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[pancreaticanomaly]

his lungs forgot oxygen, his heart forgot gravity. <3!

Make Believe: Part Five

(Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | AO3)

Keith woke slowly, comfortably, with a warm body pressed against him. An arm snug around his waist kept him close. Slow, even exhales ghosted over his neck, deep breaths bordering a light snore. Fast asleep, Shiro looked so serene.

Keith shifted a bit, but Shiro didn’t stir. He shifted a little more; still no response. Eyes flitting to the corner of the room, he caught a glimpse of their ever present chaperone. He had a role to play, right? So he could justify it when he brought his hand to Shiro’s face and ran his fingers down his jaw, touch feather light.

He let the back of his hand graze the curve of his cheekbone, and for just a moment, he let himself pretend this wasn’t all a big lie. For just a moment, this was his.

“I love you,” he mouthed, not daring to let air past his lips. The syllables were foreign to his teeth, his tongue, but they felt right when it was Shiro on the other end. The words rolled over his tongue again as he brushed pale bangs aside and out of dark lashes. I love you.

He lingered in quiet reverie a few moments more before disentangling himself to greet the day.

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[pancreaticanomaly]

black lion liminal

It’s all gathered in his throat. Everything he’s tried to say since dying, all the unsaid before and every scream from that black…that black…

The taloned words rake each breath. He goes to sleep breathless, wakes gasping, some ragged apnea. “If you want to talk,” says Allura, her voice sad, her eyes a swallow of fear. 

If you want to talk. If you can.

“It’s good to have you back!””welcome home””welcomeback” they’re too close. Hunk and his bear hug, Lance’s held gaze and quick grin, the puff and bustle of Coran, Pidge decoding what happened until she’s murmuring a white noise lullaby, the comfort of a voice without meaning

too much too many too fast too too too too too too 

please.

In the Lion, the infinite was intimacy.

At night, he rubs his throat, coughs, raw inside and out. The trapped words burrow into his pulped flesh, red, angry. Raw.

Where’s Keith?

He wakes this time with his mouth open, hand resting just under his jaw. He wonders at his own heart, how it pushes the warm thin skin against his fingertips at hummingbird speeds. He was dreaming. A nightmare he left his breath back there, the Lion humming i have it i have it i kept it for you don’t worry.

“If you need to talk.” 

He goes to the bridge when everyone else is still asleep and he stares out at the great nothing. It’s not enough. He needs to get closer.

“If you want to talk…”

The Lion waits in its hangar, in his head, in the void. It holds his voice in its riven jaw. i have it i have it i kept it for you. 

Two steps and he’s at the window, one more and his hand is against the cold immediacy of it and quiznak that feels good.

That feels.

He leans his forehead against it.

He presses his chest to the glass.

He realizes he hasn’t felt anything in a year. Not technically. Not physically.

Oh, he thinks as, at last, he starts to relax. 

Hello body.

He closes his eyes. This time the dream starts well — the joy of that connective space where Lion and paladin are one and whole, it suffuses him. Remember how this felt. In the dream, he says WORK AS A TEAM. He says, THEN WE ARE UNBEATABLE and his voice is the size of the Black Lion, of Voltron, of the multiverse.

In silence, the paladins turn to look at him. It’s not the same, they say, accusatory like he chose this.

You’re not the same.

Who are you.

We don’t trust you anymore.

His Lion looks at him. i kept it for you. The others turn to leave. WAIT he calls except not, except there’s the Black Lion with its jaw unhinged and he’s dissipating into it, alone, all the air gone, alone

alone and gasping

he wakes on his back. His left hand hurts, cramped into a rictus claw. The bridge is still dark.

His lungs are empty.

“Breathe.” The voice is low, above him. 

He tries. He knows this voice. 

His lungs refuse.

“Just breathe. Come on…” The voice is struggling to hide its anxiety. But his lungs still won’t.

Or…maybe his lungs will — inflating in the absence of air, trick the breath into coming — but his throat won’t. The vulnerable edges of it too raw for even air to pass through unharming.

Or maybe his body is still missing, all this a mindfuck from an alien beast that doesn’t know what it’s doing and now his hummingbird heart is screaming

wild eyes

clawed hands against the floor

his gaping mouth

met with a kiss.

Skin on his skin.

A shared inhale (remember: this is how we breathe).

Keith’s palm on his chest.

He closes his eyes and breathes. He can close his eyes and breathe. The small weight of that hand on his sternum, a sun-warmed stone, a child, faith that he is, after so long, back in the world.

In the aftermath of touch, he looks for the Lion and the Lion is gone.

And he laughs.

“Shiro,” says Keith, and it’s all in that word, this whole world in that voice shaping those sounds.

Until he opens his own mouth and, gently, careful of the sharp edges, says, “Keith.”

[pancreaticanomaly]

Epilogue for a Little Idiot

Epilogue for a Little Idiot

It starts between music therapy and lunch. Hunk has been handed a triangle. He wanted the hand drum, but Ellen took that. As always. Ellen the therapist’s pet. 

So, fine. He doesn’t need the drum. He’ll just kick butt with this triangle. Its clear notes, its sweet sweet voice like being called in for dinner. 

Mmmm.

Dinner.

Remember Vrepit Sal’s? 

That first bite of that first customer? Her wide smile lighting up her purple face? It was something. It was something. It gets so boring here he just wants to — 

Hunk hits the triangle. Ellen says, “Too early.” And Hunk says, “No, no I think I was late, Ellen.” Jeez. And Yellow says, 

HEY.

Hunk concentrates on his timing. Dang it, Ellen, keep your own beat.

HEY…

Beat. Eat. Sal’s. Mmm… When’s lunch?

HELLO?

Yellow?

HI HUNK.

“Quiznak!” 

“Hunk! Please stop using foul language.” Ellen is affronted and usually Hunk would latch onto this and rib her to pass the time but he hasn’t heard Yellow’s voice in 170 years. Y’know. A while. So he smiles at Ellen, excuses himself and starts the long, familiar journey to the bathroom. This should give them time to chat.

Yellow.

HUNK.

I….it’s been…. Where have you been?

I MISSED YOU TOO. Hunk can hear Yellow smiling. YOU LOOK GOOD. NOT A DAY OVER 99. 

All this time and he can still tell when the Lion is hiding something.

But I am! And how? I’m human, Yellow — I think I’m still human, oh quiznak what am I? —

YOU’RE HUNK, HUNK. AND YES, YOU’RE HUMAN. 

A human who’s 170 years old!

…YES.

Am I a vampire? Oh my Galran aunt, did you turn me into a vampire?

(Even as he slides slightly into panic, half of him is glowing. Yellow’s back!, and Hunk is happy.)

WHAT ARE YOU ASKING, HUNK?

How did this happen?

LUCK?

Try again.

…SOMETHING YOU ATE?

Ha ha.

YOU WERE MYSTERIOUSLY OPERATED ON BY BEINGS OF MALICIOUS INTENT?

Who am I, Shiro? No. You did something to me. To us. You must have.

Yellow is quiet. Hunk looks up, figures he’s halfway to the bathroom, continues the slow shuffle onwards. Every time he moves — still, every time — it’s new and startling. Just how uncertain his body is these days. Just how selfish.

WE WERE HELPING. Yellow’s back. THE UNIVERSE IS SO BIG, AND YOUR LIVES ARE SO SHORT….WE THOUGHT YOU’D WANT MORE TIME TO EXPLORE IT ALL.

Oh? Well. How patronizing of you.

Hunk puts a hand against the wall for a moment and spreads his fingers, watching his skin shift, wrinkles displacing themselves like tides. Watching how far his bones can extend before they hit old age and stop, cramp, clawed. He has a sudden urge to tell Yellow about the last time he saw Shiro, half a century ago. At the funeral of Shiro’s husband.

He died of old age.

SORRY?

All our partners. All our families, everyone we fought for. They all died of old age. And yet here we still are.

I’M SORRY.

Are you? 

But Hunk can hear it in Yellow’s voice, he is sorry and it’s unsettling. Hunk had forgotten what if felt like when the Lions emoted — the great and untethered care of great and ancient beings learning what empathy is. And suddenly Hunk doesn’t care what the Lions did, he doesn’t want to hear the reasons that will just reek of unfathomability, that’ll just make him feel small and ignorant. Hunk has a different question. 

Where are you?

Yellow is quiet.

Yellow, come on. Where are you?

Hunk’s hand, still trailing along the wall, passes over onto the smooth glass of a window, cool like Yellow’s skin against his own. Hunk looks out onto the neatly trimmed hedges of the home’s lawn. Is there a Lion out there, incongruous against the staid green, the universe’s inappropriate joke? Five aliens walk into a bar. Has Yellow come to reclaim him?

I’M NOT THERE, HUNK.

Oh. Well, that’s terrifying. Is he imagining this whole thing? In panic, his bladder squeezes. 

I’M IN THE VOID.

Hunk picks up his shuffle. Now he actually needs the bathroom. 

Give me a second.

He makes it in and is just finishing up when Yellow adds,

WITH LANCE.

Hunk trips into a story:

This was years after the Alteans had left, years after you had followed them away from us, some years before the Galaxy Garrison had expanded and Pidge left for the outpost on Olkarion. We were gathered for dinner, the five of us, for once (although Keith could only stay for a little and Shiro had brought Sven, who was teething, so he was up every ten minutes to walk the baby around the hilltop, around Allura.) But we were there, and we were eating, and I was happy. And then Keith brought you up, the Lions, and Shiro cradled Sven’s small weight and turned away and Lance said,

Half-hearted.

WHAT?

We’re half-hearted. (He’d said it like fact, like a diagnosis.) 

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

No. You wouldn’t. It’s fine. (It’s not fine.)

LANCE — 

Actually, did you ever?

EVER WHAT, HUNK?

Love us?

There’s a pause. Hunk washes his hands, the cold water a momentary distraction. He sits on the closed toilet. He waits for Yellow to say something, anything…and then a flash comes behind his eyes. Oh holy Bii-Boh-Bi, it’s a stroke. 

Hunk closes his eyes. 

But it isn’t a stroke. It’s just Yellow. Laughing. Why is Yellow laughing?

I was being serious.

I KNOW.

The Lion’s voice is full of warmth and light and something Hunk can’t quite place, but it makes it very hard for him to hold onto the anger that had risen up, an acid reflex to sudden pain. He tries, though.

Look, Yellow — 

WE LOVE YOU MORE THAN THE MULTIVERSE, LITTLE IDIOT. WE LOVE YOU WITH THE ENDLESSNESS OF THE RIFT. WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH IT CHANGES THE WORLD.

(Oh. That was the something extra. 

Love.)

OKAY?

Okay. (And it is. And he knew that….but sometimes you need to be reminded.) Lance?

YES, HE’S WITH US. AND ALLURA.

In the void?

IN THE VOID. WE FOUND THE ALTEANS, AND THEN LANCE FOUND US. 

And now…

WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. GREEN IS CALLING PIDGE, KEITH IS ALREADY ON HIS WAY. WE NEED TO GET EVERYONE OUT OF THE VOID BEFORE WE’RE LOST TO IT. ALL OF US. INCLUDING ALTEA. INCLUDING OURSELVES.

You need Voltron.

WE NEED YOU.

Hunk stands up and unlocks the bathroom door. He flings it open and Ellen is outside, trembling hand poised to knock. She takes a step back.

“Goodness, Hunk. Slow down.” 

“I was in there.”

“Yes. I know.” Huh. That lilt in her voice. That sass in the corners of her mouth. Bad timing, Ellen. He breaks into movement. She says, “Wait…” but he can’t, Yellow, Lance, “Sorry, places to be.” But as he races for the exit — his body feeling like his own again, young and full-hearted — he calls back over his shoulder, “Enjoy lunch! Roast beef today.”

“Then it’s a good day!,” she answers.

And it is. It really is.