#lance & lance’s mother

[autisticlancemcclain]

One Saturday morning, as Keith and Lance descend the stairs on their way to the kitchen — as Keith practically carries a still half-asleep Lance, that is — Marcela whips towards them, points a scolding finger in their direction, and says, “I am tired of checking in on you two at night and seeing my son, sprawling over half the bed, while poor Keith clings to the edge. No more.”

Keith’s heart drops to his toes, pounding all the way down. His ears billow out and then fade slowly, like someone turned the volume down. He feels like a beyblade someone just spun and dropped onto the pavement, dizzy and sharp and sparking, trembling to a stop. For several horrifying moments he’s convinced that this may very well be it, and he’s shocked by his own surprise. He’s usually so prepared for the eventual end of someone’s affection, for the patience to run out, for the boot to kick him on the way out the door. It’s startling to realise how far he’s let his defences drop with the Esposita-McClains.

Dangerous.

But then Keith processes the entirety of her sentence, hears past “I’m tired of” and “Keith” in the same sentence. He sees her narrowed eyes and chiding finger and playful exasperation pointed at Lance’s guilty grin, not at Keith, and he realises she is exasperated by the fact that Lance takes up the whole bed every night Keith sleeps over, not that Keith sleeps over at all.

He unclenches his fist from the hem of Lance’s shirt. He’s not sure if Lance does it on purpose, but he leans farther into Keith, and the pressure helps ground him, helps him breathe again.

“I really don’t mind,” Keith mumbles. He keeps his eyes averted, unwilling to meet her knowing ones. “Lance isn’t that bad.”

Marcela snorts, ruffling his hair as she walks by to set the milk on the table. “Please, Keith. He’s a nightmare to sleep with and he knows it. He had to have those little toddler rails on the sides of his bed until he was seven years old because he kept falling off.”

Lance makes a noise of protest at the embarrassing anecdote. Keith smiles, patting his back slightly.

“He does drool.”

“And kick,” says Lance’s older sister Veronica, ducking into the kitchen to grab an apple. Rachel, his other sister, is right behind her, and she pipes up too.

“He also grinds his teeth!”

“And mutters freaky things. He said he was going to curse me once.”

“Oh, yeah, and there was the deal with the sleeping sitting up!”

“And there was —”

“Alright, girls,” Marcela interrupts, leaning over to hold down the hand Lance has clenched around a fork before he has a chance to launch breakfast at his sisters. She looks to have intervened in the nick of time, which makes Keith smile into his cereal. “Let’s not make your brother homicidal.”

Both girls leave the kitchen snickering. Lance’s face promises revenge. For their sake, Keith hopes they find a way to lock their room door, but somehow he doubts it. A part of him is intrigued about whatever scheme Lance will inevitably rope him into.

“I really am fine, though,” Keith repeats once calm has returned to the morning again. “I once had to sleep in a home that usually had more kids than beds, so Lance’s kicking is a significant improvement from a sleeping bag on the kitchen floor.”

He hadn’t meant for his comment to be upsetting. It wasn’t great, sure, but he’d had a roof over his head and food to eat, and he’d only been there for a couple days. The whole situation was funny in hindsight, hilarity inherent in the absurdity of his neon green sleeping bag next to the magnet-covered fridge, and that’s how he’d meant the comment. A joke.

But Marcela looks horrified, and Lance leans over to rest his head on Keith’s shoulder and wrap their hands together, and Keith realises he’s most definitely made a mistake.

“Kidding,” he tries anyway, but the damage is done. The determination in Marcela’s eyes becomes even more apparent, and she nods twice as if reassuring herself. Keith could kick himself.

“Be ready in twenty minutes,” she says resolutely. “We’re going out.”

———

In twenty minutes they’re in the car. Lance almost has his voice back by then, too, which is great, because Keith feels like he’s going to lose his — he’s expecting a fancy air mattress, really. At most he’s expecting to be delegated to his own space in the pull out couch or something. And even that is more than he ever thought he’d get. It’s not that he doesn’t think he deserves it, or anything like that. He knows that some of his living situations have been less than ideal, in the past few years.

But he…he’s not part of this family. He’s not supposed to be, anyway. He’s someone Lance dragged home someday, someone Lance latched onto and then everyone else seemed to follow his example. Keith knows his current foster family gets a cheque for an amount he’s too afraid to find out every month. He knows the state government pays people to home and house and feed him because no one else will. That’s how it’s been since that’s what it had to be.

He cannot understand what logic has inspired Marcela and Lance and all the Esposita-McClains, really, to home and house and feed him. He doesn’t understand.

He’s not expecting a forty minute drive to Ikea. He doesn’t understand why so much is being extended for him. He’s not expecting the determination in Marcela’s face and the way she holds Keith in one hand and Lance in the other, tightly, as if both are her children, until Lance whines and pulls himself free to come hold Keith’s other hand, as if he’s the commodity.

Keith doesn’t understand.

This is not how things are supposed to go.

This is never how things end up going. Not ever in a million years or even less.

“We should get a bunk bed!” Lance says excitedly, pulling Keith out of his thoughts and in a random direction. Marcela squeezes Keith’s hand once and lets go to allow it, stepping to the side to grab on of the boxy blue shopping carts.

Lance brightens even further when she brings over the cart, hopping onto the end of it and gesturing for Keith to do the same. Keith looks at the cart, then at Lance, then at the wheels, then at the total lack of space beside him, and imagines Marcela hitting the tiniest bump as they cram onto the little ledge and then them going flying.

He wisely chooses to walk over and grab the handlebar next to Marcela. She extends her pinky to rest next to Keith, which makes several emotions that he refuses to identify rise up in his throat.

“Let’s maybe consider our other options,” Marcela suggests as she pushes the cart farther. “You remember when we stayed over at your primo’s house when we first moved? You hit the ceiling every single morning because you could never remember that it was there. I don’t think bunk beds are for you, mijo.”

“And the toddler rail thing,” Keith adds. He’d meant it seriously — Lance has genuinely fallen a few times and Keith has had to drag him back up — but Lance huff-laughs in the way that he does when Keith teases him and he’s annoyed that he finds it funny, and Marcela straight up laughs. Keith meets Lance’s eyes and smiles to soften the unintentional dig.

“Fine,” Lance laments, dramatically leaning backwards on the rail. “We’ll just get boring normal beds I guess. Ooooou, we should get some bookshelves! Then Keith has somewhere to put all his nerd things.”

Marcela turns the shopping cart so quickly it screeches and nearly flings Lance right off, speeding towards the shelving area. Keith hurries to keep up.

“Excellent idea, Lancito. Bribing him to stay for longer. You’re so smart.”

Lance preens. Keith looks rapidly between them both, trying to find the joke, but there isn’t one. They, genuinely and truly, want to redesign Lance’s entire room to entice Keith to stay. However much it will cost, and Keith knows it will be a lot, they are doing more than what is reasonable to ensure they (not just Lance! All of them! The household!) can spend more time with Keith.

It’s baffling.

Try as he might, Keith simply cannot find a motive. He watches, gobsmacked, as Lance and Marcela hem and haw their way through the biggest furniture outlet chain in the world, comparing sturdy wooden shelving and colourful bean bag chairs and dorky spaceship themed beds, redesigning a whole room from scratch.

He startles out of his thoughts at Marcela’s beckoning, walking over to the display table she and Lance are illegally sitting at (there is a giant FOR VISUAL DISPLAY ONLY sign on it that they have ignored), half hunched over her cell and a pad of paper. “Keith, rojo, come here. We need you to sketch out the basics of Lance’s room so we know what fits. Marco is measuring the walls and everything right now. Don’t worry about anything that’s already in there, I think we’re taking it all out to paint it anyway. You like blue, right?”

Keith swallows roughly. He does like blue. He’s never painted his own room before.

“Yeah,” he manages, finally squishing down next to Lance on his chair.

Following Marco’s directions, he sketches out the foundations of the bedroom, marking the big window and weirdly narrow door and closet that Lance never uses because he has it piled full of stuff he doesn’t use but can’t bring himself to give away. The sketch is then used as a sort of map as they wander around the outlet, holding it up to various pieces of furniture and assessing how they would fit. It takes Keith some time, but after several hours of Lance’s energy and Marcela’s excitement, Keith starts to get hyped.

“Gasp!“ Lance says out loud, because he is a dork. He reaches a flapping hand over to Keith’s without looking, slapping him on the shoulder several times before finally managing to grip onto his sleeve. “Keith! Keith! Look!”

Keith squints in the direction Lance is emoting at. “A couch,” he says slowly, trying to figure out what warrants the intense excitement.

Honestly, it might be the couch. Lance got super excited about bar stools, earlier, so anything really goes.

“No no, farther!”

Keith squints harder. “The countertops?”

“Farther!”

“The…vases?”

“No! Farther!” Finally Lance gets frustrated enough to step behind Keith, gently pressing his palms to Keith’s cheeks and guiding his head in the right direction. “Now squint really hard and get excited with me.”

Keith tries. He sees grey blobs and says nothing, allowing the silence to speak for him.

“The stuffies, Keith! They’re sharks and hippos! Mama, Keith needs glasses.”

“I know,” she says at the same time that Keith says “No, I don’t.”

They stare at each other for several moments.

“As soon as you’re on the insurance,” she says levelly.

“I will feed them to a creek,” Keith promises.

He has never been this stubborn to Marcela before. He didn’t even mean to. If he had known he was going to say it he would have kept his mouth shut, but the words kind of bubbled out of him. He waits for her eyes to harden, her shoulders to square, for the annoyance to become evident at his insolence.

But she only snorts, leaning over to flick him on the forehead. “I got Marco to wear them. I got Lisa to wear them. I got my mule of a husband to wear them. If you need them, you will not out-stubborn me, toro.”

Keith shrugs. If she’s that hellbent on getting to know him, she’ll learn, he supposes.

By the time the time they break their intense eye contact, they realize that Lance has already wandered off towards the stuffed animals, and hasten to follow him (he gets lost easy). Lance is already halfway into this big bucket, digging for something specific.

“This is for you,” he says when he finally unearths himself, handing a hippo to Keith. “Smaller than the others, like you, and the fluff is a little matted but it’s softer than the others. The shark is for me because it was stuck on the hippo like I’m stuck on you.” He playfully checks Keith’s hip, giggling at his own joke, but Keith’s eyes are totally glued onto the wonky little hippo plushie in his hands. He holds it loosely, afraid of crushing it, and stares intensely at the matted fluff on the one side, the tangled mess of the little poof at the tail. He tries three times to swallow and fails each time, lump in his throat taking up too much space.

“We’re too old for stuffies,” he finally manages. He gives himself away by how tightly he holds the soft things in his hands.

Lance snorts. “Yeah, well, you’re a massive dweeb, so I think we’re fine.”

“I think they’ll be wonderful additions to your room,” Marcela says with finality, and that is that.

———

By the time they make it out of the maze that is Ikea, pack up the car, and set out on the ride home, it’s well after eight thirty. And Keith isn’t a baby, and neither is Lance, and they have a later bed time than that, but…

They’ve been walking around all day. There has been a lot of expended energy.

They’re tired.

Keith remembers being finagled into playing double-o seven with Lance in the back seat. He remembers losing. He remembers poking Lance in the cheek as he yawned just to hear him squawk.

He remembers nothing but the feeling of Lance’s warmth pressed against his, after that, and the seatbelt digging into his neck, and the numbness of his legs. Then he remembers nothing until he felt the familiar bump of the Esposita-McClain driveway, until he cracked open his eyes to see that they were home and closed them quickly again, hoping he wouldn’t be made to get up, still mostly asleep.

“Should we bother setting up the new beds?” comes a whispered voice, deeper and male.

“No, no,” comes another, higher and softer. “They can sleep together for tonight. You take Lancito. I’ll take Keith.”

He is awake enough to feel soft fingers brushing through his hair, then jostling, then heavy breathing beside his ear and the swaying of being carried. He falls fully asleep again against Marcela’s shoulder, leaning his weight onto her fully, forgetting to keep awake for the walk to their room. He stirs slightly again as he’s set down onto something soft, as he feels the familiar tug of Lance’s finger’s against the fabric of his shirt, the sound of his slow breathing.

“Goodnight, estrellitos,” comes the same whispered voice from earlier, and it’s the last thing Keith remembers before he slips away into sleep.

———

other parts in this universe: 1 2 3

#took a week but we’re here!! also marcela calling keith rojo is so important to me #vld #voltron #keith #keith kogane #lance #lance mcclain #klance #pre klance #childhood klance #kid keith #kid lance #baby keith #baby lance #keith angst #modern au #childhood friends to lovers #lance’s mother #keith & lance’s mother #my writing #longpost #wip wednesday #i truly love marcela with my whole heart

[tangledbea]

Room Reference Master Post

Rapunzel's Room (and balcony) (there are two separate links here)

Eugene's Room

Varian's Lab (and storage room) (only one link)

Lance's Room

The Caravan

Gothel's Cottage

The Counsel Room

Kiera and Catalina's Treehouse

#Tangled #Tangled the Series #Rapunzel #Eugene Fitzherbert #Lance Strongbow #Varian #Kiera #Catalina #Angry #Red #TTS #The Caravan #Mother Gothel #Reference #Links

[eterniqht]

need her back in this suit tbh

[february 2023]

#dinah lance #black canary #black canary fanart #need her and babs to smooch ASAP!!! #art #eterniqht art #dc comics #dc comics fanart #dc #birds of prey #mother tbh #canary cry #honestly i never know what to tag #i think she should kiss women as a treat #fanart #dc fanart

[lil-shiro]

Postcard - Ferrari Driver Academy 2011

#imma be honest...I wanna see today's Lance in red #putting this on my fridge like a proud mother #hand on hip always #lance stroll #baby drivers

[thyhauntedmansion]

This may be a bit niche but Young Justice Dinah Lance would be the perfect therapist (also mother figure/mentor) to the dimi sisters.

Dinah: You are enough. Regardless of ability or talent or family expectations. But, only you can determine your own self-worth. You are a bright, charming, and intuitive young woman Daniela. We can work to help you recognize that :)

Dani: … Will you adopt me?

Dinah: What?

Dani: What?🧍‍♀️

Also if I had a nickel for every blonde, bird related milf character I adore, I’d have two nickels:

Only, these two would fucking hate eachother if they met💀

#It would be on sight fr💀 #they’d have interesting convos tho #the dimi sisters need therapy and this is my comfort delusion: #resident lover #mother miranda #young justice phantoms #dinah lance #AU madness

[traderrock]

Mother Love Bone, 1988.

Photo: Lance Mercer.

#MLB #Mother Love Bone #Andy Wood #Stone Gossard #Jeff Ament #Greg Gilmore #Bruce Fairweather #Green River #Pearl Jam #Seattle #Love Rock #Grunge #1980s #Photo #Bands #Rock Stars #Lance Mercer

[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

DC Social Media Part 6

Mother’s Day Edition

Sometimes a Mom is the one who found you in a spaceship in a cornfield and raised you up big and strong. Sometimes a Mom is the one who held you while you were scared and alone on the worst day of your life. Sometimes they’re a big brother who will do anything for you, or the old butler who will always chase away the nightmares with warm mugs of tea and kisses on the forehead.

Prev | Start | Next

#dc social media au #mother's day #jason todd #dick grayson #alfred pennyworth #roy harper #dinah lance #clark kent #conner kent #ma kent #martha kent #sniblings #lisa snart #len snart #mick rory

[gendrie]

i just know grrm was giggling like a school girl as he threw blonde haired purple eyed edric in between arya looking like lil lyanna and gendry with his baratheon af genes. a single glimpse of this scene wouldve sent ned stark off the deep end.

also

Ned was trying to apologize for upsetting her, but she did not want to hear it. She pressed her heels into her horse and left them both.

arya choosing to ride off from them both is def a reference to the lyanna, rhaegar, bobby b situation. tbh i really cant see arya risking it all for some nerd with a harp.....

#ned d. is reserved and less than enthusiastic about fighting like rhaegar too #that scene is full of fun easter eggs #the ashara and tourney refs #rumors of jon's mothers identity #arya saying she never learned the lance (unlike lyanna) #asoiaf nonsense

[nerdasaurus1200]

A recent reblog from @tangledbea just made me realize I never did a masterpost of the books, so in honor of St Patrick’s Day here’s pdfs of all the Tangled books!

Lost Lagoon:

Vanishing Village:

Rise of Flynn Rider:

Mother Knows Best:

What Once Was Mine:

#tts #rta #tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #nerd talks #books #rapunzel and the lost lagoon #rapunzel and the vanishing village #what once was mine #the rise of flynn rider #mother knows best: a tale of the old witch #cassandra #rapunzel #eugene fitzherbert #lance strongbow #gothel

[shatterinseconds]

Spur of the moment klance wedding. They're driving by a courthouse while running some errands when Lance turns to Keith, pointing over his shoulder and asking with a growing grin, "Want to get married now?"

Keith doesn't even hesitate with his response, already turning the wheel.

They've been engaged for less than two days. 

(their friends and family, furious with their impulsiveness, throw them the most embarrassing, lavish reception ever as punishment)

#klance #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #i love the idea of a courthouse wedding for klance #they don't need anything big and fancy #but if you don't think lance's mother wasn't pissed she missed her youngest's wedding... #lmao

[leuchtturmhaus]

Lance stroll podium 2024?!?

#my emotional support is called delusion :) #lance stroll #everyone pray to A god or deity of your choice I think we could do it together #I call dips on mother mary

[widowkills]

mom... call me sometime, I’d really like that

— insp / source / colouring

#laurellanceedit #arrowedit #tvedit #dcedit #dctvedit #laurel lance #arrow #femaledaily #dcladies #cwladiesdaily #usermarii #useraudrey2 #my edits #* #*arrow #consumed by laurel thoughts lately #just HOW do you even get to a point in which you. a mother. knowingly lets your daughter sleep with your other daughter’s boyfriend #they failed SO spectacularly as parents holy shit #quentin that’s on you too fuck off with your “i stayed for her" bullshit if you weren’t actually THERE for her #she wasn’t able to share her parents' grief because sara betrayed her #and neither of them actually tried to understand the way she was hurting #(thinking about the whole “why can’t you just be happy your sister’s alive” mess in s2) #not to mention the dissonance she must have felt between how she and her parents remember sara #you’re the daughter who’s left to pick up the pieces while they’re mourning their perfect little angel that never was #worst still they probably thought SHE was fine cuz you know. she went to law school and all. must be fine. #like wow i forgot just how fucked up the whole thing was #actually no i think back then i wasn’t even able to truly comprehend how bad this was which is !!! concerning #thinking about her astonishing capacity for forgiveness #but also her inability to take herself out of toxic situations when it comes to the people closest to her #loyal to a fault :')

[tangledbea]

My Tangled/Bridgerton AU ideas that no one asked for

Rapunzel and Madame Gothel

The daughter of an extremely successful merchant (yes, she's getting a downgrade, can't just have princesses running around everywhere), Rapunzel's mother died in childbirth, and her father died of a broken heart shortly thereafter. Fortunately, the woman who was hired to be her nanny and governess was there to step in immediately, caring for the girl like she was her own.

Rapunzel is raised by Madame Gothel, who she calls Mamá, and is hidden from society for the majority of her life and carefully cultivated to be the Diamond of society upon her debut, which will raise her own status on the ton when they all see how flawless her “daughter” is. Rapunzel is beautiful, demure, regal, elegant, talented… everything a man could want as a prize. Now, if only Gothel could wed her off to royalty and secure her own status forever…

Before her debut, Rapunzel was rarely seen in public, though she could often be glimpsed in her window on the top floor of her house. When she was allowed out in public, she was made to wear wide-brimmed hats, keep her head down, and carry a parasol. Gothel wanted to prove she had a daughter while cultivating mystery about her, so that her debut would be a big reveal to the ton and the world. Because of this, Rapunzel was raised alone, without friends, though she spent a lot of her time in the window watching the people below. When they weren’t in London, they were at their country estate, Der Sonne Manor, with sprawling grounds and little staff, who were under severe threat to never speak of the girl when they happened to catch sight of her.

Though Rapunzel is barely interested in most of the men whose eye she catches, she knows her job is to catch a husband. Against Gothel’s desires, she wishes to find someone interested in her, and not just her beauty and status. She hates suppressing her entire personality and hiding her quirkier interests, but she does what she’s told, lest she risk her mother’s wrath.

Unbeknownst to Rapunzel, Gothel murdered her father when she was an infant after securing that she would have access to Rapunzel's inheritance in order to raise her properly. She took advantage of his broken heart, manipulating him to sign legal documentation before killing him. Though the exact cause of his death is not confirmed, there are those who speculate that Gothel had something to do with it.

Eugene Fitzherbert and King Edmund of Umbra

There was treachery afoot in Umbra when Eugene (Prince Horace) was but a baby. King Edmund sent his only child away for his own protection, but the trusted maid he sent him with was killed en route to a safe location. Suspecting she was being tracked down, she left the baby on a stoop. The people who lived there were unable to care for him, and so took him to the local orphanage, where he grew up under the name Eugene Fitzherbert, and never knowing his lineage.

Growing up poor, Eugene longed for a life of wealth and adventure, envious of the nobles who dallied in the richer parts of town. Knowing that there was little to no future for an orphan, he took to stealing and conning to give himself even a fraction of the life he wanted.

He became jaded over time, convinced that the world was hard and cruel, and that he'd never know anything else. And yet, when he was 25, he was abruptly rediscovered by his birth father, who announced his lineage and brought him back home to be the Crown Prince.

Eugene (who refuses to go by Horace) is at something of a loss. This is the life he has always wanted, and yet he has no idea how to actually live it.

Lance Strongbow

Lance grew up in the orphanage with Eugene, and they were best friends, learning to steal and con together. However, their paths diverged in their late teens, and while Lance didn't know what became of his friend, he set his own sights on being such a convincing conman that even the nobles wouldn't know the difference.

He slowly and gradually worked his way up in subtle ways, until he hatched his major plan. The Baron of Vardaros is a man who has not made a public appearance for decades. The last Lance heard, he'd made his way to America and was never coming back. And so, Lance took his name and title, and has begun passing himself off as the current Baron of Vardaros.

He is a rake, spending his time at the club with other men and enjoying the marriage season because he gets much attention from fawning young ladies who are hoping to catch a rich, titled husband. In truth, he gets a huge thrill out of knowing that he is a fraud, and that no one around him is any the wiser.

Little does he know, the true Baron of Vardaros is soon to catch wind of his identity theft, and will want his revenge.

#Tangled #Tangled the Series #Rapunzel #Eugene Fitzherbert #Lance Strongbow #King Edmund #Mother Gothel #TTS #Crossovers

[autisticlancemcclain]

Other people — other people slouched when they weren’t watching their posture. But Lance? When Lance wasn’t paying attention, he stood straight. It was bizarre.

Shiro has been… watching Lance, lately. Observing. And he’s a little ashamed to say he’s been shocked at what he finds, again and again. When he first met Lance, he’d been worried. He hadn’t known Lance for long, but he’d seen obnoxious jokes and bad flirting and hyena laughter and he’d wondered what the hell the Blue Lion was thinking. He’d had a whole speech on maturity planned, expected a huge fight and dramatics and generally created an image of Lance in his head based on maybe three interactions that were stressful enough that no one would be on their best behaviour, let alone an 18-year-old kid who struggled with social norms at the best of times, ripped away from his family and told he would have to be a soldier in a 10 000 year old war.

Yeah. Shiro made a bad judgement, and the guilt eats at him, a little.

His wake-up call had been the Rover disaster, actually. Lance hadn’t hesitated a moment before bodily throwing himself in front of a man he barely knew, protecting him from a bomb. Shiro couldn’t reconcile that kid to the caricature of Lance he’d built in his head, so he’d started paying much closer attention. It was then that he learnt that Lance portrayed a very careful image of himself. It was almost intricate, really.

Aside from the bomb, the posture thing has been the first thing he really noticed. Whenever Lance was watching himself — hanging out with the team, bothering Keith, eating meals — he was hunched. All the way over, to the point it made Shiro wince, a little. That boy loved to slouch like no one Shiro had ever seen, it was ridiculous. But times when Lance was really focused? During training, a briefing, or his medic lessons with Coran (another thing that stacked onto Shiro’s guilt — those lessons were something Lance sought out of his own volition, his own desire to support the team in any way possible)? He stood as straight as a nail, as if a broom was taped to his spine. It always made Shiro blink, do a double take, remember that yeah, holy shit, Lance was 6’2”.

The next main thing he noticed was that for all Lance’s flirting, he had no actual interest in sleeping with or dating anyone. He flirted with pretty much any girl his age (well, presumably. Space is weird) they saw, and most of them rolled their eyes and walked away, but Lance genuinely did have some charm. Even statistically, some girls were bound to return his affections. But Shiro noticed that Lance would clam up immediately if anyone flirted back. Sometimes he wouldn’t even stammer out some form of farewell, he’d just straight-up leave. Shiro could not possibly understand why.

The next big thing was his whole rivalry with Keith. For as much as Lance claimed to hate him, he went out of his way to spend time with him — a good time, too, not just them arguing — to the point where the only person on the ship Lance spent more time with was Hunk, and maybe Coran. They sat next to each other at every meal, even often entering the kitchen together. Shiro knew for a fact that Lance often needled Keith into going swimming with him (although Keith had offhandedly mentioned once that since that first time, Lance has always worn a swim shirt. If Shiro was more confident in his and Lance’s relationship, he’d ask him about it, but he’s worried that at this point it would only drive Lance farther away).

All of this was only the tip of the iceberg. There were lots of strange behaviours and contradicting actions that completely baffled Shiro. Who was Lance, really? What were his goals? What did he want? Shiro knew that Lance had a big family, that he was from Cuba. He knew Lance had a nice smile and a really wonderful laugh when it was genuine. He knew Lance was talented, with all sorts of artsy things and especially talented with math (although this, too, took Shiro far too long to notice). But he really didn’t know Lance at all, not like he knew the rest of the paladins, and it bothered him. They were supposed to be mentally linked to fly a giant mecha, and Shiro was responsible for Lance, besides. They should have a relationship, and it was horrible that they didn’t. Shiro knew that the only way to develop this relationship in a healthy way was to be honest with Lance, communicate, and then spend time together after that. And as hard as the conversation was going to be, Shiro was determined to have it.

———

“Hey, Lance, can I talk to you?”

Shiro makes sure to ask as inconspicuously as he can, along with asking privately so none of the other nosy kids (namely Hunk and Allura) would have anything to say. Still, though, Lance tenses briefly, before forcing his face into calm neutrality and hunching his shoulders, hands in his pockets. Shiro’s heart sinks, even though he anticipated the reaction. It’s hard to watch someone be so visibly uncomfortable with you.

“Sure, Shiro, what’s up?”

“I just wanted to chat,” Shiro promises. “You want to head to the kitchen and make some hot chocolate?”

Lance brightens immediately, which makes Shiro smile. Lance’s rampant sweet tooth is another thing Shiro has noticed. It’s worse than Keith’s.

“Okay!” Lance chirps, skipping over. Shiro relaxes for a moment, as Lance babbles about his mother and sisters on their walk to the kitchen, until he realizes that Lance has told this story before and his hand is clenched tightly into the sleeve of his hoodie.

He’s nervous. Shiro swallows past the lump in his throat. How coldly has he acted towards Lance for the kid to be so scared to be alone with him? Shiro decides to take a risk.

“I remember you mentioning that! Your mom grounded your sister for two months, right?”

Please please please let this come off as me listening to him, Shiro prays, and not me finding him annoying.

Lance startles. “Y — yeah, that’s right. I don’t —” Lance winces. “Nevermind.”

Shiro grimaces as Lance looks away. This is… this is worse than he thought. He really and truly hopes he manages to fix this.

As soon as they enter the kitchen, Lance makes a beeline for the cupboards, pulling out a pot, some space cocoa, sugar, and some of Kaltenecker’s milk.

“You can just sit down, Shiro, don’t worry about it. I got it.”

This is another thing Shiro has noticed. Whenever Lance is overwhelmed — be it with anger, nerves, or even excitement —he defaults to acts of service. Washing the dishes, scrubbing the grout from the tile, collecting the laundry. Shiro has even seen him clean the pods, even though they make him uncomfortable and he doesn’t really enjoy being near them. (It actually wasn’t Shiro who noticed this. Pidge was the one who realised that whenever Lance and Keith argued at the dinner table, Lance would get up and start clearing the table, washing the dishes. Every single time. He did not seem to notice he did it. Pidge has since informed everyone but Lance and Keith themselves, and Shiro has caught her subtly inducing arguments between the two so she doesn’t have to do the chores. It’s something Shiro should put a stop to, but he’s not sure how to bring it up without making Lance defensive.)

This time, though, Shiro won’t let him do it himself.

“I’d actually like to help, Lance, if you don’t mind?”

Lance tenses, even more than he was previously. He seems to struggle with himself.

“If you help you’re going to stress me out,” Lance admits after a moment. “Sorry to be a control freak, but other people in the kitchen when I’m trying to do something irritates me. It’s — cluttered. Too much at once.” Lance bites his lip. “But, um, you’re the boss. Actually, nevermind, ignore that, you’re welcome to help if you want to —”

“Lance,” Shiro interrupts, “it’s absolutely fine. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. Is it okay if I sit on the counter, or would you rather I stay back at the table?”

Lance exhales deeply, shoulders slumping in relief, even as he tries to slap a smile on his face and pretend he’s feeling normal.

“That’d be fine.”

Shiro hoists himself up on the counter a couple feet away from Lance as he begins to measure our ingredients. He’s silent for a moment, waiting for the right time. He waits until Lance’s spine straightens, and his tongue sticks out. Until he’s relaxed.

“There’s no easy way to say this,” Shiro says, and Lance tenses again. “But I owe you an apology.”

This knocks the tenseness right from Lance’s shoulders, and stops what he’s doing to look at Shiro in confusion.

“Pardon?”

Shiro takes a deep breath. “I assumed very poorly of you, our first couple weeks in space, for no reason. I decided off very minimal and skewed interactions that you were immature and shallow, and I was so wrong. I judged you unfairly, and for that I’m sorry. I’ve since gotten to know you and I realize you’re a genuinely good and kind person, and very smart, and I’m really sorry for assuming otherwise.”

Lance is completely frozen, staring at Shiro with a gaped mouth. Shiro holds his gaze, hoping his sincerity has come across. After a few moments, Lance’s brown eyes cloud with tears, although he blinks them away. He sighs, deep and long, and continues mixing the sugar into the heated milk.

“Yeah, I know.”

He sounds resigned. Disappointed, but not surprised. Shiro says as much.

“Well, you don’t look at me with fondness. Not like you look at everyone else,” Lance says matter-of-factly. Shiro winces. Lance is fair, and is completely right to say so, but it still hurts. It’s hard to be wrong.

“That was once true.”

“But it’s not true anymore?”

“I’ve been… paying better attention. Noticing some strange things, things that didn’t make sense with the person I assumed you were.”

Lance nods, carefully pouring the hot cocoa into two mugs. He hands one to Shiro, who accepts gratefully, then hoists himself up on the counter next to him with his own mug.

“I imagine I’m a little confusing,” he says.

Shiro inclines his head. “Yes.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I don’t mind, if you’re willing to tell me.”

Lance is silent for a moment, just sipping his cocoa. Eventually, he takes a deep breath, hands clenching forcibly before relaxing.

“My parents did not plan me. They completely believed they were done after Rachel, and that was the truth for years. But when my mom was fifty — well, I came along.”

Shiro inhales sharply. He doesn’t know a lot about pregnancy or childbirth, but that seems… late. Lance shoots him a joyless smile.

“Yeah, not great. But she chose to take the risk. She said she loved me the moment she knew about me.” Lance snorts. “She’s very sappy, my mother. Anyways. I was born four months early. Ma says I fit into her hand. It was… hard, for her and Papá. For everyone, really. It was a lot of time in the hospital and the constant fear that I’d just die. And I didn’t, obviously, but I had — and still have — a lot of health issues. My eyes were fused shut when I was born, I didn’t have a gram of fat on my body. I was even missing some organs. I have all my organs now, and my eyesight is actually really good, surprisingly, but I still have a lot of health issues.

“My lungs don’t expand all the way. My heart’s a little too small. I have a lot of deadly allergies, I’m anaemic, I can’t gain weight for shit. And even all my issues now aren’t bad, compared to when I was growing up. I grew out of a lot of my allergies, and my bones used to be really frail. I was a walking hazard, basically. My parents… they loved me so much. They only wanted to keep me safe. But eventually, after close call after close call, they got, like… really protective. Crazy. I wasn’t allowed to socialize with anyone as a toddler, they were too scared I’d get sick. I wasn’t even allowed to feed myself. Fuck, one of them slept on the floor beside my bed until I was ten goddamn years old. They were terrified I’d die in my sleep.

“And then —” Lance sighs deeply, swirling around the leftover liquid in his cup. Shiro sets his own cup down; he’s barely touched it since Lance started. He — he’s completely blindsided. He’d never have known this about Lance, by looking at him. Sure, Lance is scrawny, and he gets cold easily, but Lance as a walking health risk? Lance, who seems like the biggest presence in any room? Who consistently scores as one of the best in training? Who regularly chases Pidge around the castle? It just doesn’t seem real.

“Then came the ASD diagnosis. And like, I am not ashamed of it. In fact it was a relief to have a reason for all the different struggles I was having, for the shitty social skills and general other-ness. But Jesus fucking Christ, it did not help my relationship with my parents. They went from overbearing to suffocating. Before it was just —” Lance sits up straight, finger in the air mockingly, voice high and nagging — “‘Sit up straight, Lance, your lungs!’ ‘Careful, Lance, do you know what’s in that? Are there any nuts?’ ‘Lance, check your heartbeat, you just went up the stairs.’ ‘Lance, go grab another hoodie. There’s a bite in the air, it’s only 75°.’” Lance sighs. He sags forward, eyes closing. Shiro sees the exhaustion in him for the first time, in the very bones of him. Shiro — he knows how Lance feels, being so limited, but he can’t imagine his own parents holding onto him so tightly. How draining that must have been.

“My parents were never intentionally ableist. They never wanted to hurt me, they never intended to do anything but protect me. But I was diagnosed and then it was like they suddenly forgot that I knew how to think for myself. Like yeah, sure, I’m not great with social cues, but I can fucking talk to people! I’m not helpless, but they forgot that. They even tried to pull me out of school, but Veronica went ballistic on them. Fought them for three straight days. She’s always been the one who believed in me, did everything she could to give me as much freedom as possible. It strained her relationship with my parents. It was worse than mine, and at that point in my life I couldn’t even look at them without getting angry. Being in the same room as them was suffocating, I always wanted to just blow up, but I didn’t really. I had a lot of energy I needed to dispel.”

“Is that why you clean to often?”

Lance blinks. “Is that why I what?”

Shiro shifts, biting his lip. It seems that he was right, that Lance hasn’t noticed. “When you’re upset, or overwhelmed. You tend to clean. You clear the table whenever you argue with Keith. Pidge has been egging you on, by the way. So she doesn’t have to clean up.”

Lance snorts incredulously. “That little shit,” he says, shaking his head. “I guess I do clean when I’m overwhelmed, don’t I? I haven’t noticed. But that makes sense. There wasn’t much I was allowed to do, but I could clean, then I was doing something that wasn’t having a screaming match with my parents.”

Shiro hums, and sits with that, for a moment. All of Lance’s fronts — his obnoxiousness, blind hatred for authority, reluctance to follow vague orders — they make sense, now. If the main authority in Shiro’s life assumed he was dumb and helpless and kept him pretty locked up, Shiro thinks he would have some baggage, too.

“What made them let you go to the Garrison, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Lance grins, but it’s bittersweet. “Oh, they didn’t. I left in the middle of the night when I turned 18.”

Shiro blinks in shock. “You ran away?”

Lance shrugs. “Not technically. Legal adult, I was allowed to do what I want. I had Veronica’s help. She got me the applications, sent them in for me too. Had to get my passport in secret, same with the funds. It wasn’t easy, and it also kind of felt shitty. My parents were as distraught as they were furious. Marco said Ma cried for days. But… I had to get out. I honest to God would have died within a year if I stayed.”

Shiro believes him.

“You talk about your parents so fondly, though.”

Lance shrugs again. “Yeah, ‘cause I miss ‘em. I might never see them again, and like I said — they went about it the wrong way, but they loved me. Love me. Besides, our relationship actually really improved once I left. I called them after a month, was totally honest with them. It was a lot easier for them to treat me like a capable person when they saw me doing just fine in my own.”

“I see.”

There’s another silence as Shiro visibly processes all that information, before Lance takes a deep breath. He turns towards Shiro, looking him on the face.

“That’s why your judgement hurts so much,” Lance says, and Shiro feels his heart drop even though he knows he deserves the words. “I saw your medical bracelet.” He holds up his wrist, where Shiro notices the silver band for the first time. The same one he’s worn for years. “You — you were my hero, y’know? Another guy just like me, just as sick as me, who’s a pilot anyway. A great pilot. The best pilot. Having your hero look at you in disgust — it hurts. It was devastating. I know I definitely was acting like a bit of a fool, but —”

“No, no, Lance —” Shiro’s voice is desperate and he knows it, but he can’t help it. He reaches out to clasp Lance’s shoulder, but falters at the last moment, unsure if he’s allowed. His hand hangs there, in limbo. “You weren’t acting like a fool. You were acting like a regular teenager, and I was expecting you to act like a grown adult. It wasn’t fair of me, and I didn’t take the time to know you. I mean it, Lance, I’m going to do better by you. I swear it. I won’t disappoint you again.”

Lance’s eyes close. His breath shudders, as he takes several deep ones. His hands shake briefly before he stills them, opening his eyes and staring at Shiro with strength and — and with a deep kindness that Shiro does not feel like he deserves.

“I forgive you,” he says firmly. “You’re not perfect, man. You made a mistake and you apologized for it. I appreciate it.”

Shiro exhales deeply, and he lets himself let go of the guilt. Lance forgives him. It’s time for them to move on, build trust.

“Thank you.”

Lance hums, turning back away. They sit in silence again, but this one is comfortable. It’s filled with the promise of a new beginning, a new start. Filled with the opportunity to get to know the Blue Paladin, who supports from the sidelines and cares with a heart that outshines the darkest of nights.

Shiro can’t wait.

#projection? who’s she? #pidge’s bullshit is based off something mh sister did to me for years. hannah you motherfucker #vld #voltron #lance #lance mcclain #shiro #takashi shirogane #ableism #lance & shiro #shiro is flawed #but he is a good man #bamf lance #chronically ill lance #autistic lance #lance & lance’s mother #lance & veronica #klance #pining lance #barely but idc #understanding shiro #disabled lance #disabled shiro #remember how it’s canon that lance and shiro are really similar? #mind lance #medic lance #my writing #brown eyed lance #longpost #langst

[theartoftangled]

Character poses by Baptiste Rogron

#tangled the series #mother gothel #Adira #miscellaneous characters #Baptiste Rogron #character poses #lance strongbow

[myimaginarywonderland]

Bro Lance should post a picture of him in a parking lot, tag Pierre and asks "Where you at?"

Carlos should then post a picture of himself an hour later, tag both of them and say "Did I miss it?"

#the opportunities they have to be the funniest mother fuckers #parking lote fight lore #f1 #lance stroll #pierre gasly #carlos sainz jr