Dear god, it was absolutely horrible. Your own feelings removed, it was just annoying. Lance, pining over a ten-thousand-and-something year old alien—too old for him, you thought, technically she was his same age just cryogenically frozen for that long, but still—he’d only known for a few months at this point. Not only were those things you’d wished were deterrents, but she also seemed completely oblivious to his affection. That, or she was leading him on and ignoring it.

You’d known Lance for years at this point. First year at the Garrison had you two sitting next to each other; while you had been less immediately outgoing, Lance sure wasn’t and had immediately hit it off as your desk mate. Since then, half the lunches and study periods were spent hanging out, classes where you two were together had teachers liking you significantly less. Never were you quite as boisterous as him, though. No one could beat Mr. Razzle Dazzle.

Now with all this Paladin business, it felt like he was blowing you off. Of course, you were really proud of him for being chosen by the Blue Lion—Blue, as he’d aptly named her. He was destined to save the universe, drawn by fate to the first Lion. If that wasn’t something to be proud of, you didn’t know what was. Unfortunately, now that all the lions had been found, you ended up lion-less. So be it, you were still a close part of Team Voltron, living on the Castle of Lions, serving as a medic slash odd job-do-er. You could deal with him being busier, but all of the little gaps of time where he would’ve hung out with you were taken up with him following around Allura like a puppy. Even when you did have time together to hang out he was always going on and on about her: her hair, her face, the marks on her cheekbones, the points in her ears, how cool her piloting the castle ship was. It was hard not to want to strange him—or her, either one would do.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that he found her attractive and was giving it the old college try. You’d watched him flirt in every new semester, every party. Every girl he saw that was even remotely pretty, he didn’t hesitate to compliment her, shoot her a winning smile, act like the kind of guy to go win a carnival prize in her name. It never really bothered you. He often got turned down, it was something to giggle at. It wasn’t ever serious.

Maybe it was the oxygen being thin in the ship or craziness from being in space. Anything not to admit he liked her a lot. You hated feeling this jealous, it made you feel like a bad person, it made you feel vindictive and snarky to people you didn’t want to be. But it couldn’t really be helped. Maybe you were going space crazy, your feelings having been launched out of whack. There had always been feelings for Lance floating around in your chest, but never this strong, never this angry.

He rapped on the top of the doorway, leaning in against the arch into your open bedroom.

“Hey, {{user}}.”

He grinned, air headed and pleased as ever. Everything would be so much easier if you could get mad at his demeanour instead of feeling coy about it.

“Allura’s busy with the mice, was gonna go spend some time in the hangar with Blue, clean her up a bit. You want to come hang out?”