Chapter Text
The door to the viewing deck opened, and Hunk rushed into the room. Pidge had probably already started looking, and he wouldn’t put it past the youngest Paladin to ask the mice for help. The mice would probably give it, too, tiny traitors.
“What are you doing so close to me?!” Lance yelled suddenly, drawing Hunk’s attention to the room’s massive curved couch. Where Keith and Lance were sitting, one of Lance’s feet in Keith’s face. “What if your awful mullet is infectious?!”
“Why do you hate my hair so much!?” Keith yelled back, kicking at Lance’s knee.
“It offends me!”
“You didn't seem too offended ten seconds ago when you were-”
Keith was cut off by Lance kicking him square in the jaw, and Hunk caught the Red Paladin around the waist before he could lunge at Lance for revenge. “What the fuck, guys?” he yelled, glaring first at Lance then at Keith.
“He started it!” Keith kicked at Lance, but Hunk pulled him up before his heel could make contact.
“Could you maybe not?” Hunk tossed a squirming Keith to the end of the couch. “Pidge is trying to find me, and I need you guys to be quiet or they’ll-”
“Found you!”
Hunk groaned and slumped forwards. Pidge was going to lord this over him forever.
“Found who?” Lance asked, still blushing furiously around the ears.
“Hunk.” Pidge replied brightly. “And Shiro too. You’re both terrible at hiding.”
Shiro walked in the door after Pidge, and Hunk sighed. At least he hadn’t been the first one out.
“What’s- going on?” Shiro asked, looking from the blushing Keith and Lance to the rest of the room.
“Just some friendly stargazing.” Lance blurted, smiling way too wide. “Y’know, like, Paladin bonding!”
“Uh-huh.” Pidge said flatly, clearly not buying it.
“Right.” Shiro said, equally flatly, and Hunk sidled off to the side as Lane and Keith squirmed under the Dad Look.
“Y’know, like, making new constellations and trying to guess what they are.” Keith supplied. Which, actually did sound like a decent way to improve the low-level telepathic bond they shared. If they were wearing the telepathic headbands, which they weren’t, but Hunk decided not to mention that.
“Huh.” Shiro grinned, and walked forward to sit on the arm of the couch. “Certainly sounds less stressful than those headbands.”
“I call first constellation!” Pidge said loudly, and vaulted the back of the couch to sit between Keith and Shiro. Hunk looked at the couch for a second, then mentally shrugged and went to flop down on Lance’s left.
“Those three.” Pidge pointed at a cluster of bright stars. “Are my new favourite constellation.”
“Your little robot thing?” Lance and Shiro asked at the same time.
“Rover.” Hunk said, Keith speaking almost in synch with him.
“I guess that was kinda easy.” Pidge grinned. “Shiro?”
“Hmm...” Shiro frowned out the window, then lifted his flesh and blood arm to point out a cluster near the right edge of the window. “Those seven.”
“The castle.” Hunk said, and found Lance and Pidge speaking with him, Keith half a beat behind. Okay, that was both cool and a little creepy.
“Your turn, Hunk.” Lance grinned, elbowing him in the side.
Hunk looked at the star-strewn expanse of space, and found his eyes drawn to a string of stars with two bright ones at the lower right end, nine in total. “Those ones.” he drew a squiggly line between them with his finger, and next to him Lance smiled tensely.
“Hawaii.” Keith and Shiro said.
“Home.” Lance and Pidge breathed, and Hunk’s heart did a funny little twist in his chest.
“Yeah.” he nodded.
“I miss home.” Pidge said, voice small as they drew their knees up to their chest.
“Me too.” Lance agreed, reaching behind Keith’s back to give Pidge’s shoulder a squeeze. “Mami taught me how to navigate by the stars, back on Earth.” his voice got quiet, and Hunk saw Shiro slide down off the arm of the couch to scoot closer to the rest of them. “Always said that as long as I could see the stars, I’d be able to find my way home.” Lance sighed, and Hunk slung an arm around his friend’s shoulders as Keith leaned in from the other side.
“I never knew how to navigate by the stars.” Pidge joined in, curling further in on themself. “Matt just taught me how to find constellations.”
“He got a book on it from the Garrison library.” Shiro said, and everyone looked at him. “Wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks, until we got a long weekend and he could go home to share it with you.” Shiro sounded as surprised as the rest of them felt, and after a long second Pidge grinned.
“It rained all weekend.” they said quietly, tilting sideways until their shoulder hit Shiro. “He was so worried that he’d have to wait until Christmas, but then-”
“It cleared up on the last night.” Shiro was smiling, a fairly rare sight in general but even more rare when he was regaining a memory. “He was so happy about that.”
“Yeah, he really was.” Pidge sniffled.
They sat in silence for a few minutes after that, just looking out the window at the stars and their alien constellations, and if he focused a little bit Hunk could tell that Pidge and Shiro and Lance were just as homesick as he was. Keith was less so, but considering his home was a shack in the middle of the desert Hunk guessed that would make sense.
Keith sat up abruptly, drawing every eye, and Hunk recoiled as the Red Paladin hauled off and punched Lance in the face.
“Keith!” Shiro said loudly, but Lance was yelling something in Spanish much louder and Hunk watched with wide eyes as his friends started grappling, quickly falling off the couch.
“Guys, cut it out!” he yelled, and tried to pull them apart. In a moment of pure synchronisation, Lance and Keith took his feet out from under him at the exact same time and he fell heavily on top of them. Each of them promptly started blaming it on the other as Shiro helped him pull them apart, and on the couch Pidge started to laugh.
Well, they were a billion billion miles from home, but at least life in space was never boring.