It started with Keith. He never told the other paladins about it, but it was something he did when he was first at the Garrison. Whenever he had a difficult time sleeping (which was often), he'd wander into Shiro's place and talk to him, often falling asleep on his couch or bed. Shiro never brought up, even in the mornings, because he knew how delicate Keith's pride was. Adam thought it was cute and said so once, and Keith didn't come by for over a month, brooding alone in his room or wandering the halls when he was restless.
Shiro hadn't forgotten about those days and when Keith showed up to his room, he wasn't remotely surprised and was even a little relieved. He wasn't sure how he would sleep there alone without Adam. "First night back on Earth, huh? It's a little strange." Shiro attempted to smile at the man he considered a younger brother.
Keith wandered around, his arm lazily tracing his path along the walls, the counter, the back of the couch. "It feels so long ago."
"It was. But I know what you mean." Shiro couldn't help but yawn, even though he had actively avoided trying to sleep. Between the trauma of space and memories of before that threatened to invade his mind, he wasn't prepared to be vulnerable.
Keith suddenly turned shy. He'd never brought it up but now… "Hey, Shiro. Do you, uh, mind if I, uh, I stay here tonight? It's just… I was so used to sleeping in the lion or whatever and there's all this stuff with being back and I just…"
"You know you have never needed to ask." Shiro cut him off, partly because he didn't want to face all the feelings that were pouring out of Keith and partly because of the embarrassment he was feeling himself. "I was heading to bed anyway. Or thinking about it."
Keith noticed the chamomile tea was out and realized that Shiro was struggling just as much as he was. But rather than go to the bed, Shiro stretched out on the L-shaped couch and Keith laid across the other side, his head resting on Shiro's leg. He was quiet, thoughts racing through his mind. Shiro was acutely aware of this but didn't know what to say when he was facing the same issues.
Lance was pacing the floor of his room. Once, it had felt so quiet and commandeering compared to the loud home he grew up in. Then, it became an oasis of solitude when dealing with the stress of being in the Garrison. Now, it felt empty and lonesome. He sighed. He had fought against it and fought against it. It had only happened once and they hadn't spoken of it again. He and Keith had snuggled to sleep one night when both were too strung out to fall asleep alone. They never brought it up and never did it again.
Lance took a deep breath and started to rehearse what he would say when he got to Keith's room. "Hey Keith! Nice, uh, night, isn't it? I thought we should have a bonding moment!" He shook his head. "No, no, no! Don't bring THAT up again!" He took another breath. "Hey, Keith. So, uh, I couldn't sleep and thought maybe you'd want to play some video games? That doesn't even sound realistic!" Lance was still muttering to himself when he worked up the courage to leave his room and head down the hall to Keith's.
He stood outside Keith's door for almost five minutes trying to muster up the courage to knock. He was shocked when there was no response. "K-Keith?" Lance quietly called through the door. He tried the door knob and when it swung open, he noticed the room was totally empty. Lance sighed. "Maybe Shiro will have some tea or something. He's had a lot happen, maybe he knows how to sleep when you can't turn off your thoughts. Yeah, that'll work."
He didn't even knock when he got to Shiro's room. He saw Shiro and Keith, sleeping. He walked over, slid between Keith and the back of the couch, and laid down. Keith half woke up, "What are y- ugh, whatever. Scoot over a little, you're pushing me off the couch."
"I don't have any room to scoot over! That's the back of the couch!" Lance hissed at Keith.
"Then why did you try to climb in there! Seriously, Lance! Why are you even here?" Keith could whisper yell with the best of them.
"Well you weren't in your room so I thought I'd try to talk to Shiro!"
"Why were you gonna talk to me?" Keith was genuinely confused.
Lance blushed. "Whatever, just go to sleep. I'm a side sleeper anyway." He turned to face the back of the couch, feeling his face and neck turn bright red. He couldn't see Keith blush a little, too. As he drifted off to sleep, he turned and laid his head over Keith's heart and was too far gone to hear how fast it was pounding.
Pidge sighed and turned off her game. It was useless. She was no stranger to insomnia, but this was a whole new level. Despite being back on Earth, everything felt so foreign. She missed her room in the Castle of Lions for a while, but now she even missed sleeping in Green. It was weird to not have the other paladins nearby. "Sleep deprivation is going to make things worse when we fight. I'll go talk to Shiro." It didn't even cross her mind to go see her dad or mom. She slipped out of her room and into Shiro's. There, she was only a little shocked to see Keith and Lance cuddled up on the couch. "Hunk is going to owe me!" She smiled at their bet and then climbed onto the corner of the couch near Shiro's shoulder and quickly drifted off to sleep.
Hunk heard Pidge walking down the hall on his way back from the kitchen, where he had been kicked out because even a paladin of Voltron didn't get middle of the night kitchen rights. He quietly followed her toward Shiro's room, wondering why she was going there. He couldn't sleep and now he couldn't cook, so he figured it couldn't hurt (at least unless Pidge hurt him for following her). By the time he got there, Pidge was asleep. When his eyes drifted over the shapes of Lance and Keith, he sighed. "Pidge won that one."
He hesitated in the doorway, unsure of what to do now. On the one hand, they all looked so comfortable and he desperately wanted to sleep. On the other, he wasn't sure if joining them was okay. He was looking back and forth across the sleeping shapes when he realized that one wasn't asleep. Shiro half smiled at him as if to say, "I don't know how this happened but you're welcome to join." Hunk tiptoed over and curled up near Shiro's leg, and he could feel the drowsiness over taking him.
Allura sighed. Coran was soundly sleeping but he could sleep anywhere. She used to think that a bed was a bed and any bed would be better than sleeping in the Lion but here she was, in a bed and tired, and unable to sleep. Nothing the paladins had said had prepared her for Earth. She still had so many questions and so few answers. She vaguely recalled Shiro telling her about teas one time at the Castle of Lions.
"One of them… which one was it? He said that one of them could be used to help induce sleep. Was it chameleon? I think I should ask him for some chameleon tea." Allura slipped out her room, working hard to not wake Coran (though she knew it wouldn't matter much if she had banged together several of the items in the room). She wandered down the hallways, wondering why they all looked so similar. It took her nearly twenty minutes to find Shiro's room. More than a few times she wondered how the others could find the Castle of Lions confusing when they had lived in a place like this!
She hesitantly knocked on the door and was surprised when it swung open at her light touch. She wondered why someone as cautious as Shiro would leave his door partially open when she noticed all the paladins asleep around Shiro. She tiptoed in, immediately comforted by their presence. She teared up a little bit, looking at the people who had become her family, and realizing how glad she was that she was not alone in this strange planet. She quietly opened the door to Shiro's bedroom, grabbed a few blankets, and made herself a bed on the floor by the couch. Hearing the deep and steady breathing of the other paladins, she was finally able to relax and sleep herself.
The Garrison was in full panic mode. Samuel and Colleen Holt had woken up every high ranking individual when Pidge wasn't in her room. Veronica was worried about Lance. Coran had woken up to find Allura missing and had started yelling at random Garrison crew members. They looked in Hunk's room, in the kitchen, in the labs. Finally, it occurred to Veronica to look in Keith's room. When no one was in there, she recalled Adam commenting about how Shiro's new charge meant that they had less alone time together than ever before.
Veronica was the one to lead the increasingly nervous group to Shiro's place. The door was still not fully closed, and the group sighed in relief at the massive pile of sleeping bodies stretched along the couch and floor. Coran didn't stay quiet and started shouting about how glad he was to find them, causing Pidge to squeak and fall off the back of the couch and Lance to push Keith off onto the floor (and Allura). Hunk sat straight up, panic on his face. Shiro was the only one who had a calm visage, until he started laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
After that first night, it wasn't uncommon for one or more of the paladins to end up in Shiro's room. In truth, he didn't mind. Between working during the day and having them over at night, he was able to focus on the now instead of the past. He noticed the way Keith and Lance usually showed up together when they showed up, and how Pidge would somehow appear by morning but he never saw her enter. He always noticed when Hunk did, since Hunk never really got used to coming in unannounced. Allura was the most common, because of her discomfort on Earth. But the Garrison didn't panic after that first night. They would always check Shiro's room first, and then round up the remaining paladins. Veronica was always smug when she found Keith and Lance together. But she never called Lance out on this the way she did with the princess. She knew Lance would come around in his own time.