"Where are you going?"

"I have to go find Keith!" Lance's spoon clattered in his empty bowl.

"... Now ?"

Lance stopped himself after getting up. He felt a chill of embarrassment run down his face and neck. On second thought, maybe he didn't need to rush into Keith's room and bother him another time. It was late and he'd probably be asleep and Lance had already done enough damage to their relationship that day. He drummed his thighs and pursed his lips and sat back down on the seat beside Hunk.

Lance let the silence between them settle, and then he did what he always did when he needed comfort or attention. He leaned his head onto Hunk's shoulder and whined quietly into his ear. Hunk took his cue and obediently patted him on the back. After food and comfort, Lance could finally feel his headache lessening.

Something still dug at him, though.

"Real talk, Hunk."

"Yeah?"

"Why do I get the feeling you don't believe that I'm dying?"

Hunk gently rubbed Lance's back, thinking of his answer.

"Try to look at it from our side of things, Lance. You've been back and forth about whether or not there's even something wrong with you for weeks now. First you say you're sick, then you say you're fine. Then you say you're sick again, then fine again, then you fall asleep in Voltron, and then you leave for a day with Keith to go off hiking on another planet-"

"I was not hiking," Interrupted Lance, "I was looking for clues to my illness, Hunk."

"Ok. Looking for clues. Fine. Then you come back, say you're ready to thread the needle , and you save us with a killer bayard move, and now you tell me you're officially dying."

Lance admitted to himself that maybe that did seem a little… inconsistent.

"And Lance, we've known each other for a long time. You have, what some people might call a colourful personality ."

"I'm lively," said Lance, in defense.

Hunk groaned. "The last time you said you were dying, it was because you lost your sock and your foot was cold."

"Um, Hunk. It was January . I was clearly in a deep stage of hypothermia."

"Case in point."

The both laughed.

Lance started playing with his spoon in the empty bowl. He and Hunk knew each other. There were no secrets between them. At least, not before now. Everything was confusing and overlapping at the same time. He wanted so badly for this all to be a joke. Something he could play off as his usual antics and melodrama. But it was all too real for Lance. He could barely meet Hunk's eyes. Silence settled between them once again. A tiny, but perceptible distance that wedged itself between him and his best friend. Lance withdrew himself from Hunk's shoulder. It no longer brought him comfort.

"I gotta go, Hunk."

Lance slid out from beside him, already missing the warmth and solidity of his touch.

"Gonna go bother Keith?"

"No. Not tonight. Don't worry about me."

Lance put on the most confident grin he could produce and threw Hunk a thumbs-up. He'd just done it again. He'd told Hunk he was fine. Shit. But, Lance looked back as he left the hall, Hunk looked so relieved to still have the belief that Lance was just a drama queen. He needed the hope. Lance needed someone who would take him seriously.

He needed Shiro.

He was alone again in the dark hallways, the small pool of light following him down the long corridor away from the kitchen to the dormitories. Cold drafts of air blew on him from the high ceilings and even the soft steps of his slippered feet echoed down the hall. He swore he could hear his footsteps whisper "soon, soon, soon" as his feet swept the cold floor.

Lance hated the hallways at night now. He always felt like there was something behind him. Following him. The shadow of the monster in his mind playing out on the floor and walls when the hall lights shut on and off as he walked.

Surely he was just being stupid. He was safe in the castle. The monster was in his dreams. It might be a nightmare creature waiting for him when he slept, but it didn't control him when he was awake. It wasn't real. His dreams weren't real.

Lance instinctively checked his shoulder at the end of the hall, just before he turned the corner. Nothing. The hall was quiet, dark and empty as far as he could see.

Lance breathed for a moment, before turning the corner. He then collided with a ghost.

Lance was thrashing furiously and about to scream when a strong, dark hand gripped his mouth shut. He could see white all around him. Everything was fast and blurry.

Allura was hurriedly shushing him.

"Lance, it's me. Calm down. It's ok."

Lance stepped back and Allura gently let go of his mouth. She looked dishevelled in her white nightgown, and her hair was a 's stomach flopped, and it had nothing to do with his illness.

"Lance, is something the matter?"

He took another moment to wrap his brain around what had just happened. This was not who Lance was expecting. He wasn't expecting anyone to be up so late, much less the princess herself wandering around the castle halls at night.

And, ok, her hair did look really nice when it was all messed up.

"Lance, what are you doing wandering around this late?" asked Allura. She was eyeing him intently and she didn't look especially happy.

Lance wanted with every fibre of his being to tell some part of the truth, but mixed memories and nightmares were washing over him, and Allura's eyes were very pretty and very intensely focused on him and he had completely forgotten about Shiro in that moment.

"Um. Uh. So… how is the castle? Shields working and everything?"

Allura's eyes quickly flickered about.

"They work," She responded very quickly, "If you're terribly concerned, it's all right. We'll be safe for now. However, the main propulsion system needs major repairs, so we cannot leave this system for a while."

Lance nodded.

Allura seemed to breathe a large sigh of relief. She softened her expression.

"Is that all?"

Lance nodded again. He had no idea how to tell her about the monster.

"Well, if that settles your mind, I hope you can go back to bed now." Allura was now walking past him, shrugging her robe closed. "Glad we could meet and discuss that."

She was walking very quickly away from him.

"And Lance," Allura added, suddenly stopping, "I did want to congratulate you on your exemplary use of your bayard earlier. However, next time you choose to celebrate, please try not to use up all the hot water in the castle. Other people need to shower."

"Are you mad at me?" Lance asked meekly, worried that his actions had now pissed off two people in one go.

Allura's tone suddenly changed. "No, no. It's fine! Really. Just go back to bed, Lance. Forget you ever saw me." Allura smiled and waved her hand awkwardly in the air.

Lance was a little suspicious of her sudden niceness. Allura never treated him that well. But he let it go as he watched her silently leave down the hall. He had too much on his mind to figure out the psychology of alien women.

At the end of the hall, Lance hesitated before he knocked on Shiro's door. His heart was still pounding from his encounter with Allura. He could just choose not to bother him. Maybe Shiro didn't want to be woken up this late. He couldn't risk alienating everyone on the ship. Lance felt his nausea creep up on him. His legs were weak and his head was starting to hurt again. What could he do? If he stayed silent, he might just die without anyone ever noticing.

Lance balled up his fist and knocked.

Shiro opened the door rather quickly. He was pulling a black robe over his bare chest and pajama pants. He looked like he hadn't been sleeping at all, but he was smoothing down his fringe from a wild fray.

"Did you forge- Lance. Hi."

Shiro's eyes were much more alert now. His cheeks were flushed like he'd been doing push-ups in his room. Lance stared at Shiro. Shiro coughed into his hand.

"It's… really late, huh?" Shiro offered, awkwardly, "Something you need?"

Lance looked into Shiro's eyes, for the first time seeing parallels of his own tiredness there. Shiro had experienced far worse than Lance, he knew that, but he rarely talked about it. Shiro always kept his head together and pressed on somehow. Maybe he just instinctively knew how to deal with things that were over his head and out of control.

"Sorry it's late," said Lance, "I need to talk, Shiro." He could feel a lump forming in his throat, his cheeks hot, all of his worries surging forward, trying to escape from him via his own tears.

"I can't sleep. I keep having nightmares."

Shiro's gaze towards Lance suddenly changed. It was no longer that warm, patronizing smile. It was a cold respect. Worry. Recognition.

"You're so young," whispered Shiro, absentmindedly. Almost more to himself than to Lance.

He brought Lance in and hugged him in a deathgrip. He didn't release Lance until Lance's hands at the back of his robe slowly went slack and released him first.

"Do you want to walk?"

"Yeah," said Lance, softly.

Shiro and Lance wandered the castle in silence, down several staircases, past the dark and now-empty kitchen, down to the main hall, and then, Lance realised, they were wandering towards the hangar with the lions. Lance didn't really care where his feet took him. Next to Shiro's large, intimidating frame, Lance felt safe to let go and think.

"Every time I close my eyes, I have nightmares. Every dream I have, I'm dying."

Shiro nodded in silence.

"Would it make you feel better for me to say I understand?" Shiro offered.

"I don't know."

And that was the truth. Was it ever any better if two people were miserable instead of one, just so they could relate?

"And what makes it worse is that the med pod says nothing is wrong with me."

Lance was on the verge of crying.

"The med pod deals with physical elements. It's not magic, Lance. Good god, if it made nightmares go away, I'd have been in there long ago." Shiro's voice got low. "For a very, very long time," He added, bitterly.

"But it's not just in my head! It's real, I swear! I'm falling asleep suddenly! I'm nauseous all the time! I've lost my lunch more times than I can count! Now my head is non-stop killing me and I got a wicked nosebleed out of nowhere! Keith didn't even punch me!"

"Why would Keith punch you?" Shiro tried to pursue Lance's train of logic before giving up completely.

"... Nevermind, Shiro. But I'm telling you, something is wrong with me. Really wrong. Not just in my head. The pod is just missing it. And it's just hell that nobody believes me."

Shiro looked at Lance. He took in Lance's tired eyes and hunched shoulders. His worn, stringy body and trembling legs.

"I believe you, Lance."

Lance's nose ran and tears flooded from his eyes. Shiro brought him into another hug, and the hangar was silent save for Lance's jagged sobs echoing in the night.

"Hey. Why don't we get the team on it? We can ask Pidge and Hunk to diagnose one of the pods. See if it really is missing something, some tiny alien virus inside of you."

"Yes!" Lance exclaimed, and his voice rang out in the enormous hangar where the lions slept. He could feel a faint pulse from Blue at the sound of his voice, the tug in his heart that asked him if they were going on a mission.

"We'll start right away when everyone wakes up. In the meantime," added Shiro, "We all have to find our ways to make peace with the things that haunt us."

"What do you do?" Lance was wiping his nose on his sleeve.

"Well, I try to meditate on what my dreams mean. Often our darkest dreams are our minds trying to tell us something. Not always, but sometimes. And when I can't figure it out, sometimes I talk things out with Allura. We support each other. Maybe if you spoke with someone about what's troubling you or even just wrote it down, you'd find some answers."

Shiro patted Lance's shoulder. Lance had a flash of deja vu.

"Hey," said Lance.

"Hmm?"

"How come you always do that to Keith?"

"Do what?"

"Pat him. Give him extra praise and stuff. I saw you earlier today. You were talking with Keith after we came in."

Lance could barely hide the jealousy in his voice. Shiro saw right through it anyway.

"Lance, I don't give Keith extra praise any more than any other paladin on the team. Sometimes I spend time with him because he asks for my advice, and I give it. I'd give you the same attention if you needed it. Like, maybe, right now?" Shiro winked.

"What does he ask about? And why did you tell him to 'stay patient' with 'these circumstances'?"

"That's not your business, Lance," said Shiro sternly, "And you shouldn't-"

"Did it have to do with Keith being in love with me?"

Shiro's eyes widened briefly, then returned to their hardened stare.

"Hunk told me. Tonight, actually." Lance suddenly felt guilty for saying it. It was the first time he'd really said the words out loud. Keith. In love with him. And they were in betrayal of Keith's confidence.

Shiro took a moment before he answered.

"Keith's conversations with me are his own business, and you have no right to eavesdrop, Lance. But I'll tell you this. He just wants you to be ok. He's worried about you, Lance. We all are."

Lance swallowed. He couldn't take anything back. He couldn't rewrite the past. He could only move forward, whatever that meant.

"I want to get better, Shiro."

"Want my advice?"

Lance nodded.

"Try letting help in instead of pushing it away when it's offered."

Shiro left him feeling, if not relieved, at least hopeful. There was a plan. There was progress, and most of all, his friends could no longer ignore or deny him. Lance made it back to his room tired but resolved. He had hope.

He looked at the clock. Four hours until daylight. His body was exhausted, but his brain was going a mile a minute. Lance debated crawling into bed for a few hours of sleep. But he looked at his dark room and the twisted sheets on the bed that threatened to choke him in his sleep like tentacles and the very idea of laying down and closing his eyes made his temples throb.

Lance felt a wave of fear. What if the monster knew? What if it had listened? What if it found out Lance was plotting against it? Would it kill him more viciously in his sleep? Would it tear him limb from limb? Would it takes its time and slowly squeeze him to death like a boa constrictor, or hang him like a noose?

Lance didn't like any of those ideas, and frankly, he didn't want to risk it. He found his entire bedroom suddenly distasteful.

And now he was outside of Keith's door and pacing back and forth.

His head was pounding again. Let help in. Don't push him away. Lance couldn't get the vision of naked swamp-Keith out of his mind. Not the alien part. No. The touching. Oh, jesus fuck, why were his hands like that on his face?

Let him in. Let help in.

Keith opened up the door to see a bleary and dishevelled Lance in his robe and pajama pants camping out in front of him.

"Keith! Hey! I um, I was going to knock, but then I remembered that you hated me, so... I thought I should wait. I stayed up all night for you!" Lance tried to laugh. It came out as a coughing fit.

Keith ignored him and turned right, towards the training room. In a sudden panic, Lance wrenched his stiff body up from the cold, hard hallway and realised immediately that this was a terrible idea. He was hit by a wave of dizziness that threatened to push him into unconsciousness. But Lance willed himself to stay together, and, even bent over at the waist, he reached out for Keith.

"Wait! No! Keith. Listen! I was totally wrong!"

Keith stopped in his tracks. Just for a moment. He almost turned around. Almost. Lance could see Keith's body tense up. Then he kept on moving.

"Keith- I-"

Lance stumbled after him, his legs clearly still asleep.

"Do you wanna train together?" his voice sounded desperate. Keith ignored him, his head firmly forward.

Lance knew he looked pathetic. At least Keith wasn't watching.

"Hunk said I needed to talk to you. Because you- About something really important."

Keith almost tripped.

"Not now, Lance. Just leave me alone."

"For how long?" Lance whined. The noise made Keith's shoulders twitch.

"I don't know. Maybe when I don't have a bite mark on my hand."

Lance paused, hurt and confused. This wasn't at all how it was supposed to go. Keith was walking away. He needed to say or do something. Lance racked his exhausted brain for something even remotely worth talking about.

"He doesn't die!" Lance shouted. "Not for real, anyway."

"Who?"

"Um, Han Solo." Lance's voice got quieter and quieter. "I lied. Kinda. I'm sorry."

Keith turned around and crossed his arms, about to open his mouth. Lance cut him off in a flurry of words trying to barrage him with any information to make him stay and stand there even a second longer.

"He gets frozen in carbonite and sacrifices himself to save his friends! He protects them from Darth Vader and pays his debt back to Jabba the Hutt with his own life! And then later on, Leia gets him out because she loves him! She sneaks into Jabba's palace disguised as a bounty hunter and uses Chewie as bait and she's super brave about it!"

Lance was panting for breath. Keith looked incredibly tempted to say something rude, but Lance saw him hold himself off. Keith turned and started walking again, down the hall towards the training room.

"Cool," he said, over his shoulder.

Lance banged his head silently against the wall.

Keith never went in the med pod to heal up his hand. Maybe he wanted it to heal naturally. To take time. Or maybe it was the fact that Hunk and Pidge were now setting up a small bio-engineering laboratory in the medical bay. They'd hauled up all of their engineering and software gear: Two laptops, a couple toolbox kits, miles of connective cords, surge protectors, remote controls and a mysterious glowing chunk of balmera crystal screwed onto a tripod. Just in case.

"Lance, I want to remind you for the eleventy billionth time that I am a programmer and not a doctor."

Pidge was already craned over behind the med pod, connecting multiple loops of wires to her makeshift computer setup. She had several monitors going side by side and a few gadgets that Lance didn't even know what they did.

"And I want to also remind you that Altean tech is complex. I'm messing with something that was developed millennia ago by a hyper-advanced civilisation. This is experimental science. There's a lot of unknown factors here. I could very well make your illness a lot worse. For all I know, I could be creating a death-machine and you'd be my first victim-"

"Ok, Pidge, I'm gonna need you to slow down on the darkness train." Lance had enough visuals of death to last him a lifetime. He didn't need more.

"What I'm trying to say is, I'll do my best. But… I'm just as scared as you are."

Lance smiled at Pidge. She quietly adjusted her glasses, and started typing furiously onto her laptop. Then her face soured.

"What? What's wrong?" Lance was leaning over her shoulder, looking at the programmer's garble on her screen.

"Hunk, I can't find my starter copy that I made of the medical system database. Did you bring up the E: drive or the G: drive?"

"G, I think." Hunk tilted the hard drives, looking for the labels.

"Fuck."

"Language!" Hunk and Lance simultaneously jabbed their fingers in her direction.

"Fuck you, both. Let me go get it." Pidge grumbled, and left for the hangar where she hoarded the rest of her gear with Green.

Lance sat at watched hunk fiddle with the wire connections with a bored fascination. He tried to be excited, he tried to even just pay attention, but without any sleep, it was all just a bunch of techno-blur at this point. He started playing with a spanner from the toolkit.

"So," said Lance, "I tried talking to Keith this morning."

"And how did that go?" Hunk was humming along behind the med pod.

"He confirmed hates me. Wouldn't even look at me" Lance pretended to stab himself in the chest with the spanner.

"He doesn't hate you."

"Yeah. He does."

"Dude, he's messed up. And also, you DID bite him. Like, rule number one, maybe don't literally bite the hand that feeds you."

Lance threw his hands up in the air.

"Always with the biting! Can nobody drop it?"

Hunk poked his head out from behind the pod.

"No. Because you didn't even apologise. He's done a lot for you. The least you could do is say you're sorry. Sick or not, if you don't, it makes you a real asshole."

What did Hunk know? He wasn't even there!

"I did say sorry! He ignored me!"

Hunk hauled himself up from his knees and walked around the pod to meet Lance on the steps where he was sitting.

"Like the way you completely ignore him all the time? Lance, just get it over with and let him down gently. At this point, you're just dragging it on and hurting him."

That struck Lance hard. Hunk didn't know. He didn't know anything about the dreams or the monster or what happened in the shower last night.

"Hunk, I think I need to lay something out on the table."

Lance's voice turned quiet and serious. Hunk settled down beside him. His eyes flickered briefly to the bay doors but Pidge probably wouldn't be back for a while. Even if she didn't get distracted by an idea, she still had to walk to the other end of the castle and back. Lance cleared his throat and lowered his voice.

"So, you know when I told you, um, Keith was in my dreams and shirtless and stuff?"

Hunk nodded. Lance scrunched up his face. Hoo boy. Why was this so hard to talk about? Lance was cringing and his fist clenched the poor victim spanner until his knuckles were white.

"Ok. I need to start again from the beginning. Ever since we visited that swamp planet a few months back, I've been having nightmares every time I sleep. And the reason I keep having nightmares is the monster that keeps coming back."

"Hold on buddy," Hunk waved his hand in front of Lance's face, "Monster. What? Start again."

"Oh. Yeah. Well, when we were separated on the swamp planet and I was looking for the refugees without you guys, I was also playing Star Wars, kinda-" Hunk cut him off.

"Oh, dude, that planet is totally like Dagobah."

"FUCKING THANK YOU ," Lance huffed, "Did you know Keith has never seen Star Wars?"

Hunk shrugged. "He had a weird childhood. I can't blame him."

Lance rolled his eyes.

"Well, anyway, when I was separated from the rest of you, I got trapped in one of those nasty tree roots, and this huge tentacle-ass... fucking eyeball-monster comes up out of nowhere! Oh, god, Hunk, you should have seen it when we went back. This thing is miles long underneath the water. It's just this body that goes on forever."

Lance gesticulated fervently with his arms and he was pretty sure Hunk was unable to grasp the enormity of the beast. So he made his arms even wider.

"Well, it's wrapping me up and I'm pretty sure it's gonna eat me, and then Keith shows up out of nowhere and cuts its head off-"

Hunk interrupted him. "Sorry Lance. Forgive me, but. Cool ."

Lance broke into a smile. "Nah, it kinda was," he shrugged. He felt a new sensation washing over him. What was it? Relief? Where previously there was a burning, jealous heat in his head when he thought of Keith's accomplishments, there was now a kind of awed respect. He could compliment Keith now. Keith rescued him. And it was… cool.

"So, he slices its eyeball-head right off, and then we leave. All done and dusted, right?"

"No, obviously. But yes. Continue the story, Lance."

"Well, everytime I close my eyes now, I dream that I'm back in the swamp. But it kinda changes a bit every time." Lance's voice suddenly sank, quivering at the flashes of memory welling up within him. Blood. Water. Mist. Keith.

"Fuckin' dreams. Get it right." Hunk elbowed Lance, trying to bring back the humour.

"I know, man," Lance tried to laugh. It came out strained. "And here's the scary part. It kills me every time."

"Huh, what does? The swamp?"

"No, the monster . It kills me in my dreams. Every time. I'm always wandering around in the swamp, and it's misty and foggy and then its evil tentacles reach up out of nowhere and grab me and strangle me. They pull me down and I'm then I'm drowning until I black out. Every time."

"Harsh."

Lance nodded solemnly.

"Well, that's where the Keith part comes in."

Lance paused before continuing. He could feel heat rising in his cheeks.

"Ugh. Yeah, so when Keith and I went back to the planet to look for clues, we um, ran into some trouble and decided to camp out for the night."

Hunk suppressed a noise that Lance chose to interpret as a squeal. Lance cleared his throat again. Hunk shut up.

"Did you find anything?" Hunk asked excitedly, then, "Wait, what trouble?"

Lance shuddered, remembering the rotten leathery corpse of the monster crawling with insects. Even the memory of the smell made his stomach churn.

"I got sick and I horfed on Keith's boots. Moving on."

"That dude is patient ." Hunk patted Lance on the back as he chuckled.

"And no. We didn't find anything. Well, the one thing is that that night was when my dreams started changing. Keith showed up in my dream for the first time and instead of the monster killing me right away, he wrestled it down. I don't know why that happened, but I was able to sleep through the night."

"Ok, so that's a good thing." Hunk was nodding.

"Yeah," Lance agreed, "Maybe Keith staring at me the whole time kept the monster away. He watched me sleep the whole night." Lance spoke with a bit more fondness than he'd intended.

"Oh my god that boy has patience." Hunk burried his face in his hands.

Lance looked down at his hands. "I've been a dick."

"Yeah. You have. Keith didn't even mention the fact that he stayed awake all night for you when I talked to him."

"Ok, but what did you talk about?"

"The same thing we always talk about. How fucking dumb you are, and how hard he tries to please you. And how nothing he does works. If he tries to impress you, you get offended. If he asks for help, you insult him. We had this running joke that if he gave you a bouquet of flowers and a diamond ring, you'd just ask who it was for."

Lance felt insulted at first. But then, after thinking about Hunk's words, he realised Hunk was right. God, what did Keith even see in him?

"Am I really that-"

"Oblivious?" Hunk offered.

"...mean…" Lance whispered. He could hear Keith's sobs freshly in his mind. He wanted nothing more than to go back in time and punch himself in the face. Maybe that was how he got the bloody nose. Lance laughed in spite of himself.

"And then there was the dream I just had last night. It was… weird."

"Weirder than tentacles in swamps?"

"Um, Keith was there again."

Lance was rubbing his temples and furiously avoiding eye contact with Hunk.

"And maybe… we were both naked."

"I'm not judging you." Hunk said, his tone honest and genuine, "Is this important to say?"

"Well, Keith and I kinda had… a moment."

"A bonding moment?"

"You could say that. Maybe…" Lance trailed off, playing with his fingers.

"Like he… put his hands on me. And I'd never, uh," Lance took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, staring pointedly at the wall "Look, what I'm trying to say is that if I wasn't scared to death of dying, I would have had a raging boner, and I just…. Yeah. Keith."

"Dude."

"Yeah. So. When I said Keith was in my dreams, I kinda... I liked it. Well, the first part anyway. Then Keith transformed into the monster and strangled me to death. Hunk is this sickness making me gay?"

Hunk looked at his best friend.

"Short answer, no."

Lance let out a sigh of relief.

"It means you're attracted to dudes as well."

"Oh, fuck me." Lance threw the spanner across the room.

"No, I think Keith wants to do that," Hunk laughed.

"Fuck off, Hunk, this is humiliating."

Lance buried his red face in his arms. Hunk nudged him with his elbow.

"What's the difference, dude? You cuddle with me all the time? We're literally cuddling right now."

"Yeah, but with you, we're friends. And with him, it's… well, it's y'know… It'd be real ."

"Do you like being held?"

"Yeah."

"Do you like Keith?"

Lance shrugged admittedly.

"Kinda."

"Just give him a shot. If you or he does something wrong, I'm sure he'll try to do better. He really likes you, you know. He just doesn't know how to talk about his feelings."

"Well, neither do I!"

"You're doing it right now with me!" Hunk shouted, exasperated.

"Yeah, but like I said. You don't count."

"Wow, thanks." Hunk pouted in mock-hurt.

"You know what I mean."

"I do. And I'm ok with it," said Hunk, triumphantly, "Because Pidge owes me a lot of money when we get back to earth."

Lance didn't even need to look in Hunk's direction to fist-bump him.

"So, any idea how to be a boyfriend to someone who currently hates you?"

"Nadda. Try apologising?"

Lance considered Hunk's words.

"And then what?"

"Apologise some more."

This was going to take some work.