#been purposefully giving himself that mullet this whole time

[discordiansamba]

For the identity crisis AU, do you think their fashion sense changes any?

Oooooh, good question.

Well first off. Hunk's definitely wouldn't. This is because Hunk and Keith have exactly the same fashion sense. Seriously. Look at their outfits side by side. Cropped vests/jackets? Fingerless gloves? Boots? Belts with pouches? Literally the exact same fashion sense.

Lance probably wouldn't change much, but I think he'd develop more of a sense for comfort while still trying not to look like a slob. There's some part of him that wants to start wearing shorts, but he is not listening to that part of him. That's the devil talking. He would not look good in shorts, and he knows this. Stop trying to make him wear shorts, part of him that's Pidge.

Pidge gets a cropped jacket. She sees one at the market and she can't resist. It's got deep pockets- what more could a girl want? The fingerless gloves come after. Also when was anyone going to tell her how convenient having a belt with pouches was? She resists the urge to buy a headband, but it's there. She's not going to say that's the devil talking. That would be a rude thing to say about her friend.

Keith buys a non-cropped jacket and stops wearing the fingerless gloves. God himself could not force him to stop wearing his dad's old belt, though. Everyone's watching him like a hawk to see if he'll cut off the mullet but he just stops cutting his hair instead, which turns out to grow weirdly fast. He gets Allura to teach him how to braid it, which is a very weird bonding experience for her. She'll take it?

[stuffandnosense]

Back To You - Chpt 5

Chpt 1 | Chpt 2 | Chpt 3 | Chpt 4

Description: Post A/L breakup after season 7, Pidge and Lance are JUST starting to, maybe, figure something out. But then a mission gone wrong leaves Pidge unable to feel emotions, unable to act on the feelings they were barely sure they had, and the condition may or may not be permanent.

***

Allura is in uniform when she emerges from the bathroom again, just pushing a final pin into her hair that’s now up. Lance is still at the table, trying to stave off the last of the shivering running through him with the blanket the princess settled around his shoulders before she went to get dressed.

“So you have everything you need now?” he asks.

“I believe so,” she says. “How are you doing?”

Lance lets out a breath and gets to his feet, leaving the blanket behind. A final shiver runs through his shoulders, but with a deep breath it seems to finally have stopped. “I’m okay. I should get out of your way. I um...just...thank you.”

She pulls him into a hug, and he isn’t going to say no to that. Not now.

“Of course,” she says.

“How much time do you need? When do you think you can try…?”

Allura shrugs as she releases him. “Soon. We’ll be arriving at the gas giant we’re planning to study later this morning; we’ll be out most of the afternoon collecting scans and samples. But perhaps tomorrow? That should give me enough time to collect my thoughts.”

“You think so?”

“I’ll speak with Pidge and her father and the doctors. Shiro as well. If everyone agrees I don’t see why not. After all, the sooner we can have Pidge back in her lion, the better.”

“Yeah…”

Allura tilts her head at him. “You should try to get some rest before we reach the gas giant.”

Lance winces. “Maybe. I’m gonna hit the showers at least.”

***

When Lance comes out of Allura’s room, it’s still relatively early. He expects to be alone in the corridor.

He isn’t. He looks up as the door closes behind him and Pidge is there, just coming out of her own room. Staring at him. His cheeks color immediately, horribly of aware of how this probably looks. He opens his mouth to say something, but she’s already turning and walking away.

“P-Pidge, wait!” He takes quick strides to catch up, reaching out as he goes. He nearly grabs her arm, but at a brush of her sleeve she turns back silently to look at him. “Pidge...th-this isn’t what it looks like, I swear.”

“What does it look like?”

“I…” He makes a face. “Never mind. But it isn’t! I was just helping Allura—“

“You don’t need to justify yourself to me.”

“Yes, I do!”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you to think Allura and I are...together again, or anything. It’s not like that. She had to finish looking around in my head and everything so she can help YOU.”

Pidge shrugs once. “You only recently ended your relationship with the princess; it would be reasonable of both you to want to give it another try, especially considering the current circumstances.”

“We’re not! I told you, that’s not what—circumstances?”

She’s silent for a moment before she answers him. As if assessing if it makes sense to say what she says next. “That I may never be able to return the feelings you have for me.”

Lance isn’t sure he heard that correctly. It takes him a moment to remember to breathe. “The...what? You...you know? How…?”

She faces him more fully, nodding a bit. “It’s been clear for some time now. Until what happened I was too quick to dismiss it as wishful thinking due to my own, but it’s easier to see now.”

Lance reaches out to the corridor wall for support. “Pidge…?” She knew? And she…?

“I understand that your feelings were likely what you didn’t want to tell me about last night.”

“Yeah…”

“I apologize; I seem to have upset you.”

It hurts. He should be happy. Elated. A week ago this would have been the moment he’s been waiting for for...only weeks, really, but somehow...for so much longer.

But now it just hurts. His other hand clenches at his side; part of him wants to be angry, but it isn’t her fault she’s so blunt. She’s not completely tactless even this way as it is. At least she’s apologizing for the sudden...whatever just happened.

“You’re saying...you have...had...f-feelings for me. Too. Before? And-and you knew that I—?”

“I was under the impression you were aware of it, too.”

Lance swallows. Maybe he had been. “That’s why you came last night.”

She knew. Was she trying to keep him from being hurt later? Maybe it’s only logic to her now, but it had to have come from somewhere. Thoughts or knowledge or instincts she had...before.

“Yes,” she says. “Was I not straightforward enough then?”

“No, no, you were pretty clear, I’m just…I’m just an idiot, I guess.”

Pidge raises an eyebrow. “You may not be at my level, admittedly, but you’re certainly not lacking in intelligence at all; the Garrison would never have admitted you if that were the case, and I can personally attest to your quick and creative thinking.”

Lance straightens in surprise. “What?”

“I said—”

“I heard what you said.” He laughs weakly, blinking to push back the sudden dampness in his eyes. “Pidge, I...look, I still hope we can get you back to normal soon, but there ARE a few things I kind of like about this you.”

She doesn’t seem to know what to do with that. “Will you be all right? I should be going. I’m meeting my dad for breakfast. He seems concerned that I might become too ‘disconnected,’ as he puts it. He’s insisted on a certain roster of social activities.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay; you should go.”

Pidge nods and heads off for the cafeteria, leaving Lance in the corridor. Not for the first time since all of this started.

But this time it hurts just a little less.

***

When Lance makes it back to the cafeteria after showering and changing, he doesn’t find many people he knows. Again. It’s too late for breakfast for most people. Again. Just like yesterday. And he hasn’t seen much of Keith and Hunk in a day or so. He isn’t sure what they’re up to.

There’s no sign of Pidge, but Sam is still here—at a table in the corner with empty dishes still spread in front of him, staring at nothing and seemingly lost in thought. But Lance knows that look. He’s seen it in the mirror enough the last couple of days.

He finds himself drifting that direction. “I thought Pidge was meeting you here earlier.”

Sam blinks up at him, as if surprised to be interrupted. “Oh, she did. She left not long ago to get back to her lab; I’m just...here,” he sighs.

“Oh.” Lance knows that feeling, too. This Pidge doesn’t mean to hurt anyone; she’s just straightforward, focused. Sometimes the things she says without thinking can be good, but sometimes not. How quickly she moves on to the next thing on her list can hurt, too. “I uh...mind if I join you?”

Sam gives him a brittle smile. “Of course not.”

Lance slides onto the bench across from him and eats in silence at first. Sam seems more comfortable going back to staring off somewhere, and for a while that’s best for both of them.

“Katie told me about your run-in this morning.”

Lance freezes with a bite of waffle halfway to his mouth. His hand falls back to the table. “She knew,” he says quietly. “I mean I should have known she knew; we kind of all...knew, I guess. I know you did…” He trails off and winces when he realizes he’s rambling.

“Sorry. I can’t imagine how hard this whole thing is for you; I don’t want to add to that. Just...ignore me.”

“I brought it up.” Sam leans over his arms on the table. “Lance, when I told you you were family, I meant it. That doesn’t just apply to raiding my refrigerator during midnight gaming sessions with my daughter. You can talk to me. Or I hope you feel like you can, anyway.”

Lance manages to answer this time; he couldn’t a week ago. “Thank you…”

“Besides,” Sam says. “Who else am ‘I’ going to talk to out here? No one other than you kids...no one else on this ship cares about her as much as I do.” He winces. “You’re her family too. You understand.”

“I...yeah. Yeah. You can talk at me as much as you want.”

***

There are a couple of hours of downtime before the mission, and Lance isn’t sure what to do with them. He heads back to his quarters, thinking maybe he should take Allura’s advice and try to get some more rest, but when he rounds the corner Keith and Hunk are outside his door as if they were looking for him.

“There he is…” Keith says.

“Guys? What are you doing? Where have you been, anyway?” Both of them are in rumpled uniforms. “You don’t look much more awake than me..”

“We’re definitely not,” Hunk snorts. “Anyway, come on; you need to see something.”

“Like what?”

They drag him to Hunk’s workshop, where no fewer than five computers are working and bits of disemboweled technology are strewn everywhere. He recognizes a few small pieces from the planet where Pidge was poisoned.

“What have you been doing in here?”

Hunk shrugs. “Trying to decipher as much as we can from the chips and stuff we managed to grab from that planet before we had to high-tail it back to the lions. And I’m telling you even with MY skills and Pidge’s translation algorithms it has NOT been easy, but…”

Keith sighs. “Remember what I said? Back in the infirmary?”

“Not really; there’s kind of been a lot going on.”

“About...why a civilization might have tried to create something that would do what that toxin did to Pidge.”

Lance blinks, but he can’t remember anything specific. He’s just...too tired. He shakes his head. “I don’t, what?”

“That maybe it wasn’t a weapon. Maybe they were trying to do it to themselves.”

Lance makes a face. “Why would anyone want to do that?”

“The Vulcans purposefully created a society where they suppressed all emotion the majority of the time…” Keith trails off at they stare at him. “What?”

Hunk snickers. “Okay, A) they’re fictional, and B) you watched Star Trek?”

“My dad had a child with an alien; what else was he going to watch with me!”

“Okay, guys?” Lance asks tiredly. “As much as I’d love to debate Kirk or Picard—”

“Kirk. Obviously,” Keith huffs.

“Mullet, my brain is literally going to explode if you don’t stop.”

Hunk makes waving motions to get their attention. “Yeah. Could we not explode Lance? Okay listen. Actually, from what we’ve been able to decode, I think this species may have been telepathic.”

***

“Telepathic?” Allura says. Half a varga later and they’ve dragged her to the workshop to go over it all again.

“Yeah,” Hunk sighs. “The details we’ve been able to make out are sketchy, but it’s like...they were trying to stop war from happening or something. They...fused their science and their telepathy and...made this stuff. Somehow.”

Lance’s stomach is twisting with anxiety. There’s more to it than that--pieces of detail here and there Hunk and Keith pointed out to him earlier. Failed versions of the experiment. Mentions of the wars that led to it. The thought processes of those behind it. Even after everything that had happened, to plan to do that to their own people...

“Sorry, reading alien languages isn’t really my specialty,” Hunk is telling Allura. “If you and Pidge helped we could probably get more of it, but we wanted to find out if any of this stuff was useful to begin with.”

Allura leans over the desk, studying the strewn data pads. “It’s all right, Hunk. This is helpful already; it’s only...now I’m concerned. Telepathy does not necessarily mean magic, but it could. And that might explain how the toxin survived thousands of years. But in either case, what they seem to be saying here about their telepathy...using it to fuel the experiment…”

“It means it might not be just a medical or mental problem that needs to be fixed,” Lance says with a wince. “Doesn’t it?”

“Correct…” Allura rests a hand on his arm briefly. “But I will still try tomorrow, as we’ve planned. This does not have to mean that helping Pidge will be more difficult. I am somewhat concerned because it may, but this does not mean it has to.”

***

“You seem distracted.”

Lance sighs and punches up another scan display to be sure the data is recording correctly and they’re on the course Pidge plotted for them. Behind him, Pidge is cross-legged on the floor of Red’s cockpit with her computers.

“Because I am,” he says. “I mean, if I’m gonna do it I guess this is a good mission to do it on. Pretty straightforward. Collect the samples. Scan the...stuff. Anyway.” Lance squints out Red’s front dash at the gas giant and the colorful nebula that surrounds it. Coran had been going on about it having some interesting properties or something.

“I used to get so excited every time we saw something like this. Like...when I first got into the Garrison I felt like I was never really sure I’d make it through the program and ever get to go to space in the first place, and then I was seeing stuff like this every day. Now I’m just...it’s almost like it doesn’t matter. Is that bad?”

He glances back at Pidge, who raises an eyebrow.

“Sorry, you’re not the best person to be asking that right now, I know.”

She shrugs. “It’s perfectly normal for the human brain to become accustomed to certain things.”

“Yeah, but...nevermind.” He sighs. Maybe it’s because he’s still anxious about tomorrow. But she knows, now, and she’s agreed, but of course she isn’t…

“Lance?”

He doesn’t mean to flinch. But the way she says his name is as close to normal as she’s sounded since all of this began.

“Sorry, what?”

“Are you all right?” It’s not asked in the same way she would usually ask it. It’s a mechanical question. Habit.

“Yeah. I mean...no. No exactly.” He lets out a breath. “Hey. Did you…? Did you mean what you said this morning?” The ache in his gut twists, asking him why he’s asking that. Does he just want to hurt MORE? But…

“I have no reason to lie to you,” Pidge says, barely looking up from her screens.

He swallows, even as a strange warmth floods through him. “Then...I mean how do you know that? How you felt, I mean. Before this happened. What’s…? What’s that like?”

Now she picks her head up, thoughtful. “I don’t know that I could explain it to you; you don’t have an adequate frame of reference.”

“Humor me.”

She goes quiet for a moment. “My memories aren’t impaired,” she says, slowly. “Of course I remember having feelings. And why I had them. But thinking about them now, I can be objective. I don’t have an emotional reaction to remembering the reactions I had then. I don’t know if that’s helpful.”

“A little, maybe. But anyway, you’re still okay with Allura fixing it?”

“It’s what’s best for Voltron.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“For me, it does,” Pidge says. “That’s also part of it. What matters to me, without emotion as a factor, is what is objectively better for the most people.”

Lance sighs. “You matter too, Pidge. Even Spock figured that one out eventually.”

“Isn’t it true that you would prefer for me to be the way I was?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Pidge is quiet for a moment. She goes back to her computers, and Lance thinks that might be it until she speaks up again.

“Then I want that as well.”

Lance looks back, attention pulled away from his scans again. “What?”

She isn’t looking at him, but she elaborates. “Or perhaps I should say I’m aware that I should. If my past feelings are any indication, I would have wanted that. If I were to accept your premise that my personal opinion on the matter is also important—which I am not saying I have accepted—I would have to concede that I should want this change corrected as well.”

Lance smiles weakly. “Well that’s something, I guess.”

His Pidge is in there. Somewhere.

***

“Hey, man, did you sleep at ALL last night?” Hunk asks.

Lance thinks about lying, but his friend’s hand is at his back, pressing in and warm, and he doesn’t have the heart to do it. “I uh...no. Not even a little.”

He’s afraid he looks it, too. His meticulous routine has gone by the wayside since the accident. He ran a comb through his hair this morning and his uniform is technically clean, but he doesn’t want to guess how large the bags under his eyes might be.

He feels cold and achy with exhaustion. Like reality isn’t real. But maybe, in a little while, everything will make sense again.

They’re all here. Crowded into a room in the infirmary in case anything goes wrong. Allura and Pidge on the edge of the examination bed. Sam at his daughter’s side and Shiro beside his old friend. Coran, Keith, Hunk, Veronica...they’re all here. Allura started a few minutes ago and she warned them it might take a while and…

Waiting is hard.

Hunk rubs Lance’s back as if trying to massage away the exhaustion, maybe just because none of them really have anything to do anyway. Lance is almost afraid he’ll fall asleep on his feet if Hunk keeps it up, but it’s nice. And If it keeps Hunk distracted, well. He’s not gonna take that away from him.

A few more minutes, and Hunk is just clinging to him. Probably as anxious as he is.

Allura opens her eyes. “I...I know what it is.”

She doesn’t look happy about it. Why doesn’t she look happy?

“Allura?” Sam asks.

She swallows. Her fingers have not left Pidge’s temples, and the soft blue glow hasn’t died away, but it dims as she redirects some of her concentration to talk to them.

“It’s...it isn’t a physical problem. Some of it may be manifesting physically in the form of the clouded areas we’ve seen on scans, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is telepathic. Hunk and Keith’s findings were correct...somehow this species was able to infuse telepathy and quite possibly magic into a physical toxin.”

Sam shifts closer to Pidge. “What does that mean…?”

No…

“It means...I don’t have the tools needed to fix this. I-I have magic, but I am not a true telepath. I know enough to nearly understand what is wrong...to find the telepathic barrier that’s been put in place, but...I can’t remove it. Not alone.”

“W-what are you talking about?” Lance says. “You can do this. I know this isn’t Voltron, but you can do it. You...you always can…”

“Lance, it isn’t about power, or believing. I don’t have the right ‘type’ of power.” She looks at Sam, too, and Pidge, who has opened her eyes. “I am so sorry...perhaps if we found a powerful enough telepath…”

Lance doesn’t realize he’s swaying backwards until Hunk’s arm is pressing into his back again, keeping him upright.

“Easy, buddy…” Hunk says quietly. His voice is tight, and Lance doesn’t blame him. His head is spinning.

“Thank you, for trying,” Sam is saying. He sounds sincere, but dull. Pained.

“Wait,” Allura says suddenly. “There is one thing I may be able to do now. If Pidge will allow it.”

“What?” Pidge asks.

“I...Lance may be right. I may not be able to remove the barrier because I am not a telepath, but I do have magic. I do have a certain amount of power, and it counts for something. I may be able to...lift the edge, for lack of a better term. Temporarily negate the effects.” She winces. “Very temporarily. Only for a few moments, most likely. But…”

The room seems to take a collective breath at that.

Pidge shrugs slightly. “I’ll allow that if anyone wants it.”

Of course they do. They all do. But Lance leaves it her father to say so. Allura nods and nudges for Pidge to shift to face out on the edge of the infirmary bed. Allura shifts back, carefully changing the position of her fingers without entirely breaking some kind of contact, so that she’s reaching around Pidge’s head from the back instead of the front.

“It will be easier for the others this way,” Allura says, when Pidge looks at her quizzically.  

They settle, and Allura and Sam are already crying silently before Allura even does anything else. Lance isn’t sure how he’s breathing.

Pidge closes her eyes as the glow from Allura’s hands brightens again. As Allura closes her own to concentrate. But Lance can still see the moment when something changes. When Pidge’s face scrunches in confusion and then a kind of pain.

Her first breath after that is a sob. “Dad…?” Her eyes fly open and she’s reaching out for Sam. “Dad…! Oh god, oh god…!” he pulls her in closer, wrapping her up in his arms as tight as it looks like he can without breaking Allura’s hold on her temples.

“Katie…”

“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault. It’s not, Katie.”

“I-I don’t want to be like that anymore! I’m not ME, I...i-it’s so wrong…” She sniffs into his coat. “I love you, Dad. I love all of you…”

“We know.” Sam stands back from her to let the others close. Shiro, Hunk, even Keith goes in for a quick hug, while they can, while Lance is rooted where he stands trying to breathe.

His face is already wet. Of course it is. By the time Pidge finds him and meets his eyes he’s crying, and he really wishes he could have done better but he can’t. He can’t do it. He’s shaking and he can’t help that, either. Not even when she reaches out first from where she sits, and takes his hand.

“Lance…”

“Pidge,” he gasps.

Her eyes are wide with the fear of how little time they have now. “Kiss me.”

Lance doesn’t have time to question her. Or to think about the fact that Sam and Allura and Shiro and the others are there and looking at them. He ducks forward, cupping her face with his free hands and pressing his lips to hers. Uncertain at first, but she tugs him in closer by the front of his shirt.

He sobs against her cheek when the kiss has ended. “We’re not giving up. I-I’ll never…”

“I know,” Pidge whispers.

Lance all but stumbles backward, giving Sam the space to have another moment before Allura has to stop. Before she can’t do it anymore.

“I love you,” Pidge is saying to Sam again. “Please...please t-tell Mom, and Matt. I...just in case I-I can’t...I…”

“Katie…” Sam leans down to look into her eye, taking her shoulders in his hands. “Katie, listen to me. Love isn’t just a feeling. Remember that. It’s a choice. Even if you can’t have these flighty things we call emotions, you can still choose to care for someone - to...to count their well-being as important, or to protect them or...you see?”

“I-I do right now; I hope I will when—“ She cuts off in a sob. “Dad, I’m scared.”

Sam pulls her in again, and Allura is trembling. Running out of energy. Pidge buries her face in her father’s jacket.

Allura all but collapses when she lets go. Coran is there to catch her. Faintly Lance thinks he should have been there, too, but he feels like he might collapse, himself. Hunk is crying beside him, but it’s still his friend keeping him upright, really.

Pidge is the only one of them who doesn’t look upset, of course. As she sits up and unburies her face. She looks around at them all her eyebrows go up.

“I’m the cause of all this. I should apologize.”

Sam sobs quietly and wraps himself around her again. She doesn’t bother to return the embrace this time, but at least she doesn’t seem to have anything against it. “No...it’s not your fault.”

Lance doesn’t know what to do with himself. Hunk is still crying and Keith looks unsure, too. Shiro is looking at them. All of them. Probably trying to decide who might need him more, because that’s just Shiro, but right now Lance...can’t.

He starts to back away from everyone and Hunk calms enough to ask after him. “Lance? Man?” he asks weakly.

“I-I’m just...gonna…” He turns for the door, and something about the movement hurts. In his head. How long since his head started hurting again? Or did it really ever stop?

He reaches out for the doorframe, suddenly dizzy. He knows his other hand goes to press at his head and he can vaguely hear one or two of the others calling his name, but they’re so far away now…

Then the floor is getting very close very fast, and someone is grabbing at him, but everything goes black before Lance can find out who.

Read Chpt 6 >>