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A Respite in Paradise
The Paladins had made camp in one of the lush valleys of Celadon IV, an isolated, uncharted, Earth-like sphere located in the outermost edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Lions were nearly drained of all power when they arrived and Keith knew they would need a lengthy solar recharge. He ordered their little caravan to a halt, and suggested that the team take some time for much-needed rest and relaxation. This was one of Keith’s orders that Lance actually agreed with and wholeheartedly obeyed.
Hunk unloaded a barbecue grill from Yellow Lion’s cargo hold as soon as they landed and began rummaging through their meager stores of exotic meats to find something to grill. Coran helped with this and then began an inventory of their other foodstuffs while Shiro and Keith helped Allura and Romelle set up the camp.
After Pidge’s detailed analysis of the plants they had collected, it was determined that the local flora would not do any harm to Kalternecker’s digestive system. When they were sure of that, Lance and Pidge had immediately led the cow to the grassiest area that they could find and laughed at her satisfied “moo” of happiness at the sight of so much green. Once Kalternecker was free of her tether, she bucked with ecstasy and frolicked in the flowery meadow along with Kosmo. Both animals were accompanied by Pidge’s ever-curious blue and green floofs which hovered over the field, silently observing it all. While taking in all the natural beauty around him, Lance had a sudden urge to pull Pidge a bit closer to him. He slipped his right arm casually around her narrow shoulders as he often did, but this time he deliberately held her closer than before. She turned to look up at him questioningly with those huge, intelligent eyes of hers, and Lance suddenly felt his cheeks warm a little. He smiled at her and was surprised at how his heart raced when she smiled back at him. He noticed that several lose tendrils of her hair had escaped from her messy bun, and that there were a few more soft waves that framed her face. She was pale after living inside of a spaceship for so long, and he knew they both had dark circles under their eyes from a lack of proper sleep. The two of them were both still in their battered armor, and both of them were sweaty and tired, but in this peaceful moment Lance could not recall any sight that he had ever seen that was more beautiful than the one before him.
They heard Coran’s voice in the distance, summoning them back to camp. Supper was ready. The smell of Hunk’s cooking never failed to make his mouth water.
Pidge took his hand and ran with him back to camp. It was nearly dusk when they all finally sat down to enjoy the evening meal.
After bestowing Hunk with many well-deserved compliments for the incredible supper he had prepared, the Paladins had all gone to sleep under the stars, and at last spent an entire evening completely undisturbed.
Even before the bright sun of this small green planet was peeking over the horizon, Lance was wide awake. The others slept on as the sun rose, still exhausted from their long journey. He stretched, then rose to his feet, not bothering with putting on his armor. Lance silently gathered up his bayard, a clean change of clothes, a towel, and his grooming kit. Then he hiked down to the nearby stream, relishing his every lungful of the cool morning air. This planet almost smelled like home, and the sound of the clean, running water was like music to his ears after being in the silent vacuum of space for so long. Lance eagerly stripped off his black under suit and then slipped naked into the cool water. He shivered at first, but then realized that his body would soon adjust to the lower temperature. He had entered the stream with his small container of body shampoo on a cord around his neck and an exfoliating scrubber in hand. With a whoop of pure joy, he dispensed a small amount of the concentrated cleanser and then rubbed it into a fragrant lather, scrubbing away the grime that had accumulated on his skin after being in a spacesuit for far too long. It was invigorating! He sang to himself and splashed around in the water with the delight of a child as he rinsed the suds and the grime away. As he lathered shampoo into his hair and ducked under water to rinse it out, he realized how long it had gotten. He hated to admit it, but he had a mullet that was as long as Keith’s had been the night that they rescued Shiro. That was the night he and Hunk had snuck out of the Garrison, following after the mysterious “boy” named Pidge...
A familiar giggle brought him out of his reverie. Eyes wide, Lance sunk down deeper into the water, his back to the nearest bank. “Who’s there?” But he already knew the answer to that, and he really hoped she hadn’t seen anything. Lance bit his lip and blushed at the thought of it. There was another giggle. Pidge! He turned to face her, but she was already scampering away. He saw her hasty retreat, noticing that she was wearing her Garrison backpack over her black under suit and her hair was falling in matted tangles from her now even messier bun.
“We will have to find another spot,” he heard her call to the other two girls. “Lance is down there.”
“Ugh! The last thing I want to see is Pointy Chin without any clothes on,” said Romelle.
“Indeed,” said Allura. “I wouldn’t want to have to look at that either.”
Lance pouted angrily, feeling momentarily hurt.
Then there was that familiar giggle again, and he strained to hear what Pidge was saying.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Pidge admitted. “I actually think he’s pretty cute,” Lance’s mouth fell open once more, his mind whirling. The laughter of all three girls faded into the distance as they searched for a more private place to bathe.
Pidge.
Pidge thought he was cute? He suddenly felt even more self-conscious about his nakedness, and once he was sure the girls were far enough away, he hastily rose up from the water, dried off, and then wrapped the towel around his waist. He set up the shaving mirror from his kit and frowned at what he saw: stubble, a few zits, and a soggy mullet with wet, too-long bangs that dripped water into his eyes. What was Pidge thinking? This was the worst he had ever looked in recent memory. Maybe she was blind without her glasses. He began to panic, searching his kit for his razor and a face mask.
After a quick but careful shave, he rinsed and dried his face, hastily donned a pair of clean blue underpants and tied back his too-long hair. Lance sat upon a large, smooth rock and prepared the ingredients for his favorite face mask. Zits begone! If Pidge liked him as much as he had hoped, he was determined to look his best for her. After slathering the green paste all over his face, he rinsed his hands and relaxed. He laid back upon the now-warm, smooth stone and closed his eyes, allowing the mask to dry in the sun...
When Lance’s mind was nearly awake once more, it was already mid-morning, and the face mask had dried until it cracked. He didn’t want to get up to rinse it off though. He felt lazy, and he enjoyed the sensation of the warm sunlight caressing his (mostly) bare skin. If he just kept his eyes closed he could imagine he was back home in Cuba, laying out in the sun on Varadero Beach, surrounded by beautiful bikini-clad women, or more realistically, with at least one particular pretty girl by his side, bikini-clad or not. His half-awake mind conjured up an image of a pale, petite girl in a modest emerald green bathing suit. Her beautiful long brown hair was wet, as if she had just emerged from the sea. She was gazing on him fondly as he slept in the sun. Paradise, he thought.
In his semiconscious daydream, the cute girl at his side was calling his name.
“Lance?”
“Hmm?” he mumbled.
“Lance, wake up.” The cute girl touched his arm. “You can’t sleep here all day you know. The rest of the team is wondering where you are, but I figured you would still be here, so I came to get you.”
His eyes snapped open, and it took him a moment to process everything. For a moment he thought he actually was on the beach in Cuba, especially when he saw the scantily clad long-haired beauty beside him.
Pidge.
Pidge with her long hair down, still damp from being washed. Not Pidge on the beach in a bikini, but Pidge wearing a green sports bra and a pair of cut-off shorts she had made herself, which was almost as good. He had no idea she was this hot. Smoking hot. Dead sexy. Was he still dreaming? He grinned at her goofily and felt his face mask crack.
Lance’s mind ran through every swear word he knew in English and Spanish, and then all of the alien swear words he knew, and then some he wasn’t sure of, but he didn’t say any of them out loud. Instead, he emitted a high-pitched yelp of surprise when he realized that he was not, in fact, wearing swim trunks and lying on a beach in Cuba, but he was, in fact, lying on a sun-warmed slab of stone on an alien planet wearing nothing but his underpants and a dried up face mask.
“I think you need to wash your face,” Pidge said, hardly able to contain her amusement. He noticed that she didn’t say anything about his lack of trousers.
“Uh, right.” Lance scrambled to the stream again to rinse and dry his face, which felt much smoother and cleaner, and hopefully blemish-free. He heard her behind him, trying to suppress her giggles and not succeeding. She gave up on silencing them and was now laughing hysterically. Lance felt his face burn hotter than the sun.
“What’s so funny?” he asked. Stay cool, he told himself. He got up and turned around, then tried to strike a confident pose.
Pidge laughed so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t know what’s funnier, the face mask or the mullet, or—“ she broke off, wheezing. “Or...the fact—“ She tried to catch her breath. “The fact that...you are standing there, striking a pose like a designer underwear model, pretending this isn’t embarrassing.”
Pidge’s laughter was one of his favorite sounds in the universe, and to him it was always infectious. Lance broke down at that moment and started laughing at himself along with her. He tried to cover himself modestly with his towel as he reached for his blue jeans. Then he turned his back to her and did a very silly butt-wiggling dance as he wriggled into them. Pidge was laughing so hard that she had to gasp for air. When he finally pulled up his jeans and zipped them, he turned to her and gave her his most smoldering look as the breeze ruffled his long hair.
“Now you look like one of the shirtless himbos in the ads for those trashy romance holodramas my mom watches.”
Lance sat down next to her, his sides shaking with laughter at her description of him. “Oh, no! My mom watches that junk too, and they’re the worst. I definitely want a haircut now.”
Pidge was still wiping the tears of mirth from her eyes. “That’s why I’m here. Coran just gave Shiro and Hunk a haircut, but you missed yours, Sleeping Beauty.” She held up Coran’s clippers and a pair of Altean scissors. “And I missed my haircut too, in order to go looking for you.”
“Sleeping Beauty?” He said with a smirk. “Okay, I am going to pretend that isn’t sarcasm. If I’m a Sleeping Beauty, then why didn’t you awaken me with a kiss?” He thought his flirting was going well in spite of how humiliating this day had been for him so far.
Pidge blushed. “Maybe because I’d rather kiss you when you’re awake?” She said this timidly. Flirting wasn’t something she was accustomed to doing.
“You can kiss me anytime you want, whether I’m asleep or awake.” He said this to her earnestly, revealing more of his true feelings for her than he ever thought he could dare to admit. Lance was blushing in spite of himself. So much for being cool and confident.
Pidge looked at him wide eyed, then ducked her head shyly. Lance tipped her chin up, then gently caressed her cheek. They were both breathing raggedly as he moved closer to her. But just as he leaned down to kiss her, she pulled away.
“I can’t let you do this,” Pidge was shaking like terrified prey, trapped in a hunter’s snare. She looked ready to flee.
“Pidge? What’s wrong?” Lance reached for her. “Don’t go! Please, just talk to me. I don’t understand why—“
“I can’t be another one of those girls that you flirt with and forget about!” She she choked out. She was sobbing.
“Pidge! I would never—“
“You’re the only one that I have ever felt this way about and—“ She paused to catch a breath. “If you kiss me it has to mean as much to you as it does to me.” She looked at him boldly now, and even though her face was tear-stained, Lance thought she had never looked more beautiful or more courageous.
He was the one who was terrified now, afraid to say or do the wrong thing. He gaped at her in astonishment, stunned into silence.
Pidge waited for him to say something, but he was still just staring at her, trying to process what she was trying to tell him, and trying to figure out what to do next.
Her mind worked at light speed compared to his. She had already come to a conclusion and turned to leave.
“Pidge, wait!” Lance cried. She kept walking.
“Katie!” She did not stop. Lance knew he had to say something or his heart would shatter into a million pieces. There was no way to repair a heart that badly broken.
“Katie Holt, I am in love with you!” He shouted, and his words echoed around the valley. Then there was a frightening silence between them that caused his heart to momentarily stop beating. They might have been on a silent planet if not for the incessant babbling of the uncaring brook behind them.
She stood there, unmoving, but she did not turn to him.
“I love you. I always have. I guess I was waiting for the right time to tell you, and I was also waiting for you to grow up because you’re younger than me, and I guess I also realized I was the one who really needed to mature a lot more before I could be in a real relationship because you’ve always been more mature than me and—“
She turned around. Lance continued to babble more incessantly than the creek. It was if a dam had burst and a torrent of heartfelt words tumbled forth, as unstoppable as a flood.
“You’re the most amazing girl I have ever met in my entire life and you’re my best friend and I love being with you more than anyone else in the whole universe and I don’t just want to kiss you I want to belong to you, now and always. I want to spend a lifetime laughing with you or just listening to you say brilliant things every day or just watching the sunset with you or just being with by your side when you need me or even when you don’t need me, because I need you and I want to be a part of your life forever. I adore you, Katie, and I-“
Pidge stopped his barrage of words the only way she knew how. With all her strength, she leapt into his arms and embraced him. She stopped the flow of words at the source, kissing him fiercely as Lance lowered her gently to the ground.
Lance had been kissed a fair few times in his life, but he had never experienced anything like this. It was like flying, like being struck by lightning. It was like being born, and living, and dying, and being brought back to life again. It was like all of those things, and none of those things. She had poured into that kiss what he had been struggling to say with words that were far too meager to express the infinite.
When they broke apart, Lance just gazed upon her in shock and reverent silence.
“You are the first and only man I have ever loved and will always love. You are in my heart, and if anything bad ever happened to you, a part of me would die. That is how I love you.” She sobbed. “That’s the only way I know how to love you.”
Lance buried his face in her hair, which was soft, fragrant, wild, and very soon damp with his own tears of relief. He held her close and comforted her as she sobbed happy tears against his bare chest.
When they finally regained control of their emotions, he lead her to the stream. They both washed their faces.
“I missed breakfast,” he began. “I hope I didn’t make you miss lunch.” Much to Pidge’s disappointment, Lance pulled on his old blue and white T-shirt.
Pidge opened her backpack. In it there were sandwich rolls, snacks, and cold drinks. “I didn’t know how long it would take to find you, but somehow I knew you would be hungry when I did.” She decided to put on her well worn Galaxy Garrison T-shirt, which was too small for her. Lance grinned, hoping he could hide his expression behind the first bite of his sandwich.
“You think of everything.”
“That’s because I’m brilliant.”
“I am definitely going to marry you when this war is over, you know that, don’t you?”
“You’d better.” There was a beautiful peace between them, like the calm after a storm. “You still need that haircut.”
“I know. Promise me you won’t cut your hair though. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s too long. I can barely fit it under my helmet anymore.”
“I could braid it for you.”
“Really? And what do you actually know about braiding hair?”
“I have sisters. I used to braid Veronica’s hair until she cut it short, and Rachel’s hair is still pretty long, or at least it was last time I saw her...”
They spend the rest of the afternoon reminiscing about home and talking about their hopes for the future.
*****
Kaltenecker came to the stream to drink that afternoon, and Pidge’s floofs hovered nearby, watching their beloved human friend beside the male human she loved most.
The floofs observed their dear little human attempting to give the male human’s head fur a trim. They saw that both of them thought the result was very funny. Their little female human cried at the mistakes she made when trimming head fur, but the floofs knew it would be alright because the tall male human seemed to be pleased with her efforts nonetheless. He rubbed his face against hers many times, as they often did to her. Of course, the floofs knew that this meant that the tall human loves their dear little one, and that she was very happy about it indeed. Clearly, it was some sort of human courtship ritual.
Perhaps they would mate and have little floofs of their own one day.
But that was a story for another time.