Today was like all the others. Lance would go around to everybody and ask them one of three questions depending on who they were. If it was the Alteans, or Shiro it was: do you need help with anything? If it was Hunk or Pidge it was: do you want to hang out? Or if it was Keith: do you want to hit up the training room?

Like all other days, only one person said yes.

Keith.

At first, Lance was pretty discouraged considering that the person that didn't like him the most would be the one to spend the most time with him. Even though it was just two hours of Keith kicking his ass in the training room, it became one of the only times he could spend in another person's presence because he was actually wanted.

Before he went into space, he already struggled with thoughts like this but constantly being surrounded by people who were smarter and stronger than he thought of himself, caused a seed of doubt to cloud his mind more often than usual. The time he spent with Keith created a reliable pattern to him, one that he could look forward to and remind himself of when he thought too badly of himself.

"Pay attention, Lance," Keith shouted going in for another strike, which Lance was able to successfully dodge. He was a little surprised at himself, he hadn't been feeling too well over the past few days but he pushed himself through anyway, he needed to be better for the team. They made that fact clear. To him at least.

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The first sign he saw was like all other days, he asked everyone the same questions. At this time, he hadn't created the third question yet. Simply asking if he needed any help with anything. Always no.

"I guess I'll just go do a face mask or something," he said glumly to himself. He slunk past the training desk's door and paused when he heard fighting and shouting coming from inside. The door slid open and he saw his teammates fighting off gladiator bots, his heart sank when he saw all of them working successfully together without him. He stepped in, surely this was a team exercise of some kind. He raised his bayard and shot a bot going for Pidge's back. She didn't even turn around to acknowledge him. It only took a few more minutes for them to finish off the rest of them and Shiro turned to look at them.

"Good work everyone," he said with a smile looking over the lot of them. When his eyes reached Lance, his grin faltered and he gave him a look of confusion.

"Lance, I didn't know you were here," he said with a cocked head. Lance winced and looked down at the ground, before whipping his head up with a smirk.

"I'm a sneaky sharpshooter, guess I'm doing a great job!" He said with false bravado. The others who were looking at him with the same puzzlement then groaned and faced away.

'Good,' he thought as his smile crumbled and his eyes teared up slightly. He couldn't pay attention to what Shiro was saying to the others, too caught up in the hurt that he was feeling.

"Dismissed," was all he heard before he was speed walking out of the room. He headed toward his quarters, wanting to crawl into bed as quickly as possible. He bit his quivering lip in his mouth as he thought over what Shiro had said to him. He was surprised that Lance was even there, he knew that he wasn't there when they started. Which meant that he was willingly excluded, he already somber mood went spiralling after the thought.

'Why didn't they tell me about the training session?' he asked himself. He stepped into his room and started taking off the armour. He pulled on his bathrobe and laid down on his bed. For a moment a smile lit up his face as he looked at the glowing stars he had stuck to his ceiling a while earlier.

'Maybe they realized that I'm not worth training anymore,' the thought crashed into his mind like a freight train. He sat up on his bed and grabbed his head in his hands.

'They're thinking of replacing me, that's why they don't want me there anymore,' he concluded to himself. He slid off his bed to pace around the room and nervously chew on the skin around his fingernails.

"I don't blame them but they would have told me, wouldn't they have?" he asked the open air of his bedroom.

"Oh God, they didn't tell me anything, I don't even deserve to be a paladin," He paused in the middle of the room and sucked in a deep breath, he closed his eyes and slowly let it out.

"It's okay, it's all okay," he said calmly and sat down on the edge of his bed. He kept the rhythm of his breathes consistent but couldn't keep the tears from sliding down his face. His breath stuttered at the first sob that broke out of his throat.

"What the hell?" He whispered to himself trying to wipe away the tears but couldn't keep them from being replaced. He looked at the armour that was now scattered across the ground with a new sense of determination.

'I can be better, I'll be exactly what they need,'

That was the night that the third question was created. He didn't want to distract Pidge from finding her family, Hunk was too strong for Lance to take on fairly and Shiro had much better things to do than train Lance. He made that pretty clear today during training. Keith though was the second best fighter and he hated him so he wouldn't hold back either. Now all he had to do was get him to help.

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Weeks had gone by since Keith agreed to help Lance and every day he dutifully would. It became a dependable routine for him; get up, breakfast, questions, lunch, train, split off with Keith, dinner, bed. Barring any missions that came up during that time. He was coming back from having dinner, strangely nobody else was in the kitchen at the time but he tried not to dwell too much on it. Almost too coincidentally it was when he was passing the lounge that he heard activity inside, just like before on the training deck. Almost immediately, his stomach clenched and he opened the door.

He could see from the screen that they were almost completely through one of the movies that Pidge had downloaded on her laptop before leaving Earth. His eyes welled up with tears and his chin wrinkled up. While he was in the dining room, eating alone, they were all here?

'They don't even want you around when you're not messing up' he tried to shake the idea out of his head but it was harder than before. He could understand training but if they didn't want to spend time with him outside of that, it meant that he as a person was the problem. He stood outside of the door, stepping a single foot in a few times as he debated whether or not to go in. Finally, he sighed and trekked into the room and plopped down at the far end of the couch.

"What movie we watching?" He asked. Without even turning their heads to look at him, he was shushed by everyone. He gulped and leaned back on the couch and tried to focus on the screen.

'They think I'm annoying,' he thought with a sigh. At the sound, he got, even more, shushes thrown his way, which made him curl up slightly on the couch. They didn't notice when he picked himself off of the couch as quietly as he could as left the room. He went back to his room and laid in bed and tried not to let the invasive thoughts get too far into his mind.

'Why didn't they even tell me that they were going to watch a movie?' He asked himself miserably. He curled underneath the blankets and tried to will himself asleep but he wasn't able to. He sat in the dark, staring at the wall with tears clinging to his lashes and running down his face. In the morning, he was only able to pull himself out of bed to go to breakfast, not change out of his clothes, or go through his morning routine. He thought maybe everyone else would comment on his appearance but nobody even looked his way when he entered the room. That was the night when he became more hesitant to ask the first and second questions.

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The last and most heartbreaking sign came when he was walking to his quarters after looking for the other paladins to ask them the questions but strangely couldn't find them anywhere. He was afraid to go past the lounge in case they were inside bonding without him again. He heard a loud laugh coming from up the hallway in the kitchen and stopped in his tracks, not even having to peek around the doorway to know what was there.

'They don't even like me enough to eat with them' the plaguing thought went through his mind. The cumulating hurt crashed down on him and he rushed past the doorway to the quarters, tears already beginning to rush down his face. He crashed down on his bed, the only safe haven he had now with a sob.

'Did I do something?' He asked himself pushing his hands through his hair. He looked down at the ground and tried to think back through his memories. Maybe they thought he looked disgusting when he ate. Maybe he was annoying when he ate. Maybe they just thought he was ugly and he needed to stop eating. He laid down and tried to fall asleep but after a few hours of tossing and turning he put a hand on his groaning stomach. He clenched his hand into the sheet and twisted it harshly. He needed to be strong and push through, then maybe his team would like him again. Finally, he was able to fall into an uncomfortable slumber and shut his eyes.

Over the course of the next few weeks, Lance only ate one meal a day and not in the company or any of his teammates. Not that he was really surprised, he thought that almost immediately someone would notice and tell him how much better he looked to them. The days dragged on though, and he didn't notice a positive change. A negative one was more like it. When he would go to ask his questions, he wasn't even able to get through it before he was being turned down. During team meetings, Shiro wouldn't even turn to look at him, even if Lance was talking directly to him. He began to feel like he was in some sort of another dimension where no one could see or hear him.

If it wasn't for Keith constantly agreeing to train with him. He didn't know what he would do. No matter what he was doing, he would drop everything to train with him. He would never know how much it mattered to him that he helped him. It felt like sometimes Keith was the only one that actually cared a bit for him.

"I think that's good enough for today," Keith said panting, wiping the sweat off of his forehead. Lance nodded and leaned heavily on his knees before slumping to the ground with a groan. Keith handed him a water pouch and sat down beside him quietly.

"Are you okay?" Keith asked after a few moments. Lance looked at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?" He asked, kind of hoping that Keith didn't know as much as he thought. Keith shrugged and looked down at the ground.

"It just seems like we never see you anymore, you don't come to team training, or bonding nights, we don't even see you when we're eating either," he said a touch of concern in his voice. Lance glared at his shoes as the feeling of anger suddenly washed over him. It was a very foreign emotion to him, he would rather be a mediator than get truly angry at someone.

"No one ever tells me about them," he said bitterly not taking his gaze off of his shoes. He heard Keith suck in a gasp and he looked over at him to see him looking at him with wide eyes.

"Really?" He asked. Lance hesitated before he nodded in confusion. Keith looked down with a contemplative face before swinging back to look at Lance.

"Whenever I asked, they always told me they asked you," he admitted earnestly. Lance's eyes closed at the admission and put his head in his hands. He kind of saw it coming but the reality still hurt more then he would like to admit. He felt Keith put his arm around his shoulders and pull him to his chest.

"It'll get better Lance I promise, I'll always be here for you," Keith said gently carding his fingers through his hair. Lance shallowly nodded his head in understanding and limply leaned against Keith's side.

That was the night Lance realized that his once enemy was becoming his closest friend and he could always depend on him.

______________________________________________________

That was a few weeks ago and although he knew that he could depend more on Keith than anyone else right now. He still couldn't bring himself to go through his morning routine, get up on time, or eat more than a few times a week. He knew that he was declining in health and his teammates, minus Keith were getting more and more fed up with his actions. He didn't mean to and he wanted to explain to them what was happening to him but his courage was almost completely depleted by that point.

"Pay attention, Lance!" Keith called going back in for another strike. He dodged and held back a gag at the movement. He had been feeling dizzy and nauseous over the past few days and he knew it was because of his eating habits. He was glad that he wouldn't have much in his stomach if he did throw up. With a grunt and a wheeze off air, Keith grappled Lance around the waist and threw him to the ground. Keith's eyes widened at the difference he felt in Lance's weight from the last time he threw him not too long ago. Lance slammed into the ground and instantly curled up, shaking in pain.

"Lance!" Keith cried running over and kneeling beside him. He gingerly put his hands on him trying to find any broken bones. After seeing that nothing in his arms or shoulders, he pulled his shirt up slightly to check his ribs.

"Lance, what?" He asked in disbelief. Lance's eyes widened and he tugged his shirt down over his chest but the image was already stuck in Keith's mind. When he first really met Lance he was already skinner than a stick, but now he looked like he could be broken in half.

"Don't look," Lance hissed glaring into Keith's eyes. Keith couldn't look away from the hem of Lance's shirt clutched tightly in his grasp. He slowly looked up into Lance's eyes and before either of them knew it, he was hugging Lance to his chest and crying into his hair. Lance blinked in confusion and looked up at him.

"How did I not notice?" Keith cried grabbing Lance by his cheeks and pulling his head away to look at him. "We've been spending every day together, how could I not notice how much you were hurting?"

"Don't beat yourself up Keith, I didn't want you to see," Lance muttered. Keith's lips quivered before he brought Lance back to his chest.

"Is this because of the stuff you told me a few weeks ago?" He asked hesitantly. Lance tensed up, considering whether or not to lie to him. Keith was his only real friend at the moment and he didn't want to lose him. He nodded his head and Keith clutched him tighter to himself.

"I could have done something but I didn't, I'm so so sorry Lance," he said pressing his head into his chest.

"I don't blame you, Keith," he admitted with a small smile. "They just don't like me, it's not surprising really," he said sadly. Keith whipped his head down to look at Lance with wide eyes.

"No Lance, no one deserves to feel the way that you're feeling, especially not you," he said honestly. "They are wrong for making you feel like you have to avoid them, and from what I can see you are avoiding eating too," he said sadly putting his hand on Lance's waist and noticed he could fit easily in his hand. Lance looked down with a blush, ashamed for the first time for his actions.

"I can't eat, I can't get up to get ready in the morning, I'm in bed all the time, and I can't help but feel like they wouldn't care if they knew how I felt," he admitted with a whisper. Keith gave a low whine in his throat as if he was gearing up for another round of crying.

"You never thought of hurting yourself have you?" Keith asked nervously. He hoped that Lance hadn't gone that far yet, and he could still help him. Lance shook his head from underneath Keith's hand. Keith couldn't help the sigh of relief that came out of his mouth.

"Besides eating, I didn't do anything," he said peeking up at Keith's widened eyes. "If I hurt myself, then I really won't have a use on the team,"

"Lance, please you are worth so much more than you think," he pleaded grabbing Lance's hand instead. "Everyone else should now that too," he said putting his other hand on his lower back. Lance whimpered at the thought of confronting the team for their actions, in his head he was the one that was doing something wrong, not his team. Never the team.

"We're going to fix this Lance, I promise you that," Keith said seriously looking into his eyes. Stunned, Lance nodded at the idea. Keith smiled and pulled him up, never letting go of his hand. He started pulling him out of the door and towards the kitchen.

"Where are we going?" Lance asked nervously. He didn't want to go confront the team right now, not only was he tired and emotional, Keith just cried a river for something that wasn't even his fault.

"You and I are going to eat," he said sending a smile to Lance. Lance gave him a hesitant one back, he wasn't sure how much he would be able to get down. He let himself be sat down and Keith went to get him a plate. Surprisingly Keith gave him a small, manageable portion. It was larger than what he had been eating but would still go down fairly easily. He looked beside him in silent question, which got a nodding gesture to the food. He pouted but started in on it.

"I went between foster homes when I was younger, they were all completely different people but they all had one thing in common," he started. Lance looked over at him in support.

"They never seemed to have enough food for me," he stated. Lance's eyes widened in sympathy and he looked down at the food. While he was willingly starving himself, Keith used to go to sleep with an empty stomach, as a kid no less.

"It wasn't until I ended up with Shiro's family that I felt safe with someone," he said with a fond smile. He noticed Lance looking mournfully down at his plate. Keith grabbed his chin and turned his head towards him.

"I know how much it hurts Lance, and I don't want you to hurt as much as I did," he said with a small frown. Lance could feel tears welling up and he nodded as well as he could with his chin still being held by the red paladin. Keith gave him a smile and gently brushed away the tears they fell down his cheeks. After he was finished, Keith walked him back to his room and sat on his bedside while he fell asleep.

"Thank you, Keith," he said drowsily, feeling his eyes slipping shut. Keith gave him a smile and started brushing his hair back soothingly. When he could hear soft snores coming from the blue paladin, he quietly stood up and exited the room. He closed the door behind him and paused outside the doorway. His head snapped up and glared at the direction of the lounge, where he knew the other paladins would be.

They had a lot of explaining to do.