Frozen Away

Day One: The Aftermath

As I walked towards the kitchen, I slowly zip up AND button my jacket; I couldn't understand why it was so cold in the castle still. Long story short, as an attempt to simulate day and night in the castle, the temperature cools down a bit once night hits, and warms back up when the good ol' rooster crows in the morning, otherwise known as Allura's wonderful alarms. Alarm clock alarms mind you, if she were to use the attack alarms everyday to wake us up, I would gladly had sold my soul to Pidge to deactivate them. Anyway, there's a solid ten(ish?) minutes until 'daytime' but that does not explain how it is so cold this morning. 'It has to just be because of that dream. A bad night of sleep and waking up in a cold-sweat would always make the mornings cold back in the Garrisions... Man, if Hunk saw me this cold once I found him, there's no way he'd let me... Well, too late for that...' I slowly look up from the ground and stand a bit straighter as I walked right into the man himself, in the middle of the kitchen.

"Morning Lance! Its nice to see you up so early for once. How are you feeling today? I still feel like Yellow ran over me and its been somewhere within a week since the accident!!" Hunk sighed and smiled a little bit at the goo he had just pulled out of the oven. It looked kind of like oats? It's oats but it also looks like glue? Whatever... Once he set his dish of gluey-oats on the counter he finally turned to me and almost jumped out of his skin. "Holy Quiznak your pale!!" he resettled himself as he was now on top of the same counter his dish was on.

"What do you mean pale? I was still the same color I always am when I left my room buddy." I raised an eyebrow in his direction as he slowly got off of the counter.

"Dude, if that's the same color you woke up with then you need glasses more than Pidge does. Well, that is if she wears glasses to see... But are you sure you're fine?" he stepped closer to me taking off his gloves and apron, "You don't look so hot this morning, and also you have your jacket closed all of the way. You only do that if something is wrong."

Hunk squinted at me and I rolled my eyes. "Alright alright, you got me. I just didn't get very much sleep last night," I shrugged and leaned against the fridge. "Bad dream and now I'm freezing. I mean its been awhile since I've had a nightmare, but I guess all of this war stuff is finally getting to me." I look off to the side a bit and chuckle dryly as he lunged at me, wrapping me up in a hug.

'Warm...'

I jumped slightly at both hunk at the voice that suddenly popped into my head. I know I should be just a bit more concerned about it but It had been way to long since I have had one of his legendary Samoan hugs and I was not about to miss this opportunity.  I took my hands out of my pockets and wrapped them around him taking in all of the warmth I could get from his body. I never realized how much I've missed contact like this. The last time I have had a real hug like this was when my mama was sending me to the Garrision. Oh man, she's probably been notified that I'm missing by now, that is if they didn't declare that we died when we went to get Shiro.

"Shh.. its okay. I got ya buddy." Hunk's voice brought me out of my thoughts as I noticed a wet spot on his shirt. He pulled my hood up and pulled me into him further resting his chin on my head.

"...Thanks..." I whispered, barely audible as I was even more grateful that my hood was hiding my shame. I heard someone coming up behind us, but at this point I didn't care. I am too tired, too upset, and I feel way too terrible to even care about who it is.

"Hey Pidge," Hunk chimed when they came in.

"Good morning Hunk.... and uh, Lance?" I could hear them getting closer, "Are you okay?" The worry in their voice was pretty clear as they came over joining the hug party. Pidge had caught me like this once before but they left and sent Hunk to me, "Another one?"