(Warning. Self Harm Ahead.)

Nearly a phoeb after Lance had first used a blade on himself, he could no longer venture outside his room showing his forearms. What he'd been up to would be out in the open straight away, and he didn't want a single other soul to know.

He was embarrassed and ashamed.

The Galra had been attempting to reclaim more and more coalition bases. Voltron was needed all over the rebellion's territory. It seemed like the barrage would never end, as neither side managed to capture any more territory that what they had. It was just a vicious circle.

Everyone on the team was getting tired.

Especially Keith, who was tired not only because of the Galra, but also because of the team's blatant disregard for Lance. None of them had mentioned him. Whenever he did, they shrugged it off as quickly as possible.

It was angering. Keith had never been good at holding in his anger.

He would never hurt Shiro. He was like a brother to him and he loved him as one, but wow, when Keith brought up Lance around him, and he just said that Lance would probably be fine if they left him alone, a good slap around the head would have done a lot of good for Keith's temper.

Well. Since nobody else was doing anything, he took it into his own hands to knock on Lance's door and check up on him.

But, once he was actually standing outside, staring deep into the lazy 'knock first' scrawled on a crumpled sheet of paper and stuck to the door with a couple of Hunk's failed 'meatballs' (which were pretty much lumps of glue after the oven was through with them), he was filled with an unexplained nervousness.

It was just a few words. 'Are you ok?' 'Do you need anything?' 'Want to talk?'

He didn't understand.

He just had to raise his hand up and, knock.

Realising that he only knocked once, he quickly knocked again twice.

There was a shuffling inside, and the shuffling lasted so long that he wanted to knock again.

Eventually, Lance opened the door, and was surprised to see anyone, let alone Keith.

The silence that followed was awkward and increasingly weird, so Keith quickly ended it with "... Uh... how are you?"

Lance raised an eyebrow.

"Fine."

"... oh... ok..."

They were threatened with the return of the silence to Keith brought back conversation.

"Look... you haven't been out of your room much. You haven't been doing much of anything. I wanted to ask if everything is ok."

He knew the angry feeling that emitted from Lance far too well.

"No, everything is not ok, because somebody replaced me as the Red Paladin, so I no longer have anything to do."

"... I didn't chose for that to happen. Voltron needed a Paladin so I-"

"So you danced in and beat me again. That's all you do. Every time I think I'm good at something you come along and prove you as better at it."

Keith knew better than to correct his grammatical errors.

His voice was wobbling. Tears were on the horizon.

"Since when did you start caring? You've never given a damn about me before."

It took a lot of willpower to not break and start snapping back.

"I have cared! You're part of Voltron, of course I do."

Lance shook his head.

"I'm not part of it anymore. So you have no reason to care, so why are you here?"

"To see if you're ok!"

"Ok then, well, I'm not ok! Happy now?"

Keith was about to retaliate with an angrier remark, but the words were stopped in his trough when he saw something that Lance had obviously tried to hide with his jacket.

Bloodstained bandages... Allura had said that someone had nicked something from the castle's medical supply. But... bloody? Why were they bloody? Lance hadn't been injured recently? Had he?

Lance noticed him looking and then blocked the sight with his body.

"... Lance... do you want to talk about anything?"

He looked surprised. Almost as if he was considering it, before reverting back to a scowl and breaking eye contact.

"No. Please go away now."

"... ok."

Keith walked away, swearing that he heard a sob before the door slid shut.

That hardly went as planned.

But the bandages... what was with that? It gave him a bad feeling.

---

Lance slid down the closed door, trying to shove the sobs back down his oesophagus.

He saw the bandages... didn't he? Keith saw the bandages.

He should have checked that they were hidden properly before opening the door.

But... why? Why would he care enough to check on him?

It didn't matter. Lance moved his jacket and picked up the knife, which he had luckily been able to hide properly. Keith's visit had only reminded him of things he had wished to forget.