Archive of Our Own

“Excuse me . . . your sign did say that you can tell fortunes, right?” 

Katie “Pidge” Holt shifts uneasily on her cushion. It’s the only inch of padding separating her from the strange, flickering floor beneath her. Every now and then the bright, orange light will flare up as if a geyser of fire is bursting against the underside of the smooth obsidian, which then fizzles out into small bubbles. It’s a bit like looking at the lava lamp she has on her desk back at home, and is almost enough to distract from the witch sitting across from her, or the feral troll standing in a corner that the aforementioned witch has on a leash. 

“Indeed, Green Paladin of Voltron,” the witch rasps out, an answer to her tentative question. See, Pidge was a bit wary when she saw the sign at the entrance to the alien woman’s store in the space mall. Her translator can be a bit iffy sometimes, and there was a good thirty-three point seven percent chance that she was confusing the word fortune-telling with free advanced baking lessons. Which would be great if she was Hunk, but would be terrible for her because a fortune is exactly what she needs. She’s been running low on luck, lately, and with the last fortune that she was gifted from an alien. . . . 

Well. She’s very glad that in this case, the translator got it right. 

“I tell fortunes and read the stars. If you would grant me a single strand of your hair, I could tell you the histories of every female family member of your lineage dating back to the beginning of your species’ evolution. Indeed, this has been my practice for many deca-phoebs. Perhaps I could interest you in some of my potions. My sleep-well elixir uses locally-sourced troll bile.” The witch says this last bit with a note of pride in her tone as she gestures, with the hand not wrapped around the leash, to her pet troll, who growls doomily. “And, forgive me for being so direct, I believe you could benefit greatly from its effects. You appear to have not had a decent night’s sleep since Zarkon took over the Sttt’cvria sector of my home star system.” 

Pidge decides to politely not ask how long ago that was. Given the witch’s ancient appearance, from the thin straggly gray hair to the gnarled knobs of her wrinkly knuckles, it was some time ago. “My sleep is fine,” she says crisply. “It’s common for people my age to look like this, back on my planet. Humans are creatures of endurance.” And also the largest consumers of caffeinated beverages on any of the planets we’ve visited thus far, she thinks glumly. She hasn’t found anything even close to the effects of Earthen coffee anywhere else in space. She’d kill for a cup of it right now, even one of the shitty Starbucks lattes Matt always obsessed over. 

“Hmm,” the witch’s hum sounds like a cross between skepticism that Pidge is being truthful and disapproval if she is, in fact, telling the truth. Then, in her own display of politeness, she decides to brush past the subject matter entirely. “Tell me, then, young warrior, what brings you to my humble shop. A fortune I understand is what you seek, but what I seek in return in the nature of your visit. Have you come seeking a success reading? A love reading, perhaps?” 

Pidge wrinkles her nose briefly at the suggestion, but quickly falls back into the graveness that led her to seek out a fortune-teller, of anyone in the galaxy, in the first place. “No, I definitely haven’t come seeking love. I need your help.” 

While the witch listens patiently, with her feral troll growling a soothing soundtrack in the background, Pidge begins to recount her tale. It all began exactly two movements ago, when she and her fellow paladins had rescued the planet Achu’uuu-V3 from a fleet of Zarkon’s soldiers. In a display of gratitude, the people of Achu’uuu-V3 had offered to read all of the paladins’ fortunes for them, along with Allura’s and Coran’s. This was evidently a big gesture to the Achuus’, who apparently all seemed to possess the ability to read the future but rarely ever deigned to share their gift with outsiders. 

A gift they may have called it, but Pidge quickly grew to understand that her fortune was anything but. While the others later gushed over the details of their pleasant, sometimes even amusing readings, Pidge was silently mulling over her own, trying desperately to find any way to interpret it that wasn’t awful. 

Pidge recalls now the way her stomach had swooped with unease when the fluorescently purple Achuu had taken her hand, their eyes beginning to glow at an unbearable frequency as Pidge stared down at their joined hands, from which smoke was beginning to emanate from. The Achuu had opened their mouth and in a raspy, foreboding voice had recited: 

The blue paladin you call your dearest friend

Will soon meet an unexpected end

Foes you face from east and west

At his distraction, you, Green Paladin, will have the ultimate success 

There’s no doubt that this fortune is talking about Lance, and Pidge doesn’t think she needs to spend any time trying to explain why that obvious fact turns her stomach into a moshpit of horror and fear. Because no matter what way she’s tried to spin it, there’s no way to get around what she’s been slapped in the face with. 

Lance is going to die. She doesn’t know how, or when—aside from the infuriatingly vague soon— but that’s been made pretty clear. If she had to take a guess, she’d say it’s probably going to happen in battle. That’s what logically makes the most sense, right? With the mention of foes and distraction and whatnot. And what makes it even more horrible—aside from the fact that this grim news’ delivery came in the form of couplets— is how it painted her, in the end. Apparently Pidge is going to have some great moment of success because of Lance’s death. How terrible is that? As if Pidge could celebrate any type of success when one of her closest friends in the universe has just died. 

Logically, of course Pidge has always known that one of them might die. Or even all of them. It was in the fine print of their contracts when they signed on as the legendary defenders of the universe: it’s a war, and in war, sometimes people die. Even good people. Even the best people. 

But being faced with it like this? Pidge’s first reaction, after the initial shock, had been absolutely not. Not on her watch. She’s not just going to sit by and let some prophecy tell her that her best friend is going to die and then not do anything to stop it. 

In other words, Pidge is terrified and desperate. She’s been looking for a solution non-stop since the day she received the fortune, and so when her eyes had landed on this little shop from across the food court, she hadn’t even taken a moment to weigh the potential pros versus the inevitable cons. 

And now she’s here. She pours all of this out to the witch, who listens with an almost unnervingly vacant smile. Every now and then she’ll nod, adjust the wide brim of her floppy straw sun hat, and send scathing looks to her troll whenever the growling begins to grow louder than Pidge’s voice. By the time Pidge is done speaking, the witch is stroking her smooth, cerulean chin thoughtfully. “I see,” she muses, “I see . . . this is very distressing indeed.” 

“Yeah, no shit,” Pidge bites out. Her frustration isn’t intended for this witch at all, but for a moment she worries that it’ll be taken that way. She’s had some problems in the past with people misunderstanding the direction of her emotions; it’s something she can’t help. She’s not good with this kind of stress, with worrying over the wellbeing of her friends and having no discernible method to fix things. She’d rather you just give her two million strings of jumbled code and a two-hour deadline to untangle them than have to deal with something of this emotional magnitude. 

Also, she hasn’t slept in two weeks, and she hasn’t had a real cup of coffee in months. She’s in dire need of some slack. 

Graciously, this witch appears to possess a keen understanding of emotions and whatnot. Pidge figures that makes sense, since she’s in the literal business of reading people. So instead of puffing up and declaring war against the green paladin for her insolence, the witch simply leans forward and begins to . . . add more firewood to the unlit pit that dents the floor between them. 

“Uh,” Pidge says uncertainly as she looks on. “So, can you help me or . . .?” 

“Of course I can help you,” the witch says serenely. She does not elaborate on how. Pidge shifts on her hands, trying to keep her impatience under control as the witch snaps her fingers, a small orange flame blooming between her brushing fingertips. She uses this flame to light the intricately stacked pile of wood. Within moments, a bonfire is flickering between them. Pidge can just see the witch’s face atop the curling tendrils of fire. 

The witch blinks at her slowly, her snake-slitted eyes turned bright yellow by the fire’s reflection. Then she says, “Tell the fire what you desire, Green Paladin.” 

Dubious, Pidge glances between the fire and the witch. But it’s not as if she has much room to doubt this woman, desperate as she is, so she turns back to the flames and tells them: “I want to save Lance. I don’t want him to die.” 

When the last word leaves her mouth, the fire shoots up to the ceiling. Pidge watches, less unnerved and more fascinated as the fire pools on the ceiling like a mushroom cloud in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion. “Woah,” she says softly, so softly that the word is swallowed in the crackle of the sparks.

It only lasts for a few moments before they calm down to their original, average bonfire form; it is, evidently, all the time the witch needed. She looks at her once again over the fire, her eyes now peculiarly glazed as she solemnly informs her: “I have seen the solution that you seek.” 

Pidge has so many questions about the workings of the witch’s methods. How could she have possibly read the future within a flaming geyser within mere seconds? Was reading the future, in fact, what she was doing? But she does not indulge the wondering curiosity of her brain; instead, out of the flood she picks a single, guileless demand. “What do I have to do?” 

“Your friend’s end, should you not prevent it from occurring, will be the result of a distraction due to an . . . attraction to a fellow ally. The only way to prevent this will be to gain the blue paladin’s attention yourself.” 

Pidge blinks. It sounds like she’s saying . . . “Um . . . I don’t follow.” 

The witch raises her eyebrows. “You must persuade the blue paladin to be more attracted to you than your friend. By whatever means necessary.” 

Oh. Pidge realizes that her initial understanding of the implication is, in fact, what the witch is implying. “You—” Pidge splutters, incredulous all the same, “You’re telling me that the only way to save Lance from certain death is to seduce him?” 

“Indeed,” the witch says gravely. Sensing Pidge’s disbelief, she adds regretfully, “I sense that this concept is uncomfortable for you, and for that I am sorry. But there is no other way. It is this or death for your friend.” 

It is this or death. Okay. Okay. Pidge mulls it over, trying to think through her immediate revulsion. She has to admit, on top of how ridiculous this sounds, that the thought of being in any way involved with Lance is sickening. Lance is a very good friend to her, and she sees him almost in the same way that she sees Matt—as her brother. 

But it’s this or death. And Matt may still be out there somewhere—she has to believe that he is— but in the meantime, she can’t bear the thought of losing someone else that she loves so much. 

So she’ll do what she has to do. 

Taking a deep breath, Pidge nods one last time. Okay. 

“How much do I owe you?” she asks tentatively. A question she should have asked before her, probably, but she was afraid of the answer being out of her price range. But the witch only smiles, back to her unfaltering serenity, and shakes her head. 

“My help is free to the paladins of Voltron. I have seen all that you have done and all that you will do to make our universe a better place. Consider it a gift of thanks.” 

“I—” Pidge doesn’t know what words could describe the quiet gratitude she feels, swelling up like a balloon inside of her. “Thank you.” 

The witch inclines her head in a gesture of acknowledgment. And then she snaps her fingers and a vial appears in her hands: a grape-tinted liquid with a stopper in the top. It glistens subtly in the low light. “My sleep-well elixir,” the witch says. “Also free. The best in the universe according to many critically-acclaimed somnologists,” she adds with a wink. And Pidge may doubt her, but she’s also quite literally grateful beyond words, so she takes it. 

She gives another “Thank you,” to the witch, a hesitant wave to the troll that growls at her in goodbye, and turns to make her way out of the store without looking back. She finds Lance only minutes later, standing at a kiosk selling scarves with little cartoon animal heads embroidered all over them. He looks up at her with a beam in place across his face, a green swath of fabric held up in one hand to show her. “Look, Pidge. It has little lions on it! I’m gonna get one for everyone, they’re so cute. Can you imagine Shiro in his? Or Keith? The thought of it is literally so adorable that I might die.” 

Pidge has to swallow around the sudden kernel of anxiety lodged in her windpipe. “Ha, ha,” she says bleakly. “That is . . . definitely . . . an expression.” 

Lance eyes her weirdly for a moment. “You okay?” 

“I’m fine.” At that, Pidge forces herself to paste a smile firmly onto her face. “Just kinda tired. Walking around the mall, and all that. Physical exertion. Gross.” 

To which Lance rolls his eyes, but a genuine smile curves up his lips in a mirror of her fake one. “Sometimes I really don’t know how you can handle being a paladin of Voltron,” he says loftily. “It’s like . . . all physical exertion, all the time.” 

“Tell me about it,” Pidge mutters, and in true Lance fashion, that’s what he proceeds to do. And she listens to his ramble-y, not-actually-serious complaints about team training as she trails after him across the mall, lets the sound of his too-loud and too-exuberant voice filter into her brain as the soothing soundtrack that it is. He’s still here, she tells herself firmly. I’m going to make sure it stays that way. 

She glances uncertainly at her friend again, taking note of the way his hair falls across his forehead, the way his eyes are brighter than any of the alien gemstones in that store they passed a while ago, the way he is, objectively, attractive. And to Pidge that’s all he is: her objectively attractive, somewhat older male friend. Even if she wanted to, she is certain, she would not be able to convince herself to be attracted to him. 

But that’s not what this is really about, is it? She just has to make sure he is attracted to her . . . somehow. 

In all of her years as a paladin, this has got to be the stupidest crisis she’s ever had to deal with. She thinks about that and can’t decide if she wants to laugh or cry. She thinks about that and asks herself a single, frantic question: 

How the hell is she meant to pull this off? 

_____

In all of Pidge’s sixteen years, she has seen her fair share of cringy teen rom-coms. Though none of the protagonists’ issues ever matched up with her own (never in her life has Pidge ever desired to kiss another human being on the mouth, or do anything else with them for that matter) she does have a vague image in her head of what it would look like if she did. This is the character that Pidge calls to mind as she tries to emulate every conventionally-attractive love or lust stricken girl she has ever seen in a movie or TV show in front of her mirror. 

She bats her eyelashes in what is meant to be an endearing gesture meant to steal away any love interest’s heart and breath, but only manages to persuade herself further that in a past life, she truly was an owl. She hopes for Lance’s sake that he’s into eyes that are proportionately too big for one’s face. 

And then she lets out her seventeenth string of curses for the day as she is reminded, once again, that she has no idea what Lance is into. At all. Despite’s Lance’s flirtatious nature, he’s never been one to indulge in too many details, a fact that Pidge has up until this point in time been immensely grateful for. And she’s never cared enough to try and pay attention herself. Things like this have never mattered to her, and it’s so frustrating now because maybe if they had, she would be better equipped for this and wouldn’t feel as if she’s floundering. 

Everything is already a disaster, and she hasn’t even attempted flirting yet. Sometimes Pidge really hates her life. 

On the dreaded day that she does begin her quest to save Lance’s life (two days after she speaks with the witch, and arguably too many, but she desperately needed the time to psych herself up and also to stop retching), she finds him in the lounge by himself, watching some Altean soap opera that he’d once tried to get Pidge to watch with him. She’s not much into recycled storylines and poor, overdramatic acting though, so she’d barely lasted twenty minutes before excusing herself to go do literally anything else. 

“But Pidge!” Lance had called after her, protesting, “We’re just about to find out who the father of Llorlak’s baby is! And Grrthid has successfully faked her own death and is coming back to try to claim Uv’eet’s heart before she makes the mistake of marrying the Evil Diplomat Chad!” 

Yeah, not her thing. Though she has to admit that seeing a pregnant male character accepted as the norm had been a pretty interesting detail. Lance had told her later anyway that Llorlak’s baby’s father was the Evil Diplomat Chad. Surprise, surprise. 

“Pidge,” Lance says happily when she strolls in, dressed for once in a shirt not stained with some kind of sauce or scientific . . . ooze. “Have you finally accepted your undying love for Altean telenovelas? Finally come to admit that you’re dying to know, as am I, how Opal lost her magical abilities?” 

Pidge briefly considers blurting: no, but I have accepted my undying love for you, but decides that she needs to be more subtle than that, at least at first. So she clears her throat and says, “Ah . . . no. I just wanted to hang out with you, I guess.” 

At first she inwardly cringes, thinking that she’s blown the subtly thing already anyway. But Lance’s eyes light up in a fond smile, and he eagerly pats the space net to him on the couch. “Aww, Pidge! I knew you loved me,” he coos. 

You have no idea, she thinks grimly, and goes to sit with him. 

The next half-hour is a tense mental chess game as she tries to figure out where to go from here. Should she spill out some heartfelt, tear-pricking love confession? Or maybe she should build on it gradually. Maybe she should . . . start with a compliment? That way, Lance will associate her with positive conversation whenever he thinks of her, and that means he’ll be more inclined to think of her more often, and that means he’ll start to like her . . . more . . . right? 

She’s pretty sure that’s how psychology works. But she could be wrong. She slept through most of her general psych class at the Garrison. 

“Hey uh, Lance?” she speaks up, and then immediately begins to mentally panic. Shit, I don’t have a compliment for him. She does a quick scan of his face, taking a mental inventory even though she already knows what he looks like, and absolutely nothing has changed. 

“What’s up?” Lance glances away from the screen to look at her, eyes flickering curiously in the light from the holoscreen. His eyes, she thinks, and latches onto like a lifeline, compliment his eyes. 

“Your, uh,” she fumbles, but thinks she makes a pretty swift recovery, “Your eyes are very . . . blue, today.” 

Lance blinks, and then he blinks again. “Oh. Are they? Huh, must be the lighting. Literally everything on the castle is either blue or white—and y’know, I love blue as much as the next guy, but would it kill the Alteans to get a splash of color in here? I’m thinking yellow—though that could just be because looking at yellow reminds me of how much I love Hunk. I guess any color would do, though.” 

“Green,” Pidge blurts instinctively, because green is, in fact, the best color. Also, the psychology thing. Keep the conversation subliminally focused on you. Because she’s the green paladin. Get it? 

Yeah, this totally makes sense, she scoffs at herself. Meanwhile outside of her brain, Lance is smiling good-naturedly. “Yeah, green would be nice.” He hums, contemplative. “Or maybe red . . .” 

This isn’t working. Clearly, she’s not going to be able to win him over with compliments. It’s time for a more . . . upfront approach. With a vexed grunt, she declares, “This is so stupid,” and reaches over to grab one of his hands. The entire time, she maintains eye contact with him, so she can see the exact moment that his eyes widen in surprise, and then confusion. He glances from her down to their hands, then back up at her again. “What . . .” he opens his mouth, and then he closes it again. And then some kind of realization must dawn on him, because he goes: “Oh . . . oh.” 

“Oh, what?” she says irritably. But Lance continues to do his very best impression of a fish for several more long moments before he finally remembers that he’s supposed to, you know, react. And then his expression schools into something like understanding, a very bizarre contrast that almost gives Pidge whiplash. 

“Hey . . . listen, I get that this probably isn’t easy,” he starts gently, and Pidge is honestly so confused, because what. “And really, it means a lot that you worked up the nerve to tell me. And I’m flattered, but also really . . . surprised? Because I uh, remember you on several occasions calling yourself a ‘loud and proud aro/ace person with no time for anyone’s romantic sexual bullshit.’ Not that there’s anything wrong, if you’re having different feelings now,” he rushes out that last part like he doesn’t want to risk her getting the wrong idea, even though the longer he talks, the more Pidge realizes, oh, no. 

This is the worst misunderstanding of her entire life and she would like to set herself on fire now, thanks. 

“But I have to tell you that I see you as a little sister,” he’s going on, still in that same terribly gentle voice that makes Pidge’s urge to vomit skyrocket. “And also, like, you do know I have that thing going on with Keith, right?” 

. . . Wait. What? 

She’s so floored that she has to say it out loud. “Wait. What.” 

Lance shifts, suddenly and uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “Yeah . . . like, we haven’t outright said it, but we just kind of assumed everyone knew? It’s not like we’ve been trying to hide it or anything.” 

Oh. Huh. Suddenly the fact that Lance and Keith have been almost attached at the hip all the time lately makes a lot more sense. 

“Yeah . . .” Lance repeats, still uncomfortable. But then it hits Pidge why he’s uncomfortable. It’s not for himself—it’s for her. “Look, I know how much it sucks when you have a crush on someone and they’re with someone else. So I’ll talk to Keith and we’ll make sure to keep it subtle, okay? And hopefully this doesn’t have to change anything . . . right?” 

Pidge can feel a headache forming between her eyebrows. “Right,” she says tiredly, giving up for the moment. She’s definitely going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure something else out. Even she knows when to call it a day. 

Lance’s brows crease in sympathy, and then he opens his arms. “Hug it out?” he proposes, and even though Pidge isn’t upset for the reason he thinks, she really could use a hug right now. So she lets him hug her, rests her chin on his shoulder and glares angrily at the still-playing show on the holoscreen in front of her. 

Well, quiznack, she thinks, what am I supposed to do now? 

_____

Days pass, and then a week, and then two more weeks. Voltron goes on as usual: fighting in battles, attending alliance meetings and galas, training in their lions and starting food fights on goo night. And every time they go anywhere, Pidge carries the heavy weight of worrying: what if this is it? She forgets how to breathe until they’ve returned safely to the castle—Lance perfectly intact, goofy and loud and obnoxious as ever. 

And there’s another thing. Now that she knows to look for it, it’s impossible to not see that he and Keith do, in fact, have a thing. It’s quite honestly the most sickeningly sweet thing she’s ever had the misfortune of witnessing: the way they gravitate to each other after battles, arms hooking around each other in congratulatory hugs; the way they banter now, always with a too-sappy edge to their biting comebacks; the way they look at each other over dinner, it’s disgusting, and it’s made even worse because she knows without having to look when they’re playing footsie. 

This variable, while completely blindsiding, is also completely problematic. Because, see, it’s one thing to try and seduce Lance to save his life when her pride is the only thing on the line. But the fact that Lance is with someone? And on top of that, another one of her good friends? She can’t just do that now. That’s a whole other level of messed-up territory that she definitely does not want to get wrapped up in. 

Pidge doesn’t know what to do. Lance could die at any moment and she’s the only one who can stop it and she doesn’t know what to do. 

All she feels like doing is crying. So, after tireless, sleepless nights of staring at her drawing board and coming up with nothing, she eventually finds a nice patch of floor in some random hallway and does just that. She’s viciously bawling her eyes out against her knees when Keith finds her, happening to just coincidentally stumble upon her random hallway, and he stops in his tracks. “Um . . .” he seems to glitch for a good minute—a minute where Pidge staunchly ignores him and hopes that he’ll get the message to go away and leave her in her misery— and then he tentatively creeps forward, like a wary cat, and sits down near her. 

“Uh, hey . . .” he says, alarmed and awkward but trying. “Pidge, what’s . . . what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Pidge snaps, and then proceeds to cry even harder. 

How did everything get so messed up like this? she wonders, scrubbing frustrated tears away only to have them replaced immediately by new, even more distressed ones. At her side Keith is a bumbling mess; she can feel his hands flailing around uselessly as he tries to figure out what to do, even before he hesitantly settles one onto her shoulder. Part of her wants to violently knock him away, but she doesn’t have the heart to do it. Keith is awkward and generally bad with comforting others or just with peopleing in general, but he does his best and she loves him for it. 

“There, there,” he says, uselessly but supportively, and pats her shoulder. Hesitantly ventures, “Is this . . . about Lance?” 

Sniffling, Pidge’s first instinct is to shake her head. But she thinks about it for a moment and barely manages a single nod before her sobbing intensifies by another level. Distantly, she hears Keith swear softly under his breath. 

“I’m probably the last person you want to see right now then, huh?” he mutters. “I mean, Lance told me about . . . you know. And I promise he just told me, none of the others, and you can trust me, don’t worry,” he rushes to get out, as if that’s what Pidge would really be worried about. Of course she knows she can trust Keith. He’s like the least drama-oriented human being she’s ever met, and that includes herself: a self-proclaimed drama antagonist. “But I know that it must suck to know that I’m dating him. I mean, I do also know what it’s like to pine after him, if that helps? Or if not, I could always let you punch me in the face. That might help, yeah?” 

Pidge, in spite of everything, laughs. It’s super gross, all snotty and watery and ick, but it’s amused all the same, and she thinks she should maybe give Keith more credit at this whole comforting thing. Even if it is for all the wrong reasons, he can still make her laugh. If this is how he always is when he offers a shoulder to lean on, then she can totally see why Lance likes him so much. 

As soon as she has that thought, something clicks into place, and everything else in her brain freezes so that she can stop to examine and cross-examine this new idea. Wait. WAIT! 

“You’re dating Lance!” she bursts out, lifting her head from her knees to look at Keith. Her eyes feel all gritty and swollen and she thinks by the deer-in-the-headlights look on Keith’s face, she probably looks terrifying right about now. But her mind is racing and she thinks she might have something, she thinks, maybe we could make this work, maybe—

“Uh, yeah . . . ?” Keith frowns uncertainly. “Isn’t that why you’re upset? Because I’m dating him and you like hi—” 

“I don’t have a crush on Lance, Keith, keep up,” Pidge snaps impatiently, but not unkindly—if there’s such a thing as good-naturedly snapping at someone, then she just did it. “I’ve been so worried all these weeks because Lance is going to die, but holy quiznack Keith, we might be able to stop it!” 

“Woah—wait, what? Could we back up a minute . . . ?” 

“Maybe,” Pidge is too lost in her racing thoughts to give much mind to Keith’s rapidly growing confusion, “Maybe you can be the distraction that the witch was talking about. Why does it have to be me, anyway? It could be any of us, any of his friends, right? And I mean, you’ve already seduced him I’m assuming, so we don’t even have to worry about getting past that first step—” 

“Hold up, the witch? And why are we talking about seducing Lance—” 

For the first time in so many weeks, hope begins to bubble in Pidge’s chest. Eagerly she turns to her flummoxed friend, grabbing him by both shoulders to look him in his confused baby-deer eyes and announce determinedly: “Keith. You are going to help me save Lance’s life.” 

And honestly, God bless Keith’s soul. Even in the midst of Pidge’s messy, chaotic confusion, Keith is always loyal and ready when it comes to helping their friends. Matching her determination with a nod, he says, “Okay. I’m in. But I’m going to need you to start from the beginning.” 

_____

And so she does. She starts all the way back with the prophecy she’d received on Achu’uuu-V3, with the way she’d panicked trying to figure out the meaning until she’d finally had to accept it, and accept that she was going to have to take matters into her own hands. She tells him about the witch and her message and even her domesticated-yet-still-feral troll, and Keith takes all of this in without batting a single eyelash. 

Pidge doesn’t even realize there’s a part of her that worried Keith wouldn’t take her seriously until he takes her absolutely, deathly seriously. He’s fully committed before she can even get to her concluding statement: “We have to come up with a plan,” and she remembers suddenly that this is the boy who searched tirelessly in the desert for the blue lion for a year by himself based off of nothing more than a feeling. 

“I’m definitely not about to let anything happen to Lance,” he says adamantly, and that’s all there is to it. Until a little while later when an unpleasant thought occurs to him. “Wait. Isn’t it like, counterproductive to try to fight prophecies? Like, in all the books and movies and mythologies ever, trying to fight a prophecy only made it come true. So what if we’re playing right into . . .” he can’t say it, a sickened shadow passing over his face at the mere thought. Pidge can’t blame him. But she also can’t stop herself from snorting at him. 

“Please. Like I’m going to let some outdated philosophies from the time of Aristotle the Loser stop me from saving one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” She rolls her eyes. After a moment’s contemplation, Keith shrugs, agreeing that her philosophy is both more appealing and ideal. “Fair enough,” he replies. 

It’s really nice to finally have this off of her chest. To share the burden with someone who cares about Lance just as much as she does; someone she can trust not just with her own life, but with his, too. It brings her the relief she’s been so desperate for, but unfortunately beyond that, there isn’t much either of them can do but wait. It’s like they’re sitting ducks for whatever awful thing is meant to happen. But where they can be, they are more than prepared to face whatever is thrown in Lance’s direction. 

Literally. Between the two of them constantly guarding Lance in battles, their blue paladin hasn’t gotten a single shot in towards anything since Pidge broke down and let Keith into her secret Protect Lance At All Costs club. It’s beginning to royally tick him off, but again, between the two of them, he doesn’t stand a chance. 

“C’mon, guys,” he whines to them in the hangar one night after an unexpected ambush that came out of nowhere. (And yes, Pidge knows there are about a dozen redundant words packed into that single sentence; frankly, she’s too tired and cranky to care.) “Seriously, what gives? I totally had that one ship, actually quite a few of those ships, locked with my blaster. I had them, so why are you going out of your way to steal my shots? It’s seriously beginning to be a blow to my self-esteem.” 

Pidge leaves the comforting and reassurance stuff to Keith and bids them goodnight over her shoulder as she waltzes out to get back to her sweet, sweet Z’s. Keith sends her a dirty look as she goes, and she just smiles blithely in response. 

But even more days pass, and those days turn into even more weeks, until they’re months away from that alliance gift on Achu’uuu-V3 and the witch’s fortune. Some days, the two of them wonder (hope) if maybe this means the danger has already passed, and they’ve done whatever they needed to do. That maybe that fated battle occurred one of those weeks ago when they took the hit for Lance, and everything is over now. Their worry is still there, of course; Pidge doesn’t think it would be possible for it not to be, but both of them begin to calm down just a little bit. They still stick close to Lance wherever they can, and Lance thinks nothing of it because Keith is his boyfriend and Pidge is his . . . well. He thinks she has a hopeless, disgusting and sappy crush on him, and at this point she doesn’t see any reason to contradict him. Not when it’s such a good excuse for all of her strangely possessive and clingy behavior. 

The others, thankfully, think nothing of any of it. They’re all so wrapped up in their own heads and projects and drama at this point that, unless it’s something that’s going to affect the whole team, they tend to let personal or relationship stuff fly under the radar. That’s probably why she hadn’t noticed Lance and Keith’s relationship until Lance brought it up; honestly, she wouldn’t be surprised if the others still don’t know, just because none of them ever bother to put down their holopads during dinner long enough to look. 

But nevertheless, this is one of those situations that Pidge is more than happy to leave the others out of. She really doesn’t want to have to explain . . . any of it. 

And anyway. Like she already said. Between herself and Keith? She’s pretty sure they’ve got this under control. 

“Pidge. Hey, Pidge. Piiiiiiiiidge.” 

Pidge rolls her eyes, and does not look up from her typing. “Hey, Lance. What do you want, Lance.” 

Lance pouts, then waltzes into the lab to drape himself all over her desk. “I’m bored and need attention. Come hang out with me.” 

Pidge just snorts. Squints at the screen. There’s something off in this code, but she hasn’t been able to figure it out yet and it’s slowly driving her up the wall. “Where’s loverboy?” she asks, nonchalant, and knows without having to look that Lance is suddenly straightening up, carefully schooling his expression to keep all of his gooey feelings from bleeding through. She resists the urge to roll her eyes again, though, because Lance has been understanding and considerate of her nonexistent feelings to a nearly ridiculous extent, all because he cares about her. Really, it’s heartwarming to think about, when she can get past the absolute hilarity of watching Lance trip over himself trying to pretend that he wasn’t making out with Keith in the lounge whenever she rambles in trying to find where she left her holopad. 

“He’s sparring with Shiro. Not, of course, that I would only want to hang out with you if Keith wasn’t available. You know that I’ll always have time for you—” Lance is going on now, gearing up to go into full-ramble mode until Pidge cuts him off. 

“Yeah, yeah, I know, save the speech.” She finally pushes the computer away from her to dig her palms into her eyes, tired of the numbers swimming endlessly across them. “You know what? I think I could use a break. You up for a round of Killbot?” 

Lance’s eyes light up. “Heck yeah! I’ll go grab snacks. You set up the game?” 

“That is generally how we do things,” Pidge notes, but Lance has already fled the room to go make the space edition of popcorn. She smiles fondly as she gets up, dusts off the tediousness that comes from working for hours and getting nowhere, and heads to Lance’s room. 

Here’s the thing. Out here in space, you would think that the paladins would rarely have time for anything non-saving-the-universe related. But they actually have a lot of free time between missions and battles and alliance meetings with stuffy alien diplomats. Meaning that whenever Pidge isn’t tearing apart Altean tech for fun, and Lance isn’t off stealing samples of whatever Hunk happens to be baking or kissing Keith in supply closets or whatever else he does, they actually have a lot of time for videogames. And they have put a lot of time into Killbot Phantasm II; in fact, Pidge would say they’re probably nearing the end of the game. Which bums her out, because once they finish it they won’t have anything else to do. When she complains to Lance, though, he just points out that they could always return to the Earth store for another game. “I saw a whole selection in there last time and I’ve been saving up GAC so I can buy all of them,” he confides, and Pidge thinks then that if he wasn’t her best friend before, he definitely is now. 

“I love you,” she blurts without thinking too much of it, because she does, and it’s been a long time since she’s said that to anyone but if anyone deserves to know, it’s him. She turns from the screen to look at him to find him already looking at her, a blush painted high on his cheeks, seemingly unsure of how to react. “Oh—I . . .” he fumbles, awkward as ever, and Pidge snorts because she can’t believe this guy ever pictured himself as a ladies’ man if he can’t handle having one person have a crush on him—and it’s not even real. 

“No,” she says importantly, “I just . . . I just love you, Lance. You’re my best friend, and you mean a lot to me, and I don’t think I’ve ever really told you that.” 

“Oh . . . oh.” That just seems to make Lance go another ten shades of awkward, but by the time he’s done stammering, there’s this soft, fond smile on his face. “I love you too, you know,” he tells her, and Pidge’s heart feels warm because yeah, she knows. 

It doesn’t stop her from her mission of completely annihilating him during the game, though. Five minutes after their warm and fuzzy conversation, they’re hurling insults at each other over the sound of lasers firing onscreen, and Pidge changes her mind, she hates Lance more than she’s ever hated anyone in her entire life. “What the quiznack, dude? You can’t just ambush me like that, you dick—” and proceeds to begin rapidly shooting all of her remaining shots at him. But Lance has her outnumbered, and Pidge is mentally cursing herself for not creating more alliances, when did Lance even have time to gather all of these robots—and yeah, she’s definitely in real danger of losing. 

They’re so wrapped up in the game that Pidge doesn’t even hear when Lance’s door slides open, or when Keith greets, “Hey Lance, Shiro and I are done training. Hope you don’t mind that I stole your conditioner. Also, hey Pidge.” 

“Just die already,” Pidge growls at the screen, angrily smashing buttons and contemplating just throwing the controller through the screen and ending everything. She’s kind of surprised when she doesn’t get a snarky comeback from Lance, but she’s a little too invested in the game to wonder why he suddenly has nothing to say. That is, at least, until Lance just . . . completely stops putting any effort into fighting. Her brows crease as, onscreen, Lance’s character turns away from the fight to run headlong into the wall, and then just keeps bumping into it. What the hell? 

She makes swift work of all of Lance’s robot minions, and then Lance himself, and all of a sudden the screen is flashing with celebratory noises and announcing: “Congratulations, Mean-Green-Deathmachine-05! You are the winner!” and she stares, dumbfounded, for only a moment before she begins cheering for herself. She does throw the controller then, somewhere off to the side as she whirls on Lance so she can rub it in: “HA! I don’t know what’s wrong with you all of a sudden but I’ve gotta say victory is . . . whatareyoudoingohmyeyesohmy pleasestopthatrightnow.” 

Lance is locked into a staring contest with Keith and Keith’s dripping wet hair. A very, extremely non-PG-13 stare that Pidge’s poor young eyes should not be the victim of seeing. What makes it even worse is that Keith, the traitor, seems to be just as interested in Lance’s lewd eyeballing as Lance is in doing the lewd eyeballing, because he definitely isn’t looking away or complaining. Pidge wants to throw up, holy quiznack. She is simultaneously too young and too old for this bullshit. 

“Hello,” she says, annoyed and impatient, and snaps her fingers in front of Lance’s face in hopes that will bring him back from Disgusting-Teenager-Boy-Ville. “I am literally right here. I just kicked your ass at Killbot? You know, that game we play that I just BEAT you at? Are we going to talk about that? Aren’t you going to collapse on the floor and cry like the loser that you are?” 

That, thankfully, seems to do the trick. Lance looks away from Keith so fast that Pidge would wince from second-hand whiplash if she wasn’t so annoyed. “UM!” he squeaks, face flaming, and clears his throat in an attempt to save his dignity. But it is too late for that. 

“This is unbelievable,” Pidge says, monotone, because if she tries to use emotions right now she’s probably going to malfunction irreparably. “I cannot believe this.” 

“It’s not what you think!” Lance tries, and shrinks away from Pidge’s look. She hasn’t decided yet if it’s a hilarious or infuriating thing that the reason why she won is because Lance apparently can’t look at his boyfriend without being distracted. But before she can open her mouth again to start giving him shit, Keith suddenly bursts: “The prophecy!” 

They both turn to squint at him, where he’s still scrubbing a towel through his hair until he notices their twin incredulous expressions and pauses. His hair is standing up in like two million different directions and looks incredibly dumb. Lance’s fingers are twitching like he wants to reach out and touch it, and Pidge hates herself for noticing that fact. 

“The prophecy,” Keith repeats, leveling Pidge with an intense stare, like, do you get it now? When she just continues to blink at him, he huffs and prompts, “At his distraction, you’ll have the ultimate success . . . ?” 

And Pidge. Pidge’s brain does malfunction then. She literally stops functioning, frozen in shock or fury or some deeper, more complicated emotion that she doesn’t have time to examine at the moment. Because she’s frozen. 

Lance is looking from her to Keith, an expression of pure bewilderment on his face. “Wait, what are you talking about?” 

She replays the entire prophecy in her head, line by line. Blue paladin— obviously Lance. Unexpected end . . . She finally unthaws enough to turn to the screen, still displaying her win. Foes you face. The robots? 

Pidge turns back to Keith, the words “at his distraction” echoing in her ears on repeat. And it’s in this moment that one cool, unmistakable feeling slides into place over everything. Anger.  

She doesn’t stick around to bother trying to explain any of it to Lance. She grabs her juice pouch, gets to her feet, and storms out of the room—unintentionally shoving Keith out of the doorway as she goes, but she can’t be bothered to care very much right now. She’s still stuck on the absolute absurdity of this situation. The stupidity. She’s spent all this time worrying and panicking and trying to find ways to stop something awful from happening—to stop this from happening? 

This whole time. Was Lance ever in any danger at all? 

She goes back to her lab, her thoughts racing so frantically that they’re steaming, or maybe that’s because of how pissed she is. She can’t even focus on the code, so she can’t get back to work; even if she could focus, her hands are shaking too much for her to be able to type. So she just stares at the screen angrily until it blurs in her vision and she squeezes her juice pouch so tightly that juice spurts out of the straw and drips onto her hand. 

She doesn’t know how long it is before there’s a hesitant knock at the door of her lab. She also doesn’t know why whoever it is bothers, because the door is wide open. Still, she bites out, “Go away,” and throws her juice pouch in the direction of the door to get the message across. But of course, the message is received, read, and promptly ignored. She can hear the footsteps approaching, but she doesn’t turn to look. 

“Hey,” Lance says hesitantly as he perches on the end of her desk. “Keith, uh . . . Keith explained the whole thing to me.” 

Pidge finally looks up, blinking blearily at him. “I never had a crush on you,” is the only thing she can think to say, even though it’s the least important thing, here. Lance’s smile is wry when he answers, “Yeah . . . I got that. That honestly made even less sense than the truth does. I can see why you’re mad at me—I’m kind of dumb, huh?” 

Pidge squints at him then, trying to piece it together in her head . . . and then giving up. “You think I’m mad at you?” 

“Well . . . yeah.” Lance hesitates. “You’re . . . not mad at me?” 

“No, you stupid idiot,” Pidge says, gritting her teeth to try and counter the building heat behind her eyes. “I’m mad because I thought that you were going to die.” 

And then—well, quiznack. She starts to cry again. 

She hates emotions. This is the absolute worst. She’s cried like twice in as many weeks, which is more than she’s cried in her entire life before this. (She is pointedly not thinking about the weeks after her family went missing, because at this point, she would probably just cry even harder.) 

“Oh no, oh shit, no . . . Pidge, hey, come here, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Lance is making these soft shushing noises as he reaches down to pull her to her feet, and then right into his chest. She feels his arms come up around her, rubbing her back as she cries uselessly into his shirt. At this point she doesn’t know if she’s still mad, or if she’s upset, or if she’s confused or what. They don’t make a handbook for feelings—at least, not one she’s ever read—but she’s just so exhausted of whatever this is, because it’s so much more intense than she wants or needs right now. 

“I don’t want you to die, Lance,” she sniffles, tries to bite her lip to hold back a sob, but it breaks through anyway. “I know that I’m mean to you a lot and I give you a lot of shit, but—but you’re like my brother and I don’t want to lose another brother, I’ve been so quiznacking s- scared and I—and I—” 

“Shh,” Lance soothes, graciously remaining calm in the face of her total breakdown, and manages to make patting her back not feel patronizing. It actually feels really nice, and oh, here come more tears. “Look, I’m not dead,” he says, squeezing her as if to silently prove: see? Would I be able to do this if I was a ghost? “I’m right here, okay? And I don’t plan on going anywhere any time soon. You don’t have to worry about me. Especially because you’ve proven that between both you and Keith, I’m even safer than if I rolled myself in bubble wrap.” 

Pidge laughs wetly, and Lance squeezes her again. “See? That’s more like it. You wanna go watch Altean soap operas with me until we forget about our real-life soap opera?” 

“Do you want me to cry again?” Pidge threatens, and Lance hums. She can feel it vibrate where his chin is resting on top of her head. 

“What if I got you a new juice pouch?” he entices. Pidge is about to tell him flat-out, absolutely not, but then she thinks about it and sighs. 

“. . . fine.” 

_____

“I don’t understand how Evil Diplomat Chad could betray me like this,” Lance says forlornly. “I thought we had a good thing going.” 

“I am literally right here,” Keith says, at the same time that Pidge points out, “You did name him Evil Diplomat Chad.” 

“Yeah, but that was before his redemptive character arc! This is just . . . heartbreaking. I have never known true heartbreak before this day, Pidge.” 

“Are you asking me to break up with you?” Keith asks, obviously annoyed, because surprise surprise, Keith is the jealous type. Even over fictional Altean telenovela characters. 

Lance reaches over Pidge to pull Keith close enough to plant a dramatic, smacking kiss on his mouth. “You know you’re my true one and only, mi vida ,” he says, ignoring the sound of Pidge gagging. 

“Do you really have to do that right here?” 

“Shh, Pidge, I’m trying to save my relationship from going up in flames.” 

“Oh no, like I care. It’s a fire you started Lance. How could you emotionally cheat on your perfect boyfriend with a guy named Chad, Lance. What is wrong with you, Lance.” 

“I’m sorry,” Lance cries, only to be cut off by Keith flinging an arm out in front of both of them. “Wait, shut up,” he demands intensely. “They’re about to find a lead on who kidnapped Llorlak’s son.” 

Lance immediately settles back down; meanwhile, Pidge rolls her eyes. “I can’t believe that Lance got you invested in this. It’s such a stupid show.” 

She’s met with a duet of harsh “ SHH!’s” and rolls her eyes again, so hard that she’s surprised they don’t get lost in her brain. She’s relieved when, right as the episode ends on a cliffhanger—yet another surprise, Evil Diplomat Chad has been poisoned by the ex-girlfriend who kidnapped his and Llorlak’s baby out of jealousy, and Llorlak is in a coma—Coran strolls into the room with her literal lifesaver clutched in his hands. 

“I ran the scans that you requested, Number Five. Looks like this potion is indeed safe for human consumption. Which I could have told you anyway; locally-sourced troll bile is one of the safest active ingredients across our universe! Still, I suppose you can never be too sure.” 

“Oh, thank quiznack,” Pidge breathes, and as soon as the vial has been passed back into her eagerly waiting hands, it’s like an entire star system’s worth of possibilities opens up in front of her. She can feel Lance’s and Keith’s matching questioning stares on her. 

“What is that?” Keith asks, and Pidge smirks as she stands, throws over her shoulder, “Drugs.” 

“For what?” Lance chimes in. “Coran isn’t allowing you to do crack, is he? It’s gotta be medicinal, right? Are you sick? Do you have some weird alien illness that only . . . troll bile will cure?” 

Pidge stares contemplatively at the bottle in her hand. And then she says, “You know what, Lance? Yeah. Yeah, I do have a problem that needs to be cured. In fact, this is the best cure out there.” 

“Oh no,” Keith frets. “What’s wrong? Why didn’t you tell us something was wrong? What do you have? Is it space measles?” 

“Of course it’s not space measles, Keith, she would be covered in like, bumps and shit. She obviously has space rabies.” 

“Pidge has space rabies? You let Kaltenecker bite her, didn’t you?” 

“Ah, no,” Pidge cuts in, before things can devolve further. “Turns out, I’ve been spending too much time with you losers lately, and I’ve contracted a pretty bad double-dosed case of unadulterated idiocy. It’s pretty bad, and if I don’t start treating it now, it could be fatal. So uh, yep. See ya.” 

She leaves the lounge with them still staring, completely speechless, and smiles blissfully to herself as she thinks about the nap that awaits her. Perfect sleep, uninterrupted by prophecies or fear for her friends’ lives or their disgusting romantic antics . . . 

Ah, yes. That is the dream that she is about to make her reality. Now, if only they could pass by a space Starbucks one of these days. . . .