in whatever heart left he has to be true:

"No I'm not," he whispers, and looks up. Keith is slowly moving to kneel on the ground, watching him. If Keith is in love with him, he's probably heartbroken now. Lance would feel bad, but he can't. He can't. He is empty, he watches Keith stand and stumble and Shiro's head whips up but Coran darts forward and grabs him.

"The infirmary, I think," he says, leading Keith out. "For both of you! Come on, now, chop chop!"

"Come on, Lance," Shiro says, getting up, and helping Lance up, too. Whatever Keith did makes it difficult to walk without Shiro grabbing his arm and pulling it over his shoulders. "You two...go to bed, okay? We'll all deal with this in the morning." Hunk and Pidge dart glances at them and nod, slowly departing in the opposite direction. After only a few yards, Hunk has to double over, and Pidge wraps her arm around him as they walk away.

Allura, at least, trails after them.

"How'd you know?" Lance asks. "What was happening, I mean."

"Allura's mice," Shiro says. "Apparently they go on night patrols."

"Huh."

The walk to the infirmary seems short; they enter and undress, Coran prepping the pods whilst Allura gets them their cryosuits, and Shiro stands before them, watching them both with sad eyes. He looks at Keith's injuries, winces, looks at Lance's scars, flinches. He has to close his eyes as they pull on the cryosuits, hiding their pain from view. Lance would feel sorry for him, but he can't. He can only stare vacantly at everyone else's pain, the subject, the spectator. Keith gives him one last look before he goes into the pod, brows pulled, eyes big, confused, scared.

Lance doesn't look at anyone as they lock him in.

He dreams. Old film reels. A tragic lovestory.