Good news: Matthew did not spend long in the pod.
Bad news: Allura was the one to catch him.
In hindsight, Thace supposed he really should have seen this coming. The moment Matt dropped and kicked her feet out from under her he knew he had made a mistake. Allura trying to grab his arm and Coran's yelling did no one any favors and as far as rolling went Matthew was the fastest most agile little ball anyone could be. When he sprang up to run Thace managed to wrap his arms around him from behind.
"Matthew it's Thace your safe here it's fine calm down," he said. Matt, not processing any of that as words, bit down as hard as he could on Thace's arm and slammed his metal heel into the Galra's knee. Thace swore and let go. By the time he looked up again the human was gone.
"Well that's not how I envisioned meeting Pidge's brother to go," Coran stated. There was a metallic clang in the hallway branching to the left and Thace ran towards it. Matt wasn't there. The only sign that he had been there previously was the vent grate on the floor and two black scuffed dents in the wall from him somehow managing to get up there. Thace cursed under his breath.
"Matthew come back!" He yelled at the vent.
"I don't think that's going to work," Allura said behind him. He turned to her with an irritated huff and saw that she was holding roll of bandages and a tub of salve. He looked down at his stinging arm with slight surprise to see that it was bleeding rather steadily.
"I guess I shouldn't have changed out of my armor," he said, rolling up the sleeve of the white shirt they had given him.
"I wasn't aware that human jaws were so strong."
"I wasn't aware that he'd bite me," he chuckled.
"Well what are we going to do now? He think's we're a threat and didn't even seem to notice you!" Coran exclaimed as Thace dressed his wound.
"I'm sure he'll calm down eventually, or at least leave the vents long enough at some point for us to find him."
"And why the vents?!"
"Hidden high ground with limited access and points that need to be defended, as well as them being a way to get through to anywhere in the ship. It's a decent strategy."
"He's going to get lost," Allura muttered.
"Probably," Thace sighed in agreement.
"He's going to die in the fan blades," Coran stated.
"I think he knows better than to do that."
"Well now what then?"
"We should probably wait until he shows himself. I'm sure he'll recognize me eventually."
"We can check the video feeds on the ship to keep an eye on if he comes out!" Allura suggested. "The mice could also help in that respect."
"Whatever you can do, do it, I don't care as long as he gets what's going on soon."
Allura nodded, and the mice ran off. They ran back to her while the three of them were walking to the bridge, squeaking loudly. She quickly changed directions.
"They say he came out of the vents, we need to get to him before he goes back." They followed the mice quietly so that Matt wouldn't hear them coming and flee again, ending up in a hallway near the sleeping quarters. She turned a corner too sharply and ended up running straight into him. Before he could bolt she pinned his arms behind his back and held him against the wall.
"We're trying to help you!" she exclaimed when he stomped on her foot.
"Matthew please calm down!" Thace pleaded. That got Matt to finally look at him, eyes rimmed with red, wide and afraid.
"Thace what the hell?!" Matt nearly squeaked, and Allura let go of him hoping he wouldn't run away now that he recognized his friend. Her hope held true, but for the three steps he took away from everyone.
"These are the Alteans I told you about, Princess Allura and Coran, they found us and I decided to bring you to their ship because they have healing pods which worked a lot faster than what I was trying to do with what I found at the base. I didn't realize it would make you panic like this. I'm sorry."
"Don't do it again," he muttered, voice cracking. His hands were clenched into fists but that didn't stop them from shaking.
"I won't."
Everything was silent for a beat.
"Is, uh, is there a bathroom close?" Matt asked, looking queasy. Allura pointed to a doorway down the hall.
"Oh!" Coran exclaimed, clapping his hands together. "I'll go get that new set of clothes, I left them with the pods." He scampered off just as Thace heard Matt getting sick. He walked over and knocked on the door.
"You okay in there?"
Matt just groaned in response.
"Is he alright?" Allura asked concerned, standing behind him.
"No."
"You seem awfully calm about that."
"This happened last time he had a nightmare too, panicking didn't help anything. He'll be fine." He leaned against the wall and slid down until he was sitting. More retching came from behind the door and he put his head in his hands. "I fucked up tremendously with this one didn't I?" he muttered.
"You did what you thought would be best."
"Yes and in doing that I just made things worse for him."
"How long have you known him?"
"Almost a week." Allura paused, unsure how long that unit of time measurement was, before going on with making her point.
"You haven't known him long enough to not make mistakes like this."
Coran came in with the clothes they found earlier, black shirt and pants with maroon along the sleeves and neckline, same as what they had found for Lance and Hunk to sleep in.
"Is something wrong?"
"Matthew isn't feeling well," Allura told him. "It will pass."
"Are you sure it's not a reaction to something?"
"It's a reaction to panic," Thace sighed.
"Well as long as it's not something he ate!"
The Galra looked up at him from the floor. It was oddly surreal, meeting him and the Princess like this, he thought. He only ever knew them from stories of his mother's childhood, and from pictures taken before the war. Sahlrin was never one to talk much about the others. It was too upsetting. Matt had quieted down again, so he figured he was fine.
"Are you done being sick in there kiddo?"
"I better be. If I throw up again I think my organs will have to just turn inside out and eject." The aliens collectively grimaced.
"Well, we have a fresh set of clothes for you to change into if you want, you should probably shower too while you're in there." The door slid open to reveal Matt, looking like the lovechild of exhaustion and death, his hair messily tied back with the scrap of cloth usually at home on his wrist. Coran handed him the clothes.
"I can't tell if standing was a mistake or not yet," the human said. He turned away and the door closed again.
"I'm sure he'll be fine," Thace told them. They heard Matt throw up again only a few seconds later.
Matt walked into the kitchen where the other adults were standing around a while later, clean and not as sick looking.
"I told you he'd follow the mice," Allura said to Thace.
"I never said he wouldn't," he replied, sipping from a juice pouch.
"Who wrote the labels on the bottles in the bathroom?" Matt asked abruptly. "Do you have humans aboard?"
"Yes, Shiro did, you know him," Coran answered. Matt looked at him in utter shock.
"He's alive?!"
"Yes, what we understand from what Thace here told us is that his escape is what lead you to be taken back to Central Command."
"I thought I had to replace him because he died! Where is he?!" Allura and Coran looked at each other, unsure what to tell him. "What happened?!"
"Haggar corrupted our wormhole when we were trying to escape Central Command,' Allura told him calmly, "We all fell out of it at different places. We don't know yet where anyone is. The castle is still to damaged to receive communications." Matt looked ready to cry.
"But once we get the castle fixed we'll find everyone without a problem," Thace said quickly. "It'll be fine." Allura was about to interject with how they had no clue what shape the paladins would be in, but he cut her a sharp glare.
"We're glad we found you, everyone was very worried," Coran stated.
"Everyone?"
"Yes, Pidge was especially. All the Paladins were brought by the Blue Lion from Earth."
Matt looked even more bewildered hearing that than he had been hearing that Shiro was alive.
"Pigeon? Katie? The fuck is she doing in space?!"
"Looking for you and your father, mostly."
"SHE JUST LEFT MOM ALONE?!" He screeched. "SHE IS SO GROUNDED!"
"She's going to be very relieved to find out you're with us."
"She's gonna be under house arrest the rest of her life is what she's gonna be! Who're the others?!"
"Lance, Hunk and Keith. It's just the seven of us."
"Keith? Like little Keith? With the gloves and long hair and belt pockets for weird shit?"
"That sounds like him, yes?"
"Oh boy that's gotta be interesting."
"What do you mean?" Allura asked.
"Takashi's the closest thing Keith has to a brother since he was fostered by the Shirogane's for a while so they always teased each other at the Garrison." The Alteans looked at him in confusion.
"Takashi?" Coran asked.
"Yeah, that's his first name. Shiro's just short for his family name because Keith's a little shit."
"What do you mean?"
"Well Takashi was his superior as a graduate at the Garrison so he was supposed to call him by his last name at least to show respect but Keith was like 'how can I respect this man when I've seen him nearly choke trying to see how many marshmallows would fit in his mouth' and decided to make a nickname out of his last name as a loophole so he wouldn't get in trouble. Everyone just followed suit 'cuz it was hilarious. I've known him since before that though, so I call him either. I think he prefers it when I call him his actual name," Matt chuckled.
"I hadn't realized they had that kind of history."
"Neither did I," Allura said.
"What's Keith's last name?" Thace asked.
"Gyeong," Matt replied, giving him a quizzical look.
"Why did your friend's family have to take care of him? Where was his… where were his parents?"
"They abandoned him at some hospital when he was little so we have a thing where the government puts kids like him in places with the resources to take care of them, or with families who are qualified." Thace clenched his jaw and looked at the floor. "Why?"
"It's nothing." Matt frowned at him, but dropped the subject. "You should eat something. I brought rations with me so you would have something familiar to eat," he said, pulling one of the stew boxes from a drawer in the island and sliding to Matt. Actually, he had eaten a small portion of food goo earlier and known immediately that Matt would hate the texture, so he ran out and taken all the rations out of the ship and base so there would be something he'd be willing to eat. He wasn't going to admit that in front of the Alteans though. They thought he just didn't want supplies to go to waste.
Matt took the spork out of the container and pulled the tab. "So what exactly have you all been doing with Voltron?" he asked. And so Allura and Coran began to tell of everything that had happened since they were awoken from cryosleep.
comments would be great y'all
