"Blue… Blue! Shut up, you're not helping!" Lance was shouting up into the hangar from somewhere behind his head, voice echoing off the far walls as his ship rumbled with what Hunk could only describe as a concerned displeasure.

"What's she saying?" he groaned.

"Blue," Lance huffed in sincere dismay, "He does not need repairs, because he does not have a fuel leak!"

Blue got quiet.

"Oh," Hunk managed a small chuckle between dry heaves as Lance continued rubbing his back, "Lion logic."

Minutes passed and Lance remained down on the ice, there with him through the nausea and the smell until Hunk felt like he had a grasp on gravity once again; no longer tumbling through time and space as his anxiety ripped him apart at the seams. He sat himself up, slowly, away from the pool of foul-smelling vomit and wiped his mouth with his fist.

"Hey…"

"Yeah?"

Hunk looked around the hangar, at the massive icicles hanging precariously from the distant ceiling overhead, at the mixture of foreboding mechanical faces staring down at them, anywhere except the fast-cooling puddle in front of him as the last trails of curling steam wafted away along the floor.

"I think I'm hungry now."

"Me too." Lance nodded sympathetically, "Let's go get something to eat and get to bed. I've been up for a lot longer than you. -I think…" Lance caught him rolling his eyes, and Hunk knew that Lance knew he was turning yet another unnecessary thing into a competition. Lance let his hands fall to his sides as his gaze subtly drifted over to his ship. "Nevermind, it's been weird and rough tonight. Sorry. Are you- Do you think you're gonna be ok about Shay?"

He'd have to be, honestly. There wasn't much he could do. He'd already been away from his home and family for months before the attack, mourned that loss with the rest of the Paladins; and now, it was just more time. More hard, unchangeable "fact-ness" hitting him in the face, reminding him that his dreams to design and repair Garrison spacecraft were long ago and far away. He'd have to be ok about Shay if he was going to help get Lance and the rest of the team out of here.

Wherever here was.

"I don't think she's dead, dude." Lance's voice was apologetically soft as he ran his glove along Hunk's forehead, wiping away the hair and sweat one last time. "Don't sell her short. She's a tough little boulder. I mean, I kept it together for a year- I'm sure she did, too. She's probably, like, the general of some resistance army by now, kicking ass and taking names and shit, hey?"

He could imagine that. He could imagine Shay championing the cause of freedom, giving heartfelt speeches full of vitality and compassion to eager crowds across the galaxy. He could see her at the front of some stalwart resistance, feeding the hungry and curing the sick. He could see her on Balmera, keeping the young ones safe. He could see it. It sounded like it could be true. He wanted it to be true. His brain could handle that much.

Hunk tried to make words happen, but all he managed was an open mouth and a slow nod.

Lance was still staring at his ship across the hangar, that same tired look of disappointment and longing settled in his red-rimmed eyes. Like an unfinished argument between lovers, something obviously stung him. Something cold and hard and just between them. Blue's eyes glowed briefly, and Lance turned back to him.

"I always feel better after I barf," Lance offered, trying to fill the void, "You know? Kinda makes you feel calm. Easier to sleep." He slapped Hunk on the back and Hunk coughed up a mouthful of leftover bile and cold air.

"Yeah," he wheezed.

"Come on, big guy," said Lance, standing up, "We'll find some goo left in the machine and have a late dinner."

"Mmkay. But," he grabbed Lance by the elbow as his best friend hauled him up to his feet, "I want to write some stuff down. Grab me a tablet when we get up there?"

"Yeah," Lance replied, "No problem." And then, "So, uh, are we gonna clean this up or just leave it?" He was staring down at the puddle of sickness, which was starting to freeze to the floor.

"Leave it," Hunk shrugged, "We got other priorities right now."

Lance nodded and started leading him once again towards the Blue Lion who was eagerly lowering her entrance ramp. His own Yellow Lion gazed coolly at his back, unknowable ancient emotions pressing gently against Hunk's tired mind.

"Speaking of hungry," Hunk nudged him in the side as they walked under the shadow of Blue's enormous frame, between her two front paws half-sunken in the ice, "How much food is really left in the machine, Lance? No bullshit."

Lance's expression stiffened to a painful wince, like Hunk was touching on another subject he'd rather avoid. But after chewing his lips, unfurrowing his brows and sucking in a deep breath, he finally spoke. "No bullshit, Hunk, I don't know. But it's pretty damn empty. There's still some field ration bars, but not a huge amount. And I'm starting to hate those, too."

"Yeah?" Looking at his emaciated frame, Hunk couldn't help but wonder how much Lance had been eating lately. Or how frequently.

"Yeah, dude. Take a shit, like, once a year."

Well, there was one answer he didn't ask for.

" Thanks. "

"You're welcome," Lance beamed, thumping his chest as he lead the way up the ramp, "Also, you just puked in front of me, you have no high ground for being gross."

"True," Hunk admitted. "Yeah, I'll own that one."

They climbed into the back of the cockpit as Blue's internal lights blinked on after a year of quiet hibernation. Hunk found himself poking around at the inside of Lance's ship, at the clean, futuristic design and the distinct lack of… dust. Either Lions were somehow hermetically sealed or they had a way of being self-cleaning. Interesting , he figured. And then his stomach rumbled loudly under his suit.

"Look, if we're not at risk right away of nuclear melt-down or loss of air pressure," said Hunk, offhandedly, while staring at the clean finger he'd run along the inside wall of the ship, "first priority is fixing the food machine, I thi-"

"Oh god, Hunk! That sounds majestic!" And suddenly Lance's arms were thrown around him, and he was leaning his full weight on Hunk's already unsteady legs, and Lance's face was way too close, and the two of them were threatening to crash back down to the floor for the fifth time that night. "I have been waiting a year to hear those precious words," Lance sang, nose practically touching Hunk's own, "I love- that."

And there he was, standing way too close and laughing in Hunk's face with those chapped lips, and that indomitable smile, and Hunk was stuck frozen in time for a fraction of a second. What was he doing? Lance was still looking at him. Why was Lance looking at him like that? Lance stopped smiling. No. Smile again. Was he supposed to say something?

"That... sounds great," Lance coughed as he backed off, arms slipping away from Hunk's sides like they were never there and dangling around his narrow frame as Lance kept folding and unfolding them, leaving Hunk blinking awkwardly in the silence. "...And, um, your breath stinks."

Great.

Hunk slowly raised his cupped hand in front of his face, directly in front of Lance standing there, staring back at him, tapping his thighs and chewing on those chapped lips. Hunk puffed his breath into his hand. Lance wasn't wrong. And suddenly Hunk felt very self-conscious.

"Come on," Lance grinned, whipping his arms out wide, as if he meant to grab Hunk by the hand, but suddenly thought better of it, "I'm about to get us out of here!"

And before Hunk had any chance to wrap his brain around the situation, Lance was off and away, skipping nimbly backwards to pilot seat in three large strides. The dashboard flicked on in response to his presence; bars and scanners booting up and projecting information around on the mobile holoscreens, leaving Hunk at the back of the ship to wonder what the hell just happened, exactly.

Lance sat down and slid his fingers over the holoscreen controls as Hunk quietly sidled up and leaned his elbow over the back of the pilot's chair, trying not to interrupt. Lance remained facing forward, focused on the dashboard with a delicate seriousness like he hadn't been squealing with joy less than a minute ago as he tapped a few commands, urging Blue into action.

"So, do you think you could fix it in, like, maybe a couple days?" He asked, and Hunk could hear the barely suppressed hope Lance was clearly trying to hide in his voice. He tried not to get ahead of himself. Hunk had no idea how bad the damage would be without taking a good look at the castle's innards. But, at the very least, having Lance in charge of their escape freed Hunk to start mentally dissecting the castle's problems.

"Depends. If the food machine's still serving, it might be jammed somewhere along the service line, or it might not even be the machine," he mused, brain now tracing the castle's internal systems, scoping out potential places to start tinkering, "It might be the material cycling systems. If the water's all down here, the food machine has nothing to work with."

"Huh." Lance broke his eyeline away from the dashboard and chanced a curious look at him, "The water down here is our food?"

"And fuel," said Hunk. "For minor energy purposes, y'know, not propulsion and stuff, the ship uses hydrogen combustion for energy. Waste product is water."

"Yeah. I knew that," Lance said, sitting up a little taller in his seat. In the dim blue lighting Hunk could almost perceive a deep flush forming in Lance's cheeks. "Now watch this!"

Lance activated his bayard and jammed it into its socket with more force than necessary, turning it halfway with an artful flourish to summon the Blue Lion's sonic resonator. Blue let out a low roar and the whole ship glowed with an inner light as the massive weapon materialized on her back and Hunk had a terrible, sinking feeling about all of this.

"Be careful, Lance! We could tear through the hull!"

"Relax!" Lance grinned, patting the dashboard, "She knows what she's doing."

"But do you?"

"Nope, no idea."

" Lance! "

"I'm just kidding," he smirked, "I think I've got it figured out. We just need to aim really gently at the ice near the hangar door aaaaand-"

Blue shifted her half-encased body towards the entrance to the lower stairs as Lance finalized the weapons settings and fired. Her sonic beam hit the far wall of the hangar and slowly, steadily, the low vibrations from the gun began to build into a deep and deafening crescendo that rattled through the hangar floor. Up through Blue's body, Hunk could feel the pulsing buzz of sonic energy as Blue aimed her weapon at the ice and he watched helplessly as white, spidering cracks began to form and spread erratically through the giant room.

Hunk was never a very religious boy, but right then and there he was silently praying to any available deity or spiritual force in that moment that they weren't about to rip off the bottom of the weakened hull and tumble into dead space.

"Lance!" He shouted through the reverberating din, "Are you absolutely sure about this?"

"Look, it's working! Like your gun, but mega-size!" Lance was actually laughing as he leaned into the controls, drunk and euphoric on the surge of power at his fingertips after being away, for so long, from a pilot's seat.

All around them the deep crack of solid water breaking under pressure thundered through the hangar as the long, meandering white lines shot through the slick, dark sheet of ice. Sensing the commotion, the Lions started shifting their weight uneasily and ground their metal bodies against the icy entrapment, causing the whole hangar to shake uncontrollably as they thrashed and pulled.

In and out, Hunk forced the air through his lungs. In and out.

And with a final mighty crash, the Blue Lion shattered a jagged crater into the ice around the far exit - large enough for two small human paladins to shovel away the remains and crawl through to the stairs. The vibrations stopped, he opened his eyes, and Hunk released his iron grip from the back of Lance's seat.

"Thanks babe," Lance cooed, patting the dashboard, "I know we've had our differences."

"Who, me or the Lion?"

"Blue."

"Right."

Lance disengaged his bayard from its slot and nodded at Hunk to go check out his handiwork.

"I have good news and bad news," Hunk huffed as he chucked the giant slab of ice onto the pile they were building off the side of the doorway. His arms ached with the effort, and the piece fell with a deep thud, sliding down the pile until it became wedged between two others. The only thing keeping him going at this point was the thought of a half-decent meal and peaceful rest in his bed. As he caught his breath, Hunk looked over his shoulder at the Blue and Yellow Lions staring enigmatically back at them. He'd slept in his Lion before, but never truly got used to it. It was more like camping or a road trip. He preferred the solidity of the castle walls and the quiet hum of distant engines. Besides, it was his stupid idea to go visit the Lions in the first place.

"Good news first," said Lance, scraping at the tiny leftover bits with his hands.

"No, no, that ruins the joke."

Lance stopped and looked up as Hunk went for another large, roughly triangular chunk blocking their way to the upper levels.

"Bad news is that I don't exactly know how to de-ice the hangar," said Hunk.

"And the good news?"

"Once it's done," Hunk grinned sheepishly, "I heard Keith say there was a pool?"

Lance chuckled and stepped forward to help Hunk drag the last giant slab blocking their way.

Up the stairs they went, once again, past the frost and ice, past the midsection where the dust and melting water mixed into a weird, greyish mud. Up, once more, to warmth and light, however little though there was.

"Feels weird to be going up a set of stairs twice without going back down," said Hunk, as his boot squelched into a particularly thick clump of condensation-soaked dust-mud.

"Superstitious?" asked Lance. "You need to turn around twice or something?"

"No," He shook his head, "Just odd. Like a playground slide or a diving board. Always up, but never down."

"Huh." Lance stomped his feet when they reached a higher set of stairs, kicking off the wet greyish grime as they headed into endless layers of dry dust. "Maybe after the food machine we can get the elevators working again?"

Hunk rolled his eyes, feeling a familiar little throb of stress rising in the front of his forehead. "Let's just try to focus on the essentials for now..."

The kitchen.

The safest place in any building, in Hunk's opinion. The heart of food and family and good conversation. Having grown up in a family of powerful matriarchs and gifted chefs, Hunk knew these rooms had a magical way of solving arguments and healing ills; even alien ones with weird appliances and questionable ingredients in deep space. They were sacred to him. Kitchens were where Hunk was home.

This one, however, was cold, and dark, and missing the smell of freshly baked bread and dry spices. It needed laughter and the screaming whistle of a boiling kettle, and the scrape of a knife pushing onions and mushrooms off a cutting board and into a hot pan. Hunk stood beside Lance in the middle of the room, staring at the empty food dispenser and the overflowing garbage bin. It had barely been twelve hours since Hunk awoke in the broken castle, and already its gloom was seeping into him. But he could fix it. He could change it. He just needed a plan.

Too late to shower, too tired to care, Hunk dragged his body over to the dish cabinet, searching for two clean bowls that he suddenly, annoyingly, remembered weren't there. Lance never put their dishes in the washer, much less put them away. When he heard Hunk's deep sigh, Lance looked up at him with innocent eyes from lower cupboard he was already rummaging through as empty food wrappers spilled out onto the floor. Hunk groaned and ambled his way towards the common room to grab his old bowl.

"You said you wanted to jot some stuff down?" asked Lance, following beside him. He'd fished his field ration bar out of the back of the cupboard and was unwrapping it as he spoke.

"Yeah," Hunk nodded, "Can you go find me a tablet, and like, also not fucking scare the shit out of me when you come back?" He grabbed the two bowls that were still laying at the food of the couch and swung back around to the kitchen.

Lance almost choked on his bite. "What?" he laughed, "When I found you outside of Shiro's bedroom? It wasn't that scary! Was it because my hair was wet? Like in The Ring?"

"No." Hunk dropped the bowls and their spoons on the counter, avoiding Lance's impish grin.

"So, what? Was it because half the lights were off and you can't see me?"

"No," Hunk mumbled, head now deep inside a storage cupboard, trying to strategically bury his embarrassment by looking for ingredients. "It was that, and the creepy footsteps. And Shiro's door."

"Dude, I wasn't sneaking up on you! I was right there the whole time!"

After shuffling a bunch of oddly shaped glass containers with Altean labels and a few dusty, vacuum-sealed containers of space-Tupperware around, Hunk found what he was looking for. He pulled out the large circular metal bin and placed it on the counter.

"Yeah, I know- Look, nevermind. Just go grab a tablet, will you?" He unlatched the heavy clamps on the bin and the lid released with a loud hiss of decompression.

Lance left the kitchen with a haunted "ooh" moan, all the while giggling to himself. At least he seemed to be in higher spirits about the whole thing. Hunk turned to dive back into the lower drawers in search of some measuring cups.

He'd used the flour before, though admittedly, being a paladin didn't give him much time to practice. It was denser than wheat, with a sharper flavour, more akin to a rye or spelt. Probably artificially modified for optimal nutrition and low spoilage. The scientist in Hunk appreciated the sturdy elegance of the 10,000 year-old superfood. The organic snob in him despised it.

Lance reentered the room as Hunk knelt on the floor, peering over the top of a measuring cup with his thumb in the water, approximating metric measurements and testing its warmth.

"You can use this one," he said as he lay the tablet down on the kitchen counter and seated himself on the bar stool for a better view. And then promptly swept it back up in his hands.

"What gives?" asked Hunk, holding the cup in both his large palms, trying to warm the icy water in the glass.

"Hold on a sec," Lance mumbled as he chewed his lip, frowning as he started urgently fiddling with the machine. "I just gotta delete some stuff first."

"What stuff?"

"Nothing. It's not important."

Hunk raised an eyebrow over the top of the measuring cup at Lance, who was nervously tapping away at the tablet, little bleeps confirming that he was permanently deleting various files and folders.

"Just some stuff I did when I was bored. And look, I'm doing you a favour. It'll run a lot faster now that I've freed a bunch of space up."

Hunk shrugged, letting Lance lie about what he needed to. So far any time Lance had been "bored" he was obviously trying to cover something embarrassing about his time alone. Maybe he kept a journal or something, and didn't want Hunk to read it. He went back to monitoring the cup of water. It was warm enough, he decided, and Hunk started pouring it slowly into the bowl of sifted flour he'd set aside, stirring the lumps into a smooth, off-white slurry. Lance looked up from his tablet at the mixture of flour and water Hunk was stirring in the bowl.

"Dude, that looks like a pile of jizz."

"Uh-huh." He'd had worse comments made on his cooking before. Some of them by Lance.

"Oh, speaking of that, I was thinking to ask you."

Hunk's eyes widened in their sockets.

"Ok, One," said Hunk, lowering the spoon and counting off on his fingers, "Jizz. And Two, asking me something. First of all, no. Secondly, not while I'm cooking."

Lance dismissed the criticism with an airy hand-wave as he slid the tablet back towards Hunk. "I'm just, like, still thinking about it."

"About what?" He picked up the tablet, watching the status bar fill as it slowly deleted Lance's massive selection of files.

"The radiation," he sighed. "What if I can't have kids anymore? You know? That's it for me, man. No little Lances."

"Well," said Hunk, thinking more about the tablet in his hands than Lance's endless personal insecurities, "Did you try jerking off when you were all alone?"

Lance paused.

"...yeah…"

"Oh, cool, who to?"

"Fuck off."

"Well, did it work?"

"Yeah."

"Then you should be good to go, man."

Lance balled up his empty bar wrapper and threw it at Hunk, bouncing it off the side of his head. "That doesn't mean everything is fine! What about my sperms? What if they're all shriveled and broken or disabled? Like, what if they're all in, like, little spermy wheelchairs and they're tryna swim but they can't make it? What then, Hunk?"

Hunk rolled his eyes and threw the wrapper back at Lance.

"Then they get those free parking passes in your nuts. And people in wheelchairs are just as capable as you or I, and- This conversation got weird again."

That was when he saw it. The message window on the tablet that popped up, just as all those files finished deleting.

Error: could not be deleted because it is still in use. Do you want to close the program and try again?

. So Lance was keeping track of his time alone. That's what he was deleting. More evidence of whatever weird, cryptic shit he'd been doing during that year. Hunk loved Lance. A lot. And he wanted Lance to be safe and happy and free from the prison that was this castle. But like the scuffed dust upstairs by the bedrooms or Shiro's shrine, Lance had secrets. Lots of them. And Hunk maybe wasn't the most blindly dedicated friend.

His thumb brushed over the cancel button, saving the file.