#heithweek2017

[shriika]

a prince and his knight  

[ghoststrikes]

“you’re okay”

heith week day 1: laughing/crying (both)

sorry im late to this rip

[bimmykimmy]

and he wouldn’t want it any other way

Heithweek Day 4 (18/7): dreams/reality

<<PREVIOUS DAY  NEXT DAY>>

[whalechief]

HeithWeek2017 - Day 1 Laughing/Crying

[zhe-lazy-fox]

Heith Week 2017

Prompts Day 5 (19/7): Family/Friends

Not sure where this falls, since it’s both of the prompts. Keith and Hunk was stargazing but fell asleep, Pidge found them later and gave them a blanket.

[sometimesimshy]

Heith Week 2017

Day 3-- Fighting/Touch

Piggyback rides count as touching right? At the very least they’re super cute! 

Handle your Hunks with care.

[kayzis]

therapeutic huggy boys for heith week ♥

[squirenonny]

Heith Week - “Touch Aversion“

Day 3: Fighting/Touch

Because touch-averse Keith is still one of my favorite headcanons and I don’t explore it often enough.

[Read on AO3]

Keith didn’t like to be touched.

He’d never been able to describe it: the way a stranger brushing up against him in a crowd left a residue on his skin he couldn’t wash away. The way his foster parents’ hugs had smothered him, left him feeling trapped. The way a friendly jab or a slap on the arm or a hand ruffling his hair hit him like an electric shock, hot and sharp and just this side of painful.

He’d never figured out how to explain that to people, as he’d never been able to explain to his own satisfaction why some touches were different. Saying it, saying it was different with certain people, in certain contexts, on certain days, made it all feel like a lie he’d built up to shut people out. But it was different. It didn’t bother him when Shiro put a hand on his shoulder. It didn’t hurt. Didn’t chafe. Shiro was safe, and his touch was grounding, and Keith didn’t know why, but that changed things.

He thought, maybe, things had changed where the other paladins were concerned, too.

The first few days on the castle-ship had been overwhelming. New people, new routines. His life tossed up in the air, and him only barely holding on, only treading water because he had Shiro again.

It took two days for Keith to realize Hunk was a hugger. When he was happy, he lifted you up and squeezed so hard it seemed something had to burst. When he was sad, he burrowed into you, molding himself like a second skin. When he was excited, it was an arm around the waist; when he was worried, he latched onto the nearest arm. He did it without hesitation, without even really seeming to realize what he was doing. As the cheesy survey his caseworker had made him take would have put it, touch was Hunk’s love language.

And it most certainly was not Keith’s.

At first, Keith had held out hope that it was only with Lance that Hunk was so… clingy. That their long friendship made Hunk more comfortable, more—for lack of a better word—intimate. That it would be different with the other five, who barely knew Hunk at all.

He was wrong.

And Keith being Keith, being the friendless, grumpy, quick-tempered loner he was, had thrown up his walls. It was after one of their early battles, and Hunk was trying to pull everyone in for a group hug. Keith danced back, crossed his arms, and glared at the far wall.

“I don’t like being touched.”

Funny, how clearly he remembered Hunk’s look of puzzlement, the touch of sorrow in his eyes, like something in Keith was broken. Like rejecting a hug was rejecting him. (Keith couldn’t blame him for that; all of Keith’s foster parents had taken it the same way, had tried again and again to coax him into hugs he didn’t want, and always acted so dejected when he’d wriggled away from arms that hovered just above his skin, afraid to touch but still close enough that he could feel them there, an electric charge in the air.)

Keith was pretty sure Shiro had explained it to the others later, when Keith was holed up in his room, barricaded against the others’ sorrow and pity and hurt. Touch-aversion, his caseworker had called it. Most likely related to his other sensory issues. Nothing personal.

Hunk did his best to respect Keith’s boundaries, though Keith could see the way it gnawed at him to hold back. It was the way he took a half a step toward Keith after battle, arms open for a hug, before he remembered. It was the way his eyes burned into the back of Keith’s head when Keith was in a bad mood. It was the way Hunk sometimes fiddled with his gloves when he hung out with Keith, like he had to give his hands something else to do to keep them from spontaneously pulling Keith into a hug.

It was… nice. That Hunk cared enough to hold back. It was a nice change from foster parents who had treated it like a flaw to be polished away by fake smiles and coerced affection. But Hunk’s consideration also made Keith feel guilty as hell. If Shiro was safety, was grounding, why couldn’t Hunk be, too? Why shouldn’t he be, except that Keith was still too scared to find out?

Keith couldn’t pinpoint the day things changed. Maybe it was when they were all separated by the corrupted wormhole, and Keith, alone and aching, had felt the others’ absence like a hand hovering over his back, close enough to make his skin crawl.

Maybe it was after he found out he was part Galra, when Allura was looking at him with thinly-veiled hatred and Keith had to grit his teeth and remind himself that he was a paladin, not a child, and he couldn’t demand that Shiro always be there as a buffer against the rest of the team.

He wasn’t sure he wanted a hug. Maybe he just wanted to want it. He wanted something to sooth the ragged edges inside him, and it struck him that that was just the sort of thing other people fixed with hugs, and he was desperate enough for comfort he almost didn’t care that it had never worked that way for him before.

He was desperate enough for some tangible sign that he was still wanted that when it came time to part ways, Keith threw his arms around Shiro and clung. His guilt rose high to choke him as Shiro hesitated, for just an instant, surprised that Keith—Keith—was hugging him.

Then Shiro’s arms closed around him, and it was the same as it always was with Shiro—warm, but not stifling; tight, but not constricting. There was no hesitation in Shiro’s hug, not like the foster parents whose hugs always telegraphed their uncertainty, their doubts, and their discomfort. Shiro held him, warm, steady, comfortable. A promise spoken through touch, words telegraphed into his bones as Shiro’s arms squeezed tighter.

Deep pressure, Pidge called it, smiling as though that explained everything.

The night before the joint assault with the Blade of Marmora, Keith found Hunk on the bridge, staring out over the forests of Olkarion, his hands curled over his heart like he was trying to keep it from escaping.

“You seem nervous,” Keith said, stepping up beside him.

Hunk glanced down, startled, and attempted a smile. “Yeah. Kinda. Big day tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Keith’s eyes darted sideways, noting the tremble in Hunk’s hands. “We’ll be fine. It’s a solid plan, and we’ll all be there to back each other up.”

“I know.” Hunk bit his lip, meeting Keith’s eyes for a moment before turning away. “That doesn’t mean I’m not still picturing all the ways it could go wrong. I mean, what if the virus doesn’t do what we need it to do? What if Allura can’t hold open a wormhole that size? What if the teludav doesn’t even work? What if Zarkon has some trick up his sleeve we haven’t thought of? What if someone dies? What if--?”

“Hunk,” Keith said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Breathe.”

Hunk did so, though the air wavered on the exhale.

Keith studied him, heart in his throat, then hesitantly spread his arms. “You want a hug?”

Hunk’s head whipped around so fast the tails of his headband smacked him in the nose. “A—what?” Seeming to realize he was gaping, Hunk snapped his mouth shut. “I thought you hated hugs?”

Keith shrugged, looking at his toes. “Yeah, but you don’t,” he said with a nervous little laugh. “I think, considering the circumstances, I can make an exception… Unless--”

He’d just begun to lower his arms, feeling foolish, when Hunk fell against him, his arms engulfing Keith, squeezing the breath from his lungs. For just an instant, Keith panicked, the familiar sense of suffocation clawing at his chest.

Then Hunk breathed in, and Keith’s body automatically copied the motion. It was easy. Easier than he would have expected, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been so scared. Hunk was strong, but he wasn’t careless. His broad arms seemed to envelop Keith, wrapping him up in warmth and gratitude, like a blanket fresh out of the dryer or the sun on his back after a day of hiking the canyons outside the Garrison. It wasn’t entirely pleasant—but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, either.

Keith slowly wrapped his arms around Hunk’s back, easing into the embrace. He could do this. If Hunk could hold back, could abandon the language of touch to communicate his love in a way Keith understood, then it seemed only fair Keith learn to speak Hunk’s language. Maybe not all the time, maybe not always for long, but he could make the effort.

“Thanks, Keith,” Hunk whispered. “I needed this.”

Keith smiled and curled his hands into the back of Hunk’s shirt. “I’m glad I could help.”

[mose-doodles]

@heithweek2017 day 1: LAUGHING/crying

he told him a corny pickup line lmao

[princess-tentacles]

Kinda rushed - but here is my piece for the free day of Heith Week! Day 7 Inspired by @appynation‘s ideas for her fic!  Poor Hunk, Keith doesn’t even realize yet It was fun to play with the style, sad I couldn’t do more for the week, but enjoy! 

[daydrmgalaxies]

Heith Week Day 4: Dreams/Reality

The… The blue oceans, the white clouds, green grass… I… I can’t see any of it.

Yo but lets real talk, Hunk misses Earth too.

[bimmykimmy]

Heithweek  Day 2 (16/7): gain/loss

aka I had no idea what to do so, this is gaining confidence/happiness/whatever from the first drawing I did...(?)

<<PREVIOUS DAY  NEXT DAY>>

[zhe-lazy-fox]

Heith Week 2017

Prompts Day 6 (20/7): Colours

Coran told them to repaint one of the rooms, Hunk started the fight, Keith fought back. Shiro found them later covered in paint and just sighed before he sent them to the showers

(sorry for the wait!)

[sometimesimshy]

Heith Week 2017

Day 1--Laughing/Crying

[kayzis]

a bit scribbly and messy but here’s hunk and keith gaining a cat for heith week c: maybe i’ll draw taco more someday....

[squirenonny]

Heith Week: “Bed Rest”

Day 1: Laughing/Crying

Read them all on my blog in the Heith Week tag. You can also read these on AO3.

There was a steady thump, thump, thump audible through the wall of Keith’s room as Hunk made his way back from the training deck. He grimaced, steps slowing, and hesitantly lifted a hand to knock on the door.

At once, the thumping stopped.

“Keith?” Hunk asked, drawing the word out. “You in there?”

There was a moment of silence, a moment Lance or Pidge would have used to spit out a sarcastic comment about how, no, their room was haunted.

Keith just sighed, the sound very nearly melodramatic by his standards. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Come on in.”

Hunk opened the door and leaned his head into the room. Even after months on the castle-ship, Keith’s room hardly seemed lived in. Where Hunk’s room was an explosion of recipes and schematics and engineering projects abandoned at the first sound of an alarm—where Lance’s was equally full of mementos from their many excursions, Pidge’s with robots and wires and flash drives, Shiro’s with Altean histories and memoirs and strategy books—Keith’s was empty. A tablet on the desk, his jacket on the hook by the wall. That was it.

Hunk thought of the shack in the desert where they’d all spent that first, surreal night after rescuing Shiro. That space had felt like Keith’s, with its dirty clothes strewn about, its drawings and maps on the walls, its books and military rations and shortwave radio.

“You don’t spend much time in here, do you?”

The words were out of Hunk’s mouth before he could consider whether it was a smart thing to say to someone who was, currently, bedridden.

Keith groaned softly, and let his head fall back against the wall. He was sitting on the bed, legs crossed, blade in his lap. “We’re fighting a war, Hunk,” he said. “Every minute I spend in bed is a minute that could be better spent training, or fighting, or—or—I don’t know, figuring out how the hell we’re supposed to form Voltron without Shiro.”

There was a sharp edge to Keith’s words, dulled only a little by the weeks that had passed since they’d opened up the Black Lion’s cockpit to find the black bayard and an empty chair. Keith cursed softly, shoved his knife back into its sheath, and dropped his forehead onto his knees.

Hunk sighed, drumming his fingers on the doorframe for a moment before crossing to sit on the edge of Keith’s bed. “I take it the R&R’s not going so well.”

Keith gave him an incredulous look. “R&R?” he asked sourly. “More like cruel and unusual punishment. Did you know these rooms have bed alarms? I can’t go to the bathroom without Coran calling me up on the intercom and asking me if everything’s alright.”

“You’re joking?” Hunk’s eyebrows lifted, and he reminded himself that laughing at Keith’s frustration wouldn’t get him anywhere he wanted to go. “How many times did he catch you sneaking off to the training deck before he resorted to that?”

Keith flushed, glaring hard at the knife in his lap. “Five,” he said, then lifted his chin and fixed Hunk with a glare that stopped Hunk’s laughter in its tracks. “I can’t afford to fall behind.”

“Fall behind? Dude, come on.”

“I just...” Keith ran his thumb along the flat of his blade, tracing the Marmorite symbol near the hilt. He didn’t look at Hunk. “I don’t get why I have to be on bed rest.”

Hunk snorted. “You broke your femur.”

Keith’s hands slowed, one reaching toward his thigh, running over the wrinkles in his pant leg. Hunk wondered whether he remembered yesterday as well as Hunk did. The way his armor had shattered in the jaws of the Galra beast, the way it had tossed its head, flinging him thirty feet like he weighed nothing at all. The odd angle of his leg, the blood seeping through the fissures. The way he’d screamed when Hunk and Coran set the bone before sticking him in the cryopod.

“I thought the pods were supposed to be able to fix anything,” Keith grumbled.

There were a lot of ways Hunk could have responded to that, but he knew that ‘it could be worse’ wasn’t actually going to make Keith feel better. So he changed tactics.

“Lance tried to melee it today.”

Slowly, Keith turned his head. “Yeah? How’d that go?”

“Well, he did manage to take out the gladiator,” Hunk said fairly. “But he kinda did it by accident.”

“How do you accidentally take out a killer robot?”

Hunk grinned. “Mistimed his dodge, got tossed like an old hacky-sack, but flailed just right as he fell to take the thing’s head off. He’s going to try to tell you he planned it.” He paused, meeting Keith’s eye. “He did not.”

Keith laughed, a small, surprised sound that made Hunk’s heart flutter. Laughter from Keith was a rare, precious thing, as fleeting as it was breathtaking, like a double rainbow, or a unicorn, or—heck—the Loch Ness Monster. Hunk had been chasing this particular cryptid for the better part of six months, and he’d only managed to make Keith laugh—really laugh, uninhibited, as he had that night on Arus when he was just tipsy enough to let down his guard—twice.

Today seemed like a good day to up that count.

“To be fair, we were all kind of a mess.” Hunk situated himself against the wall beside Keith, not quite close enough to touch, and tucked his hands behind his head. “In case you were wondering, I do not do well against the gladiator without someone there to keep him off me. Lance and Pidge are great and all, but they are not what I’d call a solid defensive line.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad,” Keith said.

Hunk laughed once, rubbing his shoulder. “Uh, yeah, no. Did you know if you shoot the power matrix in just the right spot, you can shut off all the lights on the training deck? Cause, uh, you can. And the gladiator does not care if you can’t see it.”

Keith winced, curling in on himself. “Sorry,” he said. “I should’ve been there.”

No, wait, Hunk wanted to say. You're not supposed to feel bad. That’s not how this is supposed to go. He puffed himself up, elbowing Keith in the side. “Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty sure I managed to convince Coran that screaming like a little girl is a traditional Earth war cry.”

“You didn’t.”

“Sure I did. Told him Girl Scouts are fearsome warriors and I got some to train me in self defense when I was a kid. He totally bought it, too. Shrieked like a banshee when he sparred with Pidge after that. She was so busy laughing he disarmed her in record time. I think Lance is planning on teaching him the Tarzan yell next.” Hunk demonstrated for him, ululating to the very best of his ability.

Keith did laugh then, full-bodied laughs that erased the lines frustration had build up around his eyes. Keith was like a different person when he laughed, his face brighter, the hand that had been massaging his injured leg now clutching at Hunk’s sleeve. The laughter burrowed into Hunk’s chest and resonated there, a bonfire that burned away the aches of training. It was hard to think of fatigue in the face of Keith’s infectious smile, a smile that said yesterday’s disastrous battle didn’t matter, said the mantle of leadership Keith was still learning to bear wasn’t quite so heavy now as it sometimes seemed to be.

Keith’s laughter tapered off, and he turned to Hunk with a brilliant smile, the kind that made Hunk forget how to string words together. “Thanks for coming to check on me,” Keith said. “I’m sure you had better ways to spend your night.”

“Better than this?” Hunk asked, returning Keith’s smile. “I don’t think so.”

The way Keith’s eyes brightened, Hunk decided, was a better cure for sore muscles and fresh bruises than an entire week in a cryopod.