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elkian · 7 years

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wassup got a fic out of my docs and out of my system #feelsgoodman

Rating: G

Words: 1,752

Fandom: Voltron Legendary Defender

Characters: All Paladins, Princess Allura, Coran (Paladin-centric)

It’s when Hunk takes a light (but, judging from Lance’s face, not light enough), joking swipe at Lance that they notice.

Pidge realizes just how much they’ve curled on top of Keith, practically sitting in his lap. Keith, who - doesn’t hate, but definitely dislikes touching people, being touched, is slowly and unconsciously carding one hand through their hair. Shiro is hanging over the couch from the back, mock-refereeing Hunk and Lance’s impromptu slapfight, his human arm slung casually across Pidge and Keith’s necks. Lance and Hunk have been practically entwined in each other for the last twenty minutes - and they’re both cuddly, but usually not that cuddly.

The best, oddest thing is that it doesn’t really snap off… the paladins drift to their rooms for lights out, almost glowing in the unusual contact, and though they’re mostly back to normal the next ‘day’, if Lance’s arms slides against Keith’s during breakfast, or Hunk’s back presses reassuringly against Pidge’s during practice, it’s nothing to mention.

---

The next time it happens, they start to realize why. After a long mind-melding session (attempt), the paladins wander into the dining room. Rather than slump at the table and wait for Coran and Hunk to feed them, they decide to follow the yellow paladin into the ‘kitchen’ area.

Keith and Shiro find themselves at a pair of cutting boards, following Hunk’s ecstatic yet clear instructions on how to cut the various alien… vegetables? Pidge has the stove-like thing going and is stirring what appears to be some kind of pasta, while Lance is surprisingly deftly folding spices and herbs into a bowl of cheese-vegetable. Hunk all but dances through the food preparation area, dipping a tasting spoon into this and that and glowingly complimenting everyone’s work. It’s the first time most of the paladins have seen him in action like this, and they realize that to him, food is a kind of engineering - both a science and an art.

And when they settle together at the table (chairs a little closer than usual, as they lean over each other and fight for fritters and pasta, laughing and settling back, their shoulders knocking together), the food tastes sharper and better than ever, complex alien flavors filling their palates and lending an extra helping of cheer and energy to the previously burnt-out crew.

---

“What does this do?”

“How does this work?”

“How much can we alter the gravity in the castle? What about each room?”

“How old are the Lions? Could we make more? What happens if a pilot passes out or something, can someone else sub in?”

Coran looked fit to pull his mustache out.

Pidge glances at the Altean and their mouth curls in a smirk, but they just keep tapping away at their newest project. Allura doesn't even bother with that much restraint, laughing for what feels like the first time in weeks.

The redhead swatted Lance away from poking at a button that probably wouldn’t eject them all into space. “Alright, that’s it! You are ALL GROUNDED until you can be yerselves properly again! I can’t believe this!” He whipped around and pointed at Pidge, whose smug face instantly fell. “And you! I get that there’s a power rush and all involved but could you try not to dominate yer teammate’s minds?”

Pidge’s expression isn’t quite as blank as they like, but blank enough to make Coran lose steam and (alongside a still-amused Allura) actually explain what’s been happening to them for weeks. They’d all guessed, of course, but it was good to hear someone actually lay it all out.

Shiro clapped a hand on the Altean’s shoulder as he finished. “Well, we’re handling it pretty well so far, Coran. And I don’t think it’s such a bad thing if we paladins - all of us - know a little bit more about what we’re doing, don’t you?”

Coran’s budding confident smile soured as Lance almost immediately appeared in front of him, pointed at his chin, and asked, “Wait, do you shave? How do you shave? Can I borrow your razor?”

---

And then they were Keith.

This far in, the melding started to have more dramatic, or at least easily discernible effects - it was easier to stay oneself, but more nuance was also received.

Hunk felt like his skin was tighter than ever. Itchy, on the verge of doing something. His nervous tics and constant movement increased - it wasn’t enough to rummage through everyone’s things, he was pacing, he wanted to go for a mile run even though they’d just finished training.

Pidge’s tech work becomes even faster, if slightly sloppy. They breach new and barely imaginable ideas, half-crafted code being discarded in favor of transcribing the newest thought. They feel on fire, more intuition than person.

Lance is… Lance is good, in a way no one expected. Something about Keith’s razor instincts and surety just clicks with his hunches and bravado. Of course, it also makes him even more insufferable than ever - though he’s quieter than they’ve ever seen him, what few words do leave him are far more accurate than anyone is comfortable with. He’s making a particularly unflattering observation about Coran when Shiro finally physically picks him up and forces him to go to his bedroom, with a stern but amused “Behave”.

---

Lance’s interconnectivity, Hunk’s interest in and love for all aspects of food, Pidge’s burning curiosity, and Keith’s deeply ingrained intuition all have perks and mostly-proportionate downsides, and Shiro is no different.

Is this truly the first time he’s come through, or the first they’ve noticed? It’s hard to tell, but several of Team Voltron would put their money on the former - while he’s often stern and disciplinary, Shiro does his best not to burden his team, even when it would help him.

It’s difficult to translate years (and desperate, deeply-engraved, half-forgotten months) of experience across a temporary mental connection, particularly in just residue. They do eventually notice, however; Lance thinks a little before he opens his mouth. Hunk remembers Pidge’s discomfort and considers putting the diary back (he doesn’t. But it’s a start). Pidge finds themself a little more aware of the emotions of the people around them, as does Keith, and both find themselves a little more in control of their anger that day.

Shiro wakes that night, choking on a scream; same as usual. But he’s barely sat up, intent on getting out of bed and exercising the phantoms away, when the door whooshes open.

Much as he might want to deny it, he lets Lance curl into his body, head butting into his ribs and fingers circling his 'real' elbow and snores already shaking the bed. He lets Hunk and Keith shove a second mattress through the doorway and flop onto the floor, Pidge already slumped with their back against the side of the bunk and snoring (little fingers oh-so-fragile laced with his monstrous ones, and he wants to object but he feels like a person for the first time in months). Hunk’s halfway through a story, an amused (and still fully-clothed) Keith humoring him with a faint smile, when sleep brings him down, and while the red paladin is the last of the four to fall into slumber, he also looks more relaxed than Shiro has ever seen him.

And somehow, that’s what really helps him smile, half-lidded eyes brimming with tears even with Lance sawing logs against his chest and curled like a constrictor around him, that’s what helps him finally sleep, for what feels like the first time in years.

---------

For the rest of his life, Shiro will remember the feeling of Pidge’s pulse under his fingertips as he woke; the quiet and, for lack of a better word, universal breathing pattern that had filled his humble quarters slowing the existential dread that waking brought.

Their dramatic days lessened, but was it because they’d improved or because they were resembling each other more? And was that because of the link, or just because they’d spent so much time together, especially as comrades-in-arms? It wasn’t as if they didn’t find themselves sometimes aping Allura or Coran’s unique alien accents, or unusual turns of phrase - just the other day, Lance had caught himself (okay, Keith caught him and then Hunk and Pidge wouldn’t let him live it down, whatever) using body language from both Alteans, the particular wrist flick Coran might use to indicate something, the foot-tapping Allura did when thinking of something long past.

So, anyways, it might not be anything.

But then again.

When the newest aliens threw them a welcome/thanks/leave-as-soon-as-you’re-done-please feast, and Keith accidentally shoved a chunk of hairy, deeply texturally unpleasant root vegetable in his mouth, it was Pidge, who wasn’t even looking his way, who quietly handed him a napkin and distracted their hosts while he spat it out.

When a piece of the kitchen fell on and trapped Hunk and Lance, weeks after their last mind meld, it was Shiro who stopped in the middle of his workout six levels away and found them, Keith and Pidge appearing almost as soon as he’d gotten the story out of the boys.

When Pidge kicked a piece of unresponsive alien hardware and accidentally broke their toe, Hunk had them in his arms and halfway to the infirmary before they could even get over the shock to yell.

Shiro had a bad dream and Lance started crying in the middle of a joke, and the four collected outside his door before he’d even woken up. Keith sprained his knee in training and Lance noticed before he did; Lance tried to eat something that Hunk had meant to throw out and Pidge stopped him, even though they couldn’t explain why; Lance tried to tell a new joke and Keith ruined it by shouting the punchline a sentence early and laughing hysterically; Shiro got a craving for marshmallows and walked into the kitchen to find Hunk putting the finishing touches on ‘alien s’mores’ or, as Lance liked to call them, Space S’Mores (with pronounced capitalization).

Sometimes it worried them. Allura and Corran seemed to find it normal, but was it? Was it normal for paladins… or for Alteans? Was it making them other than human?

But as time went on, they began to realize that only some of it was the mind meld, the Lions. And a lot of it… was them.

Years after the war, after Zarkon’s defeat, even when far from each other, they would always be a team.

They’d always be family.

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