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“Shit shit shit shit!” Lance hissed to himself, clinging with survival-deciding desperation to what was left of the ledge he had been standing on. He’d been so distracted by the Galra soldiers he had been fighting that he hadn’t realized he was on a narrow, fragile bit of ground until everything was already crumbling beneath his feet. Fortunately, the last two Galra had also been on it (or unfortunately – it was probably the three’s combined weights that had sent it collapsing) and had fallen down the frighteningly deep chasm that now yawned beneath Lance’s flailing feet. He had both hands clutching some of the remaining rock tightly and was deeply regretting ever thinking that fighting in a cave system was a good idea.
He had only been hanging here for a few minutes at most, but already Lance could feel his arms straining, his hands slipping. He was going to fall.
Gonna fall gonna fall gonna
Hands grabbed his. Gloved, no claws or fur – a Paladin, not a Galra. Lance knew Hunk’s touch like his own skin, and Shiro had his metal arm, so the Paladin rescuing him had to be –
Thank quiznak. “Keith, I never thought I’d ever say it, but boy am I glad to see – you?”
That wasn’t Keith.
Pidge gave Lance a crooked little half-smile. “Sorry, Short Red and Cranky is busy chopping up sentrybots. You’ll have to settle for me instead.”
Lance was so surprised that he would have probably let go if Pidge wasn’t holding on to his wrists with a ferocity that was definitely going to leave bruises. “Pidge what the heck how are you even holding me up?” he asked, baffled at the realization that the smallest Paladin was currently keeping him from a long and very bad fall with their own sheer strength.
“Pure determination,” Pidge gritted out, and now Lance could see the strain on their face, the way their arms were shaking just slightly as they gripped his.
“Holy crow Pidge,” Lance sputtered, “you’re gonna break yourself! Or get pulled over with me! Let go, Pidge, let go!”
“Nope,” the Green Paladin said shortly, shifting carefully. “Nobody’s falling. I can get you back up, but you gotta push with your feet or climb my arms or something, I can’t freaking dead-lift you.”
Lance was about to reply, just as likely with something useful as obnoxious snark (life-threatening situation or no), but he was distracted by a flicker of movement somewhere in the cavespace behind Pidge. “What’s – holy shit Pidge look out!”
The smaller Paladin was barely able to roll half over and dodge the laser blast that the Galra soldier had just fired. The move jostled both Green and Blue, though, and one of Lance’s hands slipped through their death-grip, leaving him hanging from an even-tighter hold like steel digging into his left wrist.
Lance hung there like a piece of fruit, a fresh burst of terror clouding his mind. If he moved wrong – if Pidge’s hand slipped – if the Galra fired again –
Pidge couldn’t fall too. That was the only clear thought. He had halfway reached up, body moving faster than brain, intending to uncurl Pidge’s fingers somehow, let them survive this at least, but they let out a furious hiss and dug their fingers in harder at the movement.
The message was clear. Nobody is falling.
Lance could barely follow the next few seconds. The Galra soldier was advancing but slowly, clearly relishing his discovery of two Paladins of Voltron hanging over a cliffside nearly helpless. That was his mistake, because Pidge was neither slow nor helpless.
They moved like a flash. Pressed to the sheer edge of the cliff, still clinging to Lance’s wrist with the grip of a starving raptor with their right hand, they materialized their bayard in their left and fired.
Lance may have been the team sharpshooter, but Pidge did not miss. The electrified wire hit the Galra square in the chest, and his entire body convulsed, his gun falling from his hands, before collapsing bonelessly to the ground.
Pidge didn’t waste any time. Lance couldn’t climb back up, not without pulling them over the edge, and they both knew that determination or no, they couldn’t keep hanging like this forever.
A moment more of twisting and shifting, during which Lance clung like a limpet and hoped that when he did finally fall he wouldn’t take his friend with him. He heard the sound of the Green bayard being fired again, although with no more enemies around he couldn’t fathom why.
Then Pidge took a breath. “Okay, Lance, hold on tight.”
“What the quiznak do you think I’m doing?” Lance screeched, but he only had time to grab Pidge’s wrist with his free hand before he was being suddenly yanked upwards.
Halfway through being roughly dragged up and over the edge, Lance finally figured it out. Pidge had fired the bayard into the cave wall and pressed the button that would normally draw the wire back into the wristpiece. Instead of respooling, the bayard was pulling both Pidge and Lance towards the blade across the room, effectively hauling Lance back up where Pidge had been unable to do so alone.
Seconds later, the two collapsed on the cave floor, panting and gasping for breath. Lance could feel himself shaking from adrenaline, fear and energetics battling inside him, but he noticed he wasn’t the only one. “You okay?” he asked breathlessly into Pidge’s shoulder. He had landed mostly on top of them and didn’t quite have the energy to roll off.
They mumbled something into his hair, lifting one trembling hand halfway up as if to pat his shoulder before giving up. “I… may have pulled every muscle in my arms and a few I didn’t know existed, and also it is possible that both of my shoulders are either dislocated or strained,” they panted.
Lance pushed away the ripple of guilt. “Pods’ll have you back and punching me in the ribs in no time,” he joked halfheartedly, searching for the strength to push himself off his friend and finding none. A few more minutes, then. “Hey,” he added, quieter. “Thanks.”
They laughed, a breathy motion Lance felt in his chest as he lay there. “I’m not an Arm for nothing,” they huffed, and he snorted.
“Big strong arm, saving the day.”
“Saving your ass.”
“Shut up. Thanks.”
“No problem.”