One breath in, one breath out. In, out. In, out. In, o- Lance gasped, the need for air was too strong. He couldn't calm down, and breathing normally wasn't working. He needed more air, more, more, more. In, out. In, out. In, out. It still wasn't working. Dammit, why wasn't it working? The breathing was getting to difficult now, the need to much. It was like all the oxygen had disappeared, leaving Lance with a stale air he could barely even breathe.

It was impossible to breathe, and now he was thinking about it too much. If only he could stop thinking about it. Think about something else, Lance. Think about something else!

But it wasn't working. Nothing was working. He felt anxious, and scared, and he didn't know why. No matter how many times they happened, no matter how much he got through them, the anxiety attacks never got easier. In fact, they always seemed to get harder to deal with. They always came out of nowhere, too. They were dangerous. Unpredictable. Scary. All of the things Lance had come to hate.

He must have been breathing and whispering to himself pretty loudly, because he soon heard footsteps rushing down the long, dark hall of the rooms. They stopped right at his door, knocking worriedly.

"Is everything okay in there?" a voice asked, though Lance couldn't tell who it was over his own heavy breathing. With no response, the voice spoke once again, "I'm coming in, hold on."

The doors swooshed open, revealing the dark shadow of the figure. Lance still couldn't tell who it was until he came closer, the light finally shining on his features. Keith. Of course it was Keith. Because Lance definitely needed him there at that moment to make everything better.

But in truth, Lance really just needed someone there. Someone, anyone. Keith wasn't his first choice, and he wasn't the best person for the job, but Lance supposed he was better than being all alone. Unless, of course, he'd use this as blackmail later. God, he hoped he wouldn't.

"Lance, what's wrong?" Keith asked, hesitantly sitting himself down on Lance's bed.

"C-can't breathe . . . " Lance managed to say as he gasped for air, more, more air. "S-sorry, it's just my . . . my anxiety and s-stuff."

"Anxiety?" Keith raised a brow, "does this happen a lot?"

Lance shrugged and nodded at the same time, a kind of yes-but-not-really answer.

Keith bit his lip, looking unsure of how to react to the situation. "I, um, do you need water or something?"

"N-no, I just . . . " Lance breathed deeper, if that was even possible. "I just need to breathe . . . "

"Lance, don't do it like that," Keith said firmly, though not in his usual god-you're-such-an-idiot tone. "Breathe in, and breathe out. In through the nose, out through the mouth." Keith demonstrated, breathing calmly. In through his nose, out through his mouth.

Lance began to follow his example, their breathing eventually synchronizing. It didn't feel like it was enough. Lance still felt a strong urge to go back to his gasping and gulping, but he knew it wouldn't do him any good. At least he had enough control to breathe normally now, even if it pained him to do so.

"Is that better?" Keith asked.

Lance nodded, still breathing at the pace Keith had shown him.

"Did . . . did something happen?" Keith asked, a little unfamiliar with how the whole anxiety thing worked.

"No, just . . . I dunno. All my . . . my problems and stuff were just piling up a-and I just . . . I just broke." Lance shook his head, unsure how to explain it.

Keith was quiet for a moment, then he set a hand on Lance's leg softly. "Would it help if you talked about it?"

Lance looked over to Keith, a mix of fear and trust in his eyes. Trust soon won over as he stared into the violet orbs, smiling slightly as he did so. The amount of support Keith could give him with just one look was comforting enough, and Lance suddenly felt as if he could tell Keith everything. Maybe it wasn't Keith himself making him feel that way, but the fact that he finally had someone there to listen. Someone who he knew wasn't going to give him long speeches instead of just being quiet and listening, because that wasn't how Keith worked.

"Well . . . for one thing, I'm feeling like a shitty Paladin right now." Lance began.

"What? Why?" Keith asked, his brow quirked in confusion.

"I mean, I'm not that good, you know? I'm not that cool . . . You of all people should know, I mean, I shoot like a freaking Stormtrooper . . . a-and I'm never there to have people's backs . . . I'm always the one that needs to be saved. It's . . . it's freaking annoying. I'm freaking annoying."

"Lance, you know that isn't true," Keith shook his head in awe. "You're our sharpshooter, remember? You're a great shot, you know that. A-and you always need to be saved because you're the one taking actual risks, and throwing yourself in harm's way so nobody else gets hurt. It's just part of being selfless . . . "

"Well, that's a . . . heroic way to put it. But, you know I'm still not that cool . . . saving everyone all the time, sacrificing myself . . . " Lance looked down.

"Lance, you know as well as I do that you're the type of guy who'd sacrifice himself to save his teammates in a heartbeat, though I'm not saying that's necessarily a good thing . . . " Keith trailed off, his slight concern becoming more evident to Lance.

"Yeah, okay . . . " Lance sighed. He shouldn't have expected Keith to get it.

"Anything else?"

"Well . . . I kinda feel like this whole Voltron thing is my fault. Like, it's great and all, being a hero and saving the universe and stuff, but it's not like any of us signed up for it . . . "

"But how does that make it your fault?" Keith inquired.

"Pidge and Hunk are only here because I didn't want to go to my room. I mean, how stupid is that?! Hunk's family is probably worried sick about him, and now that I know Pidge is actually Matt freaking Holt's sister, I feel horrible because now her mom has basically lost everyone in her family without explanation, and that makes me feel horrible about my family, because I mean, what do you think the Garrison even told my family?! That I went on some space mission to save the world? They probably told them I was dead or some shit like that, just like they did with the Kerberos Mission! And now I'll never get to see my mom again, or see the ocean, or the rain, and-"

"Lance," Keith said his name firmly, pulling him out of his rambling. "You're going to see you're family again, and they'll be so happy to see you. I mean, you talk about them all the time, it's like they're all you care about. I can't really debunk the whole Garrison-telling-everyone-you're-dead thing, but I can tell you that once we get back to Earth, we can fix that. The Garrison is full of douche bags anyways, it'll be good to get them in some trouble."

"Yeah, but who'd believe us? You saw how they were treating Shiro . . . and he's Shiro! Why would anyone believe a bunch of rag-tag teenagers over a giant institute for space pilots?! A-and who's to say we'll even get back to Earth, huh? Zarkon has been building his empire for 10,000 years, and we just expect to defeat him in like a year or something? I wouldn't be surprised if we all died of old age before the war's over . . . " Lance got going again, tears beginning to run down his face at the depressing thoughts.

Suddenly, there was a hand on his cheek, and the tears were being wiped away with the swift movements of a thumb. He looked up at Keith, staring back into those violet eyes once again, blinking at the closeness they'd never before experienced.

"I'm not the best with comforting, or with telling people everything's going to be okay, because I sure as hell know that life sucks sometimes, but . . . " Keith seemed to have an extra radiance, the softness in his voice comforting, especially since Lance had never heard it like that before. Well, maybe he had once, but it was a fuzzy memory . . . "I am going to make it my mission to get you back to Earth, so you can see your family, if only just to say goodbye to them forever. We stop by planets all the time, I'm sure a quick talk with Shiro and Allura will convince them that we need to sort things out on our home turf. I'm not saying the situation is perfect, it's far from it, but I think we can make it a little less sucky, at the very least. Okay?"

Lance didn't respond for a moment. The two were so close that he could feel Keith's breath on him, though it wasn't as if he was right up in his face. He realized that he'd finally gotten comfortable, and had been breathing fine for almost the entire conversation. He'd finally relaxed. How Keith had done it, he didn't know, but he hoped he could find out. To him, it was the purest magic he'd ever known to exist. "Y-yeah, okay."

"Good," Keith smiled lightly, his hand slowly falling off Lance's cheek, as the tears had stopped coming.

"What about you?" Lance asked suddenly. "Isn't there someone you need to get back to?"

Keith bit his lip, "I don't . . . I haven't really talked to my family in a long time . . . I mean, I guess my mom was an alien, so I don't think I'll be seeing her anytime soon, and my dad, well . . . he has issues, to say the least. So, um, no. There's nobody I need to, um, tell I'm not dead and whatnot."

Lance frowned, the sadness of his teammate's situation almost heartbreaking to him. "You know what Keith?"

"What?"

"I'm going to take you with me to talk to my family, whenever that happens, and they're going to love you."

Keith didn't really know what to say. He was a bit confused for a moment, then he was just blinking at the offer. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, they're going to make you feel like you're part of the family too, and that includes teasing, by the way, and you're going to be able to have people on Earth to remember."

"Lance, you really don't have to do that . . . "

"Nope, it's decided now. It's happening."

"But-"

"Keith, buddy, come on," Lance grinned slightly, his usual jokester demeanor returning to lighten the mood, "if you're gonna promise me that I'll see them, you're gonna see them too."

Hesitantly, Keith sighed, haven giving up on fighting, "fine."

"Cool," Lance smiled, the simple word being all he needed to say.

"So, um, did talking help, then?" Keith asked, remembering the anxious episode.

"Yeah, thanks." Lance gave Keith a sincere smile, one that would shine brighter than all the stars combined if only it could.

"Good," Keith returned the smile, though his wasn't nearly as impressive. "So, um, do you want me to uh, go then, or . . . " Keith didn't really seem to know what "or" was, which amused Lance slightly.

Lance had a sudden feeling though, call it a gut feeling, that if Keith left him, at least at that point, he would go back into full-blown panic mode again. "Um, do you . . . God, this is gonna sound weird, but, um, if you wouldn't mind, do you think you could stay a bit longer? Like, just until I fall asleep . . . I just, I'm afraid I'll get all panicky again, and I . . . "

"Yeah, no, sure, no problem," Keith agreed faster than either boys would have expected, but the rambling was starting again, and Keith was beginning to see a correlation between it and the anxiety. Once Lance fell asleep, he'd be able to just go back to his own room and sleep, or maybe train some more, depending on his mood. It would be much faster to do this than to leave and have thoughts clouding his mind of Lance getting into his own head again.

"Th-thanks." Lance stuttered, although he was a little unsure why. It must have just been the embarrassment of having to ask Keith to stay with him like he was his mommy or something. Yeah, that was pretty embarrassing.

"Like I said, it's no problem. It's what teammates do. We help each other." Keith gave a small smile, a rarely seen dimple appearing on his right cheek.

"Yeah," Lance grabbed his earbuds and MP3 player, connecting the two before putting the earbuds in his ears. Soft, slow music began to play, the calmness of it and the dark room, which seemed to wrap around him like a soft blanket, surrounding him. He laid himself down, Keith still sitting on the side of his bed, and his eyes lidded shut, the presence of the other male more comforting then he'd ever thought it would be.

Keith's gaze trailed around the room, as he was unsure what he was really supposed to be doing, so he ended up just looking back at Lance. He looked peaceful, like a sweet child being tucked in for the night.

"Night, Keith," Lance whispered softly as he began to drift off, the anxious thoughts finally leaving his mind, which was a uncommon yet pleasant surprise. He was shaking a little, he didn't really know why, but he knew it would stop once he fell into slumber. Being jittery was just the last stage in the most recent episode of Lance's Anxiety!™, he supposed.

Keith noticed, so as he whispered a sweet "good night," back, he tucked the blankets around Lance softly, careful to not disrupt the boy's fall into the world of dreams and darkness. He gently brushed Lance's parted mini-bangs to their respective sides, just the way Lance always styled it, and he let his hand hover over to Lance's shoulder, holding it there comfortingly. The shaking stopped soon after, and the steady breathing of the silent Paladin told Keith that Lance was finally asleep.

He didn't know how long he stayed there, watching Lance to make sure he was okay and sleeping, but it must have been a while, because before he knew it, he was falling asleep by his side, his arm eventually wrapping itself around Lance . . .

COMING UP NEXT: KLANGST! EARTH? AND EVEN MORE KLANGST! (and possibly some Shallura, idk)