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Truthfully, he shouldn’t be here right now. He never breaks the rules like this. But tonight, as he checks over his shoulder a second time, making sure no one has seen him, fate seems to have forced his hand. He slides the modified access card through its slot. The metal door to the Galaxy Garrison kitchens bleeps twice and unlocks.
Oh, sure, he’s been here plenty of times during the day. He has something of a relationship with the sous chef, giving the occasional seasoning tip to Kseniya, and casually bantering about the merits of pineapple on pizza. But this, right now, is an infraction of about 15 different rules and a deliberate betrayal of her trust. He’s hoping she simply won’t miss a bit of extra flour, some sugar, cocoa powder and a little butter.
The fire door creaks open on the rooftop plaza of the Galaxy Garrison academic building as a small shadow slips through the crack. The alarm hasn’t gone off. Someone must have disabled it, the same way they’re now shoving their shoe into the doorframe, preventing the latch from locking behind them.
Hunching low, she navigates along the far wall, avoiding the pools of light cast by flight navigation lamps towards the westernmost corner of the building overlooking the rocky canyon sprawled below. A moment of caught breath as a door opens below her, she holds her body still in a stiff and silent panic. The footsteps are quick and light, not reminiscent of an instructor. She wagers a peek over the railing just to see. She’s right. Orange uniform with a cream base. Unmistakable, even at night. It’s just some student sneaking out past curfew.
She turns back to her bag and carefully unpacks the most important thing she’s ever built.
Ten months ago, she lost her father and brother to an “accident” she knew the higher-ups were keeping hushed. The files, they said, were corrupted. The loss was due to “pilot error”. But she knew it was something else. The cover story was too clean. Too convenient.
She takes a moment to settle her inner rage as she hooks up a scavenged monitor to a custom-built drive. She fits the sensitive listening device to the top of her rig and aims it in the general direction of Pluto, reaching into her pocket for the last thing she needs before she can finally find out the real story. A standard cell phone battery. She pops it in and slips on her headphones, listening. Listening for the truth.
He’s grabbing bowls and spoons from their cupboards with a practiced silence, holding still when he thinks he hears a set of footsteps outside the kitchen. He shuts off the flashlight held between his teeth until they pass. It’s ok, he tells himself as he returns to his work. The school chefs won’t be back in until 0500 hours to prepare tomorrow’s breakfast.
It’s a shame, really. He wouldn’t even need to be here, but he was hungry. And some asshole inconsiderate thief stole his personal reward for acing today’s flight theory exam. He smacks the block of butter on the counter with aplomb. If he ever finds this guy, he promises to make an example of him.
“Have I mentioned that you look gorgeous in the moonlight?” he croons, slightly less out of breath after stopping to check his hair in the glass window of the science building before rounding the corner.
“You’re still late,” she says from behind crossed arms. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
“I know!” he gasps, “I’m so sorry! I have no idea what happened! I wanted to text you, but my phone is absolutely dead! I had it plugged in all day! Soon as I take it out, nothing. ”
She’s not buying it. Time to pull out the big guns. He puts on his best charming pout, the one that gets him forgiven for minor infractions at home and sinks his shoulders with the mastery of a born actor. He watches the blush creep into her face even as she desperately tries to keep up the facade of being angry. She smiles as she swats him gently on the arm, and he takes the opportunity to wrap his arms around her, drawing her in for a hug.
“I’d never stand you up,” he whispers into her long, dark hair.
“Prove it,” she giggles, “Prove your undying love for me.”
“You know, somehow I knew you were going to say that.”
She raises a curious brow.
“Do not worry, my lady! I came prepared. ”
Something’s coming in. It’s more than just static. Her heart is racing. She’s pressing the earphones to her head, trying to get a clear capture of the sound. It’s there. Unmissable. Something.
She doesn’t know quite what it is, but it’s there.
She’s over the moon, metaphorically speaking. It’s all there. Real alien communication. She scrambles to make a recording, get the sound down to dissect and clarify in her audio programs later. But there’s an error. Something’s corrupted. Her battery is dying. Damn, she thought it was fully charged. But that word, the one she keeps hearing repeated over and over.
Voltron.
She reaches for her journal to write it down.
She’s licking her fingers from the cinnamon roll and grinning happily as they lean against the railing, basking underneath the full moon. She has this tiny fleck of sugar on her cheek, and he can’t take his eyes off it. Can’t take his eyes off her.
He leans in close. He wonders if she can feel the shaking of his arms as he holds her. Is this too tight? Loosen up a bit. Don’t seem desperate. Now she’s looking right at him. She’s just staring at him. She knows this is gonna happen, right? Yes? Why won’t she just close her eyes?
“Lance, have you ever kissed anyone before?”
Now she’s asking him something, and it’s vaguely registering in his brain, and he’s trying to sort out the question but his mouth starts answering before he can make sense of it.
“I’ve kissed lots of girls who aren’t even my mom or my sister!”
She’s starting to say something else. He needs to act fast.
“I’m totally a sexpert! I’ve done lots of real sex stuff for real! With boobies and everything!”
She’s laughing, now. What? She’s laughing at him. Oh, no. Her nose is curling up in that adorable way and he’s wishing he could bury himself under several layers of rock. He remembers that he’s still got his arm around her, completely numb. He can’t take his eyes off that tiny fleck of brown sugar on the corner of her mouth.
She’s in a full-blown state of panic. She’s dumped her entire bag out and scattered its contents across the rooftop. Sure, she has a snack bar, a spool of wire and three extra pens, but her journal. The one with all her calculations and predictions. The one she’s recorded everything in so far. The one with her memories of mom and dad and Matt is just gone. She’s racking her brain trying to figure out where she last had it. She knew she put it in her bag when she left the library. She must have.
The radio chatter is still going strong, even as the last of the tiny phone battery fades. She’s hopeful that it will last until tomorrow night, when she can return for more observation and snag a recording.
Voltron. She commits the word to memory.
Voltron.
“Relax,” she whispers, and the sound runs up his spine. “Close your eyes.”
He jams them shut, scrunching his face up. She’s really close and he can smell her coconut-vanilla shampoo, and it’s really, really nice. He’s trying not to breathe too hard in her face while his heart is thumps in his chest.
And then it happens. And warm lips are pressed on his and he has no idea what he’s doing, but it’s amazing, and the best feeling in the world. He’s not gonna ruin this. He’s trying so hard not to ruin this.
He’s just wishing this night could last forever.
The person who wrote this recipe certainly knew what they were doing. It couldn’t have been that Gunderson kid himself. Must have been given to him by his mom or grandma. Some kind of family secret tucked away in this journal that Hunk happened to liberate when Pidge left it in the library. Truly, he was just going to copy the recipe and return the book to where he found it, but since his buns went missing, desperate times meant desperate measures.
Heat wafts out of the convection oven. They’re already starting to smell chocolatey.
She sighs as she carefully packs up her gear, folding the laptop lid and disassembling the antenna of the long-range low-frequency detector she jimmied together out of spare parts. She’s almost there. She almost has proof. All she needs is a recording; some form of concrete evidence, and then the world will spin on its heels when it finds out the truth. The real truth about outer space.
He can still taste the cinnamon from her lips as they walk, hand-in-hand, back towards the dormitories. They split when she leaves towards the girls building, and she waves, smiling and laughing in the moonlight as his heart floats up into the stratosphere.
He doesn’t need to even try to sneak back into the building because he’s already walking on air.
Finally. He shuts the oven off 30 seconds before the bell is set to ding and pulls the tray out with a carefully toweled hand. It’s hot. Too hot to handle, but he doesn’t have the luxury of letting them set. He’s got to get these on a plate and get back to his room before the midnight patrol.
Footsteps. She can hear them.
Someone’s coming. He can tell.
People. On both sides of him. And they’re coming up fast. He hurls himself blindly down the hallway, wondering if the smell of brownies in his backpack gave him away.
When they crash into him, the shouts of surprise are quickly stifled. Two bags fall down, and someone is scrambling to grab both of them while legs are still tangled and voices cry out in hushed whispers.
“What are you doing out here?”
“I could ask you the same thing!”
“I thought you were a teacher!”
“Hey, do you smell chocolate?”
“No. You’re imagining it.”
“Get off of me!”
“Get out from under me!”
He looks at the other two faces, guilty as his own; that Gunderson kid cradling his backpack like it’s a precious baby. Lance is trying to zero in on the smell, and Hunk is having none of it. He stares them down, deep in the eyes, but before he can get an answer: the stomp of Galaxy Garrison regulation boots comes echoing down the hall from the midnight patrol.
Three sets of eyes flick between each other and three heads nod in shared agreement.
“I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”