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Nothing But Stardust

Chapter 2

Summary:

Lance can't sleep and is plagued by unwanted memories of his time at the Garrison

Notes:

-TW// Gay slurs, sexual harassment, physical & verbal harassment

-I hate James Griffin so just a warning that he's gonna do some not so great shit

Chapter Text

I don’t sleep well. I keep tossing and turning, not even thinking about anything in particular. Just lying there in the dark, full of dread. That sick, empty feeling. I fight the urge to thrash. I don’t have the energy. Still, I’m restless. Lying still is painful.

It’s cold. It’s always cold in space. I pull the blanket around me tighter. I think about how there aren’t any windows in my room. I think about how it isn’t my room.

The room is uncomfortably large. Not massive, but too big to feel homey. Everything is made of this pale grey metal that is both cold and lukewarm at the same time. It doesn’t feel like metal. Touching it feels foreign. The floor is made of it and there are no carpets. I don’t like walking around barefoot on the ship because of it. That feels wrong too. If you can’t walk around barefoot in a place it’s not home. I miss home.

There are geometric grooves on the wall that glow a soft blue in the dark, which means that there’s no place in the castle that’s fully dark. You close your eyes and you still see the blue glow through your eyelids. It’s not the same as a nightlight. It’s not comforting. It’s not bright either. It doesn’t fill up the room with warm light that scatters itself across the ceiling like a firefly or a candle and makes the shadows of your clothes and your toys dance all over the walls. It’s motionless and dull and makes the whole room look like static.

It’s never quite quiet either. There’s always the rumble of the ship. The only time it’s quiet it when you put on your helmet and it shuts out the sound. Even then, you can still feel the vibration beneath your feet. And then sometimes the whole world feels still because you’re the one moving, feet pounding against the not-quite-cold floors in heavy not-quite-metal boots as you run out the doors into action.

I think about our first mission.

I try to stop thinking about our first mission.

Keith was cocky back then. And an asshole. It was always him and his stupid mullet saving the day. And back at the Garrison he was a god when it came to all those simulations too. I hated him for it. I hated his stupid cropped jacket that didn’t even make any fucking sense because how does a cropped jacket keep you warm? I hated his stupid white boots that he probably meticulously cleaned every single day since he kicked up so much sand when he ran anywhere that it was impossible for them to stay clean any other way. I hated how he was somehow always clean shaven and always looked put together. I hated his eyes that were some stupid color probably that were always scrutinizing or analyzing something. I hated how he never laughed except under his breath when I made a mistake in class. I hated the stupid fucking grin he got when he knew he was right and I hated the way his voice got all low and arrogant and I hated the way he looked at me.

Fuck. I really did hate the way he looked at me back then.

He didn’t know me back then. He didn’t care about me back then. He just knew that I was some classmate of his that he would have to outdo. It wasn’t a competition either. I called him my rival but it was one-sided. I knew he would always win and I hated him for it. And not a petty hate, but a real hate. The kind of hate that festers, that makes you sick when you look at someone. A kind of hate that makes you feel like you aren’t good enough and that you never will be.

The only other person who hated him as much as me was James, but that’s not saying much since James hated everyone. He was an asshole too. Keith was an asshole because he was cocky. But James was an asshole because he was a dick and a bully. He was better than me too but not in any place it really counted. He would harass Pidge a lot, which I never really understood because a) Pidge always scared me from the beginning, and b) James seemed to go out of his way to do this shit to the extent that it seemed like more of an inconvenience to him than the people he was harassing sometimes. Not to say that what he said didn’t hurt Pidge. It really fucked them up. They don’t talk about it though, so I’m still not sure how bad it really got, but what I saw of it was pretty fucking bad.

I remember one time James was being particularly pissy. It was before Pidge and I were that close, back when they hadn’t come out as nonbinary yet and was still going around as a guy. It was after curfew and I was up and walking down the dorm hallway because I needed to pee. There were bathrooms in our rooms but ours had flooded and I was too intimidated by the instructors to report it, which I admit was a stupid thing to be afraid of. I was about to turn the corner to the bathroom, but I heard footsteps so I panicked and hid around a corner in the door alcove to one of the dorms. The footsteps belonged to Pidge who was sneaking around, up to something shady no doubt. They were coming back from somewhere holding a laptop close to their body. Right as I thought they were about to turn the corner and see me, they turned to duck into the girl’s bathroom. That’s when I heard a voice from right beside me.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going fag?”

It was James, who had just walked past me. I froze. He didn't see me.

“Leave me alone.” Pidge said, ducking their head and trying to walk away. But James stepped forward and pushed them back against the wall.

“I said, where the fuck do you think you’re going, faggot?” He said it again, with a gross familiarity accentuated by the harshness by which he articulated his ‘t’. His voice wasn’t loud, but it cut deeper than a shout.

“The bathroom. Fuck off.” Pidge pushed back, trying to get him off. James resisted.

“No can do.” James shoved them again and pointed at a sign on the door. “See, this sign right here says that this is the girl’s bathroom. Now, you’re not a fucking girl are you?”

“Stop it.”

“And what were you planning on doing in there with that laptop, fag?”

“Stop it.”

“Oh I know.” James leaned in. “Maybe you aren’t a faggot after all.” James towered over them. It was strange. I had never seen Pidge look so small before. “Maybe you were going to set up a camera in there and spy on the girls, isn’t that right? You sick, perverted fuck.” He grabbed Pidge’s shoulders and leaned in to whisper into their ear. “Bet you were gonna jack yourself off watching them piss and wipe themselves, right? Gonna make yourself cum all over the place knowing that you will never, ever, get your fingers that close to the inside of a girl’s pussy, isn’t that right?”

Pidge was frozen. I couldn’t see their face. “Stop it.” Their voice was so quiet it was barely there. It wavered ever so slightly. They were trembling. “Stop it. I wasn’t—"

“Shut up, faggot. What else could you be—” James’ face twisted into the most vile fucking grin I’ve ever seen. “Or maybe,” James said, moving his hands lower, “I was right. And you’re just a little…” Hands moving under a shirt hem, “Fucking…” hands moved back up, moved too far up, touching everything, “Tranny.”

Pidge snapped. Still clutching their laptop, they jerked sharply, and swung their fist hard right into James’ face. Their face was wild and blank at the same time. Their body was shaking violently.

“What the fuck, you bitch?!” James yelped, staggering back. “Agh, fuck.” He whined, keeling over. I was shocked that none of the faculty came bolting down the hall to see what the fuck was going on. When he stood up he was clutching his nose. I saw red running down his chin. He was furious now, and his eyes were so dark. I couldn’t move. I wanted to step in but I couldn’t make my body move. Because I didn’t want to help. I was just as scared of James as Pidge was. We were powerless against him. If I ran in, he would just abuse me too. We weren’t people to him. Nobody was.

I pull one of the pillows I stole from Keith’s room over my head. My head won’t go quiet. Everything feels bad. It hasn’t stopped feeling bad in a long time. At this point I’m restless enough that I can’t help myself from thrashing. I know the walls are soundproof so when I start kicking all my bedding and contorting my body so it hits everything and it echoes all around my dull blue not-quite-cold room and can’t help myself from crying or screaming or making whatever the fuck this fucking noise is I don’t care. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this. I can’t get the mental image out of my head. James and his hands. Stop thinking about this. Stop it. Stop it. Just stop it. I just want to go to sleep. I want to go to sleep and not think at all for at least the next couple of hours. Days if that’s possible. Fuck, I can’t stop thinking. Fuck fuck fuck. I throw one of Keith’s pillows across the room.

Fuck. I’m thinking about Keith now. I don’t understand what’s happening to me.

I remember how James was with Keith too. Fuck, I don’t want to think about James. He was part of the reason Keith got expelled though. Keith got him worse then he likes to admit, which I’ve never bothered him about. I’m pretty sure Keith had some kinda blade and that’s the main reason they kicked him out. It was less about the use of violence and more about the weapon because it wasn’t issued to him by the administration. After a couple incidents early on, way before I ever got to the Garrison, they had some issues with unauthorized use of weaponry, so they got really stingy about them. Which I suppose was a good thing. Gun violence was not necessarily uncommon. Duels were pretty commonplace, although nobody admitted it. We still had duels going on back when I was there. I was never part of one, but I knew a few people who were. James got in a lot. He was a coward though and a rich brat who usually paid someone else to stand in for him. He got a lot of people shot our fist year. Only set to stun; he wasn’t killing people. But still.

I try to sleep again. I lie on my back as still as possible with no blankets or pillow or anything. Just my body on the mattress. The blue light is killing me. I can’t tell what time it is. Again, no windows. I feel like I’ve been up for hours.

I check the clock. I can’t read it because it’s in Altean. Coran showed me how to read it once, but I forgot. I know which hand is ticks and which is vargas, I just forget the way the numbers are oriented. It doesn’t matter though, because immediately I am startled by an alarm blaring loudly.

“Good Morning Paladins!” Coran’s voice bellows thorugh the halls of the ship. “Rise and Shine! It is currently 8:30 am according to US Central Time on Earth. Hunk is currently making a delicious pancake breakfast which shall be served in thirty doboshes! Today we will send Allura and Lotor to investigate the Quintessence field, so please put on your armor after you finish eating so that we can be ready to swoop in if they require assistance. Thank you!”

I don’t want to get out of bed. I can’t do this.

I take a deep breath.

No, it’s fine. It will all be fine. I can do this. I can make it another day. Just one more day.

I open my eyes and brace myself.

Notes:

This is my first fic so pls be nice :) I wrote this originally as a flashfic but I liked it so much that I wanted to expand on it. I'm planning on doing something with the fall I mentioned at the beginning since I think it would be fun to do flashbacks to explore Lance's backstory. updates will probably not be frequent since I have school, but also because I'm still new at this and need to figure out where I wanna go with it. Regardless, Thank you for reading & I hope you enjoyed!