Shiro sat down on the floor with his legs folded, trying to clear his mind. He’d been finding that meditation helped with the strange pressure that kept building up in his temples, and hoped that it would help him control his emotions better around his team.

Closing his eyes, he rested his arms on his knees and took a deep breath.

He’d really fucked up today, losing his temper with Lance. He wasn’t always this way, was he? He used to be more collected, more restrained, more…

He didn’t remember as well as he thought.

‘Clear your mind,’ he silently chastised himself. It had been getting progressively more difficult to do. Shiro futilely clenched his eyes shut tighter, squeezing his hands into fists.

For a moment, he managed to squeeze the thoughts out of his mind nearly forcefully, entering a black hole where the background hum of electricity faded into silence. He only managed to stay there for a couple of minutes before the same thoughts intruded again, the ones he’d been having all day.

He sighed, opening his eyes and leaning forward defeatedly. Meditation wasn’t going to work today. Maybe he should try just distracting himself with exercise. He rolled over and began to do push-ups, trying to force all of his energy into his physical performance and away from his mind.

He’d been really harsh with Lance a lot, lately. He apologized, but it hadn’t been the first time- or the second. When he’d nitpicked on Lance’s form during training that morning, Allura had shot him a dirty look, but it wasn’t really necessary. He realized that this was the symptom his misplaced guilt for something worse, something that he had no excuse for.

He was beginning to develop feelings for Lance that were far from appropriate for a leader, a mentor, the so-called responsible adult in the situation.

Was it because Lance had been so understanding when he let out his anxieties about the confusion he’d been feeling, the unease with his foggy memory and sense of displacement from himself. It was wrong of him to burden Lance with his problems, since he should be the one providing a pillar of strength for him. He was the only real source of guidance that the teenagers had- Of course, there was Coran, but he couldn’t really relate to the problems of adolescents from Earth- and felt that it was his duty not to falter from that image.

When he had confronted Lance about the voice he’d heard from Shir- from him- in the ether, he’d realized too late that the stress of their stranded ship, lowering oxygen levels, and Allura and Lotor’s uncertain fate on their mission had chipped his stoic exterior, the one that he struggled more and more to maintain. Before he could stop himself, he’d said far too much. And yet somehow, Lance had managed to make him feel okay. Despite the way he’d been treating him- and to a lesser extent, all of his teammates- Lance seemed to make his emotions clearer and easier to understand, the opaque barrier separating two halves of his conscience disappearing just long enough to let some light through.

It didn’t seem real. Like most of the things running through Shiro’s head the past few weeks, he couldn’t make sense of when he’d begun feeling the way he did and where it came from. He couldn’t even recall the last person he’d felt attracted to before.

Shiro grabbed his temples- the goddawful headaches were coming back in waves as he tried to piece together how he’d gotten into his situation. It was as if a barrage of information was being thrown at him from the horizon of his consciousness faster than he could process it, burying him and slipping into his words and actions before he could even notice it.

Moving to his bed, Shiro lay down, hoping that the pain would subside if he just let his train of thought flow uninterrupted. There wasn’t any point in trying to fight or even question it; somehow, he’d managed to fall a little bit in love with Lance.

“Christ,” Shiro groaned aloud, rolling over and covering his head with his pillow as if the idea was some outside sound he could block out. This was fucked up, and he knew it. Lance looked up to him, admired him, and most importantly, he trusted him. He could never betray that trust by letting him on to these perverse thoughts. More than just being a member of his team, Lance was a teenager, separated in age from him by eight years.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Shiro mumbled into his mattress, inaudible to anyone but himself.

It wasn’t rational; Shiro realized this much. This wasn’t something that he could reason with, solve strategically or put up any sort of fight against. The best he could do was to conceal his feelings as well as possible; which explained why he had subconsciously become so much harsher towards Lance.

(The other option, of course, was to be honest with him.)

“Shut up!” Shiro hissed, shoving his head deeper into his bed. Where the hell did that idea come from? That simply couldn’t- wasn’t an option. He could only imagine the disgust, betrayal, discomfort that Lance would feel if he even suggested…

(Well, maybe he likes you, too. You’ve noticed the way he looks at you, right? Not just as a leader. Not just as a hero. Give it a chance.)

Shiro’s stomach turned in revulsion with himself. He hated that his mind could even come up with such ideas, give him a glimmer of hope… No, no! Not hope! There wasn’t any hope for this! He wasn’t going to tell Lance ANYTHING about this, and that was final!

Too nauseous from the migraine-like throbbing of his head to exercise or even get up, Shiro rolled himself into his blanket so that he was completely covered; concealed from the world.

(Since when have you been such a coward? You’re supposed to be a legendary defender, and you’re afraid to just be honest with a teammate?)

Shiro groaned. Suddenly, the heaviness in his head began to lift, and a sense of calm replaced his anxiety. Not just calm- he felt encouraged, at ease. He began to wonder if it would really pose that much of a risk to simply get a little closer to Lance- nothing overbearing, just spend some time training with him one-on-one, making up for the way he had been treating him recently. Gauging how he feels towards him before moving forward.

(Sounds like an excellent tactic.)

Shiro smiled, unfolding his blanket and staring at the roof of his bunk. Perhaps many other things were spiralling out of his control, but this was something that he could handle.