With the way Lance flopped back onto Hunk's bed, you would think he was halfway through finals week and dying for any tiny scrap of rest he could get. The only thing that gave it away was his contented sigh as he sank into the mattress, draping his legs across his best friend's lap. "I feel like I haven't seen you in years Hunk."

Hunk chuckled at the dramatics he had come to expect from Lance, "Dude, it's only been like three weeks. We saw each other when you came to visit my family that week."

"Yeah, I know," he pouted up at Hunk, "still feels like it's been forever."

"Whatever you say buddy. Why are you even on my bed, shouldn't you be unpacking? Putting stuff away? Doing normal first day of semester things?"

"Why would I do that when I have the best best friend in the universe right across the room from me and I haven't seen him in weeks? I need to get my cuddles in, you know I'll die without them."

"You won't die." To Lance's despair, this if followed by him being rolled off of Hunk's lap onto the much less welcoming ground at the foot of his bed. Lance scrambles to his feet and rearranges his expression into as strict of a glare as he can, all the while pretending he didn't squeak on the way down.

"I take it back," he says, "you're the worst best friend in the universe, no doubt."

At this, Hunk just ruffled his hair, causing him to squeak again before saying, "Love you too, buddy. Now go unpack."

"Whatever you say, mom," he grumbles as he walks across the room.

Lance finally moved across the room to begin unpacking his bag while Hunk pulled the last couple items out of his, picture of family onto nightstand. "Wait, Hunk! I didn't even tell you the best part of this semester!" Lance's enthusiasm didn't just bubble out of him, it erupted as if Lance was just a little volcano of excitement.

"What do you mean?"

"I made it into fighter class!"

"Oh my god, that's great, dude! I'm so proud of you!" Hunk accompanied his praise with widespread arms, clearly an invitation for a hug, to which Lance bounded across the room to barrel into his chest. "How did you manage that since the end of last semester, we literally haven't even been here?" Hunk finally questioned as Lance eventually pulled out of the hug.

"Someone already in fighter class dropped out and I got to take their place since I was next in line, so I mean it's kinda just luck, but-"

"No," Hunk interrupted, "This is not the time for self doubt, you made fighter class and that's a great accomplishment, no matter how it happened. I'm still proud of you, so you should be too."

As he finished, Hunk forced Lance to look him in the eye, just to make sure he got his full message and as he did, a small smile started forming once again on Lance's face

"You can have your title as best best friend in the universe back."

"Did I ever really lose-"

Before Hunk can even finish asking, Lance interrupts him with a mischievous smirk, that Hunk already knows can only mean trouble, "We should do something to celebrate."

"If that sentence came from literally anyone else, I wouldn't be half as scared as I am right now. Why do I know that this is probably already a bad idea?"

"Shush, I only have great ideas and you know it," Lance answered, not even letting Hunk's doubting wipe away his grin. "We're gonna sneak out tonight and go check out that little town right down the way that we're never allowed to go to."

"Dude," Hunk answered, and when he received no response from Lance other than a growing grin and some finger guns thrown in his direction he continued, "we've literally been here for one day and you're already trying to cause trouble? And you literally said it yourself, we're not allowed to go there, especially not when we're supposed to be here, in the barracks, not bothering the innocent townspeople with our obnoxious teenage behavior. If Iverson found out we were in town, we would be dead. Or worse, expelled."

"Fine, we'll wait until the weekend then," Lance conceded, laughing at the poorly concealed Harry Potter reference, "then it won't be the first day and everyone will be happy."

"Are you just gonna ignore the part where I said iverson might literally kill us?"

"Yup."

"You're ridiculous."

"But you still love me," Lance finished with a renewed grin and dropped an arm across Hunk's shoulders just to emphasize his affection.

"Yeah, yeah," Hunk answered, gently pulling Lance's arm from his shoulder and nudging him back towards his side of the room, "Now finish unpacking, you nerd."

"Who you calling a nerd, Mr. Harry Potter reference." Lance was only silent for a minute as he resume his unpacking, before adding, "plus if we wait until this weekend, we might be able to rope more people into going with us."

"If we can even find anyone reckless enough."

"I have a good feeling it'll happen."

The next morning they show up for their first day of actual classes, prepared for the typical introductions to professors as well as syllabus after syllabus. What they didn't expect was to also receive their engineer, communication specialist, and pilot team assignments on that first day.

"I thought you got these at the end of the first week last year?" Lance asked, straining his neck to see past the large crowd that gathered in front of the board where the assignments were posted.

"We did," he agreed, "maybe they want to start team simulations earlier this year?"

"Yeah maybe," Lance muttered, clearly already distracted by his next thought- as well as still trying to make his way to the board- "what do you think are the chances of us being put in the same team?"

"There's like fifteen other groups, if I'm being honest, I don't think it's very likely," Hunk answered, giving a sympathetic smile as he did so. Lance only deflated a small bit at his words, he still held onto the hope that they could work together for the rest of the school year. Soon enough, those at the front of the crowd began to make their way back to their dorms, allowing a new group to move forward and check out the assignments. While still in the middle of the crowd, Lance was able to see over a couple of the shorter people in front of him, and immediately his face lit up. Meanwhile, Hunk was still struggling to see over the taller people in front of him.

"Hunk!" Lance shouts excitedly, pulling on Hunk's hand and drawing them both away from the crowd. "Guess who gets to work with the best engineer at this school for the entire school year?" Before Hunk can even attempt to reply, Lance is already answering his own question, his grin growing by the second. "That's right, it's me, the luckiest pilot here, can you believe it?"

They're practically already back to their room by the time Hunk can even get a single word in. "And I couldn't have asked for a better pilot." Hunk chuckles at how Lances flushes with the compliment. "You know, for someone who literally never stops giving out compliments, you really suck at taking them."

Lances mumbles back a quick "shut up" before moving to open the door to their room.

"And I meant to ask, since I never actually got to see the assignment sheet, who's gonna be our comm spec?"

"I didn't recognize the name, but it's someone named Pidge Gunderson. Do you know the name?"

Hunk seemed to contemplate it a moment as he sat on the edge of his bunk, taking off his shoes. "Nope, doesn't sound familiar, maybe they're new this year?"

Humming in agreement, Lance moved to mirror Hunk's actions before beginning his usual nightly routine. "Hey Hunk, do you think I could convince this Pidge dude to go check out the town with us this weekend?"

"I mean, maybe dude," Hunk answered, tossing over on his bed to better face Lance while talking to him, "You can try, but neither of us really know them, so who knows? Not me that's for sure. Now go to bed Lance, we have class in the morning."

"Fine, fine," he said before flipping off their shared light and crawling under his covers. "Goodnight, Hunk!"

"Goodnight, Lance."

By the end of their second day of classes, Lance was completely restless to find the mysterious Pidge; luckily for him, the instructor in their final class of the day split them off into their teams to introduce them to each other.

"This Friday, we'll start working in the simulators and I want you all to know each other before you're forced to work together like that."

Of course, the instructor managed to pair off every single group before their own, leaving only themselves and what seemed to Lance to be a tiny child sitting across the room from them. Eventually, Pidge realized that they were the only trio left and started making their way over to the other two.

They seemed a bit nervous so Lance took this opportunity to be the first one to speak. "Hey, I'm Lance, and this is Hunk, aka the best person on the entire planet. You must be Pidge?" He stuck his hand out, making sure his hand was in their line of sight as they avoided direct eye contact.

They nodded their head and shook his hand back before asking, "You two already knew each other?"

Hunk answered with a quick "Yup" before Lance elaborated, "Yeah, we met last year since we were roommates, we've just been super close ever since." Lance draped an arm across Hunk's shoulder to emphasize this, leading to small smile and a chuckle from Pidge. Now that the ice had officially been broken, Lance decided to continue on with a question, "How do you feel about nicknames?" Hunk noticed them tense slightly at the question, but Lance was already moving on to the next question. "Can I call you Pidgeon?" He gasped as a new nickname occurred to him. "Can I call you Pidgey? You could be a pokemon, that would be amazing!"

Pidge was back to laughing at his enthusiasm, letting it soothe over their frazzled nerves. "Sure, whatever you want dude."

"Oh my god, thank you!" With this Lance moved away from Hunk to envelop his new tiny friend in a hug. Again, they tensed at first, but seemed to settle into pretty quickly, even going so far as to pat him on the back awkwardly. Once he was finally done with the hug, Lance pulled back and began to whisper conspiratorially with them, motioning for Hunk to join them, which he did but not before glancing across the classroom to make sure the instructor was properly distracted at their desk.

"Okay," Lance began, "so Hunk and I were gonna sneak out this weekend to check out that little town just down the street, you should totally join us."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Pidge asked, glancing behind them to check on the instructor, as if they would have moved in the five seconds since Hunk had checked.

"Oh my god, you sound like Hunk, I'm gonna have to start calling you both mom." Pidge glared at him slightly, but he was already going on. "I only have great ideas, so therefore this cannot be a bad idea, just trust me, it'll be fun. Plus what better way will there be for us to bond as a team? We're gonna have to work together all year, we might as well like each other."

"Okay, fine, I see your point," they answered, before asking, "how are we gonna get out of here?"

"Leave that up to us," Hunk finally spoke up, "Lance apparently already has a few ideas on that."

"Exactly, I got this. We'll pick you up from your room on friday night. I'll knock four times on your door to let you know it's us- it'll be our own little code." The mischievous grin grew as he got into the details of his plan.

"You're a dork," Hunk commented, smiling with him.

Lance leaned forward, putting his elbow on the desk and his chin in his palm smiling innocently up at Hunk, "Yeah, but you're the one who's friends with me so what have you got to say for yourself?" Hunk didn't even bother to respond to that beyond ruffling up Lance's hair affectionately, to which he predictably squeaked and went to fix it. "You're mean."

Hunk saw his opportunity and practically pounced on it, "So? You're the one who's friends with me, what are you gonna do about it?" Lance just stuck his tongue out instead of assaulting Hunk back- unlike some people. Pidge watched this whole interaction with a small grin, knowing they'd all three get along quickly enough.

"I can't believe that actually worked…" Pidge muttered, sounding slightly awestruck. "You'd think for a military school there'd be some more security than that. Or at least an alarm of some sort?"

"Right?" Lance agreed. "I mean there is a decent amount of security but it never changes, so once I found one way around it, that way has worked ever since."

"I'm pretty sure the Garrison knows we sneak out the same way every time," Hunk added, "but they're just too stubborn to admit they're wrong and change their security control."

"Yeah, you're probably right, Hunk, but that's not gonna stop me from exploiting their weaknesses." They had only just made it to the edge of the town, small shops and roads finally coming into view, but Lance was already walking a few feet ahead of the others.

"Lance, I know you're excited but you don't need to run away from us," Hunk laughed as he said this, but he knew Lance would be enthusiastic and came prepared with a foolproof reason for Lance to slow down and walk at a normal pace. "How do you expect Pidge to keep up? They have tiny legs."

At this, Lance stopped walking only long enough to turn around and face them before continuing walking backwards, albeit at a slightly slower pace. "We don't have time for this, there's too much to do before we have to make it back to the barracks. Pidge," Lance turned to focus his attention on the smaller child, eyes strangely intense, practically boring into their skull, "we need to get you some Heelys so then you can just hold onto my sleeve, problem solved."

Pidge let out a relieved laugh as the unnecessary tension was broken, "my tiny legs are not a problem that needs to be solved," they argued.

"You sure about that?" Hunk asked, chuckling as he began to take larger steps, larger than Pidge could reasonably keep up with without having to jog or speedwalk.

"So you're telling me you can always reach the top shelf without having to climb onto something?" Lance added playfully as Pidge struggled to keep up, pausing the conversation for a moment to figure out how to respond to that.

Eventually, they settled on the cliche but effective "No comment." They continued walking down the sidewalk as they reached the heart of the small town, but there were hardly any lights on anywhere, and most of those were red and green street lights. "What are we even doing out here?" Pidge finally spoke up, voicing the concerns that have been bugging them since they first left the school.

"Who even knows?" Hunk answered at the same time that Lance shouted out "Exploring!"

Pidge laughed at these conflicting answers before asking Lance, "So what exactly are we trying to find in our brave exploration?"

"Honestly," Lance sighed, milking all the drama he could out of that one small action, "I don't care what we find, as long as we find some place that's actually open so this whole trip's not a waste." During the last part of his sentence, he splayed out his arms in front of him as if in anticipation for an open store or restaurant to poof into existence right in front of him.

"What about that one?" Pidge asked pointing diagonally across the small street.

Hunk squinted as he looked towards the brightly lit building, trying to find any sign whatsoever of a name for the establishment. "I don't know what it's called, but I'm pretty sure that's a bar, we should probably just avoi-"

"Ooh! Let's go there!" Lance interrupted, excited from finally finding somewhere that actually still open. Before he could receive any kind of confirmation, or more likely- refusal, he began to walk across the street in a direct beeline towards the brightly colored building.

"Lance, no," Hunk insisted, pulling on Lance's arm to get him out of the street and back onto the sidewalk.

"Lance, yes!" he argued.

"No, dude, now get your seventeen-year-old ass back here, you couldn't do anything in there anyways."

Lance pouted but continued walking, now headed away from the bar, "so what? There were people there. I could have hung out with them."

"And what would Pidge and I do in the meantime?"

"Okay, fine, but if nothing else is open, we're coming back."

"Of course," Hunk chuckled, finally letting go of the arm he had grabbed to keep Lance out of the street. They continued on and when they made it to the next intersection they stopped to decide which way to go next.

"Well, obviously just going forward isn't finding us anything," Lance pointed out.

"But if we start turning down side streets, we're so much more likely to get lost," Hunk argued, trying to remain the voice of reason here. They both looked over at Pidge to get their deciding vote on what to do.

"I guess one turn couldn't hurt…" Pidge answered but it came out as more of a question than a fact.

"Great!" Lance yelled, already looking around to figure out which direction they should turn in. He seemed to spot something as his eyes grew wide and he started bouncing on his feet, already ready to bound off towards whatever it was that he had spotted. "Guys, I see something- follow me." By the time he finished his sentence, he was already practically sprinting off towards another building with a bunch of bright lights and neon sign decorating its front.

During the day, it probably wasn't too bad, but at eleven at night, when it was the only lit up building on the whole street, it stood out dramatically in a mess of bright lights of all different colors. Hunk and Pidge walked at a casual pace behind Lance and by the time they met him in front of the building, Lance could barely seem to control his excitement.

"A tattoo shop?" Pidge asked, to which Lance just nodded enthusiastically.

Hunk looked concerned as he took in the sight of the cliche storefront. "You sure it's not too sketchy? It looks pretty sketchy to me," he said, looking over at the still excited Lance.

"Of course it looks sketchy, Hunk," Lance answered, "it's a tattoo parlor and it's nearly midnight in a strange town, what else would you expect? Plus I already know what I want, come on, the sign says they're still open."

They head inside, and it's nothing like what they had expected. Despite the haphazard conglomeration of lights and signs out front, the inside is meticulously clean and organized. There's a front desk just to the right of the entryway and the guy sitting behind it seems to be the only one in the entire building. He puts his phone in his back pocket as they walk in and looks up to greet them.

"Hey guys," he was friendly enough as he greeted them, but seemed confused as he continued, "I love seeing new faces in here and all, but you guys do know we're closing in like fifteen minutes, right?"

"Oh, that's alright," Lance answered, still smiling since the minute he walked in, "I actually just had a question." Lance was pulling on the end of his jacket as he addressed the man, fiddling with something in his pocket.

"Go ahead," he prompted, saving Lance from stewing any longer in his own nervousness.

With the strange man's blessing, Lance smiled a small smile, only slightly nervous about his request now. He drew his hand out of the pocket of his jacket and with it came a folded-up piece of paper. He placed the paper on the desk and began slowly opening it up. Before the four of them lay an extremely detailed drawing of several kinds of flowers, mainly blue, purple, and pink, but with a few white, specifically around the edges. It was exquisite, unlike anything Hunknor Pidge had ever seen, but the man behind the desk just nodded as he took in the sight of it.

"So this would be for a sleeve, right?" he asked, even if he sounded completely confident in his assumption. Again, Lance just nodded in reply.

Then, as his next thought occurred to him, his brows furrowed in concern. "Would it be possible to finish before winter break?"

"You sure about this buddy?" Hunk asked. "I mean, I'll obviously support your final decision, but this seems a bit rash for something as big as an entire sleeve, if I heard what I think I heard…"

"Yeah, it'll be an entire sleeve, but I've been thinking about and designing and drawing this up for months now, researching different types of flower designs and meanings, staring at different arrangements, and the result is this design right here. This is what I want. I'm certain."

"Okay, two questions," Pidge interrupted, "one, you said you drew this? And two, have you been carrying that piece of paper around with you for this whole time?"

"Yeah, I was wondering that too," Hunk agreed.

Lance flushed slightly as he went to answer their question, smiling proudly and his drawing, "You heard right, I designed and drew that myself." His proud smile only grew as they looked down at the drawing with renewed awe. "And I just finished it a couple days ago, which is why it's still in my jacket pocket," he quickly tacked on in their distraction.

"Well, in that case, do whatever you want, this is amazing," Hunk praised, leading Lance to flush once again at the praise.

"Sweet," Lance said, turning his attention back to the man at the desk, "How soon can we get started on this then?"

"So it'll probably take about twenty or so hours to complete in total, so we can either do a couple really long sessions or several shorter ones. What times are you available? When can you make it by?" Lance contemplated it for a few moments before grimacing and giving his answer.

"These late Friday nights are really the only time I can make it out here- would that still work?" As Lance was asking, the desk guy was already pulling up a calendar that must have been used to keep track of all the scheduled sessions. He scanned over it before looking back up at Lance.

"How early can you get here on Fridays?"

Lance looked over at Hunk to get his opinion; it was a known fact between them that Lance wasn't great at tracking or estimating time, but for some reason Hunk was almost scarily good at it. "If you rushed, you could probably get here at eleven at the earliest."

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Lance agreed, turning back to the man. He hummed in thought, tapping a pen against his chin and looking down at his scheduling book. He flipped through a couple pages and occasionally mumbled sounds only vaguely recognizable as numbers, probably just doing some mental math to figure out a plan that could work for both Lance and himself.

"How about this?" he finally asked, eventually looking up at the trio. "I'll go ahead and pen you in for seven sessions, each for three hours, and we'll start at eleven or whenever you can get here. How about every other week starting next Friday?"

They all seemed genuinely shocked by this arrangement. "You'd really be willing to keep the shop open until 2am for me?" Lance whispered.

"Of course," the man answered, flashing them a bright, genuine smile, "but I can't keep it open much past that, which is why I think several short sessions would be best in your case." Lance looked on in awe at the lengths this man was willing to go to in order to help him out.

Before the answering silence could drag on for too long, Lance quickly regained his composure. "Oh my god, thank you so much man, that sounds perfect. I can't believe this is actually happening…" In his dazed excitement, he started once again bouncing in place on the balls of his feet, smiling wider than he had all night. Hunk and Pidge smiled on at him as well, glad to see their friend so happy over something obviously very important to him. As silence once again feel over the small shop, Hunk looked up at the man behind the desk.

"Was there anything else you needed from us, any info or anything? I know you probably wanna finish closing up shop for tonight." He chuckled as he finished, wrapping an arm around Lance's shoulders and turned him towards the door. He knew, if the opportunity arose, Lance would stay all night to chat and make friends with the stranger running the shop.

"If I could just get a name, that would be great."

"The name's Lance!" he called from the doorway.

"Awesome! See you next week Lance!"

"See you then!" Pidge gave him a light nudge out the door as he began resisting against Hunk's guiding arm. He chuckled at their combined effort before finally letting the shop door close behind him.

"So does that mean we get to continue exploring?" Lance asked.

"I think you've had enough excitement for tonight, Lance," Hunk answered, friendly but firm in his decision.

"Yeah," Pidge agreed, smiling at their friends, "we should probably get you back to the Garrison before your face explodes from smiling so much all at once."

"You say that like I never smile. I will let you know that I have a great smile and I use it plenty enough, I'm not gonna explode from smiling for ten minutes."

"Whatever you say, nerd."

Lance shoved them lightly, just enough to be playful as they began their slow walk back.