Quintants had passed, and Lance finally urged himself to leave the emptiness of his room and find something to do.

If he was going to be off team Voltron, he could at least help around the castle.

Coran was making a routine check of the castle's teludav, making sure that none of the lenses were cracked or dimmed.

"Heeey, Coran." Lance spoke, forcing a smile and nearly giving the old Altean a heart attack.

"Quiznak! Lance! You scared me!"

"Sorry... uh... what are you doing?"

"Well, I'm checking for cracks in the teludav lenses, shining them too. We need them at optimum working order, especially with the risk of Galra attack, you know."

Lance nodded, working very hard to keep the smile on his face.

"... could I help?"

"... Well, yes... just... come inside, and be careful with the lenses!"

Coran gave him instructions to check for cracks and to spread a small amount of a shiny substance on each lens, and not too much, or it wouldn't work.

"There's the bucket of it, over there. Just smear a bit with your fingers, that'll do the trick."

He went over to pick up the bucket... but there was two. Two of them. He looked at Coran's bucket, and back at the two in front of him, picking up the one that looked most similar and smearing a bit on one of the lenses. It smelled disgusting and didn't look like it would make anything shine.

Coral turned to see if he had started well and was shocked to see Lance spreading grease from the kitchen equipment on the lenses.

"Lance what are you doing?!"

"... what you told me to?"

"Goodness me..."

Coran took the bucket out of his hands and wiped the grease off with a cloth.

"Why would you pick up the bucket of grease? Isn't it obvious?"

"No, Coran, you didn't tell me which bucket to use!"

Lance picket up the other bucket and looked in it. The gel was clear and much more pleasant smelling, and he did feel a little bit stupid for not considering the contents before applying it.

Lance got to work, perhaps a little too enthusiastically, to make up for the initial mistake.

"... Sorry, Coran."

"It's ok, it's ok... rookie's mistake."

The silence and occasional squeak of skin on lens was awkward. Lance's smile was gone, anyway.

"Sooo... how often does this need to be done?"

"Once every few decafebes, but because of our rather common use of the teludav, much more often."

"... what happens if I find a crack?"

"Then we're... in quite a lot of trouble. Remember last time?"

Lance nodded grimly, remembering the experience.

"I remember."

Coran turned around again to see if Lance was doing it properly and sighed at what he saw.

"You're putting far too much on each lens, Lance. Too much gel will make the light reflect badly, it wont work!"

"How much an I supposed to use then?"

"A small amount. Only enough to cover your fingertips."

Lance breathed out, biting his lip to stop himself losing his cool.

"... do I have to do them all again?"

"... yes... just wipe them off and restart."

Lance picked up the cloth and started to remove the gel but Coran stopped him again.

"Gentle! These lenses are fragile!"

Lance stopped and stared at the cloth. He was being gentle... he didn't understand.

Coran sighed deeply, massaging his temples.

"Look, Thankyou for trying but, maybe you should go and do something else, like... check on Kalternecker."

Lance took another deep breath, staying calm.

He placed the bucket on the floor and walked away, hands in fists, trembling.

He wanted to be useful... he wanted to help... but he just couldn't seem to do anything right.

Coran obviously thought so.

The Red Lion thought so.

Lance was staring to strongly believe that it was the case.

He didn't do as Coran suggested. He just went straight back to his room, closing the door, collapsing onto the bed, and bursting into tears.