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It wasn’t a simple thing to try and explain the series of events that led to Sendak sucking down three doses of Altean truth serum.
It was a long and twisting tale, layered with the nuances of Sendak joining the paladins as an informant, the assurances from Allura that trust would be given when it was earned, Sendak’s incredible impatience, and a pig headedness on both sides, a joke from a black paladin that turned into--
Well. A bit of a game of chicken.
Turns out Alteans made some pretty heavy duty truth serum, as an element to a children’s game that was very similar to truth or dare. Only the whole truth serum thing kicked things up a notch.
Someone had been joking about keeping Sendak on a steady supply and maybe that helping Allura to trust him but. Sendak had overheard. And immediately demanded the chance to prove himself.
Allura, feeling doubtful, petty and rage filled, had agreed.
Coran hadn’t even stepped in. Which said a lot about where he stood on the issue.
So, grudgingly, knowing that this would not resolve itself without disaster unless he and Coran were present, Shiro did some excellent coordination and scheduling and made sure all of that paladins (who would doubtlessly take advantage of the whole thing) were busy doing teenage paladin things, such as: Sleeping, napping, resting their eyes, dozing, and other treasured hobbies.
Sendak had been trying to prove that he wasn’t trying to stab them all in the back for months now.
He had even convinced a few of them. Hunk had been surprisingly willing to give him another chance, after some weary looks and harsh words. But during an on-planet mission the Galra had given some quick information about patrol schedules that had saved Pidges life, and after that Hunk was sold.
Lance had been a little harder to convince, and still wasn’t one hundred percent on Sendak’s side, especially because Allura wasn’t. But he fought side by side with Sendak when the moment called for it, and they worked surprisingly well together.
Keith had his own reasons not to be jazzed about the whole thing, which Shiro couldn’t help but feel were a little above his own emotional maturity. After steering Keith in the direction of Coran and a long talk later, Keith had emerged much more willing to work with the disgraced Galra commander. In fact, Keith seemed to sort of like him.
Pidge had decided they trusted him after two months of regular lifesaving between the two. They had a tally board in the lounge to keep score of who had done the most heroics. Pidge was in the lead, much to Sendak’s chagrin.
Shiro was another story altogether. He and Allura had been the only holdouts for about a month now, stubbornly agreeing with each other that Sendak might be able to put on a good show, but over-all he couldn’t be trusted.
At least that’s what Shiro kept saying. His real emotions toward Sendak were… far more complex than simply mistrust.
Don’t get him wrong, it was absolutely there, colouring every interaction between them but… There was another, darker emotions lurking under it. Something low and vibrating that felt an awful lot like attraction.
So naturally Shiro had been avoiding thinking about that fact for as long as possible.
He had done so by trying to avoid Sendak. Trying being the operative word. Sendak somehow had the same schedule as him, eating and working out at the same times, just on opposite ends of the room, ignoring each other.
In Shiro’s case, pretending to ignore, especially during workouts when all he had to do was glance over to see Sendak, a few feet away, shirtless, pushing himself to his limits while panting.
At least Shiro could blame his shortness of breath on cardio training.
Now, in the throne room, he didn’t really have that option. And Sendak was standing pretty close to him, which wasn’t doing wonders for Shiro’s heartbeat.
Sendak was… Really big. And very warm, Shiro could feel the heat rolling off him from where he stood.
Sendak was standing straight and tall, pride oozing from him as Allura lined up three…shot glasses. Shiro would worry about where those came from later. For now he watched the tug of muscle as Sendak rolled his shoulders back and tossed back one of the peach coloured sludge shots. He emptied it and then the next two after without so much as a shudder.
Sendak gestured to Allura to begin her questions.
“What are your intentions towards Zarkon?”
“Defeat him and win back the pride he took from me. Through force and violence.” Sendak said, voice level. A smirk curled out at the end of his statement.
Shiro suppressed a shiver.
“What are your feelings towards the universe at large? The safety of the planets and the lives that Zarkon as ruined?” Allura asked, arms crossed and hardly coming up to Sendak’s shoulder.
“Indifferent.” Sendak’s smirk grew a little larger. Shiro gritted his teeth a little. That was a less than desirable answer, but it was better than some possibilities… He didn’t want to actively kill and enslave at least.
“What are your feelings toward me, Coran and the paladins of Voltron?”
“You and your… assistant I could care less about. I will take orders from you if that is my only way to obtain my revenge and regain my pride. The blue paladin is… grating. But well intentioned. And a talented sharpshooter. The red paladin has many questions about the Galra and is a talented pilot. He will come to no harm at my hand. The green paladin is clever. I will not lose to them in our competition. And the yellow paladin… I like him.”
It was interesting to watch Sendak’s body language through his speech. His shoulders went back, his ears were pricked forward, and he had leaned back a little. Sendak had turned extremely open, and in human terms almost… affectionate. Sendak liked the paladins and something in Shiro’s chest missed a beat. He felt… something more than attraction.
Something inching closer to emotions he didn’t want to examine.
“You’re forgetting a paladin, Sendak.” Coran pointed out, having moved to just behind Allura’s shoulder.
Sendak’s body language changed completely. He shut down. His teeth glinted, his shoulders rolled forward, his back fur bristled. He was trying very hard not to speak, Shiro could see a muscle ticking in his locked jaw.
Shiro inhaled slowly. Well that… wasn’t unexpected.
“The black paladin is our leader and if you intend to inflict harm on him—“
Sendak growled. “I would never harm Shiro.”
That, however, was unexpected. Shiro felt his eyebrows skyrocket. “You wouldn’t?”
Sendak turned toward Shiro and locked eyes with him, intent and focused. “Never.”
“Why?” The question was past his lips before he could stop it. Guilt crushed over him right away. This was to the time to be asking questions. Not when Sendak couldn’t refuse to answer them.
“Because I never want to see you injured in any way. I want to see you safe and looked after, preferably by me.”
Shiro vaguely registered Allura and Coran exchange looks out of the corner of his eye but he was focused on Sendak. Completely riveted by him.
“By you.” Shiro did his best to not inflect the statement like a question, but Sendak must have interpreted it as one, because he was replying. Turning away from Shiro, but replying.
“I wish to keep you safe with every part of me. I would give all of me to keep you safe. You are… and impressive warrior and I would—“
Sendak swallowed hard.
Shiro’s heart was in his throat and about to prompt him on when he noticed Sendak’s fists were clenched. His long nails digging into his palms and drawing blood that ran so fast it dripped to the floor.
Without another word, Shiro turned and walked out of the room, guilt swallowing him whole. Those were not words he was meant to hear.
-----
It had been a three weeks since The Incident and Shiro was working really, really hard on not thinking about it. Like really hard. He had been avoiding Sendak at all costs, as childish as that was.
On the plus side, for Sendak at any rate, Allura had found the whole thing so hilarious she did actually trust him now. Probably the mortification Sendak had inevitably experienced afterwards helped a lot too. Allura was a lot of things, powerful, smart, realistic, logical, but she was also very amused by humiliation. Which is absolutely what had happened in the throne room that day, for both Sendak and Shiro.
Coran had come to talk to Shiro after The Incident, probably hoping for a heart to heart that would help Shiro like Coran had helped Keith with his Sendak issues. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way because Shiro was at least three times more stubborn than Keith was and he wasn’t about to let Coran’s well-meaning attempt at a heart-to-heart undermine that.
He had tried to reason with Shiro about the ‘pros’ of having a strong and battle-hardened commander always behind him, ready to defend him and keep him safe.
Shiro appreciated the gesture but.
The important thing was that Shiro was apparently in the ‘prime grade beef’ category for purple aliens, and he wasn’t comfortable with that.
He wasn’t.
Honest.
The point was, Shiro was avoiding Sendak—which was a billion times more difficult now that Allura trusted him. He had free reign in the castle, would hang out at meal times, would use the showers, and worst of all would sometimes hop on the commlinks to give tactical advice mid-mission.
Which was the source of Shiro’s current predicament.
He was on a foreign planet’s surface, face covered in some sort of orange plant spore which was really tickling at his nose. He had yanked his helmet off because Sendak’s rough, low, voice in his ear was….
Bad. It was bad. And uncomfortable.
The point was Shiro was now inhaling these weird spores with no idea what affect they would have on his human physiology. The rest of the paladins were gazing on in shock.
Lance’s eyes were wide, he looked ready to start pacing at any second. Pidge had a slowly growing look of overwhelming curiosity on their face. Keith had his bayard out and looked ready to rip out all the plants at the roots. Hunk was the only one keeping his head—Shiro could see him talking with the castle on his headset, relaying the situation back to people a little more equipped to handle it. The spores tickled more at his nose.
Shiro wasn’t feeling panicked anymore. In fact he was feeling kind of… nice. Heavy and warm.
Oh, Hunk was walking over. Shiro grinned. He liked Hunk. Everyone liked Hunk.
“Hey Hunk? You’re great.” Shiro said, still grinning.
Hunk patted him on the shoulder and said something, gesturing to Shiro’s helmet.
“I can’t hear you without my helmet.” Shiro said, frowning. “I’m going to put it on.”
Shiro’s fingers tightened on his helmet with a squeak and he looked around the planet once more.
They weren’t designed to, but the helmets altered the colour of the worlds they visited-- dulled them and overlay them with grey. Shiro liked the bright colours swirling in the sun he got to see now. Some of them were quite literally swirling. Where the bright beams of sunlight hit tree bark, different shades of yellows and blues swirled together, blues on the edge of the sunbeam and warm yellows in the hottest spots.
Shiro reached out to touch it only to have his hand smacked out of the air. He looked over and Pidge was glaring before they pointed forcefully at the helmet in his hands. Shiro looked down at it and sighed before pulling it back on.
Sendak’s voice filled his head instantly. It just made the warm heavy feeling that much better.
“Has he replaced his helmet yet? There is only a small window where—“
“Hey, hot stuff.” Shiro said, trying to match Sendak’s rough voice. He could feel himself grinning lopsidedly.
“Well. I guess that answers that.” Allura’s voice said, a hint of emotion Shiro couldn’t be bothered to read in it.
“Uh—Sendak? What’s wrong with him?” Lance asked slowly.
“I’m not sure how the spores of the Daneera will affect your kind but… For the Galra it’s often used as a substance used to… recreationally relax and—“
God, Shiro was really enjoying listening to Sendak speak. It had been so long since he felt that voice rumble so deep it resonated in his chest….
“Are you telling me Shiro is high?” Pidge asked, a grin splitting their face.
“Let’s just say he shouldn’t operate his lion or other heavy machinery at the moment.
“Keep talkin’, big boy.” Shiro said, chest light to be speaking with Sendak again. He had kind of missed him.
It sounded like Keith made a noise, but Shiro wasn’t listening for that. He was more invested in the deep, resonating sound of Sendak over the radio.
“Are you… Referring to me?” Sendak asked, slow and dark as molasses. Shiro shivered.
“Obviously.” Shiro huffed. “I’m coming back up there… And you better be ready, Sendak.”
“I’m afraid to ask for what,” Pidge said, voice dry. “And luckily we won’t have to find out. Sendak just said you were grounded, Shiro. You aren’t going anywhere.
Shiro groaned, still feeling boneless, but a sense of deep disappointment washed over him.
“The green paladin is correct. You are staying right where you are.” Sendak said, sudden authority in his tone.
“If you keep talking to me like that, I’d do just about anything.”
Hunk groaned, “Sendak how long until he’s back to normal?”
“Again, comparing your weaker, human physiology to the Galra is a—“
“How long, Sendak?”
“It could last a few hours.”
“I bet I could last a few hours with you—“ Shiro purred.
“Okay!” Lance clapped his hands together loudly, “Well! I’m not standing around here listening to this for literal hours! I’m going back to the castle! Bye, Shiro!”
Lance marched over to blue without another word, Pidge followed close behind—tossing a quick salute Shiro’s way as the left.
Hunk patted Shiro’s shoulder consolingly before pulling Keith toward their lions. Keith looked pretty unimpressed with the whole thing.
“Hang on you’re all leaving?” Coran’s voice filtered through the speakers.
The paladins all replied the affirmative, quickly.
“What if Shiro injures himself? He shouldn’t be left on the planet’s surface alone while…. Affected like this.” Coran asserted. Shiro kind of wanted him to shut up.
“It’s not like I’m an infant—“ Shiro started, only to be interrupted by his favourite voice.
“I will go to the surface and make sure he remains unharmed.” Sendak said, voice heavy with promise of something.
Shiro shut up quickly at that.
---
Keith agreed to wait with Shiro as the other paladins jetted off back to the castle.
“Shiro, do you actually…?” Keith began hesitantly. Shiro blinked at him, waiting for him to finish. Keith sighed deeply. “Do you have a thing for Sendak?”
Shiro hesitated before meeting Keith’s eyes and nodding, not sure what to say. Not sure how Keith would react.
“If Lance was here he’d make a furry joke right now.” Keith said, grinning a little.
Very much not how Shiro thought this conversation would go.
“If you ever need to talk about it or anything, let me know—okay?” Keith said, a little more serious now.
Shiro couldn’t help a sense of pride at how far Keith had come. “You got it, kid.”
Shiro and Keith sat in silence for the rest of the wait. When Sendak arrived on planet Keith grinned and flashed them both a thumbs up before hopping into his lion.
And then Shiro was alone with Sendak.
“We are on a private channel now. At your teammate’s insistence.” Sendak said. His helmet looks ridiculous on him, it was squishing his ears flat and ruffling his fur in the wrong direction. Shiro couldn’t stop grinning at him.
“Our.” Shiro said, still grinning.
“What?” Sendak’s eyebrows furrowed deeply.
“Our teammates.”
“Ah, I… See.”
There was a long stretch of quiet. All Shiro could hear was Sendak breathing over the comms, every sound of the world around them was muted because of the helmets.
Shiro took a step closer to Sendak.
“We should…” Sendak began, trailing off as Shiro took another step. He was almost close enough to touch him now. Shiro’as fingers itched with the want to do so. He hadn’t broken eye contact with Sendak yet. Sendak cleared his throat. “We should get to the black lion. The filtration is better there, you’ll have more clean air to flush your system and rid it of the spores.”
Shiro let the statement float in the air for a while before nodding slowly, eyes still locked with the ex-commanders. “You take the lead, Sendak.”
Truth be told, Shiro could already feel himself sobering up. But he wasn’t quite sober enough to convince himself that milking this situation wasn’t a good idea. Maybe even a great one, he thought as he watched Sendak lead the way to the black lion, glancing over his shoulder only once to check Shiro’s pace.
They made it into the cockpit without saying anything. Shiro sat on the control panel and gestured for Sendak to take the chair, which he did, slowly. Their knees brushed. It was very warm. Sendak wasn’t wearing a suit of any kind, just the helmet.
Shiro slid his own helmet off and activated the life support systems. The inside of the lion glowed purple and Shiro decided he wanted to see how Sendak looked in that light.
Sendak’s eye was locked on him when Shiro turned to face him head on. Shiro moved slowly as he reached out and pushed the release buttons on the side of the helmet. With a gentle hiss of air escaping, it unclasped and Shiro pulled it up and off Sendak’s head.
Sendak’s ears flopped out from inside the helmet and he shook them out, flicking them like a cat.
Shiro couldn’t help the huge swell of affection that rose in his chest as he pushed forward and kissed Sendak slowly. His fingers tangled in the fur around Sendak’s jaw and he tugged a little, trying to shock him into responding.
It sort of worked. Sendak growled against Shiro’s lips which, yes please more of that, but he also didn’t start kissing back.
Shiro pulled away by an inch, tilted his head to look at Sendak and raise his eyebrows.
“Shiro…”
Sendak was not one to hesitate. In anything. Not as long as Shiro had known him. Sendak was decisive, proud and quick to act. But he was silent now, no words coming forth even though he had already begun speaking.
“That’s me.” Shiro said, inviting him to finish his sentence.
Sendak’s eye flicked down to Shiro’s lips. And he knew it wasn’t something about not wanting to kiss Shiro.
Shiro leaned a little closer.
“You do not want this.”
“What?” Shiro jerked back, surprised. “What are you talking about? Didn’t you hear me on the comms I--”
“You might want this, then. But you do not want it with me.” The authority in his voice was harsh. Unflinching. He spoke with such surety for a moment, Shiro even believed him. But then he remember all the weeks of pining and crossed his arms with a huff.
“I don’t think you get to tell me what I do and do not want, Sendak.” Shiro said, a little harshly. “Trust me, if you’d been inside my head these last few months you’d know very well that there’s no one else I’d rather being doing this with.”
Sendak looked momentarily surprised. His ears flicked again and Shiro felt his heart swell.
Sendak grabbed the back of Shiro’s neck and pulled him in harshly, kissing him breathless.
Shiro couldn’t help the groan that spilled forth when he felt Sendak’s claws brush over the skin of his neck. It sent a shiver down his spine, made him weak in the knees, and just about all the other cliché’s a kiss could throw at a person.
Without debating with himself he slipped into Sendak’s lap, thankful at how wide the control chair was. Sendak growled again and his free hand jumped to Shiro’s thigh, where it squeezed tightly.
Shiro had to break the kiss for a moment, pushing his forehead against Sendak’s, taking several harsh breaths before pressing his chest against Sendak’s. It was heaving as fast as Shiro’s own.
Shiro kissed him again, flicking out his tongue to taste the sharp teeth in Sendak’s mouth. He pushed his tongue harder against them, testing to see just how sharp. The copper taste of blood filled their mouths and Shiro grinned.
Perfect.
Shiro blinked as he felt himself lifted off the chair and Sendak’s lap and held up against the sharp angles of the control panel. Sendak hadn’t broken the kiss once to do so.
Sendak pressed tighter into Shiro and he felt a thrill emanate from every place Sendak touched him.
Then, Shiro recognized the incoming hail noise and pushed against Sendak’s chest a few times, breaking the kiss, but not moving his hands.
“Yes? Who is it?” He demanded, pressing down on the ‘answer call’ button. His voice was more wrecked than he’d ever heard it before. He couldn’t bring himself to care.
“It’s Coran! We just wanted to check you both got to the lion and—“
“We are fine.” Growled Sendak, leaning in Shiro’s hands, the look in his eyes intent. God, Shiro wanted to kiss him again.
“Yup. All good here. No lingering effects from the spores but uh—the… the engine in my lion is… there’s an issue and… it might take a while to fix.” Shiro lied horribly.
“Yes. Perhaps several hours.” Sendak growled. Shiro let his hands slide up Sendak’s chest and around his broad back.
“I’d say probably hours—“ Sendak started pushing those sharp teeth into his neck. Shiro’s breath stuttered out. “At least.”
“I’m hanging up now.” Coran said weakly. “There’s no rush here, but please next time remember that these comms aren’t audio only.”
The dial tone sounded. Shiro snorted before tugging on a tuft of Sendak’s fur and drawing him in again, more slowly.
After all, they had hours.