Character(s)/Pairing(s): Pidge, Lance, Hunk, Keith, Shiro.
Warnings: Nothing specific, really, asides of Pidge being weirded out by her fellow Paladins?
Summary: The bottom line was, Pidge wasn't feminine, and she knew it. That didn't meant she wasn't a girl, however, or that she wasn't proud to be one. So, under those circumstances, wasn't it kind of embarrassing that a bunch of guys knew better beauty and care tips than her?
Notes: Partly inspired by Lance having a mask at the beginning of 'Some Assembly Recquired'. Then my mind went 'eh, I wonder if the other Paladins have their own care moments' and it ended up giving this story. That, and the fact I just love Pidge and I can totally see her as a tomboy with no special care about her own appearance. Hope you'll like.
Of Paladins and Beauty Tips
Katie 'Pidge' Holt was many things: an adoring younger sister, a Garrison Cadet, a devilishly good hacker (you had to be if you wanted to create a fake identity for yourself), a video games fangirl (who regularly kicked her older brother's ass in duels), a tech genius, the Green Paladin of Voltron,…
Katie 'Pidge' Holt however, readily admitted there was one thing she wasn't, and that thing was 'feminine'. At least, not feminine in the way society expected her to be.
It was old news as far as her family was concerned.
Even as a kid, Pidge hadn't been a classical little girl. Sure, she had liked wearing dresses and skirts, but she had been perfectly fine wearing some of Matt's old clothes (even at the Garrison, she had kept some of her brother's old tee-shirts, which she wore as nightshirts). She hadn't been the kind of girl who gently playing tea parties with her dolls and stuffed animals (though she had had her share, thank you very much) or who begged her parents for the latest pink toy in the store. Instead, she had been… well, not a outdoor kid, but Pidge had had no qualms about dashing out after Matt to play, getting scratched knees and leaves and sticks in her hairs for her trouble.
Eck, sometimes, coworkers of their parents coming to visit had mistaken her for a boy (which later gave her inspiration when she started to make her 'secret identity' to infiltrate Galaxy Garrison in search for answers). Katie had felt indignation, then amusement at their mistake. Her parents had always laughed it off and Matt, sneaky bastard, had even once trolled students in his class in pretending he really didn't have a sister but a baby brother.
Katie cared not. It was no secret she looked a lot like Matt and as a kid, she had had short hairs as well (thank to Colleen Holt decreeing that given how tangled they became and how little care Pidge took of them, she'd better wait a bit before letting them grow out). Then she had discovered video games and computers and the wonder of technology and she had stopped being a 'hellion' (her Grandmother's words, not hers) to become a more girly-looking kid, albeit a weird one (her Grandmother's words, again).
She had let her hair grow, stopped wearing Matt's clothes asides of the tee-shirts-turned-nightshirts and when puberty hit and she started to develop curves and she had shopped alongside her mother for sports bra and feminine hygiene products Matt swore were gross and please never tell me about them again sis.
(And as a good sister, she had teased him endlessly about it.)
That said, Pidge just wasn't good at acting girly, even when she had the looks down.
But who worried about make-up when the latest 'Killbot Phantasm' was hitting the shelves and there were so many levels to unlock? Who bought fashion magazines when the weekly issue of 'Hardware Now' was providing readers with gorgeous images of the latest model of computer available? Who cared about a pair of teenage pop-stars breaking up when you could instead go listen to a conference on the latest development in software and its use in global communication?
Suffice to say, many of Pidge's female classmates (and perhaps a few male ones as well) had found her very strange. After a few tentative to draw some old-fashioned girliness out of her, they had decided she was a hopeless case and the crueler among them had tried to make her self-confidence take a nosedive. The nickname 'Straight A' a few of her classmates had given her hadn't strictly been about her tests results. Not that Pidge had really cared. Not much.
And she had cared even less when her lack of, ah, 'assets' (thank you, asshole Garrison Sex Ed teacher, for mentioning a woman's chest as this in between words such as 'boobs', 'titties' and 'knockers') had allowed her to disguise herself better in order to infiltrate the Garrison and find out what had truly happened to her father and to Matt.
And now…
Well, now she was in space, still attempting to find her missing family and trying to save the universe from a psycho Emperor bent on domination. Oh, and piloting a giant Green, metal Lion, of course, alongside a bunch of guys she considered to be true friends.
Which… had made her reluctant to keep up the charade and hide her identity from them all. Besides, it wasn't as if Pidge had needed to hide who she truly was anymore, was it? They were far from Earth, far from the Garrison, she now knew the truth about the Kerberos mission and it wasn't as if she needed a secret identity anymore.
All things considered, they had taken Pidge admitting the truth of her gender pretty well. Well, most of them, Lance had definitely gotten a shock, and Shiro had known because he had known the Holts beforehand, even if Pidge hadn't personally met him before the Kerberos mission, so it wasn't as if it had been new to him.
What bothered Pidge more, however, was the fact everyone asides of Lance had seemed to know already. That felt very weird and it was starting to honestly bug her. Okay, she had to admit her disguise was actually paper-thin when it came down to that, even if she resembled Matt closely enough to pass for a younger version of him with the right accessories.
But apparently, she must have appeared more girlish than she thought if she hadn't been able to fool two guys and half (Shiro only counted as a half, he probably would have realized even sooner if he hadn't had so much memories problems) and two aliens.
Then again, the Galra soldier (Haxus, his name was Haxus, and she had killed him, sort of, it was mostly the fall that had killed him, but he had been ready to kill her and she had to defend herself…) hadn't seemed to notice either, so perhaps it was just people with whom Pidge associated with for extended lengths of time who picked up on her true gender…
But never mind. The bottom line was, Pidge wasn't feminine, and she knew it.
That didn't meant she wasn't a girl, however, or that she wasn't proud to be one.
So, under those circumstances, wasn't it kind of embarrassing that a bunch of guys knew better beauty and care tips than her?
Take Lance, for example; the teen did regular facials, much to Pidge's bemusement. She had lost count of the number of morning the Blue Paladin had come out of his room to get breakfast while wearing lion-shaped slippers (where they hell had they come from anyway?) and his face covered with a layer of… cream stuff, using various excuses such as 'treatment for acne scars' to 'deep-cleansing of the pores' to 'doesn't a guy have the right to take care of himself from time to time? Jeez!'.
And Lance wasn't just applying facials to himself, he kept insisting the others (especially Pidge) should go though one too!
(And after some consideration, it appeared Hunk had, at least once or twice.)
"Trust me Pidge, you could do with a little brightening of your skin tone, you'd look fabulous."
Suffice to say, Pidge had backed away quickly and run off, pretending she needed to do… something.
But Lance wasn't even the only member of Team Voltron who seemed to partake into beauty and care treatment.
Granted, Hunk knowing a look about manicures made a lot of sense, Pidge grudgingly admitted. Engineering could be a dirty job and you often ended with a lot of black stuff crusted under your nails. Plus, Hunk loved to cook and he often ended doing the dish washing, so that gave him another reason to keep his hands in good state. Hunk took an excessively good care of his nails and wasn't shy about offering to give a manicure to his fellow Paladins.
This one, Pidge hadn't been against, if only because she, a) was ending with black stuff under her nails too and Coran was giving the devil's eye when she came at the dinner table and her spotted the state of her hands and b) found long nails to be a bother when she was typing. She drew the line to the use of hand creams, however. Nope, not for her.
Lance didn't mind them either but then again, it was Lance.
Surprisingly, Keith agreed to them too, though any session involving him often ended with much frustration on Hunk's part as he brought in what he dubbed 'the heavy artillery'. Apparently, Keith's nails were incredibly hard and resistant to scissors and nail clippers and nail files. Plus, the Red Paladin wasn't a big fan of the idea to apply nail polish, even if it was a transparent one.
Keith was, in turn, a very knowledgeable guy when it came to depilation and hairs removal methods of all things.
Something about him having heavy natural hairiness, though Pidge couldn't see it. As far as she knew, Keith had perfect baby skin. But then again, if he really had a problem and kept it under control…
As it was, being stranded in space wasn't ideal to continue regular care, though Keith had come up with plenty of alternate solutions he discusses at length with Pidge. Why her, the Green Paladin had no idea. Perhaps because he thought that as a girl, she'd enjoy tips about her legs and armpits? Girls were usually sensitive about that kind of things; Pidge wasn't, or if she had been, one year masquerading as a boy would have abated her concerns, a lot.
Suffice to say, listening to Keith mindlessly rant about how hard it was to maintain his usual care routine and share his knowledges had led Pidge to learn more about shaving, depilatories creams, waxing, tweezing, epilators, powders and sugaring, than she had ever wished to know. Not to mention the fact Keith had rated them by efficiency rate, using himself as a medium but readily admitting that some methods might be better than others for Pidge herself, depending on the nature of her skin.
Oh, and that apparently, the alien food goo they were served at meal could be used for sugaring, provided you added a few of the unknown products in the kitchen in the right amounts.
(Where and how Keith had discovered it was a mystery, and one that didn't bear to think about unless you really wanted to know what everyone was up to on their leisure time or when they were suffering from insomnia. The Green Paladin certainly didn't.)
The hell Pidge was letting that stuff anywhere near her body, thank you!
And then you had Shiro.
If Pidge had hoped to find solace and normality in the Black Paladin, oldest member of their little team asides of the two Alteans, then she was sorely disappointed.
He had seemed normal at first, for whatever value you could give to the word. Indeed, he hadn't seemed interested by Keith's epilation tricks, had politely declined Hunk's offer to a manicure (though Pidge wondered how much his refusal was tied to Shiro's difficulties into accepting his prosthetic arm) and seemed just as bemused by Lance's facials as Pidge felt.
But Shiro also didn't have the same grooming habits as most of the average teenage or young adult males Pidge knew, the Paladins excluded.
Upon close inspection, it was impossible not to notice that Shiro took excessively good care of his hairs.
Pidge hypothesized it was (potentially) tied to his year of captivity with the Galra. While Shiro didn't seem to have many memories of his imprisonment, a single look at his right arm or at the shocking white locks of white among his formerly completely black hairs was enough to let you know he must have lived through hell.
(Pidge still silently thanked the Black Paladin in her mind whenever she thought about it, because Shiro had stopped Matt from living through the exact same thing by taking his place in the arena. She would never thank him enough for that.)
She couldn't even start guessing what he must have seen and experienced.
So really, who was she to begrudge Shiro his sudden interest in shampoos and hair care?
At least Shiro wasn't insisting she or any of the other Paladins switch shampoo for something with a more neutral Ph to avoid damaging their hair (because apparently Pidge was using the wrong kind of shampoo, what a shock, and Hunk should really think about conditioners) nor did he go about nutrition and how changing her eating habits could give her nicer hairs, not like some of Pidge's former classmates had tried to talk her into.
(Granted, they were living out of space goo, it wasn't as if they COULD change their regime even if they had wanted to. Personally, Pidge hungered for sweets and she knew Keith was literally ready to kill for a juicy steak and Lance was sometimes found bemoaning about the lack of spicy stuff because of course he was the kind of guy who liked chili peppers and assorted strong spices and Hunk just valiantly tried to make something more palatable out of the Alteans' normal diet. Shiro just took everything on his plate in stride and Allura and Coran didn't seem to get the problem. But then again, Shiro had spent a whole year prisoner in space eating who-knew-what so he had probably learned not to be picky and food goo was the default dish for Coran and Allura and they had no trouble with it themselves.)
Sure, sometimes Shiro mumbled about the lack of good hair tonic or proper conditioner because what they had was apparently a paltry, second rate product that wouldn't all at all on the long term, but it was bearable. Pidge wondered if Shiro would calm down if they managed to find suitable hair dye for him; Shiro never spoke about his white hairs, but Pidge would have be surprised if they hadn't bothered him.
Not that Shiro would ever admit it so.
It made Pidge wonder if, once she got her father and Matt back, they would also start obsessing about self-care too as a way to cope with the trauma.
She hoped not. Being surrounded by four males already obsessed with beauty tips was already hard enough without her own family getting involved as well.
Seriously, what was it with those guys and self-care?
"Hey, who stole my hairbrush?!"
"Did someone see my nail lime? Come one, guys! It was a new one!"
"Allura told me it was the Altean equivalent of wax but I'm not sure it'll do…"
"No, no, no, you don't just wash your face with fresh water; you must use a damp cloth and use it everywhere without applying too much pressure!"
Pidge listened to the echoes outside and sighed dejectedly before going back to type on her computer.
So much for the stereotype it was girls who were obsessed with their appearance…
End