"Hey Keith," Lance calls out to the teen.
They finally formed Voltron after an impromptu food fight using the goo. Everyone is riding the high of forming a giant robot, this time not in the midst of battle. Which is a lot better in his opinion instead of being shot at by lasers. After forming Voltron, he finally has a chance to talk to Keith. He managed to corner the teen when he was getting out of Red, well, more like he waved at him, and pointed toward the door from the Hall of Lions. Same thing.
He might have ran after him since Keith didn't stop, trailing after everyone else. Keith snaps, "What do you want?"
The raven haired teen raises his eyebrow and he is tapping his foot.
He puts his hands up in mock surrender, and approach the temperamental teen slowly. "Look Keith, I just want to say sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have said that, so…yeah." He moves his foot behind his ankle, waiting for the ex-cadet to answer.
Keith stares at him, and he sweats. He hates it when people are just staring into your eyes, just waiting for you to flinch. "Well," Keith slowly says, "apology accepted."
Lance sighs, his nervous demeanor deflating, he managed to get the hard part of actually apologizing out of the way. He glances at Keith, waiting expectedly for him to say something. His eyebrow twitches when the brunet turns on his heel ambles down the hall.
He huffs, the guy couldn't apologize, even if he did unintentionally spur him on.
'Wait Lance, you should know better. The guy is a desert reclose searching magical energy for almost a year. Might as well prompt him to say it, or give him a reason to why he snapped." Lance's logical side—that sounds suspiciously like his mamí's voice—points out.
Lance jogs up to Keith—for such a short guy, he's fast—who is not that far behind Pidge and Hunk. Everyone is heading toward the command deck, but he hopes to get something out of the teen before they are around everyone.
"But no, seriously. I know that this stuff is touchy and like, most people don't talk about it face to face, but all social constraints few out of the metaphorical window. Like we're in space and not on Earth-so yeah." Lance rambles as he tries out his half-baked plan.
His mind immediately supplies that if there was a literal window open in space, everyone on the ship would be doomed without their Paladin uniform. Dying out in space from the lack of oxygen is not something he would like to experience.
"Yeah. I got it. I just don't like talking about it." Keith replies as he continues on his single minded path to the command deck.
"Why? I mean you don't have to say, but I feel you. I don't like talking about it either."
"Then why are you talking about it?"
Lance rakes his fingers through his hair, "I feel like I still got to make it up to you. I know I'm an ass, I love to compete, but making you mad when we aren't competing isn't a good feeling."
"Lance," Keith suddenly stops, "its okay."
"Right. Right." Lance's tone turns down cast and he looks at the wall. "Shit, I'm acting like him."
"Like who?" Keith prompts, perplexed by his teammate's varying emotions.
"A certain shithead."
He is acting like Keith in the Garrison. The guy did not realize the situation he was in if it didn't pertain to flying, schoolwork, or training. He would ignore everyone else unless someone mentions him constantly or during the rare moments of his head out of his ass.
He should have listened instead of trying to draw it out. Now he feels like a fool because in Keith's reality they are already done with the situation, so he doesn't feel like divulging more information on the topic. Not to mention the guy is harder to crack than throwing a mussel at a tree in hopes of eating its delicious flesh.
Great. Now he's hungry for some mussel.
"You're weird."
Lance dramatically scoffs, "I prefer the word special."
"You're something alright," Keith replies, and he spots a small smirk from the shorter teen.
Lance lightly punched Keith's arm, biting down on calling him something else, figuring the teen never had friends who are casual with their affections toward him. Or that he sees them put an arm over his shoulder instead of flipping him because Keith didn't see him punch his shoulder.
"Dude what the quiznack?" Lance bemoans from the floor as he sits up. "It was just a friendly little punch. This so doesn't count for you one upping me in our rivalry."
Keith steps back and offers his hand. Lance takes the offered appendage as Keith pulls him up. "I'm sorry I didn't see you. It was an instant reaction. I'm not used to people touching me."
'At least he apologized for something.' Lance says as he dusts his paladin uniform.
"You are going to have a hard time dealing with Hunk then," Lance comments as the two of them start walking. "Maybe you can get someone to hug you until they get rid of that."
Keith scrunches up his nose in disgust from the suggestion. He shivers before saying, "That will be a nightmare. Hands always feel too heavy."
This piques Lance's interest. He buries his with, "There's a reason why Hunk is called the gentle giant and his other nickname, chef extraordinaire. Seriously, no one is going to be too rough with their affections. It means they liiiike you."
Keith rolls his eyes at Lance's antics and punches him on the arm. It was a little hard and Lance had to rub his upper arm.
"Come on you two, I swear you walk slower than my abuela and she's eighty-four!" Pidge hollers at them from the door to the command deck.
"We're coming!" Lance shouts as he picks up the pace.
He runs to where the shortest member is, and thinks about what just happened. So he couldn't get Keith to say anything about what he felt about Allura saying her words. Eventually the second shortest member of Team Voltron will say something, anything pertaining to the beautiful princess who happens to be their commander.
"Hey Pidge," Lance says as he gets next to his friend, "can you do me a solid later?"
"Depends on what it is." Pidge replies as the two of them are waiting for the other paladin.
"Can you make something to charge my phone?" Lance lowers his voice, making sure that the raven haired teen can't hear anything. "I want it alive to keep seeing Earth you know."
Pidge tilts his head, and his glasses cast a glare. "I'll work on something for that."
"You are seriously the best!" Lance picks up the brunet and hugs the living daylights out of him.
"Hey! Put me down!" Pidge squirms, "I'm not afraid to kick you again! This time on your groin! Or use my bay-"
Lance immediately drops the young adolescent to the floor, making Pidge lands on his ass. Pidge curses under his breath and Keith passes by them, snorting as he walks through the doors.
"Ow." Pidge complains and Lance offers the other his hand. Pidge doesn't take it grumbling, "I can get up myself."
"So, just some help."
"You dropped me!"
"And you wanted to kick me in my family jewels!"
"Pidge don't threaten to hurt Lance. Lance, don't pick people up unexpectedly. Now would you two please get in here," Shiro says, giving them a slightly disappointed look.
Lance immediately follows through with Shiro's kind order, not wanting to disappoint his hero.
Lance joined Hunk who is close to the door, standing straight and attentive as Allura and Coran are a few paces ahead of them. Pidge, Keith, and Shiro lined up beside them as well—Shiro in the middle with Keith and Pidge to his left—and as Allura briefs them about their ability to form Voltron—he's noticed it's getting easier every time, their minds and hearts syncing together—he glances at Shiro.
Specifically his eyes, well his lashes. They are just so long, thick, and dark. None of his pictures he's seen of Shiro on Earth even managed to capture the image of those marvelous lashes. It's like he had mascara on and also eyeliner of a wing. It's amazing that there isn't any clumping of his eyelashes whenever they are like that. He needs to know the secret of his, because damn he does not like waking up to his eyelashes clumped together like they have been for the past couple of days.
Hunk clears his throat beside him, and he immediately shifts his attention back to the princess. He can't help but look at her hair. Nothing is out of place, part of her hair is tied back, like a braided crown. The rest of her hair isn't frizzy, and he can't help but feel a bit envious, only because he wished he had her hair. Not that length or color, just to have her ability of his hair not to be displaced or frizzy. His hair always gets windblown when he's outside on Arus. Even when Allura is outside and her hair is still perfect. It's weird, but he chalks it up to it being an Altean thing. Allura's hair is prefect and Coran's mustache is out of his world. His eyes look at the hair above Coran's upper lip, and he squints at it.
"—st of the main functions of the Castle are running, the weaponry systems are up and running, but the others will take some time. It will take—" Lance pays attention to Coran a few seconds as he watches his mustache move.
Again, not a hair out of place and Lance wishes he was just like them. It would be so cool. He imagines being in a storm, sort of like a tornado where he survives with the wind attacking him, but he ends up without any cuts marring his skin. Allura would be there fawning over his greatness. His hair will have a slight curl, just like when he gets out of the shower. The princess would fall into his arms—unlikely because he knows that the past few days Allura is made of sturdier stuff—Coran will give him a thumbs up, and Shiro would clasp his shoulder like all of his fantasies, telling he did great. Hunk would be there as well, already dressed in a white tux being the wedding planner and the best man, Pidge would have twigs in his hair and his glasses askew, and Keith would have his mullet messed up while he's angsting about the loss of his thick locks. The hair cut would have to be jaggy because it was from some shrapnel that came from the tornado, but other than that he's okay. Off in the back there is his mamí and papí's home along with all of his tías' and tíos' homes as well. There is the scent of shrimp empanadas and arroz concleche, his favorites from his tía and his own home. He tries to look at them, there are figures in the distance, but they disappear.
Lance realizes he is grinning widely and that there is a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth. He quickly wipes it, and looks around. Looks like the briefing is over and the only one in there with him is Shiro, who is giving him a concerned look.
Uh oh. Already off to a bad start, and he didn't realize that his fantasy could make him forget about everything.
"Shiro, this is important. I understand that we need to do all of the team building exercises," at this Shiro nods, but he is guarded, "but this one thing has been bugging me."
"What exactly is it Lance? Another fight with Keith?" Shiro suggests and Lance shakes his head.
"No. It's friendly competition anyway. We need to have rivals."
"That will cause trouble with forming Voltron."
"We got a handle on it. I swear. Heck, we formed Voltron earlier. But the thing that's been bothering me is your eyelashes." At this Shiro raises his eyebrow. "Like they are just perfect. Heck, it looks like there is a wing, and none of your eyelashes are clumped."
Shiro gives him a blank look before giving him an angelic smile. He chuckles, "That's what was bothering you." Lance nods. "Well I'll tell you my secret."
Those magic words brought Lance closer to the older man.
"Well…" Shiro trails off, and he smirks.
He needs to know, the suspense is killing him.
"It's because…I have double eyelashes." Shiro finally reveals.
What the crow?! That's how he managed to get his eyelashes like that, so perfect and full. All because he has another row of eyelashes.
That is just…"So cool," Lance finally says, as he gets in Shiro's personal space. "Shiro, I wish I could have that, it'll be nice to know I won't have to spend time doing my lashes."
Shiro ruffles his hair with his metal hand, "Well think of it like this. No one will care if your eyelashes are split, so don't even bother doing them. At least this way you'd end up on time for another emergency drill."
The man walks off, and Lance stares in awe. He could spend time on his magnificent hair before coming down. That could earn brownie points with Allura and Shiro if he's a fraction quicker, or if he gets his routine down to a T.
"Will do Shiro," Lance hollers at the man who already reached the door. Shiro holds his hand up without even turning round.
Lance touches his hair, and treds through his chestnut locks lightly. He could still feel the imprint of Shiro's hand on his hair. His skin feels warm from where he put his hand on his head. He's grinning, and he can't help but feel excited for the next day.
He managed to get Shiro to acknowledge him, and Pidge. God Pidge, what he's going to do, if he could do it, would mean a lot to him. He rides on his high by bothering Hunk in the kitchen as they experiment with what is in the Castle cabinets. He pokes fun of Keith at the bare minimum, twice, but made sure that it was lighter than usual. Hunk was acting like his papí when he's prideful about whatever he's done. Heck, even Allura isn't brushing him off that much—maybe because he's toning it down on the flirting to mess around with his Paladins-at-arms—and Shiro mirrors Hunk in a way.
He mainly messed with Pidge during dinner, even though he's making a phone charger for him. He can't help but feel concerned about the young teen, he's been working himself ragged by throwing himself into the med bay, where the aliens they rescued are healing. The poor guy needs to lighten up a bit, even though he's trying to get some kind of information from them.
A few days pass, maybe two or three. To Lance, alien time is weird, going off in cycles that feel shorter than on Earth. Maybe it's because he's in space, and he accidently forgotten about the time on Earth. It's troubling, especially when his phone died about two days ago. He tried to make things last, tried to read the messages from his family, friends, and Hunk's parents. There was too many messages to go through. He couldn't get through all of them, and the phone died on him.
He didn't want to hound Pidge whenever they are doing a team bonding exercise—really exercises and mainly those were fighting in sync—because he wanted to know when he'd get the charger up. It would be unfair because Pidge has been concerned for days—Coran used a word once to call a day but he forgot what it was—with the recently freed prisoners. Some of them are released, but they have to make sure they are all alright. The ex-Galra prisoners have been talking to Pidge and Shiro whenever the team is finished with their training. Lance doesn't have the heart to interrupt those prisoners, and he's heard that Shiro knew some of them when he was captured during his time in the Arena.
He's been using his phone constantly, and trying to limit the amount of times he would turn it on. He was trying to make the battery last as long as it could while he was with Hunk. He gave the guy privacy to make a group chat with his own family so he wouldn't make Agathe and Eli Garret confused to know who they are talking to.
He doesn't want to cause the couple grief, everyone thought they were kidnapped; missing, from what the Garrison said when they contacted their parents. It was one of the last things he has read, which he showed promptly to Hunk, who had a minor breakdown. The two of them don't know what exactly the Garrison told their parents—what the instructors said to Pidge's parents—about their so called "disappearance" from one of the supposedly safest schools in the world.
Lance honestly hopes that Iverson gets demoted or gets put on referral. The man deserves it from the way he's treated him for about two years. The Galaxy Garrison is supposed to be home to promising young minds for aerospace travel, or just airplane travel for those who couldn't get a job in the space program. It is not supposed to be some kind of weird military school full of fifteen to nineteen year olds who are receiving specialized training in hopes of helping out mankind because climate change is a thing that humanity just started working on when there should have been laws put into place at least half a millennia ago.
He feels Blue send him warmth through their link, and he feels it in waves. His agitated soul is cooled from the tranquility of Blue's thoughtfulness whenever he manages to get himself in a mood. He sends her his thanks in the form of happiness. He feels Blue purr in content in the back of his head. It's one of the few things he has been working on the past few days on Arus, trying to commune with Blue. He finally managed to learn how to do that after pouring his emotions on her control panel whenever the two finished with their training.
Lance would have to make an excuse to Hunk—like right now—that he wants to stick around Blue a little longer. Admire her beauty from the outside whenever they aren't training. He would go to Hunk or Coran afterward, bothering both of them either in the kitchen, Hunk finding himself in one of the Castle hauls filled with parts, or at the command deck where Coran usually is when he's running diagnosis checks.
Right now Lance is right outside Blue in her hanger sharing anything he can with her. It's to test their new bond link, to see how far it goes. He knows that he can feel her on the other side of the Castle, but he can't really communicate too well with her just yet. Sometimes he thinks the only reason why she has an edge on him is because she's a semi-sentient feline who has a few years ahead of him. He swears she doesn't look a day over twenty, he even sends a reference to her. Lance feels the mirth Blue sends over to him.
He's right outside the door to the hanger when he's communing with Blue when he hears a set of footsteps behind him and the occasional beeping. He turns around to see Pidge and Rover making their way toward him, and instantly Lance is intrigued about Pidge being down here. Usually Hunk comes down here or Coran. What he notices is that Pidge isn't in his uniform, he's in his regular clothes.
Lance spots a familiar phone in the brunet's hand and instantly he walks toward him. He cannot believe that Pidge finished it up. He even gave him his phone when it died on him so that Pidge could get the right shape to make the charger.
Pidge stops in front of him to greet him. "Hey Lance, still haven't change out yet?"
"Nope, I was sticking around to admire beautiful here," he turns around to wink at Blue, and he sees an image of him laughing. One where he was in his plot seat either today or yesterday when he was doing an obstacle course against Keith.
"Really? I would have expected you to be in your…threads." Pidge shakes his head at the usage of the word. "Anyway I'm here to return something back to you. I had to recalibrate a modicum of wiring for this to work. The charger is half based off of solar energy from the nearest star and a sliver of spare crystal I got from Coran. This is the same thing I use to charge my laptop, crystal is smaller though, but I had to make sure that the battery wouldn't explode." Pidge explains after he hands him his phone and the new charger. "I have to say Lance, why did you want this charger?"
"There's some music that I want to listen to, too remind me of home. I also want to read some messages that my family sends me." Lance admits and waits for Pidge's reaction.
Didn't he answer that question before? Maybe the teen is asking the same thing because his phone died off too early from whatever response he gave him.
Pidge's eyes widen and is mouth forms a small o. Rover was behind Pidge before bumping into the young teen, comforting him. Pidge touches the robot and finally says, "You can talk to them?"
"Not really, or I haven't checked. Mostly messaging because of the data plan. If you remember anyone's number you can contact them." Lance places his hand on Pidge's shoulder, sympathizing with the shorter brunet's poignant attitude.
"It's just that…I forgot." Pidge looks away and moves from Lance's hold.
"Well once my phone's charged I can see if someone can ask the Garrison to release your personal information. That way you can at least talk to your mom or dad." Once Lance said those words he wishes that he could take them back.
Pidge seems to withdraw into himself, but also become determined, if that makes any sense to him. The teen shakes his head. "No, I have more important matters to deal with. Now come on, Allura's calling us."
He catches the cue to change topics so he does. He waves to Blue before catching up to the small teen.
"She won't mind that I take a small detour right?" He says when he looks at his paladin uniform and then to Pidge's casual clothes.
"Maybe. She wants us in the common deck." He replies and Lance nods.
"Right. Be there in a few." He runs ahead of the teen.
"Hey she wanted me to get you their quick!" Pidge yells at him after he ran by him, and Rover beeps rapidly.
"Well make sure to walk slow so I can change!" He hollers at the teen, he's already own the hall and he's heading to his room to change.
"Goddamn it Lance!"
He laughs. He clutches the portable charger and his phone tighter. He can't help but mentally thank Pidge for helping him reestablish his link with Earth once again. He'll definitely shoot his mamí a text to see if she could coerce the Garrison to give him Pidge's family's contact information. Before doing that he needs to see what everyone wrote because there is no doubt in his mind that they are concerned about him and Hunk.
A/N: WARNING: INFO DUMP AHEAD! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!
This takes place right before they meet the Arusians, which is going to happen next chapter if anyone's wondering. It might take a while because I have this other fic I'm working on and I'm trying to plow through writer's block to do it and send it to a beta because I do not trust myself with that thing.
I speculate that Lance's skin care regiment in canon is how he keeps himself grounded in space. Hunk he cooks, it reminds him of cooking with his family and usually food brings happiness to people. Pidge, she's throwing herself into her search for her brother and father, basically becoming a workaholic so she won't deal with her problem of maybe Matt and Sam are not alive (Matt's alive, not sure about Sam. I'm the type of person where I need to see the body for the death to happen). She's also like this because she doesn't want to even think about her mom. I'm pretty sure Mrs. Holt knows that Katie took on Pidge Gunderson as her alias. Keith is 100% on board Voltron because he barely contacts his dad who's a archeologist (btw the shack is a summer home even though it's hot in Arizona). Shiro is going down Katie's route where he's aiming to be the best, while also trying to recover his Earth memories and time in the Arena (although he's hesitant about that because when you're memory is repressed there is a good reason for it).
Allura has Alfor's memories for the time being to cope with the loss of Altea. Coran has some photos of his family and some videos of everyone before the war; he definitely shares with Allura in the dead of night those pictures and recordings. Allura has some photo albums of Alfor and her mother which she'll also share with Coran. The two will definitely not touch the old album of the Paladins of Old, where they have to deal with sadness of seeing their friends dying and it cements the idea that Zarkon, a brother at arms who was once the leader of Voltron, betrayed by their close friend. The very person who managed to have Galra help him attack the very planet they were allied with, possible genocide of other alien species, enslavement of races, either making the Galra more militaristic or he rewrote the social norms during his 10000 year reign (we haven'ts seen regular Galra who weren't in some shape influenced by the military, maybe Sal wasn't involved but *shrug), and the Arena where everyone fights to the death. Using 'insignificant' aliens to battle against one another for the amusement of the commanding officers, and also for some Galras dissenters to keep in mind who they are actually dealing with because it's one thing to not like what your Empire is doing, but still be a part of it compared to being on the other side of the proverbial fence.
I've decided to make the text messages from Lance's family into the next installation when I put this under in a series for AO3. For I'll write out literally that with the Marked Petals: Text Edition or something along the lines because I don't want to take the main focus off this story when I write it down (totally not because it'll take forever and all. Pht whatever gave you that idea? Haha). Seriously though, this is there when I make a vague reference to it when Lance read's the messages because some of them would be phrases in Spanish, the whole text would be Spanish, or some in plain English. I'll be using an online Spanish dictionary because I don't know Spanish at all besides some simple phrases. I'll look on for a beta who could work with me with this. (This will happen once I actually start writing it out after forming a simple character sheet of Lance's family, along with Hunk's family and a couple other characters.) I will be placing where the text messages came from in the chapter area so readers can have an idea to what Lance read/was sent to him during those parts.
This will be a 3 part series, well really two companion pieces and one main fic. Lance's POV, the messages, and also things I want to set up for season three but they are going to be revolving around Hunk. I want to have some things set up for my version of season three before the official one is released later this year. I have a backstory in mind with Hunk that I want to flesh out for a future confrontation in Marked Petals. It'll be used as a reference for anyone wanting to know about how Hunk manages to get in a certain situation.
