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Pidge was glad to find that the crash and roll of the waves on the beach was as inexorable and constant as ever, upon returning home to Earth with Hunk. The sound of the waves mingled with the sounds of animals, birds, and the rustle of wind to soar into a soundtrack that was so unique to her home planet that Pidge often heard it in her dreams of home, no matter where they took place. Often in her dreams, Pidge stood in a desert, or in the middle of a city, and heard the sound of the islands. It was nice to experience the sound of home in real life, with Hunk’s arm lazily thrown around her shoulders as they relaxed on a blanket in the shade of where their lions curled together, both stripped bare as the tawny plover that Hunk had whispered into Pidge’s ear was called a kōlea as it danced in and out of the waves.
They had flown to this quiet, rarely disturbed beach to spend some time with one another, and what had started as a quiet stroll down the beach while they talked about the minutiae of their families’ lives quickly turned into a screaming, whooping splash fight. Hunk had been the one to venture into the swash, and let the waves lick at his bare feet, but it had been Pidge who had kicked an incoming wave at him. Before either of them had known it, they were in up to their waists (well, Hunk had been in up to his waist, Pidge had gotten in nearly as deep as her chest, and nearly gotten bowled over by a wave for the trouble) splashing and taunting each other, and laughing like hyenas. When they finally (finally) waded back out of the ocean, their clothes had been soaking wet. Even after getting a good quarter of the ocean wrung out of them, they were uncomfortable and clingy, so they’d hung them to dry on the lions. Who looked hilarious, much to Green’s annoyance.
The plover caught the tiny crab that had been trying to scuttle away for the past few minutes, obviously without success, since the bird gobbled it up greedily. But that was the nature of life, wasn’t it? People were born, people died, and somewhere in the middle, if they were lucky, they made a difference, or found happiness.
Sometimes, in some few lucky cases, they got both.
Pidge liked to count herself as extremely lucky. The war with the Galra had taken more lives than she could count, weakened entire races, destroyed planets in the Voltron Alliance. And Pidge, who had entered the theater of war as a fourteen year old just trying to find her lost family, had emerged whole and hale, with friends at her side. She had even fought, clawed and bitten at the universe to bring her brother home. Matt’s hair was more like gunmetal these days than warm almond brittle. He looked so much like their father that it was painful, sometimes, but it wasn’t as though Pidge didn’t have strands of silver lacing through her hair at the grand old age of twenty-six. Just another reminder that life continued, no matter what.
A soft tug to her hair brought Pidge crashing back to Earth, and Hunk’s hand rubbing up and down her arm brought her heart rate down from verging on too high for lazing around such a beautiful beach. Hunk was always so much more calm when he was on the islands, like everything that could go wrong was so much further away, almost even non-existent. It almost even seemed true, curled on this secluded beach together. It wasn’t. There was still so much left to do, so many more battles to fight, and they were both riddled with hard-won scars, both their bodies and their minds. There were fewer battles fought, these days, but that didn’t mean that the tenuous peace that had allowed to paladins to slip off a couple at a time to take a fucking break would last.
“That was your thinking face. What were you thinking about?” Hunk wanted to know.
His arm was warm and strong around Pidge’s shoulders, grounding and soothing. She shifted so that she could drape herself over him, mostly because sunburnt boobs were worse than a sunburnt, freckled ass, but also so that she could trace her fingers along the swirling lines of tattoos that covered his upper arm, part of his chest, and his shoulder. The tattoos of a warrior. His mom and grandma had cried when he showed them the fresh ink in his skin. They had kissed his cheeks, and called him their brave warrior, and then had kissed Pidge and thanked her for keeping their boy safe. Then Pidge had cried, in the ugly, heaving, blinding way that she did so rarely. It had left her feeling raw and vulnerable, but there was no place she could have fallen apart more safely than with Hunk's family.
“Just. Family and stuff,” she said, and let her fingers brush along the stylized Voltron symbol that twined with his other tattoos just beneath his clavicle. There was a thin, jagged line that broke through the dark ink, a leftover reminder of a battle long gone by. He had toyed with the idea of getting his tattoos done the traditional way, but it took longer. More sessions than he was prepared to leave the castle for. Hunk played with the end of Pidge's braid, running his thumb back and forth along the loose strands of hair. He was always so good at letting her take her time to gather her thoughts, especially when they were alone together like this.
Sometimes Pidge didn’t take advantage of the time, just let herself ramble, and let the words fall where they would. Truths came out that way, but they weren’t necessarily easy ones to say or to listen to, and what she meant was occasionally misinterpreted. So sometimes Pidge let herself gather her words carefully, like picking and choosing the right wildflowers for a bouquet, rather than ripping up anything vaguely pretty in a field and cramming them together. In the end, the results were similar, though one path culminated in a sort of raw, wild beauty, while the appeal of the other path was more cohesive and refined. If Pidge wanted to broach the subject on her mind, then she wanted to be a little more delicate than she usually was. She took a breath, and then another so that she could center and gather herself. Often she would do a similar mental exercise before or during a mission, especially if there was a particularly hard code to crack, or a situation that had gotten under control. And while this wasn’t a mission of any sort, she wanted to do this right. To not fuck it up.
She looked back at the plover. It had finished pulling apart and horking down its crab, and was looking for its next meal, hopping away from the surf. The water was washing away even the deepest of their footprints, where Pidge had really dug in when she had tried to wrestle Hunk down. He’d even flopped over, and pretended like he hadn’t let her win. He was kind, and patient, and good. And even though he was nervous (he was doing the foot jiggle thing that he did when his anxiety flared) he didn’t say anything about Pidge’s silence and thoughts stretching into minutes, rather than seconds. He just waited, jiggling his foot, and tapping his thumb against Pidge’s back in Morse that she recognized as the lyrics to an old Beatles song that Lance had been singing the other day. The jiggling made the muscles of his calf flex, and the soft skin of his thigh and belly subtly sway.
“You want kids. A family.” As much as Pidge had tried to prepare, had gone over this conversation in the shower or while maintaining her armor, she had just blurted it out. She could feel Hunk’s shock in the tension of his arms, in the way that his thumb stilled, pressed into her back.
“Uh. Yeah? I mean, not if you don’t. It’s something I can definitely live without. You’re not.” If Pidge didn’t know any better, she might have guessed that Hunk was afraid that she was having second thoughts about the them thing, even though there had been a them thing for years, now. And she had known exactly what she was getting herself into when she had agreed to exploring the more intimate and romantic turn that her relationship with her best friend had taken. He had never made a secret out of his love for his family, or his hopes of a future after Voltron.
“Oh, my god, that’s really fucking gooey, Hunk.” Pidge groaned, and did her best to shove him without moving too much. She hadn’t been much for the gooey, sugary, gross side of romance until she’d fallen in love with Hunk, and even still, he knew to keep the goo to short, private bursts. He knew that Pidge didn’t like other people watching her when she was flushed and flustered.
People other than Hunk, at least. Rather than pulling away, Pidge let her cheek rest in Hunk’s palm.
“Anyway.” Pidge cleared her throat so her voice would stop sounding so weird. “When I was, like, thirteen, I asked my mom why she had kids. I mean, she had never seemed really big on them, she thinks they’re sticky and kind of gross. Like. My dad loved babies, he was always making faces at them from across restaurants, and cooing at them, but my mom has always been more about older kids who can hold a conversation.”
Hunk made a soft noise to show that he was still listening. His eyes were fixed on Pidge’s face as she spoke, while she kept hers trained on the tattoos that she kept tracing, over and over. It was something that comforted both of them, though Hunk had told Pidge that it was a learned comfort for him, rather than the instinctual comfort she took from the repetitive motions.
“She told me that she was curious about what her kids with my dad would be like. Which I thought was total bullshit, I mean, come on, how much curiosity do you need to be responsible for a whole new human being? I was pretty sure at the time that that was my mom’s way of saying that she hadn’t wanted kids until she had Matt. Because obviously she wanted us, or at least me, I grew up for years hearing about how long it had taken them to end up with a sibling for Matt. I didn’t. I didn’t get it. But I’m starting to think that I might get it a little better, now.” There was room for a couple dozen heartbeats in the silence between them, though it might not have been very long at all, Pidge’s face felt flushed, and her heart felt like it was beating faster than a rabbit’s as she gave Hunk a chance to process what was going on enough to get words out of his mouth. He didn’t take nearly as long as she’d thought he might.
“Yeah?” he asked. His voice was nearly lost to the waves and the sudden cry of a gull, it was so soft and low. Pidge watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed. His eyes were still fixed on her, though when she met them, Pidge felt as though she was drowning in them, felt like he could see every fear and flaw and self doubt that she had ever had. It was too much, sometimes, too intense, being wrapped in the deep brown warmth that was so unique to her Hunk. She had to look away.
“Yeah. I mean. You’re kind, and funny, and so goddamned smart that it feels like someone’s hit me in the ear sometimes.”
“The ear?” She could hear the laughter in his voice, though he managed to not actually laugh.
“Yeah, the ear. Like my head’s all ringy, and I’m dizzy, and not able to think right. Hasn’t anyone ever hit you in the ear? After all this time fighting?”
“Nope. How many times have you gotten hit in the ear?”
“A lot. It’s one of Keith’s favorite moves to spar with. Something about needing to throw me off balance, and he’s always going on about how I’m the one who starts fighting dirty first.” She could feel his laughter through his whole body, in every place that their skin touched. Which, considering that Pidge had draped herself over him like a pale, talkative blanket, was a lot. She loved feeling him laugh almost more than she loved hearing him laugh, because when he found something funny, Hunk laughed with his whole body. It was beautiful.
“So,” Hunk said, and used his thumb to wipe the tears of mirth hat had gathered out of the corner of his eye. “That’s what you were thinking about? Whether you’re curious enough to consider our theoretical kids?”
“I was thinking that I get where my mom was coming from.” Pidge’s voice sounded funny, even to her own ears, quiet and almost timid. “Because I am curious. But it’s not just about what people we might make together would look and sound and act like, but also, uh. I keep thinking about you. And your face. And the way you talk to kids whenever we run into them on our missions. And how much I think I might be falling in love with the idea of expanding our family. Dude, we would have some fuckin’ beautiful babies.”
“Smart, too, if these theoretical children have anything of their mom’s brain.” Hunk’s grin shone brighter than the sun, and he tugged on the end of Pidge’s braid again.
“Any theoretical children we might have would have a dad who’s got some pretty sweet grey matter, too. He’s got some pretty sizzlin’ neurons in there.” Pidge ruffled the loose fall of Hunk’s hair. It made him laugh. Which, in turn, made her laugh, and their combined laughter filled the empty beach.
When the last echoes of their giggles had been swallowed by the sound of the ocean Pidge settled back onto her place on his chest. He looked thoughtful, his gaze far away and dreamy as he chewed on his lips. A warm hand stroked up and down her spine. She wanted to ask questions, wanted to have a plan in place. She didn’t do things half cocked, but neither did he, and there was a lot to consider. And Pidge respected Hunk enough to give him time to think about it. Just because he said that he wanted a family outside of Voltron, outside of the family that they had become out of necessity and their shared bonds didn’t mean that he didn’t have every right to change his mind.
The universe was a terrifying place, after all. It was vast beyond true human comprehension, and full of more danger than could really be enumerated in the span of a lifetime. But if there was one thing that Pidge had learned from her years among the stars, it was that life was a beautiful, neverending spark. It was a flame that refused to be snuffed; if one candle went out, there would be another hundred to take its place. Living things were temporary. They burned bright and hot and fast. Or their days extended further than anyone might have thought possible, creeping and continuing things whose flames burned languorously slowly, curling and twining through history, long-lived creatures whose history could never be truly understood by those who burnt fast and bright.
Pidge had learned that creating more love, more life, more laughter, more bright spots in the night sky was just as important as fighting. Even fighting as Voltron.
Hunk opened his mouth to ask a question, Pidge knew that there were a million of them perched on the tip of his tongue. She smoothed a hand down his chest.
“Dude. Take a sec. Organize your thoughts. I’ll be here.” She smiled at him, and kissed his chest where her chin rested. She knew how he could be, anxious over everything at once. Sometimes Hunk needed to just take a second and gather himself, and Pidge was more than happy to remind him of that.
Yes, there would be fear, and anxiety, and a million different things to worry about, but Pidge was convinced that it would all be worth the while. And Hunk needed to come to that conclusion on his own. So Pidge let him lie there in the sun, on the islands he called home, with her weight a comforting presence on his chest, and she let him think. Though that didn’t mean that she wasn’t going to get all dozy in the sunshine and lulled by his hand running up and down her back while he did.
Pidge wasn’t entirely sure how much time had passed before Hunk shook her side enough to rouse her from her doze. The tight, hot prickle along her back, across her ass, and down her legs was enough to let her know that it was long enough for her to start to burn, but this close to the equator, with the albedo of the sand, and a genetic disposition towards looking like a cooked lobster after a day in the sunshine, fifteen minutes could be the difference between feeling too warm and a sunburn.
“Are you sure about this? Really sure?” Hunk asked. The furrow between his eyebrows that appeared when he was really worried about something made Pidge’s heart feel as though someone were squeezing it.
“Honestly? I’m terrified. And I’m not ready, and we’re still in the middle of a war. But yeah. I’m sure. I’m sure that when things settle down, and we’re not fighting battles every week, I want to have kids with you.”
“Plural?” Hunk raised his eyebrows at her, though she could see the smile in his eyes.
“Well, yeah. Growing up, my brother was my best friend. And you love your sisters. If we have one kid, we gotta have at least two. I’m not dooming any kid of mine to a life of sibling-less solitude.”
“Alright. You’ve got some watertight logic there. Where are we going to live? Earth?”
“Uh,” Pidge said, and the way that she blinked at Hunk in the face of his question should have told him all that he needed to know about it. That she hadn’t planned nearly that far ahead in a concrete manner, that all she had were bits and pieces of ideas, rather than a solid plan. “Yeah? I guess? If that’s where we’re needed? Though, I mean, if we have to keep being space ambassadors for the rest of our lives, I don’t want ‘live on Earth’ to be one of our requirements for having children.”
“I’ve always hoped that we would get to live out the rest of our lives here. I mean, Earth in particular, but maybe Hawaii? I don’t think I want to raise kids where they can’t know our families.”
“And what happens if our duties keep us in space for the next fifty years? Are we going to let that hold us back from other things that we want?” Pidge asked. It always came down to the whole saving the universe thing. Or the idea that one of them could give their lives for the sake of every living being at any point, and the other would have to go on defending, as if another pilot in the empty lion wouldn’t be wrong. It had been the thing that had held them back from exploring the growing romantic attraction and intimacy that had invaded their friendship at first. Pidge wasn’t going to let that omnipresent fear rule what she would and wouldn’t do with the rest of her life.
“If you get too worried about what could go wrong,--”
“--you might miss a chance to do something great.” Hunk finished the words that had become something of a mantra to Pidge when she was afraid of moving forward with something. He exhaled a sigh, and smoothed his hand down Pidge’s spine. It came to rest in the divot at the small of her back. “...Space would be a pretty cool place to grow up.”
“Space was a pretty cool place to grow up. And no matter where we are, or our diplomatic duties, our families are going to know our kids.” Pidge said it like she meant it, like that was the last she was going to entertain the thought that their families wouldn't be involved in their children's lives. Family was important to Hunk, and it was just as important to Pidge. Sharing their lives with their families wasn't something that they argued about.
“It was, wasn’t it?” Hunk’s eyes shone in the sunlight. He’d started to accrue little crinkles at the corners of his eyes, though they were really only apparent when he grinned. Pidge loved to watch him smile. “I have a million more questions,” Hunk admitted. “But I think they might be questions for later, or things to discuss when we’re more ready for a family. I don’t think that what the baby’s last name is going to be, or how we’re going to decorate the nursery, or whether we’re going to breast or bottle feed are questions for now. Asking them would feel presumptuous.”
“There are plenty of things to worry about before then,” Pidge said as she nodded in agreement. They weren't there. Not yet. There was still work to be done, and though they were laying out the plans for the rest of their lives together, it felt, at least to Pidge, premature to do more than build the framework of what she would like to see in their future.
There was so much left to do, so many people still under the failing thumb of the Galra that sometimes it felt close to impossible to battle through everything. But the Paladins of Voltron are a team. They’re close-knit and well practiced. They know how to read one another, how to work each others’ strengths. Coran had, on more than one occasion, proclaimed that they’re closer than a pack of yalmors, accompanied by what Pidge was certain were tears in his eyes.
They had become a team over the years, and while their task of defending the universe had at first been daunting, the Paladins of Voltron stood strong. They stood together, and that was the source of their strength. They were a family, even if they were one forged in fire and the blood on their hands, rather than one that shared roots and ancestry. The monumental task of finishing what they started has always seemed smaller to Pidge with her family by her side.
Hunk yawned, and stretched his legs out. Pidge could feel the way his muscles tensed beneath her, and she rolled off of him so that he could stretch fully. Pidge landed on the soft blanket they’d laid down to avoid as much of the sand as possible. It hadn’t worked, not entirely, she could feel sand sticking to the sweat on her back.
“Ugh. I hate sand,” Pidge pretended to grumble as she flopped dramatically across as much of the blanket as she could, limbs thrown carelessly across his. Hunk’s eyebrows raised, and she could see the bewilderment on his face, even before he opened his mouth. “It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets everywhere.”
Hunk groaned, and pressed both of his hands over his face while Pidge burst into a fit of laughter.
“You did not just make a Star Wars joke on our day off.” His voice was muffled by his palms, but Pidge could tell from the way that his shoulders shook that he was laughing beneath his hands. “Let alone a joke about the prequels.” His groan only coaxed Pidge’s laughter into a full-on wicked witch cackle.
“You love it,” she said between bouts of laughter as wild as the tangles of vines that her lion produced.
“No way, I’m going to walk out, and then you won’t have a leg to stand on.” Pidge’s laughter intensified, and she had to grip her own ribs as she rolled around on the blanked and absolutely howled with laughter. It took her a solid five minutes to calm herself down while Hunk went to grab their clothes from on top of her lion.
He was grinning, too, though, when he dumped their mingled clothes onto the blanket, and started to dress. The entire pile was salt stiff, but Pidge couldn't bring herself to care much, because all of her clothes smelled of the sea, and would carry the scent when they took their place back among the stars.