Chapter Text
Keith woke up late, they didn’t have a mission, so he thought today would be a good day to catch up on some much needed rest. He rolled out of bed, threw on a t-shirt, and make his way to the kitchen. Everyone else was already up waiting for Hunk to finish breakfast. He ignored them all as he made his way to the coffee machine. Truthfully, he didn’t sleep in very late, it was only nine-thirty, but he was usually training by six. He filled his cup and made his way to his seat, with one leg pulled up to his chest.
“You’re late mullet. What happened, you’re usually here before anyone else? You look like you just got up.” Lance asked with way too much energy for Keith.
“I decided to sleep in today.” He scowled. Their conversion ended there, as the princess began going over her plans for the day.
“Okay paladins so, this week we have no planned missions, so I think the best way to spend our time would be to train. Today we ca-”
“Are we really gonna train all week?” Lance whined, interrupting Allura. “Can’t we go to the space mall, or go see a cool new planet?”
“Shut up. We could all use some extra training.” Keith grumbled.
“Whatever Joe Dirt.” Keith huffed in response.
“Actually, if we could go to the mall, I need some new cookware.” Hunk intervened.
“I wouldn’t mind going to the game store…” Pidge added on. The princess watched, trying to move her schedule around in her head to give them the time.
“Okay… We can go in two days….. as long as you will agree to do two different team exercises today.”
“Okay.”
“That works.”
“I’m down.”
“Keith?” Shiro asked, waiting for his response.
“Whatever, as long as it isn’t a stupid one.” The other three cheered to their success and turned their attention back to Allura.
“Ok, after we eat, we'll spar in pairs and do pairs in the training simulator. Then, we’ll come back for lunch, do private training, then the team building exercises I will explain then.” They all mumbled some form of agreement and began eating their breakfast. Roughly half an hour later, they were all suited up and ready to start sparring.
“Okay, first Hunk and Pidge will spar while Lance and Keith do the simulator.”
“Why do I always get stuck with him!”
“Shut up, you know you love me.” Lance replied before anyone else could say anything. He could feel the red rushing his face.
“No, I really don’t. Let’s just get this over with.” They got all the way up to level nine before things started going south. Lance was trying his hardest to stay focused, but his attention kept being drawn to the red paladin. He managed to pull himself back into the fight, but it was too late, two bots were already right infront of him. He did his best to defend himself with hand-to-hand combat, but it wasn’t enough. Before he even knew what was happening, he was flat on his back.
“Pause training sequence!” He heard Keith shout. “Lance, what are you doing? You have to start taking this more seriously!”
“I was taking it seriously! It’s just training anyways.”
“Yeah, but if you can’t fight in training what makes you think you can on a mission?”
“I just got distracted, we’ll just go again.”
“If that happens in a fight, you could get one of us killed. You have to stop messing around like that. We can’t just ‘Do it again’ if we’re in the middle of a battle.”
“Whatever… I - uh think I hit my head. I’m gonna go talk to Coran..” Lance walked off, really just going to his room. He hated when Keith did that. He always took everything too seriously… and maybe he was right, maybe he was putting everyone else in danger. He flopped onto his bed and let his thoughts consume him.
Meanwhile, Keith was making his way back to the group to let them know Pidge and Hunk could use the simulation now.
“We’re done.”
“Already? Where’s Lance?” Shiro asked. He just got a shrug in response. “What do you mean? He was with you.”
“He just walked off.”
“He just walked off? So, you guys started fighting?”
“No, he just wasn’t taking it seriously. He said he needed to go talk to Coran.”
“Okay, well just spar with me until he gets back.” They all continued training until lunch, and Lance was still nowhere to be seen. They all thought he would show up for lunch, but half-way through, he still wasn’t there. No one really thought anything of it. With what Keith said, they all assumed he was still with Coran. They went on training, Shiro just replacing Lance wherever he was missing. Finally, at dinner, Coran came in.
“Where’s Lance?” Pidge asked.
“How should I know? I haven’t seen him since breakfast.” He replied, clearly confused. ‘Shit’ Keith thought, standing up.
“I’m gonna go hit the showers.” He muttered, walking out, hoping they wouldn’t think anything of it.