Work Text:
"I'm not going to lie," Hunk mused from outside the circle of trust, watching a vicious stare down ensue, "I really have no idea what the issue is here. We agreed no secrets between us. Right? That was a thing, right? Pidge?"
"It was a thing, Hunk." Pidge sounded from within the circle, rolling her head back and trying in vain to think of a secret Shiro will deem worthy of releasing her over. "You all already know I'm a girl. Please. This girl is dying."
A tired sigh came, and Shiro joined Hunk at his side to look on at the trio left of the circle. Keith and Lance's gazes burned holes into one another, silently competing for a better secret that neither would utter in the first place. Keith's right hand was attached to Lance's left, and Lance's right hand was attached to Pidge's left, and Pidge's right to Keith's left. Undoubtedly, Pidge suffered the most of this arrangement, and Shiro had to admit that he really thought she would have thought of something by this point.
"I can't bend the rules for you, Pidge. Just because you had one secret doesn't mean you might not have another big one." He was tired, in every sense of the word, and Allura's menacing gaze had said fix this in such a compelling and threatening way that he was resorting to childish sorts of methods to get the team to open up.
Pidge groaned when Lance shuffled forward to squint better at Keith's unwavering face. "Can we just..." She sighed, eyes darting through her thick glasses around the room, "Use the mind meld helmets for a while? Form Voltron mentally until we can only see five colors like the good old days?"
"I miss the good old days." Hunk agreed quietly, nodding a fraction mostly to himself.
"That's two votes, Shiro."
Shiro ran his index finger across the bridge of his nose, tracing the scar there idly and closing his eyes to take a deep and patient breath. "Are we all comfortable with the mind meld helmets? I remember there was a problem somewhere back then."
Hunk pointed out, "That was when Pidge didn't think we all knew she was a girl."
"Girl Pidge is very okay with the mind meld helmets if it means I can let go of two sweaty hands."
A huff came, Lance breaking the staring contest with Keith to squint at Pidge appropriately. "My hands are not sweaty!" Almost silently, Keith gave a grunt of agreement.
"My hands are drenched, Lance, drenched, and Keith's wearing gloves! This is a trio of sweaty hand holding and I want to leave."
Knowing Pidge wasn't one for dramatics personally, Shiro was rather surprised to see the lengths of her complaints. There was a limit, he supposed, for everybody, and even he was at his. Being, rationally, the most patient of their little group of legendary defenders, he was used to the sidelines of letting the rest of the team work through their frustrations, but feeling his own growing at the antics of the team was another beast entirely—Not wholly unfamiliar, but irritating the second it came, every time.
"We're doing mind meld helmets." Shiro announced, shaking his head and turning in the training room to search for the right panel that had held them last.
"Nope! Nope. Wait. I cry myself to sleep when I think about my Sunshine Bear on the garrison bed that I left." Lance declared, letting go of Keith and Pidge's hands to back away from the circle. "Sharpshooter's out. No mind meld."
"Aww, bro. The bear I got you at that little flower festival in town the year before?" Hunk asked, sounding a little fondly dismayed. Lance nodded and shoved his fists in the pockets of his jacket.
Before Shiro could give a word, Pidge jumped in with a mild outrage. "Wait, that counts!?" Lance joined Hunk's side to spit a tongue out at Pidge's complaint.
"It was heartfelt, no matter how trivial you think it is in comparison, Pidge." He didn't mean to be so warning, but Shiro couldn't help the creep of the tone in his voice.
The green paladin deflated a smidge. "Sometimes I can't look at you guys because you remind me so much of my brothers. Except Shiro. You're like a younger version of my dad, which is even worse."
"Oh, Pidge..." Shiro started automatically, but she was flinging herself from Keith's hands before he could properly advance.
"I'm out, Keith. Get your shit—"
"Language, Pidge."
"—together so we can all go wash our hands."
Lance, from behind Shiro, was murmuring softly with Hunk, who occasionally made an affirmative noise or a snort. Lance wasn't laughing in return.
"I-I don't have any secrets." Keith said after a minute or two, keeping his own hands linked as per the circle of trust rule and looking at the ceiling for guidance. "Not anymore."
Shiro could hear Lance clap, and cut in quickly before the blue paladin could make a remark about how dramatic Keith's confession was. "Anything, Keith. Tell us about how you're feeling. It doesn't have to be serious, just something we don't know."
With slowly bunching shoulders, Keith's face went through a slow process of many emotions, still looking up towards the ceiling. When it settled again on his neutral, slightly agitated expression, he looked at the group and sighed. "When Pidge takes the time to explain to me some of the higher-level technology she's working on, or when Hunk lets me help cut stuff in the kitchen when it's his cooking night, I'm really happy."
"Okay," Shiro edged in immediately, sending Keith a warm smile to know his confession wasn't in vain, "So you like being included? Or is it just those moments specifically?"
"I don't mind being included. That stuff specifically makes me remember not everyone on this team is here to be a pain in the ass—"
"Keith."
"Hey!"
“Wait,” Hunk cut in before Lance could fully protest the subtle jab, “So you don't mind being included or you like being included? There's some schematics here, man.”
Keith, if anything, looked more uncomfortable, eyebrows twitching together another hare. “I...like it, I guess.”
“Good going, team.” Their leader addressed sincerely, a slight smile coming over his features at he looked at the four of them. “Hopefully this does something towards our formation, but I don't like having to force us all to open up. We should feel comfortable around each other this far in, and if we don't, we should tell each other why we're not comfortable. Everyone understand?”
There was a murmur of agreements, and Keith unclasped his hands, dropping the circle of trust officially. “To be fair,” Lance hedged, glancing at Hunk when he rubbed his face, “I feel like, comfortable or not, there are just some things we might not be okay with the rest of us knowing.”
“Yeah,” Hunk said after a beat of silence, “Like, remember when Pidge got her period? That was weeks of TMI I'll never recover from. I appreciate the openness, but there are probably some things we can spare other people from knowing.”
Pidge was livid instantly, but Shiro put a hand on her shoulder before she could huff at Hunk. Instead, she rolled her eyes and bit back, “If my crotch has to bleed in space with no resources in all of Altean technology, then you can suffer hearing about it and helping me draft space tampons.”
The yellow paladin was as pleasant as ever, shrugging a bit and nodding. “That's fair, I guess, but really.” Pidge’s sass was lost on his light.
“I agree with Hunk.” Keith interjected and glanced away from Pidge pointedly, “We can spare each other useless secrets.”
“Look,” Shiro started, not unkindly. His eyes darted around the room for a second, scoping for threats that were nowhere to be found, before he continued, “I agree with you guys, but we need to be careful with the types of secrets we do keep that could hurt our ability to form Voltron. This is a healthy exercise for all of us to get stuff out of our system.”
“Wait a minute,” Pidge backed away from Shiro, eyes narrowing through her glasses, “Did you even give us a secret? Who held Shiro’s hand?”
Silence came. The green paladin continued, “Oh my space. You’re copping out. I bet Allura just threatened you.”
Shiro and her shared a long gaze at one another before the former sighed, “Yes, but it is a necessary exercise.”
“We’re all digging into Shiro’s headhole when we can’t form Voltron again.” The smaller declared, throwing her arms into the air.
Hunk saluted, Lance was quick to follow suit. “Yes sir, miss Black Paladin.”
Shiro groaned.
When Pidge emerged from the green lion’s hanger to see Shiro on the business end of a dazzling Altean gaze, she knew they were in for a long night. They convened in the training room again not half an hour later, and Shiro looked both inwardly and outwardly frustrated.
“Alright, team.” He started, straining a little as he passed out the mind-melding helmets, “Just a small session here, mentally forming Voltron. We can do this, right? No need to make each other uncomfortable. Let’s just get back to the basics.”
“By this point, don’t we sort of have all team building exercises memorized?” Lance lamented, clutching the edges of his helmet with feigned nonchalance. His knuckles were white, his face was calm.
Hunk gestured towards his friend, looking oddly sympathetic. “Yeah, we should think of new ones. Trust falls and spiderwebs. Did we ever do trust falls? That feels important.”
“Don’t you and Lance always do trust falls anyway?” Pidge asked, yanking her helmet on without a second glance. Her family appeared in front of her face instantly, brother and father included. A hazel gaze eyed the image with reserved sadness before Pidge slipped her eyes closed.
Keith felt the same sadness the second he slipped his own helmet on, closing his eyes before any image could even appear. Last time, it had been his shack. This time, he couldn’t even say what his mind was most preoccupied with.
“That doesn’t count, me and Hunk are always going to have the biggest trust, anyway.” Lance shrugged, watching Shiro put on his helmet, glancing at Keith’s closed eyes, and slipping his own on hesitantly.
His reluctance was intriguing. As soon as the connection was made and the image appeared in front of Lance, Shiro understood with a soft, almost mute sigh. A flurry of images, marred by static, flickered in and out from in front of Lance, not able to decide what was most worth pinpointing his focus on. There were planets they’d saved and hadn’t visited since, shots of each of the paladins, an image of the Holts, even, at one point, and a strange insistence of the Red paladin. Eventually, almost uncertainly, his family was in view, and it quickly shifted to the blue lion.
Shiro glanced away into his own image, already the black lion, but he knew it had been his own arm this time. Closing his eyes, he felt an overtaking fondness for his teammates that was always there, yet amplified all of a sudden towards his right side. Between his right side? It was a strange sensation, as if somebody, or more than one somebody, was fighting over their control, which was the exact opposite of the point of the exercise.
“Lance…” Pidge muttered, wincing to herself as her green lion flickered a little, “Is that you? Is that…your ego? How do you get that confident?” She sounded honestly bewildered a second, losing her focus in favor of trying to avoid the overwhelming levels of adoration that was in the circle for the blue paladin.
“It’s probably Hunk.” Lance choked, and a wave of dismay fell across the link. Shiro could feel his head being rooted through and opened it freely, if not a little smugly, when Pidge made a sound of disgruntled pleasure.
“Pass.” Hunk murmured. “I’d also like to call out whoever just slammed the image of Keith’s smile into my mind. Is that even something we’ve seen? Keith, do you smile?”
Voltron was lethargically connecting at the joints, lions flickering occasionally at the strength of their connection being tugged around.
“Look,” Lance’s voice was tired and straining, and Shiro felt a strange kinship with the teenager, “We’re right there. Voltron is right there. Let’s just finish this fast. Hunk, wait—No.”
“LANCE.” The yellow paladin suddenly cried, scandalized. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry! Get out of my head!”
“Stop thinking about my hair, Hunk.” Keith growled, “You’re encouraging him.”
“PASS.” The yellow paladin repeated, much harder this time.
Shiro noted, with surprise, that it was the first thing Keith had said within the circle. His eyes were still closed tight, and Shiro risked a peek around at the rest of the paladins while his black lion waited patiently for the rest of the lions to be fully engaged. Pidge had her nose scrunched up, and Shiro finally felt her presence with less force in his mind. A little proudly, Shiro had to admit he was well composed with his secrets. There were a few layers for her to get past mentally, at least. Beside her, Lance had left his meditation pose and was digging his fingers into his eyes, looking positively exhausted. The blue lion held steady. Hunk had an uneven frown on his face, half turned towards his best friend but definitely looking confused.
Voltron formed, finally, and a disconnection was made. The three remaining pairs of eyes popped open, and four paladins looked on as Keith set down his helmet, looking troubled and strangely red in the face. His eyes were hardened, but pointedly did not look up at the rest of them.
Lance was the last to remove his helmet, looking like he was going to vomit and not looking at anybody but Hunk, who still looked confused and a little betrayed. His motions were slow and agonizing-seeming. Shiro decided, firmly, that there was something much larger at work in this problem they had.
“We did it…” Hunk cheered weakly, trying to share a glance with Pidge, who was eyeing Keith suspiciously.
“This made things worse.” Lance declared, standing. “This made things definitely, infinitely worse.”
Pidge followed suit, taking off her glasses and cleaning them methodically. Her gaze was suspicious, but nothing else in her demeanor conveyed it. “I’ll only say this once. I agree with Lance.”
After a moment, Shiro stood too and sighed. “This is dangerous, guys. I’m not sure what could be happening in all of us, I respect all of your privacy enough not to dig,” Pidge ignored the jab, “but this exercise isn’t something we do without a point. I hope we can sort anything else out before we need to form Voltron again.”
Keith handed back his mind meld helmet with no protest, walking away as soon as they were dismissed. Shiro was the second to leave.
“Ha, that Keith, right? What an ego on him. Did you feel how much he was thinking about himself?” Shiro heard behind him.
“It’s okay, buddy.” Was Hunk’s soft reply.
“I can provide a temporary mental link stronger than the Voltron formation and mind meld helmets even, but it will only be for a very short while. My abilities are not much stronger than that.” Allura told Shiro primly, recognizing his problem and being the full front for a solution at this point.
The black paladin was reluctant to agree to something so invasive, but the mind meld helmets had offered little insight towards one another’s feelings beyond the overwhelming ride sided preference Shiro had during the session.
“How strong?” He asked, rubbing his face and sighing a little.
Allura hummed, “You will not be able to read one another’s thoughts unless your bond is already extraordinarily strong, but you’ll be able to feel one another’s intentions and emotions at a much higher level than usual. It should offer more levels of insight, if nothing else.”
“Okay.”
They announced it at dinner that night. Coran looked positively delighted at the concept.
“Why,” He had stated, “That was like boot camp for the paladins back in the day! Not a single team went without an initial forced connection like so. If they could get past that first level of crippling awkwardness, then they’d be more comfortable with one another than a little nest of Uyvibles! What an idea, princess!”
“Thank you, Coran.” She smiled, glancing at the table again, “I hope you all understand the severity of this experience and do not lose the opportunity to take advantage of this connection.”
There was a small murmur of agreement from the paladins, and the rest of the dinner continued in relative silence. Halfway through their meal, it was clear something was more wrong with the agreement than initial discomfort, as Lance still hadn’t broken into any sort of story or lament about his day or his life. It made for an unusually empty conversational feeling, but when they were all finished eating, nobody made any moves to break the silence.
_____
The sounds of recognizable footsteps padding through the hallways were what drew Shiro to the training area initially, only slightly exasperated at the intense strikes of metal on metal coming from within. He entered the training deck, comfortable in his pajamas and a little unprepared for anything within for once, and noted Keith with no surprise to be found.
The red paladin was sweating heavily, red in the face and grunting through his hardest training level like his life depended on the exercise. In a way, it really did, but Shiro knew a problem when he saw one, and Keith having an individualized one on top of all their others was significant enough to cause for Shiro’s intervening.
“Hey, sport.” Shiro started, watching as Keith impressively tucked and rolled despite how dead on his feet he looked. The older paladin cringed, only a little, to himself at his choice of words, realizing how aged he just made himself, and Keith, though distracted, let out a breathless laugh lacking surprise.
“Shiro.” He acknowledged, swinging hard into the gladiator’s side and rolling with his arm as it recoiled.
“How are we feeling?” Shiro sat on a nearby bench, leisurely watching the events and studying for any notes he could give Keith from a different perspective. “Lot of stuff happened this morning.”
Keith groaned, slackening his hold on his sword and jumping as the gladiator almost got a swipe in. “Don’t do the therapist voice. I’m fine.”
“I don’t have a therapist voice.” Shiro replied automatically, uncrossing the legs he’d positioned subconsciously. “You don’t look fine.”
Keith spit the second the gladiator’s staff connected with his cheek, swearing. It got two more jabs in before the red paladin finally decided to end the training sequence. “You do. I’m fine.”
“There was a lot of fondness in the link today. Thinking of yourself a lot lately? It’s healthy for you to start feeling comfortable in your own skin.” Shiro tried, watching Keith slap a panel on the wall and rifle through a weird mini-fridge for one of the Altean water pouches, “What with all went on lately with you, I think it’s good for you to get this far. Don’t be embarrassed about loving yourself.”
“What are you talking about?” Keith groaned, rubbing his face and grabbing a second pouch once the first was downed.
“Don’t drink so fast,” The boy rolled his eyes and sat down as Shiro nagged, “You’ll get cramps. Also, you know what I’m talking about.”
A flash of dismay ran over his features, and Shiro sat forward a little, leaning on his knees to get a better read on the red paladin. “Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“It…wasn’t me.” Ducking under his sweaty bangs, Keith avoided Shiro’s gaze and finished his second pouch. “I thought you were going to ask me about…the other stuff.”
“I didn’t root through your head, so you’re going to have to be honest with me here, bud. I only got some vague stuff.” His leader replied effortlessly, leaning back again and wondering what could be on his semi-ward’s mind. He was struggling with something, that was for certain, but if not for his heritage, what could it have been that caused so much interest and affection for the boy to roll through?
Flashes of red popped into Shiro’s mind, and for a second, he understood, but Keith was speaking again.
“If we do the mind connecting thing, I think the bond is going to get worse. L-The team…will probably…” Keith rolled his shoulders and pressed a thumb to the junction between his collarbone and the meat of his shoulder, still keeping his gaze pointed away. “It’ll probably make things too tense between us all, if there’s already stuff some of us are hiding.”
“Huh.” Shiro said plainly, realization dawning on him but not letting himself show it, “I would think, if anything, if a secret would make things too tense it’s best to get it out sooner rather than later. Especially if it’s nothing to really worry about.”
Keith met his gaze, eyebrows raised, and nodded, looking considerate of the fact. “It’s something to worry about.”
Their gazes locked for a long while before Shiro leaned back again, glancing at the ceiling. “Lots of affection for Lance came through, too. I didn’t think Hunk and Pidge were that fond of him, but I can’t say I blame them. He’s got a heart of gold under all that yelling.”
“Of course they are.” The red paladin said, uncharacteristically sounding as if he was reassuring himself, “They’re all best friends.”
Keith was happy to be included, and Shiro smiled. “All four of you are good friends. Don’t forget yourself there.”
The younger of the two rolled his eyes, tipping his head back to rest it on the wall where he sat. “I don’t. They’re just…a group. They came together.”
“And now they’re a larger group than before.” The black paladin pointed out, “Because they like you being in their group, too.”
“Hunk and Pidge, at least.”
There it was. “Lance likes you, too.”
Shiro was already standing by the time he caught the sight of Keith’s hands twitching into fists. “Whatever.” He said, feigning casualty and standing to stretch again. “He’s something.”
“Fair enough.” The elder said pleasantly, standing himself and starting to pad to the exit. His work was done, and he knew Keith would have better thoughts towards the situation again. “Goodnight. Don’t stay up too late. You know how cranky you get.”
“Goodnight.” Keith growled petulantly, starting another training sequence anyway.
The next formation exercise came the next day, and the five paladins stood tense before Allura as she made a few choice hand waves. There was immediately a difference in their gazes towards one another, but no true bond would be established until they were within their lions and a part of Voltron, she assured. Still, they felt waves of strong emotions, and breakfast that morning was tough.
“We are lucky to have gone this long without an attack or need for Voltron truly, but hopefully this exercise will remedy any residual issues between you all.” Allura said as the group felt a mutual admiring for her.
“I agree. It’s good that we didn’t have to push this too far, and hopefully this will clear things up.” Shiro agreed, admittedly a little dazed at all five of the layers of emotions he could feel about everything temporarily.
Coran chuckled, fondness rolled through while he dished out goo to each of them. “No need to push yourself, my boy, we know it must be difficult to communicate much besides between the five of you. It is rather strange.”
The black paladin nodded mutely, rubbing his forehead. At the end of the table, Pidge seemed intense and distracted, staring at her goo like it was a foreign object. That, admittedly, was fair, but unwarranted with their experience in the food matter, and eventually she took a strong spoonful or two, as if she had just realized her behavior. Hunk seemed to only have minimal issues with his food, and Keith was similar, if not slightly lethargic—which was understood, knowing he had stayed up even though Shiro had told him to sleep. Lance, beside Hunk, was not eating, however. He stared at his goo with disinterest and had his hands curled around the arms of his chair, like he was barely holding on.
He didn’t bother pretending to be interested in his meal, looking almost as green as the contents of his plate itself, but as soon as a wave of strong and uncertain worry splashed over them, he jolted. His eyes landed on Keith, and both of them colored, looking vaguely sicker than before. Lance picked up his spoon and pointedly took a huge spoonful of the goo, shoving it into his mouth and not bothering with etiquette as he chewed it noisily.
Sure, torture us, Lance. A voice broke through all their minds. They stilled, glancing among themselves, and all turned to Allura.
Somewhere, a chorus of oh god oh god oh god oh god and another of CALM DOWN CALM DOWN CALM DOWN arrived in the back of their minds, and the voices were more distinguishable, then. Stronger.
“Make it stop.” Lance begged, setting his spoon back down again. Keith looked stuck, but no voice came into their minds for them.
Allura was confused, glancing among them. “Have you already…started mentally communicating?”
“You said we wouldn’t even get that far unless we had an insanely strong bond, even inside of Voltron!” Hunk accused slightly, moving a hand to clutch Lance’s shaking shoulder. The oh gods got stronger, but they were eventually covered by a series of boobs uh boobs uh soft hair NOT SOFT HAIR boobs.
“This is…usual.” Coran remarked lightly, glancing at Allura, who shrugged.
The princess decreed, “I see no harm in it. You should all remain calm and don’t let it get you panicked. Lance, it will be fine.”
“He’s—Uh, he’s not fine.” Hunk answered for him.
Intense worry came through their minds, not from Hunk, however, but Keith. Lance stood, eyes wide. The red paladin watched with wide eyes of his own, a wave of sadness and uncertainty came, and he still hadn’t taken his spoon out of his mouth, hand holding it limply between his lips.
BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS
We get it, Lance, oh my—
I feel so bad for him
BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS
“Lance, you need to take some deep breaths and please stop saying that.” Shiro tried, looking at the ceiling and taking his own deep breaths.
“I’M GONNA…” Lance started, curling a little as his voice came out so loudly, “I’m only going to say this once. Because you’re all going to find out when we’re formed anyway, and I’m not going to be able to shut up about it if something happens.”
“I really didn’t think you were actually going to do this.” Hunk said, worry still coming through but tinting with mild surprise.
Pidge slammed her spoon down, “If you say boobs out loud I’m going to shove you all out of the airlock and force this connection to break.”
“I’m in love with Keith Kogane.” Lance near screamed, looking a little lost and hysterical. Hunk, beside him, still had his hand on his arm, and strong waves of fear came over all of them.
Expectant eyes turned towards Keith, surprise was muted by the strength in which they felt uncertainty and a soft oh sound in their head, boobs stopped.
Lance looked like he was going to cry, ducking his head and taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry.” He said miserably, and, as if floodgates had opened, adoration was almost blindingly obvious, images flashed through their minds of red and purples and soft hair and half-smiles. Bright lights and some levels of desperation.
“Maybe this was a bad idea.” Allura announced, standing herself as Lance curled within himself deeper, sinking slowly back into his chair.
“That’s—That’s the secret?” Pidge sounded bewildered and dazed, leaning back a little sideways in her seat and smiling when she looked at Keith.
Keith’s teeth were clenched around his spoon, holding it there in place like an idiotic lifeline. Adorable somebody sounded. Lance, it was Lance. Fake tough guy. Mullet. Beautiful eyes. Emo fuck. Nice ass.
“I can’t stop it.” Lance whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
Stop apologizing. You never apologize. Keith’s strong, quiet voice came through. Much gentler, fades of blue invaded them, slower and still traced with that uncertainty. Lance looked at Keith, heaving in breaths.
“You don’t have to—I don’t want you to feel like…” Lance—assaulted with vivid images of him grinning and laughing, surrounded by their makeshift family and helping refugees at every turn, and bringing light to the darkness, talking through issues and doing everything in his best—sat back in his seat and sunk lowly into it.
“This is such a waste of a secret.” Pidge whispered, looking positively dopey as she looked at Lance anyway.
“Yeah,” Hunk agreed dreamily, “But it’s sweet.”
“I think this was a good idea.” Shiro announced when Allura neared him, “This was what we needed. Thank you, princess.”
“I love you, too.” Keith dropped the spoon to whisper, clutching his forehead between his hands as he leaned onto the table.
Everything was purple, washed and soft laying across their minds but soft and as confident as ever. It was comforting, home somebody had said, comfort.
When a chair scraping against the floor hit their ears, nobody was surprised. They were even less surprised still when another joined it and the group mutually felt the embrace of their right side, at peace, in harmony, and washed in purple.
“Disgusting.” Pidge sighed when their lips connected.
Lance cradled Keith’s face preciously, one hand carding gently through his bangs as their noses bumped. Keith’s hands were less kind, gripping and pulling at the boy in pure adoration and impatience.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure you can definitely turn this thing off, Allura.” Hunk decided, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “They’re going to go south and we’re all going to hate it.”
She made a few gestures with her hands, and three of the paladins sighed in relief. The other two stayed engaged, not breaking apart beyond little whispers to one another. Silently, Shiro promised them an hour of peace before he came back to make them get ready for training again. Save for the two, they herded out of the dining room a little tiredly, exhaustion naturally taking over where their minds had been previously filled with others.
“This was the worst way to do this ever.” Lance whispered to Keith, who only made a soft grunt before diving in again in response.