It had all started when Shiro had a panic attack - something that happened to Lance at least four to five times a week. He just wanted to comfort his leader. He just wanted to tell him he understood.

And then Keith had punched him in the jaw.

He was about to tell Shiro what helped him when he had a panic attack (usually a good hug session helped, if that didn't work, then hearing funny stories always helped) when Keith punched him in the jaw and told him to lay off the jokes. He said it was no time for his stale humor. Shiro was suffering and didn't need his dumb attempts at humor.

So Lance ran off. Lance ran to his room and curled up in a blanket and tried to keep his mind off of it, but it was too late. At first he was thinking about Keith, then it was the high school kids who would beat him up, then it was the voice in his head that was telling him he wasn't good enough, he was just a class clown without an audience. Nobody wants to listen to you, Lance. Nobody. Not a single person wants to deal with your shit.

"Lance, what the fuck are you doing?" Keith droned from outside his door.

"N-nothing!" Lance managed to keep his voice steady, but cursed himself for the slight stutter at the beginning of his reply...

"Good, Allura wants you to go train." He heard receding footsteps and some unintelligible grumbles. Lance took a deep breath. He wiped the tears from his face and pulled on his armor, quickly making his way to the training deck.

"S-start training level seventeen." He mumbled. Despite there being no others with him, he didn't want anyone to know about how far he'd gotten. He knew why Allura wanted him to train. It was her form of punishment. Apparently, she, too, thought that Lance was going to make a joke about Shiro's panic attack.

Lance shot down gladiator after gladiator, moving up at least five levels in the span of an hour. He wanted to be impressed with himself, but he was too focused on his training. He had to get better. He had to keep his tongue in check. Nobody even liked him. He had to be a better paladin. A better soldier. Soldiers don't crack jokes. Soldiers don't break down every day.

Lance had to be a soldier. There was no time to be a kid. No time to be young. This was war, damn it! The galra weren't going to give him a day off because he was curled up in bed feeling sorry for himself.

Nobody else had left him alone because he was having a bad day. He was picked on as a kid because of his weaknesses. He had to overcome them. If he didn't, the universe could be destroyed. If he didn't, trillions of lives would be lost.

"Lance?" A hoarse voice called. He turned around to see Allura standing in the doorway in her nightgown. "Why are you up so late?"

"I- training." Lance barely managed to dodge the gladiator's attack.

"You've probably been at it for several Vargas. Go to sleep."

"Sleep is a luxury I can't afford right now." Lance grumbled. Allura raised an eyebrow.

"Lance, just do it." Lance sighed.

"End training sequence." He muttered. He followed Allura out the door and then to his room. He locked the door and flopped onto his bed.

It became perfectly clear an hour later that he wouldn't be able to sleep. Even worse, it seemed he was having another visit from the voice in his head. It whispered horrible things in his ear, lies and poisons. You're nothing to them. They just need you to form Voltron, nothing more.

"You're lying." Lance choked out. He curled into a tighter ball, but nothing helped, nothing took the voice away.

I am a part of you. It cackled. There is only one way to get rid of me. It worked before.

"I hate you." But Lance was already standing in front of the mirror with his razor hovering above his legs. He drew long, red lines in-between his thighs, over and over until he was dizzy and lightheaded and everything seemed like it was covered in a thin layer of plastic, like he could see it but not quite. He stumbled back and fell to the floor, his breaths shallow and his heartbeat fading.

The next thing he knew, Keith was holding his forearm tightly. He was standing up and he wasn't bleeding. His team was staring at him wearily, like they didn't quite trust him.

"That was selfish, Lance." Keith glared. What happened? He... He was dying. What happened to that?

"What.... When did I get... Here?"

"We found you last night. What were you trying to do?! The healing pod had to restart your heart, Lance. You died last night."

"I... I'm sorry?" Lance didn't know how to react.

"Damn right you're sorry. You shouldn't have done that."

"Keith, leave him alone." Hunk finally said. "He wouldn't do this just to make you mad, you know. Maybe he has his own stuff going on."

"That, or he just wanted everyone to pity him. I bet he saw Shiro having a panic attack and thought it would be great to just-"

"Stop." Lance choked out. He didn't want to be found last night. He just wanted to be dead. He wanted to be dead.

"Why?" Keith sneered. Lance sucked in a deep breath and walked to his room. Everybody followed him, worried for him and angry at Keith.

"Lance, don't-" Lance locked the door to his room, leaving the whole team outside.

"Keith, how about you just fuck off?" Pidge said after a moment. "You have no idea what he's been thinking or going through. Maybe this has been happening for a long time and you made it worse."

"But we don't know that!"

"Speak for yourself." Hunk glared at Keith, something he had never done before. "Lance has been suffering from severe depression since the eighth grade. He tried to kill himself on three separate occasions before the Garrison. He acts so silly and happy and carefree because he doesn't want people to worry! He doesn't want them to think he's weak."

"If he doesn't want anyone to know, then how do you know?" Keith was started to feel horrible. If what Hunk was saying was true...

"Because I caught him."

Possible part two. I might stop doing two-parters and just do one long one-shot. Any thoughts on that?