Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a weird feeling; to talk and know that no one was listening. To the point where he could say anything and it would be nothing but white noise to anyone else. He was annoyed at first, and anyone would be really, but at this point he’s moved from annoyance to resignation.

He's used to people ignoring him, it came with the territory of growing up in a big household; sometimes people just didn’t have the time for everyone. So yeah, Lance spent a lot of time at home being ignored.

Sure Lance got used to it, but he liked to imagine a world where he didn’t have to. One where everyone actually valued what he said and didn’t just ignore it.

But that wasn’t really the case. And it sucked. So he decided to make it fun.

At first he didn’t even mean for it to become a game, it was just something he tried once to see if his family was really listening. He tell them he would be “off to the war”, or “going to get a neck tattoo”, or something equally as unlikely. It was just something to confirm his suspicions that no one was listening. That was until it became habit; until he made it into something fun, because otherwise it would be depressing, and he’s had enough of that as is.

So he makes it a game. He tries to make them more and more outlandish with each go.

“I’m off to be abducted!”

“That’s nice, Hun”.

“I’m leaving to go live my dream of being a rodeo clown”.

“Can you grab some eggs while you’re out?”

“I’m leaving for the Garrison!”

“Uh-huh, that’s great”.

Okay, maybe it still hurt.

But when he became a member of Voltron he’d thought he’d left that behind. Hell when he left for the Garrison he’d thought it’d be over.

‘You’d think that being on a team revolving around the paladins connection with one another would be more open to listening to one another’.

And yet here he is at dinner, having talked for almost ten minutes straight about the last planet the team had visited only to look around and find that everyone else was in their own conversation.

Hunk and Pidge were chatting about building something to better detect Galra technology and Keith, Shiro, and Allura were talking strategy about where they would travel next in the long list of Galra held planets.

Coran, unfortunately, was busy checking over the wormhole generator and running routine diagnostics to join them.

‘At least then I might have someone to talk to’, Lance thought bitterly as he ate another scoop of space goo.

Lance glanced at how deeply the others were talking and before he had even made the conscious decision his mouth was moving out of habit.

“Y’know I was thinking of getting a tongue piercing. You guys think that’s too much, or should I start with ears and work my way up?”

Hunk didn’t even turn when he answered with, “Huh? Yeah, sure buddy”.

It stung a little more knowing that it was from Hunk. Lance had thought that after how close they had gotten at the Garrison these types of things wouldn’t happen.

“Apparently I was mistaken about a lot of things”, Lance mumbled knowing the team wouldn’t notice if he’d said it aloud, or not.

Lance slowly rose with his dishes and made his way into the kitchen and putting them into the Altean version of a sink. He walked back out glancing at how the table’s conversations hadn’t even faltered before deciding to try again.

“Well, goodnight guys I’m just gonna go hunker down with my bag of space weed I bought from my local space dealer. Y’know how crazy that can get, I hear that it can make someone’s face melt off”.

Lance looked at each of their faces as they quickly gave a mumbled goodnight back.

The blue paladin’s lips pursed as he slowly backed out of the room and headed towards Blue’s hangar. Maybe a visit to his favorite girl would help cheer him up. She always had an open ear when he wanted to be listened to.

---

“Turns out I was wrong; even in a group of five I can be ignored”, Lance mumbled as he looked around the holodeck.

They’d all grouped together in their little clusters seeming to unconsciously distance themselves from Lance.

Shiro, Pidge, and Keith were chatting together about useful Galra tech and if they could use it or not with Allura and Hunk occasionally weighing in.

They had completely ignored him all morning after he had gotten into another argument with Keith in the training room resulting in Keith and him being taken out by the gladiator. It had left a nasty bruise running up his side and a chewing out by both Shiro and Allura.

“Yeah, but if they have giant vats of quintessence then that’s gotta be what they use to power their ships, right”, Pidge asked.

Lance decided to try and weigh in, “Well I mean they did harvest the Balmeran for generations who's to say they don’t have-”

“Not right now Lance- and no, actually as-”.

Lance sighed as he rocked back onto his heels lightly clapping his hands together not even drawing a single eye towards him. He glanced to the door and back to the group again before admitting defeat.

“...Right well, I think I’m getting a tattoo. Not really sure where, but I was thinking of Zarkon’s face on my arm. Any thoughts”, he asks with a bored expression knowing ti was pointless to try at the moment.

“Uh-huh, cool- now what about quintessence from other planets?”

Lance turned leaving the others to their theoretical talk.

‘Maybe Coran needs help, at least I know he’s too polite to block me out’, he thought heading towards where he assumed the royal advisor to be.

---

It wasn’t like he had made the game with any intention of actually doing any of the things. The whole point was to make half of the things he said impossible, it made the game a little more interesting.

It just so happens that this is the one time that they are ignoring him with access to do actually go through with it.

They had stopped at a smaller planet inhabited by vaguely humanoid, almost gorilla-like creatures. It was honestly like walking into a Planet of the Apes movie. It was a bit weird considering they had four arms and were green, but still.

They also just so happened to have a piercings and tattoo parlor down the street from where the lions had been left.

Upon landing Lance had barely looked at the shop only briefly glancing at a few aliens he could see through the window getting something or another done. The blue paladin had barely registered it in his head that was until his game started up again.

The natives had called them in to discuss in detail what would come about their planet if they were to join team Voltron. It had become slowly commonplace as Voltron's popularity grew for free planets to summon them to talk about joining the ‘rebel cause’.

It made Lance almost laugh the first time he’d heard it recalling his Star Wars movie collection he had back home.

The meeting of the the natives and Voltron was extremely casual as the council of the planet, Liopia, if he recalled correctly, held their meetings outside and had even been so kind as to bring in food. For most diplomatic meetings the paladins go to they stick together like glue, and stay, for the most part vigilant.

It just so happened that instead of sticking together the team had decided to split up. Shiro and Keith checking the planet’s defenses, Hunk and Pidge looking into technological updates they could help with, and Allura stuck close to the council discussing the politics of the team up.

Lance had been left out of the team divisions for some reason so he decided to hang back with Allura for a bit to see if he’d be needed. As it turned out he wasn’t; the entire council seemed heavily enraptured by whatever Allura was saying, most likely because they needed Voltron’s help so badly, and both the princess and the aliens seemed plenty happy enough to ignore him.

The blue clad teen removed his helmet and tried to pat down his hair the humidity was absolutely killing all of the work he had put into it this morning. He grunted before he headed towards Allura trying in vain to once pat his hair down from where it had frizzed up again.

“Yo, Princess, do you want me check out the perimeter or something”, he asked not wanting to just sit here and not do anything.

Allura waved him off over her shoulder elegantly as she spoke of Zarkon’s tyranny and Voltron’s never ending battle for justice. Lance had heard it a million times at this point.

Not even the natives had seemed to look at him too captured in the Altean princess’ speech.

“Okay, I’m gonna go get some tattoos, maybe get some piercings while I’m at it? Hell, maybe even become a prostitute, see if I can’t make some space money while I’m here. Do you think I can contract space herpes? I mean the night is still young”, he said just letting his mouth run at this point.

All he received in acknowledgement was another wave.

Lance went ahead and made his way to walk back to Blue. As he walked he tried to keep his mind focused on the following the path, but his mind wandered easily returning to thoughts of home.

The sandy beaches and rolling waves. The sandcastle building contests with his siblings, collecting seashells, even his surfboard.

‘Wonder if I can make one. Might be able to use it if we ever get a chance to go to a beach planet’, he thinks before his eyes catch a light.

Glancing up he noticed that most of the homes and shops’ lights had been turned off except for one. It was the tattoo/piercings place he had spotted on landing here.

The paladin of Voltron glanced through the window to see two of the native gorilla aliens leaning on the counter top and chatting idly. He glanced over the work station, each one having a cushioned chair similar to an Earth tattoo parlor.

Lance glanced to where he knew Blue was located before turning back to the parlor. Determination steeled his resolve as he dug through his pockets to find the funds he now always kept on hand (he had learned from the space mall, thank you very much).

And that’s how he got his first tattoo.
He had gotten a picture of rolling waves down his arm in a sleeve with coral reefs lining his lower arms. The people of this planet weren’t known for sea exploration, so Lance kept it at that. Though for the rest of night he sat in Blue his mind was flooded with different sea creatures to one day add to his arm. Even Blue brought up images of various sea life she had seen from her past to possibly add as well.

Lance smiled down at his sore arm his eyes drawn to a small sand castle sitting at the bottom of the reef with a tiny flag sprouting from the top.

‘Yeah. Definitely going to be a next time’.

---

As time passed his arm collected more and more life. He now had a thriving ecosystem on his arm, his blue paladin symbol on his right wrist, ‘Mi Familia’ written over his heart, and three piercings on each ear.

He constantly fiddled with his blue stud piercings and at night he would run his fingers over each tattoo fondly.

Lance had been considering getting Blue’s face somewhere on his other shoulder next time and maybe a tongue piercing. His game had quickly turned into something more and every time he looked down at his tattoos he was thankful for it.

It saddened him that the other paladins hadn’t really seemed to notice, though he was always wearing his jacket. And his ears were slightly hidden due to the new length of his hair (he still refused for his hair to be cut by anyone but a salon level professional).

That still didn’t mean that he wasn’t hurt by them ignoring him constantly, though his game had quickly remedied any hard feelings he held. Each time he was ignored he simply added to himself. Each time coming out with a new part of himself to admire.

The blue paladin would always rush to Blue after getting a new piercing or tattoo to gush about it. Each time the lion would sit and admire them with him as they would share memories about whatever they were thinking about that day.

Lance has always hated winning his little game, but if these were his prizes he could learn to like it.

Chapter Text

It had been a long week to say the least. They had saved two planets that had been taken by Zarkon and had even stopped an invasion mid take over.
They had settled several peace treaties with the planets, and Pidge had done nicely in making a communication network in case they needed assistance.
And they had even found a Galra communication hub which they had made rather quick work of if they do say so themselves.

Team Voltron was worked to the bone by this point. They had been in nonstop motion for the past week and the team wanted nothing more than a break. Of course Allura simply thought they were lazy and of course enforced a strict training schedule in order to keep the paladins on their feet.

The paladins in question were anything but appreciative to Allura’s idea.

After about twenty minutes of complaining with Shiro trying and failing to encourage the team to do as the royal Altean says Allura put her royal foot down.

So here the paladins were locked in the training deck with bayards at the ready. They hadn’t had time to change into their armor so they were stuck in their regular clothing. Lance grumbled as he removed his jacket setting it next to Hunk’s vest who had also forgone any extra material knowing it’d either get ruined or it would be too hot to wear after training.
Keith being his rebel self kept on his leather jacket just waiting for the training to start.

“Alright, paladins”, called Coran. “We’re going to start off on the easy settings for the gladiator and work our way up, and I went ahead and worked out the little glitch where it tries to disembowel you at level eleven. So there should be no more problems! Good-luck!”

With that the gladiator drops down and proceeds to lightly jab at the team easily being blocked by both Shiro and Keith.

“Wait, what was that about disemboweling”, shrieked Hunk.

“Focus guys!”, the black paladin called.

Shiro dove to the side avoiding a swipe from the gladiator as Keith took advantage and slashed at the robot knocking him back.
A circle of light beeped around the fallen gladiator signaling an end to the level.

The team breathed out a collective sigh before the gladiator rose for the next level to begin causing an uproar of groans.

Shiro was the first one to snap out of it keeping his eyes on the training robot.

“Alright team let’s just keep it up a bit longer, all right? Hopefully if we work together we can get done soon”, the leader cajoles.

Pidge grumbles something under her breath as the group forms a semicircle hoping to cover all of their weak points.

The gladiator slowly advances before becoming a blur of motion and dodging to the left to take a swipe out of Hunk who closed his eyes in a shriek and fired blindly for a moment barely scraping the robot’s shoulder causing it to lose balance.
Pidge took advantage of the momentary slip and shot her ripcord around the gladiator and giving it a giant tug causing the robot to slip slightly. Pidge gave grunt of annoyance before a shot rang out and promptly knocked the robot onto its side. A circle of light pings around the robot and the green paladin recalls her cord with a smirk.

“Way to go Hunk!”, she calls not noticing Lance’s smoking gun.

The team quickly fall into a pattern.

The gladiator rises, they take him down. Each time different and much harder than the last.

At around level ten Coran calls time out pausing the training exercise. In moments he walked in with packets of water and trays of space goo. Each of the paladins fall to the floor in a heap of exhaustion quickly accepting the snacks.

Keith went ahead and took off his jacket setting it gently to the side as Pidge did the same with her jacket revealing a ghostbusters t-shirt. Shiro took off his vest and rolled up his sleeves revealing a collection of scars. Hunk pulled up his sleeves thankful for his bandana to keep his sweat and hair out of his face.

Lance slumped dramatically onto his side with a loud groan tugging at his shirt until the hem of it rose above his stomach and pulled his sleeves to the base of his shoulders.

Lance huffed after a large gulp of water, “Okay, it’s official; I’m never moving again”.

Pidge snorted a laugh joined with a chuckle from Hunk as the two turned to the blue paladin before stopping. Their eyes quickly caught onto the pictures adorning the Cuban’s body with his arms on full display like this.

“Woah, Lance, since when did you have tattoos”, Pidge shrieked hurrying over to his side to inspect the ink with curious eyes.

Hunk rushed over joining the computers expert at Lance’s side looking over the tattoos critically.

“Yeah, you definitely didn’t have these when we left Earth”.

The other paladins quickly came over to Lance’s side to look over the markings in interest each not noticing the grimace adorning said teens face.

He sat up slightly leaning on his forearms to look over the team still nursing his water pouch. An air of casualness replaced the sudden tension as Lance relaxed, a cocky expression replacing his grimace easily.

“Oh, these? Just a little while ago, thought they’d help me impress some babes y’know?”

Coran walked over with a stony expression on his face before changing to an innocent one.

“Didn’t you get those about a hundred decapheebs, or so ago? Yes, I remember you showing them to me you were quite proud of them”, Coran looks to the paladin with a certain glint in his eyes as the blue clad teen gulped.

Lance laughed tightly as he waved offhandedly.

“R-right, yeah not that long ago. I mean-”.

“Woah, wait do you get piercings”, Keith said curiously leaning in to get a better look.

Lance all of a sudden sprung up his face a rather deep red as he brushed off the other’s interest with a forced laugh.

“Haha, we should really get back to training am I right?”

“Nope”, shouted Hunk as he grabbed Lance by the shoulders and pulled him close.

The larger paladin looked at Lance’s ears as he held the protesting Cuban in his arms, the lanky teen’s feet barely touching the ground.

Hunk hummed as he looked at his friend before nodding and looking over to the others.

“Three piercings each ear”, he confirmed. “That and a tattoo? Dude, your mom’s gonna kill you when you get home”.

Lance swallowed thickly as he was set down embarrassment making his face Keith’s lion. He hadn’t really ever thought about being caught before, and while this wasn’t necessarily the same it was still a major part of it. The details of his game, and how he felt about it he would try his best to take to the grave, but this? He could give them this.

“...A couple tattoos actually”, he admitted grudgingly his face slowly returning to his natural color.

Pidge perked up immediately. Her and Hunk instantly on the blue paladin again.

“Show us!”

“Yeah share with the rest of the class!”

Lance glanced at the two before looking over at Shiro and Keith who stood with curiosity in their eyes silently insisting the same. Lance groaned in resignation. Moving to sit back down as his aching legs protested, the other paladins moving to sit around him like a weird kindergarten class’ show and tell.

“Fine”, he huffed as he pulled his shirt completely off.

He decided to start off with his first tattoo pointing to his large ocean scene sleeve. It had been months since he first got it done and he was happy to see that it had quickly become an aquarium of different species of sea life. With each planet they visited he always tried to find the alien’s equivalent to a tattoo parlor.

It had resulted in quite a few interesting methods of getting them including a type of printing system, a needle, and interestingly enough a type of alien leech and berries. It proved interesting as it gave different textures and feeling to the different creatures littering his arm.

He pointed to each creature giving the name and which planet he had gotten in done on the others listening with rapt attention. Lance smiled at how enthusiastic they got over him explaining the tattoos, they’d certainly never showed this kind of interest with anything else he’d said.

“So why did you get the octopus?”

“What kind of shark is that?”

“Is that another shark, or- or like a dolphin, or...?”

“Geez, how many types of fish do you have?”

It was a flurry of innocent questions swarming around Lance until Pidge pointed out that the collection of sea stars was by far her favorite instantly spurring the others to point out theirs.

Hunk said that he thought that the octopus was totally the best, and Keith said that the reef shark was obviously cooler, while Shiro admitted that he really liked the sea turtle.

As he slowly ran out of animals to explain he moved over to his other wrist to show them the paladin symbol he had gotten done. The simple design wasn’t much but it certainly sparked interest with the other paladins. Keith was deeply considering getting one with Shiro only giving him a look in response to the comment.

Lance chuckled before moving to his shoulder with a smile. He had only recently gotten this one, it was the figurehead of Blue. He had managed to get this tattoo from the planet with the printer tattoo parlor so that it was a dead ringer for his lion. He was very proud of it and he remembered the burst of love and affection that came from Blue when he showed her.
He’s sure that this one is definitely her favorite.

All of the paladins perk up in interest when he tells them how much flattered Blue was. They were surprised to find that Lance had become so attuned with his lion without them noticing.

Pidge blinked for a moment before pointing out Lance’s last tattoo.

“What about that one?”

Lance looked down to where her finger was pointed to see ‘La Familia’ printed in cursive lettering over his heart.

It was his most personal tattoo that he had gotten so far, and he worried his lip for a moment in thought to what his response would be.

He thumbed over it lightly before going for a simple, “It’s for my family”.

Pidge thankfully drops it at that.

After a moment of sitting in silence Lance gets up to retrieve his shirt before slipping it back on.

He smiles at the group, the paladins seemingly all lost in thought over this new information.

‘Why didn’t we notice’, was a common thought between the group.
The blue paladin bends back slightly cracking his spine with a groan.

“You guys ready to go again? I don’t wanna be the one Allura catches slacking off. She’d probably make us do pushups for a month!”

Hunk snorts as he helps himself up.

“Still better than Iverson though, huh buddy?”

Lance looks into the distance and shivers as if remembering unseen horrors.

“Way better”, Lance agrees with a nod.

Coran smiles from where he stood off to the side. He was glad that the team was finally understanding the problem he had been trying for some time to help solve to no avail.

Lance reminded the Altean a lot of himself from his youth and he would hate to ever see the boy down, especially if it was in his power to solve.

The advisor clapped loudly drawing the attention of everyone in the room.

“Welp, I’ll get the training course started up again! Maybe you five will break your record this time”, he cheers before making his way back to the control hub of the training deck.

He knew that things would probably change between the paladins now that they knew.

‘But’, he thought looking down at the paladins who were laughing at something Lance said. ‘Maybe it’ll be for the better’.