A/N: I do not own Voltron, obviously, but I sure hope you still enjoy this story!
Pidge stirred, feeling slightly stiff but contentedly calm as she opened her eyes. Why... am I sitting up..? she wondered to herself. Did I fall asleep like this? She yawned, rubbing her eye, suddenly realizing someone was leaning against her. The more she woke up, the more she became aware of her surroundings and remembering where she was in the first place. She remembered not being able to get to sleep, wanting to play a game until she got tired and watched Lance play some Killbot Phantasm until she eventually fell asleep.
Lance and her were leaning up against the side of his bed, Lance's head resting against the mattress and Pidge's head at the same time. At least in that sense they were fairly comfortable. Pidge's arm lightly wrapped around Lance's limp forearm, taking a deep breath and exhaling shakily as she realized how incredibly close they currently were. It wasn't like she was uncomfortable, in fact she was the exact opposite. She felt incredibly at ease being this close to Lance. After all, she was able to fall asleep barely fifteen minutes after she cuddled up to him when she couldn't fall asleep before. And he was sound asleep too. Wasn't he playing the game late last night because he couldn't fall asleep as well?
Pidge went to push her glasses up on her face when she realized they weren't there. Her freckled cheeks dusted pink. He must have taken them off when I fell asleep. She giggled, a warm feeling embracing her chest and a fluttering in her stomach. Not that she needed them to see, but it was a nice gesture all the same.
She glanced over at Lance, not being able to see his face unless she moved, not wanting to wake him from his sleep. She could hear his steady breath, the feeling of his shoulder rising up and then down making her feel even more at ease, a small smile appearing on her face.
She then realized that she could still hear the soft soundtrack of Killbot Phantasm and noticed the controller laying in Lance's limp hand. Chuckling, Pidge grabbed the controller from his hand, careful not to wake him up. It looked like he had finally gotten past Freya's mansion, happy that her advice had obviously helped him. He was back in the town nearest to the mansion with the Ruby Brooch of Freya Von Trennis in his party's possession, ready to return it to her great, great granddaughter in order to get the next piece to the Millennium Map. He'd done pretty well, then, hopefully using some of her advice when he was fighting the boss. She looked down at Lance's hand, her hand almost touching his. Pidge didn't want this reverie of hers to end so quickly, of her being so close to Lance. Every time he'd slept next to her she'd woken up alone. This was the first time he was still there when she woke up. She just wanted him to stay there a bit longer.
She saved Lance's game, carefully using her toes to restart the system to get onto her own file of Killbot Phantasm. She was at least three areas ahead of where Lance was in the game, but she was sure he wouldn't mind if she played in front of him. Plus, he wasn't even awake, so there were no spoilers to be had there. She just.. didn't want to end their closeness yet. She couldn't exactly place why she felt so anxious to not wake him up, why she still wanted to feel the warmth from him, the feeling of him weighing slightly on her. Everything was just so incredibly pleasant feeling. She didn't want the tightness in her chest, the twinges and butterflies in her stomach to stop.
She exhaled, beginning to focus a little more on where she was in the game. She relaxed a bit more against Lance's body, squeezing his bicep in her elbow a little as she pushed the buttons on her controller. She was already halfway through the Rotale Woodland, the once gentle and quiet wood now cursed to be a rotten, putrid swamp full of poisonous enemies that was now known as the Fetid Forest. Poison levels weren't exactly her forte, she liked more haunted areas and water levels in video games, but she knew enough to get by. Didn't mean she liked poison levels. The main thing she needed in poison levels or when fighting against poison enemies was high resistance, which was hard to come by in this game. She could always grind for exp, but the most she gets at level up is +1, maybe +2 res at a time, and at this late in the game it took a long time to get to the next level. Plus seeds of resistance only worked on one character per seed given and weren't easy to find in the first place.
Pidge's only options to get through this forest without dying were using armor and weapons that up resistance at the cost of attack and maybe defense, but lowered defense was better than a high chance of getting poisoned. Antidotes were expensive, rare to find in chests and took a lot of items to synthesize that she could be using for more useful alchemy. And poison meant negative HP for each character afflicted each turn, which means she's having to use more potions or healing magic instead of attacking. Making it to the middle of the level oughta help her, which is when her magician is finally able to learn to Recover, a spell that heals poison, paralysis and confusion, right before she fights the mini-boss. But getting to that point can be a bit tricky nonetheless. Nothing Pidge couldn't handle, though.
She already made sure to give most of her seeds of resistance to her magician, who even though has high magic defense, unfortunately has pretty low resistance, and equipping her hero the metal boomerang, which had a bit lower attack power but was able to hit a full line of enemies at once, helped take out Bittersnakes and Water Hags.
"You're pretty good at this game," a voice suddenly said. Pidge yelped, moving away and dropping the controller. Lance smirked, a glint in his dark blue eyes.
Pidge, desperately trying to calm her racing heart, asked him, "How-How long have you been awake?"
Lance shrugged. "Maybe about ten minutes?" God, that long? Just sitting there, saying nothing with me pressed up against him? Pidge blushed, not exactly sure what to say. Lance side smiled, glancing at her up and down for a moment. "Why didn't you just wake me up?"
"Um.." Pidge stammered for a moment. She couldn't just tell him it was because she liked cuddling with him, that would be nuts. "Y-You said you couldn't get to sleep before, so I just didn't want to wake you up."
Lance shrugged and smiled, choosing not to think much into it, much to Pidge's relief. She picked the controller back up and relaxed against his mattress again. "I guess I'll trek back and find a save point then."
"Awww, why?" Lance fake pouted.
"Well, I'm sure you don't want to see any spoilers, so.."
"Come on, I don't mind, I like watching people play video games," Lance said, snaking his arm around her shoulder, draping his other arm over his knee and leaning himself on her, causing a hot blush to creep over Pidge's cheeks. "Maybe I can learn a thing or two from you. You did help me beat that dungeon last night."
Pidge was happy she was able to help, smiling at the thought of Lance actually listening to her. She started playing the game again, pushing up on the directional pad to go further into the festering woods. It was fun to have him watching her play, him asking the occasional question, squeezing her closer to him whenever he laughed at a joke she made or when she easily defeated a low level enemy.
She realized it was so nice just to hang out with him, just to talk with him. She'd been so preoccupied with trying to find her family that she hadn't had much time to really sit down and just hang out with him. There had been quite a few times they've talked one on one, but this was a rare time they could just sit and relax, to just talk and laugh, sit close... Pidge's heart skipped a beat when Lance lightly pushed his forehead against the side of her head for a moment as a laughed at a silly moment between the hero and the magician. Pidge exhaled as slowly and quietly as she could so Lance couldn't hear her anxiously try to still her wildly beating heart.
It had been an incredibly long day; intense training, returning a distress signal from a nearby planet being attacked by Galra forces, and for the fifth time in a row Keith showed up at the last minute to form Voltron and finally push back the rest of the remaining attackers. With Keith nowhere to be seen, the best Allura and Lance could do was hold off the Galra while Pidge and Hunk touched down on the planet to get the nearby inhabitants to a safer location. Everything ended up fine in the end, and Keith has been doing amazing work with the Blade of Marmora the last few months, but it was an incredibly close call there for a while. Needless to say, Shiro was less than impressed with Keith.
With all of that and then a massive and grueling training session from Shiro, not to mention Pidge still finding time that night to try and fail to find more intel on her missing brother and father.
All of that and Pidge still couldn't get to sleep. She could barely feel her arms and legs, her eyes felt heavy. She even took a warm shower to help tire her out more, but still nothing. She was just floating somewhere in between being awake and actually sleeping, which was worse than not being able to sleep. She sat up, an exasperated sigh escaping her throat. She stared around her dimly lit room, looking around at all the things strewn about the floor, clothes, electronics, trash paladins. Her eyes fell on her two blue and green space caterpillars sleeping soundly on one of her trash paladins. At least they can sleep, she thought to herself.
She just didn't understand. It had been almost two weeks since Quaid and she had only gotten a handful of even slightly restful nights. She'd tried everything to make herself sleepy, training, warm milk, stretches before bed, even resorting to counting sheep. Still, nothing helped her.
Pidge groaned and got up from her bed, slipping her glasses on. She paced around, and paced, and paced, and paced some more. Finally coming to the conclusion that she wasn't going to tire herself out by simply pacing about, Pidge opened her door and stepped out into the dimly lit hallway. Tiredly padding past her room, she scratched her head, lightly slapping her hand to her cheek as she wracked her brain at what to do. This was really starting to get irritating, two weeks of little sleep really was enough. Plus with all the missions, training, and analyzing countless sets of data to try to find her family should have been wearing her out to the point that she should fall asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. How could she not find the outlying issue here?
Pidge then heard a noise, turning her head and seeing Lance walk out of his room, rubbing the back of his neck and covering his mouth as he yawned. Suddenly realizing she was there, he said, "Oh, Pidge. I didn't see you there."
She side smiled, sympathy in her eyes. "Hey, Lance. Are you alright? What are you still doing up?"
He smiled in tandem. "I'm fine, Pidge, thanks. I appreciate the sympathy. It's nothing though, I just-"
"Can't get to sleep," they both said in unison. Lance raised his eyebrows in surprise. Pidge cupped her hands together, leaning her back on the wall and looking down at her feet. Lance leaned his side against his doorframe, crossing his arms as he stared at her.
"So..." Lance murmured, biting his bottom lip, craning his neck to try to look at her face. "Are you alright, Pidge?"
She looked up at him, puffing her bangs away from her face, a small side smile appearing on her face. "I'm fine, just... haven't been able to sleep and I-"
"Don't know why," they said in unison once again. Pidge furrowed her brows, looking back down again, putting her thumb to her lips, thinking. She looked back up at him, a tired albeit inquisitive look in her eyes.
"When was the last time you were able to get to sleep, Lance?" Pidge asked quietly. Lance looked upwards, his mouth squishing to the side in thought.
"Uh, I'm not really sure I guess," he quietly chuckled. "I fell asleep not long after I beat that mansion you helped me get through." Pidge raised her eyebrows in realization. "And, you know, I actually slept pretty peacefully when you were so scared of the thun-DER!" Lance oofed as Pidge suddenly pushed him off the doorframe, turning him around and maneuvering him into his room with both hands on his back.
"Uh Pidge?" Lance said confused as he heard his door close. She pushed him onto his bed, landing on his back with a wild look on his quickly reddening face. "Pidge?!"
"Shh," Pidge said, bumping his legs onto the bed with her knees.
"Wha, but-"
"Shut up," she shushed, crawling into the open spot next to him. "I want to try something."
"T-Try what," Lance breathed. Pidge grabbed his shoulder, pulling him closer and pressing her face into his chest so he couldn't see the bright red blush powdering her freckled face. Her heart was beating so hard in her chest, her idea could prove meaningless if she couldn't get her heart to calm down. Although Lance's was also beating swiftly in tandem. Nonetheless, there was no going back, no relenting now. Let's see if this works.
Lance set his hand heavy on her waist, fiddling with her soft sleep shirt, finding difficulty in searching for the right words to say in a situation where a girl pushes you onto a bed. He gently set his hand to her shoulder, pushing her away to look at her face. She looked down sheepishly, then tentatively looked up to him. The room was dimly lit by the floor lights, Pidge barely able to see his face, but his blue eyes were huge. She could smell his minty breath, she could feel his warm hand squeezing her shoulder. Suddenly he leaned forward, causing Pidge's heart to skip a beat. She squeezed her eyes shut, only to feel his hands on her face, slipping her glasses off her face. She ripped open her eyes as he leaned over her to set her glasses next to his bed.
Her heart almost couldn't take it, not that she was entirely sure what she was expecting. She desperately tried to calm her labored breathing, hoping to god he wasn't hearing it. She squeezed herself to the bed, hiding her face in his chest once more. She felt his hand weighing back on her waist, curving around to her back, gently squeezing her sleep shirt between his fingers. For a moment Pidge thought that maybe this was a mistake, feeling her heart beating so fast may be making her feel too anxious to sleep.
But he was so warm. And so close, with his arms tight around her. She felt so at ease and so content and so... safe. She felt her eyes drifting shut, a floaty, wispy feeling falling over her as she finally fell into the warm and welcoming embrace of sleep.
A/N: I had so much fun writing this chapter! I hope you find it as cute as I did! I look forward to writing the next chapter!
