#it will be a cold day in hell when i forget alluras knee brace

[seypia]

i'd do anything just to be with you

[dark-unimaginably-stupid-kids]

Not Dreaming of You [Ch 3]

(Because You Won’t Let Me Sleep)

Series- Voltron

Pairing(s)- End Game is Klancelot, with a heavy slight incline toward Keitor simply based on the set up.

Other pairs include minor Shallura, past Rolotor, one-sided Sheith. platonic (??) Plance and even a hint of Heith if you squint real hard.

Characters in this fic in order of most screen time: Keith, Lotor, Lance, Pidge, Hunk, our Lovely Lady Generals, Kuron, Shiro, Allura, Rolo and Nyma

Synopsis: Keith has been tensely living with Lotor for about a year. They aren’t exactly friends, but occasionally they can get along. Suddenly with no explanation their neighbor Rolo moves out and two very noisy whack jobs move in. Somewhere between the loss of Lotor’s old fuck buddy and Keith’s sleep deprivation things start to get a little…odd.

“I’m telling you, there is something wrong with them!”

This chapter: No Lotor or Keith, but a look at Lance and Pidge and how they got where they are today...

---

Chapter 3- Lance is a normal boy with normal problems. Cross my heart and hope to die.

The first thing Lance realized when he woke up was that the light in the motel room was way too bright. Like kick in the teeth glass shards in your eyes kind of bright.

Next, he notices how absolutely parched he is. Lips dry, throat on fire, hell his joints are screaming at him like he’s been dehydrated for days.

When his eyes finally adjust enough to the room another sense comes at him like a pile of bricks.

Everything…smells.

Down to the linen sheets and the small sizzling burn of a cheap lightbulb reaching the end of its life. But on top of that, almost downing him, is the smell of…iron?

… Jeez.

To make his current physical standings worse, he’s alone in the motel room he’d entered the night before with a very attractive partner.

Maybe, Lance hopes, they had some prior engagement to get to in a hurry. Maybe there was a note or something and this wasn’t just a one-night stand.

Though—he doesn’t remember having sex last night either. Though his shirt is off and nowhere in sight…

Lance dragged himself out of bed on wobbly feet. He could see his shoes over by the door where he’d left them, his jacket thrown on the chair—yeah he remembered that too. But then- nothing.

He stumbled over to his jacket and fished out his cellphone. His wallet was still in there too so that was a good sign. It wasn’t like the hot stranger (Who’s name was currently escaping him) had robbed him or anything. There was, sadly, still no note or anything to imply that they ever wanted to see Lance again though.

Maybe he’d done something embarrassing. Maybe he’d drank too much and just blacked out.

His phone reads 5:23AM. Which means, if he wanted to, he could still get home before his mom got up for work if he moved quickly enough.

He’d miss his shirt, but not as much as he’d miss casual family dinners without his mother glaring daggers into his soul for not being home when she says goodbye.

It wasn’t like he’d planned to get a motel room with a stranger but hey, when the opportunity presents itself you take it.

So with one last passing glance over the room, he pulls on his shoes, zips up his hoodie to cover the fact he was shirtless and wanders out of the motel. If he had a little more time he’d probably have made the bed, made sure the bathroom was clean and all that good nonsense because his mother did in fact raise him right but it wasn’t like he could catch a ride home.

Though, again, it really didn’t look like much had happened.

Bummer.

When he was outside he braced himself against the cold and briefly wondered if it was possible to order a Lyft or an Uber home right about then.

Not that he couldn’t make the walk, but this was some extra level chill in the air. Sure, it was March and winter was still just hanging around and he was shirtless under his coat so the cold made sense but this just seeped into his bones and nearly put him to sleep, he felt so damn weak.

Man, the sooner her got home the better. So he decided to jog.

By the time he got home, quietly letting himself into his house, he crawled straight into bed and passed out.

He didn’t hear his mother’s alarm go off nor did he hear her leave, too exhausted like his body was made of lead.

What did wake him up was his sister cooking lunch. She had evening classes at the local community college so this was pretty normal. Lance himself was taking the semester off due to a financial aid mishap so his job was to cook dinner.

He wasn’t sure what it was that had really woken him but by the time he drifted into the living room the smell of his sisters beef patties made his mouth water.

Which was already a feat in and of itself considering how he was still crazy thirsty. He mumbled a quick hello to his sister who rolled her eyes at him for sleeping in so late and let himself into the fridge to get at the Kool-Aid he and his siblings regularly kept stocked.

And, like the gross boy he was against all his mother’s teachings, drank straight from the pitcher.

Veronica shrieked at him and hit him with a spatula, “Asqueroso! Lance, you’re washing that and making more now!”

Lance rolled his eyes affectionately, “Si Mama.”

“Oh don’t call me that,” She hissed before turning back to her cooking. Lance downed what was left of the pitcher and looked her over. She was wearing a long sleeved blue cotton shirt and shorts that, as her brother, he wished she didn’t own.

“You’re gonna change before class right?” He asked.

She blinked at him, “Why? What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Nothing! Nothing, it’s just. Cold outside is all.”

“Lance.”

“Ponte pantalones o le digo a mama.”

She slammed the spatula down and gave him the finger before wandering off upstairs shouting about how he better not let her burgers burn.

As soon as she was gone Lance realized quite curiously that the food didn’t smell as good.

How odd.

---

When eating and drinking and taking a scalding shower does not help him feel any better, the lights are still bright everything still smells weird and his skin is still crazy cold he starts to panic.

So he calls his brilliant friend.

If anyone knew what kind of weird shit he’d gotten into last night it would be her. Though, he was a little concerned about calling her up at all since she’d basically dropped off the face of the earth about two weeks ago.

Thankfully, she answered the phone anyway.

“Lance!” She shouted into the receiver. The urgency in her voice almost made him forget his own issues.

“H-Hey Pidge, what’s wrong?”

“Can I come over? Please? Please—your siblings aren’t home right?”

Lance raised a brow but considered this. Marco and Luis were out skating at the park and Veronica was stomping around upstairs like she was getting ready to head out.

“Uh, yeah, Vero is just leaving… Are you okay?”

“I’ll explain when I get there okay? I just. I just need you to keep an open mind okay. And. Unlock the door.”

Lance nodded, then corrected himself by saying so out loud before he wandered over to the door. The light the filtered in through the glass frame landed on his skin and felt way warmer than a sun beam should. Lance almost couldn’t care though considering how cold he’d been just a moment before.

It felt kind of nice.

Until it didn’t. His skin was suddenly very red and stung like a bitch, very clearly a sunburn. How in the hell he managed to burn himself that quickly was anyone’s guess.

He stood there eyeing his hand until Veronica came up next to him.

“What are we looking at?” She asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and took her hand, holding it in the light.

She raised a brow at this but didn’t flinch at all. That was, until she noticed her brother’s fingers getting red.

“Lance! What—are you okay?” She pulled him out of the light and looked his hands over. He was honestly in too much shock to say much.

“…Tell mom when she gets home, we’ll get the insurance card and go to the doctor tomorrow, okay?”

Lance nods at her before she leaned foreward and kissed him on the cheek, “Maybe stay out of the sun for a bit okay?” She let herself out and told him to lock the door but per Pidge’s instruction he decided not to.

Besides, he was too distracted by the smell.

It was a couple minutes later when Pidge’s bike slammed into the side of Lance’s house and his front door swung open.

The girl practically rolled into the house, covered head to toe in a big green hooded coat, mittens and a scarf.

Lance knew it was cold at night, but the sun was still out and it certainly didn’t need any of that…

“Pidge are you—” he started from his spot on the couch, where he’d curled up with his phone to wait for her.

She didn’t let him finish this sentence though as she launched herself across the living room and onto her friend’s lap. Lance nearly shrieked.

“I’m sorry okay but I promise I’ll explain later and I just—ah…” Her forehead was burned, just like Lance’s hands, and her cheeks were flushed as well. Though whether that was a burn or embarrassment from her current position he didn’t know.

Honestly, he’d never thought of Pidge in this way and really had no idea how he was supposed to respond to the girl’s small knees straddling his waist. Definitely didn’t know how to feel about her hands tugging on his shirt or the way her mouth just hung open like she was the confused one.

“…Oh no.” She leaned into his neck and took a deep sniff of his skin.

“Pidge. Hun. Sweetheart. Please tell me what’s going on?”

She sighed deeply but didn’t remove herself from his lap, “I don’t know if this would still work…it doesn’t feel right…”

Lance groaned, hoping she understood how confused she was making him. Then she made it worse, by removing her mittens and reaching one of her own fingers into her mouth. She winced and pulled out her now bleeding finger, holding it up for him to see.

“What do you think of this, Lance?”

Lance stared at the small bead of blood on her skin.

And honestly…?

“…something is very wrong with us, isn’t there?”

Pidge sighed again and stared up at the ceiling, before letting out a very long and drawn out “Fuck.”

---

Adjusting was… difficult. And honestly, Lance could feel himself losing it day by day. He couldn’t spend too long with his siblings after that first time wit Pidge. He couldn’t enjoy his meals. He couldn’t sleep like a sensible human being.

Something had to give.

So he called her again. She picked up after the first ring, his calls now set to priority.

“Did you learn something?” She asked, not bothering with a greeting per usual.

Lance rolled his eyes and leaned further back against his pillow in his blue walled room. Maybe he’d teach her manners sometime. But considering the fact her current priority was to rid themselves of this ailment they were both suffering from, he wasn’t going to complain. Much.

“Pidgling, let’s go out.”

He could hear the skeptic look on her face.

“Lance.”

“Pidgling. Pidgling I’m serious. Let’s go. Let’s get out. Away from people we care about for a little bit. Just. Find a stranger. Take the edge off.”

He got to listen to her take a deep breath and let it go through her nose loudly. Definitely tempted. Definitely frustrated. Definitely…

“I’m about to reach through this phone and strangle you, we can’t think like that! We don’t know what will happen! What if—”

“What if I find a volunteer?” He hadn’t meant to say it like that, he hadn’t meant to say it at all. But the thought had occurred to him a few times.

After all, they were… kind of living a weird kind of fantasy right now, certain girls had wet dreams about this kind of shit. If he happened to mention it to someone who looked the part and they jumped on it, no big deal right?

He said as much to her and he proceeded to listen to her weigh the pros and cons of such a questionable venture before she made a small short determined sound.

“Okay. You know what? You go. Do your thing. When you’re done come over and tell me everything. I’m just. I’ll be here studying our blood samples.” She said it, she decided it, but she sounded sad.

“Or, and try this on for size Pidglet, you can get more blood samples.”

She groaned into the receiver and it was another twenty minutes before she conceded to be picked up.

Another five to convince her to borrow Matt’s car because Lance intended to drink something.

When they were finally seated around a bar, Lance eyed the crowd and established that everyone looked pretty normal and not fetishy at all.

“I think we came to the wrong club,” Lance offered as he gulped down his second shot of whiskey.

Pidge scrunched up her nose in distaste and turned back to her journal, “Well yeah probably, but you’re the one who chose this place so…”

She read over her notes and tapped her pencil on the spiral. The girl clearly had a problem leaving work at home.

“Well it’s not like we just stop having problems when we walk outside Lance, someone has to fix this mess!” She bit out, looking at him again.

He eyed the empty shot glass and wondered how much it was affecting him because he really didn’t remember saying that out loud. She groaned in exasperation and shooed him off.

“Whatever, go find someone to entertain yourself with while I get some liquid creativity in my system.” She flagged down the bartender and asked for something Lance was sure was very sugary that he’d have to steal a sip from eventually. But, for now, he went to peruse the club goers.

There was an interesting group of girls toward the back, almost looked like the type he’d been inclined to look for tonight if it wasn’t for the fact they were chattering about their missing boyfriend. All four of them. One guy. Lance may have been desperate, but he was not desperate enough to fuck with a guy who had four girls all openly discussing how much they missed him for not coming out with them tonight.

Anyone with that much game should be revered anyway.

Next stop, he spotted a girl with some fishnet leggings, ripped jeans, big thick black choker. Her skin was dark with smattered white patches that appeared to be tattooed on given how they resembled galaxies. As he approached her he realized the white patches were just part of her skin while the galaxies were drawn on every visible inch of her with what was probably the ball point pen sticking out of her back pocket.

Sure, she didn’t scream “bad tastes in wanna-be gothic media” but maybe she dabbled a little.

He sidled up to her, plastered on his most dashing smile and opened with his best line, “Hey there, the names Lance, and you are?”

She blinked up at him, pulling her attention away from her cellphone where she’d been rapidly typing just a moment before.

If Lance wasn’t so desperate, he would have noticed the sadness in her eyes before she seemed to settle on something.

“H-hey.” She shook her head and locked her phone, “Listen, I’m sure you’re a great guy but I’m kind of…not in the mood.”

Lance had been turned down a few times in his life. Came on too strong, too dorky, what have you. But her sincerity surprised him, so he decided to return the favor.

He leaned against the wall next to her and made sure his voice translated this for her. That he wasn’t looking for a hook up anymore and maybe she would appreciate that.

“That’s cool, that’s cool don’t worry about it,” He offered softly, “If you want me to leave I will, but your phrasing leads me to believe things could be…better, is everything alright? Do you need me to call you a ride home?”

She glanced down at her phone but didn’t answer.

“…Or maybe… you could talk to me about it? I promise I’m a good listener.”

He watched the tension leak out of her shoulders and she turned and smiled at him, all previous apprehension suddenly evaporated with just those few little words.

“I appreciate that… my name’s Nyma.”

“Nice to meet you Nyma. So go ahead, tell me about it.”

And she did. In explicit detail. So much so that he had to wonder how much she had to drink despite the fact she didn’t seem to be drinking at all.

Before he knew it Pidge was groaning at his side about how tonight had amounted in absolutely nothing while Nyma continued to prattle on about someone named Beezer who Lance was pretty sure was a dog. Beezer had absolutely nothing to do with the main subject which was how Nyma’s friend had ditched her for the evening but that conversation had ended at some point and Nyma just kept going.

“Tell your girlfriend we gotta go. Man, does she ever shut up?”

Lance shoved her and hissed out a quick, “Rude Pidgeon.” Before turning back to Nyma who’d barely noticed the disturbance.

“Hey, sweetheart, I’m really sorry about this but I kind of have to go, my friend here is tired and we came together. We can talk later if you want? Give me your number, I’ll shoot you a text and we’ll meet up some other time, yeah?”

Nyma blinked a few times like she was skidding to a mental halt before nodding sadly, “Oh. Right. Okay.” She held out her hand or his phone and quickly punched her digits into his contacts.

“Cool,” Lance said simply, replacing his phone in his jacket pocket while Pidge groaned again, “It’s a date then.”

Nyma blinked again, as if struggling with the term before smiling, “Well I actually have a boyfriend but yeah, whatever you say, it’s a date.” Her smile was nearly blinding and not at all forced despite what she’d just said.

Lance raised a brow and felt Pidge stiffen at his side before she leaned forward and stared at Nyma, “You have a boyfriend…? But just agreed to go on a date with Lance?”

Nyma didn’t seem phased at all, “Yeah. I mean. I’m monogamous, but there’s just something really compelling about Lance. It feels like it’s okay.”

Lance stared at her in an absolutely horrified silence before Pidge continued their goodbyes for him, “Ooookay! Well, we have to get going, but Lance will totally text you…” Lance heard her mumble “you weird ass sloppy—” which made him hiss loudly to shut her up.

Nyma clearly heard nothing and waved goodbye as the two of them bolted out of the club.

It was a few hours later, curled up on Pidge’s couch feeling so drained and so fucking thirsty, that Lance heard the strangest sound.

The sound of Pidge figuring out something useful about their predicament.

“…Lance.”

“Yeah?”

“You need to call Nyma.”

---

Lance… had no words to describe the date he’d just had.

He just.

Wow.

He and Pidge were currently sitting in a hotel room Nyma had purchased for the evening. Nyma herself was in the shower trying to wash off the mess at Lance’s request and Pidge laid on the floor, half under the bed with her notebook in hand.

“She really let us do that.”

“She really did.”

“All because you said so.”

“…Are we sure that’s why she did it?”

Pidge stared at him for a long moment and he stopped his pacing across the worn grossly patterned carpet.

He’d had the sense to remove his shirt so it was clean and sitting folded on the cushioned chair by the door, but Pidge looked like a demon straight out of hell, her face, her clothes, hell even her hair was a mess. She’d have to shower next and he didn’t care if he had to throw her into the tub it was going to happen.

Not that he apparently needed to go that far though.

“Lance. Lance I can feel my heart beating again do you know what that’s—well of course you do.” She breathed after a moment, still spinning in her euphoria. Lance raked his fingers through his hair and breathed in through clenched teeth.

“We can’t do this Pidge. Can’t just. We could have hurt her.”

Pidge bolted up and there was the decidedly horrific sound of her spine hitting the bottom of the bed but she barely even winced and crawled out the rest of the way, tossing her notebook onto the still clean queen sized bed in the room.

“But! But we didn’t! We need this Lance! We need her—I can’t—I can’t even look at my brother anymore Lance he’s all I have and I look at him and—and I can’t—I can’t even stay in the house anymore I can smell him, please, please I don’t know why you can do this and I can’t but we need this!” Her eyes watered and Lance felt his beating heart seize up in his chest.

“I don’t know what I’ll do if I wake up one morning and find out I hurt him.” Pidge breathed.

Lance didn’t need her to say it. He’d had the same thoughts around Veronica and his younger brothers lately. Hell, his aunt came over the other day and she got a little too close to him when babbling about his taking the semester off and he’d gotten so lost in the idea of—

…

“We need to move. Both of us. We need to move out. And find some other way.”

“Hey guys,” Nyma started, a towel draped over her shoulders while she wore a large fluffy white robe. Lance eyed her neck stiffly and made to wrap a home-made paper towel scarf around her neck.

“Try not to stain the hotel stuff okay, sweetheart?” He mumbled to her.

Her eyes widened as if she hadn’t considered and she smiled at him, “Right! Of course. Will do. Anyway. So, I may or may not have taken a snap getting out of the shower just now and my boyfriend has a couple questions, would it be alright if he came over?”

Pidge eyed Lance like they were about to embark on disengaging an active bomb.

Lance acknowledged this was probably a fair response, but turned to Nyma and figured, why not.

“Nyma, does Rolo live alone?”