Archive Warning: Major Character Death

Category: Gen

Relationships: Keith & Lance, Lance & Red Lion

Additional Tags: Suicide, Suicide Notes, Rivalry, Panic, Depression, Lance is a Mess, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Harm, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Blood and Injury, Blood Loss

Part 3 of the Suffocating Heat series

Notes: I just want to thank the absolutely amazing flashfrozenlove on Tumblr for all their help and putting up with my pestering and whining.

Also, Frostytrish, because I love you and I can't do anything without validation and I beg you to read my shit all the time. You put up with so much from me.

Things weren't getting any better. Red was still demanding things from him that he couldn't give her. The team still didn't seem to notice the pieces falling off of him every time they took a crack at him. Not even Hunk seemed to understand what he was feeling. Lance had contemplated a few times how long it would take, how much it would hurt, how serious he was about taking this initiative and leaving the team before the team left him. The fresh hatch marks along his arm only ever stayed there for maybe a day, the healing pods always made quick work of hiding the evidence.

No one knew a thing.

Which was why now seemed like the perfect time. Their missions were going smoothly, and Shiro had just been accepted back by Black. He could leave now and only suffer a little bit of guilt. Skipping the debrief, Lance went straight back to his room. He probably had only about ten minutes before the others decided to go look for him. Grabbing his knife from it's spot in his underwear drawer he slunk back out into the hall. His room would be the first place they looked, and Lance didn't want to soil the bedroom with his blood anymore than he already had. It was clean and his final words were written out in a letter on his desk. This was it. This was the end. He could finally beat Keith at something. He would never see Keith's back in his way ever again. He wouldn't be replacing, or compared to Keith again either. Lance would have finally gotten to something first. Death.

Keith would finally feel what Lance always had. He hoped that Red's heat would hurt Keith when he went back just as much as it had him. Hoped that Keith felt the same smoldering pain and sweltering suffocation of uselessness as he had. Hoped that Red's fire would leave this wound unable to close, that he would carry Lance with him for the rest of his life just as Lance had carried Keith for as long as he had been able to bear.

He made his way to the observation deck, deciding that was the best place to do it. Where he could sit and gaze upon Earth and his family one last time before he left. Where once the team knew he was missing and started looking, they would find him too late to make it to the healing pods on the other side of the ship. Pulling up the coordinates from memory he sat down and pulled out his knife. This would be the last time they met like this. This would be the last time he felt it's sharp edge bite into his soft flesh. This time, he would let the fire consume him. This time, he welcomed all of Red's fury towards him. She didn't want him to go, but he knew she also didn't want him to stay. After all, Lance, wasn't Keith.

Red sent wave after wave of broiling flames into his mind and each one scalded and charred what little was left of his sanity. 'Keith would never do this.' flitted through his subconscious with a heat unlike anything Lance had felt Red direct towards him before. But this was exactly why he had to do it. He wasn't Keith. He was Lance, and he couldn't stand still being compared to him. It was always Keith this, or Keith that, or 'Lance, why can't you be more like Keith?' He was sick of it. If the universe wanted Keith so badly, it could have him. Lance was done playing copy cat. His letter ran through his head as he made the first cut.

I'm sorry that I couldn't tell you all this up front. But I can't do this anymore. I never could. All your sharp words, though I know you didn't mean it, cut deeper than any knife could have. You don't know how many times I've cried myself to sleep, or cut my wrist to feel literally any semblance of control over this spiraling hell I call my life. How many times I've had to tell myself "no, not yet" because I'm too nice to leave you all without a paladin. But there have been fights where I've contemplated stepping out from behind the cover and taking one for the team. The physical pain probably wouldn't even be as bad as this. As bad as always being compared and belittled. As painful as always being Keith's replacement. As sweltering as Red's heat leaving me gasping and reeling in hallways with nothing but my thoughts to perpetuate these fantasies of death and feelings of inadequacy. I know I'm just a burden to the team, and I know you'll all lie and tell me that I'm not. But I know. We need the best out there, and that's not me. It never was , and it never will be. I miss my home, and I miss my family, but until Zarkon is defeated, I also know we can't go back. So, for once, I'm taking the initiative. I'm leaving. I'm listening to those little voices inside my head. The ones that keep telling me that oblivion is better than this purgatory that I've been left in. That death is sweeter than feeling the constant stab of "Keith is better. Keith wouldn't do that. Why can't you be more like Keith?" So Keith, if you're reading this; I give up. I'm done living in your shadow. I hope you enjoy mine.

He felt the blood trickle down his forearm from the vertical cut, to his wrist, ever so slowly pooling in his hand drip by drip, morbidly warming his skin. The cut had hurt, but he'd been hurt worse too many times before to even shed a tear for the physical pain. He watched the holographic Earth spin in it's lazy orbit in front of him. He missed it. His only regret was that he hadn't been able to tell his mother goodbye in person. She would never know what happened to her baby. But then again, the Garrison had probably already told her that he was dead anyway.

His vision stayed focused on the small planet he called home, even when it started getting a little fuzzy around the edges he kept his gaze locked on it. Home. It was so far away. He missed the sky, the grass, the trees, the waves. All of it. Lance missed it so much that it hurt. Slowly the ache in his chest expanded. He had wanted this, so why was he feeling regret now? He had needed this escape just moments before, so why did his heart not want to go through with it any longer? He couldn't back out now. This was too meticulously thought out, he wasn't going to survive this. He had made sure to eat only enough to not raise suspicion at breakfast. Losing blood on an empty stomach was supposed to help. His head felt woozy and as he brought his clean hand up to his face to ease the spinning, he felt how wet his face was. Tears. He was crying. He had promised himself he wouldn't cry. This was his to control! He was not going to cry! He had wanted this so desperately, why was his body trying to steal this one happiness away from him?

Actively he wanted to blame Keith, because all of his problems could be traced back to the mullet haired bastard. If he hadn't been there to break Shiro out back in the beginning then he never would have convinced them to go looking for giant alien lions. If they had never found Blue, Lance never would have been here, he could have gone back to the Garrison and been a fighter pilot. He would have eventually gotten over the constant reminder that he wasn't Keith. He would have graduated. He would have made his mama proud.

Subconsciously though, Lance knew it wasn't Keith's fault. He knew that what was happening now was his brain working overtime to try and scare him back into wanting to live. He knew because he'd felt it before. It felt good to save the universe, but without Blue by his side to help keep him together, without telling the team that he was hurting, it would never really feel right . Lance closed his eyes and reached out to Red. "Alright girl, you can tell them I'm here now." he sent. It was weak and there was no way for the team to get there in time. There was no way for Lance to change his mind. He had made sure of it.

He could barely feel the hands on him maybe five minutes later, time was a blur right now. He could feel them shaking him in the way his vision seemed to tilt to the left and zoom in and out entirely too rapidly for his tired and sluggish brain to keep up with, could make out loud shouting voices, but not words. He vaguely recognized Hunk's panicked voice above all the others, could feel Pidge's tiny hands against his forearm where he knew he was bleeding out. He let his lips curve up into a soft smile as his eyes caught Keith's wide, violet eyes staring down at him in panicked confusion. It was too much work to do the cliche' bloody hand on the rival's cheek bit, but Lance liked to think he'd have been better than that had he been able to lift his arms at all anyway.

"Your turn to watch me leave, Samurai." Lance managed to push out before he felt the headache come back full force and pull his eyes closed. He didn't know how Keith had reacted to the words, but he also knew that he didn't have much longer.

This was his goodbye.

His first, and final win against Keith.

Choke on that. Was his final thought as the blackness seemed to swallow him up.

Notes: Okay, so while writing this piece, I decided that there is the potential for one more part to this series. It would for sure be the last part though. Just a small little epilogue type deal, showing how everyone is getting along after Lance's death. It's not set in stone yet and all I have for it so far is a title, so don't hold your breath. But it is a possibility.