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Katie Holt used to want to meet their soulmate. They wanted to see what kind of person would find their company fulfilling. You know, as a nonbinary, asexual, and demi-romantic. (Romance-romance is gross and over-the-top and didn’t seem meaningful or personal enough for the kid. Who wants botanical samples that will wilt and die an early death? Or dinners where you have to dress fancy in outdated gender-specific clothing to eat food that’s way too expensive? An afternoon walking around any number of museums would be so much more relaxing and a better way to bond.) Some people seemed to think that it was somehow okay to voice how awful it might be for Katie’s soulmate to accept a kid like them. A kid who “found sexuality and gender irrelevant.”Despite all the negativity that they faced from the public towards their orientation and self-expression, Katie still eagerly looked forward to meeting their person.Until they were truly old enough and aware enough to notice.Their person got hurt.A lot.Like, a lot a lot.It seemed like every day was a new injury. Sometimes it was something very clear, like a papercut showing up as a small red line on a finger that would fade away. Sometimes, if the injury was bad enough, a hint of sensation would also filter through. Katie remembered the feeling of running into the coffee table shins-first when they were out practicing soccer in the backyard one day, no shinguards, nothing around to cause that pain, but there it was, bringing the kiddo to a stumbling halt. Clumsy, everyday occurrences of kids growing too fast for their coordination to keep up were normal. But this? This amount of what looked like outright abuse injuries? Bruises in “soulmate pink,” the color of a fresh scar, located where nobody could see them in public. Broken bones in an area after a long pressure-pain that reeked of “look what you’re making me do to you.” Bruises in defensive locations . . .Katie had learned what to look for early on.At first, it had worried Katie’s parents. Sam never got over his distress. He wanted so badly to go and help and save this hurting child somewhere, but anything coming from the Holt family side was bound to make a bad situation worse. Katie knew that the cut on her chin she had gotten when she took a chin-dive against the corner of a doorframe the was four would have alerted their soulmate of their existence in a very obvious way. There was another beating that day. Maybe because of Katie’s clumsiness.It hurt. Not physically, but it hurt their heart.The worst was The Night.
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Katie watched, horrified, as angry red lines traced along the inside of her left forearm. Colleen had held her weeping child close to her chest, her own tears splashing hot against the gingery hair. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”“Why?! Will it stop? Will they stop?!”“I don’t know. I just don’t know. Not everyone has what you have with us, Katie. Some people know very deep and scarring pain in many ways very early in life.”“I hate it! I hate this soulmate shit!”The mother didn’t correct the child’s language; this was a unique situation. She wanted to cover Katie’s arm, to prevent more psychological trauma, but she knew that she had to treat the little child as an adult. If she took the choice from Katie to cover their arm and find out later if their soulmate died by their own hand, she knew that it could end up scarring Katie even more. “I know. I do, too.”Katie looked up in shock. From their very young age, they hated that soulmates’ injuries showed up on their counterpart’s skin. Ink didn’t always transfer over without using expensive pens that had a unique chemical makeup, with the really expensive ones requiring the DNA of both soulmates. At the same time, scratches would show up if done carefully, not deep enough to damage skin, and the marks faded within moments. Soulmates would write love-notes to each other all the time, and everyone seemed so very happy with their partners. But Katie never realized that the relationship between their parents was anything other than a fairy-tale romance. “You do?”“There are so many unrealistic expectations that the system perpetuates. People say that your soulmate will entirely fulfill you, erase all your pain, fill your heart to overflowing with their love . . . But that’s all so untrue, little Katie-bird. You can’t save your soulmate alone, and even if you’re perfectly-matched, you’ll never be able to be everything to this person.” She smiled sadly and picked up a brush to start untangling her child’s wild hair. Social grooming always soothed Katie.“Are . . . are you and Dad happy together?”“Yes. Because we both look to help each other find fulfillment in many people, and not just in one person singularly. We balance our lives with connections with many other people. With your father’s soul against mine, I feel complete in a way that goes deeper than most emotions. Without him, I would be a wandering planet.”“What . . .” Katie looked down at their wrist. There were no new lines. “What if my soulmate dies, Mom?”“You’ll . . . you’ll know. I . . . I wish that you never have to experience that until late in your life, dearheart. Your father and I lost a soulmate before we even met them.” She pulled the collar of her shirt aside, showing the so-purple-it-was-black mark a few inches below her collarbone and just left of her sternum, then settled it again. “We don’t know how it could have happened, just the day and time. We were still in college together.”Katie reached over and grabbed a pen, taking the cap off and examining the edges. Putting it in her left hand, she scratched a heart on the fleshy part between her thumb and the back of her hand. And then she carefully scratched a second heart.And another heart joined their first two. And another. And . . . Then there were several hearts being drawn at once, different pressures, different scrapes.Colleen froze.“Oh.” Katie’s face went slack with shock, then bounced into a bright grin. “There’s . . . there’s a lot of us. Good! Oh, good!”Colleen couldn’t tear her gaze away from the sight, tears still falling, but happy to see as Katie switched hands and began drawing hearts along the back of the other hand. She pulled her phone out and began taking pictures, knowing that Katie would want to analyze everything of what they just learned.
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Xs and Os followed those first few scratched hearts, then several languages whispered along the small arms. Colleen saw something that looked Chinese, something in a Spanish dialect, something possibly from the Pacific Islands, lots of English once that became known as the common language for everyone, and then shaky lines on the palm of the left hand drew a scratched heart and a small message.
I’m safe. I’m okay.
I’m sorry.
Colleen pulled out the generic soul-pen that she always kept in her pocket, handing it wordlessly to the little hand that started trembling. “Here. This will be easier. I’ll make sure to have pens for everyone when the time comes.”“This . . . Mom, this is expensive.”“It’s worthless against the price of a life. Write. Go on.”The first scratches had faded, and Katie uncapped the pen with their teeth and spat it out, voice soft as they spoke the words out loud. “We . . . love . . . you. Don’t . . . leave . . . before . . . we . . . meet you. I’d . . .” Katie sniffed hard, and whispered, “I’d be so sad.” They wrote the last words silently, following it with a heart.When Sam saw the footage later that night, he sagged and leaned back against the couch. “This gives me a lot of hope, Colleen. Damn. We got ourselves two smart kids with hearts so big . . .”“How are Matt, Adam, and Shiro doing?”“They’re working things out as they go, Colleen, it’s only been two months. They’re good for each other, even if they’re not all soulmates. Shiro had an emergency to attend to tonight, so he had to miss the study session. But Matt and Adam seem to be getting on all right. Matt’s actually kind of glad that he and Shiro don’t match scars, but Adam seems upset that both Matt and Shiro don’t match up the same, and that Shiro has probably another two soulmates out there. I think, anyway. Adam’s a little difficult for me to read sometimes, and Shiro’s no open book, either.”“Mm. How is Matt helping Adam cope with that?”“How’d you guess?”“I know our son.”“He’s working on it. Adam and Shiro have known each other for half their lives; Matt fits perfectly with Adam in complementary ways to Shiro, but Shiro and Matt only fit together as friends.” He leaned in to brush her nose with a kiss. “You’re anxious about their relationship.”“You know that I’ll be working through my anxiety until we have more word on Katie’s soulmates, and making sure that they’re all okay. I want my babies and their people to just all be okay. It’s the parent in me.” Shaking her head with a smile, the mother pulled her legs up onto the couch. “I’ll be fine, Sam. Just so long as they all know that they can come over anytime if they need help or need anything at all, I’ll be fine.”
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The offer made was taken up the next day. Shiro looked like a wreck; deep circles under his eyes cut through the otherwise-ashen tone of his skin, so he was dismissed from classes early and ordered back to bed. Both Adam and Matt had insisted that they get off-base and away from the campus environment to get his head back on straight. He wouldn’t tell them why he was so upset, or why he hadn’t been with Adam and Matt the night before.When they got to the Holt’s, Colleen welcomed him inside with a firm hug. The kid sibling/gremlin had immediately started in on their brother and teased him mercilessly about Adam. They were happy to see each other and immediately started in on the verbal sparring matches that were vital to their friendship. But Adam, who didn’t know that Katie was really enjoying making their brother blush and squirm? Who clearly didn’t know that Matt absolutely adored encouraging Katie to get more and more inventive and creative with their teasing? Adam finally snapped.“This isn’t a game, kid! Soulmates aren’t easy.”The young face stilled, and Matt looked ready to haul off and break Adam’s jaw. “Adam, that—”“Wow, fuck you too, Adam.”“Katie!” Sam hissed, aghast.But Katie had more in mind. “You think I don’t know that soulmates are a curse, too? I’m glad that you and Matt get along and know each other already. I don’t know my soulmates. And one of them?” They shoved their left arm up, lines still red and raw. “One of them tried to kill themselves last night. I’m fucking twelve, you asshole. I don’t know how old my mates are or who they are, and I can’t fucking dare try to find out because one of them, probably this one, gets beaten on a regular basis. You get it, now? I tease Matt because he has you and he loves you and you love him. And you have Shiro, too, and Shiro’s a badass because he deals with both of you monstrous idiots.”Adam didn’t know what to say. Matt picked his kid sibling up in a bearhug, eyes leaking and mouth moving almost-silently. But Katie burrowed into their older brother’s embrace, so he must have said something that they needed to hear.Shiro was pale, holding onto the doorframe for support and eyes wide, panicked.Sam thought that he was just in shock that Katie had just shut Adam down, and turned to focus on Adam. Colleen touched Shiro’s elbow from behind, leading him off to the study, closing the door. “Takashi?”He held his left arm out, scared to do this one thing himself, needing a parent in this moment. He hadn’t needed a parent to help him for years, but right now . . .She took his arm gently, cradling his hand and pulling the sleeve up to see the exact same lines that sat on her child’s arm. Resting a hand over the new scars, she leaned in and kissed his pulse-point. Then, not breaking skin contact, Colleen guided his head to rest against her shoulder with her right hand on the back of his neck. “You’re scared.”“I’m so much older than she—fuck-they I meant they—are. They. Fuck. Fuck. I’m sorry, Colleen.”“They’d forgive you on this slip-up, Takashi. So do I. But you’re scared.”“I don’t want to hurt a kid, and I’m almost an adult, and they’re like my sibling, like Matt, and I don’t know if I could ever tell them that . . .” He stopped, horrified, and trembled in Colleen’s grasp. “Adam. Oh my God. Adam will be so pissed. He . . . he doesn’t want to know my other soulmates. He’s jealous already. He knows that it was one of the other people last night, and he . . . He’s insecure. It doesn’t make sense! If anything, I should be the one that’s got sharing problems right now because of him and Matt!”“But that’s not you to be the jealous type. You want everyone to find some sort of fulfillment, no matter what kind of soulmate-family is drawn together. Adam fears that you’ll leave him behind, Shiro. Maybe because he’s already left part of who the two of you have been to each other behind in the wake of his new relationship with Matt. Maybe he doesn’t know how to balance more than one partner, especially since his first partner has some serious health concerns.” She stroked her hand through his hair, reassuring him without words that she didn’t see his illness as anything more than a facet of who the young pilot was. “It’s okay to be mad at your soulmate. They’re just as human as you are, and they’re going to screw up. Sam and I fight over a few dumb things, but we also fight over a few really important things. We just don’t do that in front of Matt and Katie.”Shiro shuddered, tears leaking and falling onto Colleen’s shoulder. “I want to be good enough for Katie, when they’re ready to meet me and know me as theirs.”“Oh, Shiro,” Colleen sighed, smiling and pulling him into a full hug. “You already are. I know you, and you already are.”When they walked back out ten minutes later, Shiro was smiling and hiding his pain again with Colleen’s careful help. He stood with his hands clasping behind his back just as he saw Katie uncap a pen. “We’ve been doing this randomly all day today and it’s been pretty cool and I think that it’s helping our soulmate feel better. Watch.” They traced a heart on the back of their hand, along with a smiley-face sticking its tongue out.Within a minute, other lines, different hearts and handwriting started showing up.Katie beamed. Shiro traced a heart with his thumbnail on the fleshy part of his left thumb, close to the palm, then dragged a line to make a series of three lines crossing in the middle. Colleen caught the movement, grinned and watched as Katie gasped. “Oh! Whoops. Someone’s busy somewhere and can’t have anything showing on their skin.”“Which one? Wait, what?” Adam leaned in, watching how several hearts appeared around the asterisk.“This heart. Here. We agreed on a ‘busy,’ and ‘can’t have marks showing’ system, because we want to keep that one soulmate safe. Busy is any symbol on either palm, and an asterisk on the left palm is ‘no marks.’ We’re still working on how to proceed from that symbol to a notification to get help to anyone who needs it.” Katie smiled at the heart. “I hate that my soulmates get hurt. I hate that I’ve hurt my soulmates, too. But I’m glad that my . . . Dad, what did you call it?”“Well, in your case, it’d be a horde of soulmates.”“Dad!”“A flock,” Adam suggested.“A gaggle,” Matt laughed.Colleen snorted delicately. “It’s called a cohort, you plebian walnuts.”Shiro shook his head, shoving his hands in his pockets until the marks faded. “Why not call it a pride?”Grinning, Katie lit up. “Like lions? I like that. A pride of soulmates. Shiro, you’re the best!”And Shiro buried the warmth he felt for the kid deep in his heart.
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The first time that Keith Kogane cared about who his soulmate would be was when he aced that flight sim test in front of his entire class. He knew that his foster family wouldn’t care, but he really wanted someone to celebrate with him. Anyone.And then he was bailed out by a guy barely older than he was but clearly in a better place.If Keith wasn’t sure that he was some shade of gay before, he sure as hell was certain of it now. He hadn’t been able to keep his eyes away from the Garrison pilot and recruiter until he was almost caught staring, and then pretended disinterest for the rest of the presentation.Takashi Shirogane.Everyone should be sexually attracted to that man, regardless of his own sexuality.Keith didn’t people very well, and he got sooo much worse when he had a crush, so it went without saying that hearing the teacher throw him under the bus just made him want to show off how barren his field of fucks truly was. He’d been tossed about in the foster care system, abused by several in many ways, and the only reason why he was with the current family was because the government hadn’t wanted to transfer him to a new school so close to the end of the school year.Shiro was adorable, handsome, disciplined, charismatic, and above all? He fucking cared. And Keith hoped that one day, he’d have a soulmate as wonderful as Shiro was whenever he found them.“Keith—”“Thank you for bailing me out.”“Listen—”“I don’t wanna hear it.”Shiro sighed explosively, and the teenager instantly felt awful that he pushed this man to that point of irritation so quickly in the conversation. He didn’t understand why it affected him, but it was a gut-twisting sensation. “Keith, I know you’re in a rough place—”“Yeah? You do? Do you know how rough of a place I’m in?” Fucking hell, Keith, shut up, shut up, shut up.There was a long silence in the vehicle he had stolen, the streetlights phasing by only showing glimpses of Shiro’s thoughtful expression. Finally, the Garrison man spoke. “I don’t know how bad it’s been for you. I don’t even think that you’d tell me the whole of it, and that’s perfectly okay. What I do know is that I see greatness in you.”Keith opened his mouth to scoff, and Shiro’s fist bumped his shoulder with a chuckle. “Shut it, kid. Let me say my piece, and then you can tell me how wrong I am afterwards.” The next light that they passed revealed Shiro’s grin. “I have never seen test scores like yours, and I helped write, test, and standardize that sim. That greatness? You can achieve it and flaunt it, but only if you apply yourself, discipline yourself, and work on that patience problem of yours. I know you can do that, and I know that you can prove your teacher wrong about you and your aptitude.” He paused, giving Keith the chance to say something. When the silence dragged on, he finally asked in a softer tone, “Why didn’t anyone else come to pick you up?”“They’re my current foster family and they’re done with me and my shit. They don’t fucking care about me. They just want me gone as soon as the school year is done.”“Current?”“Latest in a line of who-fucking-knows how many. I stopped counting. I’m a ‘problem child’ for a lot of families. I’m a kid that’s just so done with trying.”Shiro didn’t hold in his sigh. Well, at least Keith wasn’t going to bullshit anyone about that particular point. This kid had been failed by so many people, so many systems, and it broke his heart. There was maybe a few years difference between them, but it was something that really broke him a little on the inside. He pulled up to the curb in front of the address that the local police had given him, seeing a government car already there and waiting. “What?”Keith’s foster parents had finally had enough of his behavioral problems, calling the two reps assigned to Keith’s care and demanding that they come and pick him up. Shiro watched the teen sag, eyes shining but refusing to let the tears fall in front of his case workers and a relative stranger. “Let’s go see what they want, okay?”“Not hard to see. Those are my suitcases.”Shiro glared at the small bags, hardly enough for all the worldly possessions for a teenage boy. He made eye-contact with the younger of the two case workers, miming that he was going to make a call. The young man looked like he had been awake for days, and he nodded once, moving to talk to Keith and stall for time. Their interaction spoke of a long familiarity, and a lack of judgement coming from the social worker. That in itself eased the pinch in Shiro’s chest.Turning and pulling out his phone, he dialed his supervisor’s number and waited for the irascible man to finally pick up. It took five rings before the sleep-heavy growl of greeting met Shiro’s ear. “Mrh.”Shiro wasted no time. This man hated small talk. “The kid whose sim scores make mine look like shit and that made you ruin a laptop with your coffee? He’s an orphan lost in the foster system, and his recent host family just kicked him out after he, uh, pulled some shit.”“Your charity case now, Shirogane.”“Iverson—”“You’re over eighteen. I’ll send you the packet for the Garrison to take over custody and help him earn his emancipation if he wants it. Don’t fuck this up; we need good pilots like him.”“Look, I haven’t even talked with my soulmate about this; give me two days to negotiate—”“Jeez, no. Two days, Shiro? No. These are your orders, and he’ll handle his emotions or he’ll disqualify himself.” Iverson was harsh, but he knew that Adam would either rise to the occasion, or he would end up earning a broken nose from pushing Shiro too hard.Both knew that the relationship was still very rocky.Shiro sighed, tension draining from his frame. Adam wasn’t his only soulmate. And while it would hurt to lose the man, he knew that Matt was well-matched with him, level and cunning, but daring and adventurous in his scientific pursuits. Matt also knew that Adam needed to “Okay. Thank you, sir.”“You’re welcome. Make sure you let me know when and where I need to show up with popcorn, though.”“Ass.”“You’re the one that called me in the middle of the goddamned night, Shirogane.”The line went dead and Shiro shook his head. Adam will probably pitch a fit and Matt will just spoil Keith because he missed his kid sibling. He was glad for Matt’s friendship and the level way that he handled Adam. Turning, Shiro pocketed his phone and reached into the Garrison vehicle for his work tablet. It loaded with the transfer of custody forms, ready for everyone to sign. Walking up to Keith, he held it out and explained, “This is a choice for you to make. Not me, not your case workers, not any foster family.” He glared at the doorway, where two men stood shoulder-to-shoulder, watching them silently. Anger dropped Shiro’s voice a half-octave into his take-no-shit-dad-voice that Matt was still teasing him about. “Get the fuck back inside; he’s not any of your responsibility anymore.”“He—”“Did he damage any of your property? Cause any loss of value to anything that you own?”“He put holes in the walls.”“Yeah? With what? Fist? Foot? Elbow? Baseball bat? Bowling ball?”The taller man looked a little nervous. “Tacks. For posters.”Shiro couldn’t help himself, he laughed. “Wow. If you had loss of property value, you’d’ve talked to the Garrison about it. But since it was thumbtacks, oh my God.” Shaking his head and cursing in Japanese under his breath, he dismissed them by ruffling Keith’s hair. “Keith isn’t your concern; get back inside.”“I had posters up that they tore down,” Keith whispered. “Of . . . of the Garrison. And your flight.”Shiro grinned, walking into the light deliberately. “We’ll get you new posters. And hell, I’ll even sign them for you.”“Why? When I can sass at you directly, now?”Laughing again, the pilot indicated the forms. “Sounds like you made your choice.”Keith pulled up the bio-scanner, letting his thumbprint scan to show that he approved of this transfer of custody. This was a familiar process to him, but for some reason, this really felt like it was going to be the last time. Emancipation. “I . . . have assets willed to me . . . ?”“Yours upon emancipation or when you turn eighteen, whichever comes first,” Shiro assured him. “We can, if you’d like, take leave to inspect those assets after you’ve settled into the Garrison for a month or two.”“Oh. Okay.”“And one more thing: I’m not going to be a foster parent, regardless of the terminology that you’ve seen before. The Garrison is your guardian entity, and I’m assigned as your primary mentor since we’ve already built a rapport. If you find that we don’t continue to fit, we can work together to find you a new mentor.”“No!” Keith clapped a hand over his mouth. “I don’t want anyone else.” He blushed, looking down at the tablet still in his hands. “I’m . . . I’ll only be trouble.”Shiro took the tablet, scanning his thumb. “Good. We could use the shake-up.”
~*~
“So, what, now you have a son?”“Adam—”“No, you made the decision, so you have a son.”“That’s not how this works, and you know it.” Shiro kept his voice level, calm, doing everything possible to try to appease his mate. “Yes, I tested him on a Sim. Yes, I was the Garrison rep who bailed him out of police custody. Yes, he trusts me, and I also was assigned by Iverson to mentor him while he works for his emancipation through the Garrison program.”Adam threw his hands up in the air, making Keith flinch at the sudden motion and making Matt bristle slightly from where he stood to one side, respecting that this was something between the two older men. All three men caught the flinch, and Shiro realized that he had no idea how to fix this.But Matt had some clue. “Adam, enough, please. You and I have been getting closer and working on our relationship for almost a year, now. Shiro has been more than patient while we established ourselves, but he also could have been doing any number of things instead of focusing on his Garrison career and maintaining the status quo between you two. He could have been out searching for his own soulmates instead of burying himself in making flight sims and Kerberos prep work with my dad. He’s been making his life happen, while prioritizing your needs and wants over his own. That’s unfair.” Taking a deep breath, Matt continued. “He can’t just keep putting his life on hold for you while you figure out how to poly, even after we all went through counseling together.”“Keith just needs crash space for tonight before we get him assigned quarters tomorrow. Adam, I’ve been waiting for you to feel settled with Matt before trying to reignite our relationship. You’re the only person who can tell me when that happens. I’m respecting your desire for that distance.”Before Adam could give a response, Matt grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the room. Keith opened his mouth, right hand gripping his left forearm behind his back, fingernails digging into the skin. He would have to apologize to his soulmates tonight for the crescent-shaped marks. Shiro cut the teen off before he could even start. “This is not your fault; he and I have had a lot of problems and it’s been like this for a while.”“You . . . aren’t in love with your soulmate?”“No. He and I haven’t been in love for years, despite being dedicated to each other.”“I’m . . . I’m sorry, Shiro.”“Sometimes, soulmates aren’t there for romance or love. Sometimes, soulmates are there for someone to learn something. Sometimes, soulmates are platonic. Just . . . don’t expect every soulmate pair or family you see to be loving, romantic, or even at peace with each other.” Shiro was about to say more, but Matt walked back in, taking his glasses off and rubbing at his eyes.“Adam is staying in my dorm tonight, and I’m taking his bed. Oh my God, Shiro. Has his insecurity always been this bad?”“No. It’s gotten worse since you and I got selected for the Kerberos pool. He’s scared because he thinks that he’s going to lose me entirely. I have other soulmates, I could be chosen as Sam’s pilot, everything. So he’s pushing me away preemptively so it doesn’t hurt him as much when I supposedly leave.”“Jeez. After this, I’m almost debating creating some space between him and me.” Shaking his head, he sighed. “I’m going to run an overnight bag to him with a uniform. He’s really pissed, but mostly at himself for fucking up a good friendship with you.” Switching gears, Matt turned on the puppy eyes. “Can you make Keith and I some comfort food? Plleeeeaaasssseee?”The laugh that burst out of Shiro startled himself, and he grabbed Matt for a hug and a raspberry on the cheek. “Yes, I’ll make you my grandmother’s oyakodon. Get.”“Yes! Keith, you’re going to be spoiled!”“I . . . what?”“Shiro makes homestyle Japanese food and it’s divine.” Matt danced out of reach to straighten his cadet uniform and dart into Adam’s room.Keith blinked at Shiro. “That’s it. You really are Space Dad like the tabloids say.”“Goddammit, not you, too.”
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Late that night, Keith stared at the ceiling. He traced the scars along the inside of his left arm, fingertips running over the well-known reminder of his pain. Holding his arm up over his head, he looked at his hands, lit by a soft nightlight that Matt had given him in the shape of the moon. He said that it could link up with his little sibling’s nightlight, and that they had used it to send Morse code messages to each other.Along his arms, he saw the nightly “message board” start up. Hearts on the backs of hands, everyone drawing them in a different style, a game of tic-tac-toe up by his right elbow. Nobody had the soul-ink pens, which was kinda an obvious thing since they were all subadults, according to one smartass soulmate. He couldn’t wait to meet that one. They sounded hilarious. They also were a little shit and would sometimes steal a parent’s soul-pen to copy down a line of text that was particularly hilarious, or an equation that was bugging them. There was very little romance there, but Keith was shocked that he enjoyed the lack of cutesy shit from that corner.A heart bloomed over the scars. Every night at the time he tried to kill himself, this heart would appear. It was a small heart within a larger heart, with lines leading out from the larger heart almost as if it was glowing. The artist was terrible. And it would always be written over with words of love, support, and so many other hearts. He took the time to stare at it and sentimentally kissed the middle heart before it faded. His ever-present Bic pen cap pulled out of his pocket, and he used the long edge to write, “Love you folks. Thank you. Rough day.” The door to Shiro’s room opened, and he jerked his sleeve down guiltily.He was crushing on Shiro (a mentor in title only) while his soulmates were supporting him. God, he was such trash.The man was cozied up in a traditional robe of some sort, shuffling carefully to the bathroom. “Sorry, I didn’t think you were still up. Be right out.”He was gone before Keith could say anything. The young man sighed and looked down at his arm again.When Shiro returned, he sat on the arm of the armchair with careful movements, his voice low. He must have been cold, because he had long sleeves on under what Keith could now see was a quilted haori. “I know that it can be difficult to fall asleep in a new area, and I know that a couch is really not the most secure of places—”“The door locks,” Keith interrupted. “And the bathroom door locks. And I can keep those doors from opening if I need to.”Shiro grimaced. “I hate that you’ve had to learn those lessons so early in life.”“Yeah, well, it doesn’t keep determined people out.”Shiro opened his mouth, froze, flushed, paled, and looked away in less than a minute. Keith sighed. “I haven’t been raped. But it was a near thing a couple times. The only thing that stopped them was me telling them that if anything happened to me, I have at least three soulmates and I could give them an address and they’d be there in less time than it would take for him to fuck me.”“Jesus, Keith.”“Yeah. I think at least one of my soulmates is a scrapper.”“I know at least two of mine are.”“You have a lot of soulmates, too?”“I’ve got five that I can count.”“Jesus, fuck, dude. No wonder Adam is insecure.”Shiro barked a laugh before shaking his head. “No, that’s just Adam. He wants to settle down, wants to have a soulmate that doesn’t want to travel the stars. And . . . that might be me someday. But he’s part of a whole. I have a lot of goals, and if he can’t accept that I have to get some of those done before I’m ready to retire, that’s on him to deal with.”“Like Matt said, you’re making your life happen.”“Yep.” Shiro smiled. “I’ve a feeling that talking about our soulmates would be a little too intimate for you right now, but I hope that they’re doing well. Can you pass that along to them?”“Sure.” No, he won’t.When Shiro had retreated for the night, Keith looked down at his arms again.The gremlin had gotten their hands on a soul-pen.He grinned and enjoyed seeing the designs dance over his arms, covering up the scars of his shame.One day, he wanted to get a real tattoo there, and he wanted each of his soulmates to design part of it. After all, they had kept him together when he had tried to tear himself apart.
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Hunk was ecstatic to finally unpack his dorm and get himself set up. He felt a little like pretending to be an adult, but his parents had all been super happy that he had gotten into the Garrison, and had sent him everything he’d need. And he hadn’t had any idea what all they had packed for him. He was so excited! His Mom probably packed something to do with physics and engineering, while Mimi would have put in something like yarn and knitting needles. And then there’s Dad who would have done something with engines, and Poppa who, oh my god.He had opened Poppa’s box first and it was the cooking supplies. All-new kitchen gadgetry that were . . . oh my god they were dorm-legal and this was going to be wonderful!Squeeing and putting Poppa’s box (hah, that rhymes) into the kitchenette, he turned to open Mimi’s box next, gasping when he found not only his favorite knitting needles, but real wool and what was that under the . . . “Mimi, you are my hero.” He pulled out the box and set it upon the countertop. She had sent him a self-contained greenhouse environment for fresh herbs. His roommate was going to totally love this!If his roommate ever arrived? Hunk shrugged. First in chooses first. Or however that goes.He opened up his Mom’s box next and yes it was one of her old textbooks, with annotations on what’s changed, and where to look for updates on the theories. Hunk. Was so. Happy. He knew she had also sent him some worksheets and theories, under which was some new casual clothing and extra headbands.Setting the textbook aside, he opened Dad’s box last, smiling as he saw some books on old gas engines, fission engines and a few articles on if quantum propulsion can be incorporated.He loved his family so fucking much. Mom and Mimi had been a couple first, and they were suuuuuper gay for each other. They hadn’t known what to do with Dad when they finally got the chance to meet him, and he was cool being platonic with them. He just liked being around his soulmates. Then they wanted a kid, and Hunk didn’t want to know how they had gotten Mom impregnated. Nine months later, he decided to make his debut, and when he was five, Poppa came out of hiding. He and Dad ended up being super gay, so it really worked out well for them. Knowing that he had at least two or three other soulmates really made him happy, too. He really loved the idea of having a big, happy, poly family.The door slammed open, a lanky boy taking a step in just as the door bounced off of the stopper hard enough to ricochet back into the kid’s face.The pain bloomed over Hunk’s nose and with a resulting groan, he held the door open while holding his own face with his hand. “Oh my God.”Silence.“So, you just broke your nose, didn’t you.”“Y-yeah.”“Sure as hell feels like it. I hadn’t thought that part of the proximity-pain thing was real.”The kid walked in, and Hunk closed the door after him. “Did . . . was it you who . . . that night?”“No. I . . . I’m guessing it wasn’t you?”“No, man.”“But I did drop an engine on my left hand? And broke my right kneecap in a freak carnival accident. Great story. Worth the pain.”“Oh my God, I love you already,” The tall, tan boy was already laughing, choking on some of the blood despite his best efforts to keep himself from swallowing any.It hit them both at the same moment. “You’re bleeding on your uniform.”“Shit.”
~*~
Pidge felt like absolute shit. Day one and their soulmate had to be here because holy fuck. They had an absolute idiot on the other side of that metaphorical red string. They had to be at the Garrison, because all studies show that the closer you are to your soulmate, the more you can feel the pain over not just seeing the scars. And that the more soulmates you have, the more intensely you feel the pain the closer you’re gathered.Again, this system sucked.Evolutionists theorized that it was to help people feel empathy for their soulmates.Abuse still happened, and the worst kinds were the abuses that didn’t leave any marks.So there Pidge was, finally settled down in their bunk and half-asleep. Their dormmate had nested down early, happy to have first shower and totally understanding that Pidge liked their privacy. They were still scrolling through their phone, sending messages occasionally, then settling down with some reading. And Pidge sat up with a yelp, tears bursting from their eyes, and swearing up a storm.At least Bri was fucking chill and shared dumb stories about families and soulmates. That had made things better while Pidge iced their nose in hopes of deadening the pain a little.But Pidge had only five hours of sleep total, which was shit. And then breakfast was cold, which was also shit. Then class was bullshit and full of shit and the professor didn’t give a shit. And lunch was gross and was probably shit. And then the afternoon lab was overcrowded and people broke shit they didn’t need to break.Everything was shit.Day one. Shit.End of day two and Pidge tucked themselves into a tight right turn around a corner and managed to nail their face off of someone’s chest with some good speed behind them. “Fuck. Ugh. I’m sorry.” They raised their left hand to rub at their nose. “It’s been a weird few days and I’m going back to my dorm. I’m sorry for running into you.”“Eh, no worries. I take up a little extra space, so it’s good,” the other cadet replied, voice a little tight. Anxious? “And yeah. It’s been a strange few days.”Pidge looked up, still tenderly examining their nose, which still felt broken, despite knowing that it wasn’t really their injury. The other dude looked like his own face was bothering him, too. “Oh? Hey, you’re Hunk, right?”“Yeah.” He shrugged. “And my week hit the epitome of strange. I met my soulmate when he ran into our dorm and the door nailed him on the backswing.”Snorting, Pidge grinned. “Good luck with that space cadet, buddy.”“I’ll probably need it.”“Not going to introduce the soulmate? Usually people gush about their partner.”“Nah, he gushes about himself enough sometimes, which is cool because he likes people to know where they stand with him and vise versa.” Shrugging, Hunk continued. “His name’s Lance. He’s goofy and loud, but—”“McClain? Yeah. Good scores overall, not great, but high marks in the swim and marksman tests. And, uh, unique social skills.” Pidge shrugged. “The Garrison honest collects the strange geniuses.”“And, uh, scholarship students like me,” Hunk added.The bespectacled teen scoffed. “Half-scholarship in your case. And that’s because you haven’t had the chance to really play.” Pidge froze. “Um, that came out the worst way possible.”“Yeah, but you’re honest, and that’s cool. I respect that.” Hunk reassured them, elbowing the slight frame gently. “And don’t think that I don’t know about the Gunderson Wunderkind. Okay, so, look. I feel bad about rushing and running into you—”“It was the other way around, so—”“Can I make you dinner?”“Wait, what?! You just met your soulmate, and you want to make a stranger dinner, when the stranger was the one who actually ran into you?” Pidge’s eyes narrowed.“Not all soulmates meet and fuck like bunnies for a week,” Hunk replied with a laugh. “Look, Lance is also romantic and wants us to date for ‘at least two weeks’ he says, which I’m really down for because I love spoiling people.” The larger teen was blushing under his tan, happy for the chance to explain himself. Of course, just as Pidge was about to grudgingly allow someone to make them food that didn’t come out of a shady school kitchen, an achy echo of pain blossomed over their left eye and they groaned, taking glasses off and gently prodding at the lower bony structure of their eye socket. They’d felt it when someone had gotten that broken once, and thankfully, this wasn’t as bad as that time. “My fists are going to have some words for whoever landed this one.”Hunk had hissed, but froze. That lack of movement made Pidge look up and . . .Hunk’s left eye was bruised. He stared in shock at the little cadet before him before grabbing a hand. “Bathroom! Male, female, which?”“Doesn’t matter! Need a mirror.”Ten feet down the hall was the closest men’s room, and they skid to a halt in front of the mirrors, looking at their eyes, then each other’s reflection.The mark was exactly the same, and Pidge pulled Hunk’s head down to run a finger over where they had bust open their chin when they were four. Finding the corresponding mark, they stopped breathing when Hunk traced the original scar on them. “Oh.”“Yeah. Oh. Oh! Lance!”“Fuck! We gotta see if he’s okay!” Hunk didn’t grab or maneuver Pidge, respecting their ability to move (because it’s not like he wasn’t already crushing on them after seeing their self-defense assessment) while giving directions to their room in the second-year dorms. Within five minutes, they blew into the room and skidded to a halt at seeing the lanky teen draped over his bed. Lance had an ice-pack over his left eye while staring up at the ceiling with an expression on his face that combined dejection, humiliation, and regret.He didn’t jump at the door opening, not even looking as he muttered softly, “Hi, Hunk. I was dumb and fucked up.” Turning his head, his good eye widened in shock. “Gunderson?”“Well, I guess it’s ‘Pidge’ to you.” They crossed their arms over their chest with a sigh. At least they now had some idea of some of the absurd injuries their soulmates were getting into. “Okay, which of you assholes broke your left hand?”“Me,” Hunk replied, voice reverent. “Oh my God, I thought that scar looked familiar, but you keep it really well-hidden.”Pidge pulled off their uniform jacket, not caring that the edges of their binder was easily seen under the standard-issue undershirt. Pointing to the scars on the inside of their left forearm, they whispered hoarsely, “Who.”Lance dropped the icepack and he and Hunk took off their jackets as well, showing matching soul-scars to Pidge’s own, though their pale skin showed the lines more clearly than the boys’ tanned tones.“Neither of us,” Hunk replied.Lance replaced the ice pack on his face. “Yeah. I was a basket case until we all started writing messages.” His voice went from hoarse down into a whisper. “I’m . . . I’m also having some trouble with . . . I mean, I was told all my life that there was only one person for one person . . .”Pidge had instant empathy for Lance. They moved closer to adjust the cloth softening the chill of the ice-pack against Lance’s eye. “You were taught that binary pairs were the only way for soulmates to happen, huh?” With a sigh, they sat next to Lance’s hips. “My family and I had theorized that there was more than three of us, but less than seven. Every day during some of the really bad times, we were looking for a black mark.”“Me too,” Hunk whispered.Pidge made direct eye contact with Lance. “I’m glad that there’s more than just me for you. I’m really glad. I’m ace, I’m sex-repulsed, and I don’t even want a gender right now.”“Pidge, I don’t think that I could handle two romantic relationships right now, anyway.” Lance was quick to reassure the third soulmate in his . . . Wow, he actually had a cohort. That was going to be weird but super cool. He was still shaky, but he calmed further when Hunk moved closer to run one hand through short hair, leaning into the touch with suspiciously-shiny eyes. “Can-can we be friends first, Pidge? See how that goes?”“I’m very much okay with that.”“Hunk struggled with himself before asking, “Can I hug you, though? I mean, does platonic physical touch bother you? If it does, that’s totally cool, but I’m also from a very huggy family, and know that Lance is, too, and if you don’t want touch at all, I’ll be doing my best to respect that, but I also would like to hug you because I think that you’re fantastic, and you totally already fit in with me and Lance, so is that okay, or if it’s not I mean you just have to tell me, I mean, us—”“Oh my God, Hunk,” Lance whispered, cutting him off. “You’re babbling and it’s fucking adorable, but Pidge is totally giggling too hard to answer you.”It was true. Pidge was giggling.They snorted.Lance and Hunk fell apart into their own giggles, the tension breaking and all three relaxing. When Pidge finally had control of their voice, they replied, “I’m okay with hugs, Hunk. My family’s pretty tactile, too. Oh. Do we want to tell the Garrison about us?”“Oh, nope. Not yet. I don’t want to deal with that paperwork,” Lance replied swiftly. “Not this early in the semester at least. Um. Can we tell our folks? I know that my parents would want to hear about this, but . . . they might be a bit less-than-accepting of more than one person?”“We can totally tell my folks,” Hunk replied.“Same with my Mom,” Pidge added. “And she lives close by, so we can drop by there at some point.” Maybe. If Pidge wanted to tell their soulmates about Kerberos and the alien chatter. “What’s your family like, Hunk?”“Oh my god. My moms and dads are wild. Poly family like woah, okay? It was my moms and one dad had me, and then my second dad finally showed up later on. It all worked out pretty well for them, and they’ll adopt everything into the horde like the hooligans we are.” It was clear that Hunk was proud of his family, and that to have a balanced polyamorous relationship group was very important to him.“You don’t have to sound so proud of that fact,” Lance grumbled, even though he was smiling. “I think that my family will ultimately accept this, but they’re going to have a hard time with it. Nobody’s had more than one partner in my town for generations. At least that I know of.”“Fine. Anyone gives you shit about us or bitches about me being ace, you send them to me,” Pidge narrowed their gaze, eyes glittering.“Um, no, I give you what’s left of them to finish off, because I won’t be able to stop myself from breaking at least their nose,” Lance retorted hotly.“Okay, but quick talk about boundaries,” Hunk interjected, all seriousness and business. “Pidge, what are your physical touch and romantic boundaries?”They ignored him, and Pidge retorted to Lance, “Look, you need to not be fighting because that affects your pilot eligibility. You saw how fast they washed Keith Kogane. Hell, I wasn’t even enrolled last year and I saw how fast they got rid of him for ‘disciplinary issues.’”“Wow. I heard those air quotes.”“I hate Iverson and I think he’s full of shit and his own ego. So shit.”“I . . . oh, wow. Hunk, can we keep the gremlin?”“Why the fuck does everyone call me a gremlin?!”“Because you are.”“Look, I can get you into being an ace pilot and get Hunk into being the most sought-after mechanical engineer in our year.”“Okay, so you’re our mastermind. I can get behind that.”“Seriously, folks, can we focus more on the us part and not the who we’re beating up part?”“Sh, Daddy and Spousey are talking,” Lance replied swiftly. “Pidge, how does any of our success in our fields benefit you?”Hunk had smiled at Lance’s instant acceptance of Pidge in their lives. But Pidge looked ready to cry. They shook their head, not wanting to respond. Lance brushed his hand through the gingery hair, his voice soft. “You’re never going to fight alone again in your life, Pidge. Anyone says that asexuals don’t have a place with their soulmate will be eating their teeth. Fuck them with a rusty jackhammer. Asexuals aren’t ‘broken,’ you’re not ‘unnatural,’ and nobody can say that you don’t have a place with me and Hunk.” He moved his hand down to hold Pidge’s.“Look, I’m going to court you as non-romantically as possible,” Hunk replied. “I’m gonna make you comfort food, find you new tech, try not to touch your current projects (but that’s going to be really hard because I can already tell that you’re amazing at engineering and I’m drooling over what else your brain can do), and give you hugs and a safe place and remind you to take that binder off at the end of the days, because I know what a broken rib bruise looks like, and I’m pretty sure that I’ve had two in the last year from you because you forgot.” He paused. “Unless you don’t want me to, in which case, I totally respect—”“Hunk,” Pidge laughed, taking his hand. “Breathe. So long as you don’t start doing the super-mushy shit, I’m okay with you courting me a bit. And yeah, I forget to take my binder off and I’m sorry. I’d, uh . . . I don’t mind reminders?”“Okay.” Lance squeezed Pidge’s hand. “Unless we really screw this up, please don’t put walls up between us?”Pidge’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. Hunk tried to make himself look smaller. “Look, I think we’ve gotten to a good point, and lights-out is in two hours, but I have one more thing to say. I’d like to start a queer-platonic relationship with you. Maybe a little romance by how I define it?”“H-how do you define it?” Pidge held onto Hunk’s hand with a death-grip.“Like how I said it earlier. Food, hanging out, talking, hugging?”“Nothing else?”“Platonic snuggles?”“Only if your primary partn—”“Nooooope,” Lance interrupted, jiggling Pidge’s hand to get their attention. “We all met literally within twenty-four hours. There’s no way Hunk and I are primary partners. This is an equal thing, okay? I just have baggage to unpack and sort through.” He blushed. “And I love snuggling and if I get hard, please forgive me and don’t make fun of me and hand be a pillow so I can put it between us if that happens?”“How are you already planning this?”“My brain never stops.”“Mood.”“Same,” Hunk agreed.Lance looked at them, then pulled the ice pack off. His eye wasn’t as swollen, but he’d have a brilliant shiner in the morning. “Okay. So. Talk to me, Pidge. I have an important question.”“Okaaay?”“Do you play video games?”Hunk snorted, kissing Lance’s cheek and dropping a kiss to Pidge’s crown. “I’m going to get dinner started. You’ll be here a while.”And when Pidge settled down for the night after curfew, they realized that none of the initial awkwardness had carried through the rest of the night. It was simply easy, no stress or pushing or anything outside of three people hanging out, including Hunk making miracles happen in the “dorm kitchen” that consisted of a toaster oven, a double hot plate, an electric kettle and a variety of other knick-knacks that seemed to be either antiques or so outrageously specialized that Pidge could only guess at their function. It was cozy for them.They still hated the whole system, no matter how amazing these two of their soulmates were. Hunk and Lance respected their ace-agender stuff. Even their demiromantic tenancies were respected, and Hunk’s version of how he wanted to romance them was almost entirely platonic. It was weird. But like, the cutesy shit that Pidge had seen so many others do? It was nauseating. Hunk just liked spoiling the important people in his life.Pidge couldn’t wait to tell Mom about their soulmates.They fell asleep with a smile on their face for the first time in over a year.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Pidge stared hard at their laptop before sighing. The guys would figure out soon enough that they’re not exactly who they said that they were. And that was a bit of a problem. Just a bit. They had started including Hunk and Lance with them on their clandestine after-curfew monitoring of frequencies permeating Earth’s atmosphere. It was frightening on a level that there wasn’t more talk about this anywhere online, but then again, most of the people who would want to know if there was life “out there” would probably already be working for the Galaxy Garrison, and if they were here, then they were probably listening to the same things Pidge was . . . and not talking about it to anyone.The chatter that during the late-night alien surveillance sessions had started getting excited in the last week. There was something going on outside of their solar system, something big, and Pidge . . . Pidge couldn’t do this alone anymore.They needed their boys to help.That was a scary thought.The dorm door opened, admitting Bri’s bag as a thrown item onto the bunk before Bri herself sauntered in. That saunter meant trouble, and usually for someone else. The Californian girl not only could take care of herself, but had the temper to make sure that any lessons stuck. “Pidge, why are boys dumb?”Snorting, Pidge went back to the signal analysis before tonight’s scanning session. “Don’t ask me.” Leaning back, they pulled their glasses off to clean the lenses. “I’ve got two masculine soulmates. They’re teenage boys, and I don’t think that their brains run for more than ten minutes without hormones wiping the slate clean. I don’t understand them, either.”“Yeah, but you’re like, part male. So you should have an in for me. C’mon.”Pidge snorted. Bri sassed at them like Matt had done, and the familiar humor, while potentially offensive to some, soothed a part of Pidge’s heart. “I like you, so I’ll let that slide.”“You like me because I’m a female version of you.”“Not wrong. Okay, so I’m agender. I don’t know why guys or girls or whatever their gender is stupid. Humans are stupid in general.”With a more delicate snort and a grin, Bri flopped onto her bed, avoiding the bookbag and the other various equipment that gathered there. “Fair enough. How goes hacking?”“Meh. How was avionics?”“Meh. This is all review for me. I learned some of this stuff when I was, like, five.”“Ugh. Take your genius and get out.”“Like you didn’t test out of year one here. I just wish that I could test out of this class, since it’s booooring, and the teacher isn’t going to talk about anything other than the basics.”“Well, it’s a prereq for a reason.” Pidge turned at a notification that popped up in their phone.Hunk’s orange chat window was flashing with a single letter message. [B!]That jerk. How dare he look out for them. Huffing a laugh, Pidge typed back, [already off, like, an hour ago]
[yay! food in 30]
Getting up with a groan, Pidge saved their work and began clearing off their bed. As with most dinner-dates, they would get back to the dorms just before the lights-out curfew and be ready to just fall into bed. If the schedule was right for everyone and the weather was good, they’d go up on top of the building tonight. But if not? Lance had some serious skill with scalp and shoulder massages, and it was something physical that wasn’t sexual or romantic or anything other than Lance being Lance and wanting some physical touch. That was one of their compromises, and it worked out well for them. And it had the amazing effect of making Pidge sleep like a baby for eight hours.“I’m being harangued for dinnertime. You good if I use the shower now?”“Yeah, have at. I’m still jealous that not only do you have a soulmate that cooks, but one that also knows how to massage.”Grabbing lounging clothes, which included a sweatshirt that Pidge had “stolen” from Lance, the hacker paused before going into the en-suite bathroom. “I’m not sharing Lance, but we can try to organize a potluck one of the weekends before we have the holiday break?”Bri perked up, then narrowed her eyes. “No. I’ll organize the potluck. You just met your soulmates and should continue getting to know these two. I’ve known mine for two years. Get. Go enjoy your shower.”By the time that Pidge got to the guys’ dormroom, they still hadn’t figured out if they should tell the duo or not about their dilemma. They waited in front of the door for long minutes, until Lance himself stopped beside Pidge, not moving to open the door. He waited for something to be said, but when Pidge didn’t move or make eye contact, he bumped his elbow to their shoulder. “Hey.”“Hey.”“You okay?”“No.”Lance blinked, elbowing Pidge again. “I’m not dismissing that, but Hunk needs inspiration for dessert tonight.”“Peanut butter cookies.”“Wow. Really bad day, huh?”“Sorta.”Lance opened the door, offering the elbow he had been prodding Pidge with as an old-fashioned gesture. They took it slowly, allowing him to lead them into the room, then onto Lance’s lap once he was seated at the small table. The fact that they curled closer broke the part of Lance’s heart that was owned entirely by his favorite gremlin. He tightened his hold, snuggling them against his heartbeat. “Hunk, we demand peanut-butter cookies. Work your magic.”“Thank God that someone finally chose dessert. Here, Pidge; try this.”“What is it?”“Stovetop chili, and I used some pretty spicy peppers in this nonsense. This should wake the dead.”Pidge, now a month into relationship with these two idiots, was happy to try the chili. Hunk never disappointed with what he claimed to have created. And this? Was divine. “Hunk. This is perfect.”“Awesome! Okay, what pissed you off?”“I’m afraid.”Hunk blinked, tapped the clean spoon off of Pidge’s nose, and turned back to start dishing the chili. “Why?”“Because I have a secret and I’m scared that you’ll both view me differently.”“Well, we’re not like we’ve been childhood friends and know everything about each other. We don’t know enough about each other yet to really have any solid—”“My name is Katie Holt. My dad is Sam Holt and my brother is Matt Holt.”Lance stiffened slightly, then turned and peered around at Pidge’s face. “You got . . .” He narrowed his gaze and grinned broadly in the most cat-got-the-canary shit-eating grin. “You had no glasses, long hair, and a bitchin’ death-glare when they caught you hacking last year. I’m still in awe that you got as far as you did”“Yeah. I failed.”“No, you attempted something without both proper backup and a proper lookout, and by no fault of your own, since I know that they changed a lot of procedures after your hacking attempt, you were outsmarted by people who have had more experience than you at subterfuge.” Lance smoothed a hand through still-damp hair, soothing Pidge with motions as well as words. “So you’re really here to look for Matt and Officers Holt and Shirogane.”“Yeah.”“Cool. We’re in.”“. . . what?”Hunk set down two bowls of chili topped with shredded cheese, then grabbed his own portion and a plate of buttered, crusty bread to put in the center of the table. “So. You want to find your father and brother. We have no reason not to help you because the Kerberos mission just reeks of a cover-up.”Pidge felt their eyes sting, and their vision began to blur. “You . . . you don’t . . .”“No, we do.” Lance hugged Pidge closer. “Does your mom have any black soulmate marks?”“One, from before I was born. But the Garrison didn’t believe that it was valid, and tried saying that it was dad’s death-mark. But it’s not. She had that mark on . . . back on that night and showed me what it looked like in case we lost someone that night.”“Then your dad is still alive. And if your dad is, then Shiro and Matt have to be, too.” Lance dared a kiss to Pidge’s nose. “We’ll find them.”
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Food shopping for Lance and Pidge was a joy for Hunk. He loved finding a way to make a simple base for a meal, then dress it up for their individual tastes. Right now, Pidge was all about sweet Thai chili sauce, and Lance wanted more Cuban and Cuban-fusion flavors. Both Hunk and Pidge were sensitive to Lance’s homesickness, so they helped him in different ways. Hunk made homestyle food, and Pidge would help distract their goofy, sweet soulmate with video games and some of the most amusing sparring matches that would have all three crying with laughter.Lance was a treasure. Insecure and earnest, he would by turns cling to Hunk or Pidge or push them away. Pidge had reassured Hunk that this wasn’t The Actual Worst, and that they’d once witnessed a soulmate had entirely repudiating their partner. Lance was just trying to figure out how to make it work without feeling like he was being selfish. He spoiled both of his partners equally, and would apologize for his behavior while trying to adjust it when he had the mental energy to spare for fixing himself.Hunk reached for a new bag of rice, his hand colliding with another’s on the way up. “Oh! Dude, I’m sorry.” He stared at the person beside him. “Holy shit. Keith Kogane?”Before the other teen could say anything, a message flowered over Hunk’s hand. They had one “soul pen” to share among the three of them, and it was used only when . . . oh, he’d forgotten his phone at the dorm again. Whoops. He shook his head with a sigh. “That gremlin’s coffee addiction just isn’t healthy. I knew they’d finish that canister off in the next two days, but today? I’m gonna have a ‘talk’ with them . . .” Checking the list in his hand, he caught a glance at Keith, who was . . . paler than usual? “Dude, you okay?”Keith stared hard at Hunk, then pulled out his Bic pen cap and scratched a checkmark on the back of his hand next to the message of Hunk get coffee so I don’t piss off Iverson.The check-mark showed up on Hunk’s skin. He didn’t grab at Keith’s hand, but simply stared at it, then at his own, and then up to make eye contact.Keith was frozen, pencap clutched between shaking, bloodless fingertips. Hunk let him take his left hand, comparing the Famous Engine Incident scar to the mark on his pale skin matching the uneven edges. “Do you know how many of us there are?”“We thought four, possibly five. There’s three of us at the Garrison right now.”“Five so far as I know, then. I know our fifth.”“Wow,” Hunk breathed. “Five? Where are they?”Keith looked heartbroken, and he could only shake his head. “Not here, and not safe.”Hunk seemed to have already come to that conclusion, as he had simply nodded and released a deep breath. “Okay. I don’t like that, and I think you like that less than me since you already know this person.”“It’s a guy. He’s . . .”“You don’t have to tell me, dude. If he’s in danger, his identity doesn’t matter. If me knowing who he is can get him in worse trouble, I don’t wanna know his name. What matters is that we find a way to help him,” Hunk brushed the pads of his fingers over the back of Keith’s hand, not wanting to overstep his boundaries. He was surprised when Keith reached up, eyes determined and terrified, to brush his hair away from his face, brushing his cheek on the way down while maintaining eye contact. Fear and hope warred in indigo depths, face still trying to hide any emotion outside of a scowl. Hunk smiled at this, catching the smaller hand in one of his for a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “Is there anything we can do for him now?”“No.”“Okay. Then I’m going to rope you into my grocery shopping. I cook for my genius-level idiots, and since you were at the Garrison, that now includes you, too.”“For which part, the genius or the idiot?”“Yes.”“Wow. Jerk.”“Your jerk.”“Your mom was a jerk.”“My moms can kick your ass. My dads will watch and make hors d’oeuvres.”Keith couldn’t help the huff of laughter, and he found himself swept along with Hunk after the taller teen had grabbed a much larger bag of rice. “That’s fair.”“So. I’m making dinner at the Holt’s tonight, since we’re off this weekend and needed to get away from the Garrison politics.”“Oh my God, how are you able to handle that?”“I duck my head down and show them the personality that they want to see. I know that wasn’t your style, though. But this is good, because I kinda-sorta need a civilian soulmate outside of the Garrison to help keep me sane.”That was a lie, and both knew it. But the Garrison was a little scary with how many ears they employed, so it was less of a lie and more of an acknowledgement that Hunk needed help with getting his hands on something that the Garrison didn’t want anyone to get.“Wait, the Holt’s house? I, uh, I know Colleen.”Hunk paused along the condiments, checking his list, then eyeballing brands before settling upon an import, paying a little extra for it but it was one of three brands that Pidge had personally approved. “You don’t have to come if it makes you uncomfortable, Keith.”“I’m—”“I can always leave you some food there and you can pick it up later.”Keith stopped walking, and Hunk turned to face him. “Hunk, why are you doing this for me? You just met me.”“Nope. Not ‘just’ met you. We’ve been talking for years, Keith, but I just didn’t know your name or face. I want to help you because you’re ours, and we’re yours.”“Are . . . are the others there already?”“Naw, they’re finishing up their first final of the semester for a class that I took last semester, and won’t be at Colleen’s before seven or eight, depending on which shuttle they’re able to catch. I took public transit to get here and Colleen said she’d pick me up when I was done.” He blushed a little, fidgeting with the handles of the basket he carried. “Can . . . can I make you something? Some food, I mean?”“Oh my God, yes. I’m fucking starving and I suck at cooking.”Hunk burst into snickers. “I got you. And I’ll show you how I’m making everything tonight. I’ll keep it simple for you, and write down the recipe and some ideas on how to dress it up. Where are you staying?”“A shack in the desert. Turns out that once I was emancipated, my dad’s estate was released to me. So that’s my own spit of land to rule.”“Badass. No mom?”“She died when I was a kid. She was cremated, and Dad never set up a headstone for her. He said that she was a free spirit and hated graveyards, and he scattered her ashes somewhere that meant a lot to both of them. He never told me where, only that he’d bring me when I was old enough to make the journey. Why the hell am I telling you all this? I’ve only told this to our other soulmate.”“Isolation in the desert makes social creatures like us a little strange,” Hunk replied. “Besides, I think the only person you ever really opened up to that I know of was Shiro, but that guy could make rocks spout honey. And you’re a pretty secretive guy anyway.”“What do you know about me?”“Keith Kogane, ace pilot, orphan, tragic life story, cadets and even a TA or five swooned over you.”“Ugh.”“Yeah. Lance—”“Competitive lanky kid? Cuban?”“And he’s one of your soulmates, man.”“Oh. Great. He hates me, doesn’t he?”“Probably frustrated by you. He doesn’t hate many things.” Hunk had started moving again. “Give him a chance; he’s trying to adjust to going from no soulmates to having two of them around. He never really processed that he could have more than one romantic partner.”“Wait, what? We’ve known for years that there was a chunk of us.”“I know. My theory is that he didn’t realize we’d all be this freaking awesome.”Snorting, Keith shook his head. “Probably more than likely that he was told that he could have a lot of soulmates, but only one would be a love-match, and all the rest had to be platonic or sibling relationships.”He and Hunk had been neutral around each other last semester, and had been able to work well with each other’s personalities before the more volatile teen had been washed out by the administrative team. Shiro had been the only one who could corral and focus Keith’s attention and energy. Taking a sigh, Keith replied, “I’ll stop by. Matt and I were good friends and I haven’t checked up on Katie. They’re bound to have gotten into trouble without proper supervision.”Hunk snorted. “That’s a truth. You’ll really love hearing what they’re up to, but I’m not spoiling any secrets.” Grabbing some snacks that had some decent nutritional value, he made sure to get quantities that would feed all four of them. Keith followed along, and their conversation dissolved into small talk, comments and bursts of quiet laughter.
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Keith ended up giving Hunk a ride to the Holt’s, carefully stowing the groceries away in a compartment while giving his passenger a brief safety and etiquette rundown. Hunk hadn’t felt too sick, and honestly wondered how much of his motion sickness was simply due to Lance’s still-young piloting skills.Once they arrived, Colleen had made a big to-do about Keith finally “coming home,” and fussed over him. Within half an hour, he had been seated at the kitchen counter with a piping hot Turkish coffee and a handful of cookies. (Hunk had a sudden understanding of where Pidge’s caffeine addiction came from.) The mother alternately spent time helping Hunk with prep and invading Keith’s personal space with enveloping hugs. It had been almost a year since they had last seen each other, and the teen felt awful about avoiding the Holt residence.Colleen waved that off. “Keith, I know how close you were with Shiro, and I know how well you and Matt got along. Losing them hurts.”Hunk shoved the last casserole dish into the oven to crisp the top layer before walking over and offering his hand palm up over the island. Keith had removed his gloves with nervous motions on the walk up to the front door from where he had parked the skimmer, and Hunk had removed his in order to cook. The contact was subtly electrifying when Keith’s slightly-damp palm met Hunk’s dry, broad palm. Hunk moved around the end of the counter so that they didn’t have to stretch so far, thumb making slow, smooth strokes over the paler skin. His presence gave Keith the bravery to ask softly, “Which hearts are yours?”Grinning, Hunk replied, “The bunches of balloon hearts on strings.”“Oh my god, that fits so well.”“Right?!”The front door slammed open, voices filtering down the short hallway towards the kitchen and living room area. Hunk leaned down and brushed a soft kiss to Keith’s cheek before releasing his hand. The indigo eyes darkened and the pale face bloomed into a magnificent blush as he shoved his hands into his biker gloves again. They hid the most telling of all the visible soulmate scars. “Unfair, Hunk!”“Damn right!”“Keith!”The young man was knocked off of the chair with a flying tackle that landed both himself and the person who had tackled him half-under the kitchen table a few feet away. Keith pulled his head back far enough to see the identity of the small form in the Garrison uniform. “Woah, what? Katie?! Jesus, kid, what are you doing at that shithole?” Despite the words, Keith was laughing as he squeezed them in a hug. “You cut your hair!”“You stopped coming by to brush it!”“I’m sorry.”“You suck.”“I do. Happily. Sorry, Mrs. Holt.”“Gross,” Pidge groaned.“Gay? Duh? Not all of us can be as enlightened as you, Oh Asexual One.”“Woah, woah, Pidge . . . you know Kogane?” Lance peeked under the table, seeing how the two held each other with a level of comfort that Pidge hadn’t reached with either himself or Hunk.“Keith, Shiro, and Matt were all good friends, and he came over a lot while everyone was preparing for the Kerberos mission.” Pidge snuggled in closer. “He runs hotter than some other humans, and would make me nests and warm them up for me when I got sick before Matt had been chosen for the mission.”Keith locked his arms around Pidge. “I was an ass for ghosting. I’m not used to having family who sticks with me like you guys did. I’m really, really sorry Katie.”“Mm. Just don’t do it again.”“I won’t.”“Also, meet two of my soulmates, Hunk and Lance.”“Hunk didn’t say he was yours—”“Excuse me, Keith, they’re mine—”“Hunk. Be realistic.”“Okay, so I’m theirs.”“Anyway,” Keith rolled his eyes. “I thought that you were just friends with him.”“Yeah. I’m not really Katie anywhere but here, now. I’m called Pidge Gunderson when we’re at the Garrison.”“Colleen created a new identity for you?”“Yup.”“Nice. Explains your stunning regard for rules.”“Keith, any news about Shiro?” Colleen reached down to ruffle her spawn’s hair, moving to do the same for the quiet boy that Matt had folded into the Holt family. She loved being known as a bad influence when she kept up such a spotless persona as a “Garrison Spouse.” Keith hoped that she wouldn’t go into detail about him and Shiro . . . He knew she had sworn secrecy to Shiro, but he hadn’t had a chance to follow up with her about which secrets she would continue keeping.“Nothing. I’ve been working on other projects for a few other things that aren’t adding up. There’s some weird energy popping up on some scanners I’ve set up around my house, and it’s like nothing I’ve seen before, so I’m trying to track down the origin in my spare time. I don’t think it’s anything human, though.”“Wow. You and Pidge do believe in alien conspiracy theories, don’t you,” Lance murmured in shock. He was the next recipient of Colleen’s affection, with a kiss first to his cheek and then to his forehead. “They’re not theories if I’ve been monitoring alien chatter,” Pidge replied testily, glaring over the frames of their glasses. “Hell, you’ve heard alien languages on that recording I showed you just yesterday. But I’ll give you that there’s a conspiracy without any of the tin-foil-hat level of paranoia involved.”“No shit, you found their frequencies?” Keith sat up a bit but they were interrupted by Colleen. “I want to see if they match what I’ve been recording.”“You two wait until after dinner to compare notes.” She turned back to Lance. “You keeping watch over my kid?”“Yes, ma’am!” he replied proudly.“Hunk, you feeding my Cuban boy enough homestyle foods to keep up with his metabolism?”“You bet!” Hunk looked proud of this fact.“Pidgeon—”“Ask Hunk his worst grade,” they replied proudly.Colleen raised an eyebrow and Hunk grinned. “It’s an eighty-two average in an elective communications course. Everything else is a ninety-four average, and I’m ahead on my assignments.”Pidge grinned and pointed to Lance. “Tell Mom what you did yesterday!”Lance blushed. “I have a ninety-eight in Navigation.”Keith just stared at this boy. “Navigation with Rickman?”“Yeah?”“Shit! I never got above an eighty-five with that asshole!”“Pidge did you make me better than Keith?! I love you!”“Gross. Love. Ew.”“Says the gremlin who steals all my heat because I love them,” Hunk interjected, pulling Lance closer to wrap arms around the thin waist.“Oh, good to see that Pidge’s love declarations are still interchangeable with heat-leeching. Have you dealt with the Icecube Toes, too?”“Oh my God, those are the worst,” Hunk groaned. “Movie nights are entirely interrupted!”Lance relaxed back against Hunk, watching how the Garrison “dropout” had maneuvered himself and Pidge to sit against the kitchen island. “Wow. You’re super different than when you were at the Garrison, Keith.”Hunk tapped Lance’s hip twice, his voice a hiss. “Lance, manners.”“I don’t know you yet, and I have a lot of reasons why I was stressed out at the Garrison. None of which I feel like going into until I’m sure you’re not going to go and blab gossip about why I really left that place.” Keith pulled Pidge’s glasses off of their face and began massaging their scalp as a way to distract himself and keep his hands from reaching out and strangling the tan boy. “Kid, you’re pushing yourself too hard. Matt and Shiro would be harassing you about your shitty habits if they were here right now.”“Well, then fucking step up.”“What do you think I’m trying to do?”“Massage my scalp while wearing bike gloves. Which is a new modality for you. Do you charge extra for the leather kink?”“Katie!” Colleen gasped.“Mom!” Pidge mocked back gently, grinning.Keith shook his head. “Like you don’t think that they’ve found some, uh, things while hacking, Mrs. Holt.” He shrugged. “What name do you want me to use, and are you using the same pronouns?”“Pidge is good. And so long as the pronouns aren’t feminine, I’m good.”“Cool.” He stopped massaging long enough to hug them. It was good to be home with some of the people he considered his family. Keith just wished he was brave enough to tell them all who he was to them.And who Shiro will be to them.
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It was a well-known and warned fact that if an injury was bad enough, the pain was shared between soulmates. It happened at least once a semester at the Garrison that a soulmate dropped. Their soulmate could be across the globe, or the next gym over taking a combat final. There were measures in place for these occasional drops, they were documented carefully for medical reasons, but it wasn’t really anything gossip-worthy.What wasn’t documented was who a minor’s soulmate was.So when three students taking a simulation all dropped at the same time that a flash of a new scar etched itself across the bridge of their noses, it sent the Garrison into a frenzy. All three students were in a full shock, bodies processing pain that clearly wasn’t theirs, since the originating injury was on a fourth party. This prompted the medical team to hustled the trio into a private room and away from prying eyes. There’d be enough gossip confirming that Hunk, Lance, and Pidge were soulmates of a larger cohort to go around without letting people see the fallout.The worst part about this situation was that the largest publicly-listed cohorts tapped out at four members. With three members of a cohort concentrated in one location, it was indicative from examples throughout history that there were up to three, four, even eight other members of the cohort elsewhere. This fact caused the administration no little concern, as large cohorts coming together had often indicated large-scale problems in the order of the world that would need a large soul-bound group to manage.Myth and legend often melded with historical records for some of the groups listed. Some of the most prevalent among the debate of real versus allegory included the twelve Authurian Knights and the fourteen soulmates that wandered around the Galilean region around 30 CE challenging the current religious order of things. But there were examples in pre-modern media such as the Seven Samurai, many of the high-ranking officers in various Star Trek serials, and the kids in The Breakfast Club. Every time you had five or more soulmates, it was going to be a very, very bad time. And it would be an even worse time for whoever probably earned the smackdown.But these three, they were just too young for the calling into that life, and the sheer strength of their scar-reaction made even the most experienced medical staffer shudder. Their reaction-stupor wore off within fifteen minutes of being in a private setting. Hunk was the first one that resurfaced, shaking his head as if to clear it while refusing to answer questions. His hand brushed the edge of the new scar and he shied away from his own touch with a wince. Lance was the next one awake. He kept the tears from falling until Hunk had hugged him, then buried his face against a generous shoulder. When Pidge came around with a wave of silent tears, it made the attending medics very nervous until the Hawaiian teen literally picked up the smallest member of their cohort and sat down with them in his lap. Lance curled close to press his forehead to Pidge’s and his arm around the back of their shoulders.They were released with emergency leave granted, starting their weekend on a Thursday. It wasn’t until almost an hour after the incident began that the angry red of the scar faded into the more-normal pink. By that point, they had changed out of their uniforms and felt a collective wave of nausea when they saw their right arms. Long sleeves went on almost immediately, including the rare henley Hunk had bought for the colder nights. Lance quickly escaped to the bathroom to puke, then returned to apply his Titi’s Hippie Goo onto their new scars, soothing the ache. He pressed his lips together, braving the dizzying sight of moving scars to soothe the pain. Every minute or so, one of the trio would eyeball the bathroom door and draw in a deep, soothing breath to try to ease the acid back.Whoever their fifth was, the injury to that arm was messy and not finalized and they’d probably lose the damn thing.Once Lance finished, he was ordered to a seat and kept Pidge on his lap while Hunk pulled bedding apart and began making a nest for his soulmates. He always wanted to be the provider, to take care of his soulmates in the home and when their hearts needed the extra love, and to be able to do this for them? It helped him feel better about the pain that still radiated across his face and the odd numbness that came in waves down his right arm. He was glad that Lance had a stronger stomach for this, and said so very softly, not expecting a response and not getting one. After a moment, he eyeballed the layout of the room, then shook his head. Pushing the beds together wouldn’t be productive.With the majority of the setup completed, Hunk carried Pidge over, then helped Lance snuggle in. While they settled themselves, he finished pulling together a bunch of cooling cloths, snacks, drinks, and some handheld games and tablets. His motions slowed when he put the last thing down, realizing that he had just planned for Pidge and Lance without planning for himself. That was when he knew what his subconscious was guiding him towards.Lance had Pidge curled up against his warmth and under his chin, his arms around their frame to keep them locked close. “Hunk, I know you’ve been texting our fourth.”“And he’s coded in a threat to me that he’ll wipe every harddrive I own if I hack any communications, so I’m good with trying to figure out who they are.” Pidge’s voice was rough, raspy against Lance’s neck. Their eyes were half-swollen shut from crying.Hunk flushed as he wrung out a cool cloth and placed it over their eyes, ashamed for hiding this. “Guys, I—”“No, don’t apologize,” Lance reached one hand out to grasp Hunk’s. “Please, I . . . I know you’re just trying to look out for everyone. I know you’re trying to coordinate so that I’m not overwhelmed.”“Lance . . .”His blue gaze smiled warmly, despite the pain still etching lines at the corners of his eyes. “I’m not jealous, and I’m not insecure. I . . . I know it’ll take time for me to sweep them off of their feet.” He tried, the kid actually tried to make himself look flirty and sweet, and Hunk loved him all the more for that. Leaning in to kiss the frown between Lance’s eyebrows, he straightened.Pidge unearthed one hazel eye to grab Hunk’s attention. “Lance and I will be okay here. I don’t want anyone alone after that pain. Use mom as an alibi.”Lance nodded his full agreement, entirely serious. “Get the extra jar of Goo that Titi sent us last month.”“And Mom’s WTF Rub she sent over last week. I can get more.”Hunk was moving around, also grabbing some of his cooking supplies. He had a rough idea of what appliances Keith had stocked in his kitchen, and it was shameful. “I’m going to cook up something for them that’ll last a few days. I hope to be home before midnight.”“We won’t wait up for you,” Pidge vowed. “If you need to burrow in, don’t hesitate.”Hunk ran his hand through Pidge’s hair, leaning in to press his forehead to their’s, shocked when they moved and pressed their lips shyly against his cheek. Voice low, he whispered, “I’ll take care of them.”“You already do,” Pidge whispered. “I know the kind of person you are.”“Give them hugs from us,” Lance added on. “I’ve a feeling that they’ll need it.”
~*~
When Hunk ended up on Colleen’s doorstep, he had been welcomed with a firm hug and a woman who had a plan once she saw the new scar and had been reassured that Pidge was settled down. She told Hunk to grab whatever he needed from her kitchen, and that she’d handle the rest of the packing for what Keith would need later on. In under fifteen minutes, Hunk not only had a fully-stocked skimmer, but also the keys in hand and a set of spare goggles that had belonged to Sam Holt. “I know you’ve been working on keeping this up for Pidge, so you know her quirks. I’ve programmed in Keith’s home GPS location, but also with some secondary locations that he could have been in when this happened.”“Thank you, ma’am. I’m glad he trusts you.”“I’m Colleen or Mom, not ma’am for you. Get going.” She brushed her hand across the apple of one cheek. “Go.”When Hunk had pulled up to the shack in the middle of a Goddamn desert Keith you weren’t lying, he was glad to see a soft light in one of the windows. He parked close to the porch, flinging himself off of it and almost through the door. Stopping himself with hands on the doorframe, he called, “Keith! Keith, it’s Hunk, just me, nobody else. Keith!”Silence, then a soft word. “In.”Opening the door, Hunk carefully rushed in, seeing Keith with an ice pack over his eyes. “Oh, baby boy.” Sinking to his knees, he wiped the tears away from where they had escaped from under the now-warm packet of goo. “Oh, handsome, I’m so sorry you were alone.”“Do-do they know now? About me?”“No. No, baby, they don’t. They didn’t even ask, didn’t want to know until you’re ready to join us.” Hunk gently peeled the “ice” pack away from Keith’s face to inspect the scar. “Have you been crying this whole time?”“Y-yeah. Don’t tell.”“I won’t, I promise I won’t.” He traced one tear track. “But let’s get you cleaned up a bit and wash your face off at the very least. I have some things to ease the pain and to help the scar stop throbbing, if you’d like.”“Hunk,” Keith whispered, hand gripping the bigger teen’s arm. It was a broken noise, raspy with pain. “Hunk, it’s Shiro.”Hunk’s hands paused in trying to lever Keith up to a sitting position, leaving them in an awkward middle place between sitting up and lying down. Then, with a low noise that mirrored Keith’s pain, he pulled the loner close into a sudden embrace, both trembling. “Oh my god. Keith, He’s . . . he’s alive?”“And Matt. And Sam. They’re still alive, last I could find. That was months ago.”“Oh my God.”“He’s in so much pain. They’re . . .”“They? The Kerberos crew?”Keith shook his head. “Aliens. Aliens have them. Shiro and I would wait until you three were asleep to message each other. We had to be super careful.”Hunk had frozen in place. “Pidge is going to lose their shit.” Hunk paled, drawing back. “You told me you were getting into bar fights and that you were careful about treating your injuries!”“Yeah. I lied. I’m a shitty soulmate—”“Bullshit.” Hunk’s gaze hardened. “You tell me what you need from the Garrison. Nobody will believe that I’m a willing accomplice in anything, even Pidge and Lance. We gotta find out everything we can about the Kerberos mission to help Shiro and the Holts.” He wiped away some stray tears that still fell from violet eyes. Gently hauling Keith up, Hunk stood with the smaller teen in his arms, looking around and realizing that he was just standing there, with a soulmate cradled close to his heartbeat. “Oh. Uh. Where’s the bathroom?”“Put me down. You’re not carrying me.”“Yeah, uh, too late for that.”“Oh my God, Hunk.”The engineer dropped a kiss to Keith’s forehead (since it was entirely within reach), making the ace pilot blush and quiet down. “Let me spoil you. This is important to me.”“Only if you let me help you somehow,” Keith replied, somehow finding himself relaxing in Hunk’s competent hold. It was safe there, he realized. And he hadn’t felt safe since that final night before the Kerberos mission. The first night he had slept beside Shiro. The only night.“You’re helping me by letting me care for you.”Huffing a laugh, Keith let his cheek rest against Hunk’s shoulder. “You drive a hard bargain, big man.” He let himself be maneuvered onto the toilet seat and his cold, sweat-soaked shirt peeled away and tossed into a corner.Hunk paused, touching the soulmate scar that ran around Keith’s bicep in a much cleaner line than the seething mess of shifting, sickening scars that had crawled along their skin earlier in the night. He didn’t have to check his own arm to know that he’d have a matching scar. But by all the many and varied gods, Hunk was not looking forward to bringing Keith’s attention to what the scar looked like . . . what it indicated. “Keith.”The young man drew a shaking breath, eyes squeezed shut. “Does it look worse?”“Yeah. You need to see. I’m sorry, but you have to look. It’ll be easier.”A pale hand traced the mark, pupils blowing wide in fear and shock as Keith followed the gradient-colored scarring. Purple closer towards his fingers, lighter-pink closer to the shoulder. His stomach lurched. “Oh shit. Oh, Hunk, fuck, fuck, Hunk I’m gonna—”Moving fast, Hunk got Keith kneeling with his head over the shower drain, supporting his hips and shoulders when Keith’s limbs went weak and limp with the force of his heaves. “I got ya, buddy. Let it out. That’s it. I’m so sorry, Keith.” He pressed a kiss to the back of one sweat-slick shoulder. “You’re not alone. I’m here. God, I’m so sorry. God, Keith, I’m so, so sorry.” Hunk soothed Keith through helpless sobs and dry heaves, ending up curling around the slighter teen’s back, warming his clammy skin. When he felt the shaking and the heaves slow, he whispered, “You need some water. We’ll help Shiro. We’ll help him in any way that we can. You and he deserve all the love and support we can give you guys.”“God damnit, will you stop being so fucking selfless?!” Keith exploded, voice raspy and cracking.“Ha! You only think that I’m being selfless.” Hunk pressed his cheek against Keith’s shoulder, drawing in a deep breath. “I’m not. I’m being really fucking selfish because I’m going to demand a price out of you and Shiro. You just haven’t asked what that price is.” He sat back on his heels, arms secure around Keith’s waist to support him as he settled the former Garrison student on his lap. “I want you and Shiro to really make an effort to integrate with me, Lance, and Pidge. That’s my price. Step up when and only when the two of you are settled with each other again.”Keith blushed, but let his head fall back onto Hunk’s broad, comforting shoulder. The intimacy of their positions was well-known to both of them, and both fought down their embarrassment to hold onto each other tighter. Keith held onto Hunk’s arms with his right arm, his left going up and around the back of the Hawaiian’s head, fingers weaving through his hair. Keith’s voice, rusty and ruined from tears and vomit, was barely above a whisper. “We can do that.”“I know, man.” Hunk pressed another chaste kiss to Keith’s shoulder. “He’s going to need a lot of support, even though we can’t do much of anything right no—oooh, my God, we can!”Keith’s eyes widened. “Left arm!”Hunk’s hand covered the scar on Keith’s right arm. “What about legs, or hips? Like . . . like back then?”Shaking his head, Keith sighed. “Safe spots are probably covered in some way, and while you might not have immediately noticed, Shiro doesn’t respond to messages unless they were on his forearms. So he’s probably got some sort of bodysuit on.”“You taught us well, though.”“I wish that I hadn’t had to.”They sat in silence until a full-body shiver ran over Keith. Hunk carefully stood them up, pulling the hippie goo out of one of the many pockets in his civvie mechanic’s pants and leaving it on the spare soap tray by the sink. “Use that to soothe the scars after you take that shower; I’ll get the few on your back after I feed you some dinner, if-if you’d like, that is.”Keith wanted to punch whoever had ever made Hunk doubt himself square in the nose. His hand held firmly onto Hunk’s much larger one. “In . . . uh . . . full disclosure, because I have the feeling that your resolve is better than mine? I’d really like to get my mind off of Shiro and fuck. But that’s . . . that’s really out of order and out of line.”Hunk’s laugh filled the small shack, brightening it in a way that Keith never really had expected the small house needed. Leaning down slightly to kiss the pert nose, Hunk smiled, dark eyes warm. “I’m so not against a good time but let me and Lance really get our connection fully established and settled. He really fears that one of us will leave him.”“Oh no. Him, too?”“Too?”“I’ve seen insecurity ruin a soulmate relationship.”“Oh. Nah, he’ll adapt. Lance has way too much love in him for just me to absorb.” He grinned. “He’s also really good for angry fucking.”“Oh my god Hunk. Why would you tell me that?!”
“Because you look like you’re always down for some hard, angry fucking. I could be wrong, but if I’m not . . .”
Keith made a noise similar enough to a balloon deflating that Hunk snickered. Covering violet eyes with a pale hand, Keith groaned, “I’m gonna rub myself raw.”
“Better start that shower, then.” Hunk winked, blushed, bit his lip, then leaned in to kiss Keith’s forehead. “I brought some supplies for dinner, so you take as long as you need.” With that, he turned and left the room.
With a sad, tiny smile, Keith followed the suggestion to get under some hot water and rinse the pain from his skin. But where Hunk had closed the door, Keith reached over and opened it just enough to hear Hunk’s soft singing as he began a quick clean of the kitchen nook before getting into any of the cooking. It helped him feel less alone.
He didn’t masturbate at all in the shower, too emotionally drained to bother with anything more than his usual thorough scrubbing. A physical weariness was beginning to catch up with him. It’d been a long time since he’d processed these amounts of pain, and he sometimes forgot how much his body could process. With a sigh, he finished drying off, slipping into some clean boxers and pants that Hunk had ninja’d into the bathroom. From the sounds of things, the Garrison student had found the tiny washer and drier and was running a load of laundry while he focused on dishes. Keith winced. He was busy with his own projects, and should have done his laundry days ago. But he had the feeling that keeping busy with household tasks was something that helped Hunk process his emotions.
Carrying out his dirty laundry, he saw that Hunk had already separated out the loads and had appropriately-sized piles waiting to go into the efficiency-sized machine. The moment he dropped his socks into the whites pile and the rest of his laundry into the smallest pile of dark clothing, he found himself wrapped up in the softest throw blanket he’d ever touched. Hunk’s warm arms held him close to a warm chest. Sagging into the sensation with a groan, Keith definitely knew that this hadn’t been in his house before tonight. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Hunk rumbled. “I’m sor—”
“I swear to God, if you apologize for doing my laundry, I’ll throw caution to the wind and thank you with a blowjob.”
“. . . oh my God I’m so conflicted right now . . .”
Keith let his head fall against Hunk’s solid form. “I take it this was from Colleen?”
“Mm-hm. Wait until you see what else she snuck into Sam’s old skimmer.”
“What? Wait, you have Sam’s old skimmer? She won’t even let me drive that beauty!”
Snickering, Hunk moved Keith just enough away that he could see what he was pulling out of a pocket. “Yeah, well, if you’d tried to run it before I got my hands on it, you’d have a digger, not a skimmer. Sam kinda let her rust as he focused on the Garrison stuff for Kerberos.”
He opened his hand to show a pen.
A soul-pen.
“She sent me with five of them, each labeled with our names.”
“She . . . oh my god, she needed DNA for these.”
“Shiro used to spend a lot of time at the Holt’s, right?” Hunk handed the one labeled “KK” to Keith. “I bet that she got some hair from him when the guys would do their monthly haircuts.”
“That sounds like her,” Keith grumbled. “She used to cut mine.”
“How long has she known?”
“No idea, because she’d never answer. Shiro would tell us, though.” He stopped and sighed gustily. “Oh my god. Shiro knew that Pidge was one of his soulmates.”
Hunk wheezed. “They’re gonna be pissed.”
“Yeah they are.”
“I’ll make popcorn for that spitting match. But I’d like to be well out of the blast radius.”
Keith uncapped his pen, eyeballing the felt tip before recapping it. Hunk, on the other hand, pulled his own pen cap off and drew a heart on the back of his left hand before capping it again and putting it back into his pocket. “I’m going to keep moving. You keep bundled in that until you have some clean shirts and socks, and dinner is almost done. Mild curry, but you can make it spicier if you’d like.”
“OhGodIthinkI’minlovewithyou,” Keith blurted, then clapped a hand over his mouth.
Giggling, the bigger teen grinned. “Well, shit. I’d hope so! Grab a seat.” Within moments, Keith had settled at the table that was still only set for two people, and a hot mug of tea found its way into his hands before Hunk served up food for both of them, set the bowls down, then forwarded the laundry. For the first time, Keith considered finding or making some new furniture that would be able to seat all his soulmates to dinner. In his mind’s eye, seeing Shiro surrounded by people who loved him as intensely as Keith loved him would make the older man truly thrive.
Hunk tossed a clean shirt to Keith, who was already panting through his first bite of steaming curry. Fifteen minutes passed before Hunk drew a second heart, this one closer to the wrist, with three dots leading away from it to a question mark.
Another five minutes passed.
Keith lost his cool. Patience was never his strong point.
He pulled the top of his own pen off and wrote a cryptic message along the bony edge of his radius, right above the wrist.
Δ? Δψ? ✔ IN!!!
“Delta Psi?” Hunk murmured in question.
“We came up with a series of code symbols. Delta-question-mark is asking about a change in situation overall. Delta-Psi-question-mark is asking about a change in his mental health.”
They waited, wordlessly agreeing that if one took a bite of food, so would the other. They couldn’t neglect their own health on this one.
Then the response.
A bite mark formed around the message, framing it, the white press of teeth releasing to flush pink with a bruise.
Keith sagged, shakily drawing a small heart to one side of the bruise, close to the hand, making sure that Shiro would know that it was him with a specific spiral pattern to fill in the heart’s outline. “He bit himself to check in, Hunk. He’s . . . he’s so not okay.”
“Yeah. Okay. I’m going to check in with Pidge and Lance, okay?” He dialed Pidge at Keith’s nod, hearing his smallest soulmate pick up on the first ring.
“Hunk.”
“Hey, Gremlin. Down for some engineering?”
“Yeah. We saw the change in scar pattern shortly after you left and realized that someone’s going to need an arm. I’m going to take a look at what kind of nonsense that the Garrison is cooking up for prosthetics and see what kind of build we’re going to be looking at for the guts of the thing. Was it our guy that you know?”
“No. Our mystery fifth, who this guy knows.”
“Okay. Can we get to him?”
“No.”
“Fuck. Okay.”
“Keep any names off of our skin and be gentle in your messages. Our dude here is going to need some extra love, too. He’s real close to our fifth.” Hunk ignored Keith’s suddenly-teary glare, reaching over to pull the smaller young man onto his lap and keep him curled close with one arm.
“Please let him know what we love him too, Hun—Hey! Lance!”
Lance’s voice filled the speakerphone, his tone low and urgent. “Hunk, my man, stay overnight with our dude, okay? Don’t let him sleep alone, not after what we all just dealt with, okay? Pidge and I are good here.”
Hunk’s voice was low, “Are you sure that you’re okay with that, gorgeous?”
Despite his tears, Keith could hear Lance’s blush. “Y-yeah. So long as he’s as pretty as I am! I won’t have you wasting your time with a hag.”
Hunk’s laugh covered Keith’s amused snort. “Oh, he’s pretty all right. Just as gorgeous as you are, and in all different ways. Just without your shining personality—Ow! Hey! It’s true! Dude, smacking is totally okay, but can we talk about location before you start whaling on me?”
“Mm. Kinky,” Lance crooned into the phone, Pidge’s theatrical gagging making the croon end on a giggle. “I want details when you get home. Take care of him?”
“I will.” He renewed his hold around the trim waist, pulling Keith close against his heartbeat. “I promise. I love you, Lance.”
“Y-yeah. I-I love you too, Hunk.”
When he hung up, Hunk watched as trails of love flowed up their left arms. Leaving the food half-eaten on the kitchen table, he carried Keith into the bedroom, settling him down into a nest of blankets and pillows. “I’m going to clean up, but I’ll be in very soon, okay?”
“You’re spoiling me again.”
“You’re warming our bed, and Pidge has told me that you’re good at that.”
“Our bed, huh?”
“Uh. Ours only if you want me in it?”
“Hunk. Yes, I fucking want you in my bed.”
Kissing the pale forehead, then pausing to kiss the scar over Keith’s nose, Hunk sighed and let himself sag a bit. “I’m . . . I’m gonna need some cuddles when I come back.”
“Hit the end of your mom-friend override?”
“Hah. Yeah.”
“Then hurry back so I can take care of you, big man.”
When Hunk left, keeping the door open to keep Keith company with the noises of cleaning and settling the cabin for the night, the loner sank into the old mattress. Was this what having a Soulmate was supposed to be like? Only Shiro had ever been able to move this seamlessly around him, teasing out laughter and a playful side that Keith never knew he possessed. Hunk was a gentle complement.
Just as he fell into the hazy place between awareness and slumber, he felt the bed dip and he opened his arms, curling his (his!) big man close to his chest, letting him soak his fresh shirt in saltwater and silent sobs that shook the bed. Despite it all, he never felt as safe or as calm as he felt in this moment.
He wondered if this was what his parents had shared before his mom died. He really, really hoped that his parents had felt this kind of happiness. And as he combed his hand through Hunk’s hair, he recalled how his dad never went on dates, never seemed to even look at another woman. And it made sense. Even if it was only Hunk or only Shiro in his life . . . he’d never want to look at another person if he had a child to raise.
For the first time in years, he let his grief soak his pillow, long after Hunk’s sobs had evened out into the sleep of the truly exhausted.
But unlike the fragile and jagged pain in years past, his heart felt calm after the tears.
He didn’t remember falling asleep.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Garrison Trio stared down at the encampment, eyes taking in every detail of the tents that sat perched on the edge of the impact crater. Garrison officers and technicians positively swarmed around the alien ship inside and out as they loaded it up onto a truck and began pulling a tarp over it. Their fourth or fifth had taken a decent jostle during their run from the Garrison proper out to the crash site, making Pidge and Lance frown and Hunk break into a cold sweat.But despite it all, Pidge and Lance kept moving, triangulating to keep themselves on the right path, not asking unnecessary questions as they made their way to the ridge to get a look at what was really happening.And now they were staring at this organized response from the Galaxy Garrison itself at an alien ship crashing and were at a loss. They weren’t supposed to be ready for alien encounters.Pidge was growling by the time that they had established a hack into the mobile network below them. “Got it! Live feed inside the main section of . . . oh . . .”“Oh?” Hunk and Lance hissed, neither moving closer to the screen, instead preferring to keep their eyes out as lookouts. But that small syllable held both acres of uncharted territory and the suspenseful music in a video game would slowly start rising in ominous tribute to a terrifying boss fight.“Yeah. Oh. As in oh, I’m going to fucking murder both of them.”“What? Who?” Lance asked, voice soft but demanding.“Shiro and Keith.” They moved away from the screen, their hand trembling with rage and adrenaline as they turned the screen to show who was strapped to a table and demanding answers of people who weren’t listening to him or the warnings he was trying to get across.Golden eyes sharpened on their expressions, taking in Lance’s speculative, narrowed gaze and the blank look on Hunk’s face. “Hunk.”“I suspected.”“Do you know where the rest of the crew is?”“No. I don’t think that either of them will know, either.”“Fuck you. Fuck you so much, Hunk!”“Later!” Lance hissed, eyes taking in the logistics of the room. “This is going to be difficult to get him out of there.”“Okay, this is gonna suck, but Hunk. Really? You knew?”“I suspected! And Keith talks in his sleep and was really worried that you two wouldn’t accept him as easily as you would accept Shiro.”“Oh for fuck’s own sake,” Pidge snarled. “Like we’d be able to keep Lance from keeping his hands off of either of them for very long.”“Mm. Truth. I’ll be mad at you later for keeping two hot men away from me.”“Oh my god, Lance!”“I’m focusing! On Shiro and Keith. And how to get Shiro out of there. But we’re going to need a distraction. A good one. And then we’ll have to find a way to get ourselves into that main tent, which I don’t think—”Explosions lit up the sky, and Lance and Hunk yelped. Pidge focused back on the encampment and began shoving their gear back into their bag. “We got our distraction! He’s already on the move!”“Who?” Hunk asked.“Keith!” Lance called over his shoulder. “Oh, he is not out-doing me on this! No way, buddy!”By the time that they had entered the quarantine area, Keith had already turned a sedated Shiro’s head towards him, memorizing the differences between the man who left, and the man who returned to them. He looked up as they entered, paling slightly before opening his mouth. Lance made a swift gesture to one side. “Nope. Not now. We’re talking later. Help me rescue Shiro.”“Help you rescue . . . You know what, I’m not arguing with that.” He moved with Lance to begin hauling the larger man off of the table and towards the door. “Pidge, please wait to kick me in the sack until after we get Shiro somewhere safe.” He winced. “And please tell me you hacked the cameras.”“Locked down and fragmented everything that happened from the moment your skimmer touched down. And I like my apologies not performed in soprano, thank you very much.”“Evil,” Lance huffed, glad that they were now out of the building and making good time. “I approve.”“Time to move!” Hunk yelped from where he stood as lookout. “Please tell me you brought the big skimmer!”“You bet I did!” Keith replied. “Going to need your help with some of the turns, big man.”Hunk grinned broadly. “Got your back.”“Wow, you hate my flying,” Lance griped, helping haul Shiro up to where he and Pidge could anchor him.“Um, yeah, so . . . you also do some things that make gravity weird, Lance.”“Ass!”“Hold on tight!”“Fuck you, Keith, why am I the one holding Shiro?!”“Because you’re fucking superhuman! Stop bitching and hold tight!”
~*~
Shiro woke with a gasp, a flail, and a pounding heart. “Iverson!”“Wow. Didn’t expect you to yell his name in bed.”The snarky, familiar voice could only belong to one person. “Keith?”“Hey, Shiro.” Keith moved a little closer to the bed, but still made sure to move slowly, never blocking an exit path.Slumping slightly, Shiro rubbed at his face with his left hand, squinting in the pre-dawn light. He reached out with his right hand to Keith, then realized which hand was reaching and he shuddered, retracting it and turning his face away.But gentle warmth surrounded the palm and fingers, a sensation he never actually had felt with the prosthetic. Shiro looked up into dark, intense eyes, his own gaze pain-filled. Keith pulled the hand up to his face, flowering the digits open to press it against his cheek. “No. Don’t hide from me.” He kissed the metal palm. “Welcome home, Shiro.”Tears welled up helplessly, and Shiro ducked his head, watching his own gaze blur with saltwater before they dropped to the old quilt across his legs. He was in Keith’s bed, and it smelled so much like his soulmate and . . . and someone else? It didn’t matter. There was a lot of them. This smelled like home to him. The shack was safe. Hidden from the Garrison. Because if anyone knew how to hide a house and its contents from the Garrison, it was Keith.But . . . noises?His brain flashed into full awareness as he leapt out of bed, shoving Keith behind himself while he checked the window, noting that it was false dawn. Pulling the shade with a quick flick of his wrist, he turned and scanned the frame of the door, seeing light shining more-or-less evenly along all cracks, and no strange shadows along the bottom edge. “How long was I out?” he asked softly, barely above a whisper as he continued to case every item in the room.“Almost six hours in total. Nights are still a bit long right now, and it’s almost five in the morning. The sedative wore off around hour four, and you had . . . a really nasty night terror. You weren’t really awake, Shiro, and . . .” Keith swallowed. “You were afraid of some pretty terrifying things.”Keith settled himself casually against the wall, careful not to block Shiro’s access to the door. His own past hurdled through his mind as he realized that their roles were entirely swapped. He was now carefully treading around the wild-animal look that assessed every small movement, every possible escape route. So the younger man kept himself as nonthreatening as possible, body language submissive and open. He was waiting for Shiro’s next move, not wanting to force a reaction but waiting to see Shiro actually take action.And with a sudden slump of his shoulders and a widening of his eyes, Shiro saw it. He felt his core shaking as he reached his left hand out towards Keith, unable to mask the tremor.Carefully, telegraphing every move, Keith walked the two steps closer and took Shiro’s flesh-and-blood hand in his right. His left hand curled into the prosthetic’s grip, accepting this new part of Shiro as easily as the night Shiro lost the limb had been terrifying. It was clear that Shiro feared its own power, possibly didn’t even understand how it worked. He swallowed, deciding to just deal with this straight-on. “Keith . . . what did this do to you?”The still-narrow shoulders tilted, and Keith let go of Shiro’s hand to let the sleeve slide off in an effortlessly sensual motion that both men recognized. Grey gaze met purple with a sudden intensity that hadn’t been there when Shiro had left on mission, but neither held heat, not yet. The older man’s eyes slipped to the side when Keith’s arm was free, his fingers coming back up to trace the gradient scar before wrapping his calloused palm around it, closing his eyes against suddenly-blurry vision. “I’m so sorry.”“It’s okay, Shiro.” Keith slowly drew Shiro closer, giving him plenty of time to pull away. But Shiro sunk into the embrace, forehead dropping to rest on Keith’s shoulder, arms wrapping around the narrow waist. “You’re home. I’m really here. It’s okay.”Shiro’s voice was small, shaking. “I’m . . . I’m really home? This isn’t a dream?”Pressing leaking eyes closed and pressing a daring kiss against Shiro’s temple, Keith whispered, “This isn’t a dream. You’re home, Takashi.”A pan dropped in the kitchen, followed by a soft voice reassuring someone else. Shiro had jumped a mile, swinging Keith behind him in the same motion as he tensed for action. When there was an answering laugh, soft and musical, Shiro could almost feel his gaze clear up. “Guests? Keith, you have guests over?”Keith moved back around, putting his back to the door and softly gaining Shiro’s eye-contact as he pulled his jacket back up properly. “Not guests, Shiro. Our soulmates. Hunk is making a really early breakfast, Lance probably dropped something while trying to help, and Pidge is still sleeping on the couch. I hope. Maybe not so much after that.”Shiro frowned. Three other people in the house that he didn’t personally know? Was his cohort bigger than he had anticipated? “You trust them?”It broke Keith’s heart to hear Shiro even question that, because he had hoped to never have any of his soulmates question another soulmate’s trustworthiness. But he didn’t let any of that show. “They helped me rescue you. And they are all pretty damn awesome, but if you ever tell Lance I said that, I’ll tell everyone about the real story about that scar on your ankle.”“You . . . that’s blackmail.”Keith chanced it. He stood up on his tiptoes and pressed a dry kiss to the corner of Shiro’s mouth, smiling as he settled back on his heels. “Sure is. C’mon. Shower first, then food. We’re pretty well-bunkered here for at least a week if we need that time to plan.”“You sure that the Garrison won’t follow you here? They know we were close.”“I crossed trails and kept away from areas that are actively under surveillance.” Keith shrugged. “And even if they did try to approach, we’d know because Pidge upgraded and expanded my current alarm system within two hours of arriving. You four would be hidden securely with more than enough time for me to act really natural. I don’t know if Dad knew about any of it, but there’s some interesting features about this house that makes me wonder if it was used to hide people really, really effectively. Scarily effectively, Shiro.”“And . . . and you’re sure we can trust them?” Shiro stared at the closed door, worrying the tuft of white hair hanging in front of his eyes.Keith curled himself to Shiro’s right side very deliberately, arm resting around Shiro’s waist. He hurt, hearing how Shiro didn’t even feel like he could trust his soulmates. Though, considering Adam, and now whatever had transpired while Shiro was missing . . . “Yes. With both our lives. Just beware the little one.”“That doesn’t worry me.”“It should.” Keith let Shiro make the first move, cracking the door open and stepping through when Shiro bumped their shoulders.Movement in the kitchen stopped.“Keith, if he’s not awake in another hour, I’m going to have you wake him because I sure as fuck don’t want to get within swinging distance.”Shiro’s head snapped around to try to pinpoint the origin of the voice. “Katie?!”The little hacker was up and over the back of the couch, literally leaping right into Shiro’s arms before they collapsed into an embrace sitting on the floor. “You ass! I hate that you kept this from me!” They shoved their glasses up, rubbing at their eyes before the Japanese man pressed them closer to his heartbeat, curling around them protectively. “Why didn’t you tell me that we were soulmates, Shiro?”“Oh, God, so many reasons, but every one of them were because I didn’t want to hurt you and I wanted to respect how much you hated the soulmate system. I didn’t want to distract you from your goals. Adam, God, Adam would have been intolerable and I know that the two of you never could get along no matter how hard you tried.”Pidge’s face screwed up into a mask of pure disgust. “He’s visited Mom a lot since you guys disappeared. Like he feels bad or something.”“He knows you’re at the Garrison?” Keith asked softly.“He thinks I’m a cousin. He also thinks that ‘Katie’ was so heartbroken that ‘she’ became a recluse and is at a different boarding school.”Lance groaned from the kitchen, face hidden behind his hands as he muttered obscenities at people misgendering Pidge. Hunk’s stirring had gotten a little more aggressive at hearing that one of the Garrison’s actual best had a soulmate who was an actual asshole.“God, Katie, I’m so sorry.”“You’d better be, you ass.”“I know. I am. I regret not telling you.”“Yeah, because then me and Keith would have been able to keep an eye on each other and worked together to find you faster.”Shiro sighed into the shorter gingery hair than what he had been used to seeing on his soulmate. “I’m sorry. But . . . you and Keith were right, though. From what I can remember, you were both right about what’s out there.”“Aliens,” Pidge hissed, eyes closing. They squeezed Shiro’s torso in a hug, feeling him stand and put them on their feet. “I missed you.”“I know you never stopped looking for me. You or Keith.”“Where . . . where’s Dad? And Matt?”“We got separated,” Shiro whispered, eyes squeezing shut before he looked back down at Katie . . . at Pidge. He shook his head slightly. “It’s all pretty burry. I’m sorry.”Pidge took in a deep breath and released Shiro. “Okay.” They nodded and turned on their heel and walked out the door, head down.Turning and reaching into his room, Keith grabbed a zip-up hoodie hanging just inside the bedroom. “Lance,” he called, tossing it to the teenager, glad that the other teen was already heading towards the door.The Cuban boy nodded in thanks as he caught the sweatshirt. “I’ll keep an eye on them and get them back.” He patted his pocket and nodded. “Hunk, message me if we need to go to ground fast.”Keith sighed when Lance had closed the door behind him. “Pidge is pissed. They’re really, really pissed.”“Yeah, but they’ll live and they’ll be even more determined to find the rest of the crew,” Hunk replied softly. “They hate showing how deep and strong their emotions run.” He smiled, a blush dusting his cheeks before he turned to check the oven. “Keith, thank you for stocking actual food here.”“After your last lecture, big man? I’d rather not be the spectacle again. C’mon, Shiro. Shower, and then food. Then we’ll see if Lance can catch a wild Pidge.”“Oh my God, Pokémon jokes, too?” Hunk wheezed. “My heard is over-flowing, my skin has cleared, my crops—”“Hunk. Oh my God.”“Let me gush about my soulmates! Rain on someone else’s parade. Jeez, dude.”Shiro snorted, genuinely amused at how quickly Hunk and Keith had found a balance. Despite still wanting to keep Keith safe and away from danger, it made him feel happy that his . . . his soulmates loved each other, too. He felt his balance start to give, and Keith was immediately on one side, Hunk on the other, effortlessly coordinating to help Shiro sit on the toilet. The big student rested a warm hand on Shiro’s right shoulder before giving them privacy. “He’s . . . he’s amazing.”“Yeah he is, and he’s ours, too,” Keith teased lightly, helping Shiro start to peel some of the alien uniform off. He left most of everything on, though, just loosening closures. “I’ll get you some clothes; looks like you’ll fit into some of Dad’s old things.”“Don’t go,” Shiro whispered urgently, eyes pleading with Keith. “Please.”Turning back around, the young man embraced the pilot’s head to his torso, feeling both human and alien arms wrap around him securely in return. “Okay.”
~*~
“Pidge.”“I had a feeling you’d be the one to find me.”Lance sat beside them. “Yeah. I didn’t have anything to do, Hunk’s cooking, Keith is probably helping Shiro shower. He looked a little wobbly but that could still be the meds wearing off.”“Yeah.”“I know you’re not okay—”“Wow. Really?”“Pidge.” Lance let his arm fall open, offering physical touch to his gremlin.They sprung at the chance to not be okay for a while, chest heaving with sobs. Lance stroked long lines up and down their back. “I’m going to let you go and turn around, okay?”“Wh-why?”“You need to get out of your binder. I brought a baggy sweater from Keith.” Lance loosened his hold just a little. “Please.”Growling in frustration, Pidge didn’t wait for Lance to turn around before they began pulling at their clothing. Holding the zip-up hoodie up between them, he turned his head away and upwards. He was nailed in the face with a binder for his efforts at keeping Pidge’s modesty. Catching it by pinning it between his chin and his shoulder, he waited until Pidge slid their arms into the hoodie and pulled it closed. He folded the binder carefully, glad that he didn’t have to worry about squishing this one, and shoved it into a pocket before opening his arms again. Pidge curled between his legs, sideways against his torso and arms crossed over their chest while Lance curled around them protectively, resting his chin on their head.Their voice was soft, angry. “I kinda hate this a lot.”“You should. And you know Shiro won’t hold that against you. Or the rest of us.”“I know. Don’t make me go back early?”“I won’t.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Do you feel like the eyes are following you?”
Lance jolted awake, staring at the ceiling of the castleship, Blue purring softly in the back of his mind. He groaned, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes before beginning to take stock of the situation. His clock (Altean and still very, very strange) gave him the time as being just about two hours before their agreed wake-up time for morning drills.He held up his left arm, some pen-marks still faintly visible. Everyone was still sleeping separately, still writing notes late at night. It was comfortable for some of them, but Lance had the sneaking suspicion that Shiro and Keith were trading off which room to sleep in together after the other three had stumbled off to their separate rooms. Lance wasn’t sure how the Alteans would react to same-gender relationships like him and Hunk. They had started sharing the same bed at least twice a week since they’d met, and not being able to drop to the lower bunk to snuggle up with his boyfriend was starting to wear down on him.And Keith and Shiro were still doing that thing where they weren’t keeping to human hours anymore.A light bruise blossomed over the back of Lance’s right hand and he huffed a noise of amusement. Might as well start his day. He poked his head out of his room to see that Hunk and Pidge had opened their doors and were almost finished getting into their armor. “Hey. You guys, too?”Pidge’s pissed-off grunt floated out to him as Hunk carried out the bulkier pieces of his paladin armor to lay at the doorstep before checking to see if he forgot anything important. “Think the Princess is awake yet?”“Does she actually sleep?” Pidge grunted, grumpy this early in the morning. “She’s not human, like, legit not human.”Hunk was less chatty, eyes bleary. “Anyone else sleeping like crap?”“Yep,” Pidge and Lance chorused as they grabbed chestplates and helmets and just carried the armor with them towards the training room. Arena. Thing. It was just too fucking early to put everything on.They entered to see Keith icing up the back of his right hand, mouth snapping shut mid-flirt if Shiro’s blush was anything to judge by. Lance blinked, and Hunk sighed. “God, you two. C’mon, breakfast at the very least, then we’ll let you two get back to flirt-by-combat.”“Should . . . should we talk about . . . ?” Shiro seemed a little off-guard by Hunk’s casual acceptance.“Duh, Shiro.” Pidge handed Hunk their armor and hauled themself up and draped over Hunk’s shoulder, unwilling to walk. “Also, Hunk has the most experience with poly folks so he’s going to Know All. He’s got two moms and two dads.”“Oh. Well, that actually explains a hell of a lot.”Lance grinned, having found a way to carry the gear without dropping anything. The trick was to close the chest and back armor around the helmet, and to carry the helmet by the chin-strap so that the pieces protecting their chins and their occipital ridges caught on the inside of the neckline with ease. “Yeah, so, we’re never going to talk about anything really important if we keep listening to Allura’s schedule. I say we stage a rebellion. Mutiny for half a day.”“Fuck,” Shiro hissed, running a hand through sweat-drenched bangs. He grinned suddenly, a half-wild look in his eyes making Keith bark a laugh and catch up with Hunk. Lance raised an eyebrow, watching him prance up to his boyfriend (their boyfriend?) to whisper something conspiratorially to the bigger teen. Shiro leaned in suddenly, nose brushing Lance’s when the Cuban boy’s head whipped around. The man’s voice had dropped a half-octave. “Let’s play hooky.” He took Lance’s set of armor and brushed Lance’s cheek with a kiss on his way past.Lance’s breath left him in a soft wheeze, frozen in place, fingers starting to slip from holding Pidge’s armor for them.The Garrison’s Golden-Poster-Boy-Hero-Man-Person just kissed his cheek.
“Dios mio.”
“Catch up, Lance!” Keith called. “Or I’ll eat all of Hunk’s pancakes!”
~*~
They hadn’t been able to play effective hooky. No sooner than the five soulmates had holed up in a cozy observatory overlooking the Arusian mountain range than Allura had strode in.Pidge groaned, falling back onto the couch. “Fucking hell.”“Pidge,” Shiro warned, voice tired.“Is there a reason why you five decided to shirk responsibility today?” she demanded, cheeks flushed from her storming after their winding trek through the castleship. “Responsibility to who?” Lance demanded softly, blue eyes flashing with his rare true temper. “Because my first responsibility is to them, not you, not Voltron. Them.”“Lance is right.” Keith’s arms were crossed tightly against his chest. “And we five have a lot of shit to sort out between ourselves. You want us to be better Paladins? Fine. Give us some time to be better fucking soulmates, first.”Her brow furrowed, white eyebrows nearly meeting in the middle. “Soulmates? I didn’t realize that trait was found outside of Alteans and the Galra. None of the species we have encountered carried the traits.”“This is why we had to step away, Princess,” Shiro affirmed. “I’ve just met Lance and Hunk when they rescued me. Pidge just found out that I’ve known they and I were soulmates since before I was kidnapped. Keith, Pidge and Hunk just met a few months ago. We all need time to actually talk out what’s going on and how everyone feels about our current and newfound relationships.”The princess drew in a breath and nodded, hands fidgeting nervously with her skirt before she caught the habit and stilled them. “I apologize. Your clear affinity towards one another and harmony in times of stress had me assuming that you had all known each other for several years. I didn’t realize that some of you had just met one another.”“In some ways, we have,” Pidge said, sitting up. They bit their lip before turning to the others, eyes locking with Keith’s. “Let her sit in. It’s strategically sound, and she needs to know a few things if she’s going to be around us for any stretch of time.”Shiro pursed his lips before looking to Lance and Hunk with a quick shrug. They nodded. Keith, easily the most private of them all, rolled it around in his head before nodding. “I’m gonna be embarrassed anyway and I hate feeling that way, so don’t make me regret this.”“Dude, we’re all gonna be embarrassed,” Lance laughed. “I promise you I’m gonna say something stupid within five minutes.” He turned and smiled up at Allura before inviting her to sit between himself and Pidge’s head. “Careful. They bite when provoked.”Snatching her hand away, Allura blinked down at Pidge, whose mouth had been opening to make a snapping noise. They laughed, wrinkling their nose and relaxing back again. “He’s lying. Mostly. I only used to bite my brother when we were fighting.”Shiro snorted a laugh. “Matt warned me about that. Anyway, I uh, guess that I’ll start?” He blushed. “So, Keith and I have been platonic partners since shortly after we met.”“Not for lack of trying on my side to make it less-platonic,” Keith grumbled under his breath, catching Lance’s grinning wink and fingerguns and returned it with a smirk and a nod. At least they could agree that Shiro was gorgeous on a mythical level.The Japanese man facepalmed. “Okay, guys. Pidge is right there.”“Get over it, Shiro,” Pidge replied, sitting up and crossing their legs. “Okay, look, simply put, I’m asexual and I don’t expect you guys to censor yourselves around me. I’m not really sex-repulsed, just not interested in it, and don’t really want to be around while it’s going on. Hunk, Lance and I have a queer-platonic relationship down in a good way. With, like, a little romance? Ish?”“So, demi-romantic?” Shiro asked, head tilting to one side.“What does that mean?” Allura asked quietly, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”“It means that I’m okay with a little bit of romance, but I don’t like a lot of that trashy kind of romance. I have to be engaged on an emotional and intellectual level before I’m okay with someone getting cuddly or bringing me gifts or anything.”“I woo them with hot sauces from around the world, peanut butter cookies, and watching mechanical engineering videos together,” Hunk said with a grin.Keith’s eyes lit up as Lance said, “We do video games and snuggle up to watch trashy reality TV shows to roast the stupid decisions that people make.”“Wait, so I have a chance for that, too?” Keith asked quietly.“Well, yeah,” Pidge replied. They winced when they looked at their longtime friend. “Shiro, you’re going to really have to be patient with me. You became like an older brother to me back before the Kerberos mission, and I don’t know if I could see you as anything other than a sibling for a while.”“Hey, I understand. I had a lot of talks with Colleen about this.” He paled immediately, realizing what he had said.“Oh. Good. Mom knew.”“Uh, shit.” Everyone turned to look at Hunk, whose face was quickly flushing with a solid red glow. “She told me that she knew who all five of us were back on that night when . . .” His face went ashen with a worrying pace, and he motioned to Shiro’s arm. “On that night.”“So those pens weren’t just labeled because Keith figured it out, but because Mom had figured it out.”“And snuck hair samples away from each of us, yeah,” Lance added. “Damn. Your family is scary, Pidge.”He looked to Allura as Shiro said for all of them, “If you need us to explain a term, please tell us. I’d rather pause and make sure everyone understands everything, anyway.”“Thank you for your patience with me,” Allura replied, voice humbled and soft. She felt a touch on her hand, and glanced down to see Lance’s fingers brushing over her knuckles. Looking up and around, a little shocked that an affectionate touch was given to someone outside of a cohort, she realized that they were all smiling at her, and didn’t seem to even notice that Lance had curled his hand around hers before turning to look at the others.“Hunk and I are probably about the same level of dating that Keith and Shiro are. So, do we want to state what we’re leaning towards each other, or do we just want to let things kinda evolve?”“I vote evolve,” Keith said into the thoughtful silence that had followed. “Hunk and I have talked a little about our forming relationship, and he’s been courting me pretty hard. I feel bad that you and Pidge didn’t know about that.”“Don’t,” the two chorused, then laughed at themselves. Lance spoke first. “I love Hunk with everything I got, and I know he loves me, too, but we’re also really good at smothering one person if we only have one person to court. That took me about a month to realize. That’s also why I’ve slowly been getting more romantic with Pidge, and Hunk’s probably made you uncomfortable with how fast he’s able to get a living situation straightened.”“Oh my God, you don’t even know,” Keith groaned, slouching back and letting his head fall against the back of the couch. “Shiro, I fucking swear, Shiro, listen to this. So not only does Hunk make sure that Pidge and Lance are settled after we had a reaction-collapse to your injury, but he fucking gets over to Colleen’s house, uses Sam’s old skimmer—”“No! The deathtrap?!”“We fixed it, god!” Pidge cried. “Why does nobody believe that I have mechanical engineering skills?!”“Oh, that’s reassuring in hindsight.” Hunk’s face fell into his hands.“Telling a story here, shut the fuck up,” Keith sing-songed. “Anyway, big man gets his gawddamn badass self out to my shack, finds me on the couch trying to fight off the reaction-headache, cleans me up, makes sure I don’t fall over because I puked my guts out—”“Same, man,” Lance groaned, feeling a residual turn of his gut and a tremor along his arms from the force of that nausea.“—glad I wasn’t the only one, Lance. So he gets me into the shower, starts making me actual food, Shiro, c’mon, and then. Then! Then he did my fucking laundry. And put me to bed, then spent the whole night snuggling and it was the tied for the best night of sleep I’ve ever had, then woke up before me and made the best pancakes in the world. And all that in exchange for one condition.” Keith leaned closer to his first partner. “That you and I figure our shit out and get settled, and then come courting our other three soulmates. I’m good with the first part if you are.”Shiro turned to look at Hunk, who fidgeted a little in his seat, embarrassed at the high praises being sung about him. Then, with a suddenness of movement that startled even himself, the older pilot was over to embrace Hunk, kissing the top of his head and pressing his face against the soft hair. “Thank you for looking after Keith. Thank you, Hunk. I worried so much about him after I was taken.”Wrapping strong arms around his oldest soulmate, Hunk smiled and squeezed Shiro tight. “Sit next to me?” he whispered very softly. “I’m . . . I’m not okay and would kinda like to, uh . . .”“Okay,” Shiro whispered back, dropping one last kiss to Hunk’s crown before sliding to sit beside him, thighs pressing together. He stopped and looked to Lance, eyes wide. “Uh, I don’t want to intrude—”“He sounds like I did,” Pidge laughed. “Shiro, if Lance minded, he would have said something. But I think he’s also smitten with you.”“Pidge!” Lance hissed.“What?! Like you weren’t cooing over the ‘best pilots in the Garrison’ for months before you finally met Keith. And then you wouldn’t stop trying to compete with his old scores. And I hacked your laptop and regretted it immediately.”Lance flushed, eyes going distant.Keith blinked once before grinning to Shiro. Shiro smirked at Lance, who finally met his gaze, somehow got redder, and looked away. Right at Allura. And blushed harder. And dropped her hand to hide his face in his own hands. Hunk snorted, then laughed a little behind his palm. “Princess, I’m sorry to say, but I think Lance is crushing on you, too.”“I would never intrude! A soulmate cohort of your size is sacred among Alteans!”“Yeah, but among humans, and we’re kinda in the majority,” Keith replied with a grin, “It’s almost tradition that five soulmates and up have lovers outside of our cohort for any number of reasons. It’s not taboo for us. And Lance is bi, right?”“Y-yeah, uh, Pidge, just murder me.”“Fuck, no, I’m crushing on her, too.”“. . . what?”“What?!”“Wait, Pidge, you’re crushing on someone?!”“Wow, you guys are assholes.”“You have my blessing.”“Shirogane Takashi, I will tell my mother every little dirty joke you taught me.”“First Keith blackmails me, then you? Wow. The respect is astounding.”Allura, Lance, and Hunk were almost-hysterical with their laughter. Something in Shiro’s chest unwound at the moment that the harmonies of laughter snapped into place. Even though the Princess wasn’t technically cohort, wasn’t technically a soulmate, she belonged with them. And he would look after her the same as he would look after his official cohort.But before he did that, he had to admit to something.Hunk felt the tremble in his left hand, and turned to look at him with soft, warm eyes. “Shiro?”Keith’s eyes locked onto Shiro’s, and the older man looked away.Silence.Drawing in a deep breath, Shiro whispered, “I had another soulmate, once. He was only mated to me. And he was jealous, hurt, that I had other soulmates.” His voice broke. “His name is Adam.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Adam.The name made Pidge want to get up and punch the wall. But Keith was faster. He wrapped his arms around them, curling them closer to his chest and wrapping his arms around theirs. Slowly, his hands unfurled their fists, weaving their fingers together. “Don’t break my hands, but you can always squeeze when you get mad. I’ll do the same.”Allura was sitting very still, very much in shock. Not only was the humans’ culture so very alien to her, but so was this entirely new culture to her around the concept of soulmates. Altean soulmates never, never repudiated each other. They simply couldn’t. An Altean’s very life-force was tied to the necessity of that quantum connection. It was simply anathema! If there were differences, there were many ways to handle that. But to see how this had impacted such a young cohort? She couldn’t help but feel her own eyes stinging with bitter rage.Lance’s hand found hers again, but this time, Allura didn’t know who needed the reassurance more from the physical contact.Hunk let his breath out in a deep gust. “So, maybe you should explain, Shiro. Lance and I know Commander Whitmore as one of our professors, but . . . I’ve a feeling that this is going to really change how we interact with him if we ever get back.”Shiro’s hand trembled, and he found that Hunk had already been reaching for it to hold onto. And the older man told the story.
~*~
It had started off as a decent summer weekend. Most of the campus had emptied into the city’s yearly carnival that marked the end of the school year for the local public schools. This left only the few people who had no interest in such things at the Garrison with a skeleton staff comprised of faculty, military, medical, and administrative members.Shiro, Adam, Matt, and Keith were off-campus as well, but thankfully not around the carnivals. They were camping on the outskirts of one of the suburbs, with very few other people choosing this weekend to escape the city life. It was enough of a removal from the Garrison to help everyone unwind a little, even if Adam was still cold towards Keith. They arrived Friday night after dinner, set up their tent, and passed out. Shiro had been up first, and he had been grateful because while he had gone to sleep with enough space between Keith and Adam to spare, he had still woken up with heat pressing close to his side. His heart ached when he opened his eyes to see Adam curled up close to Matt, who sprawled carelessly on his back, jaw dropped in a snore.Looking over his shoulder, Shiro saw Keith pressed up along his spine. He’d nearly lost his goddamn mind with how cute Keith’s relaxed and open expression was. But he had to move before Adam woke up and started the day with icy stares because of someone snuggling closer in their sleep. The ace pilot had stealthily gotten out of his sleeping bag and grabbed his toiletries for a quick shower at a central shack that held what could have been the state’s oldest camp showers. Once back at the site, he started up boiling some water for the coarse coffee grounds that had been haphazardly shoveled into the French press. Occasionally, Shiro would pause to watch the other early-riser campers shuffling around campstoves.Saturday morning was spent being lazy in the sunlight, occasionally talking. Keith had burned lunch, but Shiro had laughingly been able to pull something else together without much hassle before he, too, was bit by the lazy bug and spent the afternoon reading or dozing.And the stars were just now coming out overhead. No fire had been built, no artificial lights drowned out the glimmer of unreachable suns. Shiro was about twenty feet away from the tent, sitting on a small outcropping of stone that pushed through the dry soil. He was absently curling his toes into the soil, feeling the soft clay in contrast to the dry sand between his toes, reveling in the small motion as proof that his condition hadn’t begun progressing again.While Matt and Keith started up the fire, Adam walked out of the campsite and sat beside Shiro, voice quiet. “I worry about you.”“Why?” Shiro laughed, bumping their shoulders together as they had once done all the time. “Adam, I’m fine.”“Shiro, I can see that it’s been progressing, even slowly, for the last five years.” His gaze seemed worried as he finally looked over the frames of his glasses. “And you have other soulmates who could help take care of you, but you’re not willing to look beyond this drive to keep pushing yourself. You’ve already out-shone every pilot in the Garrison, myself included! Why are you doing this? Is it the spotlight? Is it the approval? Do you not want to find these people after all?”Face locking his emotions down, Shiro turned to stare at Adam. “Are you even listening to yourself? Adam, I want to be the Kerberos pilot. My health hasn’t degraded to the point where it impacts my piloting abilities. I still have years before this grounds me. Years, Adam! Not months, not weeks, not days. Why are you so intent on pushing at this issue?”“I want to see you safe. Your ambition—”“My ambition?!”“—Yes, your ambition, Shiro! You want to be that first pilot!”“So did you! I’d be happy if someone else had more talent and the right background for this, but I’m the best-suited, and this is a goal! If you had a goal for your final act as a pilot, why not aim for Kerberos?” Shiro threw his hands out in front of him, indicating the landscape. “Adam, if you had a health condition that will cripple your legs one day, wouldn’t you want to run every marathon that you could?”“You’re nearing the end of the race, Shiro,” Adam hissed. “I don’t want you hurt more when you come home and you can’t fly anymore.”“I will fly until I am compromised!” the Japanese man barked, standing and turning to face his soulmate. “I will fly until I can no longer raise my hands to the controls. And it is my choice to fly until the last. Possible. Moment. And you can’t tell me not to do otherwise, Adam. I respect you, I do, but I am not yours to order around out of fear for my own health.”There was a clatter from around the other side of the tent, and pain lanced up from Shiro’s left foot. He winced but absently shook off the sensation, sighing and shaking his head at seeing the bruise blossom. Whoever just did that maybe broke at least one bone in their foot. He’d find out later to see if his soulmate was okay. He had to focus on Adam first, finish this discussion, and hopefully find a way to end this on a neutral note. That was the best he could hope for with the level of frustration that was hanging around his soulmate’s eyes. Looking back up and catching the thunderous expression on Adam’s face at seeing a new soulmate bruise that he’d never share, Shiro sighed again. Guess that he’d just have to end this conversation here. “I’m going to go see what those two are doing and if they’ve managed to actually get a fire start—”“Hey, Shiro! Keith just dropped the dutch oven on his foot! Can you see if it’s broken? I’m not that good at field medic stuff yet!” Matt called.Adam froze.Shiro didn’t.He darted around the tent and skidded to a halt on the grass. Keith was holding his left foot between his hands, tears streaming down his face out from eyes squeezed shut. It broke his heart how silently this teen expressed his pain.Wait.It fucking matched. The mark matched, goddamnit how could Shiro have been so completely blind to this?!Shiro made a soft noise, hand over his mouth as he crept closer. “Hey, Keith? Can I take a look?”“No. Nope. No. Hurts. Sorry.”“I . . . I know it hurts, Keith. Please. I know.”Watery depths opened, locking onto Shiro’s face, then down to his left foot. “Oh, god. Oh, no, Shiro, why is it you?” Shiro froze, unsure what to say or do until Keith kept crying. “Shiro, you’re too perfect, I’m broken, you shouldn’t have to—”Shiro wrapped Keith up in a hug, careful of his foot. Both were breathing shakily until Shiro whispered, “It’s okay. We’re both broken. Everyone is broken. Let’s take care of your foot, though, and then we’ll talk more, okay? That . . . uh, that felt like it broke.”Coughing a laugh through his sobs, Keith couldn’t help himself. “I think it fucking is. What a lame way to find out about your soulmate. I can’t fucking cook to save my life and drop shit and— what are you doing?”Shiro grabbed one of Keith’s toes. “Can you feel that?”“Yeah?”“Move your toes, then.”He did.“Not broken. Badly bruised, and you’re going to want to keep it up for the night.”“Just like that, huh?”Matt turned to look at Adam, voice soft. “Adam, not now, dude. We’ve talked about this. You knew this was coming at some point. Hell, I’m just super glad it’s someone that Shiro knows and that they both get along so well.”“No.”“Huh? ‘No’ what?”Shiro could feel something unpleasant begin to roil around in his gut. “Adam?”The man shook his head, going into the tent and rummaging around. Shiro looked to Matt, who seemed vaguely panicked, clearly unsure of what it was that Adam was doing. The expression shifted to one of clear internal conflict for who to help, but with a nod towards the tent, Shiro helped him make that decision. “Adam? Are . . . why are you packing up?”Keith gasped when Shiro had managed to pull the teen to his feet, not having been witness to his strength yet. It wasn’t as if they went to the gym together, what with Keith still being a cadet and all. They had very different schedules, and hardly were able to see each other between classes, homework, or Shiro grading papers. Keith was carefully set down on the picnic table bench by the firepit, injured foot brought up to rest on the bench with a sweater wadded up under his heel. It brought a fresh wave of tears, and not the kinds attached to the physical pain of his foot.Low voices erupted in the tent with Matt’s anger. “You can’t do that!”Shiro straightened slowly, voice painfully level and calm. “Keith. I’m letting you know now that I’m real close to losing my temper. It’s not directed at you in any way, got it?”“Y-yeah.”“Hang tight right here, and I’ll get you an ice pack in a moment for that bruise.” Shiro turned and waited for Adam to walk out, pack over his shoulder, gaze stony.“We’re done.”Shiro raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to have to be a lot more specific than that, Adam.”“We. Are done. You won’t listen to me. You won’t take your own health into consideration—”“That is bullshit and you know it. You have come to my appointments for the last year and the progression hasn’t gained speed in two years.”“Don’t fucking argue with me!”“I will do as I damn well want to, Adam, and if that means arguing with you because you’re wrong and you don’t fucking own me, then you damn well bet that I’m going to argue with you! When will it get through to you that for once, this isn’t about you?! For once, for once, I need you to be about me!”Adam seethed. He had been trying for years, from the moment that he knew that Shiro was his, trying to take care of his soulmate. He had been trying to help Shiro come to terms with the fact that his piloting career will end abruptly, and that it should have already ended at least once or twice by this point because the next stage in Shiro’s disorder would ground him faster than Iverson’s orders could. “Oh, this has to be about you, Shiro, does it? It has to be about the Garrison Golden Pilot. It’s got to be about how much time you can spend in the spotlight.”“Are you fucking stupid?” Keith asked from where he sat. “First off, hello, you’re a pilot, too, you moron. Clearly not as his level, but do you not get it that all pilots want to keep flying until the last possible moment? Fuck it, I’ll outfly you any day, asshole.”“Cute. At least I won’t be leaving you entirely alone. You’ve got a brat to woo.” Adam glared at Shiro. “But of course, you never were satisfied with just one soulmate. You never could have been satisfied with just me. How could you, when you’d only find others who will just enable you?”“I loved you!” Shiro’s voice broke with his emotions and he fisted both hands until they shook. “I loved you, I wanted to keep you, but you kept pulling away because you’ve always been scared that I’d willingly leave you without a fight, and we’ve talked about this so much about how much it doesn’t matter how many soulmates I’d ever have . . . Adam, you have always been mine, but . . . you didn’t want that anymore. Did you?”“It’s over. I am not your soulmate.”Shiro felt his chest constrict, pain lancing down his spine. “Adam, Adam, no—”“I repudiate you,” Adam wheezed out around his own pain. “You are not my soulmate. Wh-when you get back to the Garrison . . . you won’t be coming home to me.”Shiro could feel agony crawling along his entire body, and he trembled, eyes unseeing as he could feel the magnesium burn of rejection tearing through his nervous system. He knew what was said of this pain. He knew that it would often incapacitate people for days on end. He would be strong, though. He could live through this. Keith needed him. Hands on knees, panting, sweating with the whole-body shudders, he looked up at Adam. “I would have welcomed you back, once. Guess I’m not that good of a man to keep that welcome open. You’d better leave before I recover, Whitmore.”The warning was taken as seriously as it was given, but Adam’s feet paused before he could leave the campsite, blocked by the remaining member of their camping party. “Matt, get your bag.”“Nah, I’m good. See, I’ve watched you hurt the best man I know in our generation over, and over, and over. You’ve gaslit him. Emotionally abused him. You’ve done everything possible to try to bait the least-jealous person I know. I have pleaded with you to stop. I only made the process longer, hurting my best friend more with every fucking passing day. I have compromised my morals and my ethics by not acting sooner on behalf of the pilot I trust with my life. I feel stained by your treatment of him and of my kid sibling. And you know what? We’re done. ”The young scientist faced him, glasses off, pain written across his entire face as he put his hand over Adam’s heart, fingers spread. “I. Repudiate. You.”
~*~
Shiro was a mess at the end. Hunk had curled him close, arms protective around the muscular frame. Lance looked to Keith and Pidge, who were now hugging more than they were holding each other back. And then he looked to the Princess beside him, who didn’t cry prettily at all. And he sighed and pulled her close, tucking her in to cry silently into his jacket. He looked over the perfectly-white hair at Keith. “What happened afterwards?”“Matt powered through, which doesn’t surprise me. Shiro had a hard time recovering at first, but we all dragged our sleeping bags onto a spare ground-cloth and fell asleep outside beside the fire in a pile. I found out later that Matt’s hand on Adam had left a deathmark.” With a sigh, the red Lion pilot curled Pidge closer to him. “We got through the night, went back to the Holt’s the next day.”“And I found out what happened,” Pidge croaked. “I hated it.”“We didn’t feel any of the reaction, though,” Hunk murmured, one warm hand curled around the back of Shiro’s neck, chasing away the chilled stress-sweat.“Because he wasn’t soulmated to any of us,” Keith replied softly. “He had two soulmates. And he refused one, and the other had made a very hard decision to live without his only soulmate. If he had been mated with me or with one of you as well, I’m pretty sure we would have felt echoes.”“Matt was also only leaning bi around that time,” Pidge supplied, wiping their face on their sleeve. “He was more than willing to have a male partner, but he told me later that he was never really comfortable with doing anything more than kissing Adam. They never really got that far because he said he wasn’t able to connect to Adam sexually.”“You know, it’s very strange to hear that from you,” Shiro admitted.Shrugging, Pidge replied, “Yeah, but Matt and I would talk about everything. He kinda had a crush on you, but like, for personality only.”“Do you think he knew we were soulmates?” Shiro asked, honestly curious. He’d never dared to ask Colleen the same question.Keith grinned at that, and Pidge’s response was deadpan. “He probably figured it out before Dad even had a clue. I don’t know if Dad ever knew, actually.”“He knew,” Shiro replied softly, eyes brightening with a memory that resurfaced. “He told me to take care of you when we all got back, and he was looking forward to seeing us all fold into the family. He knew, Pidge. And he was very, very happy that both Keith and I were among of your soulmates.”Keith had a burning question, but part of him was still too scared to bring up his own shortcomings and poor choices as a child. Another part of his mind was tired of hiding. He clenched his left fist, no longer held in one of Pidge’s hands, and opened his mouth.Pidge’s hand rested over the inside of his left arm, carefully casual as if they were just using it to turn themselves around to stare up at the pilot of the red lion. “I don’t blame you. None of us could ever hold that against you.”“Never,” Lance hissed, his voice vehement enough that it caused Allura’s head to pop up off of his shoulder. “We could never hold your pain against you, Keith.” He looked to the beautiful lady beside him. “This is something we won’t discuss around you, Princess, I’m sorry. Soulmate privilege.”“I understand,” she replied, smiling through the tears that still streamed down her face. Their pain was still just so raw. “I also feel that is a perfect phrase for letting me know when I should make myself scarce.”Shiro finally unearthed himself from Hunk’s broad grip but wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone in the room. “I’m . . . going to bring up something that might also be uncomfortable?”“The fact that I’m pretty sure you and Keith have been banging each other every night? Pretty sure we know,” Pidge replied with a shit-eating grin. “Pretty sure Lance is jealous for some of that attention. Pretty sure we also know who bit who on the shoulder.”Shiro facepalmed, his voice filtering through the space between his palm and his cheek. “Oh my god, Katie, what the fuck.”“For the record, Shiro is the only person who can still call me by that name or I’ll cut a bitch.”“Dude, you’re Pidge,” Lance rolled his eyes. “You haven’t told us to call you anything else yet, and I’m not about to use a name that you might not be comfortable with.”Hunk was grinning. “Hey, Keith. Remember what I said to you about Lance and hate-fucking?”Lance’s face burned and he resisted the urge to hide in his hoodie. “Hunk, you didn’t.”“Well color me confused and interested,” Shiro replied, causing another squeak from Lance. But the smoldering gaze he leveled on Hunk was enough to make the teen blink. “About more than one of you.”“O-oh, well, uh . . . Okay? Me?”Keith was laughing again.Allura looked at the five Paladins as they dissolved from serious talk into what felt like a melding of Altean alchemy, bringing their energies together in a perfect harmony. It was eerie to feel this, a sense that she had only remembered from a very young age around the previous Paladins, long before corruption had torn apart Voltron. Each of them marked with the echoes of their physical pain, each of them young, each of them determined, each of them wild and unbroken despite their pasts.“Why do you share marks?” she asked suddenly. “Alteans and the Galra don’t harbor this trait.”“We don’t know,” Hunk replied honestly. “There’s theories out that it has to do with the way that quantum resonances developed around our corner of the universe, but so far, there’s been no way to track it. How does it work for Alteans?”“There’s only a mark for a brief amount of time. We don’t scar very easily, unless it has to do with foreign matter damaging a soulmate’s skin. And the shared-pain? I have only heard of that happening if the soulmates’ quintessence has had many, many years to align into perfect synchronicity.”“Wait, so, like, acid or fire burning? That’s really the only thing that causes a scar for Alteans?” Lance wondered, inwardly trembling at the concept. He hadn’t been conceited about his looks for a very long time, but the mere idea of a burn scar was enough to make him shudder.Allura nodded. “That’s about it, though. I mean, for that very reason, it’s why it had been rare for Alteans to have tattoos. Unless the shapes and placement matches exactly, the discolored skin will still be visible. Galrans have a different soulmate system, but I believe that it was similar enough to your own, where shared marks are mirrored, but perhaps not for as long as human bodies hold onto the marks. Would you all share a tattoo-mark, do you think?”Shiro shook his head with a grin, indicating his chest with a smile. “Before I left, we had agreed that it was okay that I get a tattoo, so that I would bring them all into space with me. I mean, they didn’t know that it was me, but they knew that I was going on a mission for a military group that I’d have to be radio silent on for a while. And I got the tattoo, and the mark faded from Keith’s skin within two days, just about the same time. It’s a simple V, which is fucking ironic now, but it’s the Roman numeral for the number five. By that point, I knew there were five of us in our pride. If we had up to eight soulmates, I can add more to the tattoo.”Pidge’s head whipped around to stare at Shiro when he didn’t used the term ‘cohort.’ While the other three of their soulmates looked confused, they shared a long look that slowly morphed into gentle grins. Pidge nodded. “I’ll tell you three later.”“I’d . . . like you all to help me design a tattoo for my arm, when we get back home,” Keith said into the quiet that followed Pidge’s words.Leaning around Allura to tap his fist to Keith’s knuckles, Lance smiled and said, “I think we’d all be happy to help.”Hunk looked around, then up to Shiro with a small grin, a light blush dusting across his cheeks. “I think that we’re done here except for a couple last housekeeping things.”“And what’s that?” Pidge asked, genuinely curious. “Wait. I think I know.”“Yeap. Shiro, Keith, I know I’m teasing about it, but sex for me and Lance with you two is probably still off the table until we hit eighteen. It’s not that far away, but it’s still something that I know Shiro hinted at being uncomfortable about.”Lance nodded his agreement. “Yeah, I’m not going to push anything, I’m not against kissing or flirting, but I don’t want either of you to feel guilty about holding back or needing to have some form of sex. I’m still not comfortable sharing Hunk all the way yet, but I’m getting there.”“Platonic snuggles only while Keith and I court you three. Got it.” Shiro nodded.“And another thing,” Pidge said suddenly. “Fuck this ‘sleeping alone’ bullshit. Let’s convert one of the rec rooms into a shared bedroom and keep our assigned bunks as designated ‘leave me alone’ places when we need space.”“That’s . . . so . . . perfect,” Keith whispered. “Oh my god, I so need the alone time, guys, it’s nothing personal, but . . . I’m not really a social person all the time like Hunk is. But I know that Shiro and I both need physical contact to sleep right now.”“We know, gorgeous. You don’t have to try to justify yourself to us.” Shiro smirked at Keith’s sudden blush, and turned to look to Allura. “But this is all only if you’re okay with us converting a room, Princess. This is your home, after all.”But the princess was already grinning, eyes bright. “Of course I’ll allow it. But only if you allow the occasional slumber party. I’d . . . I would very much like to get to know all of you better.”Pidge smiled, shrugging. “I think I can say for all of us that we’d like to get to know you better, too. We’re going to be around each other for a while.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What if she hates how I flirt?”“Lance—”“No, really, what if she does.”“Lance, if she hasn’t said anything yet, she clearly hasn’t turned you down entirely,” Shiro finally interrupted, halfway through the food goo that he ate while he stood around. They’d decided to do a bit of a wander while eating, thanks to a slow morning where they didn’t have as many drills and the Galra were really laying low. “I mean, I also think that she qualifies as being over eighteen, so you’d gonna have to keep it tucked until your birthday.”“. . . oh shit do we have an earth calendar?”“Yes, you idiot, it’s called my brain,” Pidge grumbled. “You’ve got another five weeks and two days before you can fuck Shiro or Keith.”“Yeah, but like you and Allura aren’t flirting like crazy. Don’t think I don’t see you both getting all blushy between the alchemy-tech talks.”Rolling their eyes, Pidge replied, “Yeah, but let’s be realistic here: I’m not about to want to get up her skirts. I don’t really give a rat’s ass about the age of majority except for one reason.”“No kidding? What’s that?” Lance was genuinely interested, and he leaned closer to his tiny soulmate.“The moment that I can legally enter you assholes as my soulmates. Now can the two of you hustle out of my hangar? Go bother Keith or something. Leave Hunk alone in the kitchen if you want anything edible for lunch or dinner. I want to work on something with Green.”Shiro grinned, elbowing Lance as they started walking towards the hangar doors. “Might as well listen to our resident gremlin. They have deadly aim.”“A nasty bite.”“Which is much worse than their bark.”“I’ve heard that they can hack anything vaguely technological.”“They punched me in the face once. It was magical.”“If there was a deity of technology, they’d be a reincarnation in the modern age.”“I heard they once traveled to the moon base and fixed all their security problems within an hour and turned around to get home in time to eat dinner.”Pidge was trying not to cry with their laughter. So far, despite the idiocy of the system, they really didn’t have anything that they could complain about in regard to their soulmates. They were all pretty good. Shiro was respectful of their space and was only engaging on the “brother” level like he had been before he was kidnapped. And he was looking a hell of a lot better since they’d all started sleeping together. Less of the “insane purple bruises” bruises that had started to hover under their eyes.Allura had gone above and beyond in the redesign of one of the rec rooms. She had confided in Pidge that it was because of the guilt she still felt in regards to her initial misunderstanding of their dynamics. With Coran, they had almost literally transformed the closest rec room to their individual rooms overnight. The sunken area in front of the couches had been turned into a bed-pit. A nest. An actual nest that she had carefully lined with extra pillows, blankets, light throws, anything soft or warm or squishy or firm or . . . really anything that could belong on a bed. There were even new armor racks and organizational solutions for their personal items, all color-coded to their lions of course. The room had become a communal retreat, even with some areas sectioned off by movable screens in order to help make the space feel smaller, cozier.It had only been two weeks since their talk, and everything was starting to run a hell of a lot smoother. The telepathic devices weren’t as jarring, their shared-mind-space while connected as Voltron was unbelievably strong in comparison to when they had first formed Voltron out of desperation. In some ways, they were working together with such a unified vision that it intimidated Allura. And then in other ways . . . everyone was trying to dodge and escape everyone else.On the first night where Allura had been allowed into the nest, they’d also realized that they’d forgotten one important detail.“Wait, so you’re a girl on your world?”Keith bristled, but didn’t act, waiting to see how Pidge was going to handle this. He could feel a hand, thin and unfamiliar but cable-strong, slide into his own and squeeze. It was a clear reward, and Keith blinked to see Lance smiling at him, then nod back towards where Pidge was still hustling out of their binder behind a screen.“I’m not a girl. And also not a boy. Right now, at least. I don’t know how I’ll feel tomorrow, but I’m not really worrying about it right now. Do you have neutral genders on Altea?”“It’s not common, but there have been recorded cases—”“They’re not cases,” Keith snapped, but he was distracted by another pulse of Lance’s hand around his own and stared in confusion at his teammate. “What?”Suddenly full of confidence, Lance shook his head and gave Keith’s hand a soft swing. “Let Allura finish before you jump down her throat, dude. And let Pidge handle their own conversations. I know you want to defend them, but this isn’t some asshole at the Garrison. It’s Allura and she’s genuinely curious and doesn’t mean any harm. She’s also learning the human vocal intonations for our emotions, and she might not get her tone right. You’re tired, I want to play with your hair, now get the hell over to bed so I can snuggle you.”Keith was so distracted he didn’t even realize that Allura and Pidge were watching the interaction with broad grins. “Why me? Why not Hunk? He snuggles well.”“Right?” Lance sighed dreamily. Shaking his head, he leaned in closer. “Shiro needs Hunk snuggles. But they’re both dancing around each other.”“You mean worse than how you dance around Shiro?”“Yeah, actua—hey!”“So we need to give them the excuse to snuggle.” And Keith then leaned closer. “And you want the excuse to play with my hair because you’re not brave enough to ask Allura yet.”“Wow. Right under the bus,” Pidge laughed. “He’s got you down, Lance!”The Cuban teen blinked twice before grinning. “It’s going to be another few weeks before he can actually get me down, Pidge!”“I—wow. Okay. That worked. Surprisingly.”Keith was snickering at the innuendo, and he tugged on Lance’s hand, still firmly in his own. “Come on, then. Let’s give those two lunkheads a reason to pair off. How do you know all this shit about tone differences in languages, anyway?”“Born in Cuba, grew up speaking Spanish and English and my parents loved playing kids movies in foreign languages. Do you speak anything else?”“Some Japanese thanks to Shiro. Enough Korean to get around a major city, I think.” And Keith had to swing his mind far, far away for a moment, because the only thing that he could think of was making Lance babble incoherently in as many languages as he could. Drawing in a breath, disguising the moment of weakness with a sigh, he asked, “So what do we need for you to fuck around with my hair?”Allura watched them gather a few things then settle on the edge of the nest. “I’m sorry if I offended you in any way, Pidge. I simply don’t understand all the complexities of human gender and sexuality yet.”“You’re just as much an alien to us as we are to you, Princess.” Pidge shrugged. “How about instead of me trying to fill in any gaps that I don’t know about yet, why not tell me about Altean gender norms?”“I’m afraid it’s rather simple. We all have the same genitalia, but the true gender expression doesn’t appear until second puberty.”“Second puberty? There’s more than one for Alteans?”“That’s considered to be the moment when sexual drives first become apparent, usually around our twelfth year.” Allura shrugged. “Some are late-bloomers, some never gain a sexual drive, much like how you’ve described. Second puberty happens around four years after that point, revealing the functional gender of an individual. That’s the closest that I’ve been able to translate it from Altean to English, so please don’t be offended by the term. I suppose that possibly the term ‘gender dynamic’ might also be something to consider for a term to describe our secondary gender-related functions.”“Alien culture, alien terms. I think I’ll survive the miscommunications until we’re at a point that we have more accurate dictionaries between Altean and English. But here’s my question: you and Coran show some pretty opposite ends of a physical gender expression as seen by many humans. How do you have breasts and he doesn’t?”“His functional gender is something along the masculine, much like my father was. They’re still capable of carrying a child to term, but they will not be able to produce as much milk for any offspring.”“Wait. He has a uterus?”“Don’t the other humans?”“Uh, no. Not unless someone’s born intersex.”“Intersex?”“We generally have two sets of genitalia that are each seen as ‘normal.’ One that’s geared towards producing and delivering sperm, and one that’s geared towards incubating a fertilized egg.”“How inefficient!” Gasping, Allura clapped her hands over her mouth.The entire room started laughing, and Pidge stood with a triumphant grin upon their face. “Yes. Yes, it is. Thank you, Princess.”When Shiro wandered in and Hunk followed after him with a light blush and a cart of food, the room had finally settled down. Pidge kept sneaking glances at Allura, confused at their own emotions and the draw to someone in a way they weren’t expecting. It was almost as if there was something missing from the equation. There was something that was new about meeting this person, someone who never really was part of their group, but at the same time, seemed to seamlessly exist with them. Coran was a kooky motherfucker.Allura was . . . Allura.And that confused Pidge.Because Allura was alien, and Allura didn’t have any soulmate scars.
~*~
The crystal shattering during the “open house” made everyone lose their shit. They hadn’t had to coordinate to find their missing member, who had cavalierly shoved Coran further away from the blast. The four other members of the cohort had circled around Lance to assess his injuries. Hunk was very quietly pissed off, knowing that Lance didn’t see himself as valuable as Coran, so he had chosen to keep the older Altean safe.Allura hung back as the soulmates carefully maneuvered the unconscious young man into a position that wouldn’t cause additional harm.She knew.She felt her back burn, she felt the ache of a sting, the throb of a wound that was going to heal slowly if Lance wasn’t shoved into a healing pod. And she knew that it would scar. Burns scarred after all.They locked the castle down, they weathered the several fronts of the singular battle. Lance was finally put in the only healing pod that would run on emergency power and Sendak was contained in stasis. And that was when Allura retreated to her rooms, shaking. Hunk and Coran were off getting the new Balmeran crystal. Allura couldn’t find it in herself to trust Keith very far for some reason that she didn’t even know yet. Shiro seemed to be as gay as a man could get, so she didn’t want to bother any of his boundaries that she might not know yet. And the mice were useless, the dear things.That . . . left Pidge.She stood in the middle of her room, trembling with pain and exhaustion, hands gripped into fists and not sure what to do next. She was paralyzed with her indecision.“Princess?”Jumping, staring, she saw none other than Shiro and Pidge together standing just inside her door. “You must have been knocking; I apologize for being so lost in my thoughts, paladins.”Shiro thumbed at Pidge. “They said that you were scanning weird on the Castle’s systems, and we wanted to make sure that you’re okay.”Allura smiled. “I wouldn’t want to put either of you out—”“Yeah, but the boys can be pretty dumb and blind when everyone’s worried about a wound.” Pidge was unflinching in her blunt assessment of Keith, Hunk, and Lance. “And I’ve got a hunch. You’ve been keeping your back away from anyone, and you flinched several times when someone would touch your shoulder or arm. Lance’s injury was a burn. What’s your back look like?”Allura flushed with shame. “You don’t . . . you five . . . And Shiro’s gay?”The two began grinning, and the expression startled Allura into realizing that this wasn’t a bad thing. Shiro took a few steps forward and held out both hands palm-up. “I’m gay, yeah, but that doesn’t mean that I will hate snuggling up with another soulmate. Besides, if you have a penis, I’m pretty sure that we can come to an agreement.”“Shiro! Pidge is right there!”“Oh, don’t you start, too.” But Pidge was still grinning. “And now you don’t dare think that you don’t belong with us. Also, stop feeling guilty about wooing Lance; he’s seriously head-over-heels for you.” They were walking closer, revealing that they had a human first-aid bag in their hand. “Right, hair up, dress off your back.”“You really don’t—”“Don’t finish that.” Shiro said, voice soft and firm. “We do. Everyone has already handled theor own new scars, outside of you. And you need our attention the most and we know you feel guilty, but there’s no way that you could have known that this was going to happen. Please let us help you. You don’t deserve to be in this much pain. I wouldn’t let Pidge or Keith go so long without treatment, so why should I let you?”Watery eyes fell to the floor.Pidge leaned in, voice soft and firm, “Do you honestly believe that you aren’t deserving of our attention, Princess? You’re one of ours. Can I pull your hair out of the way?”“Yes.”“Okay. Do you want me to keep asking pointed questions?”“Yes . . . I . . . I’m not used to asking for help.”Shiro’s hands tightened around Allura’s, leading her to sit on a backless stool so that Pidge could reach her hair, taking up the next round of questioning. “Would you accept my platonic touch to help spread some salve on your back to help soothe and heal the scarring? Pidge, Hunk, Keith, and I have already done this for each other. Lance is healing in the pod, and you’re the only one of our pride who hasn’t been treated for the burn-scar.”“Yes. Please.”“Did you want to hold Pidge’s hands while I do this?”Pidge had swiftly braided Allura’s hair before spinning it up into a loose bun, resting deft fingertips carefully on the tops of the Princess’ shoulders, which was about an inch beyond the leading edge of the soulmate-scar that was currently chafing against their shirt. They felt the massive sigh before Allura whispered, “Pidge, are you comfortable working on my back? I don’t want to damage your hands if I squeeze too hard.”“Are you that much stronger than humans are?”“I’m afraid so.”“We can work with that. Can I open the back of your dress?”“Please.” The relief was easily heard in the Altean’s voice, which made Shiro and Pidge exchange a look as the younger Paladin began to gently pull the fabric away from irritated skin. They sighed at seeing the damage. “Shiro, go get a towel for Allura’s front, please.”“Don’t bother; they’re only there for show right now.”Both paladins snorted their laughter, but Pidge was the one to speak first. “Dammit, I’m glad you’re ours because I love your mindset.” Pidge helped remove Allura’s sleeves while Shiro kept chuckling. “I don’t know what Alteans think about burn severities, but this is pretty bad. I’m going to be as gentle as possible, but I really think that you should come and rest with us in the nest tonight. It’ll help speed along healing if you were human. Besides, I don’t think that you should sleep alone.”“Is that a human culture thing?”“Yeah, and one that we think you could benefit from,” Shiro replied, taking her hands and smiling. “Please don’t break my bones, okay? Feel free to break the prosthetic, though.”“I wouldn’t dare!” Allura gasped as Pidge began to work from the edges of the burn in towards the center, carefully rubbing the salve over the tender, inflamed skin. Tears flowed silently down Allura’s face at the tender treatment as it finally hit her that she had soulmates.
She had soulmates.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When Lance stumbled out of the pod half-aware of his surroundings and feeling . . . “Is thiiis what fffeeeling drunk is liiike?” Stumbling, he was caught in strong, familiar arms and an embrace that helped his mind start chugging along.“Oh dear, I don’t believe we’ve calibrated this correctly for humans!”He knew that voice. It was new, though? Was it?“But first, let’s get you something to eat and drink if you can walk, Lance.”A gorgeous face, tanned and framed in soft white hair, swam into his vision. “Are you asking me out on a date? Because you are out of this world.”“Did he just pair two sentences of two different pick-up-lines?”Pidge snorted. “Yep. He’s fine.”
~*~
The goo was awful, but Lance was feeling a lot more centered and awake now that he had the chance to change into something normal again. Once he had caught up with all the maneuvers of the Galra situation, Lance looked around the faces before him. “So what am I missing? What happened that you’re not telling me?”Hunk’s brow furrowed and he looked to Coran and Keith, both of whom shrugged. Shiro grinned at Lance, his step forward masking Allura’s anxious touch of fingertips to Pidge’s elbow. “Well, we were a little wrong about something.”“Wrong? What happened? Is everyone okay?” Lance’s eyes darted around to all faces, and locked onto Allura’s trembling silence.Pidge grinned, taking Allura’s hand and squeezing it. “Looks like she’s actually ours, Lance.”His hands flew up to cover his mouth. After a moment he stood, taking Allura’s other hand and whispered, “I’m so sorry you had to find out like this. Oh my God, though. You’re ours.”Coran sat heavily in a chair, eyes suspiciously shiny but not in a way that meant outright sorrow, but some sadness was also evident. Hunk and Keith stared hard at Allura before Hunk nodded as if confirming something for himself. “That explains a lot of things, actually.”“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “Especially her draw to constantly be up our butts.”“Keith!” several people chorused, but Allura giggled and squeezed both Lance and Pidge’s hands. She shared a smile with the slight, dark-haired man.Allura smiled, tears starting to fall as she pulled Lance into a firm hug. “He’s got a point, though. I didn’t realize that it was the soulmate draw, just . . . I wanted to be around all of you as much as possible. I sometimes over-do things, and I’m sorry. It’s something I need to work on.”“You were raised to be Queen,” Coran said softly, a smile brightening his face into a proud glow. “Essentially, a larger-than-life individual of an already-outgoing and charismatic race. It’s no wonder that your mannerisms may be a little overwhelming to a more conservative race.”Keith came up behind Lance to give him a hug, then slid around to rest a hand on Allura’s shoulder. “We’ll adjust to each other. I’m admittedly a bit antisocial.”“It’s called being introverted, and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Hunk replied sharply, ruffling dark hair and making the ace pilot squawk with indignation. “But seriously, Princess, you . . . had a mark?”“I fear that I’ll always have a mark. This was foreign material that exploded into Lance’s back, along with some burns.”Lance looked ready to cry that he’d inadvertently hurt Allura. Keith knew a deeper guilt. “Doesn’t seem fair to keep this a secret from only one person at this point.” He looked over his shoulder at Coran. “This is privileged information.”“I don’t have to know all your secrets, especially cohort secrets—”“Not all, you do need to know this one. Because this . . . this is something that I will always struggle with, no matter how good my life gets. And you’re Allura’s advisor; you will have to know how to help her if my mind’s in a bad enough place.”Silent, solemn in a way that none of the humans had seen, Coran replied, “I have hoped beyond hope for her entire life that her soulmate would be a kind, loving person. It was heartbreaking to consider that she would not have one when we awoke from the cryo-slumber. I cannot tell you how happy I am that her heart will be guarded jealously by not just one, but all of Voltron’s paladins. Keith, you trust me to continue to assist Allura as closely as I have?”“Is it closer than traditional standards?”“We’re almost familial, which if Altea were still here, it would be questioned if we were remaining appropriate with one another,” Allura replied softly.“I still don’t see a problem with this,” Keith huffed. “Look, Coran, I get that soulmates are different in your culture, but in human culture, it’s considered very unhealthy if a soulmate cuts off their partner from their familial support. She’ll always need you, and that’s okay. None of us could advise her on being a royal person, that’s for fucking sure.”Shiro nodded, his voice carefully gentle. “We’re not perfect, but I think I speak for us all that we’re glad she’s ours, and we’re glad that she has family with you.”“Even if some of us are too gay to function. Right, Keith?” Pidge snickered at the huff and glare that they got for that comment.But the humor passed and Keith stepped back and pulled his jacket off, turning his left wrist over silently, trying to find words but his mind came up entirely blank. He watched as Allura untangled herself from Pidge, right hand reaching over to touch the series of thin, pale scars. She looked at Hunk, the only one not wearing long sleeves, and he turned his wrist over to show the corresponding soulmate scars. Her voice was low, respectful. “You still feel very guilty about this.”“Incredibly,” Keith whispered, voice cracking and feeling his limbs start to shake.Shiro didn’t exactly rush over, but he didn’t take his time, either, slipping his arms around Keith’s waist and resting his chin on Keith’s shoulder. Hunk took Keith’s right hand, and Pidge wedged herself under his left arm to lean against his torso. Allura tugged Lance to get between herself and Keith and Hunk, reaching arms around both Lance and Keith. And Keith whispered, “I hate that I hurt them all so badly, Allura. On so many levels.”“Me too,” Lance whispered, voice hoarse. “But I don’t know if there was any other choice that I could make.”Keith rubbed at his face, trying hard to hide his tears, but he couldn’t manage it with everyone so close around him, supporting both himself and Lance. Lance, who made a man’s choice to protect someone whose knowledge was irreplaceable, taking the brunt of the explosion. He finally reached over to pull Lance’s forehead to his own, initiating the affectionate contact and sighing when everyone settled a little closer in their living knot of limbs and pain. It was rare that he initiated anything with Lance, mostly because they still bounced off of each other so sharply.“We’re really fucked up,” Keith whispered.“Yeah, we are,” Lance whispered back. “I don’t think I would want it any other way, though?”“You know this keeps things interesting.” Hunk lowered his head to nuzzle at the nape of Lance’s neck.“I couldn’t ask for better soulmates,” Shiro replied. “I had hoped for so long . . . and Adam’s rejection hurt so badly, but with all of you at my side, I know that I can be the leader you need me to be. And the soulmate that I want to be for each of you.”“I swear to god, if this gets even more sappy, I’m gonna smack every single one of you,” Pidge warned, pressing their face against Keith’s chest, their hand reaching up to cover one of Allura’s.With a sigh, Keith smiled, eyes still sad and distant. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”
~*~
That night, post-launch as they orbited in the shadow of a moon, Allura stood outside the door to the paladins’ communal room, hand raised to knock, but frozen with indecision.“Man!”Jumping, Allura turned to see Lance walking up, hands in his pockets and a soft smile on his face. “I always catch soulmates stuck outside my door. Come here often, beautiful? Or am I just this lucky to see you show up for the first time like a fresh dawn on the ocean?”“Lance,” she cajoled, unable to keep a smile from crossing her face or a blush to dust her cheeks.He froze, eyes wide before a blush crossed his own cheeks. “Oh, that’s just not fair. I can’t even flirt without getting all flustered that . . . uh . . .”“That it’s taken seriously and that I might also be interested? Whoever did such a number on your self-esteem should do a few rounds with me as punishment.”“Hot. But also dangerous territory until I’m an adult.” But he was grinning up at her without any remorse. His eyes sobered just a little. “I’m really, really happy that you’re okay with all of us.”“More than simply ‘okay,’ Lance. I am grateful in a way that I’m not sure I know how to express.” She shuffled her feet, unsure of how to proceed. She didn’t know how welcome she was within the cohort, or even if they could all put aside socio-economic standings, or even if everyone was okay with aliens—Lance’s fingers wove through her own, and Allura focused back on his face. “Lance?”“Do you want to move in with us? At least with your everyday stuff?”“I wouldn’t dare intrude . . .”Sliding the door open, Lance called in, “Who wants Allura to move in?”Hunk and Pidge popped up off the couches, dropping their tablets on a table. Pidge waited by the door while Hunk wandered to the en suite shower room door, opening it to call in, “When you two are done, come help us move Allura in!”“Yep!” Keith’s voice echoed out.Shiro’s voice burbled, like he was still dunking his hair under the stream. “Won’t be long!” Closing that door, he walked over to the trio standing patiently at the door into the suite, beaming at Allura. “We weren’t sure if you wanted to come room with us heathens. But we’re absolutely happy to welcome you.”She nodded, for once unsure of her place among a group of people. But Lance squeezed her hand and said, “House rules time?”Pidge laughed. “House rules!”Swinging their hands like children, Lance grinned as he began leading her back to her rooms. “Rule number one: don’t be an asshole.” He waited for her laugh to settle before adding, “Rule number two: if you think you’ve offended someone, chances are high that you did so figure it the fuck out and if you need mediation, grab someone to help. Rule number three: have fun.”“That’s it?”“That’s it.”“That’s fairly straightforward.”“Yeah, we’re all pretty simple when it comes down to it.” Hunk grinned. “Okay, now can I tell you guys about Shay? Whatever. I’ll tell you about Shay. You’ll love her. I hope you approve of her. I’d love to have her as an occasional lover, but if you’re not chill with that, I think she’d be okay with waiting. So her culture has this thing where they have tribes and people have a standard of three other partners. She was so stoked to hear that I’d already had my soulmates, or my tribe, and she was--”And Allura realized that she’d be okay.
~*~
Late that night, a small figure detached itself from the puddle of snoring humanoids to slip out of the room. Two sets of blue eyes snapped open, but one figure sat up, leaning down to kiss the forehead of the paladin beside her. “Sleep. I’ll see what they’re up to.”Lance sighed and settled back down, curling back against Shiro, who had chosen to sleep between himself and Hunk. Keith had taken Hunk’s other side, and Pidge had been on the outside, jetpacking along Keith’s back. Allura had taken the other outside to be close to Lance. She was still shaken from how close they came to losing him.Allura knew her castle. She always knew who was where because of the lions and their link with her as their guardian. So when she left the room, she grabbed a large comforter and followed the “feel” of the tiniest, fiercest paladin. To one almost-sense, something less than actual vision but more than a hallucination, she followed a scrappy green lion through the halls. One hallway before she was about to catch up, it paused to stare long and hard at her before blinking out of sight. She swung the comforter around her shoulders, pulling her braid free and making herself comfortable. When she opened the door to the observatory, she smiled. “So this is where you got to.”Pidge didn’t do more than look up for a half-second before returning to their laptop screen. “Sorry. I just can’t sleep.”“May I join you?”That made Pidge’s hands still from their frantic typing, and they sighed, looking up. “Yes.”Settling on the couch, Allura opened up one side of her impromptu robe. “I often find that it gets a little chilly even for Alteans during the night hours. Would you like some of the comforter?”Silently, Pidge curled up beside Allura, quickly cocooned against the world.They sat like that for almost an hour, until Pidge whispered, “What if the guys want me to be one gender or another? Female or male?”Allura blinked, speaking before she could filter her words. “Well, then they’d certainly have a problem with my natural equipment, now wouldn’t they?”Startled into a watery laugh, Pidge whispered, “But you’re not human, Allura.”“Well, clearly. And if they have had no problem with you being agender as long as they’ve known you, why would they start having a problem now of all times?”“Because you look more female than I do?”“Doesn’t mean that I am.”“But I . . . kinda want to look a little more female?”“Then that’s entirely your choice, Pidge.” Allura ran her fingers through short hair. “Do I make you wish you were one gender or the other by being as female as my race can get?”“Sort of. I mean. You’re so pretty, you’re elegant, you’re effortlessly female, and I’m . . . I’m not.”“I know . . . knew of many female Alteans who were also far less feminine than myself. Not only am I female and feminine, but I was trained and raised to be a queen. So take all that implied and enforced femininity and add to it that I had to also be a visual symbol for my people . . .” Allura sighed. “As terrible as it is, I am somewhat grateful that I do not have to wear gowns on a daily basis anymore. Flight suits are ever so much more satisfying to wear.”“I think,” Pidge said slowly, leaning their head against Allura’s shoulder, “that you shouldn’t feel guilty for exploring that.”“And I think,” Allura replied softly, “that you shouldn’t feel like you have to choose any gender based upon the opinions of your soulmates. Myself absolutely included in that, Pidge. There are many kinds of peoples and genders and sexualities and even things that we don’t even know about yet. Why should you fit anyone’s mold but your own?”“Because,” Pidge’s voice grew watery, “because I thought that I would just go back to being a girl when I started getting boobs and shit. But I don’t feel like a girl.”“Well, breasts are hardly any good indication of what gender you are. They’re just what your current hormones are programmed for.” Allura sighed. “There’s so many levels of consent that needs to be obtained before Coran or I could offer assistance, and even if we could, we would have to program in human biology to synthesize what you need so it would take time.”“Could my dad do that? Give consent for all this when we find him?”“Absolutely. I wish to honor the laws of your home planet, and while I have no doubt that you are maturing beyond the years of your peers from what I’ve been told . . . it still remains that you’re under the age of majority and consent.”Pidge sighed. “I know. I hate some of the legal stuff.” They fidgeted with the edge of the comforter again, then asked, “Who else is awake?”“Lance roused just enough to notice you were leaving, but I let him know that I would see if you’re okay.” Allura’s hand never stopped running through Pidge’s wavy hair, pausing only occasionally to play with a few strands before returning to long, soothing strokes. “Searching for your father and brother this late at night will only make you grumpy tomorrow morning. After training, let’s sit with everyone to work on schedule for various projects and goals.”“Anything Voltron-related is gonna end up taking priority,” Pidge grumbled, rubbing irritably at their eyes.Grimacing, Allura whispered, “I’m afraid so. But you are the only one with family captured by the Galra at this point; I’m sure we can place their recovery second on our priority list.”“Since we’ll be tailing the Galra pretty closely?”“Exactly. What is the phrase Hunk said yesterday about two stones and one bird?”“Hitting two birds with one stone.”“And shall we also hit the two birds with one stone and go back to rest with our cohort?”“How is that two goals?”“We both get rest, and we both get to snuggle with people who care very much about us just as we are.”“Fine,” Pidge grumbled, reaching over to close their laptop and place it on their lap. “But I want to be carried back.”Laughing, Allura lifted her littlest soulmate effortlessly and walked back towards the doors. When they entered the room again, she paused to put the laptop on a table, barely moving the drowsy Pidge. When she approached the nest, Lance lifted the edge of the blanket and whispered, “Pidge, my dear and my ferocious kitten. C’mere.”They fell into his arms, and he snuggled them close as they whispered, “I miss dad and I still don’t want to be male or female.”“You always overthink this sort of shit late at night,” Shiro groaned, reaching over with his Galra arm and pushing their hair away from their face. “Pidge. We’ll find Sam and Matt. And you can be whatever gender you want to be.” They wove their fingers through Shiro’s, and he pulled his head up enough to smile at them reassuringly. His voice was soft, gentle. “I love you, gremlin.”“I love you, too,” they whispered, eyes misting up.Lance kissed one away before curling Pidge closer, careful to keep them comfortable while they held tightly onto Shiro. Allura settled up close behind Pidge’s back.They had a hard road to walk, but they would walk it together.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
In the wake of the Balmera battle against the Galra, and a few days after the castleship tried to kill everyone and Allura had to say a final farewell to her father by destroying the AI, Shiro realized that he really wasn’t anywhere near “okay.” He stood in the shower, flexing the prosthetic hand and feeling the water sluice off between the fake knuckles. He’d learned so much about what he had done while captured. His muscle-memory had changed from that of martial arts being a hobby, to martial arts being a survival tool and a first response. Keith had unnaturally-fast reaction times, thankfully, and the few times that he’d lashed out during a nightmare were handled diplomatically. Right now? The thought of punching a hole in a wall sounded amazing and oh-so-satisfying, but also sounded like it’d hurt where his flesh met metal.Sighing, he turned the water off and began to walk out of the shower area just as Lance entered the large bathroom, focused on scrolling through a tablet with a light frown. Heat blossomed over Shiro’s face, irritating the edges of his scar across his nose, and he was thankful for leaving a towel on the rack by the shower doors. The last thing he needed was to get himself in trouble by his own rules. The tan figure stood by one of the refresher machines peeling off the top half of his training suit, revealing the healed scar from the crystal explosion, and the beginnings of true adult musculature, far more wiry and deft in construction than Shiro’s mass. “Shiro!”“Hey. Good job, today.”Lance laughed, carefully rubbing some dried sweat-salt away from his eyebrows. “I did all right. I’ve got a long way to go before I’m anywhere near you or Keith’s level.” He paused, eyes darting over Shiro’s face. “You okay? You look a bit like hell.”“That bad, huh?” Rubbing the back of his neck, the older man shook his head and pulled open his locker, where he had stored some loose lounging clothes for after showers. “I’d probably have problems if we were to be poking at each other’s head-holes tonight.”“Ugh. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m still having problems with that airlock scare. I can’t walk down that hallway without shivering.”“Lance . . .”The teen shook his head. “I’ll be fine. We’ve all faced nasty traumas before, we’re going to just have to get used to them happening faster and closer together than before. But we’re good at this, right? Good at adapting?”“We are. Lance, go shower.”“What, because I stink?”“No, because it’ll help. I’ll stay out here and I’ll talk with you, okay? Just get under some hot water. It’ll help. I promise.”Lance ended up being quick to comply after Shiro disappeared into a stall to get dressed. It was a good thing that they were all being so considerate about this, but it was also something that turned the knife in the wound a little. He wanted to be able to enjoy adult company, but he only felt able to connect with Keith on that level right now. And he worried about what kind of relationship he and Pidge would have. Hunk was right after Lance with his interest in Shiro, but he was sweetly embarrassed about it, too. So while he continued to ruminate, Shiro and Lance tossed small topics back and forth while Lance scrubbed the dried sweat off of his skin until Shiro realized that he had been silent for a moment too long.“Shiro? You okay? You got real quiet.”Shiro blinked and sighed. No use lying. “No, I’m not okay. I think I need the distraction as much as you do, Lance.”“What’s going on? Wait. Unless you don’t wanna talk about it, in which case, that’s totally cool and I respect that.”Taking a moment and fighting against his own mind, daring himself to trust this soulmate, this perfect complement to himself and Keith and Hunk and Pidge and Allura and he couldn’t help the break in his voice as he whispered, “I feel broken, Lance. Like not all of me came home when I escaped the Galra.”The water shut off.Lance stormed out, entirely naked, and Shiro spluttered as his face heated so fast that he felt dizzy. Lance waved his hand and muttered, “I was born two weeks late, it’s one week until I’m eighteen according to Pidge, age doesn’t matter when I would die for you, now get the fuck over here, you amazing lunkhead.” And he drew Shiro into an embrace, cheek pressing against cheek. Shiro melted into the embrace, hot tears surprising him as they bounced off both Lance’s shoulder and his own nose. He felt Lance pull them down into a corner, sitting on a towel to protect his skin from the chill of the tiles. And there they sat, whispering their insecurities to each other and reminding each other that no matter how strong they are to the world, it’s okay to be vulnerable with your soulmates.Keith peeked around a corner, saw that Lance had things well in hand, and smiled at the younger almost-man, giving him a thumb’s up and slinking out the door. Lance felt something untangle in his chest and he whispered, “Keith was waiting for you, but I think that he approves of us, of this.”Shiro smiled, heart breaking all over again for his desert rat. But he settled his ear against a bare chest, eyes falling to half-mast as he and Lance kept each other warm and safe.
~*~
Keith was meticulous about Red’s care. After every flight, he would visually inspect all of her bulkhead surfaces. He’d scrub char and ash off her plating by hand, inspecting the enamel cracks and carefully repairing what he could on his own before asking Coran for help. He knew that all the other pilots had done similarly for their own lions.All but Shiro.Shiro and Black had a very strong connection and relationship, but the older pilot tended to treat the lion like a regular ship at times. Both Allura and Keith noticed, waiting for a change in behavior towards the semi-sentient ships, but it never came. While Lance helped Shiro, Keith pulled Allura aside. “You’re the key to the lions, and you’re also familiar with the technology. Will Shiro’s lion suffer or fail if he’s not . . . uh . . .”“Grooming her?” Allura asked, mind latching onto the word and not letting go. She didn’t know why she pulled a Galra form of affection to mind, but shook off the chill without giving any outward indication that it felt like she was missing something important.Keith finished pulling on a longer-lasting jetpack before replying, making eye contact with the Princess. “I think he just needs a bit of a nudge. I’m going to get Red, but can you help me with the lions? I think that Black needs a little extra care while Shiro figures himself out a little more.”“You really look after Shiro. It’s a good trait for the second-in-command of Voltron. I can certainly help with diagnostics if Black will communicate with me. She’s very strong-willed, but also quite caring from what I can recall.” Smiling, Allura was glad that she had already put on a flight suit for the day. Pulling on a second jetpack and grabbing her own helmet, she walked with Keith to Red’s hangar. “What’s it like, being bonded to the lion?”“I mean, wouldn’t you know more about that?” Keith was genuinely curious, his helmet pinned between his elbow and his side.Shaking her head, Allura replied, “I’m genuinely curious. I can sense the lions and what their conditions are since they’ve been keyed to me, but they are more than likely going to be more talkative to their paladins.”Taking a moment, Keith murmured, “It’s a little hard to describe, but Red is like . . . she’s always purring in the back of my mind, like she’s pleased that we’re such a good match. She’s unpredictable, wild, fierce, and it’s like she’s always been there.” He smiled softly. “It’s less lonely with her around. She and I work together to guide her. It’s not just me piloting her.”Allura was shocked. This was a deeper level of connection than she originally had thought Keith capable of. “That’s phenomenal.”He opened the hangar door and Red crouched, peering down at her pilot and the visitor. Allura felt the flash of seeing the red maneless lion perched between the front paws, lean and wary. At her pause, Keith asked, “What is it?”“I . . . can sometimes feel the lions and almost ‘see’ a version of them. It’s a somewhat mystical side of how Alteans can perform alchemy. We can sense, sometimes ‘see,’ the form that a quintessence-fueled and semi-sentient craft can take. There used to be specialized alchemists very strong in their craft who would be called in for ship communications if something was going wrong that mechanics or alchemists with other foci couldn’t figure out.” She smiled softly at Red. “This is how I keep finding Pidge when they decide to go missing. Green shows up and leads me to them.”Keith looked up at his ship with a smile. “And she just showed you a part of herself?”“Yes. I wonder if you would be able to see her someday.” Allura smiled up at the noble ship. “But humans don’t sense quintessence the way that Alteans have.”Keith blinked for a moment before approaching his lion and raising his hand up to greet her. “Maybe not unassisted. Think it has anything to do with the way that I was able to track an energy signature to find Blue? Nobody else seemed to be able to find the lion.”Allura drew in a breath, then shrugged. “My current theory is that you were able to track the lion because of the soulmate link that you share with Lance.”
“Hey, beautiful, care to let us in?”
The words echoed around Keith’s mind and he sighed. “Blue really is something amazing. Not as amazing as my Red, but she’s certainly something wonderful.” Red bowed her head, and Keith jumped, activating his jets to jump up and land on the top of Red’s head. He paused when she didn’t move, then grinned. “Come on up, Princess. Red likes the idea of grooming Black while Lance and Shiro rest.”
~*~
Lance blinked as Shiro stiffened slightly, lifting his head up to tilt it to one side. “Hey. Do you feel that?”“No? Feel what?” Lance looked around before looking within, a sensation he was still getting used to, but was getting faster at with practice. He was finally getting the hang of this lion-communication thing after the crystal explosion, and Blue was super mother-hen over him. She did want she could to help him, and to help him help the other paladins, what with coming from a large family himself.
Bring the Black Paladin to his hangar.
It wasn’t words, per se, but he could feel the draw to get closer to Blue, to bring whomever was with him, and a sense of warm love and acceptance.“Huh. Up you get. Blue wants you in your hangar.”Within moments, Shiro was up, shocked that his clothing was dry and so was Lance— He turned his head away with a blush before his gaze could travel too much lower. “Uh.”“You’re fucking adorable,” Lance laughed. “Okay, okay.” He pulled one of the towels around his waist and stood.“Do you believe in birthday sex?” Shiro blurted as he followed Lance into their room. He just barely kept himself from face-palming in embarrassment.Lance paused from pulling his spare flight suit out of his locker, one that wasn’t spaceworthy anymore but perfectly fine when within pressurized environments. He was grinning the entire time. “I believe in sex. End of story. And Hunk has called dibs on the first round of birthday sex, which is probably going to happen right after midnight if I know him.” He began dressing behind the door of the locker, and when he closed the door, it was painfully clear that he was entirely behind that idea.“But then . . . he’d still be a minor.”Lance paused, rolling this topic around in his head for a long few minutes as he pulled his boots on. Shiro had taken the brief moment to change into his own flight suit. Neither bothered with their armor, not yet. It wasn’t until Lance had taken Shiro’s hand and began pulling them along, taking the long way to Black’s hangar, that he had found the words to say. “I don’t think I hold to that, not with the fact that Hunk and I have been having sex for about nine months, give or take some days. He’s younger than me, sure, but he’s also way more mature than I think I’ll ever be. I don’t think that he and I are likely to stop having sex for several months, especially since it’s a massive comfort for each of us after close calls. I know that you and Keith do the same thing.”Shiro looked down. “I can’t shake that it’s wrong for me.”“For you, and that’s entirely cool and I respect that. There’s a greater age difference between us; you met us as teenagers while you’re an adult. And beyond the age difference issue, I know that you still have several emotional road blocks thanks to how Adam treated you, which probably were made worse with the fact that you have PTSD from being prisoner. And none of us blame you for that. We’re not here for a quick romance, Shiro; we’re here for the rest of our lives. I don’t want to hold back from loving Hunk because our dynamic absolutely includes the sexual expression, and I don’t think that he would hold back either if our ages were switched.”“I’m not judging you,” Shiro reassured, his voice soft, reassuring. He took Lance’s hand and smiled at the blush. “I’m just curious and I know that our relationships are all going to take some time before they settle into something a little more formal.”Lance laughed. “If you think ‘formal’ is going to happen with our gaggle of goofballs, you’ve got another . . . thing . . . coming.” He looked up at the door to Black’s hangar. “Since when do you leave this door cracked open?”“I don’t?” Shiro asked, but voices were on the other side of the door, and he smelled some faint enamel or paint thinner fumes. Carefully, he opened the door to stop and whisper, “oh.”Peeking around his shoulder, Lance smiled broadly, gently pushing him deeper into the large hangar. Shiro couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Four of the five lions were in the room, three posed to assist where their pilot was working on Black in some way. Allura herself was perched on top of Black’s head with some diagnostic screens hovering around her as she fiddled with something that Shiro couldn’t make out from where he stood. Coran turned and smiled brightly. “Lance, can you fetch Blue? I’ll need her assistance to calibrate a temperature sensor.”Shiro felt Lance kiss his cheek, and he squeezed the warm hand in his own before it disappeared. Keith leapt down from one of Black’s thrusters, his own jetpack slowing his descent before he landed lightly a few feet away. The level of grace shocked Shiro all over again, making him wonder if Keith was entirely human after all, since they all knew very well by now that aliens were very real and some were very compatible with humans. With firm, proud steps, he was swept into a heated kiss that had Lance and Hunk cheering while Allura laughed at his surprise. Pidge called with a voice full of laughter from where they were entirely out of sight, “Gross, they’re kissing!”“What is this?” Shiro asked when he had caught his breath.“We know you’ve been having some trouble keeping up with Black’s maintenance, and we wanted to help you with giving her a solid grooming before the next mission. Red says that Black has been helping you in a lot of other ways, and that she didn’t mind not getting what Hunk called a ‘spa day,’ but—”“Keith,” Shiro whispered, “you don’t have to justify it. You’re right; I’ve been having a rough time. And was it you that initiated this?”“Yes.”“Thank you. And thank you for the time with Lance earlier.”“You’re welcome.”By the time that Blue came trotting proudly into Black’s hangar, Shiro was under Black’s instrumentation, a smile on his face. The dark partner in the back of his mind was purring happily. She liked the feeling of the Soulmate cohort around her, the pilots all connected to one another and the princess. It was a good balance, and she would do everything in her power to preserve her paladin’s pride of mates.Shiro smiled again, the ghost sensation of a cat shoving her cheek against his jaw flickering into a full sensation and then it was gone.“That’s my girl.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Allura stared hard at the comatose Galra in her medical bay, lips curled into a silent snarl and brows furrowed. She hated them. She hated them all for what they had done to her planet, her home, her family and friends. She didn’t know how this . . . creature had survived for as long as he had during the tactical bridge that Red had requested. And dammit, she couldn’t damn well go against what the Black Paladin had decreed:Amnesty.Amnesty for a monster.She turned, shoulder brushing Keith’s as she stormed out the door that he just passed through, storming off. The young man blinked twice, then sighed and continued on, glad that he hadn’t dropped anything as he parked beside Shiro. The older man stared up at Ulaz’s pained face from where he sat on a stool, elbows on his knees. “I’m worried, Keith.”“Yeah, and I bet you’re hungry, too. Here.”Taking the bowl, Shiro scooped some of the food goo into his mouth, swallowed, and said, “Allura is heated about this.”“Allura has reason to be mad. Like I have a reason to be mad that the Garrison tossed me out on my ass when they did.” Keith began working on his own bowl, speaking between bites. “Her prejudice is really throwing a wrench into our dynamics, though. She’s really shut down around me, you know?”“I know, but I can’t help but feel that it was important to order her to rescue him with a tactical jump.” Shiro sighed. “She hates that I didn’t specify who or what we were saving, and she’s mad at me for it. Because you know that I withheld that information.”A singular noise of perfect disgust emitted from Pidge at the doorway. “All of us in your head-hole know that you made a military choice to save what we humans all agreed was a valuable resource, Shiro. We were Voltron; it wasn’t like we didn’t agree with you and acted with you the moment we realized what was happening. It was impulsive, but the moment you made the choice, we all acted on it as you commanded us to break apart and for Keith to get Ulaz.” They walked over and moved his bowl aside to sit sideways across his lap and lean their head against his shoulder, holding the bowl so that Shiro could still eat. “She’s giving me a headache, and I hate that I can’t do anything about her hatred, and it’s . . . it’s wrong to hate an entire race because of the actions of one person.”“Mm . . . One person and a lot of people willing to follow him and continue to perpetuate violence and oppression,” Shiro murmured. “It just takes a strong enough personality to sway a population. We’ve seen it too many times on Earth, and that was all human-on-human.”Pidge sighed, sinking closer to Shiro’s warmth. Keith reached over and began playing with ginger hair, unable to keep himself from seeing to his soulmate’s comfort. His raspy voice was soft, “You’re usually more perceptive about yourself and your relationships. Know what I think is going on?”“Oh, go on. Tell me how I’m feeling.” Their distain was virtually dripping from tired lips.Ignoring the sass, Keith replied, “I think you’re disappointed that she’s just as flawed as the rest of us, has prejudices that have some pretty crazy baggage attached, and really doesn’t care who hears her because she’s literally just lost her entire planet and everyone she loves. And she just found her soulmates amid all this emotional bullshit so she’s wildly hot and cold trying to figure everything out.”Pidge stared at Keith. “How. The fuck.”“Been in similar enough situations.”Shiro looked back up at Ulaz’s face. “Coran didn’t seem as mad about treating a Galra, though.”“He’s lost a lot . . . but I think that he’s also old enough to have had life experience temper his responses.” Keith stood and walked closer to study the readouts on the bio-pod-thing’s glass. He rubbed his left thumb over the knuckles of his index finger, right hand scrolling through readouts. Even with how fast they were able to retrieve him, Ulaz had faced enough exposure to truly harm even the healthiest of Galra. Which the readout said he wasn’t that spritely to begin with, probably due to malnutrition and spending time alone on a listening station. “I’d like to learn more about them.”“Why?” Lance asked, Hunk behind him as they also gathered in the medical room, unable to keep away. “Not sayin’ it’s a bad thing, but . . . why learn more about them? Allura says that they’re essentially an empire of terrorists.”Hunk shrugged. “They can’t all be terrorists. I bet you anything that this one is probably called a terrorist by his own people, though.” He walked up to wrap arms around Keith, lending his heat and his body as support to Keith’s stance. The bigger teen knew that Keith was processing more than just this rescue. “Is this the alien thing, Keith? You’ve always loved the idea of us not being alone in the universe.”“Maybe? I don’t know. I’m just . . . I’m driven to learn. Allura and Coran are so closed-mouthed about the Galra that it’s impossible to get more than basic information. Hell, they’re so forthright about Altean things that it takes some of the joy out of learning.”“You? Joy for learning?” Lance teased.“Yeah, because someone had to actually make records for you to stretch for,” Keith finally snapped back.“Guys!” Shiro barked. “Knock it off. You’re done. We’re all tired, we haven’t slept in almost a full day, and we’re confused, we’re hurt, and we really just want to find answers.”“And Allura’s mad,” Pidge whispered.“That too,” Hunk agreed. “That’s gonna be a tough one.”Silence fell. Lance sighed. “I’m sorry, Keith. Allura’s been needling me because I’m not taking her side, despite how much I know she’s hurting.”“I get it. I don’t like it, but I get it. She’s closer with you and Pidge, so she’s probably going to lash out at each of you a little more because she’s comfortable with you. Shiro, Hunk, and I get the cold shoulder.”“Experience?” Pidge asked.Snorting, Keith leaned back against Hunk a little more solidly. “Ask Shiro how much of a little shit I was when he was taming me.”The defeated groan was all it took for the other three to start laughing.Coran turned away from the door, a smile on his face.He wasn’t fast enough to escape Lance’s eye, who welcomed him in, pulling over a stool. “You’re, like, a walking encyclopedia and we have a sick Galra on our hands for a while; can you tell us about his people? Even basic biology.”Coran smiled, pulled over his own stool, and settled in. “I know that Princess Allura has been less-than-helpful on this part of your education. I struggle with my own bias at times, but as Ulaz here did attempt to sacrifice himself for your survival, I believe his motives.” He took his time to gather his thoughts, pulled up a holographic display and then began presenting a lecture he had prepared many, many long years ago.
~*~
Ulaz tumbled out of the pod and into several waiting arms. Blind with residual pain, he wheezed as he was carefully settled onto a bed, hands keeping him upright despite his groan and desire to lie down. A cool cloth, unexpected, welcome, and exactly what he needed, wiped his face down while a second was placed along the back of his neck.He froze. Galra first aid?“Easy, Ulaz.”“Shiro?”“Yep. I remembered this trick and we were ready in case you needed it.”“Who else is here?” He still couldn’t see, couldn’t blink his way free of the pain, though it was slowly starting to come under his control again.A hand squeezed his shoulder, large and firm. “Hunk.”The hand on the back of his neck was smaller, and the voice was slightly higher. “Keith. Lance and Pidge are working with Coran on something. Allura is across the room.”“Thank you.” He sighed. “I’d like to lie down.”“Not until your vision returns, you know this,” Shiro replied with a soft chuckle. “I actually remember hearing you bitch out other recovering Galra about this very thing. Don’t remember much else, which I’m honestly pretty happy about, because from how some folks have responded to me . . . I was a monster.”Smiling, Ulaz replied, “A monster is someone who fights for the joy of hurting another. You fought because you wanted to survive. The two are not the same, Shiro. I’m sorry that your memory has suffered from your time while captured. That is not a phenomenon familiar to my people, and I’m curious about it, if you or one of your cohort would explain it to me.”“Unlikely. I will not allow them to give you a weapon to use against us.” Allura glared from her point on the other side of the room. “Once he is stable, he will go into the brig.”“Once he is stable,” Shiro growled, and Ulaz was glad not to be on the other side of that glare, “he will be watched personally by someone at all times. As. We. Agreed. I will not allow someone who has not done any of us any personal harm to be imprisoned on this ship. Furthermore, he saved our lives. Twice, if you want to get technical about it.”“Out of the question! This is my ship, I will determine who will roam its halls!”“Then you may have to start looking for some new Paladins,” Keith hissed, voice low. Unable to see what the young man looked like, Ulaz was shocked at the timbre of his voice. It was similar enough to the raspy tones of the Galra that he had forgotten it was a human beside him. “I love Red, you know she and I have a close bond, but I will not let you imprison an innocent.”“He’s Galra!”“Clearly, I am Galra,” Ulaz agreed. “But I am neither an imperialist nor a race purist. I am a medic, and after my vows as a medic, I am vowed to the Blade of Marmora.” He blinked as his vision abruptly cleared and groaned as the corresponding body aches lessened. He’d be just this side of hibernation as he slept off his injuries. The princess was a formidable creature, and he could respect her fury. Drawing in a breath, he inclined his head. “Your Highness, I understand that I am here only by the will of the paladins. That much is clear from your demeanor. I apologize, Shiro, for upsetting the harmony of your cohort.”“Eh, something was bound to happen sooner or later,” Hunk replied with a shrug. “We’re mortals, and mortals are flawed. It’s also less of Shiro being the cohort leader, and more of just him being Voltron’s leader. We’re equals in our personal relationships.”“Wise and true, and I respect the compartmentalization of your relationships.” Ulaz’s gaze never left the Altean’s. “I vow upon the life I saved, upon Shiro’s very existence, that I have no orders to fulfill that would cause harm towards any upon this ship. The most that I have done and will continue to hope for is for Voltron to make an alliance with the Blades.”Allura didn’t move, didn’t change her expression, and certainly didn’t look like she wanted to believe him. So Ulaz shrugged, sighed, and said, “I’d like to pass out now, Shiro. I’m anticipating that this will take at least two days, possibly three, to recover from.”“So, that trance-hibernation thing?” Hunk asked, helping Ulaz lay back while Shiro grabbed a few blankets and pillows to nest in. “Do you want anyone specific to keep watch?”“No preference, Paladin, but I thank you. I will be honored by those who wish to hold space for me until I have awoken.”
~*~
Ulaz was currently under the guardianship of one Coran of Altea. And he was loving this. Altea had been destroyed long before his birth, and all knowledge of it was kept strictly confidential. Rumor about Altea ran fantastical, but . . . nothing could compare to the stories that Coran was filling the air with.Leg hooked around the stool’s footrest as he leaned against a bulkhead, Ulaz soaked in the many various tales of a peaceful Altea and Daibazaal. His ears were trained on the older Altean while his eyes followed the red paladin.Keith moved like a young Galra on the cusp of his first true growth spurt. Despite his gangly, half-grown adolescent appearance, he showed the beginnings of a truly powerful hand-to-hand warrior. His bayard was knocked from his hand and he didn’t hesitate to draw the knife at the small of his back to block and parry while he made his way around to the weapon granted to him by virtue of his ability to pilot the red lion. The acrobatics he spun through to assist covering one of the other paladins was close to perfect . . . but until he hit his full growth, he would remain that little bit clumsy.Not even waiting for Coran to pause for breath for the next tale, Ulaz asked softly, “Does the boy know he’s part Galra?”And Coran was honest. “No. And only you and I know this fact, Ulaz. The only reason I know why is because of medical scans I had done in order to program the healing pods.”Grunting, the medic sighed. He touched his forehead in a gesture stating that the knowledge would stay within him, never without him. After explaining this relatively new cultural tic to Coran, he asked, “Why do you not hate me and your Princess does?”It took several long moments, but the royal adviser finally replied, “I have had many years to come to terms with my losses. I did not enter cryosleep at the same time as Allura, so I . . . I did what I could to process my pain. I didn’t know when we would be awoken again; I didn’t want my rash, impatient temper to get the better of me when I knew that Allura would need me as a stabilizing factor in her life after . . . after Altea fell.”Ulaz nodded, understanding. “How long did you wait before you slept?”“It took three long years. Three very painful years. I cannot hate those who have done their best to try to stop Zarkon, as I have seen many of your people die attempting to do so.” Coran watched the paladins carefully, then incrementally upped the difficulty level just enough to challenge them without overwhelming them. Allura wanted results fast with these teens, but Coran had been training fighters for longer than his charge had been alive. You can’t force-grow combat abilities.“May I ask another question about Keith?”“You may, but I may not answer if I feel it may impose upon his privacy.”“What percentage Galra is the boy?”Coran turned away from the training room, making eye contact, judging the Galra before him. After taking the time to consider this information from several angles, the Altean nodded once. As a medic who may one day need to know exactly how to knit their hothead together, Coran knew that it may one day save Keith’s life. “Exactly fifty percent.”“Quiznak. He’s going to learn real soon about his heritage if he’s about as old as I think he is.”“I don’t know how to explain this to him.”“Neither do I.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Shiro had regrets.Why?Because the most terrifying part of trying to strengthen his bond with his lion was that he wasn’t in control.Anxiety ripped through his abdomen and Shiro almost couldn’t think through his terror as Black launched herself out of the Castle of Lions. All he could do was scream, trying to get her to listen to him, to control her headlong, shrieking drive to leave go somewhere. Somewhere in his terror, and he didn’t know when, Shiro went from demanding to pleading, tears tracing his cheeks unnoticed. And that was when Black slowed down. She had been carefully monitoring her paladin, pushing him to an edge to start thinking about conversations rather than orders. Then, with a low rumble that shook Shiro to his bones and settled him back within his skin, she opened their link and began showing him how she became.And then she let him fight for her, to prove himself.And he understood the lesson.Revealing the hangar, the Black Lion felt the connection between herself and this young human settle again, this time stronger, a braided cord rather than a handful of strands. It would still need work, but it would at least give them the chance to continue building their connection before Zarkon could attempt to interrupt it again. Shiro sat back in his seat, eyes unfocused and hands loose around the controls. She could feel the human processing all that he had just experienced.“Was Zarkon real?”Finding their connection strong enough now, the Black Lion revealed herself, pacing around Shiro’s right side, sitting and turning to nod at him once. She protected his weakness, his losses.His eyes widened comically for a moment before he turned, slowly reaching his left hand out to touch fingertips to silken fur. “You’re real.”She nodded again. The innate quintessence in the humans was unlike anything that the Alteans could have possibly evolved into. It was integral to their existence, evident down to their base atoms. Humans were infused with the substance, but it was so subconsciously controlled that it was incompatible with how Alteans had learned to interact with it. Flashing this knowledge to Shiro, along with the caution to only reveal it when necessary, the lion bumped her head against her pilot’s hand, insisting upon more ear-scratches. Zarkon could once, briefly, connect with her like this, long before he fell. She missed this contact.“Then I’ll make sure to make more time to do this, especially after missions. And I think that the other pilots should at least try to see their own lions like this.”Golden eyes snapped open, and the lion blinked at her pilot. She hadn’t expected him to have caught onto her thoughts so easily. Rumbling with an almost-purr, the big cat moved closer, settling between his legs and resting her head upon his thigh with a sigh.Slowly, they continued working on their bond, on communicating.
~*~
When Shiro walked in, Keith looked up from where he sat on his bed. He had been staring down at his knife, not been expecting Shiro to be done with Black so soon. Lance was still getting the damn cow settled down with Pidge and Allura, while Hunk sat down with Coran and Ulaz to talk about food options, now that they had restocked several fresh varieties of produce and seeds to grow. It would be good to have a fresh supply of milk, too. Especially for Pidge, who would need more calcium as they kept growing.Blinking at the symbol on the knife, Shiro closed the door behind him quickly. “How did you get Ulaz’s knife without him seeing you?”“I didn’t. This . . . is my knife.” Keith looked back down at the blade in his hands, the symbol he had kept covered for so long. “This belonged to my mother, Shiro. Dad had hid it in the house, probably to wait until I was older to give it to me.”“I remember when you found it.”The younger man looked ready to cry. “I . . . I don’t know what I am, Shiro. This is literally an alien’s knife. And Mom is dead so I don’t even know—”“You’re mine.”Purple eyes snapped up to meet steely grey ones. Shiro took the knife from his lover’s hands, putting it on the sidetable. His left hand tilted Keith’s chin up, thumb and forefinger keeping that sharp chin from turning away. “Anything outside of the fact that you’re mine is irrelevant to me.”“Shiro—”“You never gave up when I was captured. You kept writing to me. You kept me from losing hope. You found our soulmates, and they helped so much when they could. You, Keith, kept me sane.” Shiro’s voice caught, and he leaned closer to hiss in Keith’s face, “I can’t remember when they took my arm, but you and our mates remember. I just know it was really, really bad. But you kept writing to me, even when I couldn’t write back at first. When I was lost, you kept showing me the path home.”Capturing Keith’s mouth in a press of lips that was more of a claim than a show of affection, Shiro felt those strong fingers dig into his hips and hold tight. Pulling back, he continued. “What do you really fear?”“That I’m Galra,” Keith whispered. “And that Allura will repudiate me.”“Second thing first, remember how sick she looked when we told her about Adam. Allura won’t repudiate you; the very concept goes against the core tenets of her culture.” Combing his right hand through thick locks of hair, Shiro whispered, “And if you are part alien, well . . . I’m clearly not against that if that’s a thing. I mean, the idea can be pretty hot to think about.”Keith blushed. “Doesn’t mean I’m not still weird down there.”“We’ve been over this—”“I mean, it would explain some things.”“I swear to God, Keith, we’re not turning this into another talk about your dick. Keep it serious.”“I am!” Keith burst into action, pacing. “You know I don’t go into this because you don’t give me any reason to doubt the kind of equipment I have! But you’re not everyone who will come in contact with me. Shiro, I’m terrified of what Lance or Hunk will think is wrong with down there.”Taking a seat on Keith’s bed, Shiro watched Keith pace for a moment before reaching his hands out and brushing them along the young man until he paused. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”“Did you miss the part where it’s not human-normal? I didn’t miss middle-school health class.”“I’m pretty well-acquainted, thank you. And I’m not sure what you mean by human-normal, since there’s a lot of variety even among our race.”“Disappearing dicks, Shiro? Really?” Keith loved watching Shiro’s blush, no matter the topic. “Or is it that you just like playing whack-a-mole or hide-the-pickle?”“Oh my God, why are you like this?” Shiro was giggling so hard that he could hardly breathe. Curling Keith closer, he pressed his face against abs that were still getting progressively more developed. He felt Keith’s shiver of delight, then pulled back slightly. “Keith. Seriously, babe, if you are, or if your mom was part Galra or more Galra or less or whatever, that will never matter to me. What matters to me is that you’re here. You stayed all those years ago for us.” He shifted his hands to take Keith’s and squeezed them carefully. “And you’re mine. That’s what matters to me.”“But Hunk and Lance—”“They’ll probably love what you have just as much as I do.”“You can’t be sure.”“Hunk’s pansexual. Pretty sure he and Shay got handsy and I know that he goes off to have private conversations with her in his bunk.”“Okay, but—”“Lance is into anything that moves, but mostly us.”“You’re not helping.”“Oh, am I not?” Shiro teased, thumbs tracing along the back of Keith’s hands. “Are you not enjoying the thought of the two of you scrambling to be on top, trying to win the right to fuck your partner senseless while hurling insults and teasing each other?”Keith’s breath escaped him in a soft whine, hands shaking slightly.“Oh, you do like that.” Shiro tugged him closer. “Know what I think you’d like better than that?”“Wh-what?”The black paladin’s voice dropped in both volume and pitch. “You’d love it if Hunk and I watched you two. Maybe even Allura.”Keith pounced, knocking Shiro on his back to kiss him firmly, affirming his own claim over the older man. They had gotten shirts off and were mid-kiss when the door opened again. Keith’s hand froze on Shiro’s pec and he turned to stare in terror.Ulaz and Hunk blinked, and Hunk reached over to close the door. “Hey, so you may want to lock that next time. I’ll take another shift with Ulaz; you two enjoy yourselves.”“Nooooo,” Keith moaned, mood lost. “Dammit fucking hell it’s been two weeks, and fuuuucking helllll—”“God damn it,” Shiro groaned. “Hunk, give us a couple minutes. Mood’s gone for both of us, I think.”Hunk heard a strange noise to his right, and he looked up to see Ulaz holding a hand over his mouth, clearly grinning and trying not to laugh too hard at the clear noises of grumpy disappointment emanating from the other side of the door. “What’s so funny?”“He behaves very similarly to a creature that had been native to Daibazaal. From what you’ve told me of earth animals, the resemblance to your domesticated felines—”“Oh my god, Shiro, Ulaz is totally onto the fact that Keith is a cat!”Shiro’s voice burst into snickers and Keith opened the door in his t-shirt, Shiro stuck with his arms halfway into his shirt and giggling too hard to fix his clothing. “I swear to God, Hunk.”Leaning in to kiss Keith’s nose, Hunk smiled and rubbed the tips of their noses together. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you when I can. But to be fair, you could have locked the door.”Keith blinked, sighed, and turned to help Shiro get himself situated before quickly wrapping the hilt of his knife before sheathing it. “Blame Shiro. He was the last one through it. I was up next with Ulaz, right?”“Yep.”“Sure.” He smiled and patted Hunk’s shoulder, then wrapped his hand around the back of the tan, strong neck and pulled him in for a passionate kiss before settling back on his heels, blushing, and walking off in a hurry.Ulaz blinked, then shrugged and followed after, lanky limbs easily able to catch up. Hunk’s breath left him with a soft groan, and Shiro grunted uncomfortably, also blushing and looking away. “Uh.”“Oh my god.”“Yeah.”“Oh, we’re all so fucked when I’m legal, aren’t we.”“Oh, yeah. Keith . . . yeah.”“Yeah.”
~*~
Keith and Ulaz ended up on the training deck for some unarmed sparring. They laughed through the exercises, pausing every so often to take a breather and water break. Keith let Ulaz choose the breaks, having learned that the Galra were ambush predators, very unlike the persistence predators that humans evolved into. Before long, both knew that they had gained an audience of the Princess, up in the control booth. With a long look, both fighters elected to ignore her to see what she’d do.When they returned to sparring, Ulaz showed Keith how to break Galran wrestling holds. One elbow jab to his ribs made him cough in shock and back up a few steps, one hand up. “That’s good aim for the next time you’re held like that.”“Water break?” Keith asked, laughing and helping Ulaz back over to the bench. They both paused, having been too involved in their fun to realize that Allura had entered the room. She stood with water held in each hand.Keith knew the rest of their pride were watching or listening around the door. “Princess?”“I’m sorry for—”“Forgiven,” Ulaz interrupted, taking a water pouch and sucking half of it down eagerly, clearly done with today’s exercise. He smiled at the Princess winningly, impishly glad that he had been able to forestall unnecessary words.“I haven’t even said why!”“You’ve been composing the perfect apology for your own grief; that’s punishment enough,” Ulaz replied. “Besides. You just gave me a weapon.”“Ulaz, no!” Keith darted out of the way, but he wasn’t fast enough. Ulaz half-scruffed the young man and dumped the rest of the freezing cold water down his unfurred back, then smushed the container on top of dark hair and ran.After a shocked moment of complete incomprehension, Allura caught on and bit only a tip off of the next water pouch, turning it into an impromptu squirt-gun and chased after the laughing Galra. “Keith! I’ll avenge you!”Within five minutes, a massive water-fight was taking place in the training room. Coran watched from the control room, grinning broadly before he pulled out the big guns. Pressing a button, he soaked all participants before calling into the microphone, “All right, children, that’s enough for the day! Off to the showers with every one of you!”A chorus of grumbles met his ears, and Coran was absolutely delighted by it.He grinned broadly and sent another shower of water down upon the paladins, the princess, and the rebel.
~*~
Late that night, Allura paused again before entering the communal room. Pidge and Lance lay half on each other as they played a video game, bitching the entire time in the simple companionship that Allura had keenly missed in the last week. Shiro, Hunk, Keith, and Ulaz were in various states of wakefulness, with Hunk the most out and snoring, Keith half-asleep while curled into his side, and Shiro and Ulaz playing a strategy game on the floor beside the sunken nest area. Nobody looked up, but Shiro held out his left arm to Allura without looking.Tears blurred her vision, and she slowly walked to the Black Paladin’s side. He didn’t let her stay there very long, tucking her in across his lap while continuing to play. After a long while, she began to feel the shift, the soft settling of harmony returning.Shiro kissed her forehead, smiling. “We understand pain pretty well, Allura. Don’t hide from us this long again, okay?”“Okay.”He kissed a line down her nose, pecked her lips, and then curled her closer before making one final move. “Pretty sure I just won.”Ulaz huffed in dismay. “You’d like my Leader; he’s a damn good strategist. I’m wasted on the long game.”“I have a suggestion for a long game,” Lance said, eyes still glued to where he was defending madly against a volatile assault by Pidge’s toon. “Sleep. And a sleep-in.”Allura slid out of Shiro’s lap, sharing another kiss and soft smile with him before sitting behind Lance and Pidge. “I’m very sorry. I lashed out, and it wasn’t fair.”“We forgive you,” they chorused, reaching out to swat at each other’s legs and groaning at the result of letting go of their game controllers. They gave up shortly after, each taking one of Allura’s sides to snuggle up with her. Lance’s back was to Hunk’s free side in the nest, then Allura and Pidge in a setup that was starting to become very familiar to everyone. Keith was between Hunk and Shiro, before he switched and shoved Shiro close to Hunk’s side and sat up. “Ulaz? Coming in?”“I do not wish to—”“Oh, for fuck’s sake, will you just get into the nest and pass the fuck out?” Pidge groaned. “Galra need this kind of sleep every once in a while, yeah?”“The . . . healthy ones, yes.”“And when’s the last time you did?”“Too long ago.”“See?” Pidge snuggled back into Allura’s firm hold. “Shut up and cuddlepuddle, you big faker. You Galra aren’t designed to be loners, no matter how badass you want to be.”Keith and Shiro rearranged themselves in such a way that Ulaz was firmly sandwiched between them. None commented when they awoke the next morning that Ulaz and Allura were holding arms across Hunk’s torso, but it was clear that peace was restored, however temporarily.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The first time that Ulaz saw a soulmate scar happen, he hadn’t known what to make of it. He had been with Pidge, helping stabilize something when they hissed and pulled their shirt off to twist and look at the back of their arm. There was a moment while they assessed whatever had happened. “Well, fuck.”“What is it? How did you hurt yourself?”“No, someone else got nicked, probably by Keith and he’s probably panicking about it. Do your people have soulmate scars?” They turned to show the fresh pink line that ran along the back of their left arm.Ulaz stared in shock. “No. We don’t. Our pupils change color when we see our soulmate for the first time.”“See, that’s the kind of shit that I wish would happen. One person gets hurt or gets a scar, and the other person shows the marks, too. C’mon, we’ll need to see who it was that was injured and we can go over this more in detail.”It took about three hours, but when he finally understood more about the humans, this cohort specifically, he was stunned that they were as well-adjusted as they were. These children had been through more pain than many of Ulaz’s peers. Even two days later, as they waited outside the Blade of Marmora’s headquarters, he was unable to process how these humans, seemingly frail in comparison to Galran and Altean physiological standards, could keep up.Ulaz wasn’t surprised in the least as the events unfolded before him. Keith wanted to know more about himself, about why he had the blade. He craved knowledge. The Galran medic glanced to Shiro, who was less than pleased but supported his soulmate. And so Ulaz was told to remain with both Shiro and Kolivan, guards at the observation room doors. Keith’s progress made Kolivan remain very still. Finally, he opened a private channel to Ulaz, who had masked his face while they flew in the Red Lion to the base. “What is he, Ulaz. I know that you know.”Ulaz smirked. It must irritate Kolivan to not have intel. So he simply responded with, “He says that he’s human.” This would be the one time that he would have more information than his Leader. He’d pay dearly for this subterfuge.“Hm. They are terrifying creatures. His stamina is unbelievable for his size; are all humans similar to him?”“I know that the Champion beside us is, but there seems to be varying abilities according to factors I have not had enough time to study. However, I am certain that they are lethal in packs. All of Voltron’s pilots are human, Leader, and they are quite literally a force of nature. It would take considerable strategy or overwhelming numbers were Zarkon to attempt an invasion.”“Hm.”Then Keith faltered as a new tactic out of pattern startled him. And his right shoulder was laid bare almost to the bone. Shiro grunted but didn’t otherwise move. Ulaz swallowed in shock.Oh, this was going to be a shit-show, as the humans said.
~*~
Keith grabbed Ulaz’s arm with his left hand the moment that he was told to go and change back into his paladin armor. “You and Shiro. I’m going to need help bandaging that wound.”Kolivan followed, inviting himself and standing guard at the door. Ironically, that was something that new Blades were allowed to do: choose who helped them out of the suit after their Trial while the Leader protected them. At this point, it was symbolic. Not all Galra were happy with their new members in the past.Shiro glared once at the masked Leader but didn’t say anything as he began peeling the suit away from Keith’s pale, blood-stained skin. Ulaz had grabbed a medkit and was standing ready to assist. “You did very well on your trials; I emerged is considerably poorer shape.”Keith’s voice was low, earnest. “You knew I was at least Galra in part.”Hands pausing their preparations, Ulaz removed his helmet and blinked once at the pilot. “I had my suspicions for some time, but . . . that was neither here nor there. You said that you identified as human, and I had only suspicions and no hard proof of your genetics. I did not wish to add further turmoil to what you were processing with the Princess’ own prejudice towards myself causing disarray within the cohort.”“She’s going to hate me and think that I kept this from her.”“She will be wrong to do so,” Kolivan offered quietly. “You have no choice in who your parents are or what genetics you carry. Many of my best Blades hail from at least two species.”Keith looked up, frowned, and looked down again. “It’d’ve been easier to know about this if my mom hadn’t fucking up and died. Ow! Fuck, Laz!”Ulaz frowned as he continued cleaning the wound. “I’m not apologizing.”“Ass.”“Infant.”“Kids, knock it off,” Shiro growled, stressed and still feeling Keith’s residual pain. “Ulaz, we have to get him back into his flight suit so he can bring us back to the castleship.”The Marmoran’s hands stilled. “I will not be joining you. My orders are now to remain on base to treat my fellow Blades when they return from missions.”Shiro looked to Kolivan, then nodded. “I understand. I speak for all of Voltron’s pilots when I thank you for all that you’ve done for us. You have been invaluable.”“I leave Keith and the rest of your cohort in a vulnerable place, though,” Ulaz murmured, hands stilling. “There is much about your biology that you must know, kitling. Leader, I formally request to be stationed with the Paladins of Voltron to assist their team and as a representative of the Blades.”Kolivan blinked once, slowly, and Ulaz nodded, taking the cue that his request would be given the consideration it deserved. He turned the possible scenarios over in his head while Ulaz and Shiro helped Keith back into his flight suit. The young creature had turned his back to them while bare and struggling into his foundational garments. That was troubling to see in some ways but reassuring in others. The red paladin trusted the black paladin to be able to move around him quickly enough to defend him, but he was shy or hiding his genitalia. Additionally, the markings along his flesh were strange and had no discernable pattern. A constellation of slightly-darker markings along his back was the most striking, but they dotted long lines that traveled across ribs, there was a circle around his right bicep, and the marks on his face, fainter than those on his body, looked familiar . . . And Ulaz looked . . . guilty? He’d puzzle that out later. “I will continue to consider it; you will return to the castleship with us at the very least.”When they emerged, Antok joined them on the walk back to the red lion. All paused and watched as Keith reached a hand up as the lion itself bent down to inspect him. His mouth moved, but his voice was too soft to pick up on anything more than the tone of admiration and love. Turning, Keith gestured them closer, Shiro first as Keith waited in red’s mouth for the three Galra to follow Shiro’s lead.And the way that the cub piloted was phenomenal. He had a natural talent and finesse for understanding the way that his ship could move, and the landing was flawless.Allura stood with a stone face to greet them, eyes flashing and cheeks flushed with anger. As she opened her mouth, Keith spoke before she could. “I didn’t move fast enough. Don’t hold it against them; they personally didn’t have anything to do with my injury.”“I don’t know who they are.”“You know me,” Ulaz replied, mask dematerializing and hood falling back onto his shoulders. “I treated the wound as best as possible, but he will need additional time spent healing. I must speak with Coran to coordinate further care.”“You’re leaving?” she asked, softly, almost . . . hurt that he would go.Ulaz blinked at her, then sighed and shrugged. “We all will have our orders to follow, Princess. I defer to my Leader’s greater understanding of strategy.”Hunk and Lance ran in, Pidge right behind them in one of Lance’s hoodies. Lance hadn’t had time to put his shirt back on, so it was shoved halfway into a back pocket as he carried medical supplies. Hunk had carried a stool in and set it down. “Keith, park yourself.”Gratefully, the red paladin headed over to the duo while Pidge moved closer to Allura and Shiro. Kolivan stared. And he let his mask down to stare with his own eyes. Then blinked. Then stared. The visible scar on his back matched the shadow of a scar on Keith’s own back. He bore the echo of the injury that was slowly being patched up.“Quiznak,” Antok breathed, catching on faster then his Leader.The mark on Keith’s shoulder showed upon tan skin, lines matching exactly.“Ulaz, you will explain why you withheld that the cub—” Kolivan saw the smooth discoloration across Keith’s nose that matched four others . . . The original scar, smooth but still painful-looking, ran across Shiro’s own face. And for once, the Leader of the Blade of Marmora felt entirely out of his depth. “Stars and voids. They’re all soulmates.”“Yes,” Allura said firmly. “We are.”“I mean it! Be easy on those three,” Keith growled through the pain of having more sets of hands help clean and start binding the wound closed with a handheld device. “And they couldn’t just take it easy on me because they thought I was human.”“Well, that’s silly. You are human.”Keith felt Lance’s hands still when he didn’t reply. Then Hunk’s. Allura stared incomprehensibly as she tried to figure out exactly what he meant.Keith was about to find something to say to clarify when Pidge started laughing. “This is perfect! Oh my God, Keith, we’ve been obsessed with finding aliens for years and we didn’t have to look beyond you?! Oh my God, dude, this . . . Oh my God, your mom was Galra? What were the Galra doing on Earth? Wait. Wait, So that means that your flight scores were so out of this world (see what I did there?) because you’re only half-human and we, duh, can’t account for the fact that your reflexes are probably better because I’ve seen how Ulaz can move . . . This is so fucking awesome. I have two alien pridemates! And I’ve fucking loved one of them since before I knew he was mine! This is so fucking cool! Shiro! Shiro! You’ve been fu—”Shiro wrapped his hand around their mouth with a sigh. “Pidge. Breathe. Keith’s just found out, himself. Don’t be vulgar until we’ve all had some time to absorb this information.”Keith’s face was half-scrunched up, ready to cry. He whispered, “You love me? Since before you knew?”Pidge broke away from Shiro and flung themself against Keith, pressing their face against his chest and whispering back, “Yeah.”Lance’s hands started to slide around Keith, and he curled around the pale man and their little gremlin into an embrace, pressing his left cheek against Keith’s. They didn’t say anything, and Hunk quietly continued working, pausing to kiss dark hair every so often.Allura didn’t know what to say or do. She just stood there until Kolivan cleared his throat, drew himself up with a deep breath, and knelt before her to pledge his loyalty. Coran entered, and helped finalize some of the medical treatment, then took in more of the awkward stances around the room. “I believe that Hunk prepared what is called ‘hot cocoa’ on Earth . . . perhaps everyone would like a cup while we discuss what happened today? Come on, then. Everyone follow me!”
~*~
Late that night, Keith didn’t even go to the nest. He ached, his heart weeping while his eyes remained hot and dry. His dad had loved an alien . . . his mom had loved a human? Had they been soulmates after all? He couldn’t remember if he saw any soulmate scars on his dad before he died.He sat on the bridge in his station, knees drawn up and forehead resting upon them. For a long time, nobody found him.The person who did find him, he wasn’t expecting.Kolivan sat cross-legged on the floor. “Kit, you should be resting.”“I can’t sleep. I can’t even cry.”Silent for a few long moments, Kolivan then released a deep breath. “I knew she who once wielded that blade you have awoken.”Keith’s head snapped up, eyes wide, hopeful. Kolivan couldn’t say much, couldn’t dare say anything sensitive, but he could tell Keith: “I can tell you of who she was before she was lost to us. But truthfully, you need only look in the mirror to find her personality.”“You . . . you actually knew her.”“Her nickname was Spitfire when around the base. Antok still checks the vents at certain corners because he once made the poor life decision to make it his goal to piss her off.” Kolivan couldn’t help a smile. “My soulmate is my perfect match, but he is also not as nimble as you are or your mother was.”“Ulaz said that a Galra’s pupils change when they see their soulmate for the first time,” Keith offered. “I wish that was the same for humans. Did . . . did mom know her soulmate?”“No, but she was also focused entirely upon her duties as a Blade. We also do not have large cohorts like yours. Trios at most, unless there are more than two eyes.” With a deep sigh, Kolivan whispered, “I must keep Ulaz with me, kit, or I would leave him to help educate you about your Galra genetics and our culture. I feel a responsibility towards you as I was . . . once . . . close with your mother. She was one of my dearest friends before she went missing in action.”“You don’t think she died,” Keith whispered.“It is my hope that she only faked her death, as distressing as this may sound to you.”Taking a long moment to process this. He had, for so long, assumed that he was orphaned after Dad died. And now, speaking with someone who had known his mother, who hoped she was alive and had reason to hope, could he dare also hope to find her? Then, without warning, Keith’s face flushed and he looked away. “Look, Ulaz is a little too . . . medical for me to be okay with when he starts talking about some things. Can . . . I know this is really stepping out of line, Leader, but—”“But you have some questions as a young man in your father’s culture and an adolescent in your mother’s culture.”“Yeah.”Standing, Kolivan indicated that Keith stand as well. “Find us a place where we won’t be bothered for a while. I’d be honored to answer your questions.”Once safely ensconced in Keith’s room, door locked, Keith blurted, “Okay, what the fuck is up with genitals, because I swear to god, if disappearing dicks is not Galra-normal, I’m gonna fucking scream.”Snorting a laugh, Kolivan nodded and took up a seat on the chair. “It’s normal. It’s a protective measure to keep the organs from being injured too easily. Sit, we’ll start there, and I’ll tell you some of the lesser-known things that you will not be able to find easily through research.”Keith settled himself down. “Thank you, Kolivan. And . . . Thank you for telling me about Mom.”“It is my honor to tell you about our Spitfire. She’d expect this of me, anyway.”She was going to absolutely murder him when she found out that her boy has been inducted into the Blades. Kolivan was a dead Galra walking and he knew this on the deepest level possible. But at least he could try his best to keep the both of them safe this way. Hopefully.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Allura screamed, kicking the bag hard enough to detach it from its moorings and flung it across the room. Pouncing after it, she continued to tear it to shreds.Keith sat in the darkened observation room with Shiro and Kolivan. Coran, never far from his charge, joined them and watched for a long moment as she began to work on the next piece of equipment. After a while, Kolivan sighed. “I’ll handle this.”“She may injure you,” Coran murmured. “Lance is standing by at the second door in case she needs to be startled out of her rage.”“Hm. We’ll see. Have Ulaz on hand just in case. And stream our conversation up here for Keith, yes?”Keith looked guilty. “Kolivan—”“None of that. You’ll want to know what was said anyway.” Turning and stalking out, the leader of the Blade of Marmora strode purposefully into the training room and stopped short as if startled that someone was already in here. “Princess?”“Get out!”Oh. This was going to go well.“Hm. No.” Continuing to walk further into the room, he walked around a vertical post about a foot in diameter that had several stubby “branches” at various heights. He had seen Pidge use this specifically, and they had told him about human martial arts, then demonstrated against Keith in a sparring match. “I witnessed two paladins work through some of their frustration through sparring; it has been too long since I’ve had a sparring partner who wasn’t Galra. Would you like a go, Princess?”She flung herself at him with a roar, and he grinned, letting himself be driven back into the open, easily able to defend against sheer fury rather than calculated strikes. “What has you so furious?”“I hate you all!”Kolivan waited through two more strikes before asking, “Do you?”Her anger intensified and the Galra felt the fur begin to prickle like it did whenever he was around someone who could access and utilize quintessence. He may be a little singed before this was all over. The Princess’ eyes began to overflow. “I can’t hate Keith! But I hate all you quiznaking Galra!”Kolivan blinked once, and it cost him. She spun a perfect kick to his side and he went tumbling. Groaning as he hit the wall ass-first, the Blade Leader took a moment to assess his bruises. Rolling nimbly to his feet after determining that nothing was broken, he walked closer to the panting Altean before him. “Do you hate Ulaz?”“No,” she replied immediately.“Do you hate me?”Her voice was softer. “No.”“Are you considering repudiating one of your soulmates because he had no choice in what blood runs through his veins?”“No,” she wept.“Do you realize that his Galran mother had to love his human father incredibly in order to simply conceive him, let alone carry to term? Do you know how long she had to wait to trigger a fertility cycle that would be compatible with his father’s species?”“Yes.”“Allura, he didn’t know any of that until last night. He doesn’t know you can’t hate him because of your quantum bond. You know Galran biology and you know that interbreeding with other species is not a fast process for us.” Holding his hand out, Kolivan waited until she rested one of her own within it. “Ulaz told me of the night that all seven of you nested down together, and he was grateful and honored for the chance to rest protected by some of the greatest pilots and warriors that our universe has to offer. You can’t afford to hide your pain from your soulmates anymore.”“I . . . How can I even begin to tell him my fears?”“You could always try asking for some time alone together,” Keith’s voice said from the doorway. “I’m open to that.”“Keith!” She flung herself at him for an embrace, and he caught her, smiling helplessly before wrapping his arms around her and just letting her sob it out.Lance smiled, closing the door and walking off to find something else to do now that he wasn’t needed there. He could bother Pidge, but they were doing research to find their family. Hunk was probably still cooking from where he last saw his boyfriend when he responded to Coran’s call to be backup. Shiro was nowhere to be found, but he had a feeling that he wasn’t far away from Keith to act as another bit of backup.So Lance, as always, was a loose end among his soulmates, one of the outcomes he had always feared could happen. He ended up finding Ulaz in the medical bay, who brought him closer and said, “I have a feeling that the next pieces of information I’m going to be uploading into the databases will be useful to you in the near future.”Lance raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”“I’m curious too.”Yelping, Lance turned to see Shiro, who had the good wit to look chagrined that he had snuck up on Lance without being heard or seen. “Hi. Sorry.” Leaning in, he nuzzled behind Lance’s ear.“You’re not going to keep an eye on Keith?”“He and Allura need some privacy, but they’ll join us before dinner.”Ulaz grinned. “You’re already familiar with the subject material.”“Huh?”Lance blinked. Blinked again. Caught Ulaz’s expression, and gasped with joy. “Oh my god, tell me everything about Galra sex!” He grabbed Shiro’s hand and hustled them over. “I’m looking forward to making Keith lose his mind.”
~*~
It took some time, but when Allura had settled enough, she was grateful that Keith had brought her to his own room, rather than suggested that they go to hers or take up the nest. They had ended up laying down together, shoes kicked off and a comfortably heavy blanket tossed over them. Keith had told Allura how he and Shiro had found the materials to make what she found out was called a “weighted blanket,” which helped soothe humans with anxiety. She asked how she could help make the next ones, then swore him to secrecy to help her make ones in each of the lions’ colors for their other soulmates. The mood was intimate, cozy, and neither wanted to let it go. Allura whispered, “I forgot about how much effort it would take for you to have been conceived. I . . . it was easier to hate when I didn’t know so many examples of the good in your mother’s people.”Keith sighed softly. “I haven’t gotten to that part of my studies. Is infertility a thing?”“Not in the least! At least, not between Galra couples.” Allura laughed, curling Keith tighter. “But . . . hm. Do you know if you have wholly-Galra genitalia?”“Possibly? At least the, uh, ‘sperm-delivery’ side. I haven’t been brave enough to really start looking for anything else yet.”“Perhaps Coran could . . .” Allura froze. “You’ve been scanned by his medical equipment.”“Yeah?”“The scanners would have identified your DNA down to a tenth of a portion of any identified and logged species in the castle’s databases.”Keith’s eyes snapped wider. “Coran knew!”Allura shot out of bed, shoving feet into boots, Keith right on her tail as they hurtled through the castle and the Princess slammed the mess hall door open. “Coran, you motherfucker!”“Bye!” He was off like a shot with Allura and Keith in hot pursuit.Pidge’s goo fell back into their bowl. “Who taught her that one?”“Me,” Lance murmured guiltily.“Wow. Great job.”Kolivan blinked and looked to Ulaz. This was supposed to be their last meal upon the Castle of Lions before they returned. The medic grinned unrepentantly. “They must have realized that Coran has known that Keith was part-Galra since he had been scanned for medical equipment calibrations.”The other Paladins dropped their utensils in a clatter and started yelling for Coran as they followed after their teammates.Ulaz grinned to his Leader, who was trying desperately not to let his own grin crack his face. “See why I want to stay, Kolivan?”“It is quite a tempting thing, to be witness to a pack of ferocious kits take on the Galra Empire.”“You know,” Ulaz replied softly, “Lance has been telling me about the roles of familial adults in their culture. You could be seen as an honorary Uncle to Keith, and I believe that he would welcome you as such in his life.”Kolivan sighed, and he put his spoon down before he fiddled with it. “Ulaz, I tell you this because I willingly gave Keith the wrong impression that she and I were only close friends.”Antok snorted into his food goo, then kept eating. He loved it whenever Kolivan brought this up to someone who was blissfully ignorant of the relationship between the Leader and their best spy. He didn’t meet Ulaz’s gaze.“Leader?”“I’d be seen as an interloper upon Keith’s father’s place in his mother’s life right now. We didn’t have a sibling-like friendship; his mother and I were lovers at one point, Ulaz. And she doesn’t know that her human mate, Keith’s father, has died.”The younger Galra whispered, “You said ‘doesn’t,’ in the present tense. You mean that she is—”“Yes.”Antok was still laughing, having progressed to hissing wheezes.Ulaz blinked once, pale skin turning whiter. “Oh, voids, you are one dead idiot, Koli.”
~*~
With a sigh, Keith rolled over to find that it was only himself and Lance remaining in the nest. The rustling of clothing as everyone else got ready for their day ahead. Shiro hung over the edge of the nest to brush his hand across both foreheads. “Take a lazy morning; you two deserve it.”Lance smiled and curled closer to Keith, who grumbled for show and wrapped arms around his tanned soulmate as the others shuffled out of the room for additional training. “I bribed Shiro to let us get some alone time.”“Oh my God,” Keith laughed, shoving his hand into Lance’s face to shove him away. “You’re impossible! What did you do to get him to agree?”“Hunk has a fantasy that he wants to happen for his birthday in a couple weeks, and I told Shiro about it.”Blinking, the dark-haired paladin made an impressed expression. “That would be something he’d certainly be thankful for.”“Know what I’m thankful for?” Lance moved closer, pressing himself against Keith from knees to nipples and nosing at the sharp jaw.Smiling through his blush, Keith murmured, “Enlighten me.”Lance grinned, and slid his thumb along Keith’s hipbone, digging in just enough to make sure that the pressure was firmer than how Shiro said he had done this before. Ulaz had been hilarious while educating the paladins on how Galra genitals worked and offered his own anecdotal experience for giggles.Keith’s eyes rolled up and he wheezed softly. “Oh.”“Yeah?”“Yeah, oh my god, Shiro is afraid to be rough with me, Lance.”“Ulaz said Galra also like it a little more . . . fierce . . . than some other races. Think that might have something to do with it?” Leaning in, Lance began to nibble along the side of Keith’s neck.“Yeah?” Keith’s mind was slowly starting to go into that place where pleasure overwrote every impulse and his thoughts would finally still themselves. “And he saw me in a very vulnerable place when we met. I don’t think that he can see beyond the hurt little kid sometimes; I wish he would talk to the adult who would very much love some rough sex.”Lance leaned in and bit Keith’s shoulder hard, not hard enough to mark, but enough to make sure Keith was paying attention. “Everyone will know what we’re doing when I get going, you know.”And that’s when he realized that he shouldn’t play with fire because Keith’s grin promised hell.It didn’t help that he returned the grin watt-for-watt.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Keith sat in the cockpit of the Black Lion and wept.He knew that he had been inconsolable for days now but just didn’t know what could break the cycle. Zarkon had done something to Shiro. But Shiro wasn’t dead. Nobody had a death-mark. Allura could feel his quintessence still present and active in their bonds.And now the Black Lion had chosen him, despite his pleas. And he’d had to fly her and his mind felt stuck on the same obsessive thought of bring Shiro home again.“Why me? Why me?!” he wailed, limbs untucking and going limp with the force of his exhaustion. “I’m nothing like Shiro! He’s your pilot, and I’m . . . I’m his right hand. I’m not him.”They had run on several missions, with three people each getting used to a new lion, and Keith had found that his need for perfect maneuvers was overwhelming his ability to lead. It wasn’t that he hadn’t taken leadership courses or had been mentored by an insanely good leader, but it was why he preferred to not lead. He was distracted and often found himself on sensory overload while trying to track and direct four other pilots. And then there was the rage that would flare up out of nowhere, sometimes costing them the mission. He knew he had killed several Galra, knew that there was the burning need to find and question someone high-ranking enough to know things.But he was failing his soulmates again as his own soul writhed in agony.A warm nose pressed into his hand, startling him into looking down. A black lion stared up at him before resting her chin upon his knee, closing her eyes and purring when Keith’s hands rested upon her ruff. He cried harder, sliding onto the floor of the cockpit and curling up under the lion’s chin, left arm curling his head against the side of her neck.Another nose pressed against him, and his Red shoved her way across his lap, demanding hugs from his right arm. He curled them close, unable to drag himself out from the pain.A third nose. Fourth. Fifth. And then human hands reached around the furry heads, carefully brushing through his hair. “I know, Keith. I don’t know why he isn’t responding to our messages, either. Maybe he can’t.”“Pidge,” he whispered, voice breaking.The littlest Paladin slid around, careful not to dislodge any of the lions, one hand sliding around Green’s head to forehead-boop the scrappy little creature before taking Black’s pilot chair and letting Keith lean back against their legs. “I know. Lance and Hunk are coming, too.”Taking a long moment to try to pull himself together, he whispered, “Allura, too? She’s our soulmate . . . she’s a paladin, now, too.”“She wanted to give you space if you wanted it.”“I think we need her close, too.”Black licked a stripe across Keith’s forehead with a low growl. He reached back up to cup her cheek, eyes streaming. “Okay. I need her, too.”Within moments, the cockpit was crowded. Red smoothly moved over to curl around a shocked Lance, who had knelt to embrace Keith. “Oh.”“You’ve never seen them before, either?” Pidge whispered, hands still carding through Keith’s hair, and he rested his head right above their knee. Black took over his lap, draping herself over him and curling one paw around his hips to keep him still.Shaking his head, Lance moved closer to rest his left shoulder against Keith’s right shoulder. In this process, he found that Red adored the snuggles and needed more of them, her desires clear in his mind. “They’re beautiful.”All the cats preened and Allura let out a surprised laugh at the cockpit door before entering with Hunk, who was startled at how fast Yellow had run over to greet her paladin with a headbutt and tackle. “Oh my god, you’re such a pretty kitty! Look at you, my good girl!”Green had smushed herself up behind Pidge in the pilot’s seat, head resting on one narrow shoulder. Blue head-bumped Lance on her way over to Allura, who settled down to Keith’s right, her foot pressing against his calf. And then Hunk carried Yellow over, who was delighted with this turn of events, and he set down next to Keith’s left shoulder. After a moment, Keith murmured, “Allura, come closer?”She did, and he moved carefully so as not to disturb everyone, pulling her forehead to his and breathing. Something settled, something unlocked, and he felt his shoulders finally drop. Allura kept one arm around Blue while she reached up to run her thumb along his right cheek, brushing tears away. “I don’t think your Galra side has been helping this any.”“This isn’t the Galra mating bond,” Keith whispered. He blinked a few times and then sighed deeply. “My . . . uh. The wording isn’t exactly how this sounds, but my Favorite Person is gone. You . . . okay. Another human thing. Uh.”“Want me?” Pidge asked softly, their hands still gently carding through his hair. Keith nodded wordlessly, realizing that he was still struggling with explaining what was happening in his mind. Pidge took up the reins with some soft scritches behind his ears and along the nape of his neck with their short nails. This was something they had done shortly after forming Voltron for the first time, both needing some contact after the separation of minds. Both were also grateful that Keith had liked before he had found out that he was half Galra. “I don’t know if there had been anything like this on Altea, but for humans . . . we have a variety of neurodivergent conditions that have various causes. Some are like Shiro’s, which happen because of exterior influence; Keith was born with his, and he does a lot to try to work around it, which probably isn’t helped much by what we’ve been going through recently.”“We have had similar conditions, but I’m not entirely sure what you mean about Keith being born with his. It’s just who he is, right?” She smiled reassuringly at solemn purple eyes that wouldn’t stop overflowing. Leaning in, she pressed her forehead back to his own and he sighed, relaxing again.Pidge whispered, “He was born with what is called Autism Spectrum Disorder. It’s not indicative of intelligence or capability, but rather has to do with how someone interprets and integrates sensory information.” Their hands stilled and they leaned down to kiss Keith’s head, which further assisted him with starting to slow his mind again. “We all process information and the world around us differently, but Keith more so than others. Shiro was Keith’s Favorite Person, or his anchor. He was Keith’s touchstone. So when Keith would get overwhelmed, or have a meltdown because there’s too much happening all at once and he can’t categorize everything happening . . .”Allura nodded slowly, having seen this before between Shiro and Keith. “Keith would always be found close to Shiro after stressful or chaotic events.”“Exactly. And Keith . . . buddy, you’re having trouble centering, yeah?”“Mmhm. It hurts, and I don’t know how to unwind my head. And Black wants Shiro, not me.”Black headbutted Keith’s gut hard enough to wind him and he coughed before realizing that she actually really did want him. And the tears started fresh all over again, cycling Keith back under. Hunk pressed close, but it was Lance who carefully shoved his way closer, pulling Lance against his chest not in the way that Shiro did, but tucked him closer sideways, head pressed over his heart. Hunk smiled and shifted as well to help press against Keith’s open side. “Let me know if we’re crowding you?”Keith couldn’t speak yet, just nodded and let himself cry his emotions out, overwhelmed. Soon, he was pressed on all sides, and slowly, slowly, he could start his coping mechanisms up again. He could feel Lance smile against the top of his head at feeling his breathing change. Then, all in a rush, Keith felt his body relax and sink against his teammates. He realized that Lance had been humming a song the whole time. Lance had an amazing tone, and Keith smiled.“Thank you.”“I’m carrying you to the showers, Lance is gonna give you as much of a spa treatment as you can tolerate, I’ll bring dinner to the Nest room, and then we’ll all get to bed,” Hunk murmured. “Yeah?”“Yeah. I’m . . . I’m sorry I can’t be Shiro.”“Idiot,” Allura whispered, brushing his hair out of his face and kissing his forehead. “We just need you to be Keith. Shiro is Shiro; he doesn’t need you to replace him while we look for him.” Kissing the tip of his nose, she smiled warmly. “Let’s go back and nest in together. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.”“Kolivan will be back?”“He will. He asked about you, wanted to make sure that you were doing okay. And he said to tell you that he’s proud of you and the Blade is proud that one of their own was chosen by the Black Lion.”Keith nodded, letting his eyes drift shut for a moment before he shifted once. That signaled the gentle untangling of limbs. But before he could walk anywhere, he was hefted into strong, warm arms.And he didn’t struggle, opting to let himself relax into Hunk.
~*~
Kolivan wasn’t expecting Keith to sidle closer when he arrived, and he certainly wasn’t expecting the soft bump of an elbow against his lower arm. Looking down, he raised an eyebrow before nodding once. They refocused upon the briefing, then left together with a wave to Allura who grinned and made a shooing motion. Since the humans had shown how much they accepted her familial relationship with Coran, she wanted to foster other familial relationships that the paladins created. Two sentences into their talk, Kolivan’s hands itched. He sighed and interrupted, “Keith, can I be entirely honest with you, cub?”Knowing that being called cub was a term of endearment, Keith did his best not to be disgruntled with its usage. He wasn’t yet an adult by Galra standards, so he’d adapt. He was lucky that Kolivan had allowed him to be an active member because of his human culture. “Yeah, of course.”“My instincts are screaming at me to groom you while you talk to soothe the rough edges of your emotions, but I understand that this isn’t something that humans practice.” Kolivan looked uncomfortable, but it was oddly endearing for Keith to see him like this. It was like he was trying so hard to treat Keith like the human adult that he was, rather than the gangly teenager that he was by Galra standards. “And while I understand that you have a mental condition by your father’s people, there are similarities to how Galra operate; we are much more sensitive to our environments than humans are, and often, our cubs seek physical touch and societal grooming to soothe themselves.”Keith pulled over a stool that brought him a little higher up, easier for Kolivan to reach his head. Lance had massaged his scalp expertly through the shampooing and conditioning of his hair but going to bed with it still damp hadn’t done much in the way of favors. “Okay. Go for it.”“Your soulmates won’t mind the scent of a Galra on you?” Kolivan sounded a little shocked, like he had expected Keith to refuse.Turning to make full eye-contact with the Blade Leader, Keith replied, “I am Galra. Once I go through my Galra puberty and not just my human one, I’ll smell more neutral between my parent races if Ulaz and Coran are to be believed. Nobody will care if I smell more like someone else, anyway; humans don’t have the equipment to scent each other like Galra do. Would there be a difference between how your scent would smell to other Galra if it was platonic versus sexual touch?”The declaration of what he was made Kolivan’s face soften, and he reached forward to start grooming Keith’s hair into something a little more tamed down than when he had started. Clawed hands ran through the longer locks, making it clump up and smooth out with expert motions. “There’s an incredible difference. I almost hope that you do not suddenly develop the sense of smell that we have, because it’s intolerable when Ulaz and his mate are together on base for any length of time.”“Oh my God, they must be gross.”“Antok assigned their quarters at the end of a little-used corridor after the third time.”Keith snorted a laugh, imagining the tall mate of the Blade’s Leader directing Ulaz and this faceless Galra to move their stuff.Returning to the more serious subject, Kolivan began weaving the short hair. “So, because you have this human mental condition, you’re facing troubles concentrating upon the larger picture as a team leader. Have you delegated any duties to your strategic or tactical advisor or officer?”“I . . . I thought that would be me, though. Because I’m the leader, I thought that I’d have to make all the decisions.”“You are not an island, Keith. Who can you trust to know where everyone is and take some of that burden from you?”“Lance,” Keith replied instantly, gut reaction prompting him to stop and examine that response. And he nodded slowly, feeling his hair braided out of his face and off the back of his neck in a style that he realized he liked. It was just firm enough against his skull, but not so tight that it would cause a headache. He’d have to leave this in to show Lance later because between him and Pidge, they needed something to combat helmet hair.And he blinked as the silence stretched, Kolivan giving him space to think this through. His mind had come to several conclusions about Lance, and he released a deep breath. “We have to re-delegate our duties on the battlefield. The Blue Paladin is no longer our sniper, and the Red Paladin is no longer the frontline attacker. They have different skills and I have to look at how the paladins operate rather than what the skills of the lions are geared towards.”“Yes. You saw the flaw, and that is why you are going to be a successful Black Paladin.” Kolivan let his hands rest on Keith’s shoulders. “How are you adjusting to learning more about Galran customs and traits?”“Some things are eerily familiar to how humans do things, but other things . . . Kolivan, how come nobody talks about the ascension process for emperorship?”“Nobody wants to challenge Zarkon, especially since he has the power of the Druids behind him. Beyond that . . . they’d be foolish to try with the current political climate.” Settling down upon a second stool, Kolivan was glad to get the chance to explain to Keith the nuances that book-learning always seemed to miss.
~*~
One moment, incredible light and heat and—Darkness.His mind slowed over a long while as he started to find ways to pull himself together.And when he had, he wished he hadn’t.
Fuck.
Shiro was gonna get the third degree from all his soulmates and then some when he found a way to get back to them. Black was at his right, nudging his arm up and resting her head against his side. Her voice was clear, and Shiro had to guess that it was because he was now in her realm rather than her coming into his. “Well, that didn’t exactly work as I had hoped.”Her raspy voice was reminiscent of every Galra that he had met. Shiro had to smile, knowing that she was very much a lover of all things that did with her first paladin . . . before he went entirely crazy.So he sighed and carded his hand through her star-spattered ruff. “What was supposed to happen?”“I was trying to send you directly into Red’s cargo bay; she had been ready to boost my quintessence draw. And then when I pulled, it felt like I was hauling the castle through tar. Shiro, something is very wrong with your quintessence. You are you, but there are several other yous concentrated close to the heart of the Galra empire.” Black looked up and Shiro trembled, but met her gaze. “I believe you have been cloned.”“What purpose would that have achieved? Cloning isn’t something that many aliens practice if they’re capable of that technology. Not that I’ve heard of or seen, anyway.”“And you’re correct on that.” Sitting, Black created a bench for Shiro to sit on. He knew it was for his psychological comfort only, but it was appreciated. “But it proves the theory that when you clone a human, the quintessence is also cloned. The same cannot be said of most other species in the universe.”Shiro forced himself to stay calm, to not shake apart into an anxiety attack. “That isn’t reassuring.”And his Lion released a deep sigh. “It wasn’t meant to be, dear boy.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Keith realized he’d been blind.Lance was holding him tight, keeping him together as he apologized to a very quiet Kolivan for not realizing.And Lance was surprised when Kolivan had simply pulled both young men into his lap and surrounded them with his long arms. “Galra cry differently, Keith. We grieve differently than humans do. Antok was my mate, and he and I knew very well that one of us would die before the other. We grieved each other’s loss while we could still comfort each other. It . . . is not a happy memory, but it has helped me since he was killed.”“Practical, but I would so not want to do that with any of my soulmates,” Lance replied, unsure if he could rest against the big Galra like Keith was, but didn’t want to push any boundaries. “Um.”Kolivan’s chuckle was warm, and he pulled Lance closer before settling back. “If you don’t mind, though, I would very much like a nap. I . . . admit to not sleeping well since Antok’s death and I know that I am far more tired than I am allowing myself to process.”“We’ll cuddlepuddle tonight,” Lance promised. “Like we did for Ulaz. It’s the least we can do for you as one of our family.”Kolivan closed his eyes quickly, not letting Lance or Keith see how much that offer meant to him. He would let them know in his own time. Until then . . . maybe he could just lean on the kits a little longer. He dozed off to the feeling of Keith wrapping one arm around his waist.This cub was the cub that Antok had wanted. So in Antok’s memory, Kolivan would do his best by Keith. If the cub didn’t do him in by anticipating his needs before he even knew what they were.
~*~
Lance followed Keith’s eyes as he slumped off to try another sweep for Shiro with Black. He just wished that there was someone else who could sense Shiro to go out with Keith. He was reminded of the time when he, Hunk, and Pidge first set out to look at the alien craft that had crashed. And he sighed, shaking his head and walking over to Red’s hangar. Alone.He hated this. He had thought that with five soulmates, someone would be available.Opening the door, he blinked at the second lion waiting beside his Red. “Blue?” Blinked again. “Allura?”She turned with a smile, flight suit on and helmet in hands. “Come fly with me.”And for a moment, Lance thought that he could. But his eyes welled up, and he let his head hang to hide his gaze. Before he realized what was happening, he found himself encompassed by strong arms and the smell of alien flowers. They crumbled into a heap, and he found himself curled up close on a second alien’s lap in less than a few hours. This time, he had no reservations about tucking his head against someone’s neck and letting the tears just stream from his eyes. He wasn’t sobbing, he wasn’t weeping.He was just so tired that the saltwater drained silently down his face.“We’ve been neglecting you, haven’t we?” Allura whispered, finger-combing his hair. She’d taken her gloves off at some point, and Lance shuddered, nodding. “I’m so sorry; you try so hard to help everyone else that it’s sometimes difficult to see that you need help just as often.” Kissing his nose, grinning at the face he made because it was running and he was gross, Allura whispered, “Let’s go swimming instead. You always feel your best when you’re in the water.”Within two hours, they had taken to the “human” pool, swam laps until they were exhausted, joined by Pidge in a short-sleeve and short-legged bodysuit. And then the three sat in the hot-tub with chilled water pouches to ease some of their aches.Pidge finally sighed and shuffled closer to snuggle up beside Lance. “I’m sorry that we’re shitty soulmates to you sometimes. You just . . . you also don’t make enough noise for us to realize that we aren’t always attentive. It’s hard with a group as big as ours.”“It’s why a lot of humans with large soulmate groups tend to look outside their cohort, I think,” Lance murmured, lightly resting his arm around their shoulders. “But I’m also from a big family where the people who complain the loudest often get told that they’re ‘attention seeking’ and ‘immature.’ And all of you folks are so cool and here I am, just barely good enough of a nobody pilot to—”“Who the fuck took out three Galra with two shots when I was hacking on that last mission? From who the fuck knows where your position was? Because Keith is still trying to figure that out.” Pidge interrupted. “Oh, wait. I’m sorry. Who the fuck holds Voltron’s sword?”“Who the actual fuck made me realize that I had a loving and attentive partner in them especially when I’m at my brattiest and helps me work through racist thoughts and rewrite my responses without judging me?” Allura sniffed. “Hardly a nobody, Lance.”The way she said his name always made him melt a little. “But—”“Lance, I’m not only a Paladin, but I’m the leader of my two-person planet, I’m our primary contact with the other Coalition leaders, and I’m continuing as much study of Altean alchemy as I can in what time I have.” Allura turned his face back towards her, and she leaned in to kiss him hard, claiming his mouth as hers. Her hand stroked his blunt, rounded ear and she drew back, fingertips trailing along his jaw to rest under his chin. “I am not about to waste my time with anyone’s presence which I would value below the lowest of my responsibilities. Beyond that, I’d like to think that my opinion on this matter counts for something.”“Oh.”“Yes, Lance,” she purred, leaning in to steal another kiss. “Oh.”Pidge coughed a little, blushing and looking away.Allura leaned over to press a kiss to Pidge’s forehead, pausing to nuzzle her nose against their hairline. “I’m unable to shower you with nuzzles when I want to kiss Lance and that is simply unacceptable.”Smiling softly, Lance curled his arm a little more firmly around Pidge, who relaxed a little further against his side. “You two are adorable and I love it. I’ll . . . I’ll be okay—”“We care if you’re not okay, though,” Allura said firmly, tone indicating that there would be no argument from his quarter. “Shiro would be smothering you with affection if he was here.”“Yeah.”“Didn’t you say that Kolivan was joining the Nest tonight?”“Yeah?”“Good. I’m going to smother you between myself and Hunk tonight, and we can put him on Hunk’s other side with Keith. Pidge, what do you think?”Pidge giggled. “I have to admit, I absolutely fell asleep in Green’s hangar this one time, and I totally woke up on Ulaz’s chest on the pallet that Hunk insisted I bring in there. He was out of his mind adorable because he literally can’t stop himself from thinking of me as being a really, really tiny Galra cub.”Lance wheezed, voice escaping him in a whisper, “Oh my God you mean that you’re gonna camp out on Kolivan’s chest?”“They’d better for outsing me like that,” a familiar voice hissed, and all three Paladins swept out of the hot tub to surround Ulaz in a very wet embrace of welcome.Allura’s arms were the first around him, and the narrow Galra was very happy to see her genuine joy at seeing him. She’d been working hard and had come a long way and they both knew it would be longer yet before she was free from her prejudices and racism. But she was starting, and he was very happy to count her as his friend.
~*~
Keith returned to the castleship to see that more of the Blades members had arrived just before him with their ships in the main hangar. Some even turned to wave at the passing Black Lion. Once she was settled and they’d taken a few moments to work on their Bond, Keith was happy to find that the handful of those he considered his Glara family were waiting to greet him in the elevator from the hangars. Something that he hadn’t realized he was missing from his life was walking anywhere as a pack. Yeah, Blades were generally loners by nature and had to be okay with long, lonely assignments, but Galra as a race were driven to be around others. Hell, affection was half-fighting in a way to establish compatibility of members in a loose pack. Embracing Regris had almost starting a shoving match with him, and he endured the rough hair-ruffling of a couple of the older members who were often available if he had any questions about Galra things.Even though he still hasn’t found Shiro, he had many people who still cared about him very much in two different locations. And those were a homes worth returning to. At this home, the mess hall had become an informal hub of activity, and he was swept right into Hunk preparing a meal for everyone.“Keith!” at least four voices yelled, welcoming him back in, and he smiled, still trying to beat off the tears that he was loved so much and he ran right into Ulaz and the smell of the doctor was—Kolivan’s hand rested on the back of his neck and squeezed lightly, almost a scruff. Anyone who didn’t know would think it was just a welcome back. Keith could almost smell the amber-cinnamon-surf—Wait.Keith pressed his nose closer to Ulaz and smelled earth and cinnamon, then stepped back to stare up at him. With a quick movement that they anticipated, he shoved his nose against Kolivan’s suit, and found that smell different in a way that he hadn’t noticed before, full of ocean salt and tumeric, then found himself hugged tight by Regris who smelled like young pup and cocoa-whiskey and he shoved him back to breathe. “Oh my god, I think my nose is actually starting to wake up.” And he looked at Ulaz and winced. “Oh god no.”The Blade members laughed as a whole, startling Allura out of her sleepy slump beside a grinning Lance. He waved to Keith, then explained with a loud call, “So this means you’ll be able to sniff out when Ulaz has seen his mate recently?”“I don’t want it! Take it back!” Keith laughingly wailed, moving closer to rub his nose against Lance’s before diving in for a quick kiss. “It . . . it’s easier to be welcomed back into a busy hub like this than when . . .”“We’ll try to do this more often. Just give us an ETA, okay?” Lance brushed his hand over Keith’s hair, tucking part of it up behind one ear before Keith was on the move again. And when he was whisked into the kitchen area by Hunk, Lance pulled out his rarely-used soulpen to fiddle with it absently. With a mental startle, he grinned up to Allura. “We haven’t used these around you yet! Guys! The pens!”“Wait, what?” Pidge jumped up from where they had cornered Regris for a round of cards. They’d both been really into teach each other gambling games since very shortly after they had met. “Oh my god! We can show the Blade! I’ll get mine!”“Get the rest!” Keith called over, not looking up from where he was dicing up some vegetables for Hunk’s meal. It was some sort of hot-pink tuber. “I know that you know where they all are, you menace!”Laughing, Pidge darted out of the room much to the confusion of the Galra. Lance grinned. It was good to see those two working their way out of their respective slumps. And in some way, that helped him work his own way out. So while Hunk and Keith continued cooking (and it was fantastic to be able to watch those two also relax around each other again), he waited until Pidge got back, passed out the pens to their owners, and then finger-gunned at Lance. “Spousey has done their job. Your turn.”Peeking around Allura’s hair, Lance checked open spots of skin on their two cooks, swiftly uncapped his pen, and wrote on the inside of his left wrist, right over Keith’s old scars, Hey, Space-Cowboy. I fink u freeky and I like you a lot!🎶Keith’s face bloomed with an impressive blush. “Lance!”Allura gasped, staring in shock at her forearm, almost literally glowing with her glee. “Look! Oh! I wonder if this will work in reverse.”Lance laughed, leaning in to kiss his handwriting on Allura’s forearm while Hunk ran over, ran his fingers over the text that wasn’t obscured by Lance’s head. “Foreign material beneath the skin! And it’ll fade, too, because this stuff doesn’t cause scarring. Coran! We’re gonna need your help for an experiment!”As the night wore on and the novelty dimmed to a more sustainable level of excitement, the paladins and the Galra sorted out sleeping arrangements then dispersed. Once back at the nest, Lance and Hunk found themselves curled close, with Pidge passed out on their laps and Keith and Allura bracketing them in. Everyone’s left arms were covered with personal graffiti while their rights had remained entirely bare, despite if someone was right- or left- handed. Allura was ambidextrous, which made this easy.Kolivan felt uneasy to be so close to settling down for the night. He hadn’t slept beside anyone since Antok passed, and despite accepting the loss of his mate, it wasn’t like it was going to be easy. He wasn’t sure how to proceed, not while still trying to keep an eye on Keith to make sure that the cub was going to be okay. Not while trying to keep himself from coddling Pidge, who could out-smart and out-fight most infantry Galra. Drawing in a deep breath, he did something that he hadn’t expected he would do: he looked to Ulaz for direction.His medic smiled slightly before crouching before the group sitting/lounging on the couch. “Shall we start getting ready?”“Shower time,” Pidge’s sleepy voice murmured before they staggered off towards the water showers. Kolivan went to follow, but was caught by Hunk’s now-free hand.“Give them a couple minutes to get into their shower; they like physical privacy. Then we can start the orgy.”Kolivan choked on his own spit, then saw the expressions on the humans’ faces and sighed. “Human teasing.”“Yeap. Do you have something that isn’t a uniform to sleep in?” Hunk waited, but at Kolivan’s sheepish look, the human rolled his eyes with an affectionate grin. “Okay, so that’s clearly a Galra trait that Keith has.”“Hey! It just means it takes less time for me to get ready in an emergency,” Keith grumbled, poking Hunk’s cheek.Ulaz laughed. “He’s not wrong.”“See?! I knew it! Keith! You’re a motherfucking alien.”Ulaz, clearly overtired from being on recovery teams, laughed and started taking off some of the extra layers of his suit. “No, that would be Kolivan.”The humans and the human-hybrid all tilted their heads with a blink in an eerily-coordinated move that actually had Allura snort a laugh. “I think you may have mixed some of your colloquialisms, Ulaz!”But as soon as the four Paladins had begun trailing Pidge into the showers, Ulaz shot Kolivan a panicked look.Kolivan was already glaring at him.Fuck.
~*~
Kolivan was the last to realize what the plan of who was going to sleep where had been until he found himself pressed up to the Yellow Paladin with Keith worming his way up beside him. He didn’t mind this as much and the place in the back of his mind began to soften. Then Pidge finally shuffled their way over to the nest in an oversized shirt and some leggings and didn’t go to where there was room by Allura. He blinked around the nest, unsure where the littlest (scariest) Paladin was going to find space.And then he was very gently landed upon by a tangle of warm limbs attached to a cub so decidedly overtired and unwilling to settle that a purr shot right out from under Kolivan’s tight control. He slapped his hand over his mouth, absolutely in outright disbelief that he had been so completely rude as to—The bed stilled at the purr and Kolivan was further humiliated. Ulaz’s head popped up. “Leader, they won’t be offended. Keith can barely smell us unless he’s in our armpits, for stars’ sake.”“I should still apologize, Green Paladin, for—”“For what, being comfortable enough that instinct overrides conscious control?” Pidge asked. They laughed heartily and Lance groaned, just knowing what was going to happen yet. “Do you pop unintentional boners? Erections? No real idea what’s happening, but BAM you got something a little unyielding that is demanding attention? Because Lance is the king of unintentional boners. Because my dude there is so comfortable that his body thinks that it’s time to have sex because that’s the level of satisfaction he’s got when he’s snuggled down with two or more of us.”“Oh my god, he does,” Keith whispered. “That’s so fucking adorable and I will murder any of you if you repeat that.”“Noted,” came the laughed response from most of the bed. Lace held out. “Noted, unless I’m the one using it to tease you when I know you’re not going to be awkward hearing it.”“Fine.”“I love you, Space Mullet.”“I love you too, uh . . . Lance.”“Fucking adore you, dude,” Hunk laughed, hand reaching around Kolivan to stroke through dark hair. “All right, new rule for Galra.”He had both sets of glowing eyes, unwavering in their attention. And he smiled. “No being embarrassed about natural things like purring or nesting or grooming. Humans don’t have your instincts, but we’re also not going to say no to something that’s going to make everyone else more comfortable. Okay? Just make sure that we know what boundaries not to cross in public or in private.”At their nods, Allura ordered the lights to a lower level. And Kolivan tried, he really did try to settle back down. It took some time, and then there was shifting over on Hunk’s other side. Lance’s hand reached over to rest along Hunk’s chest, fingertips resting on Kolivan’s shoulder. Something about the Red Paladin’s touch . . . it was the simple contact, a familiar motion but not towards a familiar body. Lance was used to doing this to Keith, and clearly equated the gentle touch with any possibly-Galra traits. None of the humans could know how much trust it could sometimes take to initiate trust between male-presenting Galra of certain aggression levels.But that touch, then Pidge shifted and began to snore softly, and that noise softened Keith against his side and like a tidal wave, it was dark and warm and he wasn’t aware of much of anything at all.
~*~
Shiro watched from a distance, Black at his side and yet not. He turned to look over his shoulder at the bright spot still coming closer. They’d almost found it (it, like the clone was an object, but Shiro was so so bitter about the fact that he was cloned) in the real universe today. But there was still too much interference, and Keith was still not yet able to find himself in the astral realms. Lance had always been the best, the most adaptive, and Shiro and Black were working very hard to keep themselves separate and to also not overwhelm one another during battles. Shiro did help Black connect to Keith a little better here and there.Sighing, he whispered, “What are we going to do when the clone gets here?”“I could kill him.”“Could you? If he’s me and his Quintessence is essentially mine? Could you kill your Paladin with cold intent?”The slow shake of a large head was all that Shiro needed to see. He looked back to the approaching comet, bright blue tail drifting back the way it came from, twisting with sickly purple.“Oh my god.”“He’ll kill us all. He may not know that he will end all that we’ve worked for, and will be heartbroken to know that he was used. But that Quintessence . . .” Black whispered. “That’s Haggar’s signature.”“How, though? How could we possibly tell Keith that someone with my face, possibly even all of my scars, has to die?”Black had nothing to say, eyes distant as she felt Keith settle into deeper sleep. “I don’t know what to do, Shiro. Perhaps we lie in wait.”“Will it kill us, though? Letting a sleeper agent in? It is, Black, and you know it.”She shook her head, unable to comprehend the idea herself that someone was going to end up having to kill a clone of her beloved Paladin.“Then we’re gonna have to find a way to make it so that he’s not a threat, aren’t we?”
~*~
Keith woke up with a start.“I know where Shiro is!”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Kolivan was barking orders to the Blade to set up a secure perimeter within the Black Lion’s hangar once the five lions had positioned themselves. The four brightly-colored lions curled close around Black in their center, all five heads tucked close. Each Paladin sat in their lion, audio lines open between them as they prepared to try something they’d never done before. At most, they had felt the edges of that place brushing their awareness, usually at a crucial point in a battle. Allura was understandably concerned that there wouldn’t be a way to come back from the Lions’ Astral planes, but they had to try.“Check in,” Keith’s voice commanded over the comms, low with intensity.“Grounded,” Hunk murmured for all of them when he could feel their “headhole” baseline settle into place. His voice was always the softest when they were doing the mental exercises.Before Allura could step in to guide them to the next phase, the Lions themselves stepped in to continue the half-formulated ritual.Five Paladins stood surrounding Shiro and the Black Lion. “Oh.”Keith hauled ass and ran right into Shiro’s arms, followed almost immediately by their other four Soulmates. For an eternity, the six hugged and wept, their lions sitting watch around them. After a long, long while, Shiro whispered, “Keith . . . I—”“I know.” Keith shuddered. “I know you died, Shiro.”“Mostly dead,” Pidge coughed out. “Not all dead. You’re here.”“Mostly dead,” Shiro agreed, kissing their forehead and pressing his nose against their hair. “I don’t know if there’s any coming back from this. But you have to know that . . . there’s . . . Guys, you’re going to run into a version of ‘me.’”“What?” Lance asked softly.“I was . . . I was cloned. And it . . . he’s?” Shiro sighed. “The clone is closing in on your position. And he’s going to have something of a hitchhiker.”“Show me,” Allura commanded, left hand out. Shiro placed his left hand in hers, and he could feel her touch the sense of Haggar and how it interacted with the quintessence—Allura shoved his left sleeve up.His arm matched theirs, revealing love letters and doodles and sweet nonsense that the soulpens had left on physical skin.“It is the quantum resonance of our quintessence,” she breathed, pulling his hand up to cup his palm along her cheek. “Shiro. You’re still alive. You wouldn’t have the soulpen markings if you weren’t. I don’t know how, but we’ll fix this. We’ll find a way to bring you back to us.”“I . . . might have an idea, but it’s really fucking dangerous,” Shiro whispered. “And it will put every single one of you in danger while it’s in motion.”Lance and Keith stared at each other and whispered, “Oh.”Pidge and Hunk blinked at each other, then to Allura, who shrugged. “I guess they’re the tactical geniuses.”The Cuban teen’s voice was soft. “You want us to welcome the clone as if he’s you, Shiro. Because there’s no secret that the Black Lion has been on a lot of reconnaissance recently and you haven’t been making appearances. Hell, even Lotor noticed this about us, and knew that we weren’t the same team that defeated his father.”“The clone will think that he is me,” Shiro replied, reaching out to brush his thumb over the edge of Lance’s cheek, soothing him. “And he’ll expect everyone to treat him as if he is me. That handprint that we all got a couple days ago . . . that was the Galra arm, cauterizing the wound in his leg. That’s something that I would have done, and I honestly feel a fuck ton of sympathy for the guy knowing that he had to do that to himself.”There was a long silence as everyone processed this, minds still close enough to feel the echoes of this possibility across each other’s thoughts. Pidge drew in a deep breath. “Shiro, I know how to control him. Or at least have a plan in place to stop him if he becomes . . . a threat.”“I don’t want to cut this short,” Hunk said softly, “but Yellow is eyeing me and I can feel that we might not have enough mental energy to keep this up much longer. Will we be able to do this again, be around Shiro again?”“Yes.”All heads swiveled towards the Black Lion, who broke the circle and padded closer. “I will make sure of it and will assist in making time for us to meet along the way. But if we are going to follow Shiro’s plan, which I do not like, it is the best option we have.”Shiro sighed, his flesh hand fisting in Black’s dark fur, Galra arm still wrapped tightly around Keith. “I know you don’t like this, but there’s too much at stake to tip off Haggar that we’re aware that she’s cloned me.”Hunk pressed up behind Shiro, Pidge wedged themself around Black to snuggle up with their head over Shiro’s heart. Lance curled around Keith, shocking Shiro at how sudden the current Black Paladin relaxed between the press of their astral bodies. And Allura pulled him in for a deep, satisfying kiss that he wasn’t expecting to like as much as he did, but she wasn’t gentle or feminine or even human about the kiss. And he could feel something pass between them.When he opened his eyes, he whispered, “What did you just do, Princess?”“Stabilized you a little. I’ll need to recover a bit when we get back, but I could feel you and Black merging fields a little more than the standard overlap between Paladin and Lion. My quintessence is just different enough from yours in ways that make it incompatible with Black as a pilot.”“But as a Paladin, you are still acceptable to me, just not mine in the way that Shiro and Keith are mine. Well done. I hadn’t thought of that,” Black replied, amber eyes bright. “But we’re out of time. I will attempt to continue to communicate with you through Keith.”Four Paladins found themselves back in their bodies without further ceremony, but it too another few seconds for Keith to check in. His voice was strong. “We have a location lock and Black is transmitting it to the control room for you to open a bridge, Princess. We will call him Shiro, and we will not tell the Blade that he is a clone unless it is absolutely necessary. Pidge, Hunk, while Allura is powering the teludav, pull together every possible scan that we can run on him. Use the excuse that we don’t know how he was ‘transported’ across the galaxy if he gives pushback. Lance, I’m going to need you as my right hand and my second set of eyes.”“I already am, just give me a direction to move in,” Lance replied, voice just as firm.“Stay in your Lion and be ready to provide backup if he’s been followed.”“Roger.”“What do you want to tell the Blade?” Hunk asked. “You know they’re going to ask why we had to do it this way. You just yelled that you knew where Shiro was and ordered us to our Lions.”Keith’s grin was infectious. “Who knows how the Lions work? Even Alfor didn’t know all their secrets. We just found Shiro’s location, and Allura is making a bridge to retrieve him.”“Lying by omission feels strange, and I don’t like not letting the Blade know.”The Lions untangled themselves, but all looked to Keith as he thought about this. “I’ll tell Kolivan, and only him. He . . . doesn’t have the same emotional ties we have to Shiro to hold back if the clone becomes a threat.”
~*~
Shiro opened his eyes, blearily staring through the glass before it slid aside and he was able to slowly disembark from the pod into Keith’s waiting hold. “Hey.”“Hey. You were in there for about a day.” He rubbed his hands up and down Shiro’s biceps, grounding him a little from the woozy headspace that Coran couldn’t yet figure out how to negate. “How are you doing?”“I’m . . . I have a headache?” Shiro sighed, sagging. “I thought that I wouldn’t be able to find you again.”Keith’s gaze softened and he pulled Shiro in for a hug. “Did you want to go back to the nest?”“I think it might be a little too much right now? Can . . . can we just . . .”“I’ll let everyone know later tonight, then. Let’s get you into something a little more comfortable and grab some food, okay?”A flash of anger swept over Shiro’s face. “I’m not an invalid.”“I never said you were.”The firmness of Keith’s response shocked Shiro. This wasn’t the same Keith he left behind when Black sent him somewhere across the galaxy. Purple eyes were slightly harder, more focused, and there had been growth here. Growth that he had missed. “I’m-I’m sorry, Keith. I don’t know why I’m so on edge right now.”“You just got back again; I’m not going to hold your emotions against you. Let’s take care of basic needs first, then we can start looking at the next steps. You can take the time you need to recover, okay?” Keith’s hand went up to tuck long hair behind Shiro’s ear, stroking the side of his neck on the way down to rest on his shoulder. “If you need space, just let us know.”It didn’t take more than a day before it was clear that something was off. And Shiro knew it. The Paladins were a little gentler with him than before, but not in any way that was too far out of the normal. They were tender with him, helping him when he needed it. Keith was pulling double-duty with the Blades, which meant that when he was on the Castleship, at least half of his day was either spent on mission with the other Galra or he was compiling notes from transmissions sent his way. It was a diligence that Shiro had only seen when Keith had been at his absolute best in the Garrison. It was strange to see him engaged on a level that he had missed out on watching him grow to this point.Two months passed this way. Shiro tried to cut his hair, but seeing photos of himself with it short just felt wrong to him. Like it wasn’t him. So he left it long. Every time he tried to remember beyond getting captured, he’d get another headache. It’s like the life he had on Earth was just out of reach, but from what he remembered about how PTSD worked, this could be a very common thing in some cases.Two months where Keith drew farther away, and Shiro let him go. Two months of pleading with the Black Lion until she let him in. But it still didn’t feel the same. Two months of watching the others continue to solidify their bonds with each other, even Keith when he stopped over with the team for what he said was “doctor-ordered soulmate leave” to help his continued growth and development. Two months of not being able to sleep beside his Soulmates unless it was one at a time. He stopped sleeping in the Nest after two disastrous nights. Two months of never letting his guard down around the Galra, even if they were allies.And then Pidge disappeared. Shiro sighed. He knew they were off to find their family. Allura and Coran were disappointed in his inability to keep Pidge on-base as the newly-reaffirmed Black Paladin. Bowing his head, he went off to his bunk. Lance watched him go, stung from a recent snarl from the clone that it was his bad influence on Pidge that encouraged the rebellious behavior. He trembled, literally shaking with anger and hurt, and not even Allura’s hands could soothe the pain. He pressed his forehead to her shoulder, feeling Coran’s hand reach over and rub long, paternal lines down Lance’s back. “I’m so sorry, my boy.”Coran didn’t know.But he didn’t offer any excuses on Shiro’s behalf. There was simply no excuse for his behavior.He just hoped that Pidge really found Matt this time.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Matt! Oh my god, Matt!” Keith hurdled himself out of his Blade skimmer as soon as the Green Lion’s cargo bay was pressurized again, darting the few feet closer and disengaging his mask. “Oh my god!”“Keith! You motherfucker I got words for you!” Matt opened his arms and swung his friend around in a firm hug, taller and with denser muscles. “Katie-fuck. Pidge?” He called over his shoulder. “Which name?”“Pidge around other people, but Katie is fine for you!” they called back from where they were heading back to pilot Green back towards the Castle. “Keith, I need you to catch him up. I won’t get through it all and Green won’t let you pilot her.”“You got it. I’ll bring him up when we’re through.”“Hunk sent provisions; we should be back in about six hours. Bring me food when you’re done.”Once they were behind the closed cockpit door, Matt looked down at Keith, voice dropping soft. “What happened.”Taking a seat on a storage crate, Keith sighed, motioning for Matt to sit. When he did, Keith moved closer. He might have to catch Matt either physically or emotionally, and he wanted to be within reach when that happened. “Shiro’s gotten into some trouble. He’s alive, but the person you see with Shiro’s face . . . isn’t him. He was cloned.”“Where is he.” Matt’s voice was a low growl, and one hand went out to grip Keith’s knee. “I owe him my life, Keith. Where is Shiro?”“Physically . . . dead. In all other ways, alive and in a very safe place.”Matt’s eyes glazed, he drew in a deep breath and sighed. “I’ve seen some crazy shit these last two years. Okay. So he’s still alive, but needs a physical body.” Focusing back on Keith, he asked, “What do you need me to do?”“You knew him the best and longest. We need you to help us prove to the clone that he’s not really Shiro.”
~*~
Pidge’s return with Matt and Keith brought sighs of relief. Matt knew that the Blade were Galra, and that gave him some concern. He hadn’t been prepared to see Keith and another young Galra immediately launch into a sparring match and tumble off to the side with a level of familiarity that he had only seen Keith display in private settings. But he didn’t let that stop him as he ran up to Shiro-that-wasn’t-Shiro and was surprised to see the smile, the tears of joy, or the embrace that felt exactly like Shiro’s hugs. Stepping back with a smile, he tugged on the black and white ponytail that tied off at the nape of Shiro’s neck. “I like it. Rugged. Suave. Does it get all the guys?”“Oh my God, bro, stop,” Pidge groaned, punching his arm as they passed him. “I need a shower.”They paused to smile up at Shiro, who ruffled their hair and smiled. “Thanks for going AWOL on us.”“Thanks for not following me and getting in my way,” Pidge grunted irritably in reply, mood shifting in a blink at the words. “Keith was the major help here, Shirogane. You ordered me to stop looking.”“Pidge!” Keith barked, all playfighting forgotten as he strode closer. “Enough, please. We found Matt. I had the freedom to help once the Black Lion let Shiro in again, and Voltron has had a lot of responsibilities in the last couple weeks. It’s—” He froze, staring at Shiro’s left elbow, leaning closer. “Hey, who fucked up their elbow while I was gone? I didn’t even feel that and it looks like a doozy.”“Uh, nobody?” Hunk frowned. “I would have known about it.”Shiro’s face colored. “I’ve . . . had scars and bruises show up. Nobody else has had them. I don’t know what this is about.”“Pidge!” Keith barked.“We’re secure!”Matt straightened, and Shiro felt something inside him shrink. He pulled his shirt sleeve up and lifted his left elbow to Keith. “Does. It. Match.”Keith nodded. This was it. This was what they were waiting for.Black’s warm presence flooded Keith’s mind with an update. The information gathered had finally triangulated a location that was high on their agenda. But it was also the embrace of welcome. He’d have to cut back on his Blade duties again, but he knew that Kolivan would understand, and would only assign missions if it was absolutely necessary. Being Black Paladin wasn’t the job Keith was best suited for, but he’d do the job if the Lion required it of him.Shiro started to tremble. “What does it mean, Matt?”Matt’s voice was low. “Adam didn’t repudiate me. I repudiated him. That meant that my scars would never show up on his body, but his would continue to show up on mine.”“But . . . but he repudiated me! And I him!”“You remember the day that you both walked away from each other,” Keith replied, moving closer, Kolivan not far behind him, scowl in place and eyes unwavering. “But was it really you?”“Of course it was me! Keith, we found out that we were soulmates that day!”“No, sweetheart,” Allura whispered, voice so tender it tore Shiro’s heart into pieces. “It wasn’t you. We know it wasn’t you, but we are not going to throw you back to where you came from.”Something changed in his face.Keith reached the clone before anyone else could, blade out and the edge up against a pale throat. “Take the arm off or I’ll do it myself.”“Heh.”“Take. The arm. Off.” He knew it could be done, but he was knocked aside and his vision spun. Before he could shake himself out, Shiro—the clone was on him again, and everything was reactionary. Nobody could interfere, no matter how they tried to until the Paladins had cleared everyone back and away to avoid getting hit by a wild swing. Anyone who got too close would only get injured by one of the two with the wild attacks.The pace was brutal, and it was over almost as fast as it had begun.The clone collapsed with a soft cry and fell unconscious as soon as Keith had literally cut the Galra arm off below where Shiro’s remaining flesh ended, not willing to even possibly harm the body of the man he loved. Dropping his sword, he staggered a few feet away, fell to his knees, and emptied his stomach onto the hangar floor.A hand rubbed his back while he heard Coran and Kolivan hustle the shocked-but-coming-around clone out of the hangar. Hoarsely, he called, “Pidge!”“Yeah, Team Leader?”Coughing past the bile, he ordered, “Scan the arm and quarantine it. Run scans on the clone when he’s in the pod, too.”“On it.” They were off, feet skidding only momentarily to pick up the arm on their way to their workstation, which had thankfully avoided all damage.Lance helped Keith to his feet, eyes darting over the bruise from Shiro’s haymaker that lit up Keith’s left cheekbone. Keith cupped Lance’s right cheek, leaning in to recenter himself. Standing straighter, he took his knife back from Allura, sheathing it and leaning a little more on Lance. His thoughts came in short sentences as he found the words. “We’re going to have to talk to Shiro again to see how he wants to proceed. I don’t think that we’re going to be able to get close to the cloning facility until we’ve pushed the Galra Empire back a considerable amount. Black has the coordinates, but I don’t want to put them anywhere hackable. Zarkon’s grip on the Black Lion is still there, but he doesn’t have access to her memory.”“Understood. So what we have to do now, is figure out who this person actually is who has Shiro’s face and a Soulmate bond to us, and to Adam.” She sighed, looking over the remaining people in the hangar. Pidge was half out of their armor with Matt right by their side with Hunk as they ran and interpreted several scans and tests of the Galra arm. Coran and the mice were cleaning up with a few of the Blades also pitching in to help mop up Keith’s disgrace.Just as he was about to apologize, Lance tugged him closer, pressing a kiss to his temple. “You did something none of us could. And I know you’re triggered right now and need time to decompress. I don’t want to be around many people right now.”“Me either,” Allura admitted, smiling sadly at Keith’s nod.“Let’s play hookie,” Lance whispered. “C’mon, showers then a swim and some hottub time?” He smiled as Keith leaned into him, then began walking with Allura on the Black Paladin’s other side.Kolivan watched them go, then turned to Pidge and Hunk, who glanced up just in time to see Allura hustling the boys through a door. They looked over to Kolivan and waved him closer. “The clone’s consciousness wasn’t in the arm, but it probably was the cause of most of his headaches. Instead, there’s behavioral programming in here that we only see in AIs. He was still conscious when you put him in the pod, right?”“Yes. Very much so, and very confused. He was weeping and apologizing.”“Thought so. The clone isn’t the sleeper agent; it was his arm. We’ve removed all power sources, but we think that this was trying to overwrite the basics of Shiro’s personality, and the clone’s emergent unique sentience. I’ll need more time to study this further. I don’t think that they had a backup control method ready, according to what the medipod is scanning. Which is lazy work for subterfuge.”“What about the signal? Haggar would have made sure to program in or create a backdoor in the programming to still monitor after that’s all been done? Or to eliminate him after we found him out.”Pidge thumbed over their shoulder at Hunk, who grinned. “The Lions naturally exude a resonance and an energy pattern that took care of blocking most of the transmissions. Pidge perfected it before finding Matt. That amount of time spent out of contact with Haggar must have been enough to set the AI to trigger some sort of protocol to take over the clone’s mind if we revealed him.”“We’re going to need him, his face at least, for a while longer,” Kolivan murmured. “We can’t let her know that she’s failed right now. I’ll have our base fabricate a replacement prosthetic for the clone for public appearances.”“We can play it like Keith’s returned from advanced training to take over his duties as Black Paladin while Shiro stays on the Castleship to help with strategy.” Hunk replied. “At least, I’ll be bringing that up with the others once we’re settled tonight. How long will the clone be in the pod?”“Coran indicated that he could change the setting from healing to suspended animation without the pod’s inhabitant knowing, so for however long we need.”“We might need a few days to figure this out. Okay.” Setting their hands down and scrubbing at the back of their neck, Pidge sighed. “Well, this is gonna suck to figure out, but at least he sounds like he’s not a complete douchebag, despite all the shit he’s said to Lance.”“I’ll wait until he changes his behavior towards Lance before letting him close again,” Hunk replied softly, voice firm and eyes downcast. “We’ve got our hands full with helping our boy get his confidence back up.”Kolivan nodded. “We shall keep watch tonight; all of you should settle down together. Regris, Droval, Gerzha, get rest. You’re second shift. I’ll take first here. Ulaz is in the medical bay, and Lo’sha is running patrols.” The three nodded, heading off towards the suite that the Blade had been assigned for their private use.Matt straightened. “Tonight is for Soulmates; I’ll talk to Coran over there and see if he’s got somewhere I can pass out for a while.”“Take my old room,” Pidge replied, locking down their console. “I’ll show you where it is. Kolivan, thank you.”They headed off and Hunk paused before heading towards the group’s communal room. “Thank you for being there for us, Kolivan. I think that it’s clear you’ve been helping us a lot more than you would have if you were only professionally interested in our agenda.” He smiled broadly, the first honest and unguarded expression that Kolivan had seen on his face since the clone had arrived. “You’ve been priceless in helping Keith find himself, possibly for the first time. Thank you. He’s needed you to help guide him that we just . . . aren’t capable of.”Speechless, Kolivan watched as the Yellow Paladin left the room. Coran huffed with amusement as he walked up to stand beside the shocked Galra. “He’s got a point, you know.” And as Coran walked off, Kolivan realized that without intending to, he really had taken the place of a father to the hybrid. Well, shit. That wasn’t the plan.Sitting on a stool, he crossed his arms and stared at the floor in a state of partial-meditation to figure out how under all the stars he was supposed to proceed from here.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Shiro welcomed his soulmates back with no less emotion than last time, though Keith was the center again, having had to be the one to incapacitate the clone. He didn’t let himself stay in the spotlight too long, emotions still too raw to continue feeling the press of their love. So he switched into business mode, Hunk’s fingertips at the small of his back helping him continue to settle. Shiro had his arms around Lance, quietly embracing him and occasionally pressing a kiss to his neck or to his shoulder, reassuring him. Pidge and Allura had arms resting around each other, their lions leaning against their free sides.“We won’t be able to get to the cloning facility anytime soon,” Keith finally said. “Not unless something drastic changes soon.” He nodded to Allura.“I have been doing some research.” Allura began. “If there is a clone that does not have a unique or viable consciousness, there will not be any ethical or moral questions for ‘implanting’ you into that physical shell. Viable is being defined as ‘stable outside of growth tanks.’ This is not an unknown process for Alteans, but once again, I find that I am limited in the available knowledge of my people’s alchemy. From what I have found, this was a method used in extreme circumstances that sound similar to yours, just . . . in a more controlled environment. I just . . . don’t know enough and I don’t know where to find more information.”Shiro took this in, then nodded. “Black doesn’t think that I’m degrading any, but time moves differently here. So long as I’m not displacing anyone . . . I can get used to the idea. It won’t be easy, but . . . I can adapt to it.”“Here’s something that I don’t know if anyone else has considered by now,” Keith added, not waiting for silence to follow Shiro’s words. He could almost feel Black’s countdown timer in the back of his head. “He’s genetically you, so that means that you have say over some of what happens here. What do you want to happen with the clone?”Shiro took a long time to think about this, and just before time ran out, he said, “Bring him to me. If he’s not me, he’ll show up separately. If he is, I’ve a feeling that there’ll be some sort of overlap, and I might end up called back to that body. That’s about what I’m theorizing, anyway.”With almost an audible pop, the Paladins were back in the Nest, and it was morning. Several groans emitted out from under pillows by the humans while Allura dragged herself up to the door. Kolivan stood on the other side with a serious look upon his face. “Princess, when you and your cohort are ready, Ulaz and Coran have updates about the clone.”
~*~
When Shiro . . . opened . . .
I’m not Shiro.
He clenched his eyes shut at the first brush of air across his face, but they snapped open at the soft touch to the back of his left hand. Keith, and only Keith, stood before him. And Shiro-not-Shiro tried to flinch away from the hand that slid into his own, drawing him out of the pod. “What are you doing? I’m-I’m a threat, Keith.”“Not anymore. Not without the arm. We’ve done a thorough check to make sure that Haggar didn’t leave any surprises behind, and the pod removed all Galra tech from your body, including the remains of the Galra arm.”“Why am I awake? I’m . . . I’m not Shiro.”“We know. But we agreed that it was unfair to you to be isolated from the people you share a soulmate bond with. You aren’t Shiro, but you have a bunch of his memories, and you have a unique consciousness, despite having identical quintessence signatures.”“How do you know that? How long have I been under?”“Only two days. And I’m not the best person to explain. Come on, we’re going to my Lion’s hangar.”Keith’s Lion. Keith was the Black Paladin again.The strong hand within his own squeezed firmly, reassuringly. “You’re not unwelcome, you know. But ease the fuck off of Lance, and start by apologizing and changing how you’re treating him.”“I’m so sorry. I will. I-I don’t know why I was pressed to be so awful to everyone.”“I have some suspicions.” And that was all that Keith would say. When they entered Black’s cockpit, the clone stopped dead at the sight of the big cat sitting patiently behind the chair, a flip of the tip of her tail the only indication that she had been waiting for them. Keith smiled. “Well, hi there, Beautiful.”She bumped their hands apart, shoving her head up under not-Shiro’s palm to demand scritches, drowning him in an approving purr. Without realizing it, he had been maneuvered to sit on the ground at Keith’s feet, shoulders slotting between his knees and Black laying on his legs and pressing up against his chest for chin scritches. Keith’s hand dragged through the long locks.“Deep breath in.”Obeying immediately, he panicked until he felt Keith’s hands on either side of his face, guiding his gaze down, down, down, out of the stars, down into twin nebulas. He let his breath out and felt that he was held by a second person. Keith chuckled. “Yeah, first time in this plane gets a little fucky for the head, huh?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Here’s why we know you’re unique from Shiro.” He jerked his chin over the clone’s right shoulder.Turning to look, afraid of what he’d see, the clone didn’t expect Shiro to be right there, that had his flesh arm around identically-broad shoulders. “Hey, keep breathing. I’m not mad at you for anything.”“I just . . .”“You need a name, first. And we don’t have much time here, just needed to carve out enough to either have us meet, or for us to find out that we’re really the same person,” Shiro interrupted, arm pulling his . . . what was he? Clone? Twin? There was some connection, but no real draw to the identity or body that he knew that the consciousness resided in. He found that he settled a little with the gentle touch. “You know, I always wanted a younger twin when I was growing up.”Coughing a laugh, the clone nodded, blushing. “I . . . I know. I . . . you wanted to call him Ryou. I still like the name a lot.”“Then it’s yours. Don’t fuck this up with our soulmates.”“I won’t. I promise.”Keith’s hands rested on either side of Ryou’s face and he exhaled, opening his eyes and looking up at Keith’s smile. “Black relayed that to the other Lions. Welcome home, Ryou.”
~*~
The very first thing that Ryou did was seek out Lance and quietly, heartily apologize. Blue eyes didn’t thaw entirely, but they did soften. “I’m going to need time. I do forgive you, Ryou. You had some strange shit going on, but that’s seriously some Shirogane family trait.”Huffing a soft laugh, Ryou smiled a little bashfully. “Tell me about it.” “Walk with me?” Lance held his right hand out. “I’m okay being friendly with you, and you know that I’m big about physical touch and don’t mind offering platonic physical touch. And I think that you might need more touch, but you’re afraid of it for several reasons.”Ryou’s blush gave him away, and he cleared his throat. “Yeah. But . . . this is about you right now. I fucked up and I want to make things right.”“Yeah, but dwelling on that isn’t going to help you move forward, is it?” Lance blinked. “Have you ever gone swimming? Oh my god, wait!” His face lit up. “You haven’t done a lot of things, despite remembering them! Oh my god . . . this is going to be great! C’mon!”Dragged through the halls by the person he’d hurt the most, Ryou ended up in the kitchens, tucked to one side while Hunk and Lance danced around each other to create a lunch made of several small plates of food for Ryou to try. Ulaz slunk in, looking like he had just gotten a dressing-down of epic proportions. Waving to everyone and smiling a greeting to Ryou, he caught a smoothie pouch that Hunk tossed to him and slouched in one of the chairs with a datapad. And that was just the start of lunch. Keith hauled Pidge in, Allura and Kolivan arrived together while still talking political strategies, and even some of the Blades ambled in to try some human-style cooking. Seeing the Galra join in and even for one of them to start cooking beside Hunk helped Ryou begin to understand why he felt the aversion so strongly.Keith pulled out the alien hot sauce and Shir- Ryou almost snorted his soup at the collective shudder that traveled down the table along every Galra spine. Apparently, spicy food wasn’t their forte. But he remembered how much Keith adored spicy food back home. He nodded to Keith’s offer of sharing it, adding a little of the horseradish-like-based sauce to a slightly-bland forkful of something that tasted vaguely like mac’n’cheese.“Nooo, why did you do that,” Hunk whined.But Ryou moaned happily around the flavor. Setting up a second fork, he held it out for Hunk to try. Who, gamely, did. Then blinked, stared at the fork and sighed with a happy smile. “Yeah. Yeah, you were right about that. Wow, that’s good. What the hell, this tastes like buffalo chicken dip, now.”Keith grinned and pushed his fork across the table for Ryou to load up.
~*~
Ryou followed Keith into the Black Lion’s hangar, this time with less trepidation. They had been meeting with Shiro as a team on a weekly basis for the last three months, and Ryou and Keith have been making extra “trips” halfway through the week if there weren’t any battles. Lotor had been pressing them extra hard, and they were coming up on a difficult mission that had Keith keeping his mouth closed.Things had been getting better across the board with the other . . . with his Soulmates while Allura and Coran finalized his new prosthetic, which looked identical to his old one. Allura was a great help with coming to terms with the fact that he was a clone, and helped him find parts about his identity that were not Shiro. Pidge would steal him away for late-night snuggles when they both had insomnia so he could be their “rubber duck” to talk at when code problems happened. Hunk pulled him in on cooking, which was something he hadn’t realized that he liked or could be good at. Apparently Shiro was a good cook, but Ryou didn’t remember any of the recipes that Shiro knew, so everything was new and fun. Lance flirted and then would get flustered when Ryou flirted back in ways that Shiro would have been flustered by.Shockingly, Keith was the most tender with him. Ryou would weep and rage I’m not Shiro why do you love me so much?! And Keith would wait it out, then when Ryou was calm again, would reply. Just because you’re not Shiro doesn’t mean that you’re not my soulmate and you’re not someone who I can’t love, too. The emotional rollercoaster ride was horrific.But something felt different about this mid-week check-in with Shiro.Once on the Astral Plane, once embraced by a man he was learning to consider as his older brother, Ryou found out.“The Blade need me for a few more missions. Kolivan was very insistent that I was the right one for the job, but was giving me shit about not letting my emotions get in the way.” Keith sighed. “I don’t know what it means, but I do know that it’ll mean that we need Ryou to play as being you, Shiro. This might take a few months.”“Black won’t listen to me,” Ryou immediately protested.The cat herself snorted. “I will listen, cub, but that doesn’t mean that I will obey.”“It’s a conversation. I learned the hard way.” Shiro looked physically pained to admit to the fact that he had been an ass to the sentient ship.Ryou winced. “I remember that.”Keith looked to Black and Shiro. “Can you two work in tandem to help create the appearance that ‘Shiro’ is fully back in the Black Lion? And Ryou, will you be okay with this?”Black considered what her third Paladin was asking her to do. She was a creature of yes or no, never maybes. She had to be. She was decisive and firm, commanding. She had a mind for strategy and tactics. She hadn’t considered this angle. Lotor had been harassing them pretty solidly recently.Shiro answered first. “I’ve no problem with Ryou pretending to be me. If we have to reveal ourselves as two people later, we can handle that when it comes.”The long-haired man nodded softly. “I’ll try to act like you in public.”“You don’t have to, actually. It might also work in our favor if you keep developing your own personality as you have. Then, when we can prove that it’s been two of us for a while, it’ll be easier for folks to see us as separate people.”“That’s not a bad idea,” Keith replied, eyes distant as he worked things out. “Can you work with this, though?”“Yes,” Black replied. “Shiro will be my main connection to quintessence, but Ryou also has a significant amount that will help as well, which has been slowly growing over time. We will be fine, so long as he has the bayard.”The automatic reassurance made Keith’s shoulders drop and he sighed. “I feel like I’m abandoning you.”“You’re not,” Shiro replied. “This is war. We have to make hard decisions and we have to find ways to work around our limitations. We have seven paladins and five lions; we can be flexible about our configuration.” He pulled Keith in for a hard kiss. “Don’t be stupid out there, though. It’d destroy me if you were killed.”Keith coughed a sob, curling into Shiro’s embrace as his emotions overwhelmed him. Black pressed against their legs, and Ryou stood a little back, wanting to give them space. But Shiro gestured for him to get closer, and once he was in grabbing range, he was tugged to plaster himself up against Keith’s back, held there with Shiro’s hand around his waist. When everyone was ready, it was hard to peel themselves away from each other. Shiro kissed Keith firmly. “You know, if you and Ryou want to get cozy, I won’t be offended.”“Nope,” Ryou replied before Keith could. “I am so not there with everyone yet. I . . . honestly? I don’t know if all of me works, and right now, I’m okay with that. I just don’t . . . want sex? At least right now, it would feel really awkward. But I haven’t felt anything sexual towards anyone in our cohort.”Keith rubbed the last of his tears away. “Talk to Pidge about sex drives and sexual orientations?”“I have been. I’m okay like this, Shiro. I promise. I think that they found the brother in you that they thought wanted, only in me. So they may start opening up to you as a romantic partner, while I’m the platonic one.”“Look, I’m not about to shy away from an embarrassing discussion. If you do need sex, even with yourself (and I know that self-pleasure is self-care), don’t feel like you can’t. I’ve never been in your body; it’s yours. I’m not going to judge you for what you do to it.” Shiro’s voice was firm.And there it was.Keith blinked. “Huh. That explains a lot.”Shiro and Black were grinning as Ryou blushed and then grinned back. “I didn’t realize that I needed permission, or that I needed to hear that. Thank you.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It had taken two hours for everyone’s emotions to finally start to settle after Naxzela. Unsurprisingly, Keith was having the hardest time, since it was clear that he was doing doubletime with Voltron and the Blades and hadn’t had a chance to decompress recently. Lance had finally admitted it out loud that most of them were probably struggling through PTSD, and this recent battle hadn’t done anything to help lighten the severity of the condition. But after everything, it was Ryou who gathered Keith together long enough that they could go and sleep in the Black Lion together. This time, Allura went with them, marking the first night that Ryou had been comfortable with more than one person sleeping around him.Hunk and Pidge were settled down, and Lance gently resisted Hunk’s want to keep him close. Of all of them, Lance hadn’t had it as bad today, and he was happy to take care of everyone the way that they normally would be taking care of him. He was glad to help carry bedding to the back of Black’s cockpit, happy to tuck Pidge in between Hunk and Matt with a kiss to their forehead. He’d checked on Coran and found the man asleep, cuddled up in an engineer’s bunk. So that left the Blade and himself as the few remaining awake.He found himself standing beside Kolivan, watching a feed of the solitary cell that Lotor was confined within. Ulaz limped up to them, leaning heavily upon a cane with his knee kept straight in a brace. He was refusing time in the pods until he was sure that everyone was settled and wouldn’t need his help as a trained medic. “How’s the cub?”“Sleeping by now, I hope.” Lance sighed, internally amused that he hadn’t even paused to consider who they were referencing. “Kolivan, what kind of missions are you sending him on? Keith’s fucking drained.”“Information gathering not on the front lines, but missions where his size and agility are his strengths to keep from being seen.” He hated it. He was a leader by necessity, but . . . he was tired. “Your suspicion that he has seen some disturbing things is correct. I was informed by Hunk that he had harbored suicidal tenancies in the past, and I have tried to keep him from places where he could be tempted. This . . . was unexpected. He was willing to give his life so that his family would live.”Lance was quiet for a long while. Lotor was still in his cell, eyes focused either on the wall in front of him or somewhere else entirely. And oh, Lance burned with a need to bruise that face for all that he’d done to them before scrambling around to try to be saved by them. Amnesty. There was something ironically insincere about his plea, something that felt off in a way that Lance just couldn’t figure out. But Keith was warily accepting the surrender, if not full amnesty rights.Ulaz’s voice was gentle. “You should be resting, too.”“Yeah, I know.” But he was unable to consider the possibility of settling himself after such a shitshow. Keith nearly died. Ryou was just as steady as Shiro in a crisis, which everyone was thankful for, but . . . this was bad. Just so very, very bad. “I’m not ready to settle down yet. I’ve a feeling we might have some time to catch our breaths after this one.”“I had been contemplating the same thing,” Kolivan murmured. He sighed gustily, determined not to fidget in front of Lance. “Lotor’s willingness to be ‘captured’ is out of line with what we know of his personality, but it is enough of a move to make the Galra Empire take stock of the situation.”“Do you think that he’s going to cooperate?” Ulaz asked softly. “He may expect torture as a viable method of extracting information.”“I’m going to be more concerned if he does cooperate.” Lance rested on his left foot, right foot behind him and the toe of his boot tapping away at the ground behind him in a nervous movement. “It means that once again, we’re just part of a plan to advance his own motives.”
~*~
Lotor was too perfect. Too poised. The Galra Prince treaded the dangerous water between “confident” and “arrogant.” And Lance knew it and hated that he couldn’t do anything about it. So he was trying to distract himself by working on target practice. The door slid open and closed behind where he crouched behind cover, his gaze in the strange fixed-yet-unfocused that helped him see movement faster. The footfalls were almost like Shiro’s . . .“End program,” Lance ordered, but he didn’t put away his bayard. “Hey, Ryou.”The long-haired man took a seat beside Lance behind the cover, which, thankfully, was also out of sight of the door. “I’m hiding.”“From?”“Coran. He’s scan-happy right now. And I don’t really know what the bayard can do for me.” He looked a little bashfully down at the Black Paladin armor that he wore, the right arm adjusted to account for the fact that he hadn’t yet received the updated prosthetic.Lance rolled this through his head for a moment before he nodded once to himself. “I know that you know how Shiro likes to fight. Is that how you like to do things?”“Ugh, no. He’s faster at seeing the bigger picture than I am and choosing actions appropriate to the situation.”“Could you see yourself providing cover fire beside Hunk?”Ryou took a moment to consider this, and finally, he shook his head, his voice soft. “I was literally created to be a weapon . . .”Lance’s gloved fingertips brushed over the edge of the scar across Ryou’s nose, then down the strong profile. “I think I know how to help us get good again. It . . . means that I have to trust you, and even knowing you and everything that we do now, that is fucking scary. But . . . I don’t have someone to cover my position as sniper. I need a spotter. Pure support, no direct engagement unless it’s last-resort defense.”Ryou’s breath caught and he looked down at his borrowed bayard. He wouldn’t need both arms for that. He’d be useful. He grinned at Lance, wild and fierce. “Start the program up, but be easy on me. I have an idea.”
~*~
Pidge couldn’t believe their eyes, and they knew that Hunk couldn’t, either. Keith and Allura were cuddled close to each other off to one side, also watching their fellow Paladins just annihilate the sniper levels one by one, changing positions with every shot.Lance’s bayard-rifle hadn’t changed shape, but what Ryou was sporting as his bayard’s form was astonishing.It became limbs and an enhanced helmet.Limbs. Three, to be exact.He had a functional right arm, which locked into place and became a perfectly still mount for Lance’s rifle as Ryou laid half-draped over Lance’s right side, left arm curled too-casually-to-be-casual around Lance’s waist.Wings protected the duo and moved them from position to position with easy grace. Ryou moved like he had been born with the appendages, the perfect assist for Lance, left hand tapping signals on Lance’s left elbow before each motion.Keith smiled broadly. He was starting to love Ryou in his own way, entirely separate from the way that he loved Shiro, and it was gentler. Though, it was no less fervent. Same intensity, different color and shape. “I like that.”“It’s very him,” Allura agreed. When the two finished the last level of the block, they stopped, stared at each other, and whooped loud enough to be heard up in the control room. Allura smiled softly. “I think Ryou is realizing that he does have a unique place with us.” She sobered. “We should all discuss what to do with Lotor.”“I agree. Once we’re on the same page, let’s get Shiro’s input.” Hunk activated the microphone. “You guys looked so badass! It’s lunchtime, so cool down a bit and we gotta do some debriefing and strategy meetings.”“Thank you for not saying, ‘talk about a few things!’” Ryou called up, smiling up at his wings and arm before deactivating the bayard and letting it holster itself in his armor. Lance slotted himself up against Ryou’s right side, reaching up to press their sweaty cheeks together and making the taller man splutter at how gross it was before rubbing his sweaty forehead against Lance’s neck in retaliation.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Keith stared down at the bayard in his right hand and his blade in his left. All his life, he had been human, with human expectations and dreams. He had wanted to reach the stars. That had been it. And now that he knew that he was from the stars . . .Lance and Hunk settled down on either side of him, Lance’s arm wrapping around his waist, Hunk’s arm heavy and welcome across his shoulders. “Ryou . . . doesn’t want to take Shiro’s place, but . . . I can’t . . . Black and I know that I’m divided.”“Keith?” Lance prompted softly, leaning in to nose gently against one pale cheek. “Tell us what you want to tell us.”“I need to be with the Blade for a while.”Hunk nodded. “Okay.”Lance was also nodding, entirely unshocked. “Yeah.”“But—”Lance squeezed Keith closer, turning his head and kissing him firmly. The kiss turned gentle by stages, Hunk’s hands running along them both, steadily along Keith’s back and firmly up Lance’s thigh on occasion. His voice was a raspy shadow against Keith’s ear. “Family is important. Soulmates are just as important, but you’ve had us longer than you’ve had the Blade— Oh god, Lance, make him make that noise again.”Lance had bitten the other side of Keith’s neck hard enough to make the man’s hands tremble. “Wanna put the weapons down and engage us in some hand-to-hand, Team Leader?”Hunk and Keith were distracted long enough with their giggling at the bad line for Lance to gently and reverently take Keith’s weapons and place them on his side table. “You brood too much and Hunk and I thought you might have been considering working more with the Blades.” Dragging his nose along an equally-sharp jawline, Lance hissed, “And I, good sir, would have been most put-out if I didn’t get a chance to put out while you were still here full-time.”Hunk growled low in Keith’s other ear, “You have no idea how much I can’t wait to bury myself in you until you’re shaking.” He resisted against Keith’s sharp buck, knowing that as much as Keith and Lance loved the switching, Keith loved it when Hunk absolutely topped him. “But I’ll wait. I wanna see you and Lance figure out who is bottoming first.”Lance bit Keith’s ear and the older man whimpered.Hunk’s breath left him. “Woah.”And Keith reached up, pulling Lance over by his collar and hissing, “You can top, but I wanna be in you tonight.”“Hot. Dangerous. Absolutely happening. Can I tie your hands up?”“Not tonight. Maybe . . .” He stalled, leaning in to suck a bruise right beneath Lance’s left ear, making the Red Lion’s paladin moan almost non-stop. “I wouldn’t mind a blindfold tonight.”Hunk’s hands began unbuttoning pants and sliding off spare layers, taking care with each article of clothing. Keith paused when his shirt came off before his bike gloves, and when he held his hands up, he realized that neither Hunk nor Lance had ever taken them off of him before. He usually did that himself . . .“Are you sure?” Lance asked softly. “I think I’ve only seen you and Shiro take these off.”“Please?”Hunk paused Lance’s hands with one of his own, his voice urgent. “Is this symbolic for you?”Keith nodded silently.“Do you want to talk about why right now?”“No. Please.”“Whenever you’re ready, Mullet,” Lance whispered, voice warm and hand gentle as it combed through hair that was much more tamed and nourished than it had been in the past. His left hand curled into Keith’s left, while Hunk’s hands massaged Keith’s right hand between them. “Just let me know so that I can get this off you so you can start preparing me, yeah?”If there was one thing (among the many) that Keith absolutely adored about Lance, it was the needy noises he made during foreplay.He really shouldn’t have worried so hard about the rest of his Soulmates accepting his Galra genitalia like Shiro said.As soon as cool air hit his right palm, Hunk’s own right hand slid under his boxers and teased the almost-entirely-hidden slit for the damned penile pouch that had stymied himself for his whole goddamn life, Keith’s head fell back on one broad shoulder with a sighed groan.Lance’s hands weren’t far behind and then the race was on.
~*~
Pidge blinked at the bruise that blossomed on the side of Ryou’s neck, a second starting up closer to his shoulder on the opposite side. They blinked twice, then once more, and sighed. “You sure you don’t wanna go and crash their party?”“I’m good.”“Cool. You sure you don’t want to use it as a way of escaping talking with dad?”Ryou sighed, shoulders dropping. And he shook his head. “He’s leaving in a couple days, and he deserves to know that I’m not his pilot. I think he suspects.”“He might. Or he might just think that being a prisoner of war was enough trauma to change Shiro.” Pidge took Ryou’s hand, and he let them lead him to where Sam was residing while they were taking some well-deserved recovery time on Olkarion.Sam absently beckoned them in while finishing some notes, then paused and saved his work the moment the door closed. “Katie, Shiro!”And Ryou broke, looking away.Sam’s breath caught, and he whispered, “Oh.” He blinked twice and walked over, turning the young man’s face towards him, studying the crying eyes with compassion and acceptance. “Oh, kid. You’re not Shiro after all, are you?” He brushed a tear away with his thumb. “But you’ve got my kid’s approval and support, which is more than enough to convince me that you’re truly something special.” He caught Ryou as the tears fell harder and the larger man’s knees weakened.A small hand rested on one of his, and Sam looked down at his kiddo, smiling softly. He followed their point over to the couch in his workroom, and he nodded, slowly guiding this distressed young man closer, murmuring softly, reassuring this Shiro-lookalike in a way that he’d never dare speak to Shiro himself.And Katie-bird knew it, too, by their soft smile.So he sat not-Shiro down, took a seat to his right, and pulled him close to his left shoulder while Pidge sat cross-legged on the ground. “So. You have some of Shiro’s memories, or you wouldn’t have been able to act like him.”“I remember a lot about you and Colleen and . . . and it’s all a lie.”“What lie would that be? This is just something we as humans have never come up against before.” Sam brushed a few strays of the young man’s hair away from his damp face. “And well, it means that we already have a good starting point and know that we’re capable of a good friendship. How about we start with your name?”“Ryou.”“Like a dragon? I like it.”“I don’t know if I want to use the kanji for ‘dragon,’ honestly,” Ryou whispered, hoarse. He could feel Sam adjust his hold around him, and settled in a little more, feeling the tension start to drain from his body into the couch.Sam released a soft breath. “I think that whatever way you choose to write your name, it’ll be the right choice. But I’m also a native English speaker, and I’m certainly not the right person to figure out how to best spell a name.”“Shiro’s family is gonna be so mad . . .”“At you? For not having control of your own creation? Hardly. Considering that they just got another amazing family member who is a damn fine fighter and support for Lance? However it happened, I’m pretty sure that they’ll be happy to add you into their family tree. Your grandmother is a scary matriarch, I’m glad that she likes me, and she did tell me once that she wished that there had been more grandchildren for her to spoil. I think she’d be very happy to hear a message from you when I go back to Earth.”“She’s not my . . . how can she be my . . .”“Well, genetics for certain, unless those were altered?”“Coran says they were, and he was surprised by that,” Ryou whispered. “He got rid of the disease.”Sam froze and then released a deep breath, mind curiously blank as it processed this new information. “They eradicated Shiro’s disease . . . and you have Galra genes spliced in?”“A few. Not enough to do more than make me a little stronger.”“Oh. Oh fuck.” Sam caught himself, then hugged Ryou tighter. “I’m glad you don’t have Shiro’s health conditions, but I am very concerned with the presence of Galra genes. We need to gather everyone; this might change the very course of this rebellion.”The fact that Sam swore and the urgency with his message made the mental scarring of having to interrupt Hunk, Keith, and Lance worth Pidge’s time.Because once again, Coran had unlocked a secret.This time, he had no idea what he had unlocked.The soulmates, Coran, and Sam met in the Castle, locking down the room both physically and digitally. Sam, used to command, started as soon as Pidge gave him the thumb’s up that they were secure. “Coran, you’ve had some surprising fields of study, and Ryou said that you found a Galra tags in his DNA.”A cacophany of questions about the fact that Ryou revealed himself stilled the moment there was a knock on the door. Keith stalked over, not subtle about having his blade unsheathed and awake in his hand as he checked to see who it is. “Kolivan. Ulaz is running up, too.”“Let him in.”“What is happening?” Kolivan asked with a frown. “Is there an another emergency?”“What do you mean, another emergency?” Allura demanded. “Lotor’s ship just left atmo, only registered it on our listening post behind another moon,” Ulaz replied, out of breath. “I believe he is going to the Kral Zera.”Ryou sighed and rubbed at his face. “Oh, that’s going to be a disaster. Do we want him as Emperor?”“Do we want a presence there?” Keith asked, “More importantly, do we want to show that we support him? I know we all disagreed on a lot of things about him going for that.” He bit his lip for a moment before sighing. “Lance, Ryou, Hunk. Do any of you see him not reaching out to the Voltron Coalition?”Lance replied with conviction. “He needs our support because he has very few resources outside of what he’ll own when he win.”“So we’re certain that he’ll win?” Pidge asked, their voice skeptical. “There’s a lotta nasty Generals still alive that want him dead. Sendak included.”“We should avoid that planet all together.” Lance shook his head. “Monitor it, sure, but, not have Voltron be a presence there.” He grinned wryly. “Perfect timing, huh, Keith?”Kolivan looked surprised. “You’ve decided?”Sighing, Keith shoved his hands into his pockets. “I grew up human. I need to know more about my Galra side, and—”“And nothing,” Sam interrupted firmly, reaching over to pull Keith into a firm hug. “You’re my son just as much as Matt is, you know this. You need to go find out more about yourself from the Blades, and that is honestly something I’m a little miffed I’ll be missing out on.” He looked over Keith’s head, eyes flashing. “Kolivan, I knew Keith’s father only briefly. I didn’t know he was Keith’s dad until Keith became Pidge’s friend, now my son by their bond. So you damn well take care of my boy while he’s under your command.”Keith cried harder.And Kolivan sighed deeply. He never had a chance against the kit’s human family. Smiling, he rested his left hand on Keith’s head, his right on Sam’s left shoulder, his non-dominant arm. It was symbolic to show a weakness, should the oath be broken. Kolivan revealed his heart to the human. “As if he were my own blood from my fathers, I will treat this kit as my son for as long as he wishes to walk in my shadow. He will be protected as much as feuds allow, educated as much as his mind can contain, and taught how to fight as if I were Death herself calling for him.”Ulaz chirped in shock and blushed at the adolescent noise that had escaped him with his shock. That was not a standard or even a modern oath. Coran looked shocked, and it was his whisper that broke the silence. “You will die to protect him.”“Should the need arise.”“Could people please just stop dying, though? Just for a little while?” Keith croaked, somehow finding something funny about that. Emotions were wild. He pulled away from Sam’s shoulder reluctantly and looked up at Kolivan.“Dying is very low on my to-do list.”“Keep it that way.”“Gladly.”“So.” Keith rubbed at his face with one hand, the other clutched within Sam’s for a while longer. He was going to miss Pidge’s dad. “I don’t know if my wishes should be taken into consideration for how I’d proceed, since I’ll be passing Black over to you, Ryou.”Ryou looked to Lance, then spread his hand off to the left. “Might as well hear about what you’re thinking. Couldn’t hurt.”“Later. First, the matter of cloning.” Kolivan was thankful that he had information available for this. “The Galra have been attempting cloning experiments for centuries to try to create more soldiers. That’s why sentinels are utilized so widely among the Empire. They can be built. With that in mind, the problem that arose is that unlike with humans . . . the quintessence doesn’t replicate well, if at all.”Hunk frowned, not liking the sound of that. “So . . . you have a living husk.”“Of a sort. It’s unusual to see results like Kuro, who has access to the same impressive levels of quintessence that Shiro has, which gives him the capability to pilot the Black Lion.” He paused for breath. “It was once a widely-used medical practice to grow a clone or cloned organ if there was a need for such things. The implanted organ would gradually absorb the innate quintessence from the Galra it was intended for, and knit itself in such as if it were new again. Our understanding of quintessence only grew with Altea’s allegiance between Alfor and Zarkon.” Kolivan paused to wet his lips. “When Ryou showed that he not only had a separate sentience, but also was animated and moved and thought and could pass for Shiro in all ways . . .”“Haggar,” Ryou growled.“Haggar would have been thrilled with this discovery, yes,” Ulaz snarled in return, just as disgusted. “But this would only harm her standing with the purists. She could create animated troops, but it would be very difficult to see ”“Not unless she found a way to disguise it. But I don’t know how that could work,” Allura added, hands on hips and eyes focused somewhere beyond the floor. “I just don’t know.”“So we have to keep an eye on the Kral Zera, and . . . what? Go after the cloning facility? Ryou said that there shouldn’t be any other active clones.”“No, not an infiltration just yet,” Ryou interrupted. “It would be too early to try that base, and it’s too far away from the nearest open backup. But as soon as we have the strait shot at it, Shiro’s in agreement that we should curbstomp the motherfuckers.”Sam blinked. “Shiro is alive, then?”“How did you both fuck up that explanation?” Hunk laughed while Allura just threw her hands up in the air. “Okay, so. Technical explanation for you, Sam: Shiro’s alive in the Black Lion because space magic. And we can talk to him, because space magic.”Sam blinked once, then shook his head. “I want to talk to Shiro before we part ways. If it’s possible. I’ll remain in contact as long as I can, but we all know that the moment that I hit atmo for Earth, I won’t have access to any of my instrumentation or documentation. The Garrison will confiscate everything.”“So don’t have it on the ship when you hit atmo, hide it somewhere that it can be remotely retrieved,” Matt suggested. He’d done plenty of those kinds of maneuvers before with the rebels he worked with.Sam shook his head. “Too risky, someone else might find it.”Keith exhaled, eyes bright and a sneaky grin edging around his face. “I have an idea. Leader, I have the perfect hiding spot for a listening station, and nobody would be able to sneak up on it. And . . . if I’m right . . . it’s where Mom hid when she was on Earth.”Five identical, feral grins gracing the faces of the young humans really should have worried Kolivan.He found himself grinning back. “I may approve of this plan. But we have four subjects that all must be discussed further: Lotor and the Kral Zera, Samuel returning to Earth, monitoring the clone facility, and Keith’s return to the Blade for a time.”Coran nodded solemnly. “I’ll call for refreshments; we’re going to be here a while, I’m afraid.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Samuel Holt hated goodbyes. He was terrible at them, and Colleen always gave him shit about it. He knew that his kids, young in age but prematurely matured to adulthood with the seriousness of their individual callings, would and could get their way home when they were able to. Earth was just going to be a hell of a lot less interesting without them there, and he knew it.So he sat with his Katiebird one last time, Matt already having had to leave to help organize another rescue mission for some prisoners of war a few sectors over. And he sighed heavily. “Your mother would be very, very proud of you, and she’d be pissed that she wasn’t able to see some of the things that we’ve seen.”“Once it’s peaceful, I want to bring you both around to some of the most amazing planets,” they replied, smiling and hopeful. They’d make sure of the peace, and Sam knew it. But they looked away, smile going distant. “I just hope that we can bring an end to this all soon. I miss home.”Sam smiled and ran his hand through his child’s hair. “I understand that. Home isn’t going to be the same without you both, but I’ll be glad to have Ulaz nearby if I need him. I just worry that with him being so Galra in nature that if seen, he may be accused of being a spy for an invasion.” He leaned in and kissed Pidge’s forehead. “But. I have a happier topic for you before we go. And it’s one that your mother and I already talked about.”“How?” Pidge laughed. “Nothing can get to Earth from here!”“Goose. I spoke with her before Kerberos, back when you still had long hair.” He smiled softly. “And I have also spoken to the rest of your pride of lions, and some will be able to assist you a little better than others.”Pidge blinked, frowning. “Dad?”“This morning, I gave my parental consent to Coran to begin your transition process, should you decide to go through with it while you continue to fight with the Voltron Coalition. It’s in writing, with my thumbprint and retinal scan on file as your biological parent. Nobody can tell you no at this point.” He wiped the shocked tears away from hazel eyes, his own gaze misting up. “You might still be very young to me, my Katie, but you have always been older than your years, and that frightened me until I saw why the universe needed you to be who you are. And that is a multifaceted person who I am proud to have helped create and raise with your mother.”The only reason that there was silence as Pidge’s reply was because they had begun weeping into their father’s chest.“And from what Coran told me, he’s already helped you with some safe binding techniques and was still researching for you when he can.” He brushed his hand through short, messy waves. “Last time that we all talked with your therapist, you didn’t want to transition medically; has that changed?”“I-I . . . yes. I just want top surgery.”Sam made room, and Pidge curled into his lap, never as small as they once were, but trying very hard to be. “Can I ask you to consider that surgery later?”A pinched whine was cut off before Pidge could catch it entirely. “I want them gone.”“I know. And I want your comfort, so I want that for you too.”Swallowing thickly, Pidge coughed to clear their throat. “Why do you want me to wait? Is it because I’m still too young?”“Believe it or not, it’s nothing to do with your age. Look at me, darling,” Sam guided Pidge’s face up out of his chest. “Hey, those are the eyes I’ve dreamed of seeing for the last two years. My not-so-little-kid anymore, but my little fighting bird. Now, it’s nothing about your age, and everything to do with where we are right now. What would happen if you’re needed for Voltron, but you were still day two of recovery?”“I . . . wouldn’t be able to fight.” They looked down and drew in a deep breath. “I hate that I have to think about this. I . . . Dad, I shouldn’t have to think about shit like this!”And Sam nodded, his voice soft, broken. “I hate that I have to remind you of it, because I want you to be comfortable. And you’re not, and I feel like somehow, I might have failed you as a father by having to ask you these hard questions. If we were home, if none of this were going on . . .” He coughed to clear his voice. “Katie Holt, you have a sense of responsibility that cannot be shaken and I’m so goddamned proud of you.”“But . . . I can start hormones if I want to? When I want to?”“Yes. Absolutely.”“And Mom was okay with this?”“Your mother knew that you were nonbinary long before I had an inkling, and she will lovingly and scathingly remind me of that fact every time she’s reminded of how long it took me.” Leaning in, Sam kissed his little Paladin’s forehead again. “She would have gutted me if I came back and said that I didn’t handle things properly.”
~*~
The Kral Zera was a shitshow.Keith had saved Lotor, but it was a near thing. Then Acxa had saved his life, paying him back in spades, then Voltron showed up, the other Marmora operatives having hightailed it without him . . .He sighed, looking up at Voltron before turning and hustling to his own transport. It was odd to feel them all so close, and it fucked with his concentration. Kolivan was still cursing with how botched this mission got, he could just feel it. And when he got back, the team was given a blistering dressing-down for several factors. The others were dismissed, and Keith stayed.“I’m sorry, Leader.” And he was. Long before the impromptu adoption-of-kin, Kolivan had encouraged the use of his name over his title with Keith, soft even then. Keith used the title now out of respect, knowing that as an operative, he failed. As kin, he disappointed his mentor.He wasn’t sure which hurt worse.Kolivan sighed. “And yet, if you were not there, Lotor may not have lived to light the flame. You have a heart that bleeds and a head that sees ways to save as many people as possible, and that serves you well as the Black Paladin. Working as a Blade is not your strength, despite your physical talents that make you a perfect asset for field work.”“Are you going to send me away?”Blinking twice, the older Galra barked a laugh. “‘Send you away,’ Keith? Stars, no! Your skillset just means that I have had to get creative with choosing who to send on which mission. No, you’re my kit, my kin, my blade, and my brother.” A large hand reached down to squeeze Keith’s shoulder, warm and reassuring. The phrase had been said more than once in the last few months, and each time it eased a little more of that stabbing panic that blinded Keith when he thought he was going to be abandoned again. “I have a different assignment that will take a few weeks. Operative retrieval.” He turned to the screen to begin describing the mission he was sending Keith on in the morning.If anyone had tapped into his mind from the moment he had entered the battlefield, they would have had to turn down the white noise of his constant internal screaming. Seeing another operative use his blade made him wonder if they were keyed only to Galra DNA, but he’d had other things to think about. Like getting the absolute fuck outta this hellhole. And then she just gave over the weapon and he was absolutely dumbfounded by her choice. “You just handed the weapon over to them! You compromised this entire mission!”“No, Keith.” And her pronunciation of his name made him pause. Most Galra tripped over his name, making it sound almost like “keet” or “keys” dropping the “th” noise because of some weird linguistic trait that had either a hard T or S at the end of a word rather than a softer noise. Kolivan had practiced hard, just as he had with every other name. He still stumbled when stressed or exhausted. But how Krolia said it, even from the first moment he had introduced himself? It was like her mouth knew the sounds that English made, almost like she had said his name millions of times before. “No, I handed them over to it.”He stared hard at her reflection while continuing to push the little craft as fast as it could go away. Something about her gaze was unsettling, soft, yet sharp. He refocused. She’d answer his questions later, or she wouldn’t. There was nothing else to it that he could do except fly them the fuck outta Dodge. And when they were finally out of range, hearts still pounding, he set the autopilot towards a local star system for the dual purpose of using a gravitational slingshot and solar recharge. Dropping the pilot’s cradle back, he bit the inside of his lip, standing slowly once the chair had stopped moving.
I left you once before . . .
“I should give this back to you.”He couldn’t dare hope, but he had to know. Taking the dagger back, he settled it in its sheath at his back again. “How could you use my blade? I’ve handled other blades, and they don’t sleep or wake at my commands like this did for you.”Krolia’s gaze didn’t waver, but he could tell that she was very, very uncomfortable with this. It was an expression he’d glimpsed in mirrors on his own face, just far more subtle. “Because, Keith, it was once mine, before I left it with your father.”He didn’t move, didn’t break her gaze. “You’re my . . . you? You’re my mother?! How?!” And something about this was ironically hilarious, but he couldn’t laugh. “Kolivan has . . .” And he sighed explosively, throwing his hands up and stalking the few steps away that he could.“Keith?”Keith barked a quick roar, swinging his fist into the softest surface they had: an emergency blanket and tent kit standard for all Galra pods. “Kolivan knew. He knew you were my mother, that you were alive, and he didn’t fucking tell me. He knew I wanted to know why I had this blade. He knew. And he lied to me.”Krolia’s silence made him turn, and only when she could read his face, watch his cues, did she respond. “Did he say I was dead?”“He said he hoped you were still alive. Had reason to believe it.”“Antok didn’t tell you who I am? That bastard has—”“Antok’s been dead for over a year.” The young man’s voice broke over the syllables, his pain at not having the big Galra around breaking over him as if fresh and new.This news shocked Krolia, and she stepped back, blinking quickly before supporting herself against the bulkhead. “Oh, no. Oh, Keith, I’m so sorry.”“Kolivan won’t tell me how, but I think Antok saved his life.”“It would . . . yes, that would be how he would go. Were you there?”“Very different side of the battle; Allura won’t tell me anything, either. I don’t know if she saw anything happen, though.”Silence dragged between them until Krolia finally shook her head. “I need to warn you that you shouldn’t take Kolivan’s . . . omission of my status personally. That damned cat—”“Wait.” An old, old comment swam to the front of his mind. “Okay, so, this is gonna be a personal question, but I think that I might need to know if it, uh, if it’s going to be a thing in the future. Were you and Kolivan an item once?”Stopped dead and clearly shocked by the question, she sighed and grinned softly. “Once. A long time ago. Long before I was on Earth. I’m guessing someone said something?”“Ulaz.”“Oh, that gossip-whore.”“Someone said ‘motherfucker’ and Ulaz said that was actually Kolivan.” Keith cracked a half-grin, the expression barely reaching his eyes. “I’m not going to lie, now that I get the context, Ulaz must have been roasted by Kolivan once they were alone.” He turned back to glance at the viewport, checking their progress. “I have to know—”“No time for anything else. Not . . . not yet.”There was something defeated in her tone, something that screamed the mission comes first and it ached through Keith as he realized that they had to refocus. He hated this. Grunting and running his hand over his face, he drew in a deep breath. “Fine. So do we go back to Kolivan to report?”“No.”And once she finished outlining the plan (one that had been in motion for almost a decade if Keith was assessing the timeline properly), it was clear as day how much of his innate decision-making as a person was tied to his Galra heritage. He wasn’t happy with the idea of going into the Quantum Abyss, but there was no other choice. They’d been looking for this quintessence for so damn long, and if Krolia had the ability to find it, and they could bring the information back, then it would all be worth it.It wasn’t until that first flashback aided by the collapse of spacetime that he wished he could go back, gulping beyond his tears to try to keep himself from wasting precious fluids.Keith had found his mother. It was undeniable.Unbelievable.But for all that he had wanted to find her, wanted to know her, this was not how either of them wanted this to go.He still wouldn’t give it up for anything.A feral grin split his face as he grasped her hand, letting her slingshot him closer to the space whale. She said that she’d left him once before and would never do so again. This time, though, she would have his help to make sure that they stayed together. Let hell come calling for them all; Keith would lead the charge.He turned once his feet landed, anchoring himself and reaching his hand out for his mother’s.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Atmosphere on a creature that created it for itself tasted strange at first—oh. He winced. “Uh, Krolia? We might want you to stay upwind of me. My nose still isn’t galra-strong, but if I can smell myself . . .”She snorted a laugh. “Please. Your father used to take morning runs before his shower. He didn’t have a particularly subtle scent.” She leaned in to take a deep breath of her son’s scent. With a smile, she straightened up, not wanting to push too far into his personal space. Blades were loners by nature, but they had nothing on some of the needs of personal space that humans had going for them. “It’s not bad. Do you want to know what you smell like?”“So long as it’s not hot garbage, because that’s what I feel like I smell like,” Keith grumbled, wincing as he was hit with another round of air that his suit was expelling, refreshing the filters automatically.Krolia waved her hand dismissively, her smile fond. “For a young human, you may feel like you smell awful. For a Galra kit, you still have a very young, neutral scent. Is Regris still active?”“Yeah.” That was an amazingly tactful way to ask if Regris was still alive, and he appreciated her sensitivity. He wondered if there was a tactful way to say that they didn’t have anyone waiting for them on Earth.Krolia nodded. “The ‘kit’ smell is still faint on him. The smell fades with time, and for hybrids like yourself, the other parent species’ own natural scents can impact if someone smells like a child or an adult sooner or later. So.” She grinned suddenly and ruffled his hair, fluffing it out in clumps after it had been confined under his helmet for so long. “Don’t worry about offending my nose while we continue to figure out if we have access to drinkable water on this thing.”The move made Keith laugh suddenly, and Krolia’s face softened as they realized that for the time being, they were both safe. And Keith’s breath caught. “Oh.”Krolia leaned in to kiss his forehead. “And beyond all of that logic for you . . .” She drew in a deep breath and dropped her forehead to rest against his in a distinctly Galra display of familial affection that he must have seen or picked up by now. The Blades did this to each other as siblings all the time. “Keith, you’re my baby. I haven’t breathed the air beside you since you were less than a year old. I haven’t held you, traded scents with you, just watch you take in your world. I don’t care what you smell like so long as I can be around you again. I will never leave your side again, Kolivan’s missions be damned. I’ve done more than he has ever asked me for.” She cupped his face in her large hands, long fingers gentle. “But he gave me my son back. I might just forgive him yet.”
~*~
The moment they found water (thankfully less than an hour later), they were shocked at its purity. Krolia was about to dip her hands in when Keith touched her shoulder, pausing her motions. “Let’s find out where it comes from and where it goes. If we’re going to be here a while, I don’t want to unintentionally poison our host.”“Huh. We’re the parasites here, huh?”“Until we can learn to be symbiotic, yes.” He grinned suddenly. “Okay, legit question.”“Symbiotic aliens? They’re a thing. And some of your human cryptids are aliens. Yeti and the Chupacabra for certain.”“Yes!” Punching the air and jumping to his feet, Keith couldn’t help but feel laughter bubble up again. “I knew it!” He looked upstream, then began moving downstream. Something about their easy connection made it easy to move with Krolia. It could have been their actual blood singing for each other’s connection, could have been all the standard Blade training, but he wasn’t going to question it.They followed the stream to its outlet, a pond on the larger side, with shallows ending with a low clearing. Surrounding the pond’s clearing was a low hill, with grass growing closer to the top on the side facing the pond and rolling down the opposite side. Krolia, being stronger, put her helmet back on and dove in to carefully check if there was some form of “drain” for the water. While she was exploring the depths, Keith dug a shallow trench up one side of the hill to see if the soil was similar enough to Earth’s, and if there were any obvious signs of flooding around the pond. Satisfied with his investigation, he began assessing the edibility of the plant life around the edges of the pond, coming up with several interesting plants to try both raw and grilled.When Krolia returned almost a half hour later, Keith was sitting at the edge of the pond, tying the various bundles together for easy transport. He looked up, flashing a quick smile. “How was it?”“It definitely drains, but not with a strong enough current to take us through whatever filtration system it’s using. The water empties out very slowly through a crack that I’d track the size of if we’re going to be here for any length of time.” She shook off a little more water. “This is big enough to be a major hydration source for the whale, but there was that branch that went off to a different location that I’d like to see if it’s a similar situation to this. My guess is that there’s more than two of these ponds for redundancy’s sake.”“I found some edible food and some ‘let’s cook it to see if it becomes edible’ food.” He pointed around. “All above that waterline there. I don’t want to touch any of the water plants, since those are probably the first level of water filtration, like what’s over there by the stream.”She took in the sight and nodded. “Floods happen regularly, then. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a planet with enough free water to do this.”Keith winced. There were a lot of desert planets. Worse yet, there were more every day thanks to how the Galra Empire would drain planets of their quintessence. Those planets always made him feel sick deep in his gut. “Yeah, I’d choose either of those two caves upstream a bit. I like the one just, uh, ‘north’ of that fork. Okay, real talk. Should we use compass directions or what for this? Because ‘fore’ and ‘aft’ work just as well here as ‘north’ and ‘south.’ Food for thought.” He stood facing upstream, towards the nose of the whale, then pointed left, along what looked like a dry path. “This is probably from the other pond or another water source, for when it overflows.”“Your father—” Krolia was interrupted as a bright light lit up the sky, streaking overhead. Keith also looked up, watching a handful of tails follow along behind that first comet. Thankfully, they overshot, making their landing further away than where Krolia and Keith stood. The timing of the spacetime waves was easier to predict, and he looked to his mother.“We have about six hours before we need to brace for the next wave, and that’s only about a fifteen minute run for me.” He knew that Krolia was faster, just due to her long legs being able to propel her farther. It had made getting to the whale a hell of a lot easier, thankfully.“Including cool-down to get your breathing under control?”“Yep.”“Good. Let’s go check that out.”Keith was true to his assessment, slowing down at about eight minutes into the run to a jog, then a walk about a minute away, carefully working with his breathing the entire time. When they peeked through the foliage to see the “comet,” he blinked twice. “What is that?”Krolia looked up. “In danger!” Breaking cover with a snarl, she attacked the first creature that had been hunting what just couldn’t be a cosmic wolf. Keith was seconds behind her, and they dispatched the aliens quickly. She scanned them as she spoke. “Don’t touch the pup yet. It’s called a cosmic wolf. They’re pack-based with medium intelligence, which means that this pup was separated unwillingly from its family group.” She paused. “Any living pack would have been hot on these creatures’ trails and already would have been here had they been alive.”“He’s orphaned?”Krolia didn’t understand why her son’s voice broke, distress clear to her as day. Maybe he’d had a close friend who had been orphaned? She treaded this carefully, and her voice lowered with as much respect and compassion as possible. “I believe so.”“Wh-why shouldn’t I touch it? Him? Her?”“Possibly him due to the coloring, hard to say without checking.” She walked a pace closer, letting the computer on her wrist assess if what they’d killed were edible. “Space wolves haven’t been seen since Altea fell. They aren’t Altean in origin but were considered very expensive companion creatures for several reasons. Adults initiate and then cement a quantum bond with the partner of their choosing. From what I remember from the old lore, a pup has no control over the bonding process.” She smiled softly. “They also teleport both themselves and-or anyone or thing touching them. They can survive in deep space for short amounts of time. They have special organs that work better than echolocation to be able to scout a jump into a place they’ve never seen before, and Altean search-and-rescue teams with a wolf always had higher live-rescue success rates.”The puppy began to move, paws twitching as he woke up, and Krolia grabbed Keith’s hand carefully, gently, before he reached out to help the little creature. “Keith. Are you comfortable knowing that an alien will have a mental connection with you? The bonding process will knock you on your ass for a day or two, and I can tell already that you’re not very well-rested to begin with.”Keith’s face was suddenly very, very old. Too old. His voice was soft. “I have six soulmates. We pilot Voltron together. We have been in each other’s heads for longer than I think is recommended for humans, had the Alteans known the kind of stress it would create for us.”Krolia’s hand fell away in shock, but also in understanding that her boy knew what he was talking about. “Seven total? That’s . . . that’s quite a lot. I suppose that would give you a very good grasp on what you can and can’t handle.”“I try to be honest about it.” Keith walked closer to the little pup, then sat down a few steps away. “Why don’t you want the pup for yourself?”Smiling, Krolia took a few steps back and sat on a nearby rock, checking the status of the scans. So far, these would both cook well and would stand up for being preserved with some salt. Which, thankfully, they’d located a mine for along the stream. Her current theory was that when the space whale needed certain minerals, it would flood the various little caves. Otherwise, the minerals looked like they filter out from somewhere to be deposited in those caves. It would bear investigating. “Me? I like my mental privacy.”“C’mon, that’s not why.”Krolia’s smile grew into a grin. “I always wanted to get you a dog when you were older. Your dad had two when we met, but they were old boys who passed away before you were born. Every child should have some animal companion to teach them lessons that parents aren’t able to give.”Keith’s gaze softened, but he looked away before he could see his heartbreak. Thankfully, she was behind him, the little wolf pup focusing on Keith in particular. He didn’t know how to tell her that Dad was dead. That he’d grown up in the foster system, lost until Shiro found him. That he’d been abused in almost every house. That everyone got tired of him and the shit he’d pull to see if they’d stay. That he’d been suicidal. That his soulmates were his lifeline, his rescue, his crutch and support system.A nose pushed up into his hand.Yellow eyes locked onto purple.“Oh.”The puppy crawled into his lap, front paws braced against his chest to lean up and lick at his cheek, and he felt the bond between them snap into place. Tears burst down his face at the fear-loneliness-runrunrun that was still in the back of the pup’s mind, and he found himself responding with safe-stay-safe-family as best as he could. The “conversation” happened a couple more times, Keith reminded of how sometimes Ryou would need to be reassured in several different ways before they felt safe after an anxiety attack, usually from different people.He missed his cohort.The pup zeroed in on that connection, and he could feel the happiness at “What a big, stable pack!” roll right over his mind and heart. And he smiled and whispered, “They’d be happy to meet you too. Almost as happy as I am to meet you.”The pup tippy-tapped against his chest, then realized that there was another connection. Ears perked up and the yelp of ANOTHER MOTHER in the happiest mental “tone” ever was the only warning before the pup launched himself at Krolia’s feet, wiggling and yipping happily and rubbing against her legs. She smiled and reached down to give scritches behind one ear. “Is he in your mind like the stories say?”“Yeah.” Keith’s voice was soft, warm. “And yeah, it’s going to knock me on my ass in a while, but I’d like to eat and clean up before I pass out.”
~*~
Krolia sat at the entrance to the cave, Keith asleep behind her with his arms around the cosmic wolf pup. She was so very, very happy that she’d been able to give this to him. He was too young to look so serious, and she wondered all over again what could have caused him to hold himself so tightly? He was barely out of being a Galra kit yet was a human adult and a full member of the Blade of Marmora. He had spoken about some aspects of his mental health, but wasn’t comfortable outright telling her everything about it. She’d seen some of his past, mostly hints of possible futures. He fell asleep telling her about Shiro’s mentorship at the Garrison.The timer clicked over to zero.She rested her head back against the stone of the cave to let another wave wash over her.
A graveyard.
A graveyard and a little boy with dark hair and eyes like nebulae glaring at a stone.
Bold letters carved the name Kogane into cold granite.
Flashes of home environments, all painful, finally ending with the gentle smile of a famous pilot and a thumbprint on a datapad.
Gasping to the present, Krolia stumbled off to one side, willing herself not to retch. She needed the food. She needed her strength. Her . . . her boy . . . he had . . . She failed, but made it to the stream just in time to be sick into the water.Keith wasn’t stealthy as he followed her, entirely on purpose. He’d had a nightmare of his dad’s grave, which had morphed into enough personal history that he had woken up to try to escape it. He hadn’t, but waking up from nightmares was nothing new to him. Waking up alone was. When he checked the time, along with the fact that Krolia wasn’t there, Keith let his head fall back against his arm with a sigh. He picked the limp form of his new friend up, cradling him close, the young man walked after his mother. She glanced up at him, teeth bared as another wave of grief-nausea crested. Sitting beside her, Keith waited until she caught her breath, curled in around himself. “I didn’t know how to tell you. Do you need space?”Her answer was to drag him into an embrace, curling arms and legs around her kit her only kit with her love oh stars, and shook with her emotions. After a little shuffling, he got one arm around her waist to hug her back. She asked very softly, “Did he die on the job?”Keith closed his eyes. It was an old pain, now. Not one he carried fresh with him anymore. Shiro, then the rest of his soulmates had all been able to help him through some hard conversations some months back. “He went back in. The house collapsed around him.”“The . . . the house?” Surely . . . surely not.“Our house.”“How did the fire start? Why did he go back in?”“I don’t know. I wasn’t told and didn’t . . . I wasn’t at a place to find out more. I think now, with the people I love around me, I’d feel strong enough to find out how it all happened.” Keith let Krolia tuck him under her chin, resting against her more fully.“I would have come back for you immediately had I known. I am so sorry you had to bear this grief alone, Keith.” She kissed his forehead in the human way again, pressing her cheek against it in the Galra way, and whispered, “Let me tell you more about your father? When I can?”“Yeah, but . . . can I ask you one thing?”“Yes.”“Were you soulmated to him?” Keith blurted, pulling back just enough to look up at the face that was so eerily similar to his own.Krolia’s face gentled. “No. Our love took years to develop. He never had a living soulmate, so far as what we could tell. He told me about the system for humans, I told him about the Galra. We spent so much time just talking when he was home. I learned English so that I could preserve my translator for other languages. I wouldn’t mind talking English with you to get my memory back.”“You two . . . loved each other so much that you had me.”“My love for your father clearly didn’t die with him. I still love him, and it will take a long time for me to have peace with knowing that he passed away without me knowing.” She pressed her face against his hair and drew in a deep breath. “You smell a little like him, though. Is . . . would it be okay to just hug you? When I miss him?”“Yeah,” he whispered, suddenly choked up. He pressed a hand to his eyes, trying to stop his tears from falling. “I mean, you could hug me anytime.”Her arms tightened around him. “Did Shiro save you?”“Yeah. Yeah, in so many ways.”“He’s the Champion, isn’t he?”Keith pulled back quickly to see her face, tears still flowing but forgotten. “How do you know that?”“Galra Commanders are required to return to Central Command on a strict schedule in order to receive updated training.” She swallowed. “We’re required to attend any arena matches happening during our stay. I . . . saw that fight. He won. But barely.”“We all felt his pain, and we . . . we’re all very, very scarred up.”“Your scars are proof that you’re strong. That you’ve survived.”Keith let his forehead fall against his mother’s shoulder. “Mom . . .”The name gripped her chest, and she trembled.“Mom, there’s . . . more. A lot more. I’m not . . . I’m still ashamed about a lot of things. I don’t want you to judge me.”She wished, oh she wished that she hadn’t had to leave her sweet son all those years ago. “I can’t judge something that I know nothing about right now. I also can’t judge you based off of Galra responses, or even human responses. You’re both. You have had to find your own way, and you didn’t even know about your Galra heritage for most of your life.” She brushed his hair away from his face and smiled. “You tell me what you want, when you can, at your own pace. We’re still new to each other; trust takes time.” She smiled. “But I will admit that hearing you call me mom will always be one of my greatest treasures in life, Keith.”He smiled back, and found himself picked up with very little effort, Krolia walking back towards their cave. “I may not be able to call you mom all the time.”“Whenever you can, whenever you want to, that’s all that will matter to me. I have my son back.” Krolia smiled, chest heaving in a quiet sob, and felt Keith wrap his free arm up around her neck. She let herself cry again, but this time it felt like a weight was slowly sliding off of her shoulders. “I have my son. I could never ask for anything more in my life.”Keith grinned suddenly. “Not even rekindling something with a certain surly Galra who I’m sure adopted me?”Krolia barked a laugh, paused, blushed, then eyed her son. “Oh, you’re my boy all right. I said something stupidly similar to Ulaz some time back.”“Yeah, but—”“Wait. Did you say that Kolivan adopted you?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“Keith, how body-shy are you?”It was the next morning, and Keith was still trying to wake up. His head felt disorganized, mostly because he had a puppy running rampant through it. The sensation was honestly closer to the bond with Red or Black rather than with his human pridemates. “Huh?”Krolia snorted at his bedhead and the bleary look. “Oh, you’re so your father’s son. He hated mornings.”Chuckling dryly, Keith nodded. “I’d sneak into bed on weekends and we’d sleep until noon. I have some photos Dad took in the shack.” Yawning, he rubbed at his face again. “Body shy? Not really anymore. Garrison had communal showers in the gym, and then there was the Blades and all.”“Let me put it like this,” Krolia chuckled, reaching over to give him a friendly shove, not unlike how one of the older Blades would do with their younger members. It was a motion between comrades rather than condescending towards the younger member. “Galra parents and children often don’t wear much clothing when in private, and I am in serious need of a water bath myself.”“Fur. Genital pouch. Right. Makes sense, but I’ve only dealt with peers and not a parent in this sense.” Keith didn’t have any fur (outside of the human-standard patches of hair) and it had shocked Regris that first communal shower post-mission. Some of the thickly-furred operatives had called over about their jealousy while still trying to get through their first rinse-down when he had been finished and drying off. He bit his lip, then shrugged. “I mean, it’ll be weird to me at first because of the human upbringing, but so has been a lot of other Galra things that I’ve gotten used to over time. And I’ve seen more of some people than I have ever wanted to.”“Okay. You sure?”Keith began pulling off his outer gear in response, getting rid of armor and his boots and only bringing the knife to the water’s edge with him. He left it standing upright in the soft dirt right beside the smallish natural pool within sight of their cave. It was about three feet deep and eight feet around, and the water did a small spiral around the edge before rejoining the rest of the stream. Krolia, whose gear had been washed the previous day with the pond, simply stripped down and slid into the water, submerging herself quickly before briskly beginning her scrub from the crown of her head.Keith didn’t even bat an eye as he began slowly breaking the seals around his suit to let water in and make it easier to remove parts while underwater. Gloves first, then torso, then legs . . . and he began scrubbing the fabric against itself to get the salt and sweat bacteria off of the fabric, wiggling it under water, and then reaching it out into the stream to rinse out. Once he’d hung it up to dry, he returned to the pool. It’d need at least two more rinses unless they could find something resembling soap.Krolia was staring. Oddly enough, it didn’t bother him as he slid into the water again. She caught herself and looked away. “I’m sorry.”Not even pausing getting back in, Keith asked, “For what?”“I didn’t know what you’d insinuated when you said that you all had a lot of scars.”“Oh.” He looked down at the refraction of light through the water over his palms, the handprint on his leg. The ring around his right arm. The scar across his nose. The constellation on his back. “Yeah. We have a lot of scars collectively.”“Who had words carved into them, Keith?”“What? Nobody, jeez. Thank God. Wait.” He looked down at his left arm and laughed. “Oh! Did dad tell you about the pens?” Keith read the message out loud. “Keith, check in when you see this. That’s Lance’s handwriting, he does these blocky letters. Pidge is hardly legible. Hunk’s is carefully legible when he’s not excited, then we’re screwed when he forgets that his notes on his right arm are really equations and not some sort of battle plan diagram. Shiro has this sweeping script that I can’t wait to show you. Allura is still learning English, but her letters look like they’re from the Victorian era, all delicate and curly and cute. And Ryou’s got chickenscratch because he remembers writing English, but he’s never actually done it and is working up his fine motor skills.”Krolia hadn’t stopped grooming herself through the explanation. “Ryou?”“Shiro’s clone, but we’re treating him like a twin, since they’re separate people.”“Oh! That explains the two Shiros you saw in this morning’s vision. I don’t know whose hair looks to be more trouble to keep up.”“Shiro’s will be. Ryou has learned the fine art of braiding and he loves having long hair, which always bothered Shiro.” He shook his head. “I miss them, but I can’t dwell on that right now.” Rubbing at his face, he let his hands splash back down into the water. “Do you need help with your back?”“Please, if you don’t mind.” Krolia understood the need to sometimes compartmentalize emotions in order to be able to move forward. “I can help you with yours?”He smiled and moved closer. “You can help with my hair, too, if that will help with the grooming drive.”Laughing, Krolia nodded and turned around. It was a long wash, long in coming, and Keith felt some part of his mind kick into “safety” mode when they walked around afterward to dry off under the warmth of the current sun they were passing by. It was new to him, entirely alien to his human thought processes. But it was like some other aspect of his instincts came up.Keith stopped dead in the middle of seeing if any of the grasses could be used for making baskets with a snort. “Oh. I think my Galra instincts were very strong as a toddler. The only thing Dad could keep me in was a diaper or underwear when we were at home until I was about four. Never made a fuss about wearing clothes when I was in public, but the minute the door was closed, all bets were off.”Krolia was grinning. “Sounds about right.” She had been scanning berries. So far, nothing too toxic to their systems, but who knew about the cosmic puppy chewing away on a bone. “You don’t seem bothered by any of this, either.” She indicated their continued lack of clothing while their suits dried. Krolia had given hers a bonus rinse just to be on the safe side.“Not really? It’s like my brain tapped back into those early instincts.” He shrugged. “Thankfully, I’m also gay as fuck, so seeing breasts just doesn’t do anything for me, even subconsciously.”Krolia grinned. “So no grandkits for me, huh?”“I never said never, just that I’m not interested in females. And children aren’t really a top priority for any of us, even outside of the fact that we’re just still mostly kids ourselves. I just hope that we all survive this bullshit war so that we can settle down somewhere and just live. Is that really too much to ask? None of us asked to be Paladins. I just wanted my soulmates once I knew that they wanted me, and I wanted to be able to just live with them.”Krolia’s hand ran through his hair, soothing and soft as she sat beside him. “Keith, breathe slow. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was a tender topic.”He leaned his forehead against her shoulder, the smell of her fur so familiar that it made his chest ache. He remembered her smell. He pressed his eyes tightly shut but tears escaped anyway. “I didn’t know, either. It’s okay.”“Okay. Let’s focus on getting some food pulled together for the rest of the day, and maybe you can show me how that soulpen works.”“Yeah.” He sighed. “In a moment. Can I just . . . can we just stay like this for a moment?”Krolia curled her hand around the back of his neck, warm and gentle. “As you wish, Keith.”
English. She spoke in English.
“I love you too, Mom.”
~*~
The next week passed with careful exactness. Through the soulpen and Keith’s correspondence with the Paladins, they found that they were in a bit of a bind. He didn’t reveal his mother or the dog, since the marks for soulpens took a few days to get rid of; he didn’t want that information getting into the wrong hands.They were stuck in a time warp.The Quantum Abyss’s time collapses made things get interesting, which in turn caused a lot of trouble and frustration when getting a reply back for a problem that they were having trouble with. Keith learned more about Kolivan than he was comfortable knowing, and Krolia couldn’t look Keith in the eye for a full day after seeing him pressed between Shiro and Ryou, all three faces alight with passion, a future that hadn’t come yet. Seeing himself and an adult, still-androgynous Pidge together in a sexual setting, of all people, had Keith stuck staring off into the distance, trying to figure out if he was disturbed or turned on but the prospect. (He decided to just let it be and see if they ever decided to get sexual with him. He wouldn’t say no, but he wasn’t about to press, considering that they were only getting close to turning sixteen at this point.)Some “days,” Pidge was able to fire off a response quickly about the current time calculations. Ryou practiced his penmanship by copying recipes on their thighs for survival foodstuffs. Hunk analyzed chemical compounds of various plants or animal life that Keith would send and let him know if they were toxic. Lance kept their spirits up.But Lance was hurting, and he and Keith kept a very close conversation running specifically on the right side of their stomachs. Even though everyone knew what was being talked about, Lance had said that their soulmates had been extraordinarily discreet about it, even to the point of checking with him before showering that one time.That’s when they realized that time was passing differently for them. Days would pass and when Keith finally commented about it, Pidge and Hunk were all over that. There was some distortion, but finally, they figured out that there was more time passing for Keith than there was for the rest of their team. So the only thing that Keith could do at this time was wait out the journey, get to know his mother, help her refresh her English skills, and train and play with his dog? Then he’ll do that.But it was going to be very, very difficult.He was having a harder morning, two months in. He paced, he tried running, he tried training. His mind was whirling, and nothing was stopping it from spinning itself into a Category Four Hurricane of an anxiety attack.Keith was passing his mother, who had found a way to create something like felted fabric from some plant fibers that thankfully didn’t irritate Keith’s human skin. They were each wearing somewhat-fitted clothing just to keep them warm, and she was working on stitching blankets together so that they wouldn’t have to burn as much wood at night. Krolia reached out from where she sat on one of the sun-warmed, flat boulders, seemingly absently, to stop his motion with her fingertips along his brow. “Keith.”He drew in a breath, trying not to explode. “Yeah?”“Sit.”“Can’t.”She looked up at him, other hand stilling as they made eye contact. “Instincts are saying that something’s wrong, aren’t they?”“And I can’t fix it,” he replied, nodding, feeling her fingertips brush through his bangs. The motion . . . did something. He frowned, and sighed. “It’s the whole ‘Galra are pack’ instincts, isn’t it?”“Yes. Does this feel like after you had been expelled from the Garrison?”He sighed and nodded. “Yeah. I’m just . . . not alone this time. I don’t know if you want me as pack—”“Keith Yorak Kogane, you are my son!” Krolia grabbed both of his hands, took his thumbs, and pressed them to the pulse-points on either side of her neck, his blunt nails pressed through short, almost-invisible fur to touch her skin, a clear position of trust between pack members. He literally had his mother’s life in his hands. “You are my entire universe. Of course I want you. I’ve always wanted you.”“You . . . you left, though.” His voice broke, and he felt his hands tremble.“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I never wanted to. I hurt you so much by leaving and I will never feel like I can make that up to you. I can only try. You, Keith, are my son, my pack, my world. I would kill the ancient gods for you.”Something clicked into place, and he felt his breath start to deepen, even out. He hadn’t realized that he was breathing shallowly, quickly. “Mom?”“Come here, kit.”He did, and she wrapped the finished blanket around both of them, curling them close while she rubbed her chin over his head, sharing her scent with him and thoroughly marking him as part of her pack. The wolf pup wriggled his way in as well, taking up the space on Keith’s lap and settling in with a sigh. “Keith, I love you more than I know how to say.”He pressed his forehead up against her neck. “I love you too, Mom.”“We have only a little daylight left . . . I want to stay here, but we have to get dinner ready.” She smiled softly. “And I made a comb while you were training today. Can I groom your hair after dinner?”Keith smiled and nodded. “I’d like that.”“I can put in some braids?”“I’d really like that.”Krolia’s face lit up. “You like braids?”“They keep my hair out of my face when we’re fighting, but . . . Kolivan really told me the cultural significance of the different hairstyles that the Galra have.” He smiled a bit more. “I found out that the first braids he put in my hair was some ancient pattern that spoke of a warrior’s dedication to honor.”“The four braids for under a helm or helmet? He remembers those?”“Yeah. But . . . you don’t braid your hair?”Krolia grinned broadly. “Undercover agent, Keith. I have to look the part of a focused modern commander, no matter how much I hold to the old traditions.” She pulled the long tail of hair around her shoulder. “I miss braiding this like Kolivan’s.”“I think that you should do the parent plaits as well, though. We call them French Braids on Earth, I think? The braids that hold tight to the scalp, but curl over over the ears and then drawn back to join the honor-status-braid at the base of the skull.” He smiled a little shyly. “Because you look at me like I’m your greatest achievement and honor.”“Because, my little kit, you are.” She kissed his forehead, and they slowly separated to start their evening chores.That night, a new message came up on his skin from Lance.
Allura’s courting Lotor and I don’t know if she loves me anymore. She’s going to see this and get mad, but I’m not sure if she wants me anymore.
He replied as fast as he could, first with a heart and then with words. Lance, she’ll always love us. She loves you more than she loves anything. Lotor is half-Altean, so she probably sees him as a connection to her own culture, however convoluted it may be through his experience. He sighed and put the pen down, then grumbled and picked it up again. Krolia snorted and grinned openly. I know you had trouble at first with having both Pidge and Hunk. I know how overwhelming it is to go from 0 to 60 with soulmates. Lotor may end up like Shay, but Allura doesn’t know how humans handle these things. That’s all that he had to say about that. Hunk and Shay had their own relationship that they had developed. It was adorable and romantic, and they’d all talked with her and she became a friend to every Paladin. She was hoping to one day live with them all on Earth, since her birthplace of the Balmera was just too tiny for her and her dreams. And her own three-person clan unit was willing to come with her to settle on Earth to raise Balmerans alongside humans and other aliens.But for Hunk, it was like he was more dedicated to his cohort after his relationship with Shay settled into something concrete. She wasn’t a distraction, but rather a focus aide.Krolia pressed a kiss to the side of his head, then began to carefully comb out the tangles of the last few weeks. And Keith sighed, capping the pen and carefully replacing it within his pack. It would be a day of his time, maybe two or three, before Lance’s reply came through. “We need to figure out writing supplies.”“Sharpened stick, some of the dye that I’m working on in a dark enough shade . . . Oh, remember those failed fabric experiments a few weeks back?” Krolia was thinking out loud, but it was helpful for her English.Keith’s head snapped around as he beamed up at her, and the expression quickly turned into a wince, the comb pulling hard on some of his hair. “That was close enough to paper.”“I bet we could figure out a way to make it even closer to paper.” She smiled and added, “I think that writing letters to your soulmates would both be good for you in the now, and good for them once we return. Let’s get started on that in the morning, shall we?”And once the fire was banked and the stones of the firepit still putting out warmth, the trio settled down to sleep in a refreshed nest that Krolia had made while Keith finished making the stew. They’d found that anything slowly simmering for several hours did the same thing as it had done on countless other planets before the space whale; the meats fell apart and the tubers and other flavors all mellowed into a rich series of flavors. (The only problem was that the colors were all a little too neon at times, but Keith wasn’t about to complain when his belly was full.)It was going to be a long haul, but they were in this together.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Allura stood at the helm of the Castleship, and reached out again with this new understanding of how quintessence worked. She could feel the innate self of her ship, the rudimentary AI continuing to power it. She could feel the five unique Lions in their Hangars, and they could feel her. She could feel Shiro’s quintessence as a shadow behind Black, carefully protected, even though Zarkon was no longer alive.And her Soulmates . . . she could almost literally see the connection between herself and Lance, the whipcord-bright connection between them. She could see the pain that her distraction with Lotor and Oriande had caused to their bond. Her bonds with Pidge and Hunk were strong, and her bond with Keith was strained, stuttering, but still there.She drew in another breath and looked outside of her personal web. Coran, faithful and stalwart, was working on another repair. Lotor . . . Where was Lotor? His ship was docked, and he was supposed to be in his suite. She activated the computer with a thought, realized what she had done and how effortless it had been to her, just like how she had seen her father do. “Locate Emperor Lotor.” “Emperor Lotor is in the Dignitary’s Suite.” And a screen popped up to show that Lotor was, indeed, sitting at his desk in his suite, speaking to several commanders at once while he continued to run his Empire on this visit.“How strange.” She reached out again, this time focusing more of her attention upon his location. On the screen, he disconnected the call and stood, stretching arms over his head. Brow furrowed, Allura watched as he began moving towards the (admittedly ostentatious) bathing room. With what she sensed, her alarm caused her mice friends to chitter in concern.For where Lotor walked, it was a complete void of Quintessence. If there was a way to describe a black hole of life-force, it would follow in the steps that Lotor took.She closed the window from the security camera and turned to look at the most recent scans of the Lions, showing their current energy stores at fully-charged, ready for anything. Allura wondered if that was a coincidence of his brush against Oriande’s gates. Or, possibly, a punishment for not meeting the standards of the tests. He hadn’t gone into detail about his ordeal, which made Allura realize that her ordeal should also remain a secret. She didn’t explain what she did or why, just that she passed. And he hadn’t pressed her for what she did.She was going to live her life as an alchemist.
I give my own.
Would she ultimately end up having to give her life to save the Universe, too?“Princess?”Startled, Allura whirled to face Lance, and her face broke into a soft smile. “Thank you for coming up to see me!”“Well,” he shuffled his feet, “it’s not like I’m really of use for anything else right now.”“I find that hard to believe, my love. Even Shiro?” She used Ryou’s brother’s name whenever she was in a public place, knowing that there could be eavesdroppers around them at any time.“He’s finally actually sleeping, and I don’t want to disturb him.” Lance rubbed his hand up one forearm, almost as if he were trying to warm himself.“Well, good. It’s about time that I commandeered the time of my favorite, anyway.” She held her nose high as she approached Lance, her tone bright and teasing. But then, all acting fell apart, and she timidly drew one of his hands into one of her own. “After all, my father always taught me that a Princess must keep her word. I’ve learned what I can of quintessence and alchemy, which was a necessary priority, but I admit that I have wronged you, Lance. I was so distracted and so entirely smitten with being able to reminisce about Altea that I allowed myself to neglect our relationship.”Lance’s hand trembled, and Allura pulled his other hand into her own. “I am so very sorry, and I could never be mad with you for talking to Keith and trying to understand what was going on with me.” She shrugged one shoulder. “As for Lotor, well . . . he will need to secure his bloodline very shortly, which means taking a formal mate and producing an heir. I cannot provide him with additional Galra genes so his progeny continue to be eligible as royalty.”“You . . . you weren’t going to become his Empress?”Allura straightened in shock and shook her head. “Certainly not! I’m a Princess of Altea, not of any other planet. I would make a singularly wretched Empress for the Galra.”Lance couldn’t help the splutter of laughter that burst out of him, and he leaned over, not so much up anymore, to kiss Allura, pulling her into a hug. “I’m glad that the distractions are gone.”“Hardly gone.” The acidic tone echoed over to them, clipped and angry. Belonging to none other than Lotor, of course. Allura smiled, honest and open. “Well, Oriande was indeed a distraction, even if it was a worthwhile and necessary one. You and I are distractions to one another, and we both spoke about this not even a week ago. We have duties to so many other people, two entirely different governments.”Lotor’s face betrayed his shock, and then it melted into remorse and acceptance. “I apologize to you both, Princess Allura and the Red Paladin of Voltron. There have been some difficult factions opposing my rule, and I am frustrated at them. I recognize that I am not your soulmate, Allura, and I am honored by the generosity of your cohort.”Lance, not so naïve anymore, held his hand out. “This isn’t us saying that you’re not still acceptable as her consort, Lotor.”“Oh! Is that what you were getting from what I was saying?” Allura swept in and kissed his nose before stepping back with a smile. “No, I would still enjoy your company, and would hope that your someday Empress is amenable to the occasional tryst.” She smiled sadly. “However, it does not follow that I should neglect my own dearest consort, and must renovate what I have unwittingly damaged. I apologize to you both for having unbalanced us all so.”“Lance, is this creature somehow immortal?” Lotor asked of the paladin quite suddenly.Grinning, Lance replied, “She sure could be one with her angelic nature—”“Smooth.”“—I try, thank you—however, all signs point to mortal, like the rest of us.”“Oh, you!” Allura spluttered, blushing hard enough that her Marks of the Chosen flashed brilliantly against her darkened skin.“No, you, gorgeous,” Lance whispered, tangling her fingers in his. “Emperor Lotor, I’m going to spend some time with my Princess. Could you call for Coran to—” A beeping interrupted him, and he activated his comm on his station as he passed it to see what was scanning. “Coran, come to the bridge. Paladins, we have an unknown approaching, be ready to either get to your Lions or to the main hangar. Shiro, come to the bridge as well, please.”Their acknowledgements came through loud and clear before he turned to look at Allura, her own gaze staring at the approaching blip with a furrowed brow.
~*~
Ten Minutes AgoThree Weeks Ago
~*~
“Two and a half years. You know, this was the longest time I’ve spent in one place.” Keith smiled down at his wolf, who didn’t have to reach that far to lick at his face. His free shoulder was bumped at by his mother, and he smiled broadly. “Let’s go.”Helmets activated, they took off of the Space Whale, having sealed up their living space and marked the location with a large pile of rocks. If another traveler got stranded, there’d be the possibility that they could use some of the tools that they had created.All but the letters that they had each written remained behind. Their memories of their pasts and possible futures mingled uncomfortably as they approached the facility.The silence when they arrived was deafening, and once the airlock cycled properly, the wolf showed up as well with a pop and a shake. A faint hiss of an air-recombinator recycling and creating breathable atmosphere was disconcerting until a secondary one kicked in and the clatter of a maintenance drone could be heard moving away from them.Walking into a lush forest through a cold metal door was entirely unsettling once again, but Keith didn’t let it get to him. In fact, he was so overwhelmed by the irrational shifts that he had almost tuned out entirely . . . until Romelle spoke.“Are you here to kill me, now?”“Uh, no.”“And where and when are you from?” She had emptied the bucket of water back out and Krolia had no doubt that she’d used it as a weapon before.“Peace, Altean. I’m Krolia, a Blade of Marmora and this one’s mother.”Keith, having been learning more about Galra culture, now knew the phrase as a way of an elder adult introducing an adult, independent child. Romelle must have known of this, and possibly hadn’t expected that sort of honest introduction. When she looked at him, Keith nodded once. “Keith Kogane, Blade of Marmora and Paladin of Voltron.”“Oh.”And that expression was the first clue that there was something very strange about to happen to his life.“Lotor is going to want to talk to you, expecially if you’re from the when that he should be in.”
~*~
The hike was relatively short, ending at a building that looked oddly like how an Olkarion forest-lab would look like. It looked large enough to house at least four large labs on the first floor, and the upper level looked like it was residential. Something niggled in the back of Keith’s mind and he put his mask on and sent his wolf off to watch the perimeter before they walked into the small clearing around the building. And indeed, inside was an Olkarion working alongside another Altean, a child playing around their feet bearing a darling resemblance to both. Alteans . . . pleural. There was clearly more than a few Alteans to keep the population growing again if they were partnering off with non-Alteans. There were several other Alteans working in this room, some paused at the sight of Krolia’s armor, but at Romelle’s gesture, returned to their work without much more than a thoughtful expression or noise.Allura and Coran had their people back . . . Keith wondered how the general population nwould take to the news that they still had a Princess.But they were only glanced at while Romelle hurried them through to the second room. A third of it was singularly chaotic, but the other two thirds were in exact order. White hair was piled on the top of a tall male’s head in a simple messy bun, the pink lowlights contrasting against the cool lilac of his skin. But the stripes and markings that had been mysteriously absent from Prince Lotor’s skin were in full view here. He was seated at a desk, typing away at a steady pace, absorbed in his process. So Keith raised an eyebrow at Romelle, who cleared her throat. “Lotor?”“It’s not dinnertime yet, and I believe I’ve cracked a mystery of the quantum bonds.”“Well, I’d like to hear that mystery, but I don’t think that you’re the Lotor that I’ve met.”The man was up and had knives in each hand before he blinked at the outfits and faces. “Oh. Many pardons, Ghost and Commander. You said you met me?” And the eyes, cat-slit and all, narrowed dangerously. “Is he similar to me?”“Basic bipedal build, missing a lot of the Galra traits that you’re exhibiting. Are you or he from an alternate universe?” Lotor seemed to come back to himself a little, and shrugged, probably to himself. “Oh, you’ve run into another universe version or two? Interesting. No, this is something a little more jarring than that. Allow me to introduce myself properly. I am Lotor, the ‘genetically flawed’ only child of Haggar-once-Honerva and Zarkon. Like most hybrids, I have some stunning physiological quirks that I have had many surgeries for. I’ve been cloned and re-cloned, and re-cloned, and each version is still me, only without enough Quintessence to sustain a full life. When the clone inevitably dies prematurely, the remainder of his Quintessence snaps back to me, and with it comes the accumulated memories of that clone’s lifetime.” He paused, then continued on. “I know that much of the recent clones have been force-grown, with implanted memories indicating that each death was merely a ‘near-death experience,’ with a focus on sharpening my athletic and fighting abilities.”Keith started to feel his stomach turn. “You mean that you’re essentially gathering the Quintessence of all the clones that are made of you?”“No, though I can see how you made that connection, Ghost. The quintessence was mine to begin with, but with the cloning process, I believe that Haggar is attempting to draw the remainder of my Quintessence into the clone in order to regain a puppet of an Emperor for her own agenda. There is no way to create new Quintessence within a Galra clone; it will draw from the original source.” Lotor took a seat on a stool, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Why are you here?”“We’re searching for a concentrated Quintessence source that—”“Immovable at this time, unable to transport it safely due to the Quantum Abyss. It goes rogue and mutilates anything it touches.” Lotor shook his head. “I wish that I had some updated technology or a full Altean alchemist to see if they could study it for me. And the last clone died in such a manner that makes me wonder if the Castle of Lions has finally been rediscovered.”Romelle huffed. “Alfor’s Folly, it should have been called. I keep telling you that there’s no possible way that Voltron could possibly be resurrected. Not with Zarkon holding the bayard.”Now that’s an interesting take, and one that Keith had anticipated. So he dropped his mask and flipped his hood off. “Well, I didn’t become a Paladin of Voltron for shits and giggles. It’s not an honorary title.”“Oh. Oh, you’re not something I’ve seen before.” Lotor’s voice was a purr, and he was instantly on his feet to get a little closer, eyes darting over the new face. “Are you a—no, you must be a hybrid as well, since you are of the Blade. What is your other parentage?”“Human, like five of the other six paladins.”“Planned redundency? You can switch Lions if there’s need? Wonderful! That makes so much sense! How—No, don’t let me get ahead of myself here. Can Voltron be formed without the bayards?”“Short answer: yes, but not as effectively. There’s an additional drain on the pilot’s Quintessence. We have also regained the Black Bayard, and Zarkon is dead, Haggar is missing.” Keith stared hard at this Lotor’s face. He was older, just starting to show a couple wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Stripes and markings almost similar to Kolivan’s and Krolia’s lined his face, disappearing up under his hair and down past his collar, and Keith hadn’t missed that a pair of glasses had been set down when Lotor had turned towards his guests. “But before we do that, why are you here?”“Assassination attempt that I escaped only barely. I was banished and was stopped just in time from boarding the ship that was sabotaged, rigged to explode in the upper atmosphere. I have enough Altean genes that I can adjust my shape and color just enough to look like an Altean in their midlife, but not for the same long spans of time that a true Altean can hold the shift for. So when my clone arrives, he has no idea who I am.” Lotor paused, then really seemed to take in their appearance. “I am a terrible host; forgive me. You both look like you need some quiznaking pampering. How did you manage to fly here?”“Space whale,” Krolia replied, still watching this new Lotor. “But before you play the host, forgive me my skepticism. If you’re telling the truth about gaining those memories, you should know my face.”Lotor’s expression had initially been slightly pinched, but it relaxed byt the time that she had finished speaking. “Commander Krolia. I did not know if you were going by another name, which is why I refrained from addressing you. You have met five unique clones for a total of seventy-nine unique reasons.”Keith shifted his footing. “Have I met more than one clone?”Lotor shook his head. “I have no knowledge of you, which is both good and bad. By my calculations, there’s the possibility that we are nearing the end of the current clone’s lifespan. He will begin to show increased signs of mania and paranoia, unpredictability, and a stunning lack of self-preservation. It also means that the next clone is more than likely ready to replace this one and will be deployed the moment that that witch is notified that her puppet-son has fallen.”Keith blinked twice. “Tell me that you know how to get back to regular space-time without following the whales.”“I do not know if I am willing to leave my safety here, but Romelle knows all that I know about navigation, piloting, and the Quantum Abyss.” Lotor replied honestly. “You look rather distressed, Paladin of Voltron.”“Yeah. One of my soulmates has taken on your clone as her lover.”Lotor froze.Krolia let one eyebrow creep up under her fringe. “Oh, so that’s what that expression I’ve seen before is imitating. I want to test you more to make sure that you’re not just another clone, but I’m starting to believe you. The expressions and mannerisms are just barely off, a half-tic behind when someone else would have reacted.”“You will have ample time. I will come with you, as it is my responsibility to apologize and make amends where I can when the situation inevitably falls apart. Though, can you both spare a day of your mission in order to give us time to pack and for you both to get some time to rest?”“Is one day the same here as it is on the whale?”“It’s very close to that, yes, and yet it is somehow outside of time.”“Then we can give you the day.”“My humble thanks, and please, take any provisions that you may need and know that we may have to steal a ship in order to leave.” Grabbing his glasses, Lotor put them in a case, and started picking up seemingly random objects to put into a bag. “Romelle, my dear, can you please bring them to our living quarters and show them around? I will join you all shortly.”She nodded, and drew in a deep breath. “Do you still want me to come with you?”Lotor nodded, pausing to make eye contact with her. “You are in possession of my clones’ most damning piece of evidence, little sister. Though it is up to you to make the choice whether to stay or leave with us. Take the time to think upon it, please, but I would very much like our guests seen to before they fall over with exhaustion before bathing. I will finish packing my essentials and will join you for dinner.” He turned to Keith. “And please feel free to have your wolf join us; he’s still young and not quite as stealthy as he wishes he were.”Krolia smirked while Keith grinned and passed the message along.Lotor found himself the recipient of several kilos of a very-happy-to-meet-you space wolf.And if the hybrid and true heir to the Galra throne had a hysterical, pained edge to the laughter, nobody mentioned it.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
When Lotor rejoined Keith and Krolia at dinner, he stood dressed in simple clothing, just a tunic, his pants, and sturdy shoes. This was nothing like how the Lotor that Keith had met would have looked for guests. That Lotor would wear his flight suits or something that looked more noble denoting his rank. There was a certain amount of arrogance or the sense that other-Lotor was actually, actively attempting to carve out his identity and worthiness to call himself Galra. That Lotor was searching for something to define himself.This Lotor was secure in his identity, relaxed in expressing himself.The parallels between the cloned Lotor and Ryou before the Galra influence was removed were astounding. While in the communal shower room, Keith and Krolia had discussed if it would be wise to trust this Lotor further than the clone was trusted. There was an insatiability for information that the clone only echoed. Allura had written her concerns out to Keith along her left thigh one night, detailing her frustration with Lotor’s push for her to gain the secrets of Oriande, while he seemed to want only to test himself against it. Occasionally, a drop of water would obscure the writing. Keith knew that saltwater, human spit, or soap were the only three things that would remove the soul-pen ink. Early in their first year on the whale, Keith had started to copy down what was written to him onto their rudimentary paper to save the full messages and give himself time to really consider what his soulmates were processing.Krolia took a sip of the juice, then set her drink back down. “Lotor, Haggar didn’t just clone you. From what we know, she’s cloned Shiro, the second Black Paladin.”That made the Galra-Altean pause before taking a seat at the table with them. “A human? Interesting. She may have done it just to see if she could.”“Well, she didn’t know at the time that humans and Galra can interbreed for certain, but with how adaptable Galra DNA is, it would make sense that she’d be frustrated by the inability for clones to create their own life-force. Considering your own side of things, it’s a little interesting that the clone didn’t pull Quintessence from the original Shiro, either.” Keith leaned his elbows on the table, his own warm drink soothing his hands. “It created its own Quintessence as a unique individual from Shiro, and we think that he’s one of the later generations of clones, since we found Galra tags in his DNA. There’s a facility close to the Hub.”“She’s always had a facility, but this is news to me about your species. How did you find this out?” Lotor reached over for the warm drink, then poured his own mug. Romelle called out that the food should be done heating, and that she was returning to packing. Lotor stood to start plating the meal, teasing Romelle about taking her food to eat in her room like a moody teenager. Their light banter eased back into the previous topic once he’d returned with the food. “How is the clone doing?”“Shiro adopted his clone as his twin and called him Ryou. He’s not Shiro, started out similar enough and has been really growing into his own personality.” A soft smile spread over Keith’s face. “I love him.”Lotor yelped. “You have your own soulmate, but you love another?!”Snorting, Krolia gestured to Keith in a very human sweep of her hand towards Lotor to explain away the cultural side of things. Her son grinned. “I have six soulmates that I know about. In human culture, large cohorts like us often are made up of a variety of bonds that can be anything from strictly platonic to very close lovers.”“Which is why you were not upset that one of your cohort were having an affair. That did concern me, I’ll be honest.”“Well, it’s not an affair if we all know about it and support their pairing. We don’t own her, and she truly wanted to get to know her Altean heritage through another source.”“You found another Altean-Galra hybrid like myself?” Lotor perked up again, all smiles. His emotive behavior was so “unlike Lotor” that it continued to convince Keith that they were dealing with a very different individual.“No,” and Keith smirked. “Have you, perhaps, heard of one Allura of Altea? Daughter of Alfor and Melenor?”Lotor very nearly dropped the casserole dish in his shock. “Oh, dear. Oh. You are soulmated to the Princess herself?”Krolia reached over and smacked at Keith’s shoulder. “Brat.”“Commander, though he surprised me, I must insist that you not lay hands on the Paladin of Voltron at my dinner table.”“She’s my mother,” Keith said at the same time that Krolia replied with, “Parental privileges.”The quick rebuttal startled a delighted laugh out of their dinner companion. “Oh, then by all means, carry on. That was a terrible trick to play, Paladin Kogane. Please, help yourselves, eat to your content, and may my blade be the first to claim blood should any come for you while I give you respite at my table.”“We are honored,” they chorused, the ritual welcome over food easing the tension further. Keith took that ceremonial first bite and sank slightly. “Oh, this is good.”“It’s simple fare, but you flatter me, Paladin.”“I give you my name. I hate formalities.”“Keith, then. And I offer you my own in return to you both.”“Thanks, Lotor. So, I know enough about your clone to almost know you a little, I guess. What is it that you want to ask us? You keep stopping yourself.”Pouring himself another mug of the warm drink, Lotor pursed his lips as he thought. “How noticeable are the differences between Shiro and Ryou?”“Easily noticeable for anyone who knew Shiro. Ryou stopped acting like Shiro very early on, and seemed to be confused about his memories. He told me that he felt that it was another person entirely, and he thought he was suffering through imposter syndrome. The Castle of Lions and the Lions themselves interfere with the signals that were emitted from his Galra arm . . . and actively blocked incoming transmissions from that arm. Ryou’s sentience had developed before he came to us.” Keith looked down, drawing in a deep breath. “I had to be the one to remove it. He didn’t make it easy. But he destabilized very quickly."“It’s likely that will be my situation as well. My clone may berserk at seeing me; I don’t know what sort of programming or hold that Haggar has on him.” Pushing his food around on his plate a little, the banished prince spoke his real fear, “I can foresee that she has plans for harnessing the ability to force-grow quintessence by cloning humans.”“And it’ll also lead to her learning how to clone the Galra as well; Ryou has some Galra tags in his DNA.”“Do you know what those tags lead to?”“Not off the top of my head. Could Haggar control his mind through those tags?”“Possibly, but if the Galra technology is already removed from his body, then it’s likely that she would have to get within touching distance in order to take control from him again. I doubt very much that any of the Paladins would allow him to get quite that close to her.”“Yeah. If she lays a hand on one of my Soulmates, Lance would probably take the shot before she got close enough to do lasting harm. He and Ryou are getting pretty close, especially while Allura was distracted with Lotor-er . . . Clone-Lotor.” Huffing a soft noise of amusement, Keith pulled out his pen. “Now that I won’t accidentally wash this off . . .” He drew up the sleeve on his left arm and started writing, using an old code that Ryou and Hunk would remember, and he was counting on Pidge to have his back on this, too.
Δ | D.E.C.I.D.E. | Will Robinson: Liger Burning Bright
And he rolled his sleeve back down while he capped the pen. “So. Someone will respond soon if they’re not in battle, but it could take anywhere between a few hours or a few days depending upon where we are in the time flux.”“I . . . am very interested in how that pen works and the meaning behind what you just wrote down,” Lotor admitted. “But you indicated that you and your soulmates have, for lack of a better term, ‘favorites’ among you?”Keith grinned and blushed. “In certain ways. Our relationships with each other are all unique, and while I don’t want to spoil any surprises, I’d be happy to give some examples. But before I do, you seem really interested in the Princess. Why?”Krolia couldn’t help but grin down into the casserole. Knowledge or death. In getting to know Keith over the last two and a half years, she felt almost like she was watching a young Kolivan grow up. One with a very different sense of humor, shaped by abandonment, war, and an identity crisis. Yet both had the drive to protect and lead those whom they protected. Kolivan was a wartime Leader, but Krolia saw the beginnings of greatness of a peacetime Leader in Keith. She’d trained enough high-level operatives in her time with the Blades to accurately judge leadership potential, and that wasn’t her as a mother speaking.“She and I almost met when we were both very young. It wasn’t for very long, since we were just in the same room momentarily, surrounded by diplomats. Despite my brush with her greatness, she had been my first crush as a child. I was very quietly a fan until the war became too much for everyone. She’s marginally older than I am, chronologically, though I’ve aged slower in this place and feel as if I’ve lived several lifetimes.”“Are you still crushing on her?”Lotor’s face flushed. “She’s a Paladin of Voltron, if I’m following your clues correctly. I knew the previous Paladins . . . The four I am not related to were phenomenal fighters, intelligent in varied fields, skilled pilots, and above all, compassionate. It would take a far stronger Galra than myself to not connect that thread with how Allura must have grown up to not feel interest for her.”“I mean, you could be me and be gay.”“Gay?”“I don’t feel sexual or romantic towards anyone who presents as female.”“Hm. Is this something to do with your other parent’s culture? Galra don’t have male or female, per se.”“Somewhat due to Dad’s culture and genes. Mom’s explained some of it, but it’s hard to really get into the rest of it without other Galra or a few anatomy diagrams to help me understand more. I’m primarily attracted to males and masculine-presenting. Allura wouldn’t be at all put out that I’d pass her over for, say, you.”Lotor sat gobsmacked.Krolia snorted. “No flirting at the dinner table, cub.”Keith smirked, taking a long draft of his drink before continuing. “You’ll learn, Lotor. So. Talk pilot to me. How can we escape the Abyss without adding another two and a half years?”The price-turned-scientist leaned forward with a grin. “No information without cost or battle. I’ll tell you, but for a price.”The haggle. It was part and parcel of Galran culture and Keith grinned, leaning his arm on the table. “You’re on.”
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The ten-day journey rattled on Keith’s nerves, and for once he was grateful that he wasn’t the one piloting the ship. The start of a reply in Ryou’s scrawl was starting to appear faster, the letters no longer taking hours to show up in their entirety.Sitting at the back end of the pod, Keith watched the Quantum Abyss pass behind them as Lotor cleverly avoided the fluxes and rode the waves towards their spacetime destination. There were the occasional flashes of a society that Keith had never seen, balanced with what was clear recovery from yet another surgery as the prince grew up. Krolia had a flash of a possible future, where a Galra child was learning to walk between herself and Kolivan. Keith was recording the toddle with the brightest grin and cheers of encouragement.Keith saw his own child reaching up with a squeal of glee to see him. And that broke him when he surfaced, trembling at seeing steel-grey eyes in vaguely-lavender skin, the white mane and Shiro’s easy smile on such a small child. Krolia and Romelle stared in shock as he hiccupped a sob and retreated.
He wanted that future.
It was then, that he was surprised to see Lotor squeeze in and walk around the snoring space wolf some two hours later. “Are you all right, Keith?”“Not really.”“Would talking at someone help?”It took a few moments, but Keith finally sighed and shook his head. “It’s mostly me trying not to let my own mind get the better of me. I mean, yeah, that vision is something that I want and I’m not sure how to feel about that because of some of my human mindset that I’m trying to get over. I’ve gotten used to the fact that I have a uterus and the ability to carry a baby over the last couple years, but . . . But really? Honestly? I’m more worried about the fact that I’ve changed and aged, and my soulmates haven’t. I worry that I’m going to surprise them to the point where they don’t know what to do with me, or maybe even want me anymore.”“And yet, they truly know that you’ve been trapped for two years to their few weeks. Shouldn’t they give you the benefit of the doubt and some time to adjust to them again?”“They could, and I hope that they do. But . . . I know how hard it was to try to get used to the changes in Shiro when he returned to us. And I’d been able to talk to him while he was held prisoner. I mean, everyone was working hard to recalibrate to each other, I guess. And . . . I can’t communicate easily with him right now. Even though I can communicate easily with the others.”Lotor drew a deep sigh, but didn’t follow through with that thread. Keith was grateful and wasn’t about to question why. The half-Altean simply brushed his knuckles against Keith’s upper arm and then dropped his hand back to support his weight again. The easy, casual contact was another “pack thing” that Krolia had helped Keith get used to again, and so he was finally able to breathe deep and let himself relax. The ousted prince’s voice was soft, thoughtful. “The Champion, yes? What was he like before my people happened to him?”Keith took a long moment to break that sentence down, grateful that Lotor was giving him that time. Finally, he whispered, “Our people, Lotor. I’m young, but I’m just as Galra as you are.”The banished prince studied the face before him for a long moment before nodding almost to himself. “I wanted to be purely Altean for a very long time as I saw and heard the horrors that the Galra were capable of. I modeled myself as closely as I could to please the Altean community that has hid me for so long among their numbers. But I am as fully Galra as you, and I cannot hide my heritage as they are capable of doing.”“I thought that I was fully human for a very long time, myself.” Keith sighed and rubbed at his face. They were heading home, and he was thoroughly frustrated with his responses. He was happy, dammit!And positively terrified.A shoulder bumped against his own. “You’re not alone in the struggle, Keith. You’ve also done something that many have attempted to do and failed.”“Get you to leave the Abyss?”Lotor scoffed, the noise singularly haughty and prince-like. “Hardly. I’ve left a few times, carefully. No, you’ve lived. You survived. Hybrids like us usually have a harder time thriving without several medical procedures. I am not the pilot I once was, due to my deteriorating vision. I have had several surgeries to correct congenital conditions. You don’t sound like you’ve had those struggles.”“I mean, doctors almost sterilized me because I have a Galra-normal reproductive system, after all.”The silence beside him finally tore Keith’s gaze away from the stars.Lotor was fuming. “I say this with all respect to you as a Paladin and as a Ghost: your planet is horrifying.”“We’ve come a long way, but it’s only been in my teenage years that procedures to ‘correct’ an intersex individual’s genitalia were outlawed. And that was only in my country, and we weren’t in the first ten countries to outlaw this sort of practice. There’s still other countries that will allow genital mutilation on minors for any number of reasons.”“Your planet is not yet unified?”“Nope.”“Oh. Bloody brilliant. Useful. Wonderful. Of course. Of course the universe is being saved by children from a planet still at war with itself.”“Made us stronger, though.”“Ruthless?”“Sometimes. I’ve made choices I’m not proud of. But . . . we’re in a war. Nobody escapes war without dirtying their souls and carrying wounds and scars for a long time after it all.”Grunting, Lotor gently (hesitantly) pushed his shoulder against Keith’s. “You’re too young to have learned this lesson, Paladin.”“I’ll tell you about my childhood sometime. Not while Krolia is around. She’s still mad from what she saw during the fluxes.” Keith leaned into the contact just enough to make him feel a little more settled. He pulled his left sleeve up and looked down at the writing there, checking to see if the message was complete yet.Ryou had finished his reply, which indicated that his new arm was working again.
Received. Decoded. Mutton?
Keith scrambled for his pen, shaking as he wrote back. Ye.“When will we arrive for them?”Lotor pulled up a screen that had several clocks running at the same time, each labeled in Galra which made it easier for Keith to read that they were ship time, universal time, and Quantum Abyss time, which starting to speed up. He pursed his lips for a moment before replying, “Ten minutes.”“How long will those ten minutes be for us?”The timers, inexplicably, clicked over. Lotor’s eyebrows raised. “Ten minutes for us. The boundaries of the Quantum Abyss have changed in the last several weeks, real-time.”
ETA 10 minutes. Antique incoming.
Lotor hurried to the cockpit, where Krolia and the space wolf had been pacing, last Keith had seen. His mother was pulling up several screens at once, star maps included as she plotted the course. Romelle peered over the Galra woman’s shoulders, nodding occasionally. “Keith, you are the best pilot here, but this is no easy flightpath.”“Gimme.” Settling in the pilot’s cradle, he saw his mother flick the holographic screen towards him. “ETA nine minutes. Hold onto something, though, because I don’t think that the inertia dampeners will keep up. Wolf! Tuck!” And with his wolf bracing himself under an instrument panel, Keith began gunning the shuttle towards his soulmates . . . his home.After two minutes of silence, Lotor asked, “What was the coding of the messages on your arm?”The grin he received had a sharpness of tooth that was decidedly Galran. “Delta means change. DECIDE is an acronym from several centuries ago as a mnemonic for pilots to assess a change in situation and act and react accordingly. Will Robinson is a character from an old TV show, also centuries old, and the phrase ‘Danger, Will Robinson’ was used by another character to warn the Robinson family that the episode’s villain was going to start some trouble.” Dodging an errant asteroid, Keith course-corrected on reflex. “Liger Burning Bright is a play on the title of an old poem called ‘Tyger Burning Bright,’ wondering why such a deadly creature was created by God who had supposedly also created lambs. Lambs grow into sheep, whose meat is called ‘mutton.’”“Why the change of the first word from tyger to liger?” Krolia asked.“Because a liger is a hybrid between a lion and a tiger, two cats who don’t naturally interbreed.” Keith’s sharp grin grew predatory. “Ryou will have picked that up if Pidge didn’t already pull that information together. They’re a manufactured species. And it was a warning specifically to Ryou that the same person who created him created the only hybrid currently among them.”“Ryou is the lamb, and Lotor’s clone is the liger,” Krolia whispered, honestly shocked at how complex the riddle-code was among the young humans. She had spent her time studying her lover’s culture and society, so expected something different from generic teenagers. But clearly, these weren’t just any teens. The Castleship came into view. Romelle cursed softly and stared in awe at what should have been a lost relic to time. She leaned closer, eyes taking in several details at once. And she sighed softly. “I hate asking this . . . but . . . is it wrong to finally feel a little bit of hope?”Krolia’s grin was broad. “Not at all.” Her hand rested upon Keith’s shoulder, and she grinned broadly when her son glanced up at her before the beep of an approved flight pattern was transmitted. A private channel opened up, revealing Ryou’s face and the background of an empty hangar.“Champion?!” Lotor yelped, then covered his mouth at shock that he had actually spoke without thinking.Keith snorted, adjusting the shuttle’s approach accordingly. “No. This is Ryou. Meet the Actual Lotor.”“Charmed, but you might not want to greet Shiro like that when you see him,” Ryou replied dryly, eyes scraping over the new Galra’s face. “He’ll probably break your perfect nose. Keith.” Ryou’s face softened. “You look fucking gorgeous. How long has it been for you?”“Two and a half years, and it’s so good to see your face again, gorgeous.”Ryou stifled a giggle but couldn’t keep his blush from rushing across his nose. “Shut up. Softie. Damn, you just look so much more you. You’re gonna break Shiro when he sees you. Oh, damn, you’re going to break Lance. He’s coming down to greet the shuttle with me, while Hunk and Pidge go play backup on the bridge. How dangerous is the clone?”Lotor pursed his lips, then shrugged. “I’d place him at an nine out of twelve.”“Base-ten?”“Hm. Seven-point-five out of ten, then.”“Ah, I see your shuttle. Commencing airlock cycling and docking sequence.”Keith replied, “Activating autopilot, requesting link-up to Castleship’s systems for appropriate maneuvering.”“Granted. Prepare for Castleship control to activate in three, two, one—”“Noted. Green lights from my side, Ryou.”Touching down, Keith let the autopilot run through the landing sequence as he grabbed his mother’s knife, checked the edge, and re-sheathed it. The wolf paced to the door, where Romelle was already stacking bags for when they’d have time to retrieve their belongings. As promised, Ryou was waiting for them, and he clearly hadn’t expected the growth spurt that Keith had put on. They ran into an embrace, pressing foreheads together and breathing harshly. Keith was on the edge of feeling overwhelmed, but the smell of Ryou, different than how Shiro had smelled, was grounding him. There had been no doubt for a long time now that Ryou was different than Shiro, and this just solidified it for them both.When they drew apart, Keith introduced the four beings beside him. “This is Lotor, Romelle, my wolf, and Krolia.” He paused, then grinned broadly, a hint of a fang a little more noticeable than before his two years on the quantum whale. “She’s my mother.”“Fuck!” Ryou’s hand clapped over his own mouth, but he was grinning broadly, reaching his hand out as Krolia did to grasp forearms. “I’m so happy to meet you. And I’m so relieved that Keith wasn’t alone the last two years. Hunk and I thought that he’d had someone with him and either didn’t care enough to say who it was, or that they had a sensitive identity.”Krolia’s smile broke through her intensity for a moment before she nodded. “He and I agreed that this was information best delivered in person. Welcome to my clan and tribe, Ryou; I look forward to welcoming Shiro.”Clearing his throat, Lotor asked, “Why is it always that you speak of seeing Shiro in the future sense? Is he not a Paladin with the rest of you?”Ryou chewed on his lower lip before holding the black bayard out for Keith to take. “He is, but that’s information that you’re not yet vetted to have. Keith: you’re up. I’ll coordinate with Coran while on the bridge. Black’s decree, but she’ll still be open to me hanging out around you.”The door to the elevator opened and Lance dropped half of what he was carrying before stumbling to a halt.Lotor’s left pupil and iris flashed to Soulmate gold, though darker than his sclera. Lotor’s right remained the cat-slitted purple. His eyebrows flew up and his jaw dropped at seeing the man before him.Lance blinked once and whispered, “Oh, so . . . that’s what a Galra mating bond feels like, Keith.”
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Lotor stumbled forward, falling to his knees with left hand outreached. Lance took the step closer necessary to taking that hand, face soft, awed. “Hey. Wow. Wow. One second, okay?” Pulling Lotor to his feet, he smiled reassuringly before launching into Keith’s waiting arms. They spun, Keith cupping Lance’s face and kissing him firmly before hugging each other tight again. Then, before Lotor could blink, he had his arms full of—“Hi. I’m Lance. You’re leagues beyond what your clone looks like. I approve of the more-Galra look. And the more-relaxed look. Mm. And the smile lines, those must stay. Keith, he’s hot. I’m keeping him. I can’t wait to get to know him.”“Just let me know when I can borrow him for a conversation partner again,” Keith replied with a laugh. “Or a partner-partner if I was reading our flirting right by Galra standards, Lotor.”The half-Altean truly had no idea what to say. “Oh. You’re . . . but . . . quiznak, you’re . . .”“Lotor, we’ll explain human soulmates once we’re not in an emergency. Suffice to say that you’re part of the family, now.” Keith was grinning. “Oh. Lance, speaking of . . . Meet Krolia. My mother.”“Wait, what?!” Lance kept his hand within Lotor’s, but he looked up at the tall Commander, getting a smile and a hand ruffling through his hair for his efforts. “Oh. Hi, um. Krolia?”“Krolia is fine. I know this is sudden, so I don’t expect anyone to be calling me by a maternal title immediately. Keith’s told me a lot about all of you, but I know that getting used to me may take some time.”“Okay, but wait. Keith! You’re absolutely a dude version of your mom.”“He still takes after his father’s memory, rest assured,” Krolia grinned, loving Lance so much more in person than from what Keith had shared and what she had seen in the fluxes. “Shall we make our way up to the bridge?”“Good idea,” Ryou replied with a smile to her, then aimed it at Romelle. “Follow me.”The wolf decided to pace to Ryou’s right, occasionally sniffing at his right arm, the new prosthetic. Shiro smells weird. Keith, following a pace behind, replied, Remember that’s Ryou, Shiro’s twin brother by way of the clone. That’s a new prosthetic arm to mimic his old one, so he’s a little different than what I remembered and what you saw in my memories. How does he smell to you? The wolf took some time to figure this out before he replied. They were halfway to the elevators if Keith was remembering the corridors right. He smells like Quintessence sickness. Lotor replied to a question that Keith missed, his hand still firmly held within Lance’s. “—give me, I was caught up in assessing how near we are to the end of the clone’s lifecycle. This is Romelle, my research partner and my adopted little sister.”Romelle took a step forward. “The Clone Lotor is working for Haggar. The shortest summary of the story is that they’ve been harvesting the pure quintessence of the Alteans of my refugee planet, and possibly other locations, for centuries. Where is he?”“On the bridge with Allura and Coran,” Lance whispered, voice low and shocked.“The Clone cannot manipulate or handle quintessence. If a quintessence-sensitive being or an Altean alchemist were to study him, you may consider that he would be a black hole, a siphon for quintessence as it either cycles back into the universe or, most times, returns to me with the memories of my clone’s existence.” Lotor pulled Lance’s hand up to kiss the tanned knuckles, rubbing his jawline along them in an adorable display of scenting that had Krolia, Keith, and Romelle all grinning. Pressing his nose against Lance’s skin to breathe in their combined scents, Lotor murmured, “Beloved, I . . . fear that we will each need both hands for a rather rousing fight.”“Oh my god, you’re so adorably romantic, too?! Ugh, Hunk, it’s as bad as with you that first night! I love you, Lotor, I just . . . wow. All Galra get aroused with fights, don’t you?” Lance asked, looking between Lotor and Keith with a slow grin stretching over his face. He knew he was babbling, but nobody was going to judge either of them for their joy or their reactions to this.Keith snorted a laugh, bumping his shoulder against Ryou’s. “You’re just noticing this?”Romelle smirked and let her eyes wander the hallway they were briskly walking along. “I should let you know . . . Alteans are the same. We’re not that far removed from our primal roots ourselves, much as we would pretend otherwise.”Lance blinked. “Oh, I’m so fucked.”“You might be,” Keith replied, hand tracing the small of Lance’s back as he moved to take Ryou’s left hand. “You haven’t complained yet of what we got up to after battle.”“You’ll kill me one of these days, Keith. I don’t know why I keep assuming you’re innocent or naïve.”Ryou’s hand curled securely around Keith’s, warm and strong. The half-Galra couldn’t wait to ask his question, blurting it out as soon as he got another nudge from his wolf. “Are you doing okay, Ryou?”“What?”“Are you okay? You’ve been piloting Black a lot. Wolf says that you don’t smell like my memories of you. Said that you smell like quintessence sickness.”The man smiled and huffed. “I guess I share too many traits with Shiro, including trying to keep myself from worrying anyone. I’m okay. It’s not the sickness from before. Just feeling a lot more drained than I thought I would be by piloting Black.”“I think that if you tried piloting one of the other Lions, you might not have the same sort of draw,” the current Black Paladin murmured. “Black really does do a number, and I know that you never had the same time to develop the deep wells of quintessence that Shiro’s had time to do. I wonder if Yellow would let you pilot her? Green is very much Pidge’s.”“Red, too. I think Blue might also be okay with ‘the more pilots, the better,’ but she’s a huge flirt,” Lance laughed, rubbing his gloved thumb along the back of Lotor’s hand. They reached the elevator, and everyone sobered.Keith’s voice was low. “I have a plan.”
~*~
When Keith entered, Allura couldn’t help but fling herself into his arms. She was surprised when he caught her and kissed her with all the passion she had dared hope he may one day feel towards her. She could feel new strength under her hands, and their bond brightened and settled anew. “I missed you, Keith.”“It’s been too long for me as well,” he whispered. Turning, he looked up at the clone before him. “Oh, so this is who Lance has been threatened by? I could get that. He’s pretty enough, I guess. Been a while, Lotor.”“The pleasure is mine, Paladin. You wear a strange uniform.”“You wear what you can find when you need a space-worthy suit,” Keith replied with a grin, but it didn’t reach all the way to his eyes. “You’re half-Galra as well, I hear.”“Ah, another half-breed as myself? The Princess seems to collect many of us.”“Hm.” Keith studied the Emperor for a moment before looking to Coran. “Hey, old man. Think that the Castleship will survive a Cosmic Wolf?”“No!” Allura gasped, eyes bright with shock and happiness. “They still exist?!”“I have one. He’s investigating the hallways behind me.”“Certainly, we have quarters designed for Wolves and their Altean partners, but I have never heard of one bonding with any other race! How delightful! I wonder if it is due to your ability to pilot a Lion.” Coran was so happy for all of this, but he wasn’t missing out on the cues that Keith was sending, that he had at least one someone behind him in the hallway that was staying out of sight for a reason.Ryou and Lance entered the room, and with them, Krolia and Romelle.Romelle’s gasp at seeing Allura alive was heard just ahead of Coran’s hushed whisper, “An Altean?”Lotor froze at seeing this Altean’s face, at hearing their story and knowing that they must have shown evidence. He knew, and his master knew through him, that they were done for in this venture. And with the lifecycle of the clone nearly at its limit, there was only one thing left to do.He attacked.Lance was knocked across the room first, taking Keith out on the way. Then Hunk and Coran were downed, Shiro knocked out by Hunk literally landing upon him before a white blur entered his vision and that was his last coherent thought.Keith wheezed from where he lay half-under a groaning Lance. He’d forgotten how strong his Altean Soulmate was, and it was sobering. Allura had literally bounced Lotor off of the ground without even showing that much effort. Her voice was a growl. “Who isn’t down?”Everyone but Ryou answered. Hunk and Coran were carefully checking him over, so she checked for Romelle and Krolia, who were keeping back but were ready to fight. Keith whistled for his wolf, who appeared with . . . Allura’s voice shook. “Keith. Who . . . is this?”The man turned, and Allura got the flash of one golden eye, and one purple-irised eye, before it became the twin soulmated shade. The man, whose face she knew, stared in complete shock at the composed woman.Lance’s face broke out into a broad grin and he leaned a little easier against Keith. “Wow, that . . . this is so cool.”Hunk frowned. “What is?”“So . . . uh . . . Keith?” Lance laughed, unable to speak around the strange bond that he was feeling settling into balance between himself and the two aliens. It was different, a little more in some ways than what he shared with the rest of his human Soulmates. It was . . . ah. It was alien. And it defined the differences between all three species’ soulmating types. He could feel himself actually bookmark this thought to return to in a new way, earmarking the moment to explore this concept further.“Meet the original Lotor. We found him on the other side of the Quantum Abyss, hiding in the Altean colony and working with them to try to figure out what was going on while still studying as much as he could about quintessence and quantum bonds.” Keith brushed his hand to Lotor’s elbow. “Allura, he and Lance are soulmated to each other, too.”“A sub-cohort within a cohort?” Coran asked, voice hushed as he checked on Lotor to make sure that the Emperor was still down for a while. “I’d never believe it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.”Allura hadn’t moved, taking in this new Lotor’s slightly-older, kinder face, the longer hair neatly pulled into a simple braid, Galran stripes in addition to Altean markings. The simple clothing. The careful stillness. The complete shock on his face that was slowly starting to morph into awed happiness.Keith broke the soft moment with a grin. “He’s been crushing on you for ages.”And the expression turned into a terrified glare. “Keith!”“Since you were both children. And he’s adorable when he blushes.”Which he was starting to do. “Keith, please!”“I’m locking the three of you in a suite for you three to solidify your mating bond and Coran and Kolivan and I will handle things for a couple days.”Romelle was grinning openly as Allura started to walk closer to the true Lotor. Her voice was full of laughter as she took his hands within her own. The blonde Altean snickered. “Oh, just imagine the scandal! And the royal weddings that will be demanded of you? I’m so here for this, Lotor.”“You’re a menace, Rommie.”“Sisters generally are, Lottie. Anyway.” She turned and was about to comment further when movement caught her eye. “Look out!”Coran was knocked into the side of the control pedestal, head smacking against the metal. Hunk was next, and the clone of Lotor snarled as he realized that the next person to face him was . . . himself?“Hello,” Lotor crooned, fist connecting with his clone’s face, knocking him back out and dropping him to the deck again. “Shit.”Allura frowned. “What is it?”“I can feel Haggar’s signature all over this poor creature.” Laying the clone out along the floor, the original checked his vitals before sighing. “Allura, you wouldn’t have had a chance to truly study Alchemy, would you?”“I . . . visited Oriande. On your clone’s insistence.”“It will be to his undoing, I fear. He attempted the pilgrimage, I assume?” He pulled up the sleeves of the flight suit quickly, noting the silver lines tracing down along his veins. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”“Yes, why?” Allura walked closer, crouching on the other side of this clone, eyes trailing the long braid that trailed down along the true back and side. Sighing, the Galra looked up at his new Soulmate. “Because it shortened his lifespan. I don’t know if Haggar would have seen the Gates—”“You sound like you’ve seen them.”“I did. I turned around. It wasn’t time for me. I was too angry at my circumstances, and the reason for trying to learn Alchemy wasn’t for any good purposes. I was young, rash, and terrified of what Haggar-once-Honerva was doing to our own people.”“Why haven’t you done anything since?” Coran asked.Pressing his hand over his clone’s forehead and closing his eyes, Lotor drew in a deep breath and pulled his hand away again. “I’ve been researching as much as possible and working as quietly as I could to destabilize what I could. I am supposed to be dead. Romelle saved my life. And if Haggar is able to see out through this clone’s eyes as I fear she may be, then the element of surprise is already gone. She’ll know with that one glimpse that I still live.”“Think that you might’ve jogged his memory a little too hard?” Lance asked as he worked out where he was bruised and checked to make sure he wasn’t injured too terribly. Keith was right on his heels.Pidge swung in through the door, skidding to a halt. “Holy shit, you guys. Keith!”He caught the little gremlin, snuggling them in close and rubbing his chin along their entire head in pure instinct to cover the youngest cub in pack scent. He only caught onto what he was doing when Krolia cleared her throat and Pidge’s giggles were reaching his ears. Lance and Hunk were biting their lower lips, and Allura looked ready to coo at them. Lotor himself looked sappy at the display. Keith bristled. “So my nose finally picked up on the ‘cub’ scent that everyone says Pidge smells like, okay? It’s been two and a half years, guys. My body aged and I hit the first stages of Galra puberty and it’s awful.”After the relieved laughter died down, Pidge reached up to brush their hands through Keith’s hair. “I think that was adorable and you should do that to me every day. Your face got a lot less tense after making me smell like you.”“Oh.” Keith smiled and pressed his nose against ginger tangles with a smile. Pidge always was the first one to accept his otherness. They’d never judged him, even back when he was at the Garrison. Pidge just took him in stride, and he took them in stride. Maybe that odd vision of them together could one day happen. He’d love to just be the person that Pidge explored themself with. “Okay.”Coran helped Ryou stumble over, the young man looking disorientated. “He’s got a pretty bad concussion.”“Pod time,” Keith murmured. “Same for Lotor’s clone. We’ll get him into suspended animation so we can focus on our next steps.”But something happened on the way to the medbay.And the clone escaped with Ryou.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The Lotor Clone may have gotten a head start on them, but they had the advantage of both the Castleship and Voltron. They would be able to both track Lotor and wormhole in ways that would out-maneuver him, even though they were limited in how many jumps they could make. While Hunk and Coran spent a very short shift in the pods, Keith stood with Lance, Allura, his mother, and Lotor. “He’ll be going to the clone facility; it’s close enough to here, and it’s where he could call for backup the easiest.”“He took one of the updated long-distance pods that Pidge had modified,” Lance replied, pulling up the stats of the ship itself, running his hands through his hair once before resting them on his hips. “He hasn’t been able to kill the tracker yet, but he won’t be able to.”“Hardwired into propulsion?”“Bingo. I helped Hunk install this little nasty thing. Kill the tracker, kill your movement. Alternatively, if he discovers it, it’s a great way to lead us into a trap.”Keith did a quick headcount. Romelle was sitting in the med bay to watch the pods. The wolf had learned the layout of the Castle from his mind and was doing patrols. Pidge was running diagnostics on all the Lions and gear to make sure that everything was perfect.“Why would he take Ryou?” Lotor murmured, fingertips resting against his mouth as he thought about what he knew so far about the Paladin.“Ryou is unique in several ways from the source material used to create him.” Keith sighed, folding his arms across his chest. “He and Shiro are unique consciousnesses. Shiro’s trapped, though, until we can find him a clone body that doesn’t have the emergent sentience that Ryou developed on his own. Haggar would want Ryou to study, to find out what happened, and possibly turn him against us if she can access any of the Galra DNA that was used to cure Shiro’s DNA of a congenital muscular disorder.”“Oh, it would be very bad for her to get her hands on him again,” Lotor whispered, realizing just what Ryou was the key to for the equivalent to a Galra genetic Philosopher’s Stone. Just by existing, Ryou became the manual for much, much darker Druid magics.“Yes. Yes it would.”“We will need help.”“I’ll call it in. Let’s keep other faces off the screen for a moment.”“The universe raised my son to be brilliantly vindictive,” Krolia murmured under her breath, causing Lance to cover a laugh behind his hand.This was a side of Keith that Lance hadn’t expected. There was more command, sure, but it was based out of a balanced confidence that hadn’t been there three weeks ago. Keith experienced two and a half years, though, for their three weeks. Lance felt a little cheated, but also felt a little spoiled to have a version of his Soulmate that matured up faster than anyone else. He brushed his fingertips along the edge of Keith’s hand, surprised when Keith wove their fingers together without looking away from punching in the encoding on the screen.Kolivan’s face popped up and he blinked twice. “Keith?”“Leader. We have a situation.”“You look . . . older.”“Yeah. About that. The Quantum Abyss will do that you to you.”Kolivan never lost his temper. Never lost his cool.His fur stood on end, ears perked fully forward, eyes widened, fangs bared, and he panicked. “Voids and stars! Keith Yorak Kogane, I am glad that you’re alive because I would be a very dead man right now if you were harmed!”“Yeah. I know. Also, I never told you or put down my middle name anywhere, so how did you know it was Yorak? And Sam would be second in line to get at your carcass. But we got answers, I’m safe, and we have some new allies and a slight change in focus. The important things to note is that Lotor is a clone, he kidnapped Ryou, and from what we can see here, he’s heading towards the cloning facility itself. We still don’t have solid backup that close to the core of the Galra Empire.”Kolivan was taking notes in his personal shorthand, noting the differences in how the kit spoke. “Keith, how—”“Furthermore, your agent told me that there was a Quintessence source on the other side of the Abyss, we investigated, it’s not something we can move, it took three weeks on this side but two and a half years for me, so I might be a bit fuzzy on some details here and there. Did we send Thace to Ulaz for recovery and backup or is he still able to feed us intel from the Core?”“He should have landed on Earth two of your days ago, has another two days to check in before I hack their communicators.”“Why do that yourself when someone has probably earned that punishment?” Keith paled and turned to the side. “Oh God. Don’t enter the old shack in the desert without a biohazard suit. We’ll have to disinfect the shit out of the place.”“You let them stay in the shack?” she hissed, moving into the screen. “It’s going to take months to get the smell out. Kolivan, thank you for watching out for my kit, but we will have words when I can speak with you privately.”“Understood.”Keith took back the focus again. “So on the other side of the Abyss, we found an Altean colony, a Quintessence-draining facility, and Lotor’s original.” Keith thumbed over his shoulder towards where the other half-Galra stood outside of the camera angle.“So another situation like Ryou and Shiro, only the clone escaped when Ryou surrendered.”“Exactly. Do we have any backup from the Blades?”“How many wormholes can you do close together with your current energy levels and crystal health?” Kolivan asked, eyes darting over to where he no doubt had another screen going with notes, calculations, and fragments of strategies.Allura thought for a moment. “Three without piloting a lion, two separated by several vargas if you want me to pilot a lion.”“I can supply quintessence to boost your output and may get us at least one extra jump,” Lotor offered, taking a half-step forward. “I know some alchemy and group-work. Can you give me an estimate of how much quintessence is necessary per wormhole, Princess?”“Here.” Allura moved off to one side, Lotor crossing behind Keith and Krolia to follow his Soulmate. He couldn’t wait to be able to nest with his Beloveds. Did they already nest with everyone else? He knew Keith was sure that he’d be welcome to rest with them. It was looking more and more that he was right. He truly hadn’t expected to get a soulmate, let alone a pack of soulmates. The fact that Keith had indicated that there would be little to no jealousy among any shared lovers had been a bit of a shock. Then he had seen the dynamics unfold between the young Blade and his other partners, the ease in which they interacted, nothing like how any other soulmate pod he had witnessed. Was the Voltron melding of their minds the cause of this lack of jealousy or was that origin deeper, something more human or unique to the pilots? Kolivan looked down, hands typing away at an alert to go out to the base’s alerts system for all available hands to ready for immediate departure, and to pack for an invasion. He looked back up, eyes glancing between mother and son. “I don’t know if we’ll have any other chances in the near future to say this. I’m sorry, Krolia, Keith. I was trying to find a strategy that worked for everyone, to keep everyone safe, and I fear that I’ll still fail us all.”Keith cursed and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “What happened to ‘dying is low on my to-do list,’ Leader?”“It’s in last place. I’m trying to be realistic, Keith.”Krolia let a slow smirk pull one side of her face up, and she leaned closer to the camera. “I won’t forgive you if you die. Plain and simple. I will curse your memory and your bloodline up through your ancestors at the time of the First Emperor. I will spit on the mud of your ashes each morning. Your name will be the word I use when I break a nail, stub a toe, or are otherwise minorly inconvenienced. You won’t be a major curse word in my tribe’s language. Live, and I will forgive you as if the transgression had never occurred in the first place.”“Holy shit, Mom,” Keith breathed, eyes wide.“Wow. Galra are way more intense than I think I gave them credit for,” Lance replied quietly.“I’m positively chill in comparison, Lance.”“Yeah you are. I don’t get that, either.”“Okay. So. Uh. Fuck.”“Worried that your headhole might not fit with ours anymore?” Lance rested his arm around narrow, strong hips, leaning his weight against his leader’s. He pressed his nose to the corner of Keith’s jaw, unashamed at how both Krolia and Kolivan froze at seeing Keith being sensual with one of his soulmates in person. Ulaz had been thorough in his education about Galra sexuality, and Lance was unashamed of being attracted to his Soulmates. There was no shame for him in. something as beautiful as what they all shared. “What if it fits in better with us? You were really fucking good before, don’t get me wrong, but what if it really gets so much better?”Keith knew that Lance wasn’t being subtle about the innuendo. “Oh, it’s gonna be better, all right.” He smirked and licked the tip of Lance’s nose, making the younger man squeak and do it back out of spite. “I’ve had two and a half years to train to your last three weeks. I’ve built up some new stamina.”“Really, guys? We’re doing this right now?” Pidge groaned, but their laughter and relief that they’d have Keith back with them again lifted the mood. Pidge’s check-in at completion of lion and gear double-checks chirped in next, with numbers and notes updating across the command center holo-screens.Hunk and Coran checked in from the med-bay, Hunk moving off to get into his flight suit to give himself a little extra time. Keith looked over to Allura, whose gaze was turning to meet his own. He nodded at Lotor, who was turning from Lance to Allura. They were all in sync. Even Lotor, who was tied to Keith’s cohort indirectly. Allura was just glad that she was already in her flight suit and that she had made a habit to keep her helmet at the Blue Lion’s station. “I’ll need your boost at the beginning to see how much you can channel to me.”“Done.”“Kolivan, jump in T-minus ten doboshes to your doorstep.”“Acknowledged. Krolia, Keith . . .”“Get to the bridge before I have to get to my lion, Kolivan,” Keith replied. It was leader-to-leader right now, and both knew it.“Yes, Black Paladin. Marmora Base out.”Krolia’s hand squeezed Keith’s right shoulder, right over the mark he took during his trials. He looked up at her, smiled, and turned to kiss Lance’s cheek. “Loverboy, let’s get into gear.”“I’m going to miss seeing you in your Blade uniform.” Lance dropped back to watch Keith walk in front of him. “Mmmm.”Krolia growled. “That’s my son, Paladin.”“Mom, that’s my soulmate who I railed through the bed on his eighteenth birthday for almost two hours of round two after he’d slept off round one with Hunk. You didn’t get to see that memory in the Abyss, but it got filthy.” He grinned unrepentantly at Lance, whose face was lighting up with a blush and an expression promising that Keith was in for it the exact moment that they could get away.Lotor’s mouth dropped open and Allura laughed and leaned against her new soulmate. “That’s right. I was round four and it was noon by the time he was ready for me.”“Best. Birthday. Ever,” Lance hissed, making it to the door with a swagger for Keith and Lotor to watch. “I’m looking forward to this year’s birthday. A pride of humans, two half-Galras, an Altean and a half . . . I’m the luckiest man alive.” He slinked around the doorframe.Krolia stared at her son, who paused at the door and smiled warmly at her. “Look, we’re adults and have sex and he’s someone I feel really comfortable around being myself like that.”The mother huffed a laugh. “I know, but it’s still a fight against my own instincts to see you as an adult human, not a late-juvenile Galra, my little heart. Go, go, get ready. I’ll wait here.” He smiled her smile, the loving expression the one only for her, soft and pure and young and happy. It wasn’t the playful and mature smile he gave Lance, or the sultry grin when he spoke about making Shiro splutter.Allura was smiling broadly. “Krolia, you have been so good for my Soulmate, and I have the feeling that you’ll continue to be good for us all in the coming times. Thank you.”“No,” the mother replied, her voice soft and her gaze taking in how Lotor stood at a place denoting that Allura was the true power here. As she spoke, Krolia walked up to the Altean. “No, Princess Allura, thank you. You made the choice to love my son despite your own trauma and pain at the hands of my people. The Abyss shared flashes of the past, occasional present moments, and many possible futures with you in all of them. Thank you for loving my son when it was difficult for you, my daughter.”Allura’s lips trembled, and she folded herself into the mother’s arms for a brief, strong hug. Krolia carefully straightened the younger woman up after a scant few breaths. “We’ll have time soon for healing. Where Keith is, I will be from now until he wishes elsewise. Let’s get Ryou back, Princess.”Allura pulled loose strands of her hair up and out of her face, tucking them back into her bun. Turning, she strode into the circle, drawing and releasing a few deep breaths to center herself. She did a quick scan up from the very base of the castleship. Galra. Galra-hybrids. Humans. Her Soulmates. Family members to fight beside. Lotor. “Lotor, behind me please.”Closing her eyes, Allura felt for the strand deep within, that anchor to beyond, to mystical realms. Oriande’s library opened to her, revealing a tome of instructions that fluttered open to the page she needed the most, text highlighted and leaping off of the page.“Left hand at my lower back, palm up, first two fingers touching my spine. Right hand at the top of my neck, first two fingers touching skin, palm down. This will feel strange to you, but it is similar to the draw that my Lion has from me when I’m piloting her; there is a feedback cycle. This is a modified, simplified version.” Allura’s gaze sharpened at feeling Lotor’s gentle hands, the first hints of his quintessence signature brushing against her own.It was pure.Untainted by hatred, by anger, by resentment of self or others . . . he’d forgiven himself and his pain. And a brush of his consciousness over the half-mystical bond between them, soothing her with a sense of a promise. I will show you how I healed when there is time, my purest guiding star. Now. Focus, Beloved. Draw from me, that I may help us all create a future Keith and I have both seen. Her lips lifted in a satisfied-yet-feral Altean snarl at the Galran poetry translating directly across their shared (sacred) soul-link. And she pulled from the heir of one of Altea’s greatest Alchemists, sensing deep and organized wells of quintessence within him.She cycled a bit of her own quintessence back through the skin contact, carefully metered while she filtered and felt Lotor’s own signature wash over her from the point at her lower back. Where the clone had been a black hole, an absence of life-force, this Lotor, the true one, was simply flushed with it, almost overflowing. She could even sense the anchor he had placed in that timeless otherworld place that she also touched, that her father and his mother had also touched. He would thrive in Oriande this time, she knew. He was ready. And he stood strong, the initial pull not causing him to startle, but to find a way to regulate what he made available to her so that she could focus upon powering the teludav.“Princess!” Coran was striding closer, aiming towards Navigation, where Romelle currently stood just to try to both keep out of the way and possibly serve a purpose.“Coran, take the helm! I’ve put in the coordinates for the first jump. Romelle?” Krolia was already striding over to a spare station to start entering the coordinates for the second jump.Keith and Lance ran back in, and Krolia’s mouth dried at seeing what her little boy looked like in the armor matching his station. He paused to kiss her cheek before putting his helmet on, activating the half-visor to give him a HUD to start keeping track of everything going on. Lance had already put his on, taking his station at Red while Keith took Black at the very front.Allura made the first jump.
~*~
The Marmora pickup was perfectly timed. Most of the operatives stayed in or with their ships, some hitting the facilities if they hadn’t had the chance before that first takeoff. All engines were kept warm as they waited for their signal, parked in takeoff formations in the main hangar. Kolivan and Regris loped up to the command center just as Lotor assisted Allura through the second jump, which brought them to a close enough point where they could recalibrate where Lotor’s clone’s ship was without being picked up by the shuttle’s limited sensor suite. Pidge was certain that there was no way that Lotor knew that they were tracking him.Allura held onto her controls and panted for a moment, Lotor blinking a few times as he tried to recover without leaning on Allura. He could feel the Galran pain-blindness creeping around the edges of his vision, but kept pushing it back as far as possible. Romelle was at their elbows in a moment, holding them both up without much effort. After a breath, she wedged her shoulder under Lotor’s armpit to give him better support. “Forgive my touch, Your Highness.”“Please, just Allura.” The woman smiled as she gathered herself and wrapped her hand around Lotor’s while he recovered from the drain. “I may have been a Princess of a previous era for you, so there may not even be weight in the titles of my birth.”Romelle smiled, nodding once. She had heard stories about Allura from the “old days,” but after the princess’ disappearance, there wasn’t much that anyone could do but speculate what could have happened. Many Alteans may want the nostalgia of Allura, some Elders may even have memories of her to verify if this was Alfor’s daughter. It would be interesting to see.Meanwhile, Keith had taken his helmet off and ran into Kolivan’s embrace, letting the older Galra scent him and share the Marmora smell with him, welcoming him home. When Allura turned to watch the reunion, she missed all but the end of Keith’s embrace as he turned to hug Regris. Kolivan submitted to Krolia, neck bared in supplication, before they embraced and she pulled his head to rest on her shoulder, speaking into his ear and shielding his face from view.Krolia knew Antok.Allura’s heart broke all over again for the Blade Leader, and she turned to give them further privacy. “Romelle, can you and Coran work in tandem to coordinate the next jump if I charge the teludav?”“Yes. Lotor trained me himself in piloting and navigation. What took Keith and Krolia two and a half years took us ten days with a route that I formulated.” Romelle was confident in her abilities, having escaped the Abyss several times both with and without Lotor to further their subterfuge.“Good. I’ll need to be in my Lion and launching the moment we’re through. Do we have a location?”Lance’s voice answered, tight and unhappy. “He’s at the cloning facility. I have a lock, and the shuttle hasn’t moved in a few minutes, but Ryou and Lotor’s clone are no longer in the shuttle’s sensor ranges. This is going to get ugly and give us night horrors for a very long time, folks.”Hunk’s voice came in over the speakers. “Yeah, uh, from what I’ve got scanned from Yellow’s systems? There’s a lot of quintessence there, human-signature, doesn’t exactly match up with Shiro or Ryou’s signatures. I see some possible Galra signatures, but the computer doesn’t know how to classify it. All of this worries me, folks.”Pidge answered from their own lion, running an additional virtual shakedown since they had the time to do so. “I can’t get visuals yet, but Green’s confirming what he’s said. When we’re closer, I’ll be able to get us maps and visual feeds.”Keith strode closer, helmet back in place as he frantically shoved stray strands of hair away from his visor. “Well, at least we’ll have nightmares together, then.”“Better drag Ryou into the nest full-time, then.” Pidge’s voice was deliberately light, providing distraction against the pre-battle jitters. Someone always stepped up like this, rotating around to whomever was able to turn conversation light first.“Once Shiro’s back, I have a feeling that Ryou will feel better about sleeping with us,” Keith replied, slipping into his seat. Now that he was older and his Galra mating bond was reaffirmed with Allura, he could feel the subtle draw of energy that she always had pulled from all of them to center herself before powering the teludav. This time, it was different, more focused and controlled, and with the powerful source from an other who was attached to her. Keith opened his eyes with a smile. That had felt awesome to watch. And seeing that Lotor was instrumental for her to now boost her focused and distilled talent was reassuring to Keith.Allura settled in her seat, Lotor behind her. “I’m bringing him on my Lion, Keith.”“I was about to suggest he goes with you. He’s armed. We’ve sparred. I approve of his fighting style. Mom, stay here with Kolivan, please.”“Bring the wolf.”“Hey, does your wolf even have a name?” Lance interjected as the creature blinked out of existence. Keith checked his video feed of Black’s hangar to see his friend rematerialize and run closer to the Lion. The wolf was stopped outside of the particle barrier, but didn’t seem to mind as he sniffed around the rest of the hangar.“Nope. He’ll tell me when he’s ready.”“Wait, what?”“Cosmic Wolves are sentient nonverbal creatures,” Coran explained, resting his hands over the teludav controls. “They communicate mentally with their chosen partnered Altean, or quintessence-sensitive in Keith’s case. So the pup, since he’s clearly still an adolescent—”“Oh my god, Keith, you brought us home a big pupper,” Hunk gushed happily, squealing with glee and gushing over the coms at Keith bringing home their first furbaby.Coran spoke over Hunk’s happiness directly to Lance. “Anyway. He probably hasn’t found a word or a phrase that helps him describe himself to others.”Romelle looked up from the navigation controls where Coran usually stood. “I have coordinates set for your approval. When we go through, Coran, get ready for anything. There aren’t any Galra signatures on the scanners in that region, but I can confirm the Paladins’ reports of multiple life-signatures. Some aligning with human, some . . . not.”Coran activated the announcement system as he read the coordinates that Romelle had shared with him. “Attention: wormhole in one dobosh and counting. Get to your crafts.” Closing it, he looked around the room. “Everyone ready?”“Let’s go!” Keith activated the transport to his Lion, hearing Lance and Allura follow his lead. He was just making it to the hangar when he felt the ship pass through the wormhole. “Hey, beautiful!”Black leaned down, opening her mouth and letting Keith and his wolf enter. Sitting and starting the pre-flight checks, he closed his eyes and quickly dove into the consciousness of his sweet, fierce Lion. “Shiro! Shiro, get ready!”And Shiro was suddenly before him, hands on his elbows, a confused smile already starting to spread over his lips. “Get ready for what?”“Lotor’s clone took Ryou. We’re going to get him, and it’s at the cloning facility. Get ready to pilot with Black if it becomes necessary and be ready because we’re hoping to find a body without a consciousness. We don’t know what Lotor’s clone will do, and that’s really not reassuring to any of us.”“Okay, Keith. Okay. Wait. Did you get taller?”Laughing, Keith leaned in to kiss his closest Soulmate, his dearest. “I did. I’m hitting Galra puberty. I love you.”“I love you, too. Don’t take too many chances.”“I gotta hold your hand when you wake up, Shiro. Can’t do that if I’m hurt bad. See you soon.”Shiro watched Keith’s form dissipate, Black coming to stand beside him in the sudden silence, the stillness. His voice was soft. “Black, I ask you this as your partner, your friend.”“What, dearheart?” she asked, looking up at her sweetest Paladin.“Don’t let Keith die. Let me go if you need to save him.”But Black laughed, roaring directly into Shiro’s face, suddenly large and winged and every inch the battle machine she was created to be. Her voice shook his very being, driving a healthy fear of just what was keeping him alive. Her rumble was far-off thunder seated in the intimate depths of his belly.“You have much to learn, little boy, of the vastness that is me. Alfor created my form as the largest Lion for a reason, a purpose. When he called for Guardians through the Quintessence Field, across Oriande’s Gates, he had hoped for the Minor Guardians. We heard of his desire to better protect his plane of existence with his family-friends. And so we crossed universes, traveled through several planes of reality, battled against our own, and against those who would harm our chances. We knew that your universe did not otherwise the ability to create Voltron, no matter how hard Alfor would have prayed. We were your only hope.”She lowered her head to growl into his face. “We knew he would need the Masters, not the Students, so that we may teach our bonded pilots how to better assist us with moving our physical forms.”Shiro’s voice was soft, trembling. “Who are you?”And before him where Black stood were two old men, both still strong, one missing his right arm and with long hair, both with the hint of blue light glinting in the back of their pupils like Allura. The one with both arms had hair like starlight, his brother still had black strands tracing through the white.Shiro stared into the faces of himself and Ryou after decades and decades of age wrote stories on their un-Soulmarked skin.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The two old men weren’t old, and that was the scariest thing. Or rather, they were so ancient yet so filled with life and power that they honestly were only as old as they felt. The Older-Ryou smiled and spoke, his voice gravely with age. “My own energies sap away your brother’s, even though we’ve attempted to keep that from happening from our side. Allura will know how to fix it, just like how she fixed it with you. I’ll apologize when the time is right.”
Shiro shook his head. “I didn’t realize he’d been suffering.”
Older-Shiro’s gaze was far away while Older-Ryou smiled sadly. “He’s been brushing up against quintessence-sickness. Keith and his wolf recognized it.”
“So, you two are Black? Together?”
“Black needs twice the quintessence, little brother, a necessary requirement for the torso and main systems for Voltron.” Older-Ryou sounded pretty proud of himself. “Shi-chan and I make it work.”
“You’re only two minutes older, hush,” Older-Shiro murmured absently. “Switch places with me.”
Older-Ryou brushed his hand along Shiro’s cheek with a smile, then turned his gaze elsewhere and Shiro’s older self took over the explanation. The older man knew that it would be a rapid-fire series of questions and answers. “Hey. Fire away.”
“Why pose as one being?” Shiro asked softly.
“Mostly in case you encountered another reality. If a Lion was seen, it would always be like how we have shown ourselves to you.”
“So what Allura is actually seeing is your, what, quintessence ghosts wandering the halls in the forms that you’ve chosen?”
“Essentially.”
“That’s a little creepy, but okay. Wait. So, we literally are grooming your physical forms.”
“Yes. Thank you, by the way.”
“Okay. How did you handle Zarkon if you knew that I was going to be your Paladin?”
“We didn’t know, but we hoped that you would be piloting us.”
“What about Lance and Allura, then? And Keith and Lance? They’ve all switched Lions.”
“You know Keith is Keith, and Red is all Keith,” Older-Shiro laughed, mirth bubbling off of him. “Allura and Lance are different. And either your Allura will find out why, or she won’t, and that’s all that we can say. That, and all Paladins can switch between all Lions, it just takes time to acclimate to the new Paladin in our cockpit.”
“Well, that is something that I’m going to tell everyone else.”
“Am I going to win against arguing with you about telling them?”
“Nope. So I was always destined to have Ryou as my brother?”
“No. While you and I are a universal constant when Voltron appears in a reality, Ryou is not.”
Shiro took this in and sighed deeply. “I’m sorry to hear that. I love my brother, no matter how he came to be.”
“As I love mine. We can discuss this later, though. Any other pressing questions?”
Shiro considered this for a moment. “Can I tell the others?”
“Not yet. But you won’t be keeping this secret forever, little brother. Not even for very long if we are able to make this work.”
“Make what work?”
“Returning you to your pride, what else?”
~*~
Keith could feel Black’s attention wavering between himself and Shiro, and that soothed a little bit of his soul. With the last two years of growth and plenty of time for self-reflection and self-healing. Through Black, he could sense/feel his way around Voltron a little differently than before. His sensitivity to quintessence, which had helped him find Blue in the first place, was something that his mother had been shockingly tight-lipped about.Lotor hadn’t been.There was something there, something that indicated that Alchemists or Alchemist-Engineer-Mechanics were as prevalent in the Galra as in the Altea’s. Lotor also theorized that either the combination of Galra and Human genomes might be the key to triggering the ability, or there was Altean blood in Krolia’s line. Either way. Keith was just the first born in a very long time to have the ability. Krolia admitted that she didn’t have enough training or experience to recognize and train Keith’s rare show of sensitivity. There were no hard feelings, but Keith was going to have Words with Allura soon. Much as he loved her, that Altean was sometimes far too tight-lipped.The airwaves were dense between everyone as five lions shot towards the cloning facility. Coran had handed Lotor his own communicator, which Pidge had added into the Lions’ communications frequencies, so he and Keith were discussing angles and strategies, while Allura was telling Hunk what ranges and frequencies to scan for to narrow down bodies for Shiro.That phrase halted all casual conversation.Lotor’s voice was soft. “Is Shiro listening in on this, Keith?”“No,” the Black Paladin replied, voice smooth and assured. “Black says that she’s keeping him busy and to help prepare him for transfer. And she’s saying something to me about you needing to do something to Ryou like what you did to Shiro to keep his quintessence from melding into her own. And that Lotor’s assistance and research will make Shiro’s transfer as smooth as possible.”“Strange; Shiro didn’t have the same quintessence signature as Ryou. They’ve diverged some time back. Why is Ryou’s quintessence getting drained?” Allura replied, voice soft. She glanced up at a reflection of Lotor’s face, his concerned concentration broken only when he shook his head.“We’ll study that when we have time. Let’s get your Soulmate back.” He held on tight as Allura made a quick maneuver to avoid some debris. “I don’t like that he hasn’t turned on the base defenses yet.”Lotor tried not to shiver at Pidge’s laugh. For all that he had been told about Keith’s soulmates, he had not necessarily anticipated that they would be quite so . . . terrifying. Humans were quick on their feet, resilient, intelligent, and worst of all, tenacious. Their young voice was too old in this moment. “Oh, he tried. But it was with a protocol that I’m familiar with and personally wrote counter-code for. I’ve locked him out of the defenses, and he can’t access any of the self-destruct protocols.”“Oh. Good. That’s good. Is that good?” Lance muttered, trying to figure that out for himself. “We all know that Red will follow her Paladin, so I’m going to land first and have my pretty girl be ready to move.”Keith maneuvered Black to perch on the rock itself, claws dug in to anchor herself. “I’m not going to lie; I don’t know if this is going to work. I’m not that kind of leader.” He drew in a deep breath, hands gripping the joysticks hard enough to make the material of his flight suit creak as he outlined the plan in his mind one more time. “If anyone sees any holes in this, let me know real quick so that we can adjust tactics.”“He knows we’re here, and Ryou is mobile,” Pidge updated.Keith began to move, checking his weaponry and resting a hand on the wolf’s head to give him an easier look into his mind and the plans he was juggling. “Pidge, stay in Green unless you need to hack something on-site. I need your agility and unpredictability out here. Hunk, you and Yellow are cover fire. Allura, Lotor, Lance, I need you three with me in there. Lance, you’re covering us. Allura and Lotor, you’re my main power. Lance, you’ve permission to adjust plans on the fly if I get bogged. Keep me updated.”“Roger,” a chorus of replies echoed back. Keith swallowed and gave his wolf the signal to teleport.
~*~
The wolf got him to Ryou, literally beside his soulmate for just long enough to smirk at the shocked clone and teleport back to Black. Both Keith and his wolf backed up to keep from Ryou grabbing onto him again. “Stay here!”“Fuck you, no!”“You were knocked out twice and I don’t want you hurt again, Ryou!”“That’s not a choice that you get to make right now. You need the backup!”“You don’t have any flight suits or weapons.” Keith’s voice was a low growl, unrepentant.“That’s not why you’re hiding me here, and we both know it!”“Someone needs to fly Black, and I need to kill a monster!” Keith exploded, panting. His voice wavered and cracked over his words. “And I won’t let you see me be what I have had to become. I won’t, Ryou. I won’t. Don’t ask me to.”Strong arms, one flesh and one metal, circled their leader and a kiss was dropped to his head. “Keith, I have Shiro’s memories. I know what it feels like to be a monster, too. Please don’t lock me out.”Black sauntered into their vision, nosing open the door to the pilot’s private bunk. There was enough room for a singular pilot with some private living space. Considering her size, Black also housed a handful of smaller bunks closer to her cargo hold. But this space was often used to make nests for Ryou and Keith and sometimes one or two others.Ryou opened the private armory door with a shaking hand to reveal two uniforms carefully stored within.One for the Black Paladin.One for a White Paladin.“You’re keeping secrets from us again,” Keith murmured to the cat, running his hands along the broad head before dropping a kiss between her ears. “I’m mad, but I love you for this.”Ryou reached in and ran his hand over the silvery-white V across the chest plate. “Shiro never wears white because he wanted to avoid puns and ‘clever’ comments. He wore every color but white if he could, and loved wearing black because it was like a clever joke with himself that he never was what anyone expected of him.” Ryou’s silver gaze snapped to Keith’s. “Go. Send the wolf back for me or I’ll get there myself and get inventive. We’ve wasted enough time.”Black nosed at Keith’s hand, calling the bayard out from the armor and dropping it to the ground between the men and standing with one paw on either side of it. Tapping into the depths of the multiple local wells of Quintessence that might as well have been Shiro, she unfolded the hope that she had held for many, many long years.And the strongest bayard showed that it was, in fact, two.Keith found the black in his hands, and Ryou found the white one in his own, staring. Black’s roar boomed around them, and Keith nodded. “Questions later.”“Send the wolf, Keith.”“I will. I love you.”“Love you, too.”In a flash of blue sparks and afterimages, Keith was gone and Ryou stared hard at the cat before him. In the months since Keith first brought him to Black to meet Shiro, he had truly found his footing. Now, a fully-realized Paladin in his own right, he growled at the smug-looking feline, “I’m not any happier than Keith is that you haven’t released this information to us until now. There had better be a second seat in that cockpit by the time I’m back.”
That’s been easier to conceal than your bayard. The time of secrets will soon be over.
Ryou started stripping out of the leisure clothing he had been wearing with Keith had docked, his bayard on the desk beside him. “Yeah? You sure about that? Because I know I risk a lot by being close to you, not even close to Shiro, and I will get onto the Astral plane to speak directly to you. I’m fucking done with you fucking Lions treating us like we’re somehow not capable.”And Black only smiled before disappearing.Fucking cats.Ryou had just stuffed the short braid of his hair into an ever-so-convenient space in his helmet when the wolf returned, looking panicked. He grabbed his bayard and a first aid kit and got his hand on the wolf’s mane just as the creature jumped back to his Person.
~*~
Ryou arrived too late.For that matter, Keith had also arrived too late, but there was a new scar on his cheek. The pain had hissed along Ryou’s own face before settling quickly. A burn, then.Allura and Lotor had arrived first, having not announced that they, as Alteans, would handle this threat to Voltron and the universe at large. Allura held the same scar on her face as Keith, confirming that he had dodged something very hot passing right under the eye protection. Neither Allura nor Lotor wished to speak about the death of the clone. But when asked if there was a body that needed to be set to rest, the Prince looked a little ill when he admitted that there were no remains.It was decidedly anticlimactic and Ryou sighed, looking up at the half-Galra, half-Altean man. “I’m sure adrenaline dumps are just as fun for you as they are for humans. I’ve a feeling that you need to go lie down somewhere soon, yeah?” Ryou had started to really take a shine to first aid and the medical field. From what he’d been studying, he knew that some Galra would often suffer an adrenaline dump shock-like state, which was why Shiro had prevented Ulaz from laying down before his eyesight had returned.“No rest for the wicked, Ryou. Everyone, refresh your HUDs,” Pidge’s voice said over their coms. “I’ve updated the maps. Is the clone dead?”“Quite, the poor creature,” Lotor replied softly. “It was . . . I can say this with some certainty. It was a mercy at the end. He has been doing some experimentation with entering the Quintessence Field using the new ships that Allura helped him create.” Swallowing, feeling the otherness of these new memories, Lotor continued, voice softer. “Not having any quintessence himself, being exposed to all of the quintessence that is available, he had been going quite mad in a very quiet fashion, burning his life shorter than anticipated.”“Uh. Guys. We kinda just killed an Emperor.” Hunk added in, tone revealing that he was pretty shaken.“Not necessarily. And we have time to settle this matter, thankfully. My clone put some orders into place that will give us several quintants of time to assess what our next move.” Lotor sighed, rubbing at his forehead, weary. “I just know that I do not want to become the next ruler of the Galra people. I will hold a regency while another Kral Zera may be organized, but . . .”“Hey,” Keith murmured, resting his hand on Lotor’s shoulder, keeping him sitting upright.Ryou pulled the smaller of his two Altean ice packs out along with its corresponding sleeve and activated it, holding it out. “Here. This will help.”The older man looked a little shocked at the offering until Keith snorted, grabbed the ice pack, and placed it at the base of Lotor’s neck, using his armor to pin it into place. At seeing the tension lines relax at the corner of his eyes and his shoulders drop, Keith nodded. “You’re more Galra than you like to admit and let on.”“I-yes. Living among my Altean people has . . . well . . . I’m not perfect, and I sometimes wish that I had been born to two Altean parents instead of only one.”The Black Paladin smiled softly, thumb tracing where one Galra stripe touched his Altean markings. “You’re not alone in that. I feel the same way, too, sometimes. I wish that I was either fully Galra or fully Human. Treading the ground in between is exhausting.”“Keith, check in,” Kolivan’s voice ordered from the Castle.Pulling up a screen on his left wrist, Keith angled the camera to show who was with him. “All accounted for. Lotor and Allura handled the clone and we’ll debrief on that when we’re all together.”
“Understood. We’ve pinpointed and assessed the life signs; the ones matching closer to Ryou’s signature have three stable options. But there’s a few other lifesigns that are behind several automated security checkpoints.”
“I’ve already hacked those locks, Kolivan. Keith, can Hunk, Lance, and I will go down that route and see what’s going on?”
Keith nodded, liking this plan. “Do it. Lance, redivert to Hunk.”
“On it!”
“Good idea,” Allura affirmed, leaning herself closer to Lotor and brushing her hand across his forehead softly. “Lotor, once you’re ready, we’ll all go that way.”“I have to move and get my next wind, or I’ll collapse.” He stood and nodded to Keith and Ryou. “Lead the way.”Ryou’s bayard was phenomenal in this process. He was the ultimate support member, more so than Hunk, who was primarily support cover fire. While Ryou worked with Lance, the black bayard had given him the ability to keep them out of danger or move them if a situation got too dangerous. And it was so antithetical to the way that the bayards as a whole behaved that it now made sense that this white bayard, his bayard, had been a massive hint that not all was as it appeared for the Black Lion.Like the first time, it upgraded his helmet to have a sensor suite that was about a quarter as powerful as the Lions extending out in a sphere around him. That fucking stunned him when he tested it, finding that he could scan the bio-signatures of everyone on the Castleship, even further out to the spherical perimeter of Marmora ships and their occupants. The wings also returned in place of his jetpack, folded tightly against his back unless he had to move fast, which he found that they would assist his momentum. Including jumps. He couldn’t wait to test that in the training rooms.
Our wings have always been our biggest clue that the Black Lion is not truly what she appears to be.
Ryou sighed over his connection with the Black Lion and something half-forgotten clicked. “Oh. Allura. Can you kiss me?”Keith and Lotor stumbled to a halt and stared, each for a very different reason. Allura blinked twice and smiled. “Oh! I’ve been waiting for a while now until you were comfortable, Ryou. Is this for luck like how Lance and Keith kiss?” She blinked once. “Wait.”“Yeah. Actually more like ‘I need you to help me the way you helped Shiro’ sort of kiss.” He was about to say more, when he saw the flashes of understanding light up the Princess’ face. She laughed, pulled her helmet off, and pulled his off in one smooth movement.Startled, Ryou froze, but the soft touch against his lips had him moving again, pulling Allura closer with both arms, leaning into the kiss and feeling that shift in his energies in a way that was different than anything else he’s done. But there wasn’t heat there for him, even as Allura panted happily at his chin, smiling at him. He smiled back softly, brushing a curl away from her face. “I wish I was sexually attracted to you, ’Lura.”Her hands framed his face and he was pulled down for another kiss, chaste, then a kiss to the tip of his nose and right between his eyebrows. “We don’t have to have sexual relations or inclinations to be content with how our bond operates, Ryou. How do you feel?”“Better? I think?”“I, uh, forgot to tell you that he needed something like that,” Keith admitted, looking slightly abashed. “Why a kiss, though?”“Well, seemed right for Shiro at the time since I was operating mostly on instinct.” She rested her forehead on Ryou’s shoulder, feeling him pull her tight against him, trying to relay his thanks without words. When they released each other, Allura smiled at Keith and Lotor. “Turns out that it’s actually a method used between Altean Soulmates to realign their quintessence after a long absence from each other’s presence. The reason behind what became a traditional long kiss between reunited lovers was lost to time. Oriande provided the context.”Lotor smiled, glad that Allura not only had the knowledge, but was willing to speak about it. Many quintessence-sensitives hiding on the colony would only smile and shrug. He dug the ice pack from his armor, reaching over to the door that separated them from where all sensors were pinging high with Shiro’s quintessence. “Ryou, thank you.”“You’re welcome.” He deactivated it, stowed it back in the first aid kit, and braced himself. This . . . was going to be weird. But it was something that he had to do. Replacing his helmet, he waited until Allura had replaced her own and pressed his palm to the door panel, triggering it to open.Ryou realized that Keith was right, when the rangy half-Galra moved to take Ryou’s left hand. The Black Paladin stood strong beside him as they faced row upon row of darkened medipods keeping their occupants in stasis.They were going to have some fun night horrors after this.“There’s . . . there’s a lot of them,” Ryou reported to the Castle.Keith’s voice joined his own. “My scan’s counting a hundred and forty-four units. Is twelve or its multiples significant to the Galra?” He was trying to distract Ryou with talking, knowing that some portion of these pods would hold others that would look very much like the gently-trembling man.“Not typically, but it is a common number of single-fighter bays to have on certain warships,” Krolia replied, clearly picking up on what her son was doing. “Ryou, can you uplink to the Castle so we can see what you’re seeing?”Without realizing it, Ryou had walked closer to a control panel. Keith had led him there by the hand, keeping him close. He drew in a breath, and looked down at the controls, a flash of something hitting the back of his mind before he closed his eyes and chased after it.
He remembered waking up from his pod. They all were lit, showing—
“There won’t be an occupant for every pod,” he relayed. “I wasn’t the first one that was released, just . . . the one who was strongest and most viable at the time. I’m also not the only familiar face you’ll see in one.” Reaching out again, he looked at the screen, but shook his head and moved aside. “Allura? Lotor? I can’t read this that well.”They moved in, Allura’s shoulder brushing Ryou’s as she activated the lights.Keith gasped.Shiro, unblemished, no scars on his face, hair black as midnight. Both arms.And another.And another.Rows of Shiro.Ryou felt himself switch gears into “function now, process later” mode. Grumbling, “Thanks, PTSD,” under his breath, the White Paladin started scanning deeper. “Okay. Uh. Pidge, can you backpack Allura onto my bayard’s sensor suite?”
“Yeah, in a few. I’m stuck on breaking this one lock open and we don’t want to have Hunk or Lance shoot it open. Hold on.”
Then the pods with Lotor’s younger face started lighting up and the man himself groaned softly, quickly scanning a simplified map of bio readings. “Most . . . most of the occupants are failed attempts at cloning, and . . . their remains have been frozen for study and . . . and postmortem exams.” Lotor’s breath faltered and he felt saliva gather under his tongue. “I believe may be very sick.”“Off to the side, please,” Ryou murmured absently, following each pod as it lit up. Black tagged every new pod with a universal number for everyone’s sanity, updating the scans with her own findings and collaborating those with what the Castleship was scanning. “We have to see if any of them are viable, but I’m likely to say not at this time judging by their readings.And then another new face.“Oh. Oh shit,” Ryou ran over to those pods, scanning them all and then sighing in relief. “Oh, fuck. Pidge, sweetheart, you do not want to be up on this level.”
“Why?”
“Sam Holt was cloned. None of his clones are showing any signs of life or quintessence retention. Haggar failed in cloning humans.” He swallowed, realizing what this meant. “Matt got cloned, too. She must have gotten DNA from all of us—no. I wasn’t there. She must have gotten it before they separated the Kerberos crew. Oh my God.”Silence, then one very short question: “Are Matt’s clones viable?” Ryou shook his head. “No. None of them are. Only . . . only Shiro’s clones.”
“Can you scan for Galra DNA tags on any of those clones? Allura, refresh your HUD and confirm Ryou’s findings for me.”
“Done, thank you,” Allura replied, scanning through the data that was now scrolling down a holographic screen projected from her armor. “I can confirm that none of the Holt clones are viable outside of pods from the scans, just based off of quintessence readings alone. Ryou’s and Black’s scans confirm this assessment. I’ll do a deeper sweep once all of the pods are lit.”Ryou looked to Keith, who was walking along the first line of Shiro clones, hand resting on each pod as he passed them. He needed space. Nodding to himself, he let the first scan continue, nearing the halfway mark and started a second scan for Galra DNA tags in any of the pods. “No Galra genomes found in the Holt clones. Plenty in the Shiro clones.” He looked up along the other lines of lit pods. “There’s a lot of Shiro clones, guys. Like, a disheartening amount.”
“Any really young Lotor clones and not force-grown ones?”
“Yeah, there are a few. Last three of the one-forty, each at different stages of development, looks like they were frozen at those points. Their fate is the same as the Holt clones.”“I’ll look in a moment,” Lotor murmured, eyes following Keith’s path. “I’d much rather focus on finding a body for Shiro, but I know that I must see this for myself or my mind will give me nightmares tonight to fill in what I don’t know.”“Agreed.” Allura closed her eyes and followed Ryou’s scans with the one she had learned from Oriande. And smiled, walking back to the main console to wait for Keith. “It’s terrifying, but . . . I feel it’s necessary for me.”Pidge’s voice was low. “If we’re going to be here a couple days, I’ll wait until tomorrow or the day after before I face the clones of my family.”“We’re all here for you when and if you choose to do that,” Hunk murmured, steady and strong for their fierce green bird.When Keith reached the last of the first row, he turned and looked how far he had walked and how many more clones there were. Walking back with a frown, expression a little lost, Keith folded himself into Allura’s embrace. Her hand raked through his hair as he dropped his helmet to the deck, her voice soft and a balm to his quaking spirit. “We have three candidates that I would like for you to assess.”Ryou and Lotor jogged over, the White Paladin picking Keith’s helmet up and following Allura as she brought them to the first possibility. “Viable, but weak. I believe this was one of her first attempts at cloning Shiro with Galra DNA. There’s significant muscle mass atrophy, however.”Keith shook his head. “He’d hate that. Why do we feel like we’re shopping? God, this is eerie. Next?”The second one was a strong contender, but it was the third on a higher level, created more recently than the others, that convinced Keith. It looked like Shiro was just sleeping, not frozen like so many of the other clones. “How many of Shiro’s clones contain a version of his quintessence?”“All of them.” Ryou sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “All seventy-two of us. But these three have some viability outside of the pods.” He frowned suddenly and started several other scans, using himself as a baseline. “Hold on.”And he blinked once, then felt his face crumble. “We have one other unique consciousness among the rest of the Shiro clones. The rest, including this clone, aren’t pinging anything matching my scans from when you brought me home that very first time. Coran, can you verify my scans?”
“We’re working on it. Using your own biometrics as the base for the Shiro clones was a brilliant idea, my boy! I’ll get an answer momentarily. Can you upload a geotag for that other unique consciousness?”
“Done.” He looked at the face of another one of himself, shuddered, and turned to see Keith concentrating on the clone body that was their best bet for Shiro to survive.It took a few moments, and just as Coran came back on the line, Keith opened his eyes. “I’m sorry to say, but even though his consciousness is unique and active, that clone will not survive outside of that pod.” “Why?” Keith demanded. There was consciousness; that was a real person in there.
“His lungs, diaphragm, and heart are malformed, unable to function without external assistance.”
“Do we have the ability to clone healthy lungs and transplant them?” Ryou demanded, eyes catching Keith’s and holding.“I would not be comfortable doing that on the Castleship, and I’m also not a surgeon,” Coran hedged.“Does that mean that the medical tech is available, just not here?”“Olkarion!” Allura realized, face lighting up. “We’ll find a way to bring him with us, too. Keith?”“This is the one for Shiro.” He rested his hand on the glass, over the clone’s heart. “Why don’t they all have soulmate marks? I mean, we haven’t seen that other clone yet, but I’m guessing he doesn’t have marks.”Ryou concentrated more scans on that particular pod, then blinked a few times. “It’s inconclusive.” Huffing a laugh, he shook his head. “Schrodinger’s Soulmate.”“Hm. Now that is quite a unique concept.” Lotor’s gaze started to travel to his own clones, but he shook his head and returned his attention to his companions. “Without a quantum bond your collective quintessence, it would make sense that unless Shiro’s or the viable clone’s consciousness was available at the time . . . Consider this. Shiro, Keith, and Lance all were born before Hunk and Pidge. Neither Hunk nor Pidge have corresponding scars to injuries accumulated prior to their birth. What confuses me is that Ryou has all of Shiro’s scars as if they were made on his own skin.” He shook his head and spread his hands. “I never said that I had every aspect and theory figured out, just that I was close to understanding the mechanics.”Ryou looked to Keith, hoping that the Black Paladin could speak for him in this. When he nodded, Keith sighed and nodded his assent. “Ryou has nightmares. Bad ones. Not the ones that Shiro got of the Arena, either.” He closed his eyes and looked away from Ryou as Shiro’s twin turned away with the same motion. Some truths were easier to say with eyes closed. “They cut into him. They recreated every scar that was Shiro’s. All the scars happened all at the same time when he was released from the pod that they grew him in. We didn’t notice that there was reinjury because our own soulmate-marks didn’t change.”“How did they know which ones were his?” Lotor breathed.And Ryou replied softly, “Because the scars were white. Because I’m a clone. Because my quintessence and Shiro’s is close enough to be almost the same. The scars weren’t the pink that they normally show up to be.” He swallowed twice, then whispered, “I was awake for some of the worst of it; they didn’t know that they had fucked up the anesthesia.”“Sweet child,” Lotor murmured, pulling Ryou into a warm, encompassing embrace. “Oh, sweet boy. Druids?”“Druids.”“We’ll end them,” Allura growled, eyes flashing.“Later,” Keith commanded, voice wavering but strong. “Later. Let’s finish categorizing these clones and check in with Hunk and Pidge.”“We’re not getting anywhere with this door. Might need a luxite blade to cut through,” Hunk updated. “Seriously, we all need to nest together tonight. Ryou, even if you’re not in the nest, I’d like you in the same room if you can handle it?” “I’ll try.” He rubbed at his face, pulling away from Lotor but smiling his thanks up at the man. “Okay. So. Regroup and re-strategize?”Keith nodded, taking one last look up at the face that would soon belong to Shiro. “Yeah. Let’s take these two pods with us to begin and do some deeper scans on the rest of the pods to see what we’re really dealing with.”“Can we have your minds and Keith’s blade down here, first?” Lance requested, frustration edging around the corners of his voice. “I think that might be our only option right now.” “What?” Keith asked. “Why? Breaking down stubborn doors is exactly why we sent you three that way. You’re fucking amazing at getting into places that nobody wants us.”
“Yeah, but that’s the thing. Whoever is on the other side of this door is crying. We don’t want to add more trauma to that.”
“What?! Fuck. We’ll be right there. Kolivan, we’ve digitally and physically tagged the pods for transport. I’d like Regris down here with whatever team you have in mind to make sure that neither lose power, especially that clone with the medical concerns.”
“He’s on his way.”
And soon enough, so were the quartet as they hurried to where Hunk, Pidge, and Lance were stymied by a door.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Keith eyed the door, then looked to Ryou. “Hey. Fancypants. Who’s on the other side?”“No clones, I can tell you that much.” Ryou ran another scan, then stared at the door for a long moment. He disabled his Bayard and stowed it. Letting the visor of his helmet dissolve so that he could rub at his face, Ryou took a moment to re-center himself. He was glad that Keith was treating him differently than Shiro, and the difference between the Keith from three weeks (two years!) ago and now was evident. He was relaxed around Ryou, less formal. There wasn’t any residual Garrison nonsense to dodge between a TA and a Student. With a sigh, he finally reported his findings. “More nightmares of a different sort. First room has no signs of life but my scanners are picked up bipedal forms prone on the floor. One biological, four sentries. Second room has five children, various ages, various genetic combinations, all of them have some Galra in them. One of them is between one and two years old and has human genetic tags.”“I’m sorry, what.” Pidge’s voice was a growl as they jumped up from where they were still trying to hack the cameras inside the room. “They have what in there?!”Lance’s hand threaded his fingers through their own, and he dared to tap his helmet against Pidge’s. He honestly had expected much worse behind those doors. Much, much darker shit lurked beneath the surface here. “Look. We know Haggar was a monster. Let’s just . . . let’s just . . . Keith, if you could please open that door so we could see what we’re dealing with? Or we’ll use Hunk’s suggestion and have him and the Alteans tear the door down.”“My vote is on tearing the door down, just to state that on the record,” Lotor quipped, checking the fit of his gloves just to add a bit of flair.Keith huffed in amusement while still examining the seam between the doors. “Lance, I’m working on it. It’s not like I can just stab the door and it’ll open automatically. I gotta hit the right mechanisms, and that changes from model to model. What do you know about it so far?”“Old model, but still in the standard Galra range of seven-inch-thick high-security nonsense that we’ve encountered before,” Pidge replied. They squeezed Lance’s hand, feeling much more calm now, and began packing up their laptop and hacking gear. “Locking mechanisms at equidistant heights.”Krolia’s voice came in over their helmets on the Castleship’s frequencies. “The primary lock on this model is the lowest one, not the middle-height as became standard some time ago. Kolivan and I haven’t seen this type of door in over a hundred deca-phoebes. I saw one maybe a hundred-fifty back, but it was at a base even older than this facility.”Keith blinked, eyeing the door and letting his display help guide his aim, picking up more about the door from Ryou’s Bayard’s sensor suite. Which he was not drooling over, no sir he was not. (He wanted that sensor suite because accuracy improvements, oh sweet voids.) “Wow. Good to really know for a fact that Dad was into cougars and you absolutely robbed the cradle. He was like, what, thirty-five when you met, right? You were how many deca-phoebes old? Three-twenty-two, you said?”The reaction to his jab was everything that he could have hoped for. First came the questioning sounds from some of the nonhumans because his phrases didn’t translate well at first. Then came Lance’s stifled giggle-snort as he hung his head to stare at the ground to avoid making eye contact with anyone. Pidge’s cough to try to cover their laugh as they folded their laptop. Hunk and Ryou fell apart in hysterical laughter behind Keith, and he grinned broadly at the scandalized gasp from his mother.
“Keith Yorak Kogane!”
“Full name second time in one quintant by a parent. Nice. Hold please.”
“I will not! That was rude!”
But Keith wasn’t listening as he struck, his blade going exactly halfway through the door. “Sure was, but it lightened the mood and the kids on the other side of this door will need us to not be ready to murder someone when we get in there. Big man! Need your strength, gorgeous.” He locked his blade and released the handle, leaving it in the awakened form. It was a trick Krolia had taught him the third or fourth day they had been on the Space Whale. “I need it to go forty-five degrees to the left and through the other side of the door.”“You got the right guy for this.” Hunk touched the hilt with his fingertips at first, whispering a soft noise of reverence before doing exactly as Keith instructed. Keith’s awakened blade was not one that any of the other Paladins had touched yet, so far as they knew. Maybe Shiro had. They’d all done hours and hours of tossing various weapons and even their own Bayards back and forth during training, with the blade always in knife form. Hell, “weapon toss” was even a leisure activity, and that was something that ticked off the “child soldier” box in his head. Hunk was going to be talking with Coran about finding them some goddamned therapists to live on-ship with them for the next leg of whatever the hell they were going to have to do.Stretching his neck to dispel the darker thoughts, the bright Paladin could feel the cracks starting to weaken his own considerable foundation. He fit his hand around the hilt, almost feeling the alien-ness of not mine before mentally replying you’re his tool, I’m his heart; we both belong to him. His touch to the blade even had Lotor raising his eyebrows, so his reverence must have matched the significance. The test of wills sorted between self and blade, Hunk wrenched it to a perfect forty-five degree angle and then through to the other side of the door. Absently, he wondered why Keith had asked him and not Allura or Lotor, who had greater-than-human strength, and Lotor also had Galra blood, which the blade might not have objected to.The locks popped open and the doors slid halfway into the walls.Pidge stared. “The fuck. We could have done that all along?!”
“It’s designed as an emergency escape method but takes stronger materials than the door to trigger. Keith, Regris is at the pods and investigating their power needs now.”
Breathing a sigh of relief at knowing his brother would see to the clones’ safety, Keith started into the room, taking his blade from Hunk. Reverting it and settling it back into its sheath, he drew his Bayard. Ryou moved to cover Lance, with Allura and Lotor behind Hunk and Pidge covering the Black Paladin’s six as they surveyed the room.There were no signs of a struggle. Four sentinels had collapsed where they had stood.The singular Druid lay slowly crumbling into its robes in the middle of the room.Visors snapped into place as Hunk and Ryou began scanning for gasses or any sources of chemicals that could dissolve flesh. Ryou’s sigh of relief let everyone relax. “Uh, nope, nothing external. Looks like this was one very, very old motherfucker.”Allura’s voice was similarly relieved. “They didn’t realize that Lotor’s clone learned how to steal quintessence.”Lotor hummed, leaning over the slowly-flattening pile, completely unconcerned with the horror of what he was witnessing. “He must have found a way to key himself into whatever power it was keeping this husk alive for so long.”Silence. Keith turned slowly to stare at Allura and Lotor, who suddenly looked a little too meek. His voice was velvet-soft, and the sclera of his eyes had started to flicker closer to the same Galra-yellow that Lotor sported. “Care to tell me why neither of you shared that with us?”“Keith, later,” Pidge hissed. “Kids first.”He growled, turning away from his Soulmate and a man he really wanted to share as a lover, and found Lance’s face right in front of his own. The Red Paladin leaned in and drew Keith into a hug. “They’re safe. You’ve touched them both. They’re just tired, like we all are. We’re all safe right now. They took care of the clone, who could have drained all of us through you. You’re our center, Keith.”Groaning soft and low in acknowledgement of this fact, the young man let himself just sink against his sweet Cuban lover. “I want everyone to go through full scans when we get back,” Keith replied, his voice low and pained. He wanted nothing more than to be done with the pain of just trying to survive but having to kill and hurt people. They all needed rest. “Please.”“We all will,” Lance replied, firm and loving. “I promise, babe. I’ll go first, and I’ll stay beside you to make sure the others go through and you can go last. You need more time to re-center?”Shaking his head, Keith remembered all the lessons that Krolia had given him about bond-work. Even though she didn’t have a soulmate, all Galra children were taught the same methods in case they found their mate late in life. So Keith had learned how to draw himself in again, and found the point where he could feel every one of his Soulmates. He could feel his connection with Black, and Shiro was safe with Black. With a sigh, he opened his eyes and moved towards the second door, where the crying had turned into soft whimpers. Everyone here were safe, but the children still didn’t know that.There was no lock on this door, and Keith opened it only a crack.The noises stopped, as if they hadn’t heard anything of what had happened on the other side.He counted five sets of breathing at various ages.Five.Haggar wanted to replace the Paladins.With her puppets.
Innocents.
The room was dim, as base time was something close to the equivalent of seven in the evening. He opened the door to meet five sets of eyes that reflected light with a yellow sheen. Lotor started to bring the lights up marginally, not wanting to startle anyone.The oldest stood, clearly Galra of the narrowly-built sort, gangly in the earliest stages of teenage years. He pushed tangled shoulder-length white hair out of his face and Lotor gasped at the sight of Soulmated eyes in the young face, hand covering his mouth. The boy spoke, weary and older than his years. “We don’t have names, but I can promise you that they’ve underestimated us. I’m called One. Next oldest is Two, this is Three, Four, and that baby is Five. If you’re here to take us away from here, our medical records are locked down in the console that one room back.” He looked up at Ryou and sighed. “I’m so happy you found your people again. Are you okay? You were very hurt the last time you were here.”Ryou’s vision blurred and he fell to his knees, taking his helmet off and staring at the boychild who looked so much like Lotor. He felt hands on him, pulling him into an embrace, and Hunk was stroking fingers over his hair as he wept, seeing and knowing just as Keith did. These were babies, children literally made to match the Voltron Lions. His heart broke and he felt all the parts that were Shiro weep with him in this knowledge, along with all the rage that he as Ryou-not-Shiro felt towards the creature who created him.The boy looked shocked, then dismayed at Ryou’s reaction as he tried to rush closer from his bunk.He was stopped halfway by a yank to his ankle and he hit the decking with a wail that galvanized a Galra Prince to action. Roaring in sheer defiance of something that would harm one-who-smells-like-him, Lotor rushed past the boy on the floor to destroy the box that the anklet had been energy-tethered to. And then the boy was scooped up and brought over to Ryou, who was curling the now-crying child to him, Lotor holding on around them while the other four Paladins swept into action, dismantling the devices as their first steps. Allura grabbed Two and held the silent little girl to her, Keith shed his chest armor with hurried movements and curled little Five close to his heartbeat, Four was embraced by Pidge, and Three was lifted into a gentle hug by Lance.Coran, Kolivan, and Krolia found them there after Keith whispered, “Please come help us,” to the Castle of Lions. All three moved as parents should, helping soothe both teenagers and children.Finally, for once, the young Paladins were all allowed to react closer to their age, and be comforted by an adult in a traumatizing situation.The Blades of Marmora came to the rescue not even ten doboshes later, faces unhidden and familiar enough to Galran children to have Two, Three, and Four fling themselves into ready arms. Ryou remained sitting, exhausted on so many levels, while One and Lotor continued to comfort him. One thing kept ringing in the back of his head. “I need to see my other brother’s face when he’s stable.”One blinked. “More like you?”“One more like me. We don’t know if he’s our Soulmate yet.”“I’m coming with you.”Lotor smiled and scented the top of the Galra boy’s head again, just how Keith and the other Blades had been doing with the other children to share the safety of pack-scenting. Before too long, Keith himself came up beside Ryou, and little Five scrambled into his lap to gently butt as his chest with her little forehead. The clone smiled sadly, but his voice was fond as he supported her. “I can’t scent like you Galra, sweetie.”“Do the motions anyway,” Lotor suggested, brushing his hand over Keith’s shoulder, offering his silent support. “It’s more about the motion at her age than it is the scent.”The change in little Five was immediate. She brightened and then went over to One to get his scent, then Lotor, then back to Keith, and Krolia’s face fell at the little purple kit trying to smell like as many “safe” adults as possible. Even this young, little Five knew that the Paladins and their allies were a stronger pack to be associated with than those who had kept her here. When Five reached up to her, Krolia did as Keith had and removed her armor to curl the cub close and purr, sitting beside Ryou on the floor.When Ryou heard what she was trying to do, he pulled his armor off as well and gathered Five close again, feeling her settle down against his heartbeat. Keith stroked his hand over both sets of black hair before scanning the room. His voice was soft, but heard everywhere. “Who is coming with me and Ryou to check on that other clone once we’ve had some rest?”The answer was unanimous.
~*~
They had mostly all slept through the night, everyone helping where they could to help a Soulmate settle back down into sleep, for the most part.Then they were encouraged to eat something, and then allowed go in to check on the pod. It was working beautifully, easily taking power from the Castleship to continue to support the life within. The occupant, though unique in consciousness, had seemingly been left in a dormant state while Ryou had been deemed fit enough to be deployed. Ryou admitted that he remembered flashes from “escaping” the facility once they’d finished testing the Druid-made arm. He had a feeling that he would have been killed, had his original Galra arm’s onboard AI had been unable to control him.Ryou’s eyes ran over the scans, asking Coran about a word here and there, or what a reading meant. When Ryou made it down to one particular section, the Altean man casually reached around the side of a control panel. Lance was backing away, hand over his mouth, Hunk moving closer to ask if they were all right. Lotor and Allura looked decidedly ill. Pidge was standing to one side of the pod, checking a few displays here and there but carefully watching Ryou’s response. Looking back at Ryou, Keith caught the moment that he read up to where the other three had reached.Coran held the bucket up at the perfect moment, Ryou’s arms clutching it to his chest on instinct while he moved off to one side. Keith and Coran bracketed the young man, supporting him and comforting him. Once he was settled, Coran spoke, voice low. “This individual has been aware of his surroundings due to a glitch in their programming of the pod. He’s not Soulmated to any of you the way that you are to each other, but he does consider himself to be a brother to Shiro and Ryou.”“How?” Keith asked, looking up at the frozen gaze, dove gray eyes unfocused. “How do you know this, Coran?”“Well, he wrote his own medical history file last night for starters,” Coran replied, hands still reassuring Ryou. “He’s brilliant and entirely trapped within his body. Understands that his body requires a lot of help to get better, but was realistic about his situation.” The older Altean smiled sadly. “He didn’t expect to be found, our boy.” Looking over at the pod that supported the life of the young man within with a fond expression, Coran murmured, “He left us a lot of condemning evidence against Haggar and her Druids for use on an off-world server. He counted on not being discovered, should someone have come here to shut down or destroy the entire facility.”Keith turned on his heel and walked right up to the pod. “Is he blind with his eyes frozen open?”“No. That was the last of two mistakes. Though he does sleep.”“You’re aware,” Keith murmured with a smile, and he brought his hand up to rest over the glass over clone’s heart. “Even if you’re not our Soulmate, you’re family; we aren’t giving up on helping you.”The console lit up and Keith looked to Pidge, who had begun grinning as soon as Coran had reassured the Paladins that this clone was trying to help himself from his own limited abilities. They gave Keith a thumbs-up and then patted the glass gently. “See? I told you, buddy. So, I accidentally taught him binary and how to play with some Olkarion toys last night while One and I sat in here thanks to insomnia.”“Wait, you taught One how to use the Olkarion mind-things in a night?”“Like, in an hour? He’s pretty much admitted that he was supposed to be for either Black or Green considering his aptitudes. Anyway, once Coran came in this morning, we installed a subsystem that scanned for conscious thought, and that’s when he started writing paragraphs in Galran and then human binary. So he learned binary in the same amount of time.” They kept grinning, leaning up to rest their hand beside Keith’s. “His mind is fucking rad, but he doesn’t know what he wants to do for a name yet, right bud?”The panel lit up and Keith looked over to read both responses. The clone told Keith that he didn’t get any of Shiro’s memories, but he was glad to see that the person he was cloned from had such a welcoming family. And then a line of binary sass at Pidge, who grinned unrepentantly.A mark flashed over the clone’s cheek. A thin line of red, then frozen to pink. There were no corresponding marks on anyone else’s faces in the room.Panicked nonsense text filled the screen for a moment, and the rest of the Soulmates came over to reassure him that it wasn’t anything to jeopardize his breathing or his pod. They explained Soulmate marks, Galra bonds, Altean alchemy in soulmate bonds, and how the underlying quantum bond helped facilitate cross-species Bonding. They’d help him find And after a time, after it had settled down, he realized that these people were truly going to be there for him. He felt warmth cross his chest and knew happiness. Letting them know he needed a nap, he got instant reassurance that there would always be someone to talk to when he woke up, and with hopes that he would rest well.
~*~
Shiro’s eyes snapped open at hearing the pure-tone siren’s call. He knew that energy. He had been waiting to feel it.
Allura?
She was so far away, though. But he had to get to her. Sleepily, exhausted, he followed her voice, her heart, her call, feeling her hands touch his face, his soul, and—Sitting up with a cough, entire body shaking through a fit, he sank to one side, feeling arms hold tight and a hand stroke hair out of his face.
Touch?
Fighting to open his eyes, to focus on something, Shiro looked up at the face of his dearest, his sweetest love. And Keith, older, scarred, eyes gentle and soft, whispered, “Shiro.”“You found me.”The Lions roared around the low gurney that Shiro lay on, Keith sitting at his side, the sound of happy cheers somehow also reaching him under the cacophony of welcome. He felt his eyes falling closed and he let them.Allura was still glowing behind his eyelids, but he couldn’t make out who she was speaking to. Her voice was filled with laughter, “Sit. I have something for you. Hunk, get ready to catch Ryou before—”
Ryou was here?
He slept.
~*~
The children were rambunctious the literal moment that they realized that the rules were different on the Castle of Lions and that shouting and playing and tag and chase and wrestling were all allowed. It took them a mere hour after they had woken up from the exhausted slumber the next day before they had started to really play as a pack of young Galra children. All the Galra adults on-board remained without their masks, the Blades especially enjoying their shifts herding and tumbling and playing with children. (There was word that shifts with the children were now getting used as valuable gambling material during after-shift these-are-totally-not-gambling-games-Kolivan-sir-would-you-like-to-be-dealt-in-next-round games.)The young pack were precious and precocious as they swung from pure grief to pure joy, their emotions all tangled up and bigger than their bodies. One was very good at handling Two, Three, and Four; Lotor and Allura were very good at handling One, giving him a sparring partner or a hard, close embrace when he needed it. One just didn’t quite understand how to soothe Five, who was the only Human-Galra hybrid.The little girl was Shiro’s child, genetically, just as One was Lotor’s genetic child. Two, Three, and Four didn’t have any genetic matches to living or deceased Paladins. On those first two days onboard the Castleship, they were reassured by the Paladins and their older allies regularly that they were wanted and cherished. Then, on the third day, as Allura and Lotor were rested and ready, they brought Shiro home.Part of the work that had to be done was to work with consolidating any remaining quintessence from the clones that were unviable outside their pods. It was an ethical conundrum that stalled them for that third day, the leadership taking this time to really work through this situation. Was this technically Quintessence harvesting?What it had come down to was a several-hour conference between Keith, Lotor, Allura, Romelle, Krolia, Kolivan, with a valuable live video conference including Ryner, Slav, and Shay. They discussed the nature of the situation, their perspectives, and then waited for the three others to speak.Slav was the first to say that he doesn’t know anything about Quintessence in this matter, but that he will continue to calculate probable futures and realities with this new information and other views and arguments that came up.Ryner and Romelle discussed various aspects strongly for a time, then Slav asked for clarification on something just as the “strong discussion” began winding down.” Just as soon as Krolia was starting to lose her patience with Romelle, Shay spoke.“The Quintessence. Tell me more about it, Allura. Tell me how it feels in your hand, the vibration, the sense, the signature.” She leaned closer to the screen. “Tell me what it tells you.”Her response was soft and convicted. “It’s Shiro. Part of him, his genetic makeup, his DNA, his atoms, everything. The vibration feels like when he had hugged me, the attunement is second-nature to reach towards it.”“Are the clones not genetically Shiro as their base makeup? Contain the same vibrations?”Allura nodded slowly. “They appear to be.”Shay sat back, nodding as if this made perfect sense. And, perhaps it did. Perhaps it was as simple an answer that the simplest of rituals was the most honest, the most viable option. “Think of it as asking a Balmera for a crystal.”“Oh.”Romelle blinked and then pointed at Shay as she just figured out what species this individual was. “Oh! You’re Balmeran!”“Mmhm! I’m Shay, Hunk’s lover. You’ll be seeing a lot more Balmerans soon.” Turning her attention back to the Princess, Shay asked, “Allura? Does this make sense?”And in the end, it truly was as simple as that. Allura reached out for the Quintessence wells and asked the same way that she would have asked a Balmera for a crystal to power a ship. And the response was overwhelming as the wells began to organize themselves into three “we are alike” sections. Allura took these three proto-wells and respectfully began to work with solidifying and folding them into something that would easily attach to their recipient. These would be literally transplanted into Shiro, Ryou, and the unnamed third clone’s quintessence, returning in spades what had been stolen. Ryou took only a day to recover from the transfer, back on his feet before they had left the vicinity of the cloning facility. He spent a lot of time sitting with Shiro and their brother, who were each being cared for in two different locations within the medical ward. Their brother had wanted a private room as he continued to learn and teach himself from the ship’s records. This was easily managed, and shifts with him had also begun to gain value, though more among those who knew Shiro. Kolivan and Krolia were tied as the worst shift-stealing offenders.Despite their natural exuberance, the children got a lot quieter the day that they were allowed to visit Shiro in the medical ward. It was the third day along their way to Olkarion, the seventh day since they had their showdown with Lotor’s clone. Many members of the Blade remained at the cloning facility to continue to guard the secrets there, and to safely lay the remains of the clones to rest, though it had to come down to a lottery as every Blade wanted to be on the ship and to help with Two, Three, and Four. One liked their company, but they also encouraged his inclination to be attached to Lotor and the other ranking Galra. Five had been a difficult child to manage when not in Keith or Ryou’s arms. Keith, gratefully, took second place to his sweet platonic soulmate.Five and Ryou were very close. But Five wanted Shiro, and so that was another excuse for Ryou to stay close to his brother’s bedside.Keith and Ryou were fucking loving this and feeling lighter with the across-the-board improvement of Shiro’s vitals. When Ryou passed Five to Keith so he could take a shower and just rest his mind a bit, Keith vid-called Matt, who was laughing at this new development, entirely delighted. After brushing off Keith’s concern regarding another new scar, Matt continued on with laughing. “Oh my God, Shiro’s a literal Space-Dad, now?! This is choice! How’s his vitals?”“Good, steady and they have been improving really well today. We were forced out for lunch so that the medical team could give us an updated estimate of when he’ll wake up.” Keith smiled as Five stood up on his lap, using his jacket as an anchor. “Look at this little princess getting all cozy. Say hi to Uncle Matty, Five. We’ll be picking him up on Olkarion. He hates being called Matty, so we’re gonna call him that, aren’t we?”The toddler waved, bright smiles for this new person. She hadn’t learned the same lessons that her older soulmates had, even though her little soul understood the shared pain. Matt cooed. “Oh, you are the cutest! I’ll tolerate it from you, sweetie, I promise. Okay, so, who’s gonna watch the kids, Keith?”“Well, Five is gonna be ours, that was certainly not up for debate. It’s also been a community effort among the adults, but . . .” he sighed. “They’re bonding close with us, almost in a younger-sibling-like relationship for all but One and Five. It’s dangerous for both sides, but the worst part is that the lack of a dedicated parent or pack of adoptive parents has caused some stunted readings. Their socialization has also suffered, but not as badly as we had anticipated. They need some serious medical assistance to get them back up to healthy levels, and the only way to do that is to keep them close to a Galra pack of parents, or their genetic parents. One has been amazing in helping us understand the other four, since he’s had the most time to learn how to find the information he needs. The kid is like Pidge Junior, and that’s a scary thought.”“Why did you even say that out loud?! Do you want to curse us?” Matt laughed as he retied his ponytail and stretched his arms above his head. “Do they have abandonment phobias?”“Not really, thankfully. They just were left alone for long enough for Five to get cranky when we found them. We got really lucky that they weren’t neglected or hurt as badly as I had been, just . . . different traumas.”“Good. I’m so glad.” Matt looked off to one side, then down at his hands. “Oh. Something that might help or hurt, but it needs to be addressed and I don’t know how Ryou feels about this, but . . . Adam is a leftie. He’s been writing messages trying to ask about injuries that I don’t have on my right arm. I’m guessing that the injuries may correspond with Ryou.”Keith blinked at the sudden change in topic before his eyes widened and he pointed at the screen. “OH.”“Yeah. Oh. Ryou doesn’t have a right arm.”
~*~
Not fifteen minutes later, Coran had manufactured a generic soul-pen for Ryou and was sitting with their shoulders pressed together. Keith and Five sat on Ryou’s other side. Lance and Three were sitting in front of him. One ran into the room and came to a halt beside Ryou, nervous and earnest. “You’re a sibling to me. I want to be here for you.”“You’re really fucking young to be looking out for me,” Ryou laughed sadly, reaching out to pull the little Galra boy into a hug. After a moment, One sat on Coran’s lap, curled up against the warm Altean’s chest. He liked feeling like a small child that could ask for reassurance and get it without question. He watched his brother struggle with himself for a very long moment before he started his messy right-handed scrawl up by his elbow.
Hav rt arm prosthetic. Pls. If U been writing, haven’t seen it. Hav 5 mor soulmates, none who share U. Who R U?
“It could take a while,” Ryou whispered, seeing his spelling mistakes but not caring. The message was there. “But I’d rather it start like this.”It took only moments, the reply just as messy.
Adam Whitmore. Am leftie & didn’t know U were 2. I’m sorry. Didn’t mean 2 bother U.
“The fuck?” Keith whispered, frowning. That was . . . new? Something? Odd. This wasn’t the tone that he had associated with Adam.Ryou blinked and rolled the pen between his fingers before putting it to skin. Would thigh B btr?
Much. Please. TY.
“This isn’t like the Adam that we knew two, three years ago,” Keith whispered, pushing his shoulder against Ryou’s. “But, then again, we’ve been gone a long time.”Ryou was glad for the workout shorts that he had chosen to wear under his sweatpants after his shower. He slid out of the comfortable pants and pushed the shorts hem up a bit, uncapping the pen. Adam’s words were there first.
You have a lot of soulmates.
That was a pretty neutral start. So Ryou drew in a breath and wrote his reply. I always have room for more. Just 2 make you aware, am somewhere on asexual spectrum, but 2 bros of mine aren’t. It’s complicated. There was a long pause, and Keith rubbed his hand across Ryou’s tense shoulders. “You okay?”“So far, yes.”Adam’s reply began to bloom over Ryou’s left thigh. I’ve been repudiated by 2 soulmates. I want to make you aware. Ryou had his answer for that, and realized that this was it. His left-handed scrawl was much more legible than his righthanded one as he began. So I have been informed. I’m not going to lie to you, Adam, I have Shiro’s face. I’m not him. He’s not me. I remember repudiating you but it wasn’t by my soul, but rather Shiro’s. I can’t get into how this has happened until we reach Earth. My other brother . . . essentially Shiro’s triplet . . . doesn’t have Shiro’s memories and isn’t part of my large cohort. He’s been kept in a suspended state for a long time, and we don’t know who his soulmate is.He regretted the block of text, but Keith kissed his cheek, and Lance’s hand was on his right knee and gently rubbing it and One and Three were also reaching out and Coran’s arm rested around his waist and he breathed in and slowly released his breath. “I’m okay. I’m okay.” Daring to look down, he saw Adam’s reply start on his right thigh.
Please. Please tell me that Shiro and Matt are alive and safe. You don’t need to tell me anything more.
They’re alive. Safe is not guaranteed for any of us.
Keith rubbed the back of Ryou’s neck. “How are you doing?”“I’m terrified.”“You remember Adam hurting Shiro.”“Yes.”“What do you want to do?”“I’m done for now, I think? Just this has been draining.”“Yeah, it would absolutely be draining. Tell him. It sounds like he’s done a lot of thinking and realizing that he’s fucked himself over.”“What if he doesn’t want to talk to me again?” And as soon as Ryou had asked, he winced, hoping that he wouldn’t be judged.Coran’s voice was low, reassuring, “Ryou, my boy, even if he doesn’t want to talk to you again, you have many caring soulmates, a brother that loves you and a brother that you love and want to help. And you have all of their and our families to support you. You are one of the dearest soulmates of Allura, the daughter I have always wished I could claim as my own. You wish to protect everyone you meet, and I am always impressed by your work.” He leaned in and kissed the black hair. “Should he choose not to speak with you again, then he is missing out on the amazing person you are and continue to grow into being.”Keith and Lance were smiling at Ryou, and One was trying very hard not to cry at hearing how loved everyone truly was among this family. Ryou looked down at his legs, noting that Adam hadn’t replied yet. “What’s this look like on you?”Lance had taken to wearing something similar to Ryou while they recovered and just spent time relaxing. He pulled the band down to show off bright blue shorts, which he pulled up to show the marks. Ryou’s words were there. Not Adam’s replies. “There’s tech back home that we can show to Coran to see if it can be made cheaper, but it’ll end up being a pen that would only show up for the two of you, not for the rest of us.”“I remember that,” Ryou smiled, and he nodded, then sighed. “Okay.” He wrote quickly. R U ok?The reply blurred at times. sortaAdam was crying.Ryou closed his eyes and felt himself start to cry in response, tears blurring the imperfect ink. “I remember him so well. I miss who he was. This is so confusing.”“He’s gotta be confused, too.”Coran’s voice was soft. “We’re too far out for a live call to your planet, but once we refuel and recharge on Olkarion, Allura said that we’ll be able to make some jumps to get us there sooner.”Ryou pressed his prosthetic fist against his mouth, beginning to write again. We’re on our way home. It’s not gonna be fast. This time, Adam’s scrawl was prompt, though a tear still blurred a letter here or there. Sam Holt just arrived. He says hi. Coran gasped in glee. “Oh, good!”Ryou was smiling. Hi, Sam! Miss you, Dad.Sam’s unique scrawl was quick to instruct them. Miss all of my kids, too. Send my love. Outpost updated their tech. Ask Leader vidcall in 5 vargas?Ryou looked to Keith, and offered him the pen. The young man grinned and wrote back, Hey. 5 vargas sounds good, Pops Two. -KK Adam’s next words were almost immediate.
KEITH I AM SO SORRY.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Keith hadn’t replied to the apology, only stared down at the words and rolled the soulpen between his fingers thoughtfully before handing it back over. Ryou took in the contemplative expression blooming slowly on Keith’s face. To Ryou, this young man would have immediately stalked off to work out the instant flash of rage. But the rage that had momentarily narrowed violet pupils to slits had been brief, controlled, and settled.Keith looked up at Ryou and slotted their lips together in a soft kiss, reassuring and nonsexual, a simple press of skin to skin. “Let’s talk with everyone.”The Soulmates met by Shiro’s bedside, swiftly coming to a consensus about Adam. Beyond that they had to speak with Sam anyway, this was something that would change the landscape of their bonds. Ryou’s heart was willing to risk pain should this not work with Adam, but his words were what stilled everyone:“I’m not saying that was he did was right in any universe! What I’m saying is that everyone who has a Soulmate should at least start to know that soulmate. I’m not Shiro. Keith says that this doesn’t sound like the Adam that he knew. We’re two strangers just discovering that we have a Soulmate. Even with Adam’s history, it wouldn’t be fair to write him off.” His voice softened as he looked directly into Keith’s eyes. “You didn’t write me off; I can’t let myself be a hypocrite here.”Lance, arguably the most hurt by Ryou’s actions, slipped his right hand into the sweaty palm of his sweetheart. Leaning over to kiss Ryou’s shoulder, Lance whispered, “I’m proud of you. I agree with your reasoning, and I think that it really wouldn’t be fair to at least learn from Sam why they’re close enough that Adam passed his Soulpen over. Think about it. How many of us would let our parents write a message to a Soulmate on our thigh?”The humans flinched but Keith shrugged one shoulder. “Depends on the situation? I’d say that this also is a bit out of the ordinary, though.”“Valid.”Keith nodded to Allura and Ryou. “Okay. We take this call. Where should it happen?”Nobody wanted to miss the chance that Shiro would be waking up soon, and everyone wanted to be there for Ryou and Keith as they handled this change in an already-strange situation. They had also discussed patching Matt in to this first call by Shiro’s bedside, since it was going to be one of the first times that he could speak with his dad since they separated on Olkarion. When the rebel leader took the call to see if he was willing to be on the line, Pidge was the one who asked him how he currently felt about Adam. There were heated words said before the young man sighed and said that he’d call back after he took a run and calmed himself down.Allura herself had called for Soulmate Privilege, which was a term respected among the Blade by now. Their medics paused before Keith at Shiro’s side, nodding in deference to him and three others they left: Allura, Lotor, and Lance.The door slid shut, and Lance turned to look at Keith. The half-Galra man was smiling, the expression proud and like something he had expected happening just occurred. The Cuban walked up to the Arizonian and nudged their shoulders together, leaving his against Keith’s to feel the warmth of his man. “What was that about?”Lotor blinked suddenly and clapped his hands together once with perfect childlike glee. “Oh! Do tell him!”Chuckling, Keith leaned up to kiss Lance’s cheek. “They trust my judgment to call them if there’s any problem with Shiro, and in that, they defer to me as a voice of the Blade’s leadership. They just acknowledged the leaders in the room on their way out, is all.”“Oh, okay.” Lance hummed. Blinked. “Wait.”Hunk snickered and leaned over Shiro’s bed to ruffle the soft hair. “I see it. Pidge does, too, but doesn’t want you to know that they admire you like that.”“Shaddup!” they hissed through their grin, hiding behind Ryou, who was grinning and nodding emphatically in agreement with Hunk.Lance looked around the room, and when his gaze fell back upon the Black Paladin, he whispered, “Really?”“Lance, we’re all leaders,” Keith replied, smoothing his hands up Lance’s arms, cradling his delicately-smooth face between calloused palms. “Black may not have responded to you before, but I’ve a feeling that you and she would be able to fly together soon. You took care of everyone when Ryou was struggling, thinking he was Shiro. You became my right hand and my support when I first flew Black, and you loved me through your frustration with me when we lost Shiro.”Keith wiped at tear away with his thumb, enjoying being of a height with his lanky Cuban man as he pecked a kiss to the tip of a tan nose. “But you’re soulmated to the leaders of two entire planets. You may just end up being Earth’s de facto representative to the Galra and Altean peoples because you three are together. For a lot of other planets, you’ll automatically be seen as Earth’s leader because of their status. The medics just started being pushy about it because they’re impatient with us for not telling you sooner, is all.”Lotor was grinning broadly. “Medics do not answer to the call of mortals, I’ve learned. Lance, are you all right, my starlight?”Pidge blinked up at Hunk, who was bursting with glee at seeing Lance stammer and stutter though reassuring Lotor and Allura that he was shocked, but okay. At slipping their smaller hand into Hunk’s broad one, Pidge sighed and smiled, feeling Ryou curl up close to their back and rest his chin on their head. Lance looked at them with a vague panic on his face, but the four others waved him off with smiles.They settled in around the foot of Shiro’s bed, and Keith was glad for the size of the mid-sized recovery room. It kept them close together, kept them relaxed once Pidge had switched the lighting to something softer, gentler on human eyes, not as clinical. It was relaxed enough that Hunk grabbed Lance and Pidge to help him bring some snacks and warm drinks before Matt called back. Keith, Allura, and Ryou explained some of Lance’s relationship insecurities to Lotor to give him context, which only endeared the human to his Galran-Altean Soulmate further. “Oh, Keith, I see why you are so soft towards him!”“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone!” Keith laughingly protested, leaning into the shove and giving one of his own, the whisper of his Galran brain settling into happiness at the physical touch. The Garrison trio arrived back with snacks and some warm drinks, Allura leaning in to press her cheek against Pidge’s, resting there until their shoulders both softened and tension drained from their foreheads.They weren’t the only ones seeking out physical touch to self-soothe, but they were the two who noticed that they were doing it first, and then went around to start snuggling up to their mates. It helped, especially when Pidge sat on Keith’s lap until he gave into his Galra instincts and scented the Danger Kit sitting so innocently in his lap. “You’re terrible,” he said as he not only dragged the edge of his jaw along their crown. “I can’t believe that you can get me to do this with only a blink,” he grumbled, feeling the tingle of his secondary glands, the motherfucking sex ones, along his cheeks and groaning softly and letting his head fall back. “Pidge, sweetheart, you’re gonna be sitting on a bit of a personal problem if you stay there.”“Huh. Really?”He leaned in and whispered, “I respect that you don’t want sex, but that doesn’t stop me from being incredibly attracted to you, and I’d like to talk about that when you’re a little older, okay?”And Pidge blinked, blushed, smiled, and nodded. “How’d you really figure that out for yourself?”“Fucking secondary glands started up.”Barking a laugh and proved that they knew what they were doing as they rubbed their cheekbones along Keith’s before stepping away. His breath left him in a wheeze and he didn’t dare break eye contact with the smug little minx. Who winked, grinned, and then they sauntered over to Allura and Lotor and the Prince’s nose wrinkled with a confused frown before he stared at Keith, open hunger aimed at him just from the scent of him.Keith hid his face in his hands and sighed. Soulmates were so complicated. He rubbed at his eyes and then leaned up to send a ping to Matt. The ping was answered with Matt’s call. He was still drying his hair off with a towel, excitedly talking about the sudden downpour that had caught him on his run. Their base had been without rainfall for almost a week, which was problematic on a world as water-rich as this one. Halfway through a sentence, Keith looked down to check on Shiro’s face and vitals when he saw it and his breath drew in with a hiss.Shiro’s eyes fluttered.Matt saw the moment that Keith was distracted, and Pidge moved the holoscreen to rest at an angle so that they could keep talking, giving Shiro some familiar voices to come home to. They ran their sleeve across their face, unwilling to look away from their first Soulmate.Lotor, understandably not as emotionally attached to Shiro, began to move slightly off to one side, smiling softly and holding up a small device to record this moment. He was glad that he was a bit of an outlier, attached to two and not seven. He was grateful for this because two was all that he was sure he could handle. Keith as an occasional lover or just as a friend to flirt with was enough. He had not gotten solo time with Allura and Lance yet, mostly because everyone has all been so entirely busy with the children, settling remains and decommissioning the cloning facility, caring for Shiro and Shiro and Ryou’s still-unnamed brother. But he was happy in a way that he hadn’t been for a very, very long time.Matt’s eyes were trained on Shiro’s face, darting only occasionally to Keith to check in on the young man who was essentially his little brother. He still found it hilarious that Sam had threatened Kolivan about making sure that Keith’s safety was a priority.Shiro’s eyes opened.They opened.It wasn’t the astral plane.Galaxies?“Keith,” he whispered, knowing those eyes.And then nobody could hold back the flood of Soulmates that surrounded his bed, and Shiro smiled, feeling . . .He held up his right arm in shock, fingers trembling as he realized that this body didn’t lose an arm in the arena. He had felt someone take his hand, which had prompted him to pull his arm away without thinking. His voice was a shaken whisper. “Oh my god.”Keith’s embraced him and helped him sit up as he stared at his two flesh hands, turning them over and back again, tears falling helplessly. His vision blurry, Shiro looked back up at the violet gaze, desperation making his unused voice crack. “Oh my god, I . . . I have . . . Keith. Keith! The disease?”“Gone, Shiro,” Ryou replied instead of Keith, resting his hand on Shiro’s right thigh and squeezing reassuringly. “It’s gone. You’re okay. “We’re okay. None of the clone bodies had the disease.”“We?” He looked to his right, saw his brother for the first time with his own eyes, and reached out clumsily to press his right hand against the image of his own face. He knew now who had taken his hand, knowing that he had to feel it first to believe that he had an arm again. Only Ryou would know that need.Ryou’s left hand held Shiro’s right hand up against his cheek with a smile, eyes soft. “Hey. I get to say it first. Welcome home, brother. I love you.”“Ryou,” Shiro breathed, unable to look away from the face that wasn’t his but was but was not his expressions and he couldn’t help but smile, gripping Keith’s hand in his left hand to ground himself. The long hair, white starting to creep away from just the forelock, was loose and it looked good. He hadn’t shaved yet, and while Shiro himself hated stubble, Ryou looked like he was comfortable with the grown-out look.The video call started without warning as the Earth side of the call joined in.Sam stared in happy shock, Ulaz and Thace invading Sam and Adam’s personal space, studying each of their loved ones on the screen before relaxing. Ulaz spoke first. “Keith, kitling. You look good.”“Ulaz!” Turning at the call, Keith saw the four faces on the screen and sighed. “Hold on.” Turning back, Keith watched Shiro and Ryou stare at each other, learning each other’s faces for the first time, he smiled and murmured, “This is the first time they’ve seen each other.”Adam was trying very hard not to sob, stuffing a washcloth against his face at seeing all the scars, all the pain. He had never wanted his Takashi to ever feel so much pain, and he had hated that he couldn’t prevent or stall or heal the hurts. He felt Sam curling him close, letting him cry into the uniform. He watched as what appeared as two Shiros embraced, holding each other tight with Keith helping hold them both up together. After a moment, they sat back and Ryou turned to the screen, Shiro continuing to lean against Keith’s chest, letting his Soulmate hold him up.Ryou smiled softly. “Sorry. We got distracted. Hi, Sam.”“Hey. You’re looking better than when I last saw you, Ryou. Keith, what happened to your face?”“Uh.” He cleared his throat. “I was under heavy fire at the time and it was a Voltron mission so my own damn fault.”Ulaz took this awkward moment to fill it with instructions. “Matt, you need more rest, idiot child. Lance, you need to stop following Pidge and let someone else find that little screech owl for once. Keith, you now have what Sam called a barn on your property and screech owls and bats moved in. And mice. We hate Earth mice. Tell Allura that Altean mice are better. Also, Colleen is a force of nature and I have a much greater respect for any of you who have ever disobeyed her.”“You’re scary like this,” Ryou chuckled, tucking a stray strand of long hair behind his ear, having chosen to leave his long hair untethered to dry out after his shower. “Also, you’re right on the money about Pidge being a fucking screech owl.”Adam, who clearly had just met his first aliens and wasn’t that sure about them being behind them, looked closer at the duality of the scarred twins before him. Soulmate scars littered the skin shown on both, and the tired eyes of the one with white hair gazed up at the screen. Though despite the evident exhaustion, they were hard, unyielding. “Whitmore.”“Shirogane,” Adam whispered.“I don’t like that he’s on your property, Keith,” Shiro growled, emotions riding close to the surface after his ordeal.“Let’s stop that right here.” Sam’s voice was firm, and it was a tone that Shiro always respected when it was used. “Boys, I found out a lot when I returned to Earth, so here’s the condensed version: Adam was removed from active duty for inpatient services shortly after Pidge, Hunk, and Lance joined up with Keith and Shiro on the Blue Lion and left Earth. He was released into Colleen’s care three months ago while I was still in quarantine at the Garrison. I got home a month later. There’s been a lot of work that I’ve seen done on his side. All of you know that it hasn’t been a very smooth road between Adam and I because of how he treated Matt and Shiro, then Keith later on.” Sam took a moment to gather his next words carefully. “He has shown growth, changed and lasting behavior, and he’s expressed understanding of how unhealthy he was for Shiro, Matt, and Keith.”Keith drew in a deep breath, feeling Shiro’s hand squeezing as hard as he could on his knee, having moved it in his agitation. Keith rested his left hand over Shiro’s, his voice calm, matured. “Adam. You wrote an apology to me on Ryou’s thigh.”“I fucked up so hard, Shiro, Keith. Matt. Matt, I’m so sorry. I . . . I just wasn’t healthy. I was toxic. I didn’t know why at the time, and I couldn’t stop. I’m . . . I’m not fixed, I’m getting better, and it’s hard to face all the things I was saying and doing in my own fear of abandonment and my fear that someone would get too hurt for me to help them through it. I’m so sorry. Please . . . I don’t even need forgiveness, just to tell you is enough for me.” He rubbed at bloodshot eyes. “I’m so sorry.”Matt sighed, rubbing at his face. He pulled his hair back into a ponytail. “Dad.”“I’ve been included for regularly-scheduled sessions, and I have permission to speak on some matters. This last year, Adam’s been working on understanding how that entire situation could have been avoided. He’s responsible for the specifics.” Sam looked up at Thace and Ulaz for a moment, who nodded. They’d step in to assist Sam; it was the Galra way to help parents with troubled kits. But it would require Keith’s permission for Adam to visit the property.Keith looked at Shiro, whose tired glare was losing against his need to rest. “Guys, one second. Shiro, want to lie back down?”“Need Katie.”Hunk looked to Pidge. “I think we can arrange that. Binder first, sweetheart?”“Yeah. Shiro, give me two minutes. Lance, I’ll need your help.” They leaned around the screen to smile and wave. “Hey, Matt. Hi, Dad. Tell Mom I say hi and that she’s gonna have other parents to help manage our Pride of Chaos when we get home.”“Gladly, Katiebird. You look good, kid!” Sam’s words were echoed by Thace, and a playful grunt from Ulaz.The Green Paladin eyed Adam for one long moment before sighing. “I’ll be back to talk to you. Maybe.” And then they were off around a privacy screen with Lance to help them out of the Altean binder.While the two were off, Keith smiled and looked around the group, especially those who were out of range of the camera. “All right, everyone into camera range for a moment. Sam, there’s been some changes. You have met a Lotor, but not the Lotor.” He motioned his almost-lover closer. “The Lotors you have met were clones, but this is the man whose genetics supplied the source material. He’s soulmated to Allura and Lance.”Sam hadn’t expected to hear that diplomatic articulation from Keith. He was now taking in Keith’s older look, the refining that had happened where it was clear that something had happened. There were changes, good ones. He focused on Lotor when the Galra began talking. “Ah, the human scientist! I remember you from two of the clones. You look healthier since returning to Earth.”“Well, now. Thank you, Prince Lotor. You look better thank your clones ever did. No offense, Ryou.”Adam looked scandalized.Ryou was snickering. “None taken. Oh. Shiro. We’ve another brother.”“Goddamnit, really? Yesssss. Obaa-san is gonna have a field day.”“You really think so?”“How spoiled was I? You have my memories. Wait, does he have my memories?”“Oh. Oh, Lawd. No, man, he’s got nothing from you outside of your genetic stubbornness to live. Thanks for that, by the way. Was helpful when I had to cauterize my own fucking leg.”“You’re fucking welcome, brat.”“You’re younger than me now, though.”“Psh. I’m the reason why you’re here to bitch at us.” Shiro reached up and shoved at Ryou’s face, getting a laugh in response. “Guess I’m really shiroi now, huh?”“The only person who’s gonna be bothered by it is you, y’know,” Ryou replied, keeping Shiro’s hand in his own. “I mean, but what would I know? I’m just a ‘sexy fucking rock-star space rebel’ according to Lance’s sleep-talking.”Hunk and Keith snickered at Lance’s groan from behind the curtain, and Adam’s face began to light up with recognition. “You’re one of the three students who broke into the landing site! I mean, we knew Keith might have had something to do with it, but . . .”“Oh, there’s so much that you’re not current on,” Lance replied as he returned, helping Keith maneuver Shiro and Pidge into a comfortable position where they could cuddle. Pidge had started to grow their hair out, so they had enough for hands to stroke through it or just tangled themselves in it again. He smiled and kissed both foreheads, finding himself held in place by Shiro, whose smile turned a little wicked as he pulled Lance in for the first kiss in this new body. Keith smiled brightly, enjoying that Lance had this moment, further reassuring him of his place in both cohorts.It wasn’t an earth-shattering kiss, nothing naughty, just chaste and soft, a little chapped, but full of love. Lance smiled and pecked Shiro again. “Glad you’re back with us, beautiful. I knew you’d look stunning as a silver fox.”Huffing a laugh, Shiro looked up at Hunk and Allura, both of whom leaned in to offer their own kisses. Ryou kissed his brother’s forehead, and Pidge kissed his cheek. Keith kissed him last, lingering while Pidge made gagging noises just for posterity’s sake, and then pulled away. “We’ll get you back on your feet soon, Takashi.”“Don’t wanna be on screen while sleeping,” he murmured, but it was enough to be caught by the camera. Ulaz shot a dirty look to Adam, but covered it with shifting his gaze to Thace.Thace, who had lost his left leg in an explosion and could no longer actively serve the Blades. Thace, who had saved many lives with his actions, who didn’t want anything more than a simple, unpowered prosthetic leg. Thace, happy to finally settle down with Ulaz. Adam didn’t notice how the look had been redirected, didn’t notice that it hadn’t originally been a look of soft love and adoration from one mate to another. Sam did, though. He kept focused on the soulmates as Lance adjusted the screen to cut Shiro and Pidge out of view, while keeping those standing around Shiro’s bed in view. “I’m so happy that this turned out better than any of us expected.”“There’s still a long path ahead of us, and we’re stopping at Olkarion before we start home to pick up some representatives of the Voltron Coalition to serve as a counsel on Earth.”“I’ll be on the ship, Dad,” Matt piped up. “What’s the atmosphere like at the Garrison?”“They don’t believe me, even with everything I’ve tried to say or show. That, or someone is trying to suppress the evidence and I’ve got some inkling of who that might be.”“Did they confiscate our messages home?”Sam smirked. “Well of course. Just not the original copies. I’ve forwarded those privately to your families, along with a request to record a message so that I can get it to them all. I just got the last reply back, and Ulaz will be transmitting them to my secure server on Olkarion for all of you when you arrive there.” He had to almost shout over the cheers.Keith smiled at all of his family celebrating, until a knock on the door interrupted them. He looked around the screen and beckoned the three closer. “Sam, I want to introduce you to someone very, very special in my life.”“Oh? That isn’t a soulmate?” Sam asked, laughing and teasing. “This must be someone special, indeed!”Krolia joined her son’s side, and Sam stared.Ulaz and Thace broke into cheers of their own, startling Adam as they shifted from their accented English into their native tongue. Sam was startled as Krolia replied in English, and Keith replied in fluid Galran, then the four grinned broadly and began speaking such a mishmash of the two languages until Kolivan crossed his arms and looked down at the floor for patience. Keith laughed at the fact that Kolivan was feeling left out of half the conversation, waving the other two to come forward.Kolivan and Coran did so, with Coran standing behind Allura with a broad smile and a hand on her shoulder and Kolivan standing behind Krolia, nodding to the formal greetings from Thace and Ulaz. Keith’s voice was warm, proud. “Sam, as you may have guessed, this is my mother Krolia. She was the person that the shack was designed to hide.”Sam’s face broke into a broad smile. “Krolia, it’s a pleasure. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”“Plenty, and of your mate as well; Colleen has managed my kit very well, considering that nobody told him that he was half-Galra. Stories of your mate have convinced me that she’s nothing short of the best mother that could have stepped into my place for my kit.” She smiled genuinely at Sam, and the expression shifted to something decidedly more predatory as she assessed the other human on the screen. “So. This is the Adam you had all those emotions attached to, Keith.”Trying not to play favorites but wanting to keep things relatively peaceful, Keith replied, “Yeah. Don’t threaten him, Mom; sounds like he’s had a rough couple of years while we’ve been out here.”Krolia huffed, but didn’t say much else. She just measured the young man up with her eyes before dismissing him and turning to look at Sam. “Samuel Holt, I and my clan are in your debt.”“Ha! No you’re not. Your boy is as good as my own son, and don’t forget that my child and yours are Soulmates. Which, then, makes us clanmates if Thace and Ulaz are to be believed,” Sam replied, looking at the image of his quietly-enjoying-all-the-emotions boy who was patched into the call. “In any regard, we’re running out of time on this side. Thace and Ulaz have informed me that there is growing discontent among some of the old-blood troops that they’ve kept under surveillance. Something about the Fires of Purification?”“Sendak,” Kolivan murmured in confirmation that he had heard of this. “That would be something that he would head. He’s . . . well. I’ve been learning more of Earthling history, and . . . race purity is still very much a stumbling block among my people. Keith and Lotor themselves, being extraordinarily talented in many fields, are considered too be ‘lesser’ when compared against so-called ‘pure’ Galra.”Kolivan realized that he had Adam’s full attention and decided to twist the blade a little bit. Krolia had a responsibility to listen to her son’s wishes when in regards to his personal life, but the cub was under his command at times. “Krolia has given me her full debrief of the two years that they spent in the Quantum Abyss; that time was equal to three weeks in current space-time. Ulaz and Thace, I’m adding a duty to your Senior status: I want arguments as to why I should not induct Keith into the Senior Blades. My argument is that he is was the Red Paladin, right hand to Paladin Shirogane during his tenure as the Black Paladin. When chosen to be Black Paladin, he transitioned with the other Paladins of Voltron to bring their unity and unique abilities to greater heights and greater victories. He has lead Blade missions with a success rate over seventy-five percent, has cultivated a bond with a Cosmic Wolf, returned Lotor to standard space-time—”“Jesus,” Adam whispered, not believing that the Garrison Washout for disciplinary issues had fucking real-world statistics and historical events attached to his name.“—has helped not only his own soulmates, but ensured the safety of the soulmates connected to other souls in his pride of lions—”Krolia turned to stare with dead eyes at Kolivan, her voice a low growl. “I argue. My son needs time to be a gods-fucked kit and young adult in love with his Soulmates, Kolivan. I will publicly eviscerate you if you continue to give him responsibilities.”Ulaz and Thace beat a hasty retreat, not wanting to witness this spat. The speed of their retreat was enough to make Adam and Sam look around, see the closing front door, and look back at their screen with no little trepidation.Adam just gestured to Krolia, not sure who to look at for an explanation. “She’s terrifying.”Hunk was softly laughing at the whole thing. “Okay. Okay, so. Let me interpret. This shit is wild.”Allura chuckled, leaning against Lotor. “By all means, Hunk.”“Yeah,” Hunk agreed quickly. “Krolia is fucking terrifying and you want to make sure you keep that in mind when dealing with Keith because he’s half her intensity coupled with every ounce of human stubbornness that we possess. Galra kits mature more slowly than humans, so he’s technically still considered somewhere along being in his late-teens by their culture, despite being a full adult in human culture. So Krolia has full right to actually threaten a commanding officer over how he treats her kit, due to the cultural value of children.”“Oh.”“Wait until you hear what she threatened Kolivan with a couple days ago!” Coran added cheerfully, always willing to stir up some trouble. “It was positively frigid. I adore her.”“I will end you, too, Altean,” Krolia huffed with less fire than what she aimed at her Leader.“You’re a delightful accentuation to the universe as a whole, Lady Galra.”“I’m no lady; my dick is bigger than yours and you couldn’t handle how I’d fuck you.” She thumbed over her shoulder at Kolivan. “I won’t go into details, but he could almost walk the next day.”“Mom! Jesus fuck,” her son groaned, hiding his face in his hands and bowing his head, not wanting either of the adults behind him to see that he was trying hard not to laugh.Kolivan choked and walked out of the room entirely.Adam was silent. Sam was trying not to laugh. Keith revealed that he was smirking. “Look, there’s a lot that you have to catch up on, and it’s going to take time. And yeah, there’s a lot that Mom passed down to me for why I am the way that I am. But I wanted to see you with my own eyes before encouraging Ryou to continue to communicate with you. Adam, you hurt Shiro so badly. He’s probably never going to forgive you, and that’s . . . that’s life. I’m sorry, but it is. Ryou isn’t Shiro, and . . . and their triplet isn’t either of them. He’s . . . very sick. Sicker than Shiro ever was. But he’s stable. We don’t know if he has a soulmate. Do you get it, though?”“I . . . have a chance . . . for a soulmate,” Adam whispered, eyes darting between Keith and Ryou. “I never thought . . .”“I know,” Ryou replied, voice firm, sounding very much like his brother for once. “Like I said. I have Shiro’s memories.” He drew in a deep breath. “I remember you before you began to obsess over Shiro’s health. I miss that version of you. I’m confused because we’ve never met and I know you. Adam . . .”The man began to cry silently, tears just falling down his face. “I . . . am so sorry. I can’t say it enough. I fucked up. I really, really fucked up and I know it and I . . . I want to somehow make it up to all of you, but I don’t know how.”Keith sighed softly. “Let’s refocus for a moment. Part of this call was to establish that we don’t want people to panic when we get home, and to see what Sam’s been able to do to prepare for our arrival.” He sighed. “Doesn’t look like we have much help from the Garrison, which I’m not shocked about. Adam, I want to know the you that’s different from the you in my memories. I’ve had a long time to think, and I lived two years when my soulmates lived three weeks. Shit’s fucked up out here, and there’s a lot of people who need a lot of help, but . . . we need to get home. To Earth. That’s now our priority.”Adam looked to Sam, then sighed and looked at the door. “I don’t know how to help Sam yet. But I’ll figure out how. Is there some way to write to you with updates?”Ryou looked to Keith. “I’ll be his contact. It’ll give me time, too.”Keith nodded, making a decision not as a Soulmate, but as Black Paladin. “For now, all communications will come through the official Castle channels and will also be read by senior command. That’s until or unless Ryou requests otherwise for private communication between you two.”“Whatever you feel is best,” Adam replied. He bit his lip, then asked, “How should I address all of you?”Keith took his time considering, looking to the others. Some shrugged, some seemed to look like they wanted more from Adam than just him showing that he knew how to apologize. Best to err on the side of caution. “We’re Paladins, pilots of a caliber that make the Garrison’s cutting edge training and technology look like children’s toys. Until stated otherwise by an individual, you’ll address us by title and last name.” He indicated Coran and his mother. “Advisor and Commander, respectively.”“Thank you, Paladin Kogane.”Keith introduced everyone quickly, ending with, “And this is the Altean Princess Allura, and her consort the Prince-Regent Lotor of the Galra Empire.”Sam blinked at that, then asked, “That’s a new title. Regent, Lotor?”“My son,” he murmured proudly, happily. “We found him at the cloning facility with some other children. He would be a much better ruler than I would ever be. I am much happier to spend my life doing research than playing politics.”“I can’t wait to meet your—”A baby wailed outside the door. Keith chuckled. “Hold on.”Walking out of camera range, he indicated that the screen be turned away from Shiro’s bed entirely. Lance and Hunk did so, speaking with Sam about the logistical nightmares that he was facing while trying to get the Garrison to believe that the threats against Earth were legitimate. Even with the videos that they had sent home, it was a fight.Kolivan stood outside the door with One and Five and didn’t re-enter the room with them. Keith embraced both children, letting Five transfer over to him and curl up over his heartbeat, headbutting his neck. With a smile, he wrapped his right arm around One’s shoulders, rubbing the edge of his jaw along the top of the barely-thirteen-year-old’s head and getting a giggle. He did the same to Five, but added a raspberry to her cheek to elicit a delighted giggle before playfully giving One the same treatment and getting a barked laugh and a gentle shove.Sam and Adam nearly lost it with how cute that was, but kept silent at seeing the Galra behaviors look so natural by Keith’s expression of them. The camera had been pointed towards the door by accident, and Hunk and Lance were also cooing at the cuteness that was Keith being all fucking adorable with the kids. Keith still didn’t know that he was being watched until Five turned and shrieked happily, holding her hands out towards . . . Shiro.Still awake. Softly listening to Katie’s heartbeat. And he saw the child, eyes widening at the instant reaction of want that she exhibited towards him.Lotor stepped in front of the view. “Commander Holt, we will work on a time for the next video call. I appreciate the time that you’ve spent already with us to catch us up.”“Regent Lotor, it is my pleasure. I’ll let Ulaz and Thace know that it’s safe to return.”“Huh. Usually it’s the other way around.” Krolia smirked. “Sam, next time I’d like to meet your Soulmate as well.”“We’ll make it happen, ma’am.”“You may have my name as you have earned Kolivan’s. We’re all parents of the same cohort.” She eyed Adam for a moment. “Commander to you, child.”“Yes, ma’am.”Nodding once, sharply, she turned the screen off and then moved just in time to see Shiro open his arms to the little girl. Her smile was soft at seeing the little girl and Shiro begin to learn each other’s faces. This wasn’t the child that she and Keith saw in the fluxes, looking so much more Galra than what her little sister may someday be. Shiro’s voice was soft. “Well, hi.”She burbled and rubbed her face against his chest. Shiro looked up at Ryou and Keith, lost. “Who is she?”One had already burrowed himself against Lotor, Allura coming up to bracket the young Galra against his father. Keith smiled sadly and brushed starlight hair away from silver eyes. “It’s bad.”“How bad, Keith.”“She’s genetically your child.”“Haggar?”“Haggar. Five is half-human, half-Galra. Just like me, but with different parents.” Keith swallowed and continued. “Remember . . . how she got her hands on Thace some time back?”Drawing in a breath, Shiro looked down at the toddler’s face. She was so similar to him. To Thace. The second half-Galra, half-human child that they know of. And his heart melted as they stared at each other for a long moment. “Does he know?”“No. Just us for now. We didn’t want news that we’d found them to get into the wrong hands.”“He should know as soon as possible. I want her to grow up with both parents in her life.” He smiled up at Keith, eyes glistening with tears and a smile hovering at the corners of his lips.Keith wiped the tears away with his thumbs, then smiled and rubbed their noses together. He knew that Shiro had never dared to hope to live so long as to have children. He didn’t want to be a parent, and then for his body to take him away. Keith had once argued with him about this, asking for Shiro to at least freeze some sperm away. It had been a long fight that hadn’t ended, only was interrupted with a call to form Voltron. The never returned to that discussion, but as the disease was gone . . .Shiro, the mature adult that he was, stuck his tongue out at the little girl.Who, promptly, returned the expression before they giggled at each other.“Yeah, they’re related,” Matt laughed, still on the call since he hadn’t been connected from the Earth side. “Wow. She’s super cute, Space-Dad.”“Maaaatttt,” Shiro groaned. “I’ll have her call you Uncle Matty.”“Ouch, dude. Keith’s already teaching her to call me that.”“Eat me.”“Excuse you, that’s my job,” Keith interrupted.Krolia threw her hands up. “My son is an uncouth heathen. This is what I get for leaving him with humans. Barbarian children, do you see this?”But the sass was met with Keith’s laughter as he leaned in and kissed Shiro again. “Shiro. You have a little girl. What do you want to name her?”“I don’t know,” he whispered, smiling up at Ryou, who leaned in over Pidge to snuggle closer, lifting Five out of his arms but letting her kiss his cheek and try to groom his left eyebrow. Everyone was trying to now push closer, touch him, rest close to him. “Give me a few days and she and I will find a name. You named your wolf yet?”“Oh my fucking god, you too?! Asshole.”Shiro smiled, feeling sleep take hold with the warmth and pressure of his family around him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was easier and more energy-efficient to make a wormhole to Olkarion than to fly direct. Allura would have weeks to recover from the Quintessence drain, and was eager to not be on a ship for an extended amount of time. Once there, it was easy to land the Castleship for a long couple weeks of repairs, recharging, and resupply for both flying fortress and individual Lions. The only Lion that did not allow for any but her Paladins to approach was Black. She hadn’t spoken to any of them, merely let them through her particle barrier to do work on her. Keith was surprised by the eagerness that Shiro exhibited at wanting to do maintenance, until he realized that for one very long year, this had been his body.Once the most pressing maintenance had been done, the Paladins and their company were instantly squirreled away. Their current residence was a very private property a short flight from the Capital. The soft solitude assisted them with sleeping the slumber of the dead and getting pampered between light training sessions. The property had once been a private residence which had been slowly reclaimed by the forest during the Galran occupation. Ryner and her other engineers had revived it into a facility that was equal parts medical and rehab center and pure pampering remote resort.The Shiro triplet was settled in and he, along with an amazing team of medics and scientists, was working closely with Ryou to begin formulating a treatment plan that would free him from needing external assistance.It was early afternoon when Shiro walked into his brother’s room. He had been transferred to a liquid tank that took up most of the room. He could stretch in all directions and not be in the exact middle of the tank and still not touch a wall. The tubes that assisted his breathing and blood circulation were thankfully hidden behind an opaque sleeve. A happy wave met him, and Shiro grinned at his black-haired brother. “Hey! I’m finally allowed to walk around without babysitters. It’s a miracle.”The sharp grin preceded the lit screen that the man used to communicate. I know the feeling. I had to kick out Lance just now because I needed some space. “Oh! If it’s a bad time, I can go,” Shiro offered, pointing to the door.
No, please. Stay. I texted Ryou, since I want to talk to you both.
Shiro nodded. “Any closer to finding a name?”
Somewhat. I like the names Hayato, Masaki, Akimi, Akito, and Masashi, though Masashi Shirogane . . . wait. Shirogane Masashi?
Smiling, Shiro nodded. “Family name before given name.”
Oh. That changes things. How would these sound, then?
Ryou walked in to hear Shiro reading back the full name as it would be said when they arrived in Japan. Once finished, their brother curled up on himself loosely, thinking very hard. Can you say the first two again? “Of course!” Shiro smiled, reaching his hand out to touch the glass. “Shirogane Hayato. Shirogane Masaki.”Masaki. That’s my name. He looked over at Ryou and reached his other hand to the glass, bracing himself so that he could press his palm there.Ryou shoved tears away with his free hand as he pressed his other to the glass. “I like it, punk.”Shiro smiled at his brothers. “Did you want to record something for Obaa-san real quick?”Their faces lit up and chorused their desire to do so. Shiro pulled out the camera to hold it out selfie-style to start recording. All three waving, Shiro started off speaking in Japanese. “Hi, Grandma! No, don’t get your prescription checked; Outer Space is wild. We wanted to send you a message to let you know that I’m all right and our family is getting bigger in a few ways.” Switching to English, he continued. “There’s been a lot that’s happened to me, and very little of it has been good. The short of it was that I was cloned, and out of all those that were made from that procedure, only two of my brothers were able to survive. We’ll tell you the whole long story when we get home, but for now, I want to introduce you to my two little brothers. We’re calling ourselves triplets, but we know that the whole story will eventually come to light. Tell the village that I’m just bringing more family home than we expected. I love you so much. I miss you, and can’t wait to come home.”He turned the camera over to Ryou, who grinned bashfully, tucking a loose strand of hair behind an ear. “Hi, Grandma. I’m Ryou. I’m really nervous about this, but only because I’ve got the most identity-crisis of the lot of us, and my memory for spoken and written Japanese really didn’t, uh, transfer over from Shiro. That’s part of the long story. But I . . . I remember what it was like to be Shiro and to be loved by you, so I really can’t wait to go home and see all the places he saw for myself, for my first time. He and I are also soulmates, and I’m part of his cohort. I’m really interested in getting into the medical field to help advance Earth’s capabilities to the bare minimum of the health standards out here.”“We’re so taking her joyriding in Black,” Shiro said with a laugh. “Oh man, Obaa-san, you’re going to love my ship! We can bring you out to space and you can really see some amazing things!”Ryou blinked. “Wait, isn’t it Keith’s ship?”“Naw,” Shiro replied with a broad grin. “Black’s mine. He’s just borrowing for now. I’ll tell you later.”Laughing, Ryou held up the camera to show their currently-tanked brother. Who was waving and grinning broadly beneath the mask keeping water out of his nose and mouth. Shiro pointed down at the screen. “So he’s got the million-dollar mind, and is able to code directly from thought to the screen using some techniques that are available out here.”“Which is why I can’t wait to bring all the cool tech back home,” Ryou gasped dramatically.Shiro snorted. “Yeah. He got that from me, too, Grams. So. This Masaki, and I didn’t expect him to choose Ojii-san’s name before he passed. We’re still working on a voice simulator for his system, but that’ll probably end up getting finished after we can get him out of the tank. So I’ll read out loud for him for today.”Masaki had looked surprised that he had was nodding at the different points that Shiro made, allowing himself to bob and float. Thankfully, he had much more space and was able to start strengthening exercises that Ryou recalled from Garrison training meant for astronauts who had been in zero-gee for too long. So he was almost back to a physical condition that would allow them to start planning the next steps. “Hi, Obaa-san! I didn’t realize that I had taken the name of a family member. Is that okay? I’m really looking forward to getting home to Earth, and I’m not going to lie, I’m glad that people will be able to tell us all apart. I honestly have no working knowledge of any Earth cultures, so I’m really excited to learn about Japan and our family history. Shiro’s been awesome, and I’m really glad that he’s the source we were cloned from. He—”Shiro choked up and Ryou bracketed him in, moving the camera around to pin Shiro against the tank glass, where Masaki was pressing himself against it with a gentle smile. Ryou took over, kissing Shiro’s temple. “He could have taken our existence as personal hurt, but his heart is too big for that. He took Ryou and I as gifts, treasures. I can only hope to be capable of returning and continuing to pass on that sort of love. Thank you for raising him the way that you did.” Shiro was wiping at his face, then gave up with a wet laugh. “How could I not see the two of you as gifts? I always wanted siblings. I’m not gonna get mad about how I got them.”Ryou laughed and licked a broad stripe across Shiro’s forehead, causing a guttural noise of complete disgust and a scuffle that ended with Shiro getting the camera back. “We’ll record more and send it to you later! Love you!”He paused to get all three of them in the shot before clicking the stop button and immediately sending it to Earth, entirely unedited. Stretching his neck and looking to Masaki, he grinned. “Baba will love that you chose Jiji’s name, but don’t let her catch me calling her that. Scuse me, I have to teach a brat some lessons.”“Come get some!” Ryou laughed, darting out of the room with Shiro in hot pursuit.They made their way in a game of parkour-chase to the already-occupied training courtyard. The moss-grass underfoot was springy, growing back overnight if it was damaged by boots or weapons. It became a no-brainer to ditch formal or uncomfortable clothing (especially shoes) as much as possible. It was almost as large as the training room on the Castleship, surrounded by a one-story structure. That was easily-scaled in case of needing to get somewhere high very quickly was necessary, with low vines everywhere. Shiro himself scaled it under a half-minute the first day they arrived, and he’d made considerable progress since that point.Pidge and Matt were sparring in light clothing and trading notes with Keith and Krolia, who looked to be cooling down and sitting on some conveniently-shaded smooth stone benches. Hunk and Lance were sprawled out in the most-sunny patches, soaking up sunlight while wearing the barest of essentials. Water droplets were still evaporating from their skin, and it looked like they had simply dunked themselves in the fountain that had been rebuilt in a corner to cool off and return to the sunlight.Ryou stumbled at seeing Hunk, not used to the big man baring almost all. He bit his lower lip and for the first damn time, actually felt something stir towards someone.Ryou’s distraction was to his undoing as Shiro tackled him and sent them rolling directly into the Holt’s tussle. That started a loud four-way brawl that had Ryner poking her head out from a third-floor lab window to watch. Lotor and Allura saw her stillness and walked over to look down at the humans in the courtyard.Playing.Laughing.Teasing each other.Rowdy children playing outside on a sunny day under a parent’s watchful gaze.It was universal.Ryner’s smile was one that has seen children grow. “Good. These young souls needed this rest. Have they been speaking with our healers?”“Daily, just as we have been,” Lotor replied, his voice warm. “My One has started asking about what names I might have liked to call him, for example. Sitting with him and one of your healers helped us untangle his need to please others for survival. I told him that any name is a good name if he finds it to be the right one for his essence. Your healers have also told me that his aptitude and ability to shift and change his mindset in order to survive is genetic; until he is older, we will have to guide him carefully in understand this aspect of himself.”“You’re wiser than your years.”“I’ve had the unique displeasure of living a double-life through my clones and learning from their poor life choices. It’s rather uncomfortable.”“Fair.”Allura was still watching her soulmates and their families playing. Krolia’s head was thrown back in a laugh as Matt caught a mouthful of grass and dirt from a poorly-executed attempt to throw Shiro. “They really are just children.”“Yes,” Ryner whispered. “And we have made soldiers out of them. This is on our shoulders, Altean.”They watched the children until they tired, slowly picking themselves up to start heading in to the bathing facilities, spirits still high.Allura felt Lotor’s hand slide into her own, and she sighed softly. “Yes. This was a decision of war that was cruel to them. It hurt them. It will continue to hurt them until there is peace again.” Drawing her considerable will in, the Princess turned to look at the Olkarion leader and said with steel in her voice, “I dare you to say that you would have made any different decision in my shoes. These were the individuals that the Lions responded to. The choice was not so clear-cut in the beginning. We will see that my Paladins, my Soulmates, are given the rest and the abilities to do whatever they want to do once we have worked together to eradicate Haggar and the Fires of Purification.”Ryner smiled and nodded. “Then you’re going to need to bring your Consorts to go see a certain other Lion, aren’t you?”Lotor paled and looked to Allura. “A human? Allowed in Oriande?”She squinted hard at Ryner. “So it would seem. What other secrets do you hold?”“Hardly more than that. Speak with your Balmeran when you can; the time of keeping secrets of how Quintessence interacts uniquely with each sensitive species is over.”
~*~
Matt stared at Shiro and Ryou. “Wait. Wait, you mean I can finally meet your brother?”“Yeah, because he’s sure people won’t get as freaked out by what he called his ‘science experiment’ stage.” Ryou shoved his prosthetic hand into a pocket, looking to Shiro for the next steps. He liked not making decisions, and it fit well with their relationship dynamic. “His bad sense of humor is only outshone by Shiro’s.”Shiro grinned at the jab and it was the same shiteating expression that Matt had almost fallen for as a teen. Barking a laugh, he shook his head. “This is awesome. Okay. What’s he like?”“He got all my wiseass nature and none of my filters. So your mom was right in that it was genetic,” Shiro laughed, slinging his right arm around Matt’s shoulders and walking him down the hallway. Ryou took Matt’s left and rested his left arm around the narrow waist. It was a little awkward, hips bumping against each other occasionally, but they laughed and enjoyed just being able to be friends again.Coming to the door, Ryou bounced up and pressed a button. “It’s a doorbell! He fucking programmed it himself. I’m telling you, this guy is seriously as smart as Pidge and One, and is starting to train on using the Olkarion drones.”“No shit?” Matt laughed, walking in with them as the light turned green. “Hey!”The man in the tank was already staring at the door, a ready smile on his face. Blinking twice, he stared hard at Matt’s cheek, then frantically waved to Ryou, pointing down at the screen and up at his cheek. He’d managed to program a basic self-teaching language AI to act as his voice. It worked by picking up new sounds spoken by Shiro and Ryou to integrate into its index. “We match there! Oh my god, that’s the pain I felt! Was it a knife? Who are you? Shiro? Ryou? Who is this?” Matt’s breath caught in his throat and he walked closer, resting his hand on the class and staring at the scars and lines crossing Masaki’s body. “Surgeries? It was you?”Shiro closed the door and locked it with a shaking hand, Ryou backing up to let these two talk.Masaki made a motion of lifting a shirt, which Matt did easily, showing that he had the same precise pattern of scars. Matt’s voice was soft and warm. “Well shit. Looks like I have a soulmate after all. It just took you a few years to show up, handsome.”
“With all these scars? I’m passable. At the very least, you’ll make me look good.”
Matt laughed and winked. “Cute. Modest. I’d like to pit our minds against each other with some Olkari tech. I’ll almost be sorry to make you look bad.”
“Quaint. Can you triple-modulate a trinary code in Galran yet? Or are you still working on human double-modulation?”
Ryou and Shiro hissed in unison at the burn. Matt was flattened for a full second before he grinned and murmured, “Oh, I can’t wait to get to know you better.”The door flew open and Pidge ran in, closing it and launching into Matt’s side for a hug, grinning up at Masaki. Then, with a slow realization, turned to Matt and saw the matching surgical scars. Their voice was a shaking whisper, reality crashing hard into everyone in the room. “Oh my god, why didn’t you tell us about this? How long have you been hiding this, Matt?”Curling his kid sibling into an embrace, Matt whispered, “A lot of reasons. It’s okay now, though. Masaki and I won’t let this happen again. Not unless it’s necessary.”“He’s might need a few more surgeries,” Ryou warned them both, stepping closer. “My lungs are the healthiest right now, as is my heart. I was the genetic donor for cloning those organs. So there will be some more scars added intentionally. I’m sorry.”“Lungs and heart to get you out of the tank? That’s two. What else?”Masaki was the one to answer, his face sober. “A possible surgery. Elective, down the line. I’d rather not talk about it right now.”“Absolutely, my dude. If you wanna talk about it, you bring it up, I’ll only talk about heart and lungs and how I can help you with recovery.” Matt couldn’t look away. It was the face that Shiro had once possessed, still young, still fresh and excited about making it to the edge of their solar system. Hair black as the Void and that not-quite-filled-out-yet frame. Shiro and Ryou joked about being meatheads and had started everyone in on several “Bro, but bro” conversations during their group weight- and resistance-training sessions. Somehow, Matt had the feeling that Masaki didn’t have the same drive that his brothers did in that regard.He couldn’t wait to hold this soulmate in his arms. He really couldn’t wait.
~*~
In the evenings, the soulmates usually wandered off to their courtyard that acted as a common area between the various suites allotted to those recovering here. Coran, Matt, and Krolia all chose single rooms, which made a sudden late arrival almost awkward.While Matt met Masaki, Keith sprawled using Krolia’s thigh as a pillow, half-asleep as she wove patterns through his hair. Since the group had decided on only closing doors when they really didn’t want any disturbances, it was no shock that someone would walk in.What Keith hadn’t expected was for a chirped noise to escape him on the exhale of an automatic breath to smell which of his family had walked in.A deep, reassuring rumble replied, almost a purr that buzzed through Keith’s chest and settled somewhere along his spine. Keith’s eyes snapped open and he looked up to see Kolivan, stern face melted into a timid smile. Only . . . Kolivan didn’t smile timidly. He didn’t make to leave, just waited to see how he would be received. “I apologize for disturbing you both.”“I don’t think you disturbed us. Keith, the noise you just made was a kit’s welcome home noise to a parent. You’ve only used that noise in your sleep when I would return from patrols on the whale,” Krolia said softly, a fingertip tracing his eyebrow. “Are you okay with this knowledge?”Knowledge or death.Keith sighed and relaxed back into the pillows and tossed blankets that filled a low dished-out portion of the floor. “Well, we all know that you two are bound to get back together. I already approve of Kolivan, he’s already adopted me, but I just would like to not be around you two if you’re, uh . . . doing that.”Snickering, Krolia undid the half-lazy braids and smoothed her son’s hair out. “Do you mind if Kolivan naps with us today?”“He’s spent time with the main Nest, so I’m good with him here.” He opened his eyes and smiled up at Krolia. “Mom, I’m polyamorous both by accident and destiny, so I’ve learned to not get too jealous over different-but-similar kinds of relationships. He’s not going to take Dad’s place in my heart, just like he can’t take Dad’s place in yours.”That seemed to be the crux of Krolia’s insecurity, and Keith let his Galra instincts take over to curl himself as small as possible up on his mother’s lap as she wept fresh over the loss of her chosen mate. Kolivan closed the door and carefully entered the nest, not scenting it despite how much it drove through his veins to reassure mate and cub that he was there to protect them. But that wasn’t what they needed right now. He waited until Krolia’s gaze met his, inviting him closer.Keith watched as Kolivan made to duck his head under Krolia’s as the head of their small family, only to have her put a hand on his shoulder and raise his chin to rest over her forehead. “No. No, I need you to be you, not a shadow of yourself to ease my pain.”His eyebrows lifted, then furrowed as his lip curled and he gave in himself to the drive to make his family smell safe. That meant sharing scents and rubbing jaws and the backs of wrists against available skin, even if Keith didn’t have the tertiary glands. After a few moments, Keith’s human brain caught up and he broke the moment with a giggle, realizing exactly where he was.Keith, Black Paladin, was sitting cross-legged on Kolivan’s back as the big Galra was protectively hunched over Krolia and scenting her face with a brief, flirtatious swipe of his cheek to hers.The room was positively flooded with the notes of all three scents.Krolia started smiling next, and Kolivan let himself relax at the changed atmosphere. Shuffling into a pile with Keith safely tucked between both adults, Kolivan paused to brush hair away from faces. “In my grief over losing Antok, I never expected that the universe would fill my heart with a family.”Keith headbutted the muscled chest instead of replying, and Krolia’s deep gaze found his and held strong as the kit settled into a light doze between them. Her voice was soft. “Thank you for saving my kit.”“As soon as I knew whose blade he held, I regretted putting him through the Trials.”“I know you would have. But you gave him the chance that was his right to demand. And you kept him safer once you helped become a very necessary point of stability in his life.”Kolivan smiled down and opened his mouth, only to find that Krolia had anticipated it and pressed a finger to his lips. He waited, and she drew in a soft breath. “Kolivan of Marmora, may I court you?”He curled Krolia and her sleeping kit closer, his breath a sobbed, happy whisper. “Yes.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Later that evening, the Pride and their family moved their communal nest into Masaki’s room.The Olkarion healers had agreed that he had advanced enough in his reconditioning to allow him to start moving outside of his tank. But instead of immediately changing the room the way they had done with previous remodels, they smiled and held out a circlet to Matt, who blinked at seeing a matching one on Masaki’s own head. “What?”“This will help with your communication with each other. Why struggle when we have the means to ease your heartache?” one of the medics had said with a smile. “We do this for our love-pairs and love-groups when one must remain in a medical facility for treatment and the other is unable to stay by their side.”“It’s . . . this is a luxury?” Matt asked softly. “I can’t . . .”“It’s not a luxury,” Ryner replied. Matt, so used to working shoulder-to-shoulder with this surrogate aunt at this point, listened to the stern tone in her voice. “Little Holt, this is standard medical procedure on Olkarion. Had we known that you and Masaki were soulmates, you would have been fitted with this the moment you arrived. Do humans heal faster when around their Soulmates?”“It’s . . . an old wive’s tale,” Pidge said, their slow smile blooming. “So what you’re saying . . . is that we literally heal faster when surrounded by the harmonic quintessence of those we’re bonded with? It’s really true?!”“A simplification, but essentially. This is why I have urged the Princess and her Prince to continue their research in Oriande when they are able to. There is much information that we do not have access to anymore, and much more that we won’t know if it’s possible unless we try.” Shaking her head, Ryner returned to the initial subject. “These circlets operate slightly differently than their older Altean cousins; it takes more conscious thought to activate them.”Matt took the headpiece from the medic and looked it over again. “So this is, in some way, almost like what Pidge feels when they’re connected with their Soulmates and piloting Voltron?”“Your head-hole gets a lot less private,” Keith confirmed, the smile on his face automatic and soft in a way that Matt had never really seen before. The Black Paladin continued, his hands carding through the waist-high mane of his canine companion. “And don’t adopt a Cosmic Wolf if that idea makes you uncomfortable; they’re more intimate than trying to connect with a Lion or another Paladin. If what I’m getting from what they’re saying . . . this is the ‘training wheels’ version of what we trained with. Hunk?”“That’s actually not a bad idea. Hey, do you have a spare two that Pidge and I can test real quick?” He had a tech at his elbow immediately, and grinned. “Oh, thanks!”“We’re really excited that you’re all so compatible with our technology! And that you’re interested!”Ryou and Lance couldn’t not share the delighted look of “fanboy!” that passed between them. Hunk, as his usual boisterous self, laughed and hugged the Olkari technician to his side in a one-armed hug. “Aw, it’s just cool that I don’t have to try to invent something and can play with an alien culture’s toys! It’s seriously awesome, thank you.” Releasing the stunned tech, he took the circlets and handed one to Pidge while he put one on his own head.The low-level buzz of their mating bond was regulated almost immediately. The itch under their skin to be close was soothed. Pidge closed their eyes and began to explore the device with their mind, seeing how each component did a specific thing. :Holy shit. We need to adapt this for everyone to wear. Not all features, but until we’re able to stop fighting as Volton to focus on us, we absolutely will need this to help us stay centered.: Hunk nodded slowly, conveying this and the further information while Pidge ran through several tests. They tossed their thoughts at him to test frequencies and if they could find a way to break it before shrugging and shaking their head. Hunk turned to Ryou. “We’re gonna need to test this more later, but you’ve been talking more about getting into being medical support for us. Do you and Coran have time to take on turning this into something that we can integrate into daily wear or into our armor? If your bandwidth is taken up by helping Masaki, Pidge and I can play with this.”Ryou took a moment to think about this, taking both circlets as Pidge and Hunk handed them over. “Maybe. Masaki, I think this might actually be more up your alley, but let’s talk more about that later tonight. We have a room to rearrange first.”“Leave that to us!” The starstruck tech said, placing an engineering circlet on that matched three others in the room. They each took a corner and worked in tandem to lower the tank almost to the floor, which was raised about a half meter out to give people seats on the edge of the tank and handholds for Masaki to be able to get out of the water on his own. The rest of the room stayed at level while they prepared their next step. They shrunk the entire tank down slightly and draining the water, they waited until his head broke the surface. They started pulling the floor of his tank up in low steps that would help him walk out on his own, but also stand in the water and let it take some of his weight if he was having a hard day.Pulling the mask off of his face and the earplugs out to place in one of two sterilizers at the corners of the medical pool, the man draped his arms up over the edge and met Matt in a wet, messy kiss that had the entire room cheering. Breaking apart with a smile, Masaki whispered, “Hi.”“Hi.” Matt stroked the scar on the side of Masaki’s face with his thumb, breathless with the fact that it may be similar to Shiro’s smile but that mind was all Masaki.The triplet cleared his throat a few times, then looked over his shoulder at the tether that kept him alive. He didn’t fully understand how it worked, only that it did and it meant that he could breathe and speak normally when not confined underwater. Though rusty with disuse, his voice was strong. “Think I can get an extension cord? Or turn this into a retractable leash? Gotta let a dog get at his person more than just for kisses.”“Oh my god, Shiro, he’s so related to you,” Lance laughed, leaning back against Lotor, Hunk holding his hand and smiling.Masaki laughed, eyes brightening up as the medics came up to scan him and Matt, who had put the circlet on and was holding Masaki’s hand, fingers woven tight around each other’s hand. While they talked, the techs had finished making a modified nest area that had a secondary, smaller space just for two people that was steps away from the pool’s submerged stairwayKeith took Allura and Krolia’s hands and tugged them towards the piles of pillows and blankets that had been carried in. Shiro, Ryou, Hunk, and Lance all walked over to speak with Masaki, while Lotor began the first of many trips to cart over the remaining bedding. Allura took this moment to ask softly, “That kiss we shared . . . are you sexually attracted to me after all, Keith?”He shook an old, and many-times-patched quilt out, taking the time to smile at the hand-stitched fixes. Sadly, many households were wiped out during the occupation, and a rotating team of workers had been going out to redistribute supplies to where they were needed. Comfort items were freely shared amongst all, with the Paladins requesting comfort over “newness” to give Olkari families items that were a little less ragged. What the Pride hadn’t told Ryner was that they were bringing all of these blankets and pillows back to Earth with them. Yet.Keith’s voice was a little deeper, a little more sure than it had been a month ago. “I’m considering it? Mostly at least giving us a try in that way. I mean, you’re my only female Soulmate, and to not even try to see if a sexual aspect would improve us would feel like I’ve wasted an opportunity.”“I . . . had hoped you might want to at least give us a try,” Allura whispered, voice happy and soft. “But I didn’t want to push. And then . . . that kiss?”“I could feel our Bond renew. It was really fucking cool and also really fucking confusing.”“We’ll talk about that tonight, now that we have almost everyone here.”Looking up after placing another few pillows, Keith blinked at his mother, who was smiling. “Okay, what?”“Grandkits after all?”“Mom!”Lotor huffed a laugh before shaking his head and shrugging. “Nests are ready?”The trio took a look around, then nodded at their work. Keith felt himself settle down a little at the sight and smells that had been gathered here. “Yep. Good for people to start invading.” He turned to see that Matt had slipped into the water with Masaki, talking with the medics and making sure that he knew how to keep Masaki safe until he didn’t need to rely on the machines. “Let’s wait to see if Masaki is going to be able to be in his own nest before we get everyone settled to talk.”In the end, someone ran for a few sets of dry clothes and Masaki was helped by his brothers and his Soulmate into dry pants. Ryner confirmed with the medics that he was given more than enough slack to move around the entirety of the room, but cautioned everyone again to be mindful. He was bundled up with careful layers of soft and cozy fabrics and found himself between Matt and a grumpy, rangy Galra that ran delightfully warm. (The Galra put his arm behind Masaki to give him another place to lean against.)It was the best way to come out of a tank. No more surgeries. At least for now.It turned into everyone finding a way to sit shoulder-to-shoulder. One looked delighted to be between Keith and Lotor, his hero and his dad. He felt considerably grown-up right now to be included. He knew that by this point, all the other kids had been set to bed and wouldn’t be up until the morning.Shiro looked around before asking, “On a scale of ‘zero’ to ‘Zarkon’s returned from the dead,’ what’s the priority of what some of you have wanted to talk about?”“About a seven of ten,” Allura replied honestly. “Important, but not dire. Anyone above me?”There was nothing until Shiro chuckled. “Yeah. I beat you. I’d rather be with the Lions while explaining this, but what I say today could help us reach our Lions’ consciousness from here.”Allura whispered, “That’s . . . a rumor. One that my father and the other Paladins had the capability, I mean.”“It’s not rumor. They were able to do that and more from what I learned while I was with Black.” He smiled and drew in a deep breath. “Your father wasn’t able to reach his goal of creating Voltron alone. He did his best, and he created some amazing ships, but the soul of each Lion isn’t who he was anticipating that it would be.”“What do you mean? I was there. Alfor—” Coran stopped himself, fingertips pressed to lips and a frown deepening between his eyebrows. “He was elated, and kept having to stop himself from saying something. Kept saying that what he had called over was more than he had expected.”Shiro nodded. “So. With the Lions’ bodies being made from an inter-reality comet, it allowed individuals from another universe to attach themselves to these ships. We’ve all seen and physically interacted with their manifestations as lions. But they’re so much more.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how else to say this. They’re us, after we’ve died in another reality decades from now.”In the middle of the silence, Keith blinked twice and just started laughing. Rubbing at his eyes, he goes, “Yeah. Red’s me.” He looked around. “So they can be piloted by several people, though, right?”“It takes a lot of time to synch up between Paladin and Lion, but yes. And most of us can switch Lions, should the need arise. But they’re not soulmates, you know. But with all of us being soulmates, we’ve made it easier for them to connect to us. They came to teach and assist us because realistically?” He looked at his fellow pilots. “How in the fuck could we have realistically done any of what we’ve done? I’m not saying we’re not awesome, but shit.”Pidge snorted and punched Shiro’s shoulder. “Speak for yourself. I’m superhuman.”“You’ve always been superhuman. Their Pidge is a chick, just so you know.”“Wait. Really?”“Haven’t met her, but yeah. She’s a she. Shiro and Ryou hadn’t counted on genders being different.”“Oh damn. That’s interesting. A little weird.” They leaned closer. “Okay, spill.”“So Black is meant to have two pilots. And she’s massive because she’s got two sets of quintessence powering her.” He thumbed between himself and Ryou, who was sitting on Pidge’s other side, Hunk pressing against his prosthetic shoulder. “And she’s been fucking hiding shit on us because of that. So it’s both Shiro and Ryou there. Ryou’s the wings, the eyes and ears, and the overall amount of firepower that Black is capable of as support. Shiro’s the strategy and mostly manages keeping Voltron connected while formed. The others help a lot, like you know how Yellow and Hunk were always great at grounding us?”“Oh.” Hunk grinned. “It’s because she’s me. He’s? Okay. Serious question. Pronoun usage?”“I, uh. I didn’t ask?”“Shiro!” Pidge gasped, then laughed because they knew what he’d say.“I know! I had other things on my mind! I honestly didn’t get a chance. Time was weird there.”“Yeah, I know.” They sighed and slumped a little. “Well, I wonder what it’s like to know what gender actually is and how it’s supposed to feel. Maybe she can tell me.”“Gender’s complicated, Pidge,” Keith murmured from across the circle with a smile. “I’ve had to struggle with it, too. Talk after?”“Yeah, talk after. Sorry for hijacking this, Shiro.”He pulled them closer to his side, tucking them under his right arm and kissing their forehead. “I love you and it’s okay.” He looked around again. “So. We’re going to need to talk to them about all of this.”“So . . . is Allura not with the Lions?” Lance asked softly, not daring to make eye-contact with anyone.“She is. Somehow. Shiro was unclear about that, saying that Blue was a special case. But when we get back to the Lions, I think that we should enter the Astral plane to really set some things straight.”“I agree,” Allura replied, her voice soft but strong. “The time for secrets really has come to an end. I admit that out of an overabundance of caution, having been personally betrayed during the war, all of my secrecy has done more harm than good. And I truly am sorry for withholding information.”Their pain at knowing that she had deliberately kept back knowledge that could have assisted them was evident. Though the concentration scattered when Kolivan and Krolia nodded in slow agreement.The Galra duo looked to each other before Kolivan spoke softly. “Since Keith woke the blade he holds, I knew whose son he was. Krolia had made report of her promotion in Ranveig’s company that very morning. I knew their exact locations at all times; there were several moments where it was close enough to make me worry that it would distract the wrong agent at the wrong time.” Drawing in a breath, he sighed and shook his head. “This is a particular guilt that their stated forgiveness and understanding will never ease. Know this: secrecy is sometimes necessary. But wisdom is learning when it’s time to speak and when it’s time to protect the knowledge.”“And with that,” Allura huffed wryly, “he very gently called us both the fools.”“Galra poetry, my dear,” Lotor laughed, bending around Lance to kiss the Altean mark on her cheek. “Though his prose was gentle admiration of a peer; it was quite adorable.” He smiled and dragged his lips along Lance’s in a daring challenge on his way to sitting back up.Hunk was staring at Allura (whose entire attention was caught up in watching her mates finally get on with the program), one arm crossed over his chest and the other supporting his cheek, pinkie finger tapping against his lips. He knew he had Ryou’s entire attention right now, and he knew that it started when Ryou saw him in barely anything. The man was distracted. It was flattering. And so Hunk continued to play like he didn’t notice. “Okay, so . . . the cats are us. What else is super important about this that put it above what Allura had to say about Quintessence?”Shiro grinned. “Well. For starters. They have a greater knowledge of Quintessence than we do right now. And they might be able to help us get to Earth faster.”Matt thought about that for a long moment before asking softly. “Do you think they knew how to get home this entire time?”Shiro knew that tone, and he looked to his left, directly into his brother’s Soulmate’s eyes. And he grinned broadly. Before anyone else could speak, One asked, “But how would that have changed anything? And if they did bring you back to Earth . . .” He sighed, a noise far too old for his tiny body. “I wouldn’t have met you.”Keith slung his left arm around One and pulled him close in a hug. “Don’t be so sure about that, kid. We would have had to get to the cloning facility to help the Shirogane Idiots at some point.”“Hey!” three identical voices chorused, each with differing intensities of outrage.Lance snorted a laugh. “Oh my God, that was perfect. You three. Wow. Okay. So. Allura, what was it that you had to tell us?”She shrugged nonchalantly. “We all apparently need to go to Oriande on the way to Earth. All of us.”“I’m sorry, what,” Keith demanded softly. “Last I heard, that had been enough of a trial for you.”“I do not disregard the sobering nature of this possible mission.” Allura drew herself up and made eye-contact with everyone before continuing. “But there are at least two people here who must visit there.” She looked at her loves, seated at her right. “Lotor, and Lance.”Masaki frowned lightly. “I’m not going anywhere for a while. How imperative is it that they get to this Oriande? And will a human survive the trials?”“It’s possible,” Lotor murmured. He rubbed at his face slightly before shaking his head and pulling his braid around to untie it and rebraid the bottom third nervously. “I find that my clone’s rashness at only the two of you attempting the journey disturbing. I feel that it may be necessary to have support ready.”“Oh, I’m not doing that same thing all over again,” Allura reassured Lotor with a smile. “But even the journey to get there is dangerous, and I would be glad of the company of my Soulmates. But Masaki is correct in assuming that this is important enough to come back to pick him up afterwards.”“And me. I’m not going anywhere without him. What about the other kids?”“They’ll need to stay here, much as I’m going to hate leaving Five,” Shiro answered. “But this is more dangerous than transporting them.”One looked around at the Paladins. “I know that me and Five are going with you, but . . . what about Two, Three, and Four?”Krolia and Kolivan smiled, and the Leader nodded once. “They’re coming, too. The Blades will need to repurpose ourselves once the is over, and as you know but the humans may not, kits without parents have a lot of say over what they want their living situation to look like. They have said that they want to stay with the Blades for now as a communal pack. Since a significant amount of the Blades are coming with myself and the Paladins to prepare Earth, so the children will stay together.”“They’re my siblings, as much as anyone could be, I suppose,” One murmured, looking down.Keith drew in a breath and pulled One fully onto his lap and curled him up under his chin. “I don’t know if everyone will understand that, but I do. Let’s take a walk before we nest down tonight, so you and I can talk and I can tell you more about my past.”“Why not now?”Chuckles, some gentle at his innocence and others more of a scoff at the shit Keith had to deal with, confused the boy. Keith’s voice rumbled through his chest, and the boy gentled with it. “Because there’s a lot of hurt there, and not all of everyone here has had time to process that hurt. A lot of people are angry that they couldn’t be there for me when I needed them. That make sense?”“Yeah.”He looked around. “Actually. Any other business? Masaki’s wilting.”“Am not,” he murmured, already half-asleep between Matt and Kolivan.“Uh-huh,” Shiro commented. “C’mon, let’s get you two snuggled down. Keith, taking that walk?”“Yep. Get some spots ready for us?”“You got it.”And with all that information still swirling around in everyone’s heads, Keith helped One to his feet and left. Krolia watched after her boy and hissed into the quiet after his departure, “I require a list of names.”Pidge smirked and lifted their chin in challenge. “I have it.”“Wait, what?! Pidge!” Shiro gasped.Hunk blinked and then nodded. “You did that after upgrading Keith’s security system, didn’t you?”“I have all of our official files and records. All of them. You want names, Krolia?” Pidge curled a lip at their mother-in-law in a subtle Galra smirk that had Lotor delighted all over again. “You’re going to have to take me with you.”Kolivan sighed and stood. “Now do you believe me that the kit is the most dangerous of all of you? They know all.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The messages from Earth arrived almost a week after Masaki had been able to leave his tank, making it almost three full weeks since they had landed on Olkarion. Included was one marked “From the Holts, watch last.” By popular vote, it was decided that they would watch all the videos together once the last one finished downloading. And it took time while the last bits trickled in from the relays, so they had snacks and drinks as soon as the countdown hit double-digits.With a cheer at zero, the Soulmates began to settle into their nests.But someone else arrived before the messages could play.Lance and Ryou had been in on this, along with Pidge, Matt, and Masaki to help organize it all.They had just managed to get everyone settled when there was a knock on the door. Shiro had snuggled down next to Keith with a happy noise and a sigh. He and Masaki had done some strenuous tandem physical therapy with the Olkarion healers earlier in the day. That session ended with Ryou gently carrying Masaki back into his pool to relieve the pressure-pain of gravity on his lower back and hips, and Keith half-supporting Shiro as he walked back to lay down for a while. Thankfully, that had been hours ago, and both were refreshed. When Shiro looked up to see if he should get the door, Hunk’s hand rested on his shoulder. “Nah, one of us will get it.”“Could you?” Lance pleaded from where he was currently being sat on by Pidge, pressing him against Allura. “I’m hostage.”Laughing, Hunk leaned in and kissed all three foreheads in quick succession. “Yeah, I got you.” He turned and walked to the door, hearing everyone continue to shuffle themselves behind him with happy noises and excitement. He couldn’t blame them; he’d been looking forward to this all day, even if his and Shay’s schedules couldn’t line up for a call for another week.Opening the door, he stared at the person on the other side for one long, disbelieving moment. And then Hunk’s eyes overflowed and he hid his face in his hands.Shay embraced her lover, whispering into his ear. “I have you now, Skyling. Let us be strong for you and your Paladins, now. You’ve been so strong for so long. I will carry you while you rest; my Tribe will guard your cave.”And indeed, Shay picked Hunk up to where he saw that his Soulmates had actually shuffled off to the sides to place him in the middle, Shay still curled around him. Her clanmates leaned around the door briefly to wave their greeting, but didn’t introduce themselves to the new faces or enter. They disappeared again, letting the door close between them as they started up a conversation in their native tongue. Hunk didn’t deserve his soulmates and his lover, and when he said as much, they gently reminded him that everyone in their group deserved everything about the love that they all gave willingly. Shay herself whispered, “And you deserve more than what we can give you, too. Your gifts to the universe will not go without notice, Hunk.”
~*~
There was an intro file, and it prompted cheers when Colleen’s face came into focus.The video clearly had been captured while she was in Keith’s old shack. She wore dusty clothing, work goggles pushed up on her forehead and dirt etched into the creases of her smile-lines. She was covered in sawdust on top of the desert clay and sand. This must have been around the time that they built the barn on Keith’s land.“Katie-bird! You look fantastic in your Paladin armor! Your dad also was able to sneak away a bunch of recordings and photos of all of you to send to all the families in addition to your messages, and I am blown away at what you are doing. I’m so proud of you and I’m so happy that you’ve been finding your own. And Sam tells me that he’s given our consent for you to progress with your transition! I’m so happy to hear that there’s safer ways of doing that than what we have on Earth! I hope to get some messages back, but I understand that this is all very hush-hush. Please tell everyone I say hi!” She smiled and added, “The rest of you, I know you’re watching with Pidge, so let me tell you this: You’re all so wonderful. Thank you for helping keep my kiddo safe and for tolerating their sassy wit and flashes of genius. Shiro, if you’re awake again, I love you so much. And so that everyone knows what I said all those years ago, when you first realized that Pidge was your soulmate: You have always been good enough for my baby.”She snapped her fingers and the smile turned into a grin. “Ryou! Welcome! I can’t wait to meet you! And let’s see . . . Allura, you sound delightful and I can’t wait to welcome you home. Sam’s said that you’ve had a lot happen to you in your life. You’ll always have a place at my table and a hug waiting. I’ll keep this short since I’ve gotten some hints that some new tech is on the way here for some live calls. I’ll see you all soon!” She smiled, blew kisses, and waved before reaching to turn the camera off.Allura stared. “That is your mother, Pidge?”The Green Paladin sniffed and nodded, too happy to cry. Being able to speak with their father recently had helped ease the ache they felt for home. “Yeah. She’s pretty awesome.”Lotor leaned over to nuzzle both Allura and Lance. “She sounds delightful and yet I have the feeling that she can be just as terrifying as Krolia.”Every human nodded, expressions serious. Shiro cleared his throat. “So, she plays at being a good ‘Garrison spouse,’ who shouldn’t rock the boat. Senior Officers warned any and all staff, officer, or faculty that if you saw Colleen Holt on a warpath, you either got the fuck out of the way, or you held doors for her and went to go let Security know that you want in on the popcorn. I love her. She’s been a mom to me since I immigrated to the States for the Garrison. But I have also held the door open for her and sat in with security to watch her tear someone a new asshole over some sort of policy change that had a truly negative impact due to negligent verbiage.”“What is she? I mean, what does she actually do?” Lotor asked, looking to Pidge and Matt.Matt laughed. “Oh my god. You’re gonna love this. She’s the Garrison’s head lawyer.”Lotor blinked for a moment. “Can I hire her to help run my Empire? Those who know about this situation have been quite helpful, but we remain in a problematic state until one of the cruisers can come and perform a formal adoption ceremony.”Pidge blinked at him. “I don’t know, can you hire her to do that sort of job? Let’s return to that one later. Whose video do we want to see next? I vote for Hunk’s family.”“Hunk’s family!” Shay, Lance, and Ryou chorused. The boys laughed and leaned around a laughing Shay to lay several kisses on Hunk’s face until he was giggling and shoving them both back. (But not without first stealing kisses from each of them.)Shiro found the video and hit play with a smile.And four humans started the video with cheers and overlapping declarations of love and joy. Hunk pointed them all out excitedly, tears streaming down his face. “There’s Mimi! And Mom, Poppa, and Dad. Oh my god, guys, they look like they’ve had such a hard time . . .”Shiro didn’t pause the message but he did say quickly, “We’ll make it better for them and for you, Hunk.”Mimi spoke first, “Baby boy, you are so handsome, and I’m so happy that you were able to get a message out to us! I wish we could send you out some spices to give all your humans soulmates all the flavors of home! Pidge, Lance, I’m glad that you two were already with our savory little muffin when all this went down! You both look so good, and I’m glad that everyone came together for a brief message to introduce yourselves.”“Oh my god, she calls you her ‘savory little muffin,’ I cannot even,” Pidge cackled, leaning in to rest their hand on his thigh and smile up at him. “It’s so perfect for you, Hunk.”Hunk didn’t tear his eyes away from his family, but he did lean in to kiss their forehead just as Dad started talking. He looked so much like his Dad and had both his and Mom’s stockier build. Even as he grew the last two years, he retained mass via solidity of muscle, and grew in height enough that he had settled into his weight and size in a way he had never quite had done before. It helped that being around aliens, he had seen so many new and different body types being touted as “ideal,” along with his Soulmates not batting an eye at him, that he wasn’t insecure out here. On Earth, that’d be the real test. He’d probably lose his goddamned mind at the first human doctor to fatshame him.“Hunk, you are growing up and I love you and I’ll get gushy in person, you know this.” The man grinned, eyes disappearing with the broad expression. “I just wanna say that your Lion is gorgeous. Everything you were showing us, everything about her is a real work of art and I can’t wait to see how you make her move!” He smiled again, sighed, and whispered, “Come home soon, son. I miss my boy.” As he began to get a bit misty, the odd one out of the group smiled and curled the mechanic against him.“Poppa,” Hunk breathed.The slim ginger man, entirely the odd man out among his Samoan Mom and Mimi and his Hawaiian Dad, was young in comparison. He looked barely older than Shiro, but the maturity in his soul showed with his words. “I’m so proud of you, and I’m so happy that you’re going to be coming home soon. It took some time for that Holt fella to get in touch with us, so I guess that we got the most complete updates before recording our message to you.” He paused to reach over and grab a tissue for his lover, kissing salt-and-pepper hair before returning his attention to the camera. “You have had a long road, an important job, and have had to grow up a long, long time before you were ready for it. I’m proud of you. But I want you to know something, son.” He leaned closer. “It’s time for you to fucking rest. I don’t care where you are or what you’re doing by the time this message gets to you, I want you to fucking set down, grab a couple mates, and fucking cry it out and sleep it out and rest it out. Your soul is strong, kiddo. You’ve always impressed me with how big and strong your heart is.” He smiled reassuringly. “And if this is just another thing confirming that you gotta take time for you, well. We all know how the universe works, yeah?”Laughing through his tears, Hunk nodded and replied through a watery voice, “Yeah. Message received, Poppa.”Mom was last. She raised her hands and started speaking, Hunk leaning in to listen to her message through sight, smiling at the tremble of her hands. He felt Shay’s touch start to tremble, and then he was hugged tight around his stomach by her, her cheek pressed to his to watch at his level. When her message ended and she looked to Mimi, Shiro hit pause. His voice was soft. “Is Mom Deaf?”“She is,” Lance and Hunk replied in chorus, smiling at each other.“That’s how you know ASL,” Keith murmured, smiling and leaning closer to kiss Hunk’s shoulder. “That makes sense now.”“Did you want to translate what she said?” Shay asked, smiling softly. “Her language is similar to one that we use on the Balmera. I’d be very interested in learning it, if that’s not rude to say?”“It’s not,” Hunk reassured her. He drew in a deep breath. “I think I’ll keep a lot of that to myself for now, is that okay?”“Absolutely,” Allura reassured him, smiling broadly. “But I agree with Shay; I would love to learn some of this language so that we can better communicate with your mother. Is there any assistive tech available on your planet for her?”“Plenty, but a lot of the tech currently out is designed by Hearing folks and not Deaf folks, which makes it difficult for her to adapt. She didn’t want to use any implants when she was old enough to make that choice on her own. My Grandparents were amazing, you know? They surrounded her with the Deaf culture in our region and she really just took it by storm and transformed it and advocated . . .” He grinned so broadly. “On our little island, ASL is the fourth-most-popular language. Mom made that happen. She’s a social worker and once she and Colleen started talking, went back to school for a law degree so that she could help write legislature to help further protect the Deaf communities in our country.”“I’m still shocked that your planet remains disparate countries at war with one another.”“Mostly, yeah,” Shiro replied. “A lot of countries stopped wanting war after a while, and have been focusing on treaties. I wonder how far that’s gotten in the last three years?”“Or how far it hasn’t gotten, Shiro. C’mon. The political climate was shit when you left, shittier when the Blue Lion kidnapped us, and I’ve a feeling that Dad’s encountered that it’s become the shittiest yet after being quarantined by the Garrison.” Pidge snapped their fingers and laughed. “Hit play, hit play, hit play!”Laughing, he obeyed to show all four of Hunk’s parents saying good bye. “Who’s next?”There was silence as everyone looked around. Finally, Lance swallowed. “Let’s . . . see what my family has to say.”Shiro hit play.It started mid-cacophany and a burst of Cuban Spanish, English of various accents both American and Cuban, all yelling over each other love and welcome and laughter and bright voices and happiness and Lance was weeping as his Mamá hushed everyone. Shiro stared in shock. “Holy shit, is that Veronica?!”“You didn’t know we’re siblings?!” Lance felt Hunk’s hand take his own as Mamá started talking. “Lance, you must have been so nervous telling us about not only all that you’ve been up to, but also that you have so many soulmates. Your father and I want to start by apologizing.”“Oh,” Lance breathed.“We didn’t know any better. We were wrong. We tried to make the most sense out of your situation, and we failed. We hope that you and all your amazing soulmates can forgive us. Seeing how proud you are of your Allura, of your Keith and your Hunk and your Pidge and your Shiro and your Ryou . . . it makes us very happy to hear about all the additions to our family. Veronica has told us about Shiro and Keith, and I know that she’s also had some experience herding that Pidge out of labs, isn’t that right?”Veronica laughed and nodded. “Always in the computer labs after hours, and now I understand why.” She winked at the screen. “You’re welcome for not writing you up every time. Lance, Commander Holt got some video of your combat exercises, and excuse me but when did you have the time to learn how to use a sword?!”“He takes after his Mamá’s family,” Lance chorused with his father, siblings and nephew and niece laughing at the phrase. Papá smiled and the resemblance was clear. “My boy, I’m glad to see that you’re doing well, and that you have such amazing soulmates. I can see why you were destined for great things. Please, bring them all home to us so we can welcome them. You know we’ve always loved a big family. If we scandalize the neighborhood with your many soulmates and your alien friends, then it’s about time.”“Wait. Uncle Lance has alien friends?” the little boy asked, and Lance smiled, pointing the kiddo out.“Silvio, my nephew. Behind him are his parents, Luis and Lisa.”Veronica laughed and nodded. “And an alien soulmate named Allura, remember that, Nadia?”“She’s so pretty,” the little girl breathed. “And an actual princess, right?”“An actual princess,” Mamá chorused back with Veronica and Rachel, who Lance named quickly. The woman smiled and shook her head. “We were told that we wouldn’t be able to send a long message this time, but we wanted to give you a quick update on the family. Everyone’s doing well, but Pop-Pop had a health scare and has been the last stages of recovery. A few of the older folks have passed, but nobody that you were close with. We love you, Lance, and we love all your soulmates!”Papá leaned closer with a smile. “Come home soon if you can! I know you’re doing a lot of hard, good work, but we need to see our boy and his new family. I love you, son.”The video ended, and Lance dropped his face into his hands, feeling Lotor and Allura curl closer and his other Soulmates also press in. Nobody said anything for a long moment. Lance sighed and whispered, “Oriande then Earth. No more stops on the way.”“No more stops,” Allura whispered, fierce and reassuring. When Lance sat back, she brushed the last of his tears away and kissed the frown between his eyebrows. “Do we just have that last one from the Holts again?”“Yeah,” Keith replied, moving in closer to kiss Lance. He moved away to let Shay reach in and pull Lance to sit between herself and Hunk for the last video, sticking her tongue out in a childish expression at Allura. The Princess laughed and hooked her arm around Keith, dragging him back and settling him between herself and Lotor, who immediately started grooming Keith. The Black Paladin huffed a laugh and relaxed into the motions, Galra hindbrain soothed.But it wasn’t Colleen and Sam that opened the next video.A positively ancient Japanese lady sighed. “Shirogane Takashi, you have always gotten yourself into the most absurd trouble.”The room burst into cheers at finally seeing the woman who raised Shiro. She broke into a smile and shook her head, thankfully giving the pride a chance to settle themselves. “Your grandfather warned me that trouble always came in threes with Shirogane boys, and I had told him that it was a good thing that we had one of you after your father and two uncles turned my hair white. I think that it’s a better thing that we now have young three Shirogane sons and all their soulmates to help even out the playing field.”Shiro coughed a laugh through his tears, feeling Ryou and Masaki lean in closer, feeling their smiles against his shoulders.“Now, have patience with me, because I went and told my sister that we have to edit the family tree with at least ten additions.”“Baba, nooo,” Shiro and Ryou chorused, laughing.“Since you and Ryou are already deflating at that knowledge, there’s a silver lining. She and Colleen Holt are now good friends and you won’t have to worry about any of the legalities around making sure that my Ryou and Masaki have legitimate identities at home and in our family. And Colleen has made sure to give me the most delightful list of soulmates. I’m very pleased to see that you’ve been surrounded by jealous lovers. Now. I assume that Ryou and Masaki are there with you. I’m very happy to meet you boys, and as an old lady, I’m glad that you three have different hair so I can yell the wrong names at each of you.”Laughter broke out at that, and the grandmother continued. “I have to get going, but I’m going to let you in on a secret.”“What?” Shiro whispered, frowning.“We’ll see you sooner than you expect.”The screen went black.“What?” Pidge echoed. “Wait. Wait!”
Matt blinked at the screen, then grinned when Incoming Transmission flashed to life. “Accept call!”
The holoscreen split into a myriad of smaller screens, people cheering and waving and wearing all different things than the videos and . . .
Sam and Colleen Holt sat on Keith’s couch, Adam between them. Ulaz and Thace sat behind the couch. Hunk’s family. Lance’s family, with Veronica patching in from the Garrison. Shiro’s grandmother and great-aunt. And finally, after the tears settled, Hunk’s Poppa grinned and said, “So. Universe came calling for my boy and gave him more family, huh?”
“Looks like our children did more than just that,” Baba said with a smile. “How are the actual children doing, Takashi? Sam said that you rescued five little soulmates recently.”
The Paladins went silent, and Shiro released a breath. “Not how I would have wanted to address this, Obaa-san, but this is good news for someone else on this call. Hi, everyone. Uh. I wasn’t part of that rescue mission; it was Ryou and Keith who ran that operation.” Shiro thumbed towards his brother, who was silent and waiting for his direction. “I . . . well. Okay. So this body is a clone of the body I was born into, minus the health conditions. The kids that we found . . . weren’t clones of anyone, but were created by artificially insemination.” He felt Ryou take his right hand, and Keith moved to sit behind him. “There are five children, named by their number of birth. From what we could tell, they’re all half-Galra, mixed with races that proved to be particularly . . . lethal . . . in the arena matches that I fought in. One is the oldest and Prince-Regent Lotor is his father, Five is the youngest.” He drew in a breath. “Genetically, she’s mine and Thace’s.”
Ulaz’s jaw dropped and he looked to his equally-shocked mate. Thace’s face lit up and he jumped up to roar a laugh, yelling in Galran a traditional announcement of a child. Picking Ulaz up and spinning him around with a laugh halfway through his cheered jubilee, he moved up beside Colleen, Ulaz now helping keep his balance. “Shiro! Shiro, what’s her name? What’s she like? Is she brave like you?”
“She’s the bravest. Absolutely precious. Mostly Galra kit in nature, but is sweetly human in ways. I didn’t want to name her without talking to you, and we weren’t going to get a call for another two days,” Shiro said with a smile. “I have a human name, but I want her to also have a Galra name.”
“I’ll find one. What’s her human name?”
“Akimi. Meaning ‘to form oneself.’ I think it’s a good name for her to grow into.”
“Yes. Perfect. Thank you. Stars! Can we meet her? Tonight?”
“I’ll ruin her routine and it’d be worth it,” Shiro confirmed.
Hunk turned back from where he and his Mom were talking. “Guys, Mom’s cool with me translating, so do we want to get the kids in here?”
“Why would you have to translate the analog way?” Lotor asked, genuinely curious. “Don’t you have visual-speech-to-text programs?”
Mimi translated that while Dad grinned openly.
And Mom exploded with a flurry of motions.
Hunk translated her rage at being denied time and time again by companies who were “not interested” in development of such tech, and Lotor was shocked all over again. Finally he held his hands up and shook his head. “I mis-stepped! Voids, Keith, your entire planet is a mess.”
“Don’t be mean,” Keith replied, reaching over to shove at Lotor’s shoulder. “Okay. I don’t have blood-relatives on the screen, so let me go and get mine.”
“Keith, wait, what?!” Veronica asked, leaning closer. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t get the memo that I’m half-human?” Grinning, showing off the sharp canines, the half-Galra replied, “Turns out that my Mom left me a blazing neon sign that would help me find her. I think you’ll like her. Or she’ll terrify you.”
“Sis, spoiler alert, it’s both.” Lance looked earnestly into the camera. He kept his face and voice deadly serious. “But I’m a big fan of her work.”
The room erupted at his flirt and Keith, laughing, got up to go to the door. When he stepped outside, he saw Shay’s clanmates, Manu and Qep, enjoying their own conversation. Pausing their hand-speech, they looked down at Keith. Qep, the neuter and smaller of the trio, nodded with a smile. “How’s it going in there?”
“Very well, thank you. Did the Olkarions kick you out of doing your own lifting and moving of your homestead?”
“There were fifty of them,” Manu replied, his deep voice reminiscent of the slide of dark gravel. “We made a strategic retreat to allow them to organize it on the Castle as they see fit. What can we help you with?”
“I’m getting the kids and my family.”
“Then we will carry the children. They’ll enjoy a wild nighttime Balmera ride.”
Keith smiled, his voice soft. “I know that I would have loved one as a kid. I’m glad we could give them a better life than I had.”
Manu’s smile gentled, and he leaned down. “You’re still much younger than me; a child to me, really. Want a wild Balmera ride on the way to get the real littles?”
Keith would neither confirm nor deny that it happened when asked, but there was rumor of a single copy of a video showing a dark-haired lanky human adolescent holding on for dear life onto the shoulders and back of a cavorting Balmera male. And if one asked to turn on the sound, one would hear the shrieking, breathless giggles of a child.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Pidge stared hard at the dim displays of their workstation in their lion’s hanger. They were parked as closed as they could be to the Patrulian Zone. Lance, Lotor, and Allura had left the Castleship just that morning to begin the trials at Oriande, leaving the refreshed Paladins with their least-favorite task: waiting. Unlike previous times, there were zero battles planned and a plethora of distractions that helped keep everyone from spiraling.And that’s just what they were: distractions.“I’ll be working with Green this afternoon,” Pidge said over lunch (dragged as usual into joining everyone instead of hoovering a nutribar). This came after their anxiety and frustration had boiled over and they had found themselves wanting to snap at Masaki of all people. The young man had zoned out in the middle of their conversation in order to stare at Matt sauntering in with Keith and Shiro. Pidge didn’t want to think about their brother that way. “I think that knowing that everyone is trying to keep our cohort from vibrating ourselves into imploding is probably doing a little more harm than good for me.”“I told you that we were being obvious,” Krolia said to Regris with a smug air. “Trust a Senior Blade once in a while, will you?”“Unlikely,” the younger Blade sassed back with a laugh.Keith rolled his eyes at his friend before turning to look at Kolivan, Coran, and the rest of the table. “So what will you be working on with Green?”“Well, Shiro mentioned something about a different type of connection and communication between Paladin and Lion; I want to test that out.” They took a bite of a sandwich that could almost pass as a ham and cheese to prevent themself from saying something that they shouldn’t while they had folks in the room that didn’t have Paladin-level clearance.Keith, still the Black Paladin while Shiro continued to regain his strength and connection with his Quintessence well, tapped his lips with his spork. “You know, that’s a good idea. Everyone up for some informal training with the Lions while we wait for our royal trio to return?”A smaller-than-usual chorus of affirmation met his ears, and the half-Galra man grinned brightly. “Nice. Let’s finish lunch, then meet me in Black’s hangar with your Lion.”
~*~
When Pidge got there with Green, they weren’t surprised to see Yellow there.They were surprised to see Red.Their viewscreen popped up to show Keith in Red, Hunk in Yellow, and then Shiro and Ryou showed up in Black. Shiro was the first to speak. “Pidge, this was a great idea. I’m going to personally be testing where I’m at for my piloting skills and quintessence connection and will not be fully engaging in this training exercise. Ryou is probably going to be joining in? Did you come to a decision on that?”“Mm, yeah, I’ll be ‘joining in’ all right,” Ryou echoed in a sultry tone. “Don’t be afraid to also join in, Shiro.”“Oh my god, Ryou.”Keith sighed. “This is going to be hell when we’re going on audio alone.”Meanwhile, Hunk and Pidge were laughing and angling themselves into position with Black and Red, all four cats facing inwards.“So we’ll catch Allura and Lance up after this?” Hunk asked, still wiping his eyes from laughing at how similar the twin Paladins sounded. It was almost like Shiro talking to himself, only better because Ryou was very much his own man and with virtually no attachment to the strict control of self that Shiro lived by and was driven to experiences that supported his love of self-discipline.The comedy potential was what Hunk was here for! He Ryou’s hair was long and loose whenever he wasn’t on a mission or doing maintenance. He usually had patchy stubble lining his chin, upper lip, and jaw, and his favorite clothing was often baggy and warm, soft and comfortable. It made Hunk’s heart melt as he got to know this very soft man that had emerged from the programming that Haggar had attempted to imprint upon this unique soul. He’d more than made up for the harm he had done to Lance, going out of his way to listen to Lance, Hunk, and Pidge rather than speaking his own mind. He knew about Shiro and Keith’s history, but what he learned about this second core of the Pride had really softened Ryou. They could only react to the new scars and comfort one another until Hunk had met Keith, learning as much as he could about the other two-fifths of what Ryou and Allura would often refer to as the original cohort: the first five of the new generation of Paladins. It was something that brought the clone and the Altean princess together in a way that they hadn’t anticipated:There was an adoration and a quiet gratefulness about being included in something so bright and healthy.It wasn’t perfect, no, nothing could be perfect. The arguments were biting and blistering in their intensity at times, but they tried their best not to hurt each other with their words. The cohort of the variety of species was a good balance. The people were good, and good partners to each other. They spoke freely, believed in the best of each other, and were openly and consensually affectionate. Ryou adored the snuggle sessions that he and Pidge had, and was really enjoying kissing Hunk and working up his courage to do more. But he loved the playful and clever innuendos that got their big man snort-laughing. He learned recently that he liked sleeping between two people, and that having Pidge as a fourth body there was okay, because he and Pidge thought alike in that the other person “wasn’t a human I have to People for.” “Everyone ready?” Ryou asked as he shook himself free from his musing, settling himself back in the new co-pilot chair that Black had revealed for him. His displays were smaller, and as he looked around Shiro, he saw that the displays were simplified as well. “Oh, actually. This is cool. I think I’m going to stay this side of the bond and work with Shiro and Black on synchronizing our displays and getting used to piloting together.”“I would love that, Ryou,” Shiro said, his grin lighting up silver eyes. “I need to fly again.”“I know you do.”Keith chuckled. “Go play hooky. Everyone, check back in with Black when you return from working with your lions.”At the chorus of affirmatives, the screens broke apart.Pidge’s entire lion shut down. They pulled their legs up to their chest and curled their arms around their knees and dropped their eyes. This both scared and excited them, because this was a female version. Someone who didn’t feel a wavering concept of gender and no gender all at the same time.But it was feeling a soft, warm breeze that first startled Pidge into opening their eyes. Green as her Rangy Lion in all her glory was laying upside-down and waffling her paws at her Paladin playfully. Pidge laughed and realized that they had been pulled into their pocket of the astral plane, a place that was warm, comfortable. Forest green and darker shades were the norm, with a green sun resting on the horizon. It could be rising or setting; there was no way of knowing. “You did this to help me feel comfortable with you.” Pidge smiled and released their breath, a familiar determined expression settling into place. “I’m ready.”The Lion flashed and a short-ish but strong woman stood before Pidge wearing winter Olkarion robes in greens and browns. Her smile was broad and very much like Colleen’s own, golden-hazel eyes wrinkling at the corners like Sam’s now did. Pidge’s hands went up to cover their mouth, tears springing to their eyes at their Quantum-version. “You’re. You’re so you.”“Call me Katie or Holt, if that helps?” She smiled and held her arms open. “And maybe like a cousin or sister or aunt or something. I am so fucking proud of you, Pidge. I am so proud of all that you’ve been fighting for, all that you’ve done to keep yourself alive, for opening up to Allura long before I did about Dad and Matt. And I’m so proud of you for finding Matt.”“No, please,” Pidge finally darted into Katie’s arms, sobbing. “Don’t praise me!”“Too bad, kiddo. You’ve earned knowing how much of a badass motherfucker you are. You’re so young and it took us three more years and getting lost in time for a few years to do what you’ve already accomplished: Removing the main active threats to help establish a more peaceful version of the Galra Empire, including a secured Prince-Regent and medically-confirmed heir, and you’re planning your journey home. This time, it’s been absolutely different than how we faced this part of our journey, and it’s been a lot harder for the lot of you. Soulmated as a unit . . . I couldn’t even imagine how you’ve handled all this pain. What I’ve seen just since we’ve been bonded, since seeing Keith joined the Blades . . .” Katie kissed Pidge’s wild hair. “Please let me say that I love how much you love and accept Keith as he’s discovered his Galra nature. I very much also love how much you adore Lance and Hunk, and how you love Shiro and Ryou. But with Keith . . . there’s something special there with him, huh?”“He . . . doesn’t see me as anything but me. I wasn’t his kid sister like how Shiro would always call me, and now I can see he did that to protect my emotions . . .” Pidge sniffed and a wad of tissues was stuffed into their hand. They carefully pulled one out and used it, attempting to shove it into their pouch when Katie literally took it and tossed it aside, where it de-materialized. “Oh, that was a cool party trick.”“Right? Being an inter-dimensional cat spaceship really has some wild perks. But.” Katie touched Pidge’s nose. “You’re eighteen by earth years now, as of eight days ago.”“Wait, holy fuckshit, what?” Pidge stared hard at their still-taller counterpart. “How do you know? Also. How are you taller? I’ve been on T for like, a year.”“Quantum multiverse alternate reality? I don’t fucking know, maybe because I’m also a fucking cool space kitty that is a dream to fly around in and can choose how tall I want to be perceived? Also, yes, I kept track of the time because I knew that you’d need to know when you were legally eighteen by Earth standards.” Katie’s confident sass was contagious, making Pidge straighten up and grin. She continued. “Now stop distracting me. There’s a series of potential futures that you and Keith need to speak to each other about, and you have to tell your Pride what your initial adult choices are going to be.”
“This is oddly specific advice.”
“You’re an oddly-specific person who does not like useless and traditional forms of romance, but is also a tease and has shown that you are more than willing to arouse your half-Galra soulmate on purpose when neither of you could morally or ethically do anything about it.” She raised an eyebrow at that. “I know you’ve known him since you were brats, but you’re an adult now and need to know what that could have looked like. Now it’s safe to be a cocktease.”
Yeah, oops. “Please never say cocktease again.”
“Cocktease McCoochiestuffins.”
Pidge facepalmed with a wheezed laugh. “What the fuck. Okay, so you know about that, cool . . . uh . . . that feels like I was caught by an aunt, so Aunt Katie it is.” They blinked, looking back up at their other self. “So have you and your Keith fucked?”
Unfazed, Katie replied, “Oh, yeah. Once, and I’m down to repeat that pleasure. He and Shiro were exclusive partners when they first met, then they broke up, then they got back together again but I think they used to swing when they were older? I’ve caught sight of some of their club wear and it was hot. Lance and Allura were exclusive when they finally got together, and Hunk and I became polyamorous partners with a host of other aliens for a long, long time. Our Shay was just as sweet as your Shay, and just as loving and respectful of my relationship with Hunk as I was with her longstanding casual relationship.”
“Wow,” Pidge breathed. They weren’t quite sure what to make of the Keith thing for them, but knowing that Katie and Hunk had been lovers was a bit mind-boggling. “So you and Hunk? Poly?”
“He made me peanut butter cookie dough ice cream. Home made.”
“Oh. Yeah. Done. Yep. I knew Hunk was mine at the first batch of peanut butter cookies.”
“Mm. And it was months after he had done the same thing as a breakup ‘I’m bringing ice cream over and we’re watching movies’ sort of vibe. Only he asked me to come over. He’d set candle-lit dinner for two, and it was all of my favorite foods. He asked me out before dessert.”
“Did he stutter and ramble?”
“In that adorkable way that he does? Yes.”
“Um. What about the sex side of things?”
“Well, I’m no expert on nonbinary sex since I am pretty cis-female even though I’ve been with a lot of genders . . .”
Pidge blushed immediately then hid their face against Katie’s shoulder. “That wasn’t what I was asking.”
“Yes it was.”
“Useless to try to lie to your alternate-universe self, got it.”
Katie laughed and the free sound of it lifted Pidge’s spirits. “Hunk is an amazing lover, and you know this. Lance hasn’t shut up about this since you three all met. The unsung hero of your Pride’s bedroom, however—”
“Wait, wait, let me guess. Keith.”
“Wrong. The consensus is Lance.”
“Not Shiro?”
“Not Shiro. From the gossip, Shiro is a very gentle lover, which frustrated Keith until he, Lance, and Hunk all balanced each other out. Ryou still hasn’t had sex with anyone, but I know you’ve seen him getting blushy around Hunk. Lance is known for being a considerate lover, but he’s also known for turning into a full on puddle if you turn the tables on him.”
But Pidge wasn’t really listening. “And . . . I was the odd one out.”
Katie sighed softly, flattening one rogue curl of many. “You were fourteen, kid. You’re still barely an adult by law right now, even if you’ve been risking your life like an adult since the moment you heard about the Kerberos mission. Trust me, I was you. We have had a similar path, with the main difference being our genders. And I just love the variety of the multiverse and how we can be so similar but have key differences in our identities. It’s so cool.” Katie hugged Pidge closer. “You know that I’ve always been proud of you, that I’ve approved of you, and that you and I have always been really good together as Paladin and Lion.” Pulling back, she kissed the messy bangs covering Pidge’s forehead. “And I will tell you as many times as you need to hear it, because I love telling you that you deserve to hear good things about yourself. You all do.”
And Katie held Pidge as they crumbled, weeping.
~*~
Keith stared at his rangy Red, a form that was slightly larger than Pidge’s Green but in ways that were sharper, deadlier. He licked his lips, and whispered, “You always mirrored my own need for respect, honoring the space of the other side. I know this is an exercise that Pidge brought up and I agreed could be useful . . . but if this is how you’re comfortable appearing to me, I want you to know that I am content with this, with us.” Keith grinned suddenly. “I’m glad that I’ve been able to be your Paladin, and that I can be your pilot again soon.”The cat searched his face. Red knew that Katie was trying to get Pidge and Keith to matchmake, even though she had been wanting to primarily focus on affirming Pidge’s identity. But Red’s focus with Keith was something that his fellow Paladins all knew was tied to a very different aspect of identity.With a tilt of his head that Keith had seen reflected in the mission debrief video logs when he has to accept something he doesn’t like, the cat flashed away and—Keith’s breath left him in a rush, leading his counterpart to begin to step back . . . but on the inhale, Keith’s face lifted in a huge grin. “You show your Galra side a lot more than I do. Wow, uh, damn. Okay.”“What?” Kogane grumbled, yellow eyes narrowing. He was tall, lean and muscled in the way that some of the furred Galra were. Pointed ears angled downwards in a carefully-relaxed position, even though the tips trembled at times, betraying some inner emotion. He wore a hybrid of Blade Leader robes with Coalition colors on one of the sashes, a tail hanging behind him to his knees, also in a faux-relaxed pose.“Well, don’t take this weird, but fuck. I’d fuck me. You’re fucking handsome by both standard Galra aesthetics and my own personal standards. And knowing that I’m you and you’re me?” Keith blinked, ran his tongue along one sharpening canine, and then grinned. “Are you the kind of version of me that was sexual?”Relief dropped Kogane’s shoulders and he replied, “Okay, this is not how I was planning for this conversation to go, but yes. Very happily sexually active before Shiro, with Shiro, after Shiro, then with Shiro and others.”Keith blinked several times, then nodded. “I mean. Shiro.”“Right?”“So I have a feeling that some of the others will be having very deep conversations about feelings, emotions, and all of that . . . but I’m not sure what to ask you about or even talk about. Like I said, you and I already have a good balance, and now I really understand why. We’re both Galra, we both think and move like Galra.” He blinked twice then frowned. “Wait. Someone said once that Black really likes her Galra . . .”“Get it, now?”“So you gonna take a ride on their disco sticks?”Kogane spluttered a laugh, then pointed at his Paladin with a shit-eating grin. “I’m telling Lance you said that.”“No!”“Once he talks with Blue and then comes back to pilot with me, I’m doing it.”Keith laughed and when Kogane moved aside to show a traditional Japanese tea set on a low table. Keith blinked and moved closer. “Did you learn this from Shiro’s family?”“No. My own. We have had a very, very different upbringing, and one that I haven’t yet seen across the multiverse, but there are more universes than I have the ability to comprehend so.” Kogane shrugged and continued. “I’m half-human, and Dad and my grandparents came back with Mom and me to the Blade. They were Japanese, not Korean, and um. I can show you all about them, later, if you’d like?”Keith’s eyes were shining, and he was grinning. “You . . . you grew up with your family?”“Yeah. I’m sorry that you didn’t.”“It’s . . . I found Mom. And I made my family, over time. And I couldn’t be happier but . . . I’m glad that not all versions of me have had to endure what I have.” He stepped closer, and was Galra-greeted in the frame of being a younger sibling coming home, the older half-Galra scentmarking along the top of his head and his jawlines before embracing him fully. “You really do feel like home, Red.”“Kogane is fine to use, too.”“Okay. Thank you for your name.”“It’s really my pleasure. So. You want to know how I became a Paladin if I grew up with the Blades?”“I mean. Duh. Did you rescue Shiro?”“No, that was still Ulaz, who did not survive long in our timeline. We’re grateful he and Thace are safe and away from the front lines here.” Kogane settled down before the range of simple instruments that would create a frothed tea from powdered leaves. “I was scouting for the Blade and found the Red Lion. Allura herself had tried to retrieve Red—”“Her father’s Lion.”“Exactly. She was discovered, I was right there, and knew my history lessons. Allura was an active Princess in the war, becoming Alfor’s right hand in many military maneuvers. Just by the records, it was known that Allura led missions from the front.” Kogane’s smile was soft. “She got pinned down while being refused by Red and when she saw me, attacked me. I kept the sentries and officers from getting into the room while I got the doors shut.” His hands were moving with an easy, well-worn pace to prepare the hot water, carefully measuring out matcha into a bowl. “My helmet mechanisms were taken out, she knew that I was Galra, and when Red rescued me from vacuum and we rescued her from getting captured, she was surprised that I would do such a thing. I educated her on the changes in the universe while she had slept for ten thousand years, and, like you, did not expect her to trust me or open up to me on any given timeline. It took time, and wore out Shiro’s patience, but when she learned to support me as I supported her, we became good friends.”“Allura isn’t with Blue, is she,” Keith whispered. “You speak of her in the past tense with a fondness. Kolivan speaks of Antok that way, and Mom is starting to speak of Dad that way.”Kogane nodded, not making eye contact. “She joined with many other alternate universe selves and saved the multiverse. Possibly even saved this universe, but we won’t know that until we come to the crossroads.”“This will cost Allura her life.”“Yes.”Keith looked down at scarred hands. “Can you tell me how we can prevent the loss of our soulmate?”“If the situation arises in this universe, we will absolutely inform you all and strategize a way to save as many lives as possible with the fewest Paladin deaths. If not, then we are safe from having to make that choice.”“Did anyone else die?”“No, but it was a close thing for many of us.” Kogane shook his head. He didn’t want to go any deeper into this.Keith raised his left hand and sat back, hoping that he was signaling the correct way. As Kogane’s shoulders dropped marginally, he knew it had been the right choice. “I’m actually pretty shocked at how different we are, but I’m really okay with it.”“Well. Are you a gossip-whore?”“Depends. Actually, yes. Very much yes.”“Oh good! Green wants to see you and Pidge hook up. They turned eighteen three or four days ago, I forget exactly. I know that you had that amazing vision or two from the space-time flux waves, so you know that there’s a possibility of you two being frisky. Especially since that brat hit your scent glands that time. I can’t believe them. They just. Ugh.”“They get you riled too, huh?” Keith laughed. “Yeah, I’m going to wait until Pidge tells me ‘go’ with great enthusiasm and negotiation for what is and isn’t okay for them.”“Good answer.”“Outside of Pidge, I’m going to see which of my soulmates wants to seduce me this time. I love the chase, but I could use some affirmation that I’m worth the chase as well.”“Good mindset. Have you told them this?”“Not . . . in so few words, actually.”“Keith. Keith. Really? You expect these soulmates to be mindreaders?”“Ouch, okay, shit.”
~*~
Hunk stared at himself, bit his lips, then grinned. “So, uh. You’re a ‘Pretty Kitty,’ aren’t’cha?”The older Paladin’s head tilted back with the force of his laughter, but he was ready for the embrace of his younger version, laughing and rocking the slightly-smaller man back and forth. He enveloped the largest Paladin, tossing his cloak around Hunk’s back and using that to add to the pressure of the embrace. “I’m the prettiest kitty, kid. Gods and stars, I’m so happy to meet you like this.”Hunk sank deeper into the embrace. “Me too.”
~*~
Shiro and Ryou were dancing with Black, learning the new interaction of the dual controls as they wove flight patterns around the Castleship. They could feel their counterparts rise closer to the surface of their connection, showing their suggestions about how to better balance responsibilities. Ryou finally claimed the controls for all flight and maneuverability. “Shiro, pull up strategy maps and a fight sim, command the situation.”Doing so, Shiro felt Ryou maneuver exactly as how he would, then incorporated the projected flightpath as they ran through the drills. Shiro focused on practicing giving the commands and aiming the weaponry while Ryou moved them from spot to spot, effortlessly flying in ways that made Shiro think of Keith’s pilot personality. “Ryou, is this almost like how you and Lance work together?”After a moment of consideration, his triplet nodded. “You’re right. This is very much like that. I can move us and protect us while you’re focusing on connecting the Paladins and keeping an eye on the battlefield.”“I can see how this really helped you and him bond; I have to really trust you to let you do this. Letting someone else fly me around is anxiety-inducing, but knowing that it’s you there, and you’re making all the same moves that I would make helps.”Biting his lip, Ryou whispered, “Trust is still very fragile between some of us, I feel.”“You feel, Ryou. But is that really the truth? I know for a fact that Keith trusts you to lead in our absence. I trust you to fly for me. I know for a fact that Lance trusts you as his Spotter, a vital position that keeps him safe to do his job as sniper. Pidge talks to you in ways that they don’t talk to me, and we’re probably going to be working on that soon, because we haven’t talked about our dynamic since just after we started Voltron.”“That was a—”“Don’t interrupt me when I’m being inspirational, Ryou.”Sputtering a laugh, the middle triplet held his hands up momentarily before letting Shiro go on.Shiro grinned. “So like I was saying, there’s evidence that you’re trusted by the rest of our soulmates. That’s all.”Yellow and Hunk’s signal blipped onto their screen as active status, with Keith and Pidge listed as “Online, Not Active.” Shiro frowned at that and pinged Keith. “You two okay?”“Yeah, just have to do another system calibration. Hunk’s always been faster at us at grounding and connecting with his Lion, Shiro, you know this.” Keith shrugged. “He’s probably doing barrel-rolls.”“Keith’s totally right! I’m doing barrel-rolls. And yeah, alternate-me is pretty rad and we meshed nicely.” Hunk’s voice had a relaxed drawl to it that his team very rarely heard when they were in their Lions.“Hunk . . . are you . . . enjoying flying Yellow? Not having any flight-sickness?” Ryou asked softly.There was a pause, Hunk’s eyebrows dancing upwards before his rich laughter filled their radiowaves. The joy on Hunk’s face as he played with Yellow was infectious, and Keith cut the connection, looking back at his private and secured line with Pidge. “Did you want to talk face to face?”“Yeah.”“Okay.” Cutting his feed and feeling Red crouch, he walked out of his Lion at the same time as Pidge. They didn’t exactly run over to him, but they weren’t slow about walking to meet him in the middle. When Keith was close enough, he took Pidge’s face in his hands and just stared into their eyes for a very long moment. “You owe none of us your body, your reasoning, or any perceived services or sexual responsibilities that you may have. You tell us what you’re comfortable with and what you absolutely do not want to happen and that’s it. You own you, Pidge.”“You’re Shiro’s, though?”“We’re all Shiro’s. But you’re the center of my mental stability in ways that are Galra-healthy and human-unhealthy.”“How could it break you?”“If you rejected my Galra self.”Pidge’s lips lifted in a sneer and they hissed, “Never! You’re you. Your alien aspects intrigue and attract me, you know? Not like a fetish, but more like how Galra bonds just make more sense than human soulmates. I guess.” They rubbed at their cheek absently, and felt a soft touch to their free hand. Biting their lip, they opened their hand to Keith’s, weaving their fingers together. “I told you before that I loved you before I even knew that you were my soulmate.”Keith’s voice took on a tone that Pidge had never heard before, and it sent shivers down their spine. “You are mine, Pidge, and I knew before I knew that I would always be there for you. No matter what form or name, I’m here for you. Always. I love you, Pidge Holt.” Keith smiled at the tears that were falling from Pidge’s eyes, and he finally leaned in to kiss and wipe them away with gentle fingertips. “And I’ll repeat it every day.”“Good,” they warbled through their tears. “Because I’m going to need you to say it every single day.”Keith nodded, and was surprised when Pidge pulled him down into a soft kiss. “No sex, but maybe some light kissing? And don’t touch my chest.”“Done. Usual hand positions for hugging until later talks, got it,” Keith murmured, his smile clearly evident in his voice. “And when I sometimes look Galra?”“Then you’d better be near me and I’m going to want to make sure you’re okay.”“Happens during sex, sometimes hangs around for a while after, but we’d always wait it out before leaving the room.”“. . . I need to know. For science. Does your dick change shape, too?”“Oh. Oh you don’t know yet.” Keith grinned. “I’ve always had Galra-standard equipment—”“Oh, ha, nope, I already know about the Galra. Ulaz gave us a PowerPoint on your cock and cooch, Keith. I’m interested in seeing them at some point. For science? But that would also probably wind you up—”“Tighter than a top.”“—so in that we’re all pretty casual about talking about kinks and shit, that could be part of a Scene?”“You talking about leather-glove scalp massages really set the tone for our relationship, didn’t it?”“I mean. Try to keep me away from the shady parts of information networks. Just try it.”Laughing and leaning in to kiss Pidge’s nose, Keith replied, “Kolivan is right to be afraid of how much you know.” His expression softened and he rubbed his cheeks against Pidge’s, who blushed at the change from the feline-like jaw-rub that Keith had always used before. His voice was quiet, barely heard over the hum of their Lions. “I don’t have the words in any language for how much I treasure you. And I think that you’re finally starting to see that’s how we all see you, huh?”Kissing his cheek shyly, Pidge nodded. “Yeah.” They smiled and braved a soft kiss to his lips, then dropped back at his own blush and shy grin. “Wanna go play hookie, Keith?”“It might not be fair to say ‘race ya,’ but . . .”Pidge was already running towards Green, who had lowered her mouth early to scoop her Paladin up and darted out of the hangar.Red’s growl in the back of his head was decidedly heated, matching Keith’s own love for the smallest and fastest Paladin. He couldn’t move from the spot, enjoying taking a moment of enjoying just feeling without worry or anxiety that it would spin him into a meltdown. Turning, he walked towards Red, raising a hand to touch the cat’s nose before he ducked into the great maw.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lance was very nervous about this. Not terrified, but nervous. This was the first night that he was going to be truly alone with Allura and Lotor.The real Lotor.Okay, maybe he was a little anxious.It had been a week since their family call home, and things had settled into a new concreteness. His parents adored Allura, were shocked at Lotor’s involvement, but their initial trouble accepting that he was part of a large cohort wasn’t showing up whatsoever. It was enough to make him wary, up until a transmission came in directly to him from Veronica. She had swung by the Holt’s, where a second comms console had been erected and swaddled in shielding.
“You know, Mom’n’Pop’re really pushing back at our neighborhood back home, Lance.”
“They-they are?”
“Yep. Threatened to leave the church and to remove our entire family tree from all social gatherings if people continued to talk about you the way they were with just knowing about Pidge and Hunk. I think that had settled things until recently, and Leandro . . . I have never seen Mamá that absolutely rabid. Papá had held her hand to keep her from proving why you take after her side.”
The first wave of prejudice had been expected, since the incident had been very public at the Garrison, so news travelled quickly back home to their home just outside of Varadero. “Veronica, I need you to be real with me. How bad was the gossip?”
She stared at him for a long moment before replying. “Once the size of your cohort was announced, you know the way it’s done, it got bad at first. Everything ranging from you lying so that you could sleep around to you being taken advantage of by older individuals. It was pretty bad, Lance. There’s some folks who are going to give your entire Pride the silent treatment. Mom and Dad have done a lot, though. It’s like they have a wall of charts and red yarn and talk about you and any number of your cohort on random basis, like it’s no big deal to them that they have to get used to seven soulmates and a bunch of their extended families joining our family tree instead of one.”
“But what are they actually doing, outside of just talking about it?”
“I’d like to say ‘wait and see,’ but it’s valid that you need to hear proof. Sooo . . . you know the field that just won’t grow a damn thing but hemp, weeds, and dandelions? They’re building you folks a getaway house there. Got the contracts for it, everything, and everyone working on it knows that it’s for all of you. But they want it to be a surprise, so I won’t say anything else about it, outside of the fact that now the village knows that they’re very visibly and quite literally making a home for all of you.”
“Holy shit.”
“They outsourced to your Cohort’s families for assistance, too. So there’s been proof that there’s international support for all of you, including construction crews and materials.”
“People didn’t take their contract offers. Veronica, we were shunned?”
Her sad gaze said it all. “Only the older generations, but the young voices parroting some of the hateful words hurt. I do what I can, but . . .”
Having a flash of inspiration, Lance leaned forward. “Wait. Is Essie still around or did she head off to college somewhere?”
“She’s taken over the business, actually. Wait. No.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you smart son of a bitch. Of course. I’ll reach out to her right after this. She’s going to be thrilled!”
“Flight path stabilized, autopilot is engaged, and we’re on the way to Oriande.” Lotor’s voice made Lance jump, causing the half-Galra to also startle in reaction, then smile at their sudden awkwardness.Allura looked up from her reading, blinking twice at her men before smiling and looking back down at Ryner’s recommended textbook on Quintessence. “Thank you for taking on the pilot duties, Lotor. It’s been nice to not have to touch flight controls for once.”“Seconded. I-I mean. It’s not like I don’t like flying, it’s literally fantastic and all, but I’m just . . . . I’m babbling. Sorry. Um.” Face falling into his hands, Lance sighed. “Fuck, I’m awkward around you two again.”Lotor chuckled, taking a seat next to Lance and stroked the back of his hand until the young man let it be taken between purple-tinted skin. “Sweet paladin, you have had the support and structure of four to five other soulmates for going on three years. Of those soulmates, only one of them is with you right now, and she’s currently consumed by a book without pictures in it, of all things!”“I should have never shown you Beauty and the Beast,” Lance laughed, pulling Lotor’s hand up to kiss the soft skin that followed his scarred knuckles.“Letting Allura watch the Frozen movies was probably a worse choice. And you have yet to apologize for showing her Brave,” Lotor replied, hearing the woman in question huff in shock and feigned outrage before going in for the metaphorical kill. “Letting her watch Encanto was probably what will finish this war and start two more revolutions.”Placing the datapad on the table with too-careful motions, Allura smiled her Diplomatic Best Grin at her mate. “You want to start this? Again? Here? Now? After I thoroughly decimated your debates?”“Oh, yes please! We can bet items of clothing this time when one concedes a point! Lance, you simply must play with us this time!” Lotor was already loosening the top of his flight suit, ready to wear nothing but a grin and to free his hair from its braid.Goaded into a matching grin, the human rubbed at his face before sighing and softening it to smile at his partners. “I guess I’m so nervous because this is our first time alone together, uninterrupted.”Allura’s blush was the first indication that Lance wasn’t alone in feeling a little overwhelmed. He reached a hand over to brush his fingertips over her knuckles, smiling when she looked up at him. Her voice was softer. “This is welcome, if shockingly unexpected.”“I certainly didn’t expect to ever meet a soulmate,” Lotor admitted, his smile gentle and his almost-invisible pupils traveling between his two amazing partners. “I am truthfully looking forward to learning how our dynamics will work. Keith gave me a brief talk about—”“A ‘talk’ or was he flirting with you?” Allura teased.“It is still so strange to hear how you speak of each other as soulmates,” Lotor breathed. He had heard about how they didn’t have the same jealous response to the lovers outside of a cohort, but to experience it was entirely different.“Considering that Keith is soulmates with both of us and we both know how horny he can get, I’m pretty sure that he’s both teasing and flirting with all of us, knowing that you may be a safe outlet for Galra-specific styles of sex that humans or Alteans can’t reproduce.”“Lance,” Allura admonished, thoroughly incapable of hiding her laughter at the pun, which she repeated in both Altean and Galran and when Lotor laughed with his whole chest, she grumbled with clear amusement, “That pun worked in several languages, I’m surprised. Make sure you hit Shiro with that one when we’re on the Bridge and he can’t fire a dad-joke back at you.”“Noted!” Lance’s foot hooked around Lotor’s ankle and he didn’t apologize for getting his soulmates to laugh with him. “I’m very interested in learning as many bedroom languages as I can between each of your cultures.”“It is a pity you do not wish to incubate our children—” Lotor began, but Lance cut him off with a sharp kiss.“Nope! Sorry, not for me. But it’ll be my very real pleasure to worship both of your bodies as they change and shift during the growth of our babies,” Lance said firmly. He was very much not in the business of wanting to be pregnant, no thank you, all complete respect to women and people who do want to get pregnant, but he was not interested in the experience himself.Lotor bit his lip, caught sideways by the sudden realization that he could be the carrier without being emasculated by either of his partners. A sizeable amount of masculine-presenting Galra carrying kits had admitted that they often felt like they were perceived as weaker while carrying. Strangers in public were the worst offenders, but the most hurtful offenses were those from lovers. There were those who didn’t trust their partner’s strength in both carrying their kit and continuing to be their normal selves with the normal considerations that any pregnancy would make a carrier take. The old fear seemed quite silly now that he was comparing it to his reality. Lance had Keith as a masculine partner early in their lives, and it stood to reason that he would dote, but not sabotage Lotor’s hard-earned autonomy and independence. “I believe I will very much enjoy carrying a child for us, Lance.”“Want to practice now?”“I believe that’s my line, dearest,” Allura purred, reaching over the table to draw him into a possessive kiss. “You have a confirmed heir and I have to secure my first when everything is all said and done. But until then. Everyone has protection for tonight?”“Yep, I’ve been on the pills Coran supplied me for about a week, just to be on the safe side.” Lance grinned a little bashfully. “I’m glad that he made contraception equal for both ends of the spectrums. Makes me feel bad for the ladies back home, and I’m looking forward to boldly going forth and becoming the face of male contraception when we get back.” His over-confidence was half-joke, and it got Allura’s nose to wrinkle in appreciation.“And did you have much experience with the ladies of your homeworld?” Lotor felt suddenly possessive, able to accept that his Mate had a constellation of mates within his own species, but was also grateful that they were mostly along the same physical gender spectrum . . . and that the Scary Kit was virtually sexless. He didn’t like that Lance may have had penetrative sex with someone not-him, not-Allura, and not-Keith.Lance pulled free from Allura’s searching kisses, pausing her with his right hand cupping her cheek. Turning to sit fully on the table, Lance deftly made sure to straddle Lotor’s waist with his ankles and toes brushing trim-for-a-Galra hips. His left hand slid into the base of Lotor’s braid, fisting close to his nape and bringing the tall man in for a possessive and reassuring kiss of his own. Swallowing the gasp Lotor released when Lance turned the large head slightly with his grip of the thick mane of hair, Lance nipped lightly at Lotor’s spit-soaked lips. “My Prince, the only female-like genital experience I’ve had has been with Allura. Since Keith is male, I can say that his internal genitalia blew my mind when I could first fuck him silly. Which I suggest we talk about real quick, just so that we’re all clear here. Allura, would you trust Lotor and Keith with each other as well?”“Oh, without a doubt. They’d be very good for each other . . . and they would be art to watch.”“Mm. I haven’t had the joy of seeing Lotor naked yet, so I’ll have to rely on what you . . . wait, you haven’t seen Lotor naked yet, either!” Lance was thrilled by this and he gently removed his hand from Lotor’s hair, stroking along one the bottom edge of an elegantly-long ear on the way to tracing the Galran marks on his cheeks.Lotor was surprised by his own happy whine that his crush was approved of by his soulmates, and that they also were interested in him sexually. “We’ve been too busy and too crowded by the other soulmates to really get time alone together. I’m glad that we can do this together, all three of us.”“Me, too.” Allura leaned in to kiss Lotor with the same intensity that she had kissed Lance. But there was a wildness there, an acknowledgement that she didn’t have to be as gentle with Lotor as she did with Lance. The human just didn’t have the same level of durability that the Galra or Alteans had. The fact that he had, on several occasions, reassured them right before watching them work through a not-human-friendly sparring session? Icing on the cake, as the human saying went. Lance was absolutely in love with how strong and fast they were, not minding that he was the delicate aspect of the trio.“Shall we seduce Keith together?” Allura wondered suddenly. “Lance, you haven’t had much more than a few hours with him since we all reunited, and he and I are considering a sexual aspect to our relationship due to our curiosity of not exploring that option.”Lotor’s low growl was all the answer they needed. Lance nodded. “New plan. Space magic, seduce Keith on the way home to Earth.”“New plan,” Lotor rumbled into Lance’s neck, suddenly very warm and right there, startling a shaky gasp from the human. “Seduce Lance and Allura, space magic, we seduce Keith, Earth.”“O-okay.”
~*~
“I feel like we’re basking in your eyes, Allura.”“Lance, that . . . is quite possibly the most romantic thing you have ever said to me.”Having faced the first Lion and now standing with his Bondmates in a place no human has ever stepped, Lance blushed, realizing that he had literally compared Allura’s gaze to the gates and heavens of her people’s version of paradise and the origin of their alchemy, all rolled into one.Lotor was nodding with open appreciation and Lance’s casual-but-expert-level endearment. He’d stood before Oriande’s gates before, but not like this. He walked closer with Lance, but they both paused when Allura stood still. “Dearest?”“I’ve already walked that path. There’s another lesson for me here.”“Wait for us before you begin it, Princess,” Lance said softly. “We’ll wait for you if you need to complete it alone, but I don’t feel right not being able to be able to catch you if you fall.”Blinking at the gravity in his voice, Allura blushed further and nodded assent. “I will wait for your return.”“Thank you.”Lotor blew a human-style kiss to Allura before taking Lance’s hand and walking together through the gates. He was ready this time.
~*~
He was not ready. So not ready.Panting, sword low and shoulders hanging as he stared a similarly-posed and exhausted Lance, Lotor asked in a hoarse growl, “Did you expect that?”“Orande’s done something with my memory of any attempts, which I almost expected. Allura said nothing about this place to me, so. No. Did not expect that. Would not like to repeat this experience. One out of ten.”“Quiznak. No wonder she wanted to stay outside.”“I wonder what her lesson will be?”“Patience, most likely,” Lotor sassed, heaving a deep breath and finally straightening up. The Sentinels were vanquished. Time to move on.“You are not the kind of Lotor that I was expecting to get to know. The clone of you held himself very stiff, that sort of aloof royal training that you hear being trained into people.”Deactivating his sword and stretching his hands out, Lotor replied, “I can assure you, he was groomed in such a fashion. Hands, my galaxy.”Blushing, Lance released his bayard from its sword form and it retreated into his armor again. His gauntlets and gloves were removed and Lotor’s firm touches released the cramps that had driven his moves to clumsiness. “Oh. Thank you.”“Mm. You are so dainty, but you are dangerous. It’s . . . attractive to me.”“Keith says the same thing when we’re alone. Says that there’s something Galra in him that loves that I treat him as if he’s a weapon, and that I see myself as a competent fighter . . . but . . . I still don’t . . .”“Lance McClain, could you have done this four years ago?”“No. No, very much no.” He sank into Lotor’s hold.“I’ll tell you a secret: neither could I. This place is . . . a nightmare to me. I would never have returned here had I not known that I would be accompanied . . . and that we have people waiting for us to return.” The taller man’s hands stilled, cradling Lance’s own. “Truthfully, humbly . . . how are you so brave at such a young age, Lance? I was . . . I was nothing like you when I was so young. I was . . .”“We . . . can grow up quickly. Humans, I mean. Mentally. It’s . . .” He swallowed, then sighed, regulating his breathing, feeling Lotor’s own breathing respond to the conscious reset of his nervous system. “It’s why we have an army of therapists on the Castle with us from five species to help us work through a few things. Humans adapt. We . . . when we’re young, if we are in distress, put through traumas, our minds literally change in some biological way (that I absolutely refuse to clutter my mind with outside of ‘it’s science’) in order to prioritize survival.”“You . . . you survived trauma at an even younger age, Lance? Who! I want names, my Mate.”The shock in blue eyes softened into adoration. “You and Keith both had the same reaction and I am so in love with your Galra sides. No. Becoming a pilot for Voltron was the trauma. I . . . I had a very loving family, a relatively healthy upbringing. The worst that I’ve had happen on Earth was shit self-esteem and our community getting really nasty about me having so many soulmates. That’s being handled by my parents.”“They must be well-respected.”“They were . . . but we’re from a suburb of Varadero, and there’s still some old-fashioned ideas in our town about binary pairs being the only sort of Soulmate that can happen.”“Sure, it’s more common, but it’s not universally-normal.” Lotor leaned in and kissed his human’s forehead. “I’m eager to return to Allura.”“If her lesson is patience, I bet you one night of home cooking that she’s smug about it.”“It’s on.”
~*~
Lotor felt the hot breath of the White Lion on his neck as soon as he had walked in. “I have come to learn, to atone for my clone’s actions, and to help preserve Oriande, other Quintessence-folds within the woven universe, and to try to lead my people to peace . . . and lead my son to his own peace.”The breath remained hot. Lotor couldn’t open his eyes. He feared what he would see.But then it swept over him, an understanding.If he feared the Lion, he would fear the Lessons.Lotor’s breath evened out, his arms relaxed, and he opened his eyes.The Lion’s mouth was closed. His nose was at Lotor’s neck as tall as the creature stood. It was his nose that had been at his neck, no teeth or fangs bared! “I . . . I trust you.”The Prince-Regent knelt before the White Lion, spreading his arms in supplication. “I beg you to teach me what I must know to be a better leader for my people and to eradicate the illnesses that poison our minds and quintessence.”He closed his eyes in a slow blink, and a raspy tongue scraped over each Mark of the Chosen on his cheeks. When he opened them again, the White Lion licked his forehead, starting between his eyebrows and—The universe unfolded.
~*~
Lotor blinked next to Allura, whose hands went out to steady him. He could feel Oriande’s response to him, his touch with Quintessence, already quite well-trained, now connecting with the roots of knowledge that Oriande had given him and was producing further branches of theories and possibilities.“It’s a lot, isn’t it?”He could only nod. “Lance?”“Still inside.”“Fuck.”“Yes.”
~*~
Lance stood in silent whiteness. He opened his arms and felt . . . silence. Peace.This was very like the astral plane, the place-between where the Paladin’s minds met. No wonder Lotor had such trouble with it! He didn’t have any experience with this. He had no idea how to communicate with other entities or why it felt as if his soul were overwhelmingly bare to someone outside of himself, flaws on clear display.A snarl echoed around him.Lance turned with a smile, cheeks scrunching up almost high enough to hide his eyes from view. He held his hands apart, showing he had no weapons. “Hello, magnificence.”The Lion blinked, as if stunned. Stopped the aggressive posturing with a forward flick of its ears. And it blinked again, then walked closer, each step soft and almost-shaky. The broad forehead dropped and pressed against Lance’s chest, making him realize he wasn’t in his Paladin armor. He was in Altean lounge wear identical to what he wore on the Castle to sleep in. Cautiously, slowly, he held the massive head against his heartbeat, welcoming the creature to find peace in his arms. “You’ve tested so many people and you haven’t had the chance to be pampered and rewarded for your hard work, my sweet and ferocious darling.”Lance blinked at himself. These weren’t idle flirts, either. There was no room for lying or manipulation here. He closed his eyes and bowed his head over the broad mane. “Thank you for even admitting little ol’ me, Lion. I’m not Altean, I’m not as sensitive to Quintessence like Keith is, or have any idea what I could do with it like Allura and Lotor, but everyone agreed that I had to come on this trip. Thank you for letting me see you, and if this is as far as I go, I’m okay with that. I’ve already learned something important about myself. Thank you for letting Allura live when she first came through here. I hope you let Lotor live, too; he’s a good man.”The texture of the mane changed.Lance knew the shape of the form in his arms.Intimately.“Allura?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Lance stumbled into the arms of his Soulmates, eyes staring a thousand yards away and . . .“Lotor! Look!”“I know! Lance, Lance are you okay?” Lotor cradled his lover in his arms and turned the ashen face to make eye contact. “Lance!”Hands fumbling for a moment before he held onto Allura with his left hand and Lotor with his right, Lance squeezed his eyes shut and then blinked to try to refocus them. “I’m okay, I’m . . . I’m okay. I think my cheeks hurt? And . . . a few other places. But. It doesn’t seem. Wrong?” He released his soulmates, rubbed at his face, then checked his ears. “Oh, phew, still rounded. Sorry, I know you think they’re ugly, Allura.” He smiled up at his quite-worried mate as he regulated his breathing. “Okay. I’m going to be okay. Just . . . I can’t talk about my Trial yet. I know I passed, though. I’ll have to test it when we get back. Why do my cheeks hurt, though?”Silently, Allura held up her helmet, the visor mirrored.Lance saw his own eyes widen in complete shock. “Oh, holy shit, I have Altean marks. Even though I’m not Altean. Okay.” If nothing else about Oriande shook the sniper, this absolutely rattled Lance, and it was clear to his soulmates. He had seen something in his Trials and this was a development that hadn’t been part of his expectations.“Marks of the Chosen, Beloved,” Allura whispered. “It more than means that you’ve passed the tests; it means you’ve been welcomed by the ancestors that welcomed myself and Lotor. But. Let’s go home.”Lance nodded. Despite his protests, however, he wasn’t allowed down from his lover’s arms. So he allowed himself to be carried back to their one-person speeders, which he was carefully towed back by Allura and Lotor, providing minimum thrust while they guided him back. Feeling the exhaustion in his limbs increase, Lance attached the physical safety lines in addition to the energy tethers that were attuned to his Paladin armor, then magnetically locked his forearms to the lightcraft. “I’m buckled in, loves. I need to really sleep off some of what I’ve just had to experience. Everyone okay with that or do you want me to try to stay awake?”“Sleep, Lance. We’ll get you home safe,” Allura whispered, her voice warm.He smiled and replied, “You always do, goddess. I trust you both.”“Rest, oceanheart,” Lotor murmured.Sleepily, before he forgot, he asked, “Allura . . . what was your Trial this time?”“Trust and patience.” Her voice was soft and warm, enveloping Lance’s soul in an embrace that felt almost like the Galra bond between them and Lotor.“I win, dearest!” Lotor laughed, his joy brightly coloring the quiet tension between the trio. “As soon as we’re on Earth, you’ll cook us a homestyle dinner!”Lance fell asleep chuckling, a smile firmly on his face. When he blinked a few times, he was carefully cradled by Lotor in a bath, being washed off by Allura in the bath and Keith outside the bath and shirtless. Ryou was standing in the back with a smile on his face and supplies in his arms, and Hunk peeking around the door saying something about bedding. Smiling, he closed his eyes and let his head be supported by Lotor’s shoulder. He woke for a hazy moment in the nest on the Castle of Lions, firmly sandwiched between his aliens, hearing more than just his entire Pride’s count of breaths.Lance looked up and saw Kolivan sitting guard above him, Krolia coming up at seeing Lance wake. She held a cup with a straw in it, getting him to drink some water, and it tasted mineral-y, but in a good way. She smiled when he finished the cup, tapping his nose in praise, then leaning in and pressing a human kiss to his forehead. Her firm hand slowly massaged behind his ears and down his neck and he was blissfully drawn back down into comforting darkness.
~*~
“That’s it?! That’s all you have to say? You can’t tell us?!”“It’s not up to me, Pidge.” Lance kissed their palms before resting each one along his cheeks, smiling warmly down at his fierce soulmate. Hunk’s hands were massaging his shoulders, the larger man’s nose buried in the short brown locks. Keith and Shiro stood just outside of touch, both clearly on edge and guarding Lance after seeing him return so exhausted. And Lance had experienced the same intensity of welcome that Keith had upon his return from the Blade trials.They had felt the Altean marks take, and their cheeks showed the two-day-old fading bruising of a soulmark that wasn’t going to scar. He hadn’t realized that much time had passed.Feeling himself sandwiched in between Hunk and Pidge, Lance closed his eyes and breathed his soulmates in. There was a huge difference in how he felt each of them since his return from Oriande . . . Allura’s shocked silences and contemplative looks suddenly made a lot more sense. He’d have to work with this new sense much like how he had worked with Blue.Speaking of Blue . . . “Keith, Shiro . . . did you two have the chat I was hoping would happen with the cats?”“Yep. You need to chat with Blue before you chat with Red, though,” Shiro replied, Ryou tentatively taking his place, but smiling warmly and straightening his shoulders when both Lance and Shiro smiled at him so Shiro could focus on Lance. It was nice to be able to reassure each other with such a simple look now. And to know that they believed him.“Speaking of Red, I have something to say to Keith.”“Yeah?”“C’mere, Mullet.”“Yeaaah?” Sauntering in, Keith took Lance’s free hand, kissing Pidge’s hand on the way in to brazenly kiss Lance silly. “You have my attention, Sharpshooter McClain.”Lotor’s eyes popped wide, the golden pupils flashing even as Lance breathed out a hot breath against Keith’s lips. “You’re trouble. I love it. I have to talk to some cats, then I want to spend time in your arms. Or knees.”Pidge’s hands sprung away from Lance’s cheeks and they took a step back with a disgusted noise. “Not my thing, thanks for the warning you were gonna increase the spice level of this conversation . . .”Laughing, Lance reeled them back in and nuzzled at their cheek. “I love you. Sorry, I’ve got no filters left and still have some work to do before I can sleep tonight.”Keith was silent for a long moment, almost reading Lance’s face, trying to read between what Lance couldn’t say. He drew in a deep breath and asked, “Are you sure that you aren’t pushing yourself because you feel like you have to prove something to someone?”The chorus of confirmations from his soulmates made Lance smile ruefully.“Ouch, laid bare.”“Right to the bone.”“Brutal but probably accurate.”“Can probably confirm.”So he nodded. “You’re usually right, but this time I’ve had a day to sleep things off between then and now. I’ll take another day, but I also want to meet Blue. And Red.”“You can do that tomorrow,” Hunk replied, squeezing Lance in a tight hug from behind. “But whatever you choose to do, I respect that. I don’t know how tiring it was for you on the way back from Oriande.”Lance immediately felt like resting was the easy way out. So he said so, softly, and Keith’s smile was understanding. “After the last several years, resting does feel like it’s the easy way out. But I think you’ll better enjoy talking with Blue and with Red after a good sleep-in and brunch.”“I’ll maybe agree to this on one condition.”“What?”Scooping Keith up, shocking his first half-Galra soulmate into a laugh, Lance said, “I would like to have our soulmates, just us, have a sleepover night tonight.”Ryou leaned in and kissed Lance’s cheek. “I’ll take an edge and try the whole-Nest experience tonight, then. Especially if Keith does some Galra braids in my hair and Allura paints my nails.”Lance’s face lit up. “Okay, done!” Marching off with Keith still in his arms, he led the way to their quarters, seeing Coran, Krolia, and Kolivan talking on their way. Someone must have caught them up, because the Pride wasn’t bothered at all that night.They kept it PG-rated for Pidge, but it was a delight to flirt openly across a room, nothing to hide, no titles that mattered. And then Lotor, done with his Regency duties and having seen One to bed, tried to sneak in.He did not succeed in this endeavor, walking quite literally around the door to face . . . “Pidge, what is that in your hair?”“Foils. I like having highlights, so I apply a chemical that lightens the pigmentation of my hair to a desired shade. The foils prevent the bleach from spreading through the parts of my hair that I don’t need it on, you know? There’s other ways to do this, but Lance and I only have the combined patience for doing it this way.”“Coloring the hair seems to be a universal trait, then! I’ve had my hair any number of colors when on the Colony, since my normal color wasn’t common among the youngling demographics.” He smiled. “I look forward to seeing what pattern your mane takes when you’ve released the beasts from their crinkly coils.”Laughing and appreciating his turns of phrase as Lotor practiced his English, Pidge nodded and returned to their “spa night” task, which had something to do with their toenails that made Lotor grateful that he didn’t have to trim his own in such a fashion. He’ll just plan to be absent when Lance cut his own toenails for a while. Mates do not need to always be the hair across their partner’s arsehole, after all.He settled himself down beside Allura and Lance, kissing each cheek as it was presented for him to do so, and then finally let himself be vulnerable with the entire Pride of Lions.“Would anyone like to help me with my hair?”He didn’t expect everyone to respond, or the proud and happy expressions on Allura’s and Lance’s faces. He settled in, Lance taking his shirt off and taking up the space between his legs so that Lotor could massage at the still-softly-glowing Altean markings along his back and sides in a blue that complemented the brightness of his eyes. They were still integrating with his nervous system, but were seamless with the rest of his skin, almost as if Lance was born with marks instead of gifted.He waited until Keith was done braiding one section of his hair, teaching Pidge how to do the first and easiest braids that kits learn before leaning in and kissing Lance’s nape. “I’m incredibly proud of you, Lance. One has a fierce parent in you, and one that will teach him compassion with very few lessons.”“I . . . what? Wait. You want me to actually co-parent One with you and Allura?”Lotor seemed shocked that Lance had thought he wouldn’t be an equal partner in all ways. “Of course! I trust you with the children the same way that Shiro and Keith trust you with little Akimi. You are my mate, and will father the children we will one day have together . . . and One is very forgiving of my mistakes.” He chuckled at himself. “So we will all make the mistakes together and grow from learning together.”Lance’s smile was watery, and he felt someone wipe his tears away. With how many of them were curled around the three who returned from Oriande, Lance couldn’t tell who was looking out for him. But he was safe. They were safe. They were fractured and working through their pain, but they had each other, they had parents aboard, and they had the rest of their families getting closer by the minute.“I’d love that, Lotor. One’s a good kid, and I love him.”
~*~
“We . . . got these marks very differently, didn’t we?” Lance stared at an older version of himself, settled in his late thirties, maybe every early fifties by the lines at his eyes and the silver in his hair. He had tried to sneak out while everyone was sleeping, but Ryou and Pidge, the inevitable insomniacs, insisted that they would keep him company for when he comes out of his work with Blue. They were suited up, checked in with the Bridge, and were well on their way to their Lions by the time that Lance had finished re-armoring.The elder version of himself nodded and smiled, a little sadly. “I wasn’t expecting to see that you’ve received any. I didn’t know that they could be transferred by anyone other than a Sacred Altean at a point of . . .”Lance felt his stomach drop out his asshole and hit his heels. At the point of no return.The soul within Blue paused. “I know that your Allura is alive, so what . . . How?”“The Oriande Lion is Allura. Not just Allura. Part of Allura? Allura is part of Oriande. Your Allura. Not my Allura.”Frowning, shocked, staring at his younger self for one long moment, Espinosa-McClain blinked twice and asked, “Are you sure it was my Allura?”“She’s not the only Lion of Oriande, but she’s one of the guardians of the knowledge. She gave me these marks when I assured her that the scar across my nose isn’t my own.”“So you did meet her.”“She’s . . . okay, to quote my Lotor, she’s ‘formidable,’ and in my own view is the most gorgeous woman to ever woman.”“Right?!”The men stared at each other before grinning and nodding in unison. They understood each other. Allura was the only woman for each of them. And no matter that in some universes her entire race had the same inersex genitals by human reckoning, she was all woman, all female, all soft and perfect. She was a love letter to the curves of femininity. “Bro, we need to get off each other’s wave lengths before we embarrass ourselves and give teasing fodder to the entire team. What do you want me to call you?”“Blue, or Espinosa. That was my mom’s maiden name.”“Okay. Are you offended or want me to stop flirting with you as my Lion?”“Excuse me, are you being courteous and respecting my consent?”“Yes.”“You’re gorgeous. Yes, keep flirting with me, and please . . . Reassure Allura after she and I talk that she can continue to flirt with me as well; she’s not the Allura that I loved, but comes across like a close sister. Now. Tell me how my Queen is doing? I haven’t seen her since we parted.”“Shockingly busy. So she’s the White Lion, right?”“Riiiight?” Espinosa said slowly, turning and revealing a table with two chairs and all their shared comfort foods steaming and waiting. “Coffee?”“Garlic knots first.”“A man after my own heart. So what else about the White Lion?”“The White Lion is a job that she and other Sacred Alteans have to perform to test those who would come after them. Alfor is another White Lion, and he was tested by one of his own ancestors. Alfor tested your Allura and Lotor, but for us, Lotor was a clone at first. Alfor retested our Lotor, and your Allura tested our Allura in our universe, then tested me.”Stopping to trace the lines in the air before him, Espinosa nodded absently before coming back to the present. “Okay. I see it. So how do you feel? I didn’t gain any new skills or quintessence sensitivity when she gave me the marks, but I also have never been to Oriande, so we’re walking to very different paths.”Lance didn’t feel like it was his place to reveal that much quiet yet, because he knew there was a truth that his counterpart was carefully dodging around. “I’m tired, still recovering from the Trials, but you’re right about the different paths. I’m guessing that you, Allura, and Lotor weren’t a triad?”“Not even remotely. Allura was monogamous in her relationships, and she wiped the floor with Lotor after he betrayed her and us. When she and I became lovers, we were exclusive; it just fit us.”“So seeing what I have going for me must be a bit . . . different?”He raised his hand and wobbled it in that motion for neither-here-nor-there. “The relationships with my fellow Paladins weren’t always platonic as we grew, but also weren’t sexual or sensual, or romantic, but there was a unique connection that was deeper than a friendship and not really as definable in human terms.”“Did . . . did you ever take another lover after Allura?” Lance watched his counterpart take a deep breath and then release it after a short pause. “You don’t have to answer if you’re not comfortable. It just strikes me that you two split at some point, and I don’t want to press on why.”“I eventually took other partners,” Espinosa said slowly, his voice quiet as he played with a garlic knot between his fingers. He drew himself back together to give a full answer. “Masculine folks, primarily. I never really got over losing Allura. Seeing you with her, seeing how much she’s loved by all of you, seeing how the real Lotor acted around her? I’m so glad she’s part of your cohort. And that you have each other.”“Even if she was never our soulmate, I’d hope for the kind of connection we share.”“You both deserve each other, and I can’t wait to remind her that she’s worth more than she believes she is.”“You say you lost her . . . did Allura die before you?”There was a short pause before Espinosa spoke quietly. “Yes. She sacrificed herself along with other Sacred Alteans to save the multiverse. There’s a potential for this to happen to your cohort. I was barely nineteen years old, and we’d been back on Earth for less than a year.”Lowering his drink to the table with an exactness that Lance had never felt his body use before, he hissed, “Excuse the fuck what.”
~*~
When Lance emerged from his first Lion, he found himself facing Keith outside of Blue’s particle barrier. Blue let him out, and he could feel the guilt that raced along the Lion’s psyche at having to tell Lance about their Allura. He slid into his leader’s arms. “Hey, gorgeous.”“Hey, yourself. Red . . . hoped that we’d talk with him together?”“Blue requested the same thing when Allura is ready to meet with her.” Using the same feminine pronoun for Blue as he always has, Lance noticed that Keith picked up on the stressed syllable and filed it away. He loved the way that Keith’s mind worked, as if it was the encyclopedia to Lance’s chaotic interest. Keith remembered everything, even if it took him a moment to bring the memory to the front. “Any insight why?”“They don’t want the shock to cause us to reject them, is my guess. They don’t have the same Soulmate-bonds like how we have.” Lance sighed. “Please tell me you hated your mirror-self as much as I hate mine.”Keith stopped and stared at his lover for one very long breath before he whispered, “No, it’s been very positive so far. Come on, let’s go sit in Red.”The silence from his normally-chatty soulmate worried Keith, but he knew that Lance wasn’t the type to stay quiet for too long. Red was already waiting for them, lying down sedately in Blue’s Hangar. With one final look at his first Lion, Lance turned and walked with Keith at his right hand to his current ship. “How does this work?”“Same way that it does with Black.”“Nice. So who sits where this time?”Keith took Lance’s hand, bringing him up into the cockpit and around to the chair, his free hand resting on the back of it. “He’s all yours, Loverboy.”Before he sat, Lance kept his hand tightly wrapped around Keith’s. “You helped wash me off.”“Yeah.”“Why?”Keith didn’t rush gathering his words, trusting Lance to wait for him to answer. “Several reasons. I love you so much that I absolutely had to touch you to make sure you were okay. It was also my Galra grooming drive for one of my bondmates, reassuring myself that you were safe, and also that I had to welcome you home properly. I wanted to care for you the same way that I cared for Shiro, and would care for the rest of our Soulmates if they came home like you had. The same way that all of you welcomed me home after my Blade Trials.”“Wow.”“You okay?”“Yeah, that just is intense in itself, and also that you can explain that so well now.”“Krolia helped me a lot with not automatically rejecting the not-human parts of myself, and that had been a lot of our conversations. The fluxes came in waves, and we’d see a lot of each other’s pasts without context. The first few times I reacted without thinking why I was reacting, Mom talked me through the internalized hatred of any ‘Otherness’ that had defined me.” Rubbing at his cheek, he blinked once, then leaned in and shared his scent with Lance again, their cheeks meeting and Keith quietly enjoying Lance’s evening stubble.“I like it when you and Lotor let yourselves relax into your Galra natures with us. It’s really, really nice to see. But let’s stop stalling. I’m calm.”Keith smiled. “Okay. You gotta keep your eyes closed when you cross to the astral plane.”“Okay.” Lance knew that Keith was excited about this introduction, and had wanted to be there for it. So he listened to what was said and kept his eyes closed until he felt Keith’s hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and his hands flew up to his face at the sight of this mature, clearly-Galra Keith. The older man’s ears were perked forward with interest, tail flicking, and eyes very similar to Krolia’s own crinkling in welcome. Lance dropped his hands with a sigh. “Oh, you’re a vision.”Keith belly-laughed while Kogane’s purple cheeks darkened in a full blush.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Hunk thought that he had gotten up early enough to start breakfast for everyone. But when he was met with the smell of alien French toast when he turned the corner to the kitchen on the Castle of Lions, he was happy that he wasn’t the first. But the cinnamon? That was Earth’s own, and he was absolutely stoked that whoever was making food had dipped into their precious supply for this special morning.Cautiously peering around the open door into the kitchens and dining room, he paused at seeing Keith standing casually at the stove, Ryou watching attentively over his shoulder. This wasn’t what he was expecting, either. He expected Shiro up and cooking . . . But the Black Paladin was cuddling his brother Masaki in a couch that someone had dragged in last week. They waved at him, smiling but not announcing his arrival or his silent approach. He held his finger up to his mouth before Keith turned at smelling him, masking the motion as a stretch and a check of the sliced bread’s underside.Sneak successful, Hunk wrapped his arms around Ryou from behind with a soft hum, easily blocking the two defensive reflexes (a twist and an elbow) that the White Paladin hadn’t caught in time. “Mmm, good morning. Looks like I get my breakfast spicy today, huh?”“Oh my gods, did I hurt you?”“Nope. You weren’t trying to hurt, just to remove me before you recognized me. If you didn’t pull the same moves when we were sleeping in Black, I would’ve been enjoying some bruised ribs.” Hunk nuzzled his way through the shocked laughter. “Learning?’“Trying to. I might be a lost cause at breakfast foods, though.”“There’s plenty of folks who ruin breakfast, and plenty others who ruin dinners.”“And there’s plenty of us who love to ruin dinner with a few well-placed comments,” Keith piped up though a laugh, piling up the first batch of grilled bread onto a platter and setting it into an oven on warm. “But get ready for an angry Pidge; I set their alarm to a half hour earlier and got help making sure that they can’t turn it off until they bring it here.”“Ha, making sure that we feed our gremlin before the final two jumps today?”“Yep!” Keith said with a broad grin. He checked the clock over the door and grinned. “Two minutes before it goes off. Hunk, can you start their coffee? Hot water is almost boiling.”“Wait, real coffee?” Ryou asked hopefully. They had been saving these ingredients and food items for special occasions.Hunk was pulling out a system similar to pour-over coffee. “And you get the second cup. Masaki?”“Tea, actually, if you don’t mind?”“Oh, I very much mind. You didn’t tell me what tea you would like! Green, black, red . . . ?”Laughing, Masaki asked for green and let himself rest back against his big brother again. He was looking forward to seeing their home planet for the first time. And he was absolutely ecstatic that his brothers and their soulmates were just as excited. They were going home.
~*~
Adam sighed, looking up at the dark screen. A large hand rested on his shoulder, steadying Thace as the Galra eased his way down on the couch beside the young adult. Taking his prosthetic leg off to massage at his stump, Thace smiled at Adam and got right to the point. “What’s bothering you, kit?”“I’ve a call with Ryou in ten minutes, but . . . I’m working through something that my therapist really can’t help with. This person is a clone of Shiro. I mean, yeah, seeing him beside Shiro and getting a chance to see Masaki two weeks ago was cool and really highlighted all their individual differences, but . . . Matt and Shiro both had such a bad time with me. And Keith remembers by extension. Ryou remembers all of it. And cloning humans isn’t something that’s been done yet on Earth, so this is an entirely new realm of psychology.”“Well, I have a list of the literal pack of therapists that are coming to Earth with the Paladins, and many of them have had experience with clones. I’ve been told that they’re pretty fantastic by Krolia, who helped interview several of the candidates. I know you may not necessarily want to wait to address all this until they reach home, but we might have to.” Thace pulled his young charge closer to his side. “Does Ryou also remember the good times that you had with Shiro?”“Yeah.”“Well, try focusing on that.”“That simple?”Laughing, the not-so-retired Blade shook his head. “It’s never that simple, kit. But the steps are small at first.”“And you have a child with Shiro, now. It’s like . . . I fucked up everywhere across the board.”“Did you?” The Galra man sat back, pulling Adam close, tucking him in against his chest. “Did you really, little kit?”“Well, yeah. Otherwise I’d still have a family with Shiro and Matt. I . . . I hurt a lot of people out of my selfishness, my pain, and the traumas that forced me into a military school in the first place. I wasn’t at the Garrison by choice; it was the last stop before my family sent me to a fancy juvenile detention center that paraded as a boarding school. Keith was too much like me, but he was so beyond human levels of spatial awareness that it intimidated me. That’s why I really hated him; it felt like he was a better version of me in every way that would impress Shiro.”“The complexity of human soulmate webs still confuses me,” Thace admitted. “I hope you spoke to Keith about this before speaking of the matter to me.”“I did. He asked to think about it, and then when I asked who I could speak to, he said you or Ulaz.” “And of Shiro?”Adam released a deep sigh. “It was a secret up until recently. Shiro’s condition was going to render him entirely reliant upon a caretaker by fifty, and if that caretaker wasn’t attentive, he could very easily have died by sixty. He wouldn’t have been able to do any significant childrearing after forty according to what all the doctors told us. He wouldn’t have been able to assist with all the responsibilities of raising kids. And . . . he cried a lot about that. He wanted kids, he said.”Thace began to run his claws through Adam’s hair, pausing to give an occasional scalp massage. “Hm. In that case, I can see a very good reason for the universe to give him many soulmates: Give Shiro the large family that he no doubt has all the love for, without burdening all of his health concerns onto one human. The kits that he would sire, or those he would help raise as his own, would have a loving parent, even if that parent couldn’t have been there as physically as the rest of the pride.” Massaging Adam’s scalp like he would an upset cub’s, Thace saw the call connect and smiled. “You’re early, Ryou.”“I couldn’t help myself; I wanted to see Adam,” Ryou replied, blushing and smiling at his soulmate. The moment that he saw his soulmate, the Japanese man released a soft whine and leaned in. “Adam, honey, what’s wrong? You’re upset.”That Ryou had picked up so quickly on Adam’s distress rendered him speechless. Thace chuckled, remembering his own times when Ulaz had shocked him into silence and spoke up. “Perhaps you can help shine some light on a situation for us. Did Shiro want children before he left Earth?”Ryou winced and sighed through his teeth. “Thace, that’s a question for Shiro. I know the answers, but anything that’s Shiro-specific isn’t something I’m comfortable discussing.”“I wouldn’t want to impose on his privacy right now, anyway,” Adam replied honestly. “It’s a bit of a hangup I’m working through. You’re not Shiro, but you’re so much like him sometimes that I’m having trouble separating you both. I think I might have the same trouble if you were raised beside him. And then Shiro’s got a child, and that was a future with him that I had once wanted.” He could feel the tears falling, and pushing his glasses up to his forehead he started to rub at his face.Thace beat him to it, breaking the moment by shoving an overlarge handkerchief right into the young man’s face like he was a toddler. “Blow your nose.”Ryou coughed into a gigglefit, and Adam did as he was told to. Then, with a familial rub of his face against Adam’s head in a parting move, Thace put his prosthetic back on and walked out to check on their variety of Terran meat stock animals in the barn. He and Ulaz were still trying to find the right meats that could sustain Galra nutritional needs.When the door closed, Adam turned back to Ryou. “I didn’t know he was going to ask that.”“Yeah, I could tell. It’s okay. I know you remember Shiro’s conversations with you, so I really don’t need to go into it with you more than that. I’m a little different than him, though.” Ryou smiled, blushing. “I want more than just one or two kids.”“You want a flock.”“A horde, more like. Adam, I . . . I want to run an orphanage. It’s . . . something that a lot of us over here were thinking about for after this is all done. We just want to settle down but when we’re a bit older, we also give a home to kids who don’t have parents. Alien kids, too, not just human kids. Hire therapists, hire careers specialists, teachers, tutors, you name it. We’ll have the funds; we already do. We already have Blade members who are showing all the formidable childrearing abilities that the Galra possess. There will be more once Lotor actively returns to the throne rather than trailing along with us to establish alliances.”“He’s coming to Earth? I thought that there was only a few representatives coming!”“Well, depends on your definition of ‘representatives,’ if you ask me. But yeah. We’ll be there soon.” Ryou grinned and picked the camera up, turning it around to show the viewport behind him.Adam gasped. “I know those constellations.”
~*~
Pidge and three different Blades were actively scanning the moment that the wormhole closed behind them, placing them in the shadow Saturn’s rings. “Galra cruisers by Neptune, confirm three large and six small, not seeing their serial numbers matching with New Galra tags.”“Confirmed,” Regris called from his station. “Updating FOF charts with potential foes. Cross-referencing with the old Galran Empire tags . . . quiznak. High chance of this being part of the Fires of Purification.”“Sendak,” Lotor hissed quietly. “Let’s not poke that weblum, shall we?”Shiro, arms crossed, felt his own visceral reaction to hearing that name, and he focused on relaxing one knuckle at a time. He didn’t want to ever be near that Galra again in his life. He didn’t need that sort of closure, he just wanted the man gone. He saw Ryou come up beside him, bumping their shoulders together. The White Paladin spoke. “Agreed. Pidge, Regris, what else are we looking at?”“Everything from the Kuiper belt is scanning as secured; Regris, please keep scanning the system for threats. Opening a line to Keith’s ranch now.” Pidge pulled them up on the main screen, blinking in shock when it connected. “Mom!”Colleen was dressed in sturdy clothing, the Blades behind her, geared up to the teeth. Adam and Sam were nowhere to be seen. “Pidge, it’s great to see you, little bird! Let’s talk business first.”“Y-yeah! Of course. Princess, Emperor, the channel is secured.”Allura stepped forward. “Where is Samuel Holt?”“He was called into the Garrison with Adam this morning. We think that there’s a threat that they won’t tell us about yet. I haven’t been recalled for any legal wrangling, but I’m expecting that to happen within the next few days. How close are you? The lag is almost nonexistent.”They dared not confirm that suspicion yet. But Allura knew that she had to reply to something that Colleen had said. “You may wish to start moving towards the Garrison; we are no more than four of your hours away.”This was the first time that anyone had seen Colleen crack. She wavered on her feet, her elbow caught by Ulaz to steady her. With a watery smile, she nodded and coughed to clear her throat. “You . . . you will be here soon?”“Yes. Where should we land?”“Oh. Um. Well. Well. The Garrison would be a great place to just. You know. Park.” Her laugh was a little brittle. “Should we all meet you there?”Kolivan shook his head, stepping forward. “Ulaz, bring Colleen; Thace, I would prefer to have your new leg upgraded before we get you back into potential combat.”The Blades nodded, and Ulaz’s helmet materialized around his face. “I will prepare the landspeeder.” He walked off, Thace frowning after him.Waiting until the door shut, Colleen spoke. “Well, that earned you no favors from Ulaz. I think he took that comment the wrong way about Thace’s leg.”Thace huffed his amusement. “Hardly. He’s more pissed that he has to face humans he doesn’t know and probably won’t like. He’s enjoyed his ‘rustification’ here.”“Ah.”Turning back to the screen, Thace asked, “Should I prepare the property for defense?”“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” Lotor replied. “I believe that while they may act with hostility at first, we are, to use the ages-old trope, ‘coming in peace.’ There is the chance that they might attempt to separate us once we reach the Garrison, but I trust that your mate and the Blue Paladin’s sister may have some sway in how things are handled when we arrive.”Lance grinned. Veronica was going to have a blast with this.
~*~
Veronica stared up at the screens as everyone panicked around her, arms crossed and a smile on her face. She didn’t give a shit who saw her, until it was Iverson himself storming over and demanding why she wasn’t at her station.The McClain woman pulled out her personal phone and pulled up one single image. “Sir, that is a friendly. Here’s proof.”It was a selfie of Lance with the Castleship behind him in full glory before they took off from Olkarion. Iverson blinked back up at Veronica, unable to form words.Sam hurried into the room, scanning to find the right people. Once he located Iverson and Veronica, he stalked over and pulled his own phone out to show a second photo of Pidge taking a selfie of Lance taking a selfie. “My kids are on that ship, Commander. And they’re landing once they find a suitable spot.”A new voice entered the conversation. “Any who leave that ship will be detained upon sight, Science Officer. Especially AWOL Garrison students.”Veronica made a very stupid decision, letting herself laugh. “Admiral Sanda, I would love to see Garrison personnel attempt that. You have no idea what they’re capable of out there, and they’ve directly trained our prodigies in ways we couldn’t. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”Unfazed at the irreverence, the Admiral snapped, “And you do?”“Well, yes. But you won’t believe me and I know that you won’t rescind your order. They’re going to land within minutes; do you want to start an intergalactic incident that will damage Earth’s standing with our extra-terrestrial neighbors or would you prefer to offer a welcome instead?”Iverson never wanted the ground to swallow him. Until now. I wish I’d never let Colleen near Veronica as a mentor. Damn.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
This was horseshit. Utter horseshit. Lance stared up at Red, frowning at the fact that the cat had shielded him out again. “I know what you want, but we only have fifteen minutes before we begin approach procedures!”His Lion remained unimpressed, and he could just imagine the look that Kogane was giving him. It was like Keith’s energy, only with a lot more Kolivan tossed into the mix. Sighing, he activated his comm. “Allura, I’m coming to meet you in Blue’s hangar. We have to squeeze an appointment in.”Her voice was showing a clear irritation that he could almost see through the walls. “Apparently so, since Blue has locked me out.” Looking up at his Lion, he indicated his helmet. “You heard that, big guy? How about you lend me a ride to Blue and we take care of unfinished business?”The shield was already lowering before the human had finished speaking. Cats, man. Motherfuckers. Lance walked up to Red’s mouth but didn’t go for the hatch that would lead him to the pilot’s chair. Holding onto a canine for the ride across the ship to his former favorite place to chill, he trusted his ship to get to where he needed to be without incident. Once they arrived, Lance could clearly see Allura pacing impatiently. However, when she saw that Lance wasn’t even piloting, she blinked. “Oh. That kind of appointment.”“Yeah.” Stepping down, he took her hand and pressed it over his heart. “Brace yourself.” Leading her towards the lowering energy shield, Lance brought the Princess up to Blue’s now-open mouth. She settled into the pilot seat easily, and the transition into the Astral Plane was effortless between their combined efforts.Allura blinked up at Lance Espinosa-McClain, and upon not seeing her own image beside him, she sighed. “Then I did die earlier than you in another life.” She reached up, touching the marks on his cheeks before turning to her lover, her partner, then back up at the soul of her Lion. “How did I go in your universe?”Espinosa smiled, but his eyes ached with his old grief. “Doing what you did best, Princess. Saving the multiverse.”“How does that tie into your Trials of Oriande?” she demanded softly of her own Lance, turning to try to peel the answer from him through eye contact alone.The Red Paladin reached for her hand, weaving their fingers together, happy to finally release this burden of knowledge. “Allura, you were tested by Alfor. I was tested by Espinosa’s Allura. Some Sacred Alteans can choose to become White Lions to guard Oriande’s knowledge. When I met the other-you, she couldn’t even speak to me, she was . . . in so much emotional pain. She read my mind and knew how much we have sacrificed to become Paladins. That’s when I knew that there was something that the Lions weren’t telling us. Coran wouldn’t have known, because Alfor hadn’t told him as much about the Bonds, focusing more on the physical mechanics.”Nodding, the Altean drew in a breath to process this information. Looking back to the older Paladin, she asked, “How old were you when this happened?”“I had just turned nineteen. We’d reached Earth and had been home for less than a year. And now that you’re both here, I need to warn you that it was due to Sendak and Haggar’s combined efforts that almost ended every multiverse that we exist in. We all know that Haggar is Altean, but I don’t believe that she will cause the same chaos in this universe that she had because Lotor is still alive. It’s hard to say how that may change the potential timeline, or if she’ll even team up with Sendak.”“I’m sorry, did you say that Lotor died in your universe?”“Yes. He went absolutely batshit insane, Allura.” Espinosa shook his head, unapologetic. “This was not the same Lotor that you are lucky to have. Ours was exposed to the Quintessence Field for too long. The closest comparison I can give you is when his clone destabilized. Haggar retrieved his corpse from the Field and it pushed her that extra inch into revenge. She was going to destroy everything to get her family back. I . . . I hate saying it, but I understand her pain, even if I could never take the same actions she took.”Allura rubbed at her face, then nodded. “That’s why there’s only one Lion with two souls.”“It’s not an insult . . . you’re just too powerful and amazing for a simple trans-reality mechanical Lion,” the older Blue Paladin sassed gently, a tentative smile hovering around his lips. “And Black is both head and torso; an Altean Alchemist’s soul could possibly handle that, but two humans does the job pretty well if I do say so myself.” His gaze went distant for a flash, and he nodded. “Time to get you back; Yellow and Green are ready.”“We’ll talk again, and privately, and at length,” Allura decided, raising one eyebrow. “The time of secrets is over.”Blinking their way into their normal plane of existence, Lance and Allura shared a grin, kissing each other quickly before the Red Paladin tossed himself out the door and back into his Lion’s mouth. He sat in the seat, but didn’t feel anything hum to life. What? Goddamnit, what now?!“Everyone ready?” Shiro or Ryou asked. Lance didn’t mind not knowing, since he trusted both equally by now. It had taken many long months with Ryou, but their relationship had blossomed into a “cosmic flower,” the Japanese man had once said.Hunk and Pidge sent affirmations and their confidence warmed Lance’s heart. He felt secure, and far more secure than when he had left Earth. He felt capable. Certain of his path. Even though Red still wasn’t responding outside of firing up his scanners. “Shiro, I’m picking up potential hostile activity coming from the Garrison.”“Confirmed,” Keith responded from the Castle Bridge. “Visuals coming in. Have you and Allura confirmed launch?”“Blue isn’t responding.” Allura sounded pissed. And knowing how much she wanted to appear as a strong pilot, this was going to probably sting.Sinking back into Red’s chair, Lance closed his eyes and concentrated. Kogane? What’s going on?
Original pilots. They will need to see us all walk out and I hope they record it. Humans are just as capable as other species of the universe.
Opening his eyes, he called into his comm, “Keith, I need you to pilot Red. Allura, I think I need to be in Blue, and you probably should walk out in some serious Princess digs. Red isn’t going to respond to me more than the hop he gave me to Blue’s hangar.”Keith’s response was immediate. “Roger. Handing comms off to Commander Krolia for intel.”
“This is the White Paladin, confirming handoff. Black, Green, and Yellow Lions are standing by for synchronized takeoff.”
Lance hurried out again, the Red bayard in his hand. He hated running back and forth when he didn’t need to, but there wasn’t much else that he could do in this situation. Allura looked more than sad, she looked defeated. The young man pulled her into an embrace, rocking her back and forth. “This isn’t saying you’re not worthy of being Blue’s pilot, Allura.”“I . . . I wanted to fly with you so badly.”“We will. As soon as we’re done behaving, yeah?” Wiping her tears, Lance kissed her nose and whispered, “We’ll joyride tonight. I know that the Garrison will try to do detain us, but if me, Pidge, and Hunk could sneak out during a lockdown before we were trained up by Coran and the Blade. I’m pretty certain that we can do it again with all the new tricks we’ve been learning.”Allura nodded, sniffling. “Still. Hurts a bit to not be piloting a Lion.”“I don’t blame you. I really don’t.”Keith’s hurried and familiar jog met their ears as he carried half of his armor instead of wearing it. “I may have scarred Coran for life by starting to strip on the Bridge at a run.”Snorting a laugh, Allura reached for Keith, who folded her into a tight embrace. “You’re going to look gorgeous walking out of the Castle. Don’t make us wait too long, Princess.”They kissed, and then Allura looked meaningfully at Lance, then back at Keith. The young men laughed, reached for each other at the same time, bumped noses, snorted their laughter, and got a peck in. Lance helped Keith put the rest of his armor on, and they traded bayards while Allura began to run back towards her quarters. Keith’s voice was low, fond. “You’re pretty amazing, you know that? I’m really happy that you’re my Soulmate, Lance.”Trying not to tear up, Lance whispered, “I love you, Mullet. Wanna fly?”“Yeah. Let’s go, Sharpshooter.”
~*~
The sight was like nothing the population of Earth would have seen. The slow descent of a mountain of a space vessel was eerie in its exactness and the lack of disturbances it made to the desert land as it settled. The five motherfucking flying lions that were carving the air in complicated halos that looked almost as if they were guiding the landing? Terrifying. The rush of air from the final power-down of the engines was hot, but gentler than the night winds that shaped the rocks around them over millennia. If she had anything less than a backbone of steel, the woman would have stopped driving closer.Colleen grinned wildly as she urged her hoverbike just that bit faster, Ulaz on his hand-built hovercraft behind her and to one side. At a quick confirmation on her display as to where her Sam was, the duo reached the Garrison motorcade and kept pace beside his vehicle. This started the commanders into broadcast radio to tell them in no uncertain terms to fuck off . . . until they pinged her bike’s ID. Ulaz ignored the demands that he drop into a position that would trap him, trading places to break the wind for Colleen, giving her older speeder a chance to catch his slipstream. Even though she didn’t need it.Sam was laughing and waving at both of them, Veronica driving with a wild grin on her face.Five Lions roared overhead from behind, startling no few of the drivers into swerving and slowing down. The giant mechanical beasts stayed in tight formation before spiraling, breaking close formation, and playing a game of chase around the Castleship. Then, as quickly as it had started, the frenzy came to a halt with five Lions sitting to face the now-crawling motorcade. Black had settled directly between the entrance to the spacecraft and the Garrison motorcade.Six figures were simultaneously deposited out of five Lions’ mouths in another example of their synchronization.Colleen didn’t slow down until the last possible moment, careful not to spray any of the pilots with her deceleration. She all but flung herself off her speeder at the littlest Pilot, who threw their green helmet off and dove into an embrace, careful of the amor’s points. Sam wasn’t far behind them, wrapping both up in a laughing embrace. Nothing would have stopped Colleen from this, not when she and Ulaz had both been startled out of maintenance on an irrigation system for the garden with the alert tone.Veronica flung herself out of her vehicle and found herself picked up by her little brother and spun around. Laughing, she kissed both his cheeks and then pulled his ears. “You ever scare us like that again and we will chase after you into space!”Through his happy tears, he nodded. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”Keith stood with his hand in Hunk’s, both grinning broadly at seeing two of their Soulmates reconnect with family. Commander Iverson was approaching at a slow walk, his eyes darting between Shiro and Ryou. Shiro took a step forward to differentiate himself from his twin. “Iverson, good to see you again. This one of my brothers, Ryou Shirogane. Masaki is not a pilot, and you’ll meet him soon.”Iverson’s frown was marred by his confusion. “You . . . don’t have siblings. That’s why you were chosen for the Kerberos mission.”Ryou laughed, putting his hands on his hips. “Shit’s wild out there, Iverson. We’re only introducing the tame aspects before we get back to work.”The older man didn’t know what to quite do with that, so he nodded and looked to the next closest person. “Kogane?” Iverson asked, looking with shock at the now-tall young man. “You . . . huh. And Garret. Good to see you. You’re a pilot? What in the everloving fuck . . .”“Good to see you too, Commander,” Hunk replied. “Yeah, Yellow’s a great ship. The best. And the training out there helped take care of some of my motion sickness.”“No way up but down,” Keith snickered. He looked over his shoulder and nodded towards Shiro.The leader straightened and raised his voice, instantly gathering the attention of his former peers to indicate the woman walking around Black’s right side. “Galaxy Garrison representatives, many of you know me and some of you saw me the first time I returned to Earth to warn you all of the threat of the Galra Empire. They were after the Blue Lion, piloted first by Paladin Lance McClain. May I present the leader of the Altean people and the second Paladin of the Blue Lion, Princess Allura of Altea.”Lance’s knees nearly went out from under him at seeing Allura in finery that she hadn’t worn in almost a year. Veronica’s embrace was keeping him upright, but even she whispered, “Holy fuck and . . . you and she are Soulmates. She’s . . . she really is an actual Princess.”“Yeah, she’s amazing.”Allura had her hair pulled half-up in the style that showed off her pointed ears best and very little makeup to obscure the not-human shimmer that her skin gave off under a yellow sun. Instead of a full gown, she wore what could have passed as an artistic tuxedo on Earth, with a sheer top layer that imitated the cape floating behind her. She walked with her helmet pinned to her side almost-casually, but none of the Paladins would be shocked if it became her weapon at a moment’s notice.Princess Allura stood in front of the line of Paladins. “I take it that you are Commander Iverson of the Galaxy Garrison. I have heard of your attempts to train four of my six peers, and I commend your actions. You laid the groundwork that gave us some of the best pilots that our universe currently has access to.”“It’s my pleasure, Ma’am. Princess? Your highness.”Pidge snickered at the stumble. “Commander, Princess should do just fine.”“No need to complicate the politics until later, after all,” Allura agreed with a smile, which turned hard as she saw what was starting to happen behind Iverson and her voice hardened. “Although I will create an intergalactic incident if you do not remove your hands from my friend immediately.”Ulaz was released, and he walked forward and dematerialized his helmet as he knelt. “Princess Allura, it is a pleasure to see you again.” She pulled him up into a full hug, squeezing him until he coughed and returned the force of the embrace. His voice lowered. “Though the rest and recuperation has been helpful, we have missed our peers.”“You have many Blade-siblings that came along with us,” she reassured him. Turning to Iverson, she indicated behind herself. “Now may I introduce my advisor Coran, and Leader Kolivan of the Blade of Marmora, a former order of secret resistance fighters and spies that infiltrated the malicious and now-defeated Galra Empire.”Kolivan walked forward, his mask engaged, but he clasped arms with Ulaz and nodded at Iverson. “This is Ulaz, one of my medics and best undercover agents.”“How long were you hiding on Earth?” the Garrison officer asked, truly curious now that he could see that there was no serious threat from this group. He had lived through the final world war, surviving front line combat which cost him his eye. When he saw a threat with his good eye, he would recognize it for what it was.Ulaz looked to Colleen, who grinned and replied, “Well, how long as my Sam been home, Iverson?”“I knew you were up to something, but you’re too damned wily to leave any trace. No wonder your . . . wait, where’s Matt?”“Here!” Jogging forward, he laughed and caught his mother’s embrace. “Masaki, come meet Mom!”“Masaki’s here?!” Colleen dragged Matt by the hand back around Black’s paw and tackled the triplet in another embrace. “I have three Shirogane sons!” Her joy was so sharp that Masaki’s heart shattered. He dropped his head to her shoulder and wept, feeling Matt hold him up from behind, soft drops of warmth soaking through his shirt where the rebel let himself cry in relief.Sam rubbed the tears from his face, but he turned to look back at where Allura was holding her hand out behind her. “The Prince-Regent to New Galra’s Heir to the Throne and one of our Soulmates, Lotor of Galra and Altea.”“I’m sorry, can you . . . clarify how many of you are Soulmates?” Iverson asked softly. “Because . . . if I’m right . . . and I really hope that I’m wrong . . . there’s . . . a lot of you.”“Humans will never not be superstitious,” Krolia said as she followed her Emperor out, watching him stand to wordlessly . “I am Commander Krolia of the Blades and of New Galra.” She didn’t break her stoic expression. “Keith is my son.”“Keith. Keith?” Iverson looked between the Red Paladin and Krolia a few times before stepping back and squinting. “Motherfucker.”Why the entire group started to laugh was beyond Iverson’s comprehension, but it seemed to break the tension. Keith walked up and gave Iverson a nod. “There’s a lot to fill you in on. And yeah, my scores were out-of-this-world because I’m only half-human. Shiro?”“Let’s get everyone settled, and we’ll continue the debrief tomorrow. There’s family that we need to see before we are going to cooperate with Garrison protocol.” He stepped forward, starlight hair catching the sun in a way that human hair didn’t often do. “This is beyond one organization’s need for controlling publicity. We made several passes over major cities on our approach because we are no longer hiding. The threat of the remaining splinter cells of the defunct former Galra Empire are on our system’s doorstep. We are capable of defending Earth, and we will help train Earth to defend herself as we’ve trained many other worlds on our way home. We are the Paladins of Voltron and this is our home planet to defend. We will not fail our homeworld!”Veronica watched Iverson straighten and respond to the small speech, and she nodded to herself. This was beyond her wildest expectations. She looked to Lance, whose own face reflected how much maturing he’d had to do, and hoped that the combined efforts of the Paladins’ families would be enough. It would just have to be. She smiled gently when Lance’s eyes met hers again and his face relaxed, like he was looking for this to be a dream.But it wasn’t.They were home.