Work Text:
Hunk looked down at the sleeping green paladin, biting his lip. Pidge fell asleep in the lab all the time, next to or on top of her projects, but she usually did it long after he'd gone to bed. If she was asleep so early, she must really need the sleep, so he shouldn't wake her up. But that position couldn't be comfortable, and she would sleep better in her bed, so maybe he should. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to balance the two impulses out.
Coran was always whistling, which was usually good, because the doors here opened too quietly and they'd never have known when he walked into a room otherwise. Now, it wasn't so good. Hunk turned to look at Coran as soon as he'd made it through the door, putting a finger to his lips. "Shh," he whispered, "Pidge is asleep."
Coran came over, head cocked to the side like he was confused. "That's odd," he whispered back, "She's usually up later than the rest of us."
Hunk was surprised for a moment. It was one thing for Pidge to be awake when he went to bed - Lance was the only one who went to bed before he did with any frequency - and something else entirely for her to be awake when Coran went to bed. When was the last time she'd gotten a full night's sleep? Before they got here? But then, he and Lance had found her on the roof listening for aliens the night they rescued Shiro, so she might not have been sleeping then, either.
That was it. That did it. He nodded at Coran, then whispered, "She must really need the sleep. I'm gonna see if I can carry her back to her bunk without waking her up."
Coran helped disentangle Pidge's project from the paladin herself, but Hunk got between them long enough to scoop Pidge up into his arms before Coran could do it. She was surprisingly light. Or maybe unsurprisingly light. She was tiny, after all.
Pidge sighed softly and he froze stiff, hoping she wasn't about to wake up. After half a heartbeat, she snuggled into him a little bit, still clearly asleep, and he let out a sigh of his own, relaxing again. He stood still for a moment anyway, afraid that if he jostled her too much before she sank back into a deep sleep, he might wake her up.
"Do you remember where her room is?" Coran asked, a little bit too loudly now that Pidge wasn't curled up on the floor. He nodded back, trying not to glare too hard, and took his first step toward the door. It seemed alright.
By the time he got to her room, Pidge had grabbed a fistful of his vest, which meant he had to wriggle awkwardly out of it after he put her down, but he wasn't sure he minded. Once he'd stepped away from the side of her bunk, Pidge curled up onto her side, wrapping herself around his vest like it was a kid's security blanket, and it occurred to him that she was still wearing her shoes.
They weren't a good style for slipping off somebody's feet without waking them up, but like many of Pidge's clothes, they were a little on the big side, and he thought maybe, just maybe, he could work them off without waking her up.
After another moment's thought, just looking down at her asleep in her day clothes, he decided to go for it.
When she slept through the whole thing, he couldn't help smiling. Leaving her shoes neatly beside each other under the bed, he tucked a blanket around her and tiptoed out of the room, gazing fondly back at her before he turned the light out and stepped out into the hall to close the door. Sometimes he felt like a slacker going to bed when Pidge and Keith and Shiro were somehow still working or training or researching even though he thought he might fall asleep on his feet. It was nice to be the one looking out for once.
*****
Hunk sighed, breathing out through his nose as he let the hot water of the shower run down his face again. He should get out. Someone else was probably waiting for a turn. But it had been such a long day, and he'd worked so hard, and there had been so many mechanical problems all day for him to fix, and the heat felt so good. He tipped his head back, letting the water hit his chest, then turned around again so that it could thump its way across his shoulders and back.
After another 90 seconds, he steeled himself for the rush of cold that would inevitably be waiting in the bathroom proper, and turned the water off. After another three long, deep breaths of steam, he made himself push the shower door open and step into the cold, dry air. It always seemed patently unfair that the Altean humidity control system was precise enough to keep the bathroom dry no matter how much steam you made in the shower.
He wrapped himself in his towel quickly, snuggling into the warmth of it for a moment. Sometimes this place felt more military than royal, but the towels were definitely on the royal end of things. His pajamas weren't so bad either, though the fine fabric wasn't quite as warm as the big fluffy towels were.
He almost tripped over Lance as he left the bathroom to go crawl into bed. The blue paladin was leaning against the wall, like he'd been sitting there waiting to use the shower and just hadn't been able to stay awake. His pajamas were sitting in a messy half-folded pile next to him, and his head was lolling at what looked like an uncomfortable angle. Well, that wasn't going to work.
Lance always slept like the dead, so Hunk just flipped his dirty clothes over one shoulder and Lance's PJs over the other and scooped his friend up to carry him to his room.
Once he'd dumped Lance into his bunk, he laid the other paladin's pjs out neatly where Lance would see them if he woke up in the middle of the night. Then he turned to leave. At the door, he stopped, tipping his head back with a sigh. As tired as he was, he couldn't quite bring himself to just leave his best friend that way. He dumped his clothes into a pile by the door and went back to make sure Lance was gonna be comfortable.
He was halfway convinced he was going to wake Lance up while he was taking off his shoes, but when the other boy didn't even stir, he decided he might as well take it a step farther. If anybody wouldn't freak out about Hunk trying to take his jacket off while he was asleep, it would be Lance.
Lance wasn't sleeping any differently without the jacket than he had been with the jacket, but he just looked more comfortable in his t-shirt. When they were rooming together at the Garrison, Lance had pretty often just gone to sleep in his shirt from the day and his boxers, so Hunk figured he was comfortable enough in his t-shirt and jeans. And anyway, it wasn't like Lance was awake to know the difference.
It wasn't until he was back in his own bed and nearly asleep that he realized he'd forgotten his dirty clothes in that heap next to Lance's door. He decided he was too tired to care, rolled over onto his side, and went to sleep.
*****
Keith was curled up in a little ball, asleep on the floor outside the training deck, in his full armor, and Hunk rolled his eyes at him. How long had he been asleep here? Why were his teammates like this? Why could no one just go to bed when they were tired?
Hunk hoisted the red paladin up into a fireman's carry. It was one thing to scoop Pidge up or carry Lance bridal-style when he knew his friend would think it was funny if he did wake up, and another to carry Keith that way when Keith was so... Keith.
This would be less awkward. And Keith's armor added more weight than he'd expected, so it was probably better anyway. He had farther to go, and this was an easier way to carry him.
Coran nodded at him as they passed in the hallway, like there was really nothing remarkable about any of this, which made him feel both a little better and a little worse. Was this just what he did now? Make lunch when he could wrest the job from Coran, fix mechanical issues, and carry people to bed?
He laid Keith down gently into his bunk. Hunk hadn't been in Keith's room before, but it was weirdly empty, even compared to everyone else's weirdly empty rooms. It was like he hadn't even tried to do anything to personalize it or make it seem lived in.
It was that more than anything else that convinced Hunk he couldn't leave Keith to sleep in his armor.
"I really hope you have clothes on under here," he whispered as he examined the armor, trying to figure out how to get it off from the outside. He knew how to take his own armor off, but that was partially because whatever their suits were made of, his seemed to respond almost as much to his thoughts as to anything.
Luckily, Keith's armor seemed to be cooperating. Maybe it was a failsafe in case a Paladin needed medical attention and the armor needed to come off. Maybe it knew Keith was safe with him. Or maybe their armor wasn't that hard to take off, and he'd better not get knocked out or fall asleep if he was going to get captured. That wasn't such a nice thought.
He sighed in relief as he realized Keith was wearing his usual black t-shirt under the armor, but blushed a few minutes later when he realized the same couldn't be said of his usual black pants. The Altean long johns he had on under his armor covered everything up, but they were definitely not pants.
The minute he had the last of the armor put away, Hunk flung a blanket over Keith, and of course, of course, that was when the other boy finally woke up.
"Whazza? Hunk? Wha's goin-"
"Shhh!" Hunk answered, scrambling for something - anything - to say, "You're, uh - you're asleep. This is a dream!" He waved his fingers at Keith, and repeated those last words like he was doing some kind of lame ghost impression "Aaaaaa dreeeeeeeammmmmmm."
Keith looked at him like it was a struggle to make his eyes focus, and Hunk realized he wasn't really awake, not all the way, anyway.
"Oh. Kay." Keith answered agreeably. The other boy closed his eyes, and seemed to be out again by the time his head hit the pillow.
Hunk backed quietly out of the room and closed the door behind him. "Whoo," he muttered to himself, "Close call. That could have been awkward."
*****
Shiro's arm was malfunctioning, and Hunk and Pidge were both too focused on the intricate work of fixing the arm to notice that Shiro had fallen asleep in his chair, leaning heavily on the other hand, with his elbow propped up on their work table.
"Shiro must be really tired," Coran said absently, as he walked past them on his way to the closet to pick up some tools. "But then, if I had to do everything one handed for a few days, I'd be tired too."
Hunk looked up in surprise. "He's asleep?"
"We can wake him up when we're done," Pidge said, apparently unbothered by it.
"But should we, though?" Hunk bit his lip. "It's already getting pretty late." He'd been thinking absently that it must be getting late, even before Shiro fell asleep, but now that he was really paying attention to it, he realized he was tired. He yawned, but Pidge just shrugged.
"I mean..." she said, "He is usually up late."
Hunk rolled his eyes, "Yeah, that's because all of you are usually up late. Too late. It's not healthy."
"We're fine!"
"Pidge, Shiro is asleep, sitting up in an uncomfortable chair, even though we're talking at a normal volume."
Pidge blushed, not quite meeting his eyes. "Ok, fine, you might have a point."
Hunk nodded. "Close him up. We can finish the arm tomorrow."
"Oh, are you going to bed, then?" Coran asked, walking past them again, "Probably a good idea. Lance has been asleep for hours, and I think Keith went to bed, too."
That sunk it. As much fun as it had been experimenting with the Galra tech and working out how they could not just fix, but actually improve Shiro's arm, it was definitely time for bed. He yawned again, and this time Pidge caught it, glaring at him as she finished the yawn like it was his fault it had gotten so late.
"Yeah," Hunk answered, "And we'll take Shiro off to bed, too. I think it's about time."
Even after Pidge closed up the open side of Shiro's arm, carrying him over to his room was a two-person job. Pidge steadied Shiro in the chair while Hunk rearranged things until he could pick Shiro up in a fireman's carry, then followed behind him to hold Shiro's arm so that it wouldn't swing around while Hunk was moving.
They tucked him into bed together and tiptoed out of the room, and Hunk was relieved that Shiro had already been barefoot and dressed casually, because it was one thing taking people's shoes off while they were alone, and another thing doing it in front of Pidge, somehow.
Pidge patted him on the arm before they parted ways to go to their own rooms. "Thanks, Hunk. He probably needs the sleep."
Hunk just nodded. They always needed the sleep. He was starting to feel like being Voltron was just one long string of days in which he felt like he needed more sleep. And he was sleeping more than most of the others. As he lay in bed, surprisingly awake, he tried not to worry too much about them.
*****
Hunk was tired of having to chase Coran around the castle to make sure he was ok. The Altean, for all that he'd told Allura off for being up and about when she needed to be recovering after the Balmera, was astonishingly bad at staying in bed when he was sick. Even keeping him on the couch near the training deck or in a chair on the bridge was a challenge.
Hunk rounded the corner and dashed down the hall past the med bay, then stopped up short. He turned to look through the door, thinking that surely, his peripheral vision must have failed him. But no. There was Coran, fast asleep on the floor, halfway in one of the pods and halfway out of it, while the door to the pod made soft, distressed dinging noises because it couldn't close with him in the way.
Hunk sighed, blowing upward so that his breath ruffled his bangs. Of course. Of course he couldn't just stay in bed like he was supposed to. Hunk was impressed with how deeply he seemed to be sleeping, though. Neither the pod door's persistent dinging, nor his own entrance into the room had done anything to make Coran stir.
He dragged the man out of the way of the doors and back into the room, the door sealing behind Coran with a satisfied hiss as soon as it was freed. Hunk thought he might have left some cleaning supplies in the pod, but he wasn't sure he cared much about that right now. He had to get Coran off to bed, so they could all make sure he stayed there.
"Ok, man," he said, hefting Coran up into a fireman's carry, "Guess I'm gonna be the legs again."
On the way to Coran's room, he ran into Allura. "Oh good, you found him!" He nodded back to her. "Where was he?"
"I think he was trying to clean the pods in the med bay," he answered quietly, as she fell into step beside him, "I know they're due to get cleaned, but he's still too out of it."
"I know," she answered, lowering her voice now that she was closer so that she wouldn't wake Coran up. "I wish he'd stay in bed, like he told me to when I wasn't feeling well."
Hunk nodded. "I mostly just wish the pods could fix him. He's almost as bad as Pidge about having to have things to do."
Allura smiled fondly, "He's only trying to help. It's a lot of work running this castle, and we used to have a full staff, not just the two of us. I think he misses everyone more when things aren't getting done. It's like if things don't get clean and run smoothly, it's more obvious they're not here. But it's too much work for one person."
Hunk nodded. "It's not that simple, though. I know there are times when we take advantage, but there are other times when he won't let us help, even if we try to. We could have cleaned the pods for him. And I can make lunch."
Allura smiled, patting him on the arm, "And we'll show him that while he's laid up. I'll get the others to pitch in, too."
She pushed the door into Coran's room open in front of them and held it for Hunk, then hurried forward to help support Coran as Hunk laid him on the bed. She was fussing over Coran before Hunk had fully straightened up again, adjusting his pillow to get it under his head.
They tucked Coran in, and this time working together to get him settled didn't feel quite so weird. Once Coran looked comfortable, Hunk and Allura tiptoed out, closing the door softly behind them before they started working through who should take over Coran's usual jobs - and who should stand guard to make sure he stayed in bed and let them take care of things.
*****
The other Paladins clustered awkwardly around Hunk as he slept with his head down on the kitchen table, hunched over in his chair.
Pidge leaned onto the table, getting her face up as close to Hunk's as she could and waving a hand in front of his eyes. "Yeah, he's definitely asleep," she declared.
"Hasn't he been sleeping?" Lance asked.
"Not since the last of the pods broke down," Shiro answered, "He's been working late to make sure Coran and Allura aren't stuck here if we're all out in our lions and something goes wrong. Keeps muttering something about the Titanic."
"He was really into the Titanic as a kid. He's got a model of a Titanic lifeboat in our room at the Garrison."
"Maybe we should get him a blanket," Keith interrupted.
Lance glared at him, but it was Pidge who answered, biting her lip. "I dunno - I don't think he'd leave us like this."
Keith blushed.
"You're right, Pidge," Shiro agreed, "He apparently carried me back to bed when I fell asleep at the lab table that time."
"He carried me back to bed when I fell asleep in the lab, too," Pidge said. After a moment's pause, she added, "When I fell asleep before he went to bed, anyway."
"I feel asleep outside the training room,” Keith said, still blushing.
"Outside the shower," Lance supplied, "But only because he was taking too long!"
After a moment's silence, Pidge asked, "So who's gonna carry him?"
When Allura walked in 5 minutes later, they were still arguing about who was going to take his arms and who was going to take his legs and which would be heavier.
"What's this?" she asked, "Are you all fighting again?"
"We're trying to figure out how to carry Hunk to bed," Shiro answered calmly.
"He'd have done it for us," Lance added.
"He did do it for us." Pidge corrected.
"Oh! Yes! And Coran, too. What a lovely idea to pay him back!"
Before they fully realized what she was doing, Allura had stepped forward and hauled Hunk out of the chair and over her shoulder, growing slightly to stabilize herself. She strode off down the hall, the rest of them trailing behind her until she got to the door and Pidge ran ahead to open it for her.
They tucked him in carefully, crowding around and whispering to each other, and then filed out of the room.
As soon as the door closed behind them, Hunk opened his eyes, smiled, and rolled over, hiking his blanket up a little higher as he curled into a ball. It was nice to know they had his back. And it had been kind of fun pretending to be asleep since he woke up in his own doorway.