Chapter Text
Lance McClain was a normal boy, with a normal family that lived in a normal town, and had a normal childhood.
Or at least he thought he did. He didn’t remember much of his childhood due to a car accident when he was younger. And what he could remember was fuzzy and trying to recall the accident made his head hurt, retrograde amnesia his psychiatrist explained, his brain trying to protect him from the emotional distress of the accident.
He’s asked about the accident before, wanting to know what he can’t remember, but everytime he did, his father’s jaw would clench and his mom would start to cry like the accident had just happened all over again so he stopped asking.
The point is that Lance was a normal seventeen year old and even though his mother worried over him more than normal, he didn’t expect anything to happen when he left home to join the Garrison.
And at first, nothing happened.
It was slow to begin. He dreamt of people with blurred faces and voices that never said words he could understand only to never remember any of it in the morning. Only the feeling of longing and loss echoing in his chest.
The feelings confused him but since he couldn’t remember what caused them, he brushed them off and continued on with his day.
His roommate, Hunk, was easy to get along with and they became fast friends. Hunk missed his family but was excited to be away from home on his own as much as Lance was. Hunk liked building things and the engineering courses that the Garrison offered. Most of it went over Lance’s head when he talked about his classes but Lance figured he didn’t really need to understand, as long as Hunk was enjoying it.
He started to remember small pieces of his dreams over the next few months. And three months in he had a dream that he remembered more than just flashes of.
A small pavilion in a field of flowers, surrounded by mountains. A girl with soft, flowing white hair, and a laugh that sounded like tinkling bells.
Lance told Hunk about it in the morning, remarked on how strange it was and asked what he thought it meant. Hunk just shrugged and continued to get ready for class.
He remembered most of the dream he had a few days later. A lady, a different one than the girl from his first dream, was yelling something at him. He couldn’t see her face, everything except her mouth was blurred. She was pushing him towards what looked like a spaceship. There was a soft whisper in his ear and his sight went black.
He was almost late to class the next morning.
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When Lance met Keith Kogane, he almost hit him. It wasn’t even Lance’s fault!
…Okay it was kind of Lance’s fault.
He had been talking to Hunk outside one of the classrooms when Keith walked out. Lance’s arm had almost hit him in the face and Keith had only scowled harder and shoved past Lance, telling him to “watch it!” and almost knocking Lance into the wall, when Lance had tried to apologize.
Lance rubbed his arm and what would surely be a bruise come tomorrow, and frowned at the retreating figure.
His dreams were filled with purple that night and he woke with the feeling of overwhelming grief weighing in his chest like a cement brick the next morning.
It took Lance dreaming of purple once more and the girl from his first dream twice more before Hunk started taking notes on his dreams.
His dreams started taking on more space like aspects and it only made him want to get out into space more. So when Keith was made a fighter pilot and Lance was not, he unofficially declared Keith his rival. Of course, the only people who knew of said rivalry were Lance and Hunk, but Lance didn’t care.
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It was five months into the school year and two months after he started remembering his dreams when Lance took up drawing them, hoping it would help him remember more. The drawings were horrible to start with and he, more often than not, ended up throwing them away, but he kept drawing. He drew so much that he had gotten caught drawing in class several times, and he eventually ran out of paper and had to sneak out to steal more from the main supply closet.
He became so focused on his drawings his grades started slipping and he was almost kicked out of the Garrison by the end of his first year. Fortunately he passed, but just barely.
His mama did scold him something fierce when he got home though, yelling at him in a mix of Spanish and English. And when she found out why his grades had suffered, she hit him on the back of the head and told him “don’t let it happen again!” before smiling softly at him.
He received a set of sketchbooks and drawing pencils for his birthday, right before he left for the Garrison again.
He hadn’t noticed it at first, too caught up with seeing his family again after so long, but his dreams had stopped completely when he was home. But now that he was back at the Garrison, the dreams started again, and Lance realized that he hadn’t had a single one all summer. They weren’t as clear as he would like them; he still couldn’t see faces or understand words that were spoken.
A lot of the unclear faces brought a warm feeling in his chest, much like the feeling he got when he saw his family. And the vague purple from before had solidified into the shape of a purple cat like person…alien? and brought a weird feeling in his chest. Warm but not in a familial way. Whatever words they said made Lance blush and become flustered.
He started to wonder what if these were more than dreams? What if these aliens and places actually existed? He felt a bit silly thinking that but there had to be a reason he was having these dreams. He had to know.
HIs drive to become a fighter pilot and get into space was back in full force. He rose to the top of his cargo pilot class, but not quite enough for fighter class. He grew frustrated and took his frustrations out by sneaking out and going to the nearest town, more often than not, getting caught on his way back the next morning.
Iverson had it out for him after he caught Lance one too many times, Lance swore, and was determined to see him fail.
Christmas brought new sketchbooks from his mama and his drawings improved to the point of looking almost realistic. Always unfinished however because he could never see the faces clearly. A fact that frustrated him more than not making fighter class. His scenery drawings increased in number, while his portrait drawings remained in half-filled sketchbooks between his mattress and bed frame.
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Lance was standing in a large field of strange flowers he’d never seen. A man with a white beard and a woman with soft caramel colored hair were there, as well as the girl with white hair. However she looked younger than he’d seen her before, around eleven or twelve.
There was a purple stain on her light blue dress and she was crying. The man and woman were trying to comfort her but it didn’t seem to be working. Lance tugged on her sleeve and said something when she looked down at him. He couldn’t hear himself but whatever he said must have worked because the girl smiled at him and laughed.
Lance woke up the next morning with a smile on his face.
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The rest of Lance’s second year passed by uneventfully, and Lance returned home for the summer, happy to be with his family again. He missed the beach by his house and his siblings. He missed spending time with them, roughhousing. He missed his mama’s cooking and her hugs and couldn’t be happier to be home. He was sad when it came time for him to leave in the fall.
When Lance returned to the Garrison, he heard the news. Takashi Shirogane, the pilot for the Kerberos mission, was going to be coming to the Garrison once he and his crew returned. Lance was excited.
His family had told him that before the accident, he had greatly admired Shiro. He had come to Lance’s middle school one year after his first mission was such a success and the Garrison wanted to use him to recruit new students. He talked about the jobs in space and the different programs the Garrison had to offer. Lance had come home with stars in his eyes, his eldest sister had always laughed out, completely enthralled by space.
He wished he could remember that day more than he did but he was hoping he’d one day get to meet the man who had apparently inspired his dream to see the stars up close.
So when they were halfway through the year and the news came that the Kerberos mission had failed, due to pilot error and the entire crew was lost, Lance was devastated.
Lance had been sitting in the cafeteria with Hunk when the announcement was made. Lance could only watch as Keith got up and stormed out.
That night Lance dreamt of explosions and a ship crash that brought back the same overwhelming grief the purple cat alien had left.
Keith got into more trouble with the instructors after that. Always causing fights and more than once Lance saw him leave in the middle of the night while Lance was up on the roof to draw or just look at the stars.
Keith got caught one night coming back and punched an instructor. He got expelled just before final exams.
With Keith’s expulsion there was room in the fighter class for a cargo pilot to be moved up at the start of Lance’s third year.
Lance had barely put his stuff down in his and Hunk’s room before he was racing off to the board to find out if he was moved up. It was more than likely, seeing as he was top of cargo class last year and the year before. And if Hunk wasn’t his engineer he was going to combust.
Yes! He was moved up and Hunk was his engineer. His communications specialist was…
“Who the heck is Pidge Gunderson?”
“Right here.”
Lance turned to see a short guy with light brown hair and large, round glasses. And despite Lance’s efforts to try and get to know each other, Pidge wasn’t too interested in spending time with them and tried not to interact with them at all unless they had to.
Well, this is going to be a fun year.