WORD COUNT: 1990

PAIRING: NONE

TAGS: angst, langst, hurt/comfort(?)

SUMMARY: Lance breaks down after a mission, not knowing that his comm was on. The rest of the team overhears.

COMMENTS: you can just call this "Self-Projection: The Fic". Seriously, the whole first bit with him getting overwhelmed and unable to focus is very much just ripped straight from my damn life (except, you know, I'm not in space shooting at aliens :T )

This was inspired by a post by lmnomo on tumblr. It was supposed to be a one-shot but I kept fucking it up and I rewrote it like three times so I'm just going to post this part so that I can't go back and change it anymore, and then post the second part with the teams' reaction when I finish it. It's still a one-shot in spirit *glares*.

This part is pretty much just angst, but I guess there'll be some comfort in the next bit. Probably.

Don't forget to yell at me on tumblr, the-angst-chronicles - it's very much 18+ tho, so don't go if you're a minor *waggles finger*. I also have an angst playlist there that I listened to when I was writing this (I need to edit it there are some songs that don't work, but for the most part I think it's okay).

"Lance, look out!"

Lance looked around just in time to see a blast of fire light up his screens and destroy the Galra ship that had been targeting him. He winced, rubbing at his eyes to try and curb the afterimage while Shiro's voice crackled at him through the coms.

"You need to pay more attention Lance. You're lucky that Keith was there."

Keith, it was always Keith. Nothing he did could ever measure up, could ever even come close to the great Keith. He watched as the Red Paladin spiraled away, his lion all but dancing through the battlefield as he tore through enemy ships.

Lance grit his teeth and pulled himself and Blue back into the fight. The battle flashed around him, a cacophony of light and sound that beat at his senses. He fought the urge to retreat from the overwhelming influx of sensory input, dragging his mind to bear.

Details jumped out at him from every direction, meaningless and important and everything in-between. It was draining, sifting through it all so fast to decide what to focus on. That fighter going after Pidge. Now three are trying to herd Hunk. Oh, and there's a civilian in danger down there.

He twirled Blue around, turning his back on the ship he'd been fighting to plunge after the one falling in flames toward the hapless alien.

"Come on, come on," he muttered to himself, pushing Blue as fast as she would go. The sounds of battle still raged in his ears but it was now muted, as though someone had stuffed his head with cotton. The flaming ship sharpened, brightened, and his focus snapped to it. He could feel Blue's mind following, and then she was there alongside him, the ship the only thing she saw. His desire to catch it was her desire, and so catch it she did. She clamped her jaws down on it and tossed it to the side, sending it careening harmlessly into a field, and let out a triumphant roar.

Then something was smashing into them and the battle came crashing back in around Lance. He winced as it all flowed in again, smells and sounds and the sight of Yellow where he'd been a moment ago, turned so that it's armoured shoulder was taking the shots from the fighter ship that Lance had abandoned.

Then Black was there, slicing through the ship with his jaw-blade. "Good work Hunk," came Shiro's voice crackling over the coms, "Lance, be more careful."

Lance grit his teeth – he'd fucked up again, why did he always fuck up? – but forced the feeling down. "You got it, my man. Careful is my middle name. Right after Brave and before Dashing," he had to dig a little deeper than usual for levity these days, but he shrouded himself with it like a cloak. A few groans filtered over the coms in response.

"Lance, take this seriously," Keith snapped, as Red twirled past and shot down three ships with one blast of fire

Lance frowned but fell silent, gliding into battle alongside Hunk. In the resulting quiet he had trouble finding an anchor against the torrent of sensation that the battle was sending his way. It was one thing when somebody was in trouble – Lance's protective instincts would go into overdrive, he could focus on his immediate mission (saving them) to ground himself, and he would be fine. But when it was just 'shoot down Galra ships' – yeah, that was too broad. He couldn't cling to the Galra ships as an anchor, there were too many doing too much too loudly.

Normally he would keep up a commentary of sorts – because chatter was something he could focus on, small enough not to overwhelm him and unimportant enough that he could pay it little attention – a thread of normalcy amidst utter chaos that he could cling to with both hands – but he was already pushing it with the team today. Shiro and Keith were both annoyed, and Hunk had had to abandon his post to save Lance's ass so he was probably sick of Lance too.

So he fought quietly, doing his best to keep himself from getting overwhelmed by everything. It wasn't working – there was just so much, where was he supposed to even start? He knew he was flying erratically, but it was too difficult to focus on any one thing when everything else was pulling at his attention. Dammit, why couldn't he fly with music or something, something structured and rational that he could brace against instead of spinning out in this avalanche of sensation?

He hadn't made the conscious decision to do so, but he found himself humming. It was nothing special, just an old lullaby he'd sung to his little niece a week before leaving to the Garrison for the last time. The memory made his heart ache, but the tune helped him fight off the disorienting cacophony of sight and sound.

"Lance!" It was Pidge. "Could you stop with the humming? It's distracting!"

"Yeah, would you please focus on fighting the Galra?" Keith chimed in, sounding annoyed.

Lance bit back the next hum, resisting the urge to curl his arms around himself. They were right, he had to remember. He was a Paladin of Voltron, defender of the Universe, not some little grade-school kid who couldn't focus because there was too much noise and light.

He just had to pick a ship and focus. It's not that hard. There, that one, right in front. Shoot shoot, pew pew, down it goes. The sound was swelling around him like a wave, and he didn't have his surfboard. Pew pew ice-beam, there goes another. Lights beat at the edges of his vision, ships firing from all directions. Ice-beam, laser, tear it apart. He just wanted to cover his ears, clench his eyes, and scream. Ice-beam, ice-beam, shoot them all down.

"Keith, look out!" Lance's eyes snapped back open at the cry and he looked around to see Keith rolling out of the way of his last ice beam.

"Lance, what the hell?" Keith called out angrily. Lance wilted in shame.

"Ah, sorry buddy," he apologized weakly.

Before Keith could retort, Shiro was there again. "Lance, Keith, pay more attention to what your teammates are doing. We don't want any friendly fire," he ordered.

Lance heard Keith grumbling at getting scolded, and felt worse. Now he was dragging Keith down too. Keith was too good of a pilot to be pulled down by Lance's incompetence. Keith probably had no trouble keeping his mind on the battle at hand. There was no way he was as suffocated by everything as Lance was, not with him flying the way he did.

Because Keith was an ace pilot, and Lance was just a boy from Cuba who was in over his head. Gritting his teeth, he pulled himself back into the fight.

By the time they boarded the Castleship, Lance was exhausted. The rest of the team was milling about, talking about the mission and giving out compliments over one another's various exploits. Lance slipped away before anyone could notice him and call him out for his mistakes, making his solitary way to his room and sitting heavily on the bed.

He let out a disgusted sigh as he pulled his helmet from his head, clicking off the comm and tossing it aside. He didn't notice when it landed with the switch striking the edge of the bed and clicking back on. He dropped his head into his hands and let out a deep groan.

"Ay dios, what am I doing here?" he mumbled at his palms. They didn't answer. Lance sighed again and dropped himself back onto the firm mattress, staring at the plain ceiling of the bed enclave. His mind was racing, still spinning and whirling him back through his failures of the day, through his inability to stay focused, through almost hurting his teammate. And then back further, through previous battles, through all of the mistakes he had made since the beginning.

And shit, he had been messing up since before they had found Voltron. He'd been dragging Hunk and Pidge down since the Garrison, back when he'd had no excuse because even when the sims were loud he'd been the pilot and in charge and he could babble to his heart's content so what could have been distracting him there?

Iverson. The pressure of being watched, waiting for him to fuck up. The knowledge that they expected him to.

But no, if he couldn't handle a little scrutiny what good was he? No wonder he had just been a cargo pilot. A fighter pilot that fell apart because of a little noise or because somebody didn't believe in them was worthless. And that was Lance. Piloting a fighting lion. Unable to keep himself in the game.

"Completely worthless," he realized out loud. His voice was barely above a whisper, but it rang through the silent room, hanging heavily about him with the unalienable truth of the words.

He fought back tears, his hand slipping into his pocket and clenching around the beaded necklace that he kept there. It was a plain thing, part of a matching set he'd made for his mami as a child. When he'd been leaving for the Garrison with tears rolling down his face, she had taken it and tucked it into his pocket. He had protested, but she'd hugged him close, gestured to its twin around her neck, and told him that whenever he felt lonely to hold it and know that its other half rested over her heart. Usually holding it made him feel closer to her, more connected. Now, he just felt ashamed.

"I'm sorry mami," he sobbed quietly into the silence, "I'm so sorry. I wanted to make you proud but I'm not- I can't-" He broke off as he felt himself losing the battle against the tears. He brought the back of the hand that was still clutching the necklace to his face, covering his eyes as tears streamed by.

He didn't deserve to be a Paladin. The others were risking their lives, day in and day out, to try and save innocent aliens and free the universe from the Galra, and he was making it harder for them by messing up all the time. And now he was lying here in the dark crying about it, instead of training and fixing himself.

"Pathetic," he mumbled, "that's me." He let out another sniffle and dropped his hand away from his face and stared down at his helmet. "I don't deserve that," he confessed to the darkness. "I'm just dragging them down, I can't get anything right. I'm just…just deadweight that they have to lug around." He laughed bitterly through his tears and pulled himself into a sitting position, picking up the discarded helmet.

"Iverson was right," he whispered to his reflection. "You really are just a worthless fuckup. Completely useless. That's all you've ever been." He paused, thinking back to his days at the Garrison. Always bungling the flight simulators, trashing their scores and their standings. Pidge and Hunk were geniuses, they should have been at the top of the class and lauded and applauded – but they'd been stuck with some third-rate wannabee who just brought them failure.

"Everyone would be better off if I weren't there," he realized quietly. His fingers tightened around the necklace and he wondered, not for the first time, how his family was doing without him. Maybe they were better off. Maybe they were happy. Another laugh choked up through his throat, mingling with sobs. "Of course they are. It's not like I've ever given them a reason to miss me."

A moment of silence followed, during which Lance just closed his eyes and cried. Then, as clear as day, Pidge's voice spoke from the tinny helmet comm. "Lance?"