Chapter Text
“Is anyone else getting like… a major case of deja vu?” Lance asks, stepping carefully over some rubble and shifting his grip on his bayard. The gun is pointed at nothing in particular, because there’s nothing to point it at. The whole temple is just ruins, falling apart and covered in overgrown plant life. The preemptive scans didn’t show any organic life other than the plants, but that doesn’t stop the nagging sensation at the back of his mind, keeping him on edge.
“For the hundredth time, Lance,” Pidge grumbles, hopping over a fallen and broken column. “No, it’s just you.”
“Yeah, okay, so Pidge doesn’t get a vote.” He doesn’t even spare his comrade a courtesy glare. He’s too busy turning in a small circle as he walks, looking at everything, trying to figure out what the hell is wrong. “What about you guys? Any weird feelings happening?”
“What kind of weird feelings, Lance?” Shiro’s voice floats through the coms, all business but with an edge of curiosity that he can’t quite hide.
“Like a… ‘we’ve been here before’ kinda vibe. Have we been here before? Coran?”
“Hmmm… It’s possible. Looking through the ship’s logs surrounding this planet, it seems a lot of the data has been corrupted…Fascinating. I’ve never seen anything of the like.”
Pidge pauses, looking thoughtful. “Is it even possible for the castle’s log to be corrupted?”
“Indeed, it is, number five!”
“Will you ever stop calling me that?” She grumbles.
And Coran’s cheerful voice sings back a merry, “Nope!”
Lance pats her shoulder with a comforting hand as he passes. “At least your number didn’t go down when a certain somebody hit a second growth spurt.”
“Let it go, Lance.” Comes Keith’s tired voice. Lance likes to think, however, that there’s some amusement in there. Probably somewhere deep, deep down.
“Never forget.” He proclaims, but it has significantly less defiant enthusiasm as it usually does.
Probably due to the fact that he still can’t get rid of this annoying nagging sensation. It picks at him, tickling the back of his mind, making his hair stand on end, but every time he reaches for it, it slips through his fingers like smoke. He’s trying to look around, to find something to trigger the sensation more, but everything is just so… familiar and yet completely foreign? He can’t quite put his finger on it, and that makes him more anxious.
“Seriously, though, guys, major deja vu over here.”
“What kind of deja vu?” Keith asks, instantly attentive and focused. If it weren’t for the hair on the back of his neck standing up on end, he might just smile.
“A bad deja vu?” Hunk asks, sounding just as attentive but a lot more wary. “Or like… I had a dream kinda like this once kinda deja vu?”
“I don’t… really know. I can’t tell.” He says, following Pidge as she leads the way to the back of the temple, past whatever weird alien alter might have once been there but is now just rubble and dust, decorated with fallen statues and picked clean of valuables by scavengers.
As they near a doorway at the back, one that’s half blocked by a fallen chunk of the roof, Pidge taps a finger at the symbols edged into the wall next to the frame. “We found more Altean writing.”
“Can you send us a visual, Pidge?” Allura asks, voice charged with far too much curiosity, excitement, and dread. He knows her well enough by now to know that she’s trying desperately not to get her hopes up.
“On it.” Pidge scans the section of the wall and taps a few things on the wrist of her suit. “Should be coming your way. Let’s go, Lance.” She says before darting through the small opening of the door.
He eyes the writing on the wall for a second. It’s messy and looks like it was carved hastily. His Altean isn’t exactly the best, but the message is simple enough to understand: ”This way”
It’s weird. They had received a distress signal from this planet, Ecnes, not too long ago. Some research showed the planet had been dying for years and mostly abandoned for several millennia. But the strangest thing? The distress signal had some Altean gibberish encoded into it. So, naturally, when faced with a distress signal of possible Altean affiliation coming from a planet that was threatening to collapse in on itself at any moment, they wasted no time hopping through a wormhole and setting off toward the surface.
A quick scan of the planet told them that there wasn’t any intelligent life left. There was, however, several abandoned galra bases and one pin point of undeniable energy humming brighter than anything else they found on the scanners. Time was limited with the planet threatening collapse, so they’d decided to split up. Keith and Hunk to one galra base, and Allura and Shiro to another to see if they could find anything or gather any useful information. Pidge, being the excitable tech nut she is, and Lance, not exactly equipped with a useful galra arm or genes to get through the doors, were sent to investigate the source of energy.
Turns out the energy is coming from some ancient ruins of a temple. Figures. The weird part was finding a few Altean runes carved into the entrance way, leading them to the back of the temple where they just found more. According to Coran, the Alteans were allies with this planet back in the day, like ten thousand years ago, but these marks looked far too recent.
Neither Coran nor Allura want to get their hopes up, and Lance doesn’t blame them. This place looks deserted and desolate, and there’s just something… off about the Altean stuff they’ve been finding. It just sets him on edge more.
A sudden and violent shaking of the ground beneath their feet drags him out of his thoughts and reminds him that the planet is literally crumbling beneath their feet. He nearly loses his balance before diving forward and attempting to scramble through the half blocked doorway.
“Lance, hurry up!”
“I’m trying! Not all of us were built to fit through tiny spaces!”
Turning on a light, Pidge leads the way through the maze of corridors, staring at the scanner in their hand to track the source of the energy. The walls are smoothed stone bricks, but the deeper they go, the more they look naturally carved from the earth itself. The temple is pressed up against a mountain side, and Lance gets the distinct impression that the corridors are leading into the mountain itself. It’s dark and eery, and Lance just can’t shake this feeling he has.
“Uh, Pidge, how close are we?” He mumbles, glancing over his shoulder for the umpteenth time.
“Definitely close. We should be there any moment.”
“Alright, good. Sooner we get there, the sooner we can get out.”
“Still having those feelings, Lance?” Keith’s voice cuts in. He had been ignoring all the general chatter of what they were finding in the galra bases, but Keith’s voice always catches his attention.
“Yeah,” He breathes, almost afraid to speak too loud. The walls around them absorb sound, leaving their voices sounding dead and flat. He’s not a fan. “Can’t quite shake it.”
There’s a brief pause, then Coran speaks. “Perhaps we should take caution, paladins. Lance does have a history of astoundingly perceptive intuition. Listening to his gut instincts has proven extremely beneficial in the past.”
“Saved our asses plenty of times, too.” Hunk adds.
“Hunk, you have bad feelings, too.” Lance mumbles.
“Yeah, but not like yours, Lance. I read people. For you, it’s like you just know what we should or shouldn’t do.”
“I vote we listen to Lance with this one.” Keith says, and though his voice is its usually gruff seriousness, Lance can hear worry lacing the undertones. Keith knew something was off the moment the planet came into view and Lance started to get an inkling of a weird feeling. Lance still isn’t sure how he can read him so well, but he does. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he trusted Lance’s gut enough to make him worried. He had given Lance his dagger for extra protection, despite Lance’s protests. And despite those protests, it’s a comforting weight. Like somehow Keith is there, protecting him, despite being on the other side of the planet.
“We have to keep going.” Allure says, voice firm.
“I agree,” Coran adds. “This planet could have valuable information that would be a shame to lose in its collapse. We should, however, proceed with caution.”
“We’re nearly to the source.” Pidge picks up the pace, and Lance drags his feet after her.
“Are we sure we haven’t been here before?” Lance mumbles.
“Well, according to Slav—“ Pidge starts, but is immediately cut off by Shiro’s quick.
“Don’t.”
They all chuckle, but it’s not enough to dissolve the tension Lance feels. “Lance, we’re just in dark hallways and we’ve been through ruins.” Pidge says with a sigh, and he knows she’s trying to rationalize his uneasiness away. He appreciates the attempt, but it just draws his attention to the walls and the darkness and suddenly he feels like they’re closing in on him. Is it harder to breath down here? “You’re probably just feeling deja vu because we’ve been in situations like this countless times.”
“That’s true,” Hunk says. “We’ve been to so many planets and places that I can barely remember them all. I get them mixed up all the time. I can’t even remember half of what every place and every species is called. Everything kinda starts to look the same after a while.”
“True…” Lance mumbles, trying to let that thought comfort him. It does a piss poor job. He’s too busy looking behind him again that he doesn’t see Pidge stop, and nearly trips over her. He makes a disgruntled sound, but Pidge is too busy frowning at her scanner. “What’s up, Pidgeon?”
“It says the source should be right here.” She says, looking up and around, frown deepening. They’ve stepped out of the corridor and into a round room with a high ceiling.
“Uh, if it’s right here, shouldn’t there be like… at least a light or some kind of alien technology or crystal or fountain or something other than an empty room?”
“Exactly, but that’s what the scanner says.”
“Maybe the scanner is busted.”
“I built it. The scanner isn’t busted.”
Lance reluctantly deactivates his bayard and puts it away in favor of turning on his wrist light and helping Pidge look around. They poke around the room, but it’s just… empty. There’s a few fallen stones from the walls and ceiling, some rubble shaken loose from years of abandonment and the shaking of the planet. The floor has a pattern carved into it, with a circle at the center and symbols and lines spiraling out from it. But the only way out is the way they came in. No other doors or corridors. No nothing. Just… an empty room.
Lance stands in the center, one hand on his hip while his other aims the light around the room. “I don’t see anything.”
“What’s going on down there, you two?” Allura asks through the coms.
“We found where the energy is coming from, but there’s nothing here.” Lance says. “Just a big empty, dark room in the middle of a mountain and attached to some ancient temple.”
“Keep looking, there has to be something there.”
He tries not to sigh. “You got it, princess.”
“Hey Lance, come here.” Pidge says from across the room.
He turns to see her standing at the wall opposite from the way they came in. When he steps up beside her, her hand is pressed to the stone wall, gently touching something carved there. “What’d you find?”
“Check this out.” She lets her hand drop, and that’s when Lance sees it: it’s a carving of a lion. It’s crude and the lines are jagged in the uneven surface of the rock, but it’s unmistakably a lion. More than that, it’s very clearly Blue.
Well… maybe not clearly, but they’ve been around their lions long enough to be able to spot the small differences between them, and he get the very distinct impression that his carving is of his lion.
“Is that…?” He asks, feeling breathless as his heart jams its way into his throat.
“I think so…” Pidge breathes. Then she looks at him and nods toward the wall. “What’re you waiting for? Touch it.”
Lance’s gaze snaps to her, mouth agape before it shuts to form a small frown. “I can’t just go around touching strange alien stuff, Pidge!”
“it’s never stopped you before.” Comes the deadpan voice that he loves and hates.
“No one asked you, Keith!”
The earth below them rumbles again, shaking violently enough to send dust and gravel tumbling from the ceiling. Lance shifts his weight to balance, glancing nervously at the ceiling.
“Oh, for the love of— we don’t have time for this!” Pidge grabs his wrist as soon as the rumbling stop and presses his hand to the carving.
“Pidge, no— wait—!”
But his words are choked off because as soon as his hand touches the uneven stone wall, the carving lights up. It starts as a subtle but unmistakeable glow, lighting up the thin carving lines. Then all at once, it brightens, flashing as the light shoots downward, crawling in cracks and splinters along lines they hadn’t seen before, reaching out like veins until it hits the floor. They jump back as the light etches out along the carvings along the floor. It spirals around the room, lighting up each line, each symbol, each rune. Even when Lance tears his hand from the wall, it doesn’t stop.
When the light reaches the center, it gets brighter, the whole room bathed in an eerie light, casting shadows up the wall. Then it flashes once and the center dims just as another rumble starts up. But this isn’t the same earth shaking rumble of the planet moaning it’s final breaths. It’s smaller, more localized, more like a crack and splinter and slide of stone. They watch in awe as the center circle of the glowing floor mosaic sinks into the ground before sliding away, revealing a hole.
And then there’s silence. Silence and the soft white glow lighting up the room. They stare for a moment, then look at each other. He’s certain the look of confusion and awe on Pidge’s face is mirrored on his own. Without saying a word, they start forward, slowing as they reach the hole in the floor and stepping over the glowing cracks beneath them.
“Whoa…” Lance breaths, staring down at the hole. It’s not that big, but definitely big enough to fit through comfortably.
“Yeah, whoa…” Pidge echoes. “Coran, I’m sending you scans.”
“Roger that!”
As they scan the area, Lance crouches at the edge of the hole, looking down into the dark depths. The light is splintered down the sides, illuminating a gentle slope that curves out of sight. “I guess we found the source of the energy readings…” Lance mumbles, looking around the room.
Pidge gives a sharp shake of her head, looking at the scanner. “I don’t think so. I think this is just runoff from the source.” She stares down at the hole. “I think the source is down there.”
“From what I can tell of your readings, you’re correct, Pidge!” Coran says. “There’s definitely some sort of energy centralized beneath you. I haven’t seen anything like this in years,” He says, awe creeping into his tone. “The residents of this planet were always leaps and bounds ahead of us with quintessence technology, but they were always very secretive about their knowledge. This is astounding. They seem to have found ways to change and bend the quintessence. Amazing.”
“So what now?” Pidge asks, eyeing the hole.
Lance follows her gaze, then glances back up, a small mischievous smirk curving across his lips. “We go down?”
A matching grin lights up Pidge’s face. “We go down.”
That sense of foreboding hasn’t gone away, but it’s drowned out by a new edge of excitement and discovery, and Lance has never been one to shy away from adventure. It’s what got him into this whole saving the universe thing to begin with.
“Lance,” Comes Keith’s voice, level and reproachful. “Be careful.”
Lance grins. “Aren’t I always, babe?”
Keith groans in his ear, and Lance stands, chuckling. “Keep an eye on him, Pidge.”
“Roger that, worry wort.” She gives a mock salute for good measure that only Lance can see. He laughs at Keith’s unamused grunt.
He gazes down at the hole, then to Pidge. “See you on the other side.” He gives her a playful bow before jumping down the hole.
He hits the slope and it catches his fall, leading him into more of a slide. The tunnel immediately engulfs him, and he’s speeding past darkness and flashes from the splintered veins of light. As he goes, the slope get steep enough for him to pick up speed, curving around in a wide, gentle spiral as he sinks deeper into the earth. And while his heart is hammering in his chest and adrenaline is flooding his veins, he feels alive. He lets out a loud whoop! of excitement as he hears Pidge’s shout of “Geronimo!” from above.
He’s not sure how long the slide is or how long it takes to get to the bottom. The lights guide his way down, making the tight space seem less claustrophobic and more like some twisted ride at a theme park.
“What’s going on over there?” Shiro asks over coms, but Lance can barely hear him over the pound of blood in his ears and the sounds of his and Pidge’s excited whoops.
“We’re getting to the bottom of this!” Lance shouts.
Pidge laughs from somewhere behind him. “Oh my god, Lance, you need to be more down to earth!”
“Uuuh, anyone else feel like they’re missing something?” Hunk asks as Lance and Pidge laugh.
Shiro sighs. “You’re not alone, Hunk.”
“Oh thank god,” A pause, and then, “Though I’m starting to think we got shafted on assignments.”
By the time he reaches the end, he’s going to fast to really slow for the drop off. He barely registers the end of the tunnel is there before it’s spitting him out. Luckily, the mouth of it isn’t that high from the ground. Still, it spits him out, his momentum carrying him skittering across the floor a ways. He groans, laying flat, and only has time to relax for a couple seconds before suddenly Pidge is flying through the air and landing on him.
He lets out a loud oomph as the air rushes from his lungs, and is there defeated until Pidge decides to get off him.
When they get their bearings and actually take a look around, they both gasp in awe.
The room is a mirror of the one above: round with a high ceiling. The difference is this one has something in the middle of the wide open space. It’s some kind of machine or alter. The first thing he sees is the four claw like pillars that are sprouting from the ground, curving like fingers and tipping at points that curve inward to point at the large, slightly raised, circular platform that rested between them. He can’t tell what they were made of. Metal? Stone? They’re huge and creepy, and completely distracted him from the large control panel off to the side that doesn’t look unlike ones on the ship.
As they watch, the veins of glowing light come creeping down the cave walls, splintering through cracks with a soft glow. When they hit the floor, the fingers of light creep toward the center of the room. When they reach the machine, the whole thing seems to hum to life. Crystals that almost look like Balmeran Crystals are imbedded into each of the claw-like pillars, glowing big and bright. The control panel lights up, but the platform on the floor remains oddly dark.
He and Pidge stand there for several more minutes, watching with baited breath, but nothing else happens. The room just pulsates with the eery glow. At first glance, it’s a white light, but with each pulse it seems to drift through several colors. All at once and none at all, so subtle that he stares, wondering if he’s seeing things.
The whole room, the look and feel of it, brings back his uneasiness tenfold. The sense of deja vu hits him with enough intensity to leave him reeling. He barely registers the voices over their coms. He barely notices when Pidge starts creeping along the room, exploring the machinery and technology with rapt and undivided attention. He barely hears her voice as she relays what she sees. He just stares at the machine at the center, trying to ward off the sudden wave of nausea.
“Lance?” Keith’s voice brings him back into himself. It always does. “Lance, you okay?”
Lance clears his throat, shaking his head, forcing a smile to his face and hoping it comes across in his voice. No use to worry him for no reason. “Yeah, I’m here.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong—“
“Lance.”
“Keith.”
“Lance.”
“Keith.”
“Oh my god, keep your lover’s quarrel out of the coms. I’m trying to figure this out.” Pidge says from where she’s standing at the control panel, fingers deftly flying over the holo surface.
He glares at her. “I was just telling Keith that I’m fine.”
“And I was just telling Lance that that’s bullshit. What’s wrong?”
He sighs, smile dropping as he runs a hand through his hair. “Nothing’s wrong, I just… I don’t like this place.”
“What’re you talking about?” Pidge says, excitement leaking into her voice. “This place is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it! Or… maybe I have. It does look a little familiar. Maybe we’ve come across this technology before.”
“Ah, hA! So you are feeling some deja vu, too!”
Pidge shrugs. “Now that we’re down here, yeah, a little. But it doesn’t feel… wrong. Just feels like I’ve seen something like this before, but I can’t quite put my finger on it…” She trails off, hunched over the control panel.
When Lance can finally get his legs to work, he carefully tiptoes around the room, avoiding stepping on the glowing cracks even though they’ve proved to be harmless. He steps up to one of the claw-like pillars, eyeing it curiously and reaching out to touch it. It’s cold and smooth, but he still can’t tell what it’s made out of. Something dark, looking almost like shadows with all the glowing around the room. Hard, maybe-metal shadow claws. That’s not ominous. He raps a knuckle against it, but is only met with a dull sound. Solid, then. The balmeran crystals imbedded into them face the center and are about the size of his head. They’re pulsing brighter than the rest of the room, like four heartbeats in sync, and the rest of the glowing pulses outward. Like the damn thing is alive. He… doesn’t want to think about that.
“Weird…” He mumbles to himself, then steps away from the pillar to look down at the platform.
It’s only a few inches above the ground, and made from the same material as the pillars. There’s a lot of symbols and runes that he doesn’t recognized carved into it, spiraling inward to the center, where there’s a fifth crystal, nearly twice as big as the others, neatly imbedded into the center so it doesn’t raise much higher than the surface. This one isn’t lit up, and the veins of light, and what presumes at this point is energy, don’t stretch up to the platform. It’s an odd spot of darkness in the room.
“Do you think this one’s dead?” He asks aloud.
“Hmm?” Pidge hums. She’s been crouched in front of the control panel, having taken off the front panel to stare at the thing’s inner workings, but at his question, she pops her head up over the top of the control panel to look at him. “What was that?”
He gestures to the dim crystal. “This one. Do you think it’s dead?”
She seems to think about that for a moment, nose crinkling as she does so, then she shrugs. “Dunno. It’s possible. This think looks pretty ancient.” Then she ducks back down. “There are vials of stuff in here.” She says, poking around inside the alien tech. “And some little crystal things. Kinda like what you’d find on the ship. Some of the vials are low though… and some of the crystals look like they’re out of alignment. Maybe I can just— there!”
Lance jerks as the room’s light pulses brightly before dimming again. They both freeze, waiting, but nothing else changes. The only sound is the constant hum.
“I was kinda hoping that would do something.” Pidge says, sounding a little dejected. She stands, poking around at the control panel screens again. They’re holographic screens, like what’s on the ship, which might have once been cool, but by now it’s just old news. That technology is everywhere.
“What’d you think this thing is?” He asks, standing again.
“I have no idea, and I would love to find out, but all the damn settings on this thing are locked and it’s in a language I don’t understand!” She brings her hands down on the panel. “Dammit! I was hoping it would be in Altean, at least.”
“Weird that Altean markings led us here…”
“Yeah, but there was something… off about them. Like they weren’t written neatly like what we see on the ship. More like… probably how an Altean child would write or something. Or you.”
“Hey!”
She shrugs, a small smile playing across her lips as she darts around the control panel to jog over to where he’s standing. “Let me take a look at that.”
He shrugs as she squats down next to the crystal in the floor. “Be my guest.”
She flicks it with a finger. “Huh, weird.”
“Yeah, weird…” He echoes, looking around the room and trying suppress the feeling that he can’t shake.
With half an ear, he listens as Pidge talks to coran over the coms, trying to figure out whatever the hell this thing is and why it’s still active when everything else on the planet is deactivated and dead. Lance wants to know why the hell it was attuned to him, but he supposes there are more pressing matters at hand.
Like the fact that the planet is literally dying beneath their feet.
A rumble starts up, dust and rocks falling from the ceiling. He reaches out a hand against the wall to steady himself, heart rate speeding up again. He looks immediately to Pidge, but they barely pause in their investigations. He understands their fascination with new technology and everything, The girl is absolutely crazy about it. But he thinks the collapsing planet should warrant a little more attention than she’s giving it.
“Uh, Pidge? Maybe we should wrap this up and get going? With all these earthquakes, I don’t think being underground in a mountain is the best place to be.”
Pidge just waves a hand at him. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll go when we figure this out.”
He sighs, looking to the wall where his hand is resting, eyes following the veins of light and—
Huh, well that’s out of place.
On the wall, carved in that same crude messy script as before, is a string of Altean symbols.
“Uh, Pidge?”
“I need a few more minutes, Lance.” She sighs. “Some help would be lovely, though, if you want to speed up the process.”
“How’s this for help?” He asks, waving to the wall.
She looks up, squinting across the room. “What is it?”
“Looks like the same kind of Altean message we found upstairs.”
“What’s it say?”
He was kind of hoping she would just come over and read it herself. She was infinitely better at reading Altean. Sure, he knew the basics, but it took him a while. Turns out the ease of learning multiple languages doesn’t extend to alien languages with an entirely different alphabet, grammar structure, and sound base. Not to mentions he’s not really a fan of the learning program aboard the ship.
He turns back to the wall, fingers idly trading the carving as he squints in concentration, brows furrowing and nose crinkling. Pidge was right. There is something off about this Altean. It’s not as… smooth as what he’s used to reading. The structure and spelling is weird. Just little mistakes that are probably normal from someone actually writing, but he’s not used to from reading official documents on the ship.
“Ummm… The first part says… align the yellow crystal in the panel…I think.”
He glances over at Pidge, and she’s staring at him, face blank. She blinks, looks over her shoulder to the control panel, then back to him. “I did that. What else does it say?”
There’s excitement building in her, and he feels it. It buzzes across his nerves like electricity. “Uh, this part, says… oh man, this handwriting is terrible. Though I guess carving into a rock is probably pretty hard, depending on what they’re using to—“
“Lance!”
“Right. It says… activate the transfer? I think it says transfer, not sure. Activate the transfer program.” He snorts, then looks over his shoulder, small smile on his face. “It says it’s the big red button on the holo screen, in case you couldn’t figure it out.”
Pidge glares at him, brows furrowed. “I’m being patronized by a wall. Great. Anyway, I did that. the settings were locked though. I can’t change them. Or at least, I probably could, but it would take too much time. What else does it say?”
Lance looks back at it, fingers moving over the letters as his lips silently sound out the words, mind fixing with a translation. “It says… give the center crystal a quarter turn to the right, lift, half a turn to the left, push in, rotate a quarter turn to the right to lock into place. At least, I’m pretty sure what that says. Kinda hard to tell, but that seems to be the gist of it—“
“Done!” Pidge calls out excitedly, and then a little more breathless. “Whoa…”
A cold spike of ice goes shivering down his spine, settling in his gut like lead. He whirls around, eyes immediately focusing on Pidge, standing at the center of the platform, staring down the crystal imbedded into it. The glow crackles away from it, filling in the carvings on the platform, spreading out from the center. She takes a couple steps back and mumbles something under her breath that Lance doesn’t hear because his heartbeat is too damn loud in his ears.
Something’s wrong. It’s the same kind of instinctual fight or flight reflex he gets when faced with danger, but in this case, he can’t tell where the danger is coming from, or what it even is. So far all the glowing alien tech has done nothing to indicate it might harmful, yet he can’t help the sense of wrong that’s coiling hard in his gut.
“Pidge…” He mutters, but she doesn’t hear him. He stiffens, frozen in place by the sudden onslaught of negative vibes that he doesn’t know what to do with, as he watches the light flood out from the platform. It reaches the four pillars and starts crackling and splintering up the dark material like jagged veins. “Pidge…” he repeats, feeling like his heart is lodged in his throat. She’s not paying any attention, too busy scanning the platform and talking to Coran, or Shiro, or somebody. He can’t really hear any of them over his coms with the ringing in his ears.
He watches in wide eyed horror as the light reaches the tops of the pillars and the tips of the claw-like structures start to spark. The light pulsing in the room gets heavier, more noticeable. He sees it, but Pidge looks oblivious. The sparks get bigger, forming some sort of ball of crackling energy at the tips, pointed right down at the platform— right where Pidge is standing.
“Pidge!” Lance shouts, voice cracking as he forces it past the lump in his throat. There’s shouting in his ears, over the coms, but he can’t hear them.
Pidge’s head whips up then, finally taking in her surroundings. Her eyes setting on one pillar, then the next, turning in a small half circle and staring wide eyed, mouth open, as the energy builds. She looks so small then, and he’s reminded just how young she really is. So small and young and vulnerable and frozen in place.
Something in him snaps, and he’s suddenly moving, hurling himself forward. “Pidge!” Her name is ripped from him as he barrels into her, bodily knocking her off the platform. He’s about to leap after her, but there’s a flash of light, a crackle of energy—
Everything goes white.
He burns, from hot or cold, he doesn’t know. He just burns, every nerve ending alive and firing. He thinks he hears shouting, but he can’t tell from who and he can’t hear what they’re saying. The ringing in his ears is too loud. Nausea hits him hard, along with vertigo and dizziness. All at once, all so strong, all overwhelming. He feels wrong, his body too tight, stretched, shrunken.
He burns, and then he’s numb, and everything goes black.
Hot. Cold. Pain. Numb. Everything. Overwhelming. Too much. Too much. Nothing. Empty. Not enough. Not enough. Stretch. Pull. Shrink. Push. Explode. Implode. Floating. Drifting. Lost. Falling. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Wrong…
Nothing… floating… numb… slow… empty… peace…
EVERYTHING… FALLING… BURNING… FAST… FULL… CHAOS…
Burning. Burning. Burning. Tight. Tense. Stretching. Falling. Speeding. Burning.
Light.
Bright.
White.
Lance jerks to consciousness with all the grace and dignity of a wave crashing into a cliffside. He feels like he’s shoved into consciousness, slammed into his body with enough force to leave him staggering. Staggering, because apparently he’s on his feet. What the fuck? Who falls asleep on their feet? Had he been asleep? Doesn’t matter now, because sleep or not, he feels like he’s been slapped awake.
Awake, but extremely dizzy. The whole world spins and dips as vertigo hits him hard, and his eyes can’t really focus on anything in particular. He feels nauseous, stomach violently heaving. His chest feels tight, too tight, just like his skin. Is it possible for his skin to feel too tight? Well, it does. Oversensitive like he can feel everything. There’s a ringing in his ears that does nothing to help him get his bearings.
After a moment, which, he’s kind of proud of being able to stand for that long, his knees buckle and he collapses. The surface beneath him is cold to the touch, blissful against his heated skin, and the gentle humming is soothing.
And just as quickly as it had hit him, it begins to fade. The nausea settles. His chest loosens. He’s able to breathe, which clears his head. The room stops spinning. His eyes can focus. His skin settles back into feeling normal and not oversensitive. The ringing in his ears begins to fade, and in it’s wake, he hears voices.
“That is what it felt like!” Pidge snaps, a groan trailing on the end.
“Oooh, man, I think I’m going to—“ Hunk cuts himself off, and there’s some shuffling before there’s the all too familiar sound of Hunk losing it. Poor guy. Lance can’t blame him though. Whatever that was, it was terrible.
“You alright, Hunk?” Shiro asks, sounding as physically exhausted as Lance feels.
“Yeah, I’m fine—“ His words trail off into a long groan, but at least he doesn’t puke again. “You went through that twice? I feel like I barely survived once.”
“Yeah,” Pidge says dryly. “Tell me about it.”
Lance groans, rolling onto his side and squeezing his eyes shut for a second. When he opens them, he tries to get ahold of his surroundings. They’re in… a cave? A cave with bright glowing veins crawling up the walls? That’s… new. He tilts his head around to see four metal claws rising out of the ground, curling around him in the open air, crystals imbedded and glowing in their centers. They hover over him in a way that feels almost menacing, and he shivers, looking away. He’s lying on… a platform? With glowing symbols? Weird.
His eyes trail around the room. He can see his team. Well, some of them, anyway. Only Hunk and Pidge are in his line of sight. He tilts his head a little further, and— yup, there’s Keith, too. Everyone’s in their paladin armor, which is strange, because Lance doesn’t feel like he’s in his. A quick glance down and— yup, sure enough, he’s not. He’s dressed in his official diplomatic formal attire. Why would he— Kolar! They were on the planet Kolar, and they saved it, and there was a party, and Lance was putting the moves on this hot alien, and then they all went back to the castle ship, and then— nothing.
Why is he here?
Weird.
Maybe the others know. It isn’t like him to just pass out like that, but… weirder things have happened.
“How’re you doing, princess?” Comes Shiros voice, soft and concerned.
“I’m fine, Shiro. Whatever it was, the effects are already fading.” What is Allura doing down here with them? This must be a pretty big mission then, so why the fuck can’t he remember?
“Which brings me back to my original question,” Pidge says, sounding extremely disgruntled. He watches as she pushes herself to a sitting position, shaking her head with one hand to her helmet. “What was that?”
“And the more important question,” Keith adds, sounding like his usual grumpy self as he gets to his feet. “Where is Lance?”
Lance scoffs, pushing himself into a sitting position and holding a hand to his head. There’s a dull ache behind his eyes, but at least he’s not dizzy anymore. “You got mullet in your eyes or what? I’m right here.” He grumbles, and damn, does his voice sound wrecked. It’s all scratchy and hoarse, and he’d kill for a cup of water right about now.
He’s glaring at Keith, so he sees the moment the red paladin’s head snaps up, eyes widening comically as they focus on him. His mouth drops open, and he barely hears the whispered. “Lance…” And then louder, nearly a shout. “Lance!” And Lance’s brain must not be up to full capacity yet, either that or Keith just move really fast, because one moment Keith is rushing him, and the next he’s wrapped up in the dude’s arms.
Like on a Hunk level of a hug. Arms tight around him, holding him to his chest, which isn’t all too comfortable given the paladin armor. His head is situated over Keith’s shoulder, and he just kind of blinks in surprise, watching the wide grins spread across the faces of his other teammates as they rush over to them.
And yeah, he’s glad his team is happy to see him and all, but that doesn’t really explain why Keith is hugging him— no, it’s bordering on holding him now. Not just a simple hug. There’s something desperate and tender about it and it’s kind of causing his brain to short circuit a little bit because what the fuck?
His arms kinda just… hang uselessly at his sides as he surrenders into Keith’s hug because he’s really not sure what else to do.
Then Keith is relaxing his death grip, readjusting his hold, and then suddenly Lance finds himself leaning up against Keith’s chest, Keith’s arm around his back for support, and more or less half in the guy’s lap. A gloved hand brushes fingers gently through his hair as Keith knocks the front of his helmet against Lance’s forehead.
“What have I told you about worrying me like that, you asshole…” He mutters under his breath, so softly that only they can hear it, and voice filled with so much fondness and relief that it leaves Lance feeling dizzy all over again because what the fuck? This is Keith! Keith is never soft and tender and fond! Not when it comes to him!
He finds the odd change of pace to be more jarring and disorienting that the whole no memory thing.
Keith is so relaxed and Lance is so stiff, and the moment drags on with this odd sense of tension that just keeps building, tightening, taut like a bowstring—
And then Hunk, bless his soul, dissolves the tension before Lance snaps.
“Lance! Buddy! You’re okay—“ He stops when he reaches the edge of the platform, arms out like he’s about to scoop up both of them into a crushing hug. As he stares, confusion colors his features, and his arms slowly drop to his sides. “Uh, what’re you wearing?”
Lance raises an eyebrow and glances down. Yeah, he’d like to know why he’s not suited up, too. He looks back up. “Uh, we were just at a party, dude. I’d like to know how all of you got into your armor so fast.”
“Party?” Allura echoes.
“What do you mean got into our armor quickly?” Shiro asks, coming up beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
With the exception of Keith, they’re all standing around the platform, staring blankly at him, and he shifts uncomfortably under the weight of their combined gazes. As he looks between them, his confusion deepens because—
“Is your armor different? Did we get an upgrade? What does mine look like— Allura, did you cut your hair—?”
Before they can respond, there’s an earthquake. He jumps, and Keith’s arms tighten around him. He’s still pressed up against Keith’s chest, which he finds ridiculously intimate despite the heavy plates of armor between them. He feels heat rising up his neck to settle on his cheeks, but he doesn’t really have time to dwell on that because the ground is shaking violently, a deep groan beneath their feet that’s almost hidden by the crumple of rocks cascading around them. It lasts far too long for comfort before it stops.
“What the hell was that?” He asks, voice a little higher than normal.
“The planet we’re on is dying.” Allura says matter-of-factly, but with this strange edge of caution that he’s never had directed at him before.
“Lance…” Pidge’s voice is wary, and boy, he does not like all this confusion and nervousness directed at him. He’s just as confused as they are! He’s a victim here! “You were… you know that… don’t you?”
He’s not really feeling up to fighting Keith’s hold right now, even though he can’t quite bring himself to look at him, so he just relaxes into it. He raises a hand to run through his hair, digging the heel of his palm into one eyes. “To be honest, I don’t know what I know. We were at the party, everything was fine, we got back to the ship, then I remember… pain? Weird vertigo kinda. Then…. nothing, then… I was here?”
He looks around at the faces of his friends, of his team. They’re all staring at him… oddly. Their expressions are pinched, closed off, wary, and it hurts. It’s like they’re looking at a stranger, but he’s not! It’s just him! They’re the ones being weird in their armor and in some cave. He risks a glance up at Keith, and even he’s staring at Lance like he barely recognizes him, face blank as the wheels turn behind those dark eyes. His expression gives away nothing. But even as his frown deepens, his arms around Lance tighten, and it’s still a weird thing, but right now, it’s the only comfort he’s got.
“Guys…” He says slowly, cautiously. He wants to glare at them, be defensive, brush this off, but… fear is creeping up his spine, cold as ice. He doesn’t know what’s happening, and it’s extremely worrying. He does his best to choke down the dread and keep a level voice. “Where are we? What’s going on?”
“We’re on Ecnes,” Pidge says, voice carefully neutral. “We’re here to investigate a distress beacon? We followed energy signatures down here? You… you knocked me out of the way and— you disappeared?”
Lance just gapes at her. He doesn’t remember any of that. He tries to form words, but they kinda just come out as strangled sounds because he doesn’t know what to say.
“You don’t… remember that? Buddy?” Hunk says like he’s approaching a wounded animal. Lance’s eyes snap to his, big and worried and… why does Hunk’s face look different? Not… drastically different, and it’s hard to tell with his helmet on and everything, but…
“Lance, where’s your paladin armor?” Shiro asks, and Lance’s attention whips around to him. Why does Shiro look so much… older? Not necessarily physically, but his eyes. He looks tired. More than usual.
“I… I wasn’t wearing it?” He manages to say, hating how small his voice sounds. Without really realizing it, he shrinks back against Keith’s chest, and the arms around him squeezes briefly. “We were…” He looks around at his teammates, noticing differences in their faces that are so similar yet so subtly different. “The party…? Why are we on a planet that’s dying?”
Pidge gestures to the platform he’s sitting on, to the claw-like pillars that rise above them ominously. “We followed the energy signatures down here. Lance, you were with me.” She’s sounding a little desperate, voice cracking at the end. He’s not used to seeing Pidge sound… panicked.
“Coran,” Allura says abruptly, eyes roaming over the machine around them. “Can you do a scan of the energy blast that just came from this area? Any information on it?”
He doesn’t have his helmet, but he’s close enough to Keith that he can just barely make out Coran’s voice. “No can do, princess. Whatever it was seems to have scrambled the scanners! I might be able to figure out the use of such energy, but it will take a while.”
The ground rumbles again, more rocks crumbling down from the ceiling, and everyone glances around nervously.
“We need to get out of here.” Shiro says, firm, solid, leader-y. It’s familiar and comforting in a way Lance didn’t know he needed right now. “We can figure this out later.”
“No!” Pidge snaps, throwing out her arms to gesture to the cavern. “What about all this technology? We need to save it! It has something to do with what happened to Lance!”
The earth rumbled again, more violently, more groaning deep beneath them. “No time.” Shiro snaps. “We need to get to safety. Lance is right. Being underground isn’t the smartest thing right now.”
“I agree with Shiro.” Hunk says, glancing around nervously as he bounces from foot to foot. “I’m pretty sure this planet won’t be around for much longer, and I would really like to be back on the ship when it collapses.”
“But what about—“ Pidge starts.
“Pidge,” Shiro says firmly, and Pidge’s face scrunches up into a stern pout. Shiro’s voice softens. “I know you’re worried, but we don’t have the time to stick around. Do as many scans on this place as you can and we’ll analyze the data back on the ship.”
Her expression hardens into something along the lines of determination and she nods. “Right. On it. Hunk, help me.”
And then the two of them set off to hurriedly scan as much of the strange contraption as they can. Allura stands nearby, talking with Coran, face pinched with worry. Shiro steps up onto the platform and kneels next to them.
“How’re you doing, Lance?” He asks, voice soft and kind and really, really comforting. Lance finds himself relaxing as he gives the man a small smile.
“Pfff, me? I’m cool. Cool as ice. Heh, get it? Blue paladin and all. Don’t worry about me, Shiro, it’s all goooood. I just… don’t remember anything, heh, that’s fine. Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened. We’ll figure it out.” He can’t stop babbling, and as he does, his voice gets progressively higher. He hates it, but it won’t stop. He’s low-key panicking… at least he wants it to be low-key.
A squeeze of a hand on his arm quiets him, and he looks up to see Keith still staring at him. And he wishes Keith would just say something instead of staring at him with that unreadable expression and those eyes that just stare. Another hand lands on his shoulder, and he looks to Shiro, who’s smiling softly, eyes warm. “It’s okay, buddy. We’ll figure this out. I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
Lance smiles, and it feels a lot less forced. “Thanks, Shiro.”
“The party….” It’s Keith who speaks. The first thing he’s said in a while, and both Lance and Shiro look to him. His brows are pinched, lines forming around his mouth as he frowns. “You said you were at a party… what planet was that on?”
Lance scrunches up his nose in thought, trying to pick back through his memories even though everything feels fuzzy and thick… “Kolar, I think… Yeah, yeah, that was it. We saved them and then helped them rebuild a little bit, then they threw us a party and I was chatting up this babe all night and you and Shiro had to carry around the priest guy, which was hilarious because he kept kicking you in the— uh, guys?”
Keith is staring at him, eyes wide and lips parted. He’s not even trying to hide his surprise and mounting horror. His eyes flicker to Shiro. “Shiro, the… do you remember— the time Lance switched— the future—“ He can’t seem to form complete thoughts, but that doesn’t seem to matter.
Lance watches Shiro’s face as confusion lights up with recognition, which promptly fades to shock, then shifts to worry. “Oh, no…” It’s a whisper, and that makes Lance more worried than anything.
“What?” He says, looking between them. “Did I… did I do something wrong? Guys? What’s happening?”
“Did you say Kolar?” Pidge’s voice cuts in, blank and coated in surprise. And when he looks at her, her expression mirrors Keith’s and Shiro’s.
“Guys?” Lance asks a little more urgently, voice a little higher.
“Oh, no, you mean that time—“ Hunk cuts himself off, gulping visibly as he stares wide-eyed at Lance. “I had forgotten about that. Oh no…”
“I did, too.” Shiro says, eyes suddenly critical as he frowns thoughtfully. “How could we forget that?”
“Are we sure that’s what’s happening now?” Pidge asks, suddenly behind Shiro, eyeing Lance critically. “He looks pretty much the same.”
Before he can question them again, there’s a hand on his chin, gloved fingers gently turning his head until he’s face to face with Keith. His hand gently cups his jaw as those dark eyes roam over his face, critical and analyzing but with this odd soft edge to it that has Lance shuttering. His brows are pinched just a little in concentration, his lips tipped downward. Lance tries not to fidget under the weight of his gaze.
Then Keith’s fingers ghost along his neck, trailing up the side of it, over his jaw, cupping his jaw in his palm, thumb gently caressing his cheekbone. His eyes trail the movement of his fingers, and Lance can’t help but stare at him in utter confusion, lips parted in shock. When was Keith ever this gentle with him?
Then Keith’s eyes snap to his, and he jumps, suddenly held captive by those beautiful navy eyes. Has he ever noticed the flecks of violet in his irises? He doesn’t think he has, and he doesn’t know why he notices now, but he files that information away for later.
“He’s not our Lance.” Keith mutters, voice soft and weirdly choked with emotion that Lance can’t begin to name.
Then the words sink in, and Lance feels an ache in his chest. He slaps Keith’s hand away from his face, glaring at him. “What’s that supposed mean? I am Lance! What the hell is your problem, Keith?”
Keith’s lips twist into a deeper frown, eyes suddenly guarded. But it’s Shiro who speaks. “Are you sure, Keith?”
Keith nods. “It’s not him…”
Lance glares at him, shoving at his chest. “Who the hell else am I supposed to be then, mullet?”
Keith doesn’t break eye contact, nor does his flinch. “Lance,” He says, and there’s a weight of seriousness in his voice that holds him captive. “You’re in the future.”
Lance just gapes at him, the moment stretches, and then laughter bubbles up and bursts past his lips. “Oh, man, Keith! You really had be going there for a second!” But his laughter quickly dies when Keith’s face doesn’t change. “…Keith?”
“I’m afraid he’s not joking, Lance.” Shiro says, grip on his shoulder tightening. “And our Lance is in the past with your team.”
He’s having trouble processing. “Guys, this isn’t funny—“
He’s cut off when the earth beneath then heaves again, more violently and without signs of stopping. A chunk of the ceiling falls, and Hunk has to leap out of the way. “Uh, guys? Can we do this later? When we’re not on a dying planet?”
“But I—“
“Lance,” Pidge cuts him off. “I know it’s hard to believe, but please just— just believe us. We’ll try to figure this out later.”
“Paladins!” Allura calls, urgency clear as her voice cuts over the sound of rumbling. “We need to go! Now.”
There are hands on him, Keith’s hands, trying to help him to his feet, but he only manages a few steps before his knees buckle again. Arms catch him, and he leans heavily against hard armor. His mind is buzzing, ears ringing. The future? How can he— how is that—? The ground continues to shake and quake, making it harder for him to keep his balance. He can barely focus. His thoughts are chaos. Pieces of what his team has said fly through his mind, none of them sticking. All the things he noticed, all his fuzzy memories. They mash and collide and made no sense. They won’t stay still. They won’t solidify. They wisp like smoke, run like water. He can’t make sense of anything. He can’t focus. It’s too much— too much.
Future?
He thinks he might have blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he knows, he’s being carried, flashes of red and white in his peripheral vision. Everything is shaking, rumbling, crumbling. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, they’re in one of the lions. The cockpit is yellow, and he can vaguely make out Hunk’s form in the chair. He still feels like he’s being held, but he doesn’t dwell on it. The forces of the hasty piloting shift him around, but an arm stays firmly latched around him, and he doesn’t move too much.
There’s a lot of shouting, a lot of voices over the coms in the cockpit, but he can’t make much sense of them. He’s so dizzy, so tired…. so very, very tired.
He closes his eyes and feels the claws of unconsciousness digging into him. He tries to fight it, but the relief is so much better than the pain and confusion of being awake.
Future?
He hears voices. The rumbling and shifting has stopped. He feels oddly still, and it makes his skin tingle. He drifts in and out.
“—you sure?”
“Yes—”
“—can’t believe we forgot—“
“—still feels fuzzy. I can’t really—“
“—do we do—?”
“—till he wakes—“
“—look at the scans—“
“—planet is gone—!”
“—have to make do—“
“—tell him—?”
“—not him—“
“—still Lance!—just younger—“
“—what about— you guys—“
“—can’t tell him—“
“—okay with that, Keith—?”
“Yes…”
He’s moving again. He tries to open his eyes, but everything is bright, too bright, it hurts. He closes his eyes and groans, turning his head into the warm next to him. Arms around him, holding him, moving. Smells of sweat and warmth but it’s not unpleasant. Sounds. Foot steps. Swoosh of a door. Something soft, familiar, bed. He curls into it, feel a light comforting weight draped over him. Fingers in his hair. Something warm and soft pressed to his forehead. A caress on his cheek.
He sighs, finally giving in and letting exhaustion drag him down into a dreamless sleep.