Chapter Text
*The Next Day* *Daniel*
A slumbering Daniel is in his bed, still dressed in his cadet uniform. Beside his sleeping face is Vince excitedly waiting for him to wake up since the two of them promised to hang out the whole day. A groan comes from him as he starts to open his eyes. As he opens eyes and sees Vince, he reacts. “AHH!”
“Morning!” Response Vince with a huge smile. The frown turns into a smile realizing the person in front of him is his best friend..and secret crush. He pushes himself up on the bed, not noticing that his selves go up slightly, showing his bandages. A worried glace appears on Vince, “Daniel, are you ok?”
“Uh?” The green pilot points to his arm. “Oh! Y-yeah, I’m fine. Just got hurt in the sim fighting Lotor last night.” He lies through his teeth, hoping Vince won’t question him anymore. He pulls his sleeve back down with the reminder in his head about hiding his injuries.
“Well, you shouldn’t do the sims late at night because you won’t be as alert with being tired, so please don’t do that again.” Vince pleaded with him. “Don’t make me give you the puppy eyes.”
Daniel chuckles, “Ok. Ok. You win.” Putting up his hands in defeat. “I won’t kick fake Lotor’s ass during the night.”
“Don’t you mean falling on your ass?” Vince smirks. The two of them laugh together. “Come on, get dressed in some normal people’s clothes.”
“Normal clothes, don’t remember the last time I didn’t have wear these tight ass suits.” He laughs as he climbs down the latter.
“I know! It sucks that Keith makes us wear this constantly!”
He throws his arm around Vince’s shoulder, “Especially since our Voltcom makes the suits or something over our other clothes. There is literally no reason to wear this stuff all of the time!”
A sight blush across Vince’s face, “I can’t wait to wear something comfortable….and see you in a different outfit.”
“Did you say something else?” He got right up to Vince’s face.
“N-No! Just excited for our day!….date.” Daniel raises his eyebrow, thinking he heard something else but shakes it off. “J-just get dressed mister! I will wait outside the door!” Vince smiles at Daniel before he leaves the room.
A loving sigh escapes Daniel’s lips as he looks at the closed door with soft eyes. ‘Well well well, Mr. Lover Boy. What did we talk about?’ The soft eyes turn to dark as he hears the voice in his head. ‘Don’t be too happy. He will never like you back.’ He just shakes his head.
‘I don’t care right now.’ He moves along to the closest that he rarely uses because he never gets to change his outfit, but this time is different.
‘Just don’t say that I didn’t warn you. I will let you be with this fantasy for now since you will see in no time.’ With that the voice went silence, Daniel tries his best to ignore the strange feel he has. In his hand is his favorite outfit, a simple purple and black hoodie that is almost a replica Virgil’s from Sander Sides. Along that is a pair of light blue jeans. Quickly, he gets dressed.
Daniel walks through the door to Vince, “What do you think?” He says with a true smile.
“Looks good on you. Too bad you can’t wear that often.” Vince chuckles, Daniel responds also with a chuckle. “Since I promised you would have me of all today, I was thinking of us going to get breakfast at this Arus restaurant that Larmina showed me. What do you think?”
“Sounds amazing if Larmina recommend it! She knows all of the best places here!”
“Yeah, wish we had more time for Larmina to show us around. Keith is very strict about his preparations. Won’t let us have a break.”
“…yeah…I miss hanging with you guys.” Daniel frowns at the thoughts entering his head.
Before the thoughts can consume him, Vince grabs his shoulder, softy smiling, “Let’s not think about that, after all we have all day to enjoy! Besides, I’m sure Larmina will be free soon anyway!”
Daniel returns the smile with his own, “You’re right! It’s time for some fun!”
The two start walking before they are interrupted by Vince’s Voltcom, “Vince? Can you come to the repair bay, this is important?”
Vince lets out a disapproval sigh as he clicks the respond button on the Voltcom, “I will be right there Pidge.” He turns to the frowning Daniel, “I’m so sorry. I promise this will be quick then we can leave.”
The frown turns to a small sadden smile, “I will wait right here.”
“Thanks for understanding.” He takes off and yells back, “I will be back soon! I promise!”
Until Vince leaves his line of sight, Daniel keeps a forced smile on his lips before they curl down with threatening tears in his eyes. With a deep breath or two, the tears disappear for the time being.
—————Meanwhile with Vince————
Running into the Lion’s Den, he comes up to Pidge working on the green loin, “This better be important Pidge, I promised to hang out with Daniel all day.”
“Promise you Vince, this is important. Wouldn’t take you way from your date for no reason.” They chuckle.
“I-it’s not a date.” He mumbles, turning his head to hide his blush.
“Sure bud, keep telling yourself that.” Pidge puts down the equipment they were using back on the table before facing Vince. “In all seriousness, we have a problem with Green.”
“What’s the problem?”
Pidge pulls up a hologram screen that full of code. “Something changed in Green’s code, it is causing malfunctions especially when transforming into Voltron.” They highlight a certain piece of code. “Lucky, we haven’t had to have the big guy out recently since the malfunctions seem to get worse every time we transform. Though, we need to figure this out as soon as possible before something happens.”
Vince nods as he listens, “I’m guessing you want me to use my powers to look further into Green’s code.”
“That is correct.”
Vince summons his lighting blue wire power and connects it into Green, “Let’s look into you buddy.” He whispered to Green.
————Back to Daniel————
While waiting for Vince to return, he decides that he should clean up their shared room a bit, as a way to distract himself from his consuming thoughts. He starts with making his bed, taking off the messy blankets, throwing them on the floor with a thump. The next item to meet it’s fate with the floor is the pillow.
A tiny dark gray item appears on without the pillow to conceal it, with the lights reflecting off of it into Daniel’s purple eyes. A smudge of dry blood from last nights ‘activity’, that was missed during the cleaning.
In a panic, Daniel takes the razor blade and shoves it into his pocket. Before the initial panic becomes something more, a knock on the door interrupts it. Quickly, in the hopes that they person knocking is Vince, he gets off his bed and opens the door. A wave of disappointment fills his veins seeing Lance before the flood of happiness comes over him, making him truly smile.
“Hey Lance! Can I help you?” He asks hopefully.
“Hey bud!” His personal hero smiles at him, “Not really. I’m just checking up on you since I have a minute. How have you been?” He glances at the mess on the ground around Daniel, “Trying to make your bed?”
“Y-yeah.” Slightly chuckle, “The top bunks are always hard to make.” Nervously, he looks towards the ground before back at Lance, praying he says something…anything.
Lance points to him while leaning on the doorway. “Say, are you going somewhere? You’re not wearing your cadet uniform.”
He looks up in slight shock from the question. “Oh! Vince and I are going out since Vince promised we would today.” Putting emphasis on promised to jog Lance’s memory.
“Good for you guys.” He pauses for a moment, “I feel like I was supposed to do something yesterday, but I just can’t remember. It feels important.” Daniel’s eyes widen with anticipation, ready to bust at the seams with joy and despair. “Oh well! You know what they say! If you forgot something, it probably wasn’t important to begin with!” Lance chuckles, “Or something like that. I can never remember what the correct phrasing is.”
Water threatens to fill Daniel’s eyes, once that happens tears will be falling nonstop for however long it takes to stop feeling the weight of loneliness in his chest. His ears become deafened to the world around him. Lance is clearly talking with an expression he can’t quite grasp at the moment, but annoying ringing is all he can hear. His glance falls to the floor for a minute.
A hand ruffles his hair, a comforting warm touch fills his chest. “I feel you buddy, I’m sure it’s nothing.” A heartwarming smile comes from Lance before he runs out of the cadets’ room with worrying speed.
The warmth in Daniel’s chest quickly becomes the cold burdening crushing sensation that was there before, but now 10 folds worse. Knowing what delightful feeling it could be and was caused the dreadful to feel worse.
With the knowledge that Lance, his mentor, couldn’t remember the one promise that filled him with hope killed him. Especially with that dismissive phrasing that ultimately deemed him unimportant. His worst fears come to life, a nightmare to reality.
His right hand slowly reaches into his pocket. A finger graces against the cold metal. Blood trickles down onto the razor.
————Back to Vince————
Pidge is currently running through all of Green’s code as they can that Vince got while Vince is Green’s wiring that the code runs through.
“Sooo, did you find a gift for Daniel?” Pidge asks in a somewhat teasing tone.
Vince blushes, rubbing his head, “Well, we didn’t find anything since midway through someone stole our VoltComs so ended up tracking them down for the rest of the time. Good thing we got our VoltComs back.”
“That is a good thing. Sorry you couldn’t find anything for Daniel.”
“About that…”
“Hmm?”
“One of the shop keepers that was stolen from gave me a free small bag of gems for stopping that thief.” Vince pulls out one of the gems, Vivieite, showing it to Pidge in a blushing mess.
“Holy cow! Ho-wait, does this mean you're going to actually ask Daniel out?”
“I mea-mean that’s the plan. M-maybe that’s not a good idea. I me-mean what if it ruins his whole birthday because he has to reject me?” Vince’s brain fills with worries and doubts.
Pidge just sighs, “Vince, it’s ok. It’s not going to ruin Daniel’s birthday. Your not going to ruin anything.”
A small smile forms on Vince’s face, “Thanks Pidge…I needed that.”
“Besides, at least you have something to give to Daniel.” They slightly chuckle, “The rest of us are screwed.” They sigh.
“I’m sure that one of the others can pick something up for all of us before tomorrow.”
A moment of silence passes. The lack of response gnaws Vince’s anxiety. “Pidge?”
“….we are so fucked.”
Vince drops the wires he was holding. Quickly, sprinting over to Pidge’s hologram screen with code to see the problem. His eyes widened, “Ffffuck.”
Pidge flips their VoltCom to life. “Lance, come to the bridge! All other pilots return to the castle immediately! Turns out Maahox’s had one last scheme before he died.”