Jealous of the Rain

A Voltron one-shot.

Summary: Shiro was back, thank the universe, but it wasn't the same as before. Shiro was piloting the black lion again, but blue still wouldn't let Lance back in. Without a lion to pilot, Lance is left with himself to cope with the fact that he was no longer a pilot; and that could have deadly consequences.

Warning: T for language, langst, self-harm, and suicide mentioning. If you are ever having these thoughts, this is NOT the proper way to handle emotions. Please seek professional help.

Oh, how he missed the rain.

Shiro was back—thank the universe—Lance thought. They had a leader, a thread for a needle that sewed the team together. Keith wasn't bad, really, but his lack of confidence and excessive anger made his thread brittle and tenderly close to snapping. He supported him during his temporary spurt, but now he couldn't help but feel relieved when Keith returned to the castle with their fearless leader in tow, his face ragged from exhaustion and hunger. Everything would go back to normal.

Only, it didn't.

Shiro, rejuvenated by friendship and Hunk's food, took his seat in the black lion for a maneuver practice. Keith darted to Red, his happiness unvoiced, but Lance could see the weight lifted off his shoulders.

He couldn't help but smile sadly. Something was wrong, undescriptive and lingering in the air as he approached Blue. She lay dormant and quiet in the hanger, her particle barrier still active.

"How's my favorite girl?" He purred, smiling fondly. "You ready for the old times?"

Her dark eyes reflected his confusion.

"Uh? Blue? Time to go? You awake?"

The shield still crackled with power, radiating brightly in his face. Giving it a soft poke, the solid shield pressed back against him.

"Ah, come on Blue. Do I need to use some pick-up lines?" Silence. "Are you not from here? Because you look out of this world." He grinned, firing his finger guns, but the joke falls flat outside the particle barrier.

He felt a deep dread in his gut, the feeling from before growing into a mass with a name: self-doubt. Was he no longer good to pilot the blue lion? He quickly tried to bury the thought. Of course, it wasn't true! But he had…

He slowly lowered himself to a sitting position, studying her defiant frame. If he knew anything about girls…

"Blue… are you upset with me for riding red this time…?" Silence. "Well that wasn't my fault, you wouldn't let me in last time! But now Shiro's back and everything could go back to normal."

He patted the barrier, wishing it could be her. But his tender compassion was getting him nowhere. Blue was not going to let him in, which meant she permanently belonged to Allura; and if she permanently belonged to Allura, that means he was out of the picture because 6 did not equal 5.

He was no longer a pilot, and he was no longer a paladin.

He had to swallow that lump just to stand up.

It's because he fought so much with Keith, wasn't it? Or the fact that he got tricked easily more times than he was willing to admit. Or maybe it was just Allura was better. She was a princess, she could pilot a whole freaking castle! His shoulders sagged. He had nothing to compete with Allura. He could barely even shoot straight.

Lance slunk off to his room, ignoring the calls in his helmet from his team wondering what was taking him so long. He started to peel off the armor piece by piece, every time flinching like he was ripping out some important organ.

He could see his reflection in the mirror, a sorry pathetic excuse for a temporary paladin staring back at him, holding a hand guard. He could see the outlines of ribs through the black shirt, and he knew if he lifted his sleeve he would see pale crisscross stitches across his tanned skin. He chunked the arm guard to some far corner of the room. He wouldn't think about it, he wouldn't think about it.

But he already has.

Oh, how he missed the rain.

The rain could cry for him when he couldn't even do it for himself.

He unceremonially scrambled to the bathroom, kneeling as he kicked the door closed and backed up until he flushed against it, willing the demons in his mind to stop pounding on the door. But they were so loud. They were always so loud.

He found the razor blade in its compartment. He wasn't so glad he had enough forethought to buy it at the mall they went to, but it helped. It did its unhealthy duty.

Usually, he was careful. There was a lot of scars to hide, and those few moments he wasn't caught in something long sleeve could be a disaster. But he couldn't bring himself to care. This entire time, he had only been a replacement paladin. Blue was probably trying to rout him out since the very beginning. He ripped his sleeve up and cut, a nice jagged line down his forearm. He choked on his sob and had to stop, the blade still in his arm, his hand shaking rigidly from the pain.

God, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt. The pain produced hot tears in his eyes, but he scrubbed them away fiercely with his sleeve, continuing to sow the blade against his skin until the cut was more than 6 inches and he couldn't take it anymore. The blade clattered to the floor as Lance scooted to the farthest corner away from it, clutching his bloody arm to his chest. This was by far the worst cut he had ever given himself, and it would always be a reminder. He was never good enough.

His dry sobs echoed in the background, the pain making him ache in places other than his arm. It hurt, the way his arm pulsated to pour the blood from his body.

He thought about a lot of things. The gang, how they could move through an adversity without him. He should be proud. Should be. Then the thought faded and another came. His home, running to the beach. That went into a hazy spiral, his mind making the leaps before he could think of them. Rain. Rain pouring down to soak his hair, to wash his face with its tears as he ran through it, tasting it in the air. He loved the rain so much.

Oh, how he missed the rain.

For some spurts, he slept; when he awoke, he would think of something else to transport him away from the bathroom to the places that made him happy, Earth being the main thing. He let himself be carried off—until he heard the drip, drip from his blood on the floor.

He was still bleeding.

I need to stop the bleeding! Stupid, stupid Lance! He thought.

His mouth was filled with cotton balls to the point it was in his head. He groggily computed the necessity, but the command was never received by his limps. Just staring at the singularly colored floor made his head spin painful. He tried to focus, pulling all the pieces of his collapsing world together but he couldn't—all he could do was whimper.

He didn't know what to think. He wasn't dying, right? Surely, he wasn't dying. If he couldn't be a paladin, he could at least go home. His lips quivered. He didn't want to die. But this sure felt a hell of a lot like it.

He tried to muster up his voice; who would he call, and what would they say when—or if—they found him? He weakly shook his head.

Don't think about that Lance. Just think about staying alive. You must go home one day. A silent tear fell down his face. And it's not going to be in a body bag.

When he tried to command it, his tongue would lull heavily in his mouth. He tried to whisper a few times, and it worked; so, he continued to repeat what vaguely sounded like his name, putting more strength into it.

"Keith… Keith… Keith...!"

But it wasn't good enough. His voice wouldn't travel beyond the room, let alone to wherever he decided to be brooding at that time a day. He gave a loud sob. So, this was the last thing he would see. This bathroom in an alien's castle. Not even a girl in sight.

No.

Not even a friend in sight.

No home, no family.

No ocean, no rain.

He was scared, terrified. His body twitched when it could no longer shiver. He didn't want to die, he didn't want to die, the anxiety making every breath that much more painful. Would it be his last? Would he struggle to inhale and die like he was drowning?

Come on Lancey Lance… got to be a man about it. He squeezed his eyes shut. Just think about… something else.

He thought about the rain, running through it on wet sand. And when he looked down the beach, there was Keith. He had a smirk, and Lance felt a challenge boil in his blood. He charged him, and Keith turned and took off in the other direction, running for Shiro and Pidge and Hunk in the distance. Coran was holding an umbrella for Allura as she giggled before shoving the umbrella out of his hands so they all got drenched. When he was in range, the blue paladin tackled the red, and a large dog pile ensued.

Yes, he missed the rain; but the next time he saw it, he wanted it to be with his friends; not after he gave up helping the people who would be the defenders of the universe.

Who knows, maybe by just helping them out, he could get an honorary plaque after they saved the universe.

A faint smile twitched his lips as he spiraled back into sleep. His dream of having his friends on a rainy Cuban beach continued until he didn't feel any more pain, didn't feel anything at all but a floaty elatedness in his limps. So this was dying.

But then everything disappeared, and it was only darkness; and when he turned he saw the blue lion staring at him forlornly, her eyes glimmering gold once again. He swallowed something in his throat and took a step towards her—but it was like the floor no longer existed, and he fell, fell, fell into the abyss.

He was jealous of the rain. It, at least, would see his friends again one day.

The others stood in the chamber silently. Allura continued to study the floor she's seen forever. Keith brooded in a far corner, messing with his dagger. They had been like this, ever since the discovery, and Shiro had to pull them back together. He opened his mouth, but that was when everyone decided to speak.

"I can't believe he did that…" Pidge mumbled.

"Was he being selfish? Trying to leave the team like that?" Keith stabbed the blade into a crevasse.

"That has a name you know."

"What, suicide?"

"In Altea, we never had this problem…" Coran offered, but no one cared. They weren't in Altea, and the deed had already been done.

"It was obvious that he was hurting Keith, he wouldn't have done that just for the fun of it," Pidge continued.

"Then he should have talked to us. Instead of doing something stupid like that."

"I mean if he was really hurting…" Hunk traced circles on the ground with his foot. "He probably didn't want to bother us with it… Lance is not usually emotionally open."

"I don't care," Keith stood up. "He still should have talked."

"We all are feeling different things right now, so you need—"

"I found him, Pidge! I found him like that, with that pitiful satisfied smile on his face!" He slammed the blade into the wall, not caring what damage it brought to the castle wall. "I'm the one that carried—"

"Enough!" Allura shouted. "Now is not a time for Voltron to fall apart. Pidge is right, we are all handling things differently. We shouldn't fight. We should only grieve."

No one dared challenge the princess after that. Shiro gave a small sigh but said nothing. There was nothing to be said.

Days passed. Getting accumulated to life without Lance around was hard. Keith trained by himself. Shiro spent long hours in his room. Hunk avoided food outside of the mandatory breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Pidge threw themself into long hours of listening to radio feeds, searching for Matt. It wasn't the same and could never be the same.

Five days after his discovery, Keith was wandering around the castle until he found himself back where they were at day one. They had put Lance's body in a healing pod, to preserve it. Coran said even though advanced, Altean technology could not revive the dead.

He slowly made his way across the room, to the indention he knew Lance was beneath. He felt a certain amount of anger staring at it, knowing he was below.

"Dammit, Lance…" He shook his head, sitting down. "You're not supposed to do that to us. We're a team."

He paused for the mandatory response from Lance, but it never came.

"We need you dammit. Don't you see that? Even if we weren't the paladins of Voltron, we would still want you around."

Silence.

"I hope you see what this did to us, so you can finally get some confidence that you fucking matter. You've always mattered. To us," He exhaled a breath, "To me. You believed in me when the others didn't. And if Shiro goes missing again—how am I supposed to be a leader?"

Silence. It was an overwhelming, stifling silence.

He slammed his fist against the floor. "Dammit, Lance—"

He flinched when suddenly all the healing pods were released, spurting out of the ground one by one. He was face to face with Lance again, his memory flashing to the crumpled body in the corner of a bathroom. He winced and looked away, even as the seal began to crackle and melt. He looked up just in time to catch the corpse falling onto him, wishing this wasn't the third time he had to hold Lance in his arms—

But it was an awfully warm corpse. He could feel it through his clothes.

And then there was a tickle of a breath on his neck.

"Lance…?" It came out in a pathetic whisper, and he hated it, but he wanted to stay quiet enough in case he said something; but he doesn't, his body still limp against Keith's. Some emotion flared inside of the red paladin, and before he could stuff Lance's body back in the pod, he heard what he was waiting for.

"One day… we're gonna go to the beach… when it's raining…" Lance slurred slowly in his raspy voice. "It's pretty… awesome…"

"What... whatever you want Lance…" He mumbled back, clutching him so tightly to his chest. This was the third time he has done this for his friend, either with him knocking on death's door or arriving back from it.

This time, he wouldn't let him go again.

They were going to the beach when it rained. Keith looked forward to every second of it.

Even without a lion, Lance was one thing for sure: he was the heartbeat of Voltron. He could never be replaced.

This was supposed to be a short warm-up for me, and 2500+ words later here we are. I hope you enjoyed. And if you noticed, there is a metaphorical tie to the beginning with blue and later with Keith and Lance. I enjoy little details like that.

I was thinking of Jealous by Labyrinth as I wrote this.

-Soul Spirit-