12 September 2012- 16 September 2012
Thanks again to Matt for helping out!
Please let it be known that I don't particularly like ANY of the cadets. I have found all their characters irritating, and seriously, if they are the best replacements for the current Voltron Force, the universe is so screwed.
Hacked
by Zuzanny
lionette AT mailcity DOT com
Part 5.
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Pidge came to awareness with snug warmth spooned against his back and draped around his chest. Gentle breathing stirred his hair and tickled his neck, sending tingles throughout his body. He shifted slightly, and a sigh was sent through his hair and the arm draped over him tightened. A large, warm hand slid over the skin of his ribs before relaxing back into sleep. Pidge's eyes snapped open at that, blinking back against the sun streaming though the gap in the curtains, and he tried to remember where he was and why he would be lying next to someone in such a manner. His head hurt a bit, but not as bad as he expected after having a night of binge drinking. The hand drifted lazily down his front to rub slow circles in his belly, sending his heart racing in something he wasn't sure was panic or-
"Stop thinking, little buddy." Hunk's sleep-stained voice rumbled in his ear, again sending something like tiny electric shocks all though his body. "Just relax. You had a hard night. You're safe, and can go back to sleep if you want."
Pidge rolled over so that he faced his larger team mate, who still had his eyes closed and was breathing in a relaxed manner. Pidge had to admit he was relieved to see that Hunk was clothed, and after some self examination, so was he. His pyjamas had just ridden up and exposed his mid rift. Pidge let out a breath then bit his lip, still watching Hunk's relaxed repose.
"Hunk?"
"Hmmmn?"
"What happened? Why. Why... Why are you? Why are we?" Pidge felt himself blushing and unable to finish the sentences. Hunk chuckled, then rolled onto his back, reaching his arms up over his head to stretch.
"You had another night terror last night." Hunk explained. Pidge lowered his eyes in shame.
"Oh."
"Yeah, real doozy this time."
"I don't remember." Pidge said quietly.
"Probably just as well."
"Is... Did I... wake all the others?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't need to be sorry. Me being here seemed to help. I don't mind. Sleep is sleep no matter where it's done. How are you feeling this morning?"
Pidge hesitated just a moment, but that was all that was needed for Hunk's laser eyes to zero in on him. "My head hurts a little." He admitted sheepishly.
"I'll get your your pills." Hunk rolled out of his side of the bed, his bare feet slapping against the floor while he walked across the room. Pidge felt... cold... now that he was alone in his bed, and shifted over to snuggle in the spot Hunk left behind. Hunk chuckled as he watched Pidge curl up like a kitten, and collected the pills from their spot on the bench and a glass of water. He stopped mid stride back to the bed when his eyes fell on something out of place almost hidden out of view. It was only now that the sunlight was beaming down and highlighting it that Hunk noticed it. He placed the pills and the water on Pidge's bedside table and bent to scoop the object up from under the bed. Pidge sat up to put his glasses on and take the pills, then frowned when he saw the wilted blue salvia sprig Hunk was turning curiously about in his hand.
"I think of you." Pidge recited.
"Hmm?" Hunk looked back at him.
"That's what that flower means. I think of you."
"It was under your bed." Hunk said calmly, not at all betraying how disturbed he felt. Pidge just frowned more.
"That's weird. How did it get there?"
"Dunno." Hunk shrugged, then purposefully hid the flower behind his back smiled broadly. "Time to get you some breakfast!"
Pidge groaned, but submitted to Hunk's cheery goading to get him out of the bed. He was changing his top and brushed his arm against his own chest. "Ouch!" Pidge yelped with shock.
"What is it?" Hunk was instantly by his side, looking him over for injuries. Pidge stood there topless, staring down as his own chest, rubbing at the tender spots with confusion and alarm.
"I think I must have slept funny last night." Pidge told him with bemusement. "I seemed to have bruised myself."
"Could be some of the bruises just coming through now. Let me have a look." Hunk pushed Pidge's hands away to lean close and look at his chest. "I don't see any bruises. Where does it hurt?"
"Um... here and here." Pidge indicated to the area around both of his nipples.
Hunk gently ran his fingers over the soft skin there, backing off when Pidge hissed. "You got some swelling there, I think."
"Do you think I caught a virus or something, and my lymph nodes are... going crazy?" Hunk faintly agreed with the "or something", and Pidge then ran his fingers up and down his neck. "My neck is fine though. But it could explain the head ache."
"Your head hurts because your brain has been rattled around in your skull. But you never know what bugs are waiting out there in space, and you did get awful cold. I say you get checked out just in case."
Pidge pulled on a loose top and giggled to himself. "Yeah, that would be my luck, catching some strange mind altering, highly contagious space-flu."
"Could be worse. Could be space worms."
"Space worms?"
Hunk nodded seriously. "Yep. They float in the space dust and hatch on your skin to burrow into your flesh and eat you alive."
"There is no such thing!"
"Is too."
"Is not!"
"Is too. Same with space crabs, space monkeys and space slugs."
"Space SLUGS?!"
"Yep, they lay in wait on the belly of your craft until you come out to check the engines, and then, SPLAT! They land on your head and suck your brains out. Almost like the legendary Drop Bears in Earth really."
"You're so full of it." Pidge playfully slapped Hunk's arm and walked out into the hallway, heading to the dining room for breakfast.
"And you love me anyway!" Hunk called after him just as Daniel came out of his own room. Pidge didn't look back, he just waved his hand in a manner that could have been him flipping Hunk a bird, or just swatting a fly. Hunk chuckled to himself and waited for Daniel to approach.
"Tell Keith... Tell him I couldn't find the librarian, but I found the page ripped from the book exactly where were were told it would be." Hunk said under his breath, handing Daniel the flower.
Daniel thought that was a very strange thing to be telling Keith, especially since they didn't actually have a library that contained books with pages that could be torn out let alone a librarian, but he shrugged. "Where are you going?" he asked as Hunk started to walk after Pidge.
"Where do you think?" Hunk grinned back at him. "To get some breakfast of course."
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Keith looked positively exhausted when Daniel found him in the control room staring at the computer screen. Daniel dutifully passed both the flower and the message along on, and took a step back when Keith started cursing and swearing so colourfully and with such venom in his voice that Daniel was worried Keith may strike out at him. But Keith didn't. Instead he continued to swear at the computer for several minutes before he stopped to lean against he desk and buried his face in his hands. "This is driving me mad!" he groaned. "I can't find anyway trace of this creep, it's like he never existed."
"Sort of like... a ninja?" Daniel suggested, not really following what Keith was talking about.
Keith glanced back at Daniel at his comment. "Hmmm..." he started typing again, setting up computer searches that sent the information on the screen scrawling. "Or a team of them." Keith's voltcom lit up with an incoming call. "Go." he answered it.
It was Lance's voice on the other end. "The page is clean. The book is blank."
Keith immediately replied, "The page was found torn from the book and screwed up on the floor. Can't find the librarian."
There was a slight pause before Lance was back on air. "I'll keep looking for her and let her know you wanna chat."
"Aknowledged." Keith signed off muttering to himself "Now all we need is a Ro-beast attack and this day will be perfect." Then he let out a long sigh and turned to observe Daniel. Daniel stood stiff and awkward, not sure if he should be concerned about the scrutiny or not.
"Sir?" he hedged when Keith didn't seem inclined to stop.
"You've been..." Keith's eyes narrowed slightly, and there was a suspicious edge to his voice. "remarkably well behaved over the last few days. Why?"
Daniel looked down at his boots. "It's kind of embarrassing." Daniel admitted after a few aborted starts.
"In what way? And it better not be a Larmina-catching-you-naked type thing."
Daniel blinked at Keith, wondering if something Larmina-related had actually happened to him, and made a mental note to himself to ask her if she had ever seen Keith naked.
"Nothing like that." Daniel assured him. "Just that I hadn't told you. While we were in transit something happened."
"Yeeesss?" Keith drew it out.
"Well... It's just that Pidge and I... talked." Daniel rubbed the back of his head remembering the impact of Pidge's hand there.
"Uh-huh." Keith wasn't convinced.
"With fists." And Daniel told him about the "conversation" Pidge and he had had. By the end of it Keith actually chuckled.
"Good on Pidge."
"This thing is," Daniel said quietly. "I don't think I had ever really realised how serious all this was before. And now..." He looked at the wall. "I'm afraid. I don't think I've ever been afraid before. And... I'm sorry."
Keith stared at him like he had just turned into a penguin with giant pink bunny ears. "Remind me to have Pidge deal with all the deviants from now on." He said to himself.
"Sir?"
Keith shook his head and stood. "Doesn't matter. Come on. Let's get some breakfast."
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Keith and Daniel passed the open ballroom on the way to get some breakfast, and heard Pidge grunt. They poked their heads in through the doorway and found him barefoot in the middle of the the polished floor, running smoothly through some kata moves. Every now and then he would kick or strike and either grunt or ki-ai with it, with each strike having that audible snap from his clothing that came with perfect control. Pidge saw them in the doorway, finished the sequence of moves, then drew his feet together and bowed with his fists at his sides.
"Should you be doing that so soon?" Keith asked when Pidge padded over to them. Daniel noticed there was a flush to Pidge's skin and that he was actually panting. Pidge just shrugged at Keith's question.
"I spent the last few weeks flat on my back and my muscles have wasted." He explained. "I need to get my fitness back."
Keith lay a hand on Pidge's shoulder. "Just don't over do it , ok? I don't want another case of hospitalisation over a strained big toe."
Pidge let out a delighted cackle that continued on into belly laughter which made Daniel wonder if yet again Keith was making references to events that had actually happened. Keith was also grinning. Pidge wiped a tear from his eye. "Don't worry, I'll be extra careful of my toes."
Keith patted his shoulder then looked about the gym. "So where's Hunk?"
Pidge flashed his teeth again. "As if I would part him and his One True Love." Both he and Keith continued to chuckle over that. Pidge turned his eyes to Daniel, smiling with genuine warmth at him. "Come back after breakfast and I'll run through some moves with you, if you want."
Daniel grinned back with excitement. "Thanks!" Then Keith waved goodbye and herded Daniel off towards the dining room so they could eat as well.
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Hunk was at the table with Vince and Larmina, and unlike the cadets, was working on shovelling piles of food into his mouth as fast as he could. The cadets were talking quietly to each other, and very casually eating. Keith went straight to the coffee to get a cup, while Daniel helped himself to toast and sat beside the other cadets, telling them all about how Pidge was going to teach him some ninja stuff after breakfast. Larmina just about choked on her orange juice.
"Pidge?" She spluttered incredulously. "Teach? YOU? HA! As if he would. As if you would want him to! He's such a GEEK! Being afraid of the dark. Ha." The table went silent and still as all occupants stared at Larmina.
"Shut up Larmina." Daniel warned her. "You have no idea what you are talking about."
Larmina rolled her eyes at him and took another spoonful of her breakfast. "Oh DO tell, since you are THE font of all knowledge around here."
Daniel glanced at Hunk who had yet to restarted his shovelling again, and who held a dark scowl in Larmina's direction. Keith also had visibly stiffened at her outburst.
"I think you should take yourself back to bed," Vince was the one who spoke up first, much to Daniel's surprise. "before you embarrass your self further. You're obviously so tired you're not thinking straight."
Larmina just scoffed nastily and went on to say some very derogatory things.
"Larmina!" Keith snapped. "Enough!"
Hunk abruptly stood, knocking his chair over in the process. Larmina's eyes widened at the violence held behind his eyes. "I don't care how closely related you are to Allura," Hunk growled out. "you better hope you never find yourself in Pidge's position 'coz I sure won't be helping you." He leaned forward and pointed at her, making her shrink back. "You disgust me." And with that he swept out of the room.
Larmina stared open mouthed after him, then turned to look haughtily at Keith. "Are you going to let him talk to me like that?"
"Yes." Keith hissed at her. "In fact I commend him for his restraint. I suggest you follow Vince's advice and return to your rooms. In fact stay there until further notice. Understood?"
"But-"
"NOW CADET!" Keith roared at her.
Larmina fled the room with tears in her eyes.
After she was gone, Keith sank into a chair opposite the two wide eyed youths who were sitting ram-rod straight in their chairs, and continued drinking his coffee. Wisely, they returned to their breakfasts and remained silent.
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Pidge was still in the ballroom when Daniel and Vince had had enough of the tense atmosphere in the mess hall. They wandered in and found Hunk seated with his back pressed against the wall just inside the door, eyes intently fixed upon their lithe team mate. Pidge was running fluidly through forms that were far more advanced than those Daniel had seen before, but didn't seem to have noticed them yet. Hunk gave them a short nod, then turned his attention back to Pidge, making no protest when they sat down to his left.
"He makes it look so easy." Vince whispered in awe.
"You should see him with swords." Hunk replied, a small smile replacing the scowl he had worn just moments before.
"He would so wipe Larmina's butt in combat." Vince said.
Hunk agreed. "Totally."
Daniel said nothing, just continued to watch Pidge's controlled and actually quite beautiful movements, imagining that one day he himself may be able to do the same.
Then Pidge suddenly froze mid spin, stood upright, and slowly turned his head to look behind him. He fell into a defensive combat stance, low to the ground, raising his Voltcom to his face. "Daniel," he spoke to it, making Daniel sit up straight yet confused as to why Pidge would decide to use the voltcom to communicate with him rather than just talk directly. But his blood ran cold as Pidge drew a hand full of live smart stars and continued, "call in all Lions. We have many, Many hostiles."
To be continued...
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