Chapter Text
Leaving was hard, really hard for Hunk.
He’s missed his family so much, but he could stay. Every day back on earth, on the same planet, not drifting through open space or exploring a planet (or you know, running away from one while being bombed) started to wear on him fast. It was like an itch, to go, go go, he HAD too see something new, do something new. He needed to see his team.
The assigned therapist that Hunk had on Earth called this behaviour ‘Codependent’ or whatever when he brought it up, and his parents, while well-meaning, hammered one of the first nails in this proverbial coffin by not letting him talk to them, even though he was nineteen and had spent four years with his Team in space, thank you very much. Mom let him again, after a while, even though Mama kept giving her dirty looks.
But the itch remained. Lance and Hunk and Pidge and Shiro could all feel it too. Allura, Romelle and Coran missed them all, Hunk hadn’t seen Shay in months by then, and not being able to sleep at all, what with the nightmares and without the ability to stay up till the stupid hours with someone else in solidarity, Hunk was just not having a great time.
So he left. He recorded a message (because he loves his family, he wouldn’t make that mistake again), packed a duffel bag with his phone, a charger and his toolkit for adapting the castle power to his phone. (He and Pidge had talked, and Hunk was pretty sure that they could collectively set up castleship wi-fi with Lance’s help, because Lance is really smart when it comes to adapting things instead of creating them.)
He left at midnight, after muffling another scream into his sheets to make sure that nothing woke the house up. He walked in the empty, dark streets, purposefully, eyes darting left and right for safety’s sake. He walks all the way to his home island’s harbour, where, hidden away in a cave (ironic), Yellow waits for him.
(She’s always been patient with him, waiting for him to fly her, waiting for him to be confident enough to become her paladin in a true sense, now, waiting for him to come home with her.)
She leans into the hand (small in comparison to her) that Hunk puts on her nose, purring in that beautiful way that only machines can. It’s safe, in a way only his lion and his Team can ever be. He sighs, and takes his hand off, stepping back a bit so that Yellow can open up for him.
Walking in feels like coming home all over again- maybe not with the same relief that coming to Earth was, but more on the lines of a sort of tired homecoming, like Mama when she came home from long shifts at the hospital on the next island over. Hunk sits in the pilot’s seat (And he doesn’t remember when he started considering himself more pilot than engineer, but he finds that he’s alright with this), and leaves the cave, shooting off into the open sky.
Hunk looks at his screen to see it flashing green. Pidge, then.
“Hey, Pidgeon!” Pidge snickers, and tries to slug his elbow from all the way in a different lion, even though she knows that it’s not possible, even with all the fancy space science they know now. Hunk laughs again, because he knows that he’s going to see his siblings again soon, and his brother and sister, and both the dysfunctional space dads he knows and loves.
He and Pidge make casual conversation, easy and gentle, all the way to Uranus (haha not funny, Adam), which the Castleship is hiding in the orbit of. Both they and Hunk go absolutely silent, stunned, elated when the Castleship comes into view again, because, goddamn it, he missed this. In his peripherals, Hunk can see Blue, Red And Black all coming up behind or beside him, with Green just ahead, reminiscent of battles where they all came back here (home) bloody and bruised to hell, sure, but also proud that they could help, that one more facet of the Galra Empire is over and done with.
The doors open for them all, smooth as always, and Black goes in first, with Shiro and Adam, then Red, with Keith (and Krolia’s bags, she’s on a swap moon finishing some stuff up) and Kosmo, Green with Pidge, Matt and Mika, their therapy cat (with Coleen’s permission, of course. Hunk may fear Mama Holt a little bit. Just maybe), Blue with Lance and his twin, Allita, because Allita is refusing to see her brother off without her this time, and finally, Hunk, alone. Shay will be here soon, though.
Hunk leaves his lion last, but everyone else is right outside, clearly resisting hugging each other until he’s with them too, so he decides not to keep them waiting any longer, because it has been way too long now.
Lance hugs Pidge, because she’s the closest top him, and soon it’s an absolute cuddle party, and it only gets bigger when Allura, Coran and Romelle join in (it only took them this long because the sprint from the lookout to the hangar is a long one, even with it being a sprint and not a walk), laughing and crying and whispering ‘I love you’’s to whoever they all can, platonic or not, because this is Hunk’s family, and they’re all together again.
The lions all look on fondly, because they know that this kind of reunion only happens once every few paladin cycles, so they’ll take what they can.
…
Pidge had just finished examining some really cool plant samples with Matt (and Dad over the phone), when Mika paws at her legs incessantly, and Pidge must really be softening up, because they smile, and bend down, even in her sleep-deprived haze to scritch the back of Mika’s ears, because Mika loves affection like that- it makes her purr in this adorable way, only otherwise seen with the Trash Nebula Friends.
They push up their glasses (unconsciously mirroring Shiro), stack up the papers and put their tablet up for charge, and head out. Now with the samples adequately researched, Pidge can finally let herself sleep, but only (and she means only) after movie night with Voltron, because that’s always been a thing.
It’s been three weeks since Team Voltron’s moved back into the castleship, lack of war and adequate preparations in tow, and Pidge doesn’t think she’s ever been happier. Bullies can’t touch her, their family is safe (thank science for that) and she’s exploring open space, cataloguing species, creatures and other anomalies with their team, as their job, for the rest of their career/life. How does it get better than that?
Lance’s room (where most movie nights take place) is a mess. There are photos, equations and writing spilled out everywhere, diplomacy notes hastily stacked and organised on his desk, and books and texts on literally every free surface. Lance sees them, and perks up, and then his expression changes to more of a sheepish smile, because he’s being messy again right now and it shows. Sighing, Pidge presses two fingers to her temple, sighs, and helps lance clean up. Research texts in one box, diplomatic stuff in another, personal stuff in the last, till there’s only some pictures, a lamp and Lance’s tablet on his table, and the bed only has his covers and the laptop.
Keith comes in next, sweaty and gross, so Pidge and Lance throw some clothes at him and yell for him to take a goddamn shower, so he does. Hunk dawdles a bit, making very teasing remarks about the next batch of nice space desserts he has ready, but ultimately comes in anyways. Allita and Krolia enter at the same time, clearly tired from spending all day flying to and from the moon they’re on (ASDF-13, Pidge thinks) to collect data and samples, so when they inevitably collapse onto Lance’s sheet., Pidge says nothing.
Shiro and Adam are the last ones to come, clearly because they were having some emotional conversation or the other (Those two have so much they need to talk about, and Pidge is so proud of them for making the effort and being a good influence on couples everywhere.). Shiro ruffles her hair, and while she shrieks and grumbles, she’s just happy that Shiro’s there to ruffle their hair at all, at any given time, because it all could’ve gone so differently that it’s scary, sometimes. Adam smiles at him, and pats their shoulder, so Pidge scoots over a bit to make some room.
As soon as Keith is out of the shower, debate resumes on what movie to pick.
“But The Nightmare Before Christmas is a classic! We can’t not watch it!” exclaims Lance. Clearly, he hasn’t watched the IT remake. Clearly.
“Yeah? Well what about the IT remake? You’re missing out on that, Lance!” Pidge snarks back. Lance's face turns the brightest shade of red with fake-rage, and Pidge giggles a bit, just because it is really tha funny.
“Children, children, it is time to hush and listen to Space Dad Shiro ™ . The movie we are going to watch is the original ‘The Mars Generation and that is final.” Says Shiro, calmly, pushing both of his hands outward of his sides, as if trying to push away Pidge and Keith on either side. Stupid Shiro and his Dad-Authority. Unfair!
Later, when the movie is well into playing, Hunk’s tablet buzzes, and he looks down at it, sheepishly, Not telling his parents he was going was probably not his best move ever, but Pidge had nothing to say to it, considering she only told her parents that she was going mid-packing. And the only reason that they knew at all was because they’d walked in on Pidge trying to shove their soldering tools into a duffel, along with everything else. Stupid soldering tools. But yeah, Hunk excused himself, and with some whispered reassurances from Keith, he left.
“What happened?” Lance asks Keith. The movie is paused, still. Everyone turns towards Keith, looking quizzically. The red paladin shrugs, looking away a bit.
“Just… family things. Nothing I can really help with. He’ll be fine.” Keith looks away, eyes averted, expression a bit, just like he does whenever families come into conversation and he and Krolia have nothing to say. He forgets, sometimes, that whatever this team has is a family too. A strange one, one formed in necessity and trauma, sure, but a family nonetheless. Shiro moves a little further away from Pidge, to press up next to Keith, as Lance takes him in his lap, Krolia keeps a steady hand on his shoulder, and themselves and Allura kind of spread their arms into something of a pseudo-hug, which Adam and Romelle finish off. Mika curls up in the crook of Pidge’s shoulder, trying to join in on the action. Allita looks on, smiling fondly, eyes unreadable.
“Hey, Samurai?” Lance says, softly, just enough for the hugpile to hear, Allita excluded, quiet and fond and loving. (Pidge would call it gross, but right now she’s got too much cat and teammate family member in her arms to care.
“You know we love you, right?” Keith smiles, and turns his eyes toward Lance, , who smiles back.
“Yeah.”
Hunk walks in about five minutes later, and even though he’s trying to (fake) smile for all of them, he enters everyone’s hold, everyone opening out a bit to put him in the middle, where he doesn’t cry, but he shakes like a leaf, and his eyes turn glassy.
They’ll all stay like that for nearly twenty minutes, but that’s okay. Teammates Family is worth feeling sweaty in a hug for.
..
Lance doesn’t know what to do.
”You don’t care about your real family, do you? You know, the one you were born in? Mierda, Alejandro!”
He can’t get her words, his sister’s words, out of his godforsaken head and he doesn’t know what to do.
It had all started (this whole shitstorm) with an argument, when Lance had considered not visiting Earth this cycle because he’d still not recovered from the claustrophobia he’s felt, stuck there, even with all the happiness that he had felt at the same time. Keith and Shiro were staying behind, too, while Hunk and Adam and Pidge were going. Allita wanted to go, too, but assumed that he was, too. Lance only figured this out when Allita started packing her stuff, then set out a bag for Lance, and started to pack that too. Lance told her, then that he really wasn’t planning to come home then. He tried to bring up the claustrophobia, and that he wanted to see Nyma and Plax again, but Allita was so upset...
”Are we not important to you anymore?”
They were. His familia on Earth (Mami, Papi, Luis, Marco, Veronica, Nadia, Lisa and Sylvio, ole…) are so important to him, how could Allita not see that? It’s why he wanted some more time. If he came back now, even for a few days, the claustrophobia and the concern and not being able to see someone when he inevitably had a nightmare or a flashback would make everyone miserable, and he wouldn’t be able to take it. Lance would be running back to open space in a day and a half, barely spending any time with his familia at all. He couldn’t do it- to himself or to his familia, it’d break him. So he’d stay.
He’ll stay.
It was nighttime (or the closest approximation to nighttime the Castleship has) on the ship, and they’d all just left ASDF-13 to take whoever was going back to Earth, back to Earth. Bags and cases were loaded in the hangar, and while no desks and surfaces had been emptied, like they had done the first time, when they headed back to Earth eight months ago. a few things were missing. Dios, Lance was going to miss everyone so much.
He sat down in the common area, Legs crossed and hands in his lap, staring at nothing for a while (doboshes? Vargas? How would he know?), till he heard his name.
“Lance?” Oh, that was Shiro, then.
“Hi, Shirt.” quipped Lance. Shiro smirked a bit, moving from the spot of the wall he was leaning on, uncrossing his arms as he walked over to the lounge couch, and sitting, one leg over the other, relaxed. But there was eye contact.
“Hey, Lonce.”
“Don’t make fun of Ally's accent like that!”
“She lets us, you know it.”
“Fair enough.” Shiro shifts, so that Lance has to make eye contact with him, no matter what. It’s not the most comfortable thing, but he manages to do it.
“So, what’s got you out here this late? I didn’t hear you screaming, this time.” asks Shiro, and Lance doesn’t know how to say, because he wants to, he really does. He just doesn’t know how.
“So uh… Allita and I got in a fight. About-- About going home.” Lance says eventually, lifting his shoulders and trying to avoid eye contact, even though he knows he won’t be able too. Shiro hums, looking sort of lost in thought. His smirk has turned into a kind of smile, soft and also kind of sad all at once. It’s a smile he used to have for when he was alone, back when Pidge was thirteen-almost-fourteen and Lance and Hunk and Keith were fifteen and Shiro used to whisper about ”Too young, too young.” when he was alone.
The bruise paladins stay that way for a while, in the dead silence of a (mostly) sleeping Castleship,, as Lance’s panic and sadness and guilt keeps building up and he thinks he’ll spill over- -
“It’s okay if you want to stay, you know.”, and all of a sudden it’s like he's been punched, and everything is clear for a moment. Shiro hums again, an old song.
“I’m pretty sure that your reasons for staying are different from mine, but considering how much you missed your family during the war, there must be a good reason why you aren’t going back this time.” He says, and Lance breathes in, and out. He puts his feet on the ground, to ward off the last of his panic, to remember that he is on the castleship, home, not in a military tent, or on the battlefield with bombs everywhere, or on Cuba where everything is lovely but oh so small and tight and close. No, he’s on the Castleship.
“Yeah, at least I hope so. It was so good to be home, but it was so small, and I couldn’t go anywhere, and I couldn’t see you guys for ages, and everyone treated me like I’d break any second, that’s why Allita’s here with me at all. I missed this, and as much as I do want to say hi to everyone, I know I-I’ll break if I do, so I shouldn’t, really.” finishes Lance, wiping away the last of his tears aggressively with his elbow, pressing his socked feet to the floor a bit harder. Shiro hums again, no song in particular, and puts his human hand (warm, and steady) on Lance’s shoulder, and it’s safe.
“So here’s what I think you should consider doing. Try talking to Allita, this time, instead of defending yourself. Explain, calmly, that no, your going back at this particular time would be bad for all of you, but you are also not so fragile that you would break. Lance, you are one of the strongest people I have ever had the privilege to know.” Lance inhales, a bit sharply, and turns to make eye contact with Shiro. Shiro’s still sitting in that relaxed way that he always does, but his eyes aren’t as sad. They still are, but that’s a given at this point. There’s a fire there, a kind of determination for lance to understand, and it makes Lance want to understand what Shiro thinks is so imperative for him to understand.
“Lance, you always worry about other people before you can worry about yourself. When I was...gone (Shiro’s voice chokes up a bit there, but not in the teary-eyes way), and Keith was with the Blades, you stepped up, you were suspicious of the clone before anyone. You helped take him down.”
(Lance remembers- Him And Keith, together, trying so, so hard for fake-Shiro to understand, but he never does and goes back for the next hit.)
Shiro tightens his grip on Lance’s shoulder some. “You kept us together, even when the rest of the team ignored what you had to say, because they were so caught up in their own junk, and made us better, Lance. You have always been so brave, whether it be guiding Gremlin-Pidge through her first period or keeping civilians safe during a Galran bombing raid. This is brave, too. Wanting to be your family, but also staying away a bit longer to make sure you can be with them. You are so, so brave, Lance.” Shiro finishes, and Lance sees him start to tear up, and he sees the first tears fall down Shiro’s face and doesn’t know he’s crying until one stray tear lands on his lip.
Shiro lets go of the hand on Lance’s shoulder, in order to wipe off his own tears, but Lance is relieved, truly, that someone else understands. He’s going to speak to Allita first thing tomorrow, but tonight, he gives Shiro a hug, and it’ll last thirty ticks till the angle starts becoming mildly painful, and they’ll let go, rubbing their backs and laughing a bit, and go their separate ways. Lance will make his way upstairs to his and Keith’s shared room, and check on Pidge, who’ll finally be asleep by now, and lift her into bed, putting their computer aside in their travelling duffle for the next morning. He’ll whisper a soft ‘Goodnight’ in her ear, and move on to Hink’s room, where he’ll find his hermano fast asleep already, so he’ll just smile, softly, and go to the last room in the corridor.
In his and Keith’s room, Lance will find Allita, crying a bit, but still very sleepy, being comforted by an equally sleepy Keith. Lance will pick her up like he always has, just under the armpits, and whisper in her ear that they’ll talk tomorrow, and she’ll be dropped off at their doorway, and she’ll kiss his forehead and say a quick ‘lo siento’ anyways, before going. Keith will smile at him, a bit sleepily, but he’ll frown a bit when he sees the tear tracks. Lance will hold his partner in bed, let Keith run his sword-trained hands through Lance’s hair, and kiss along the tear tracks because Keith isn’t super with words, sure, but his actions speak for themselves.
Lance will fall asleep eventually, to the lazy rhythm of his partner’s fingers in his hair, and he’ll put one more sleepy kiss on Keith’s neck before he manages to drift off, without any nightmares this time, and Keith follows soon after. All is well in the Castleship, or, at least it will be.
…
Keith is really not having a good day.
He’d woken up feeling tingly and numb all over, his head feeling slow and gross and the rest of him ached. He couldn’t lie down anywhere comfortably, and everything was too hot. (Ironic for the Paladin of Fire) He groaned a bit, and tried to push himself a little further from Lance, because, As much as Keith loved his boyfriend, everything was so stuffy that it’d just make the whole situation worse.
thunk
Aaaand he’s on the floor. Lovely. Well, it’s less stuffy, and Keith’s back isn’t hissing anymore, so may as well let it be.
“Keef?” grumbles Lance from above. Wow, this is weird. Keith feels the vibrations of what Lance says more than he hears Lance say it. Lance turns over and takes a good look at him, and lifts his eyebrows, in concern.
“Stuffy.” Keith responds, arranging himself so that he’s spread-eagled onto the cold (hard) ground, trying to clear his head some. It’s not working. Lance untangles himself from the blankets a little bit, sitting up on the bed instead, feat on the floor.
“Touch?” he asks, one hand about a few inches away from Keith’s face.
“No.” And that’s okay, because these things just...happen every month or so, and there’s nothing Keith can do about it. Weirdly enough, this thing syncs up with Pidge’s period. Lance pulls his hand away, keeping it next to him instead, and smiling, a bit more awake by now at Keith, who is still looking up through a floof of hair in front of his face as if that hair has personally wronged him. They both laugh a bit, throats still a little morning-dry, before Lance perks up, hearing Hunk and pidge yelling about something techy or the other with Matt, who’s in the next System (CRSH-ZM, If Keith could remember properly) helping civilians rehabilitate on their planets, or go to new ones if theirs were destroyed. Lance looks at the door, smiling amusedly at the chais outside, with Pidge (an eighteen year old person, thank you in their own words) on Hunk’s shoulders, perching there like she’s fourteen again and just found their family. Hunl’s got them, and they’re both laughing, before catching Lance looking at them. Pidge grins sardonically and tells lance to, and Keith quotes, ‘HURRY YOUR ASS UP HERE! SPACE-FI’s NEARLY DONE!.”
Lance sighs, a happy little thing, and looks at Keith with that same home-happiness-belonging feeling that the entire ship seemed to be wearing lately (Keith included), with a touch of concern too, because this was Lance they were all talking about. Lance who sympathised with everyone, whether that pain was normal or a new thing. Keith smiles back a bit, motioning with a very small movement of his neck that yes, Lance, he’ll be okay. Lance tilts his neck in return, smile never leaving his face, and he gets up, brushes off his lap a bit and walks out to team Punk, clearly excited by their near completion.
On Lance’s way out, he flicks off the floor heating, so that the floor stays cold for Keith. That saint..
Pidge comes by a few hours later, when the loud-numbness has subsided some, and she’s groaning, muttering under her breath about things like space birth control, or anything she could do to get rid of their period, now that they’re eighteen anyway. Keith just pats his sibling’s back, and they rub his in return, with (thankfully cold) steady hands. Shiro comes in to get them both hot chocolate and iced tea, which Hunk clearly made considering it’s edible, but gives them cards that he made himself, with cute little drawings of them, chibi style, holding up their respective bayards up in a victory pose, standing on top of a crudely-drawn Earth, saying ‘Conquer the world!’, but when opened, showing Chibi Keith and Pidge in bed surrounded by the Team And their families in a big hug saying ‘After you look after yourself’. They laugh, Shiro smiles, and Keith and Pidge are alone for another hour, where they mostly just chat with Krolia over video.
It’s about space-evening, when Matt, Allura and Adam (with Coran supervising, because leaving those three alone together has NEVER ended well for the structural integrity of, well, anything really) burst into the room, Romelle sighing in that annoyed-amused look she wears when Allura (who is certainly NOT a hoity-toity queen in private) gets up to something. Keith is now, understandably, alarmed.
But it turns out to be okay. The majority of the heat is gone, on Keith’s part, so physical contact is fine. The event turns out to be another fanfiction marathon, where the goal is to read through the entirety of Love and Other Fairytales, which everyone collectively sobbed through, regardless of how hard they tried to stave it off.
“But, but Patton! and Logan! becoming friends and the graveyard??”
“Roman instantly becomes ride or die, huh. Love it.” “Sounds like Lance and I but okay”
“Greta!!!!!”
“FUCK YOU EIRWEN!!!!” “Oooooh no Thomas angst I CANNOT handle this emotional upheaval” “It’s okay, ‘Lura.”
“The slash begins.” “Jeez Keith try from some feeling there kiddo” “Patton isn’t Lance or a Hippo so I have no reason to.”
And such. Lance works with Hunk throughout the night, and the entire sleepover party falls asleep in the worst angles possible, but the next morning, Lance comes in with a very ecstatic Hunk, tiredly but happily beaming at the room, and telling them the Wi-Fi network name and password (Name-KickAssGoToSpace Password- RepresentTheHumanRace) before straight up collapsing onto bed, fast asleep where Pidge and Adam’s legs used to be, Hunk toppling onto the pillows on Lance’s left soon after. And the heat was fading, and even though Keith’s neck was cricked beyond belief, he smiled anyway, laughing with everyone as they started piling in, because everyone is alright and there’s nothing to do today, so why not? It’ll be nice today anyways, floating in space with the ten people Keith loves most in the Universe.