shining like the stars

53

Lance stared at the cracked tile above his head. It was a familiar crack, he remembered it; the top bunk was a hazardous place for someone tall enough to hit their head off the ceiling when startled. He had his arms crossed and his brow furrowed as he regarded it, however, because as familiar as it was, seeing it again just didn't feel right.

"C'mon, man," Hunk said, his hands on the edge of Lance's mattress. "We're gonna be late for class. You aren't seriously gonna lay there all day, are you?"

"I don't know," Lance said without lifting his head from the pillow. "That sounds like a challenge to me."

"You already won that title," Hunk said. Lance rolled his head and looked over at Hunk, wearing his Garrison uniform, and felt a weird tingle in his stomach. Instead of analyzing that, however, he pushed the feeling away and buried it. "Is it your heat? Did it come early?" Hunk leaned in close, as if their conversation in their locked dorm room could be heard and easily observed. "Is it those alphas, again?"

Lance sat up on an elbow and glared down at Hunk. "It's not my heat," he said. "My heats are regular, thank you very much." He didn't address the thought of those ... of them, and instead rolled onto his side. "We ... did we go out? Like, hit the town last night?"

Hunk stepped back from the bed, arms folded and a haughty look on his face. "I made the mistake of letting you talk me into trying," he said. "You don't remember getting busted by the patrol coming in? Dude, we're on latrine duty for a month." He frowned. "Maybe you hit your head harder than I thought."

Lance sat up and very narrowly avoided the low clearance. "What about Pidge?" he demanded, and Hunk blinked owlishly.

"What about Pidge?" Hunk repeated.

He gripped the edge of the mattress and then very firmly flung himself over the side, dropping to the floor beside Hunk. Hunk took a large step backward, his brow furrowed in concern. "We've gotta find Pidge," Lance said.

"Pidge will be in class," Hunk said patiently. "Where we should be. We're already in enough trouble, Lance."

Augh. Whatever it was that was rattling around in his cloudy brain wasn't being jostled free by his cyclical pacing. Lance stopped suddenly. "The desert," he announced, and Hunk said, "class, Lance. The desert isn't going anywhere." Lance half-turned to protest when he was met with Hunk shoving his uniform jacket at him. Grudgingly, Lance put it on.

#

Surprisingly, Lance and Hunk were not the last ones to class. The instructor was still missing, and, conspicuously, so was Pidge.

Lance stared at the empty seat on the other side of Hunk as the classroom hum of distracted young adults rose slightly in volume. Someone in the seats behind Lance, someone whose name he should know but the information was gone now, like it hadn't existed, they were talking to their teammates about the rumor that there had been a crash in the desert, that all the senior garrison officials were called off base, that something was going on.

"Huh," Hunk said, his chin in his hand. "I wonder where Pidge is."

"We have to find her," Lance murmured.

"He's probably just running late," Hunk said, and sighed deeply. "I'm so hungry. I had to miss breakfast because you wouldn't freaking wake up, man."

Lance shook his head and stared down at the desk. "This isn't right," he said softly. "We're not supposed to be here."

"Dude, maybe you should go to the nurse," Hunk suggested. "You fell off the speeder last night at a good clip and knocked your head around. I was gonna make you go last night but Iverson was too busy screaming at us."

As Hunk was speaking, the door to the auditorium slid aside and one of the Garrison officials walked in; not their teacher. All the cadets rose automatically at saluted, the room falling expectantly silent as the official's eyes drifted over all the cadets, and then stopped on Lance and Hunk. "You two," he said, pointing to them. "Gunderson was on your team, correct?"

"Y-yes sir!" Hunk said, holding his salute.

"Both of you, come with me." The official pointed to both Lance and Hunk. They exchanged a quick glance, and obediently followed the official out into the hall, where they were met with two guards. Hunk folded in on himself a bit and tried to make himself smaller as they followed the official and were trailed by the guards.

They were led to an office on the far side of the Garrison; and the man siting at Iverson's desk was not Iverson. He did not wear the Garrison uniform. "Please, sit," he said, and gestured to two chairs arranged in front of the desk. Lance did not sit.

"What's going on?" he asked, and eyed the guards who had followed them into the office and now stood blocking the door. "Where's Pidge?"

"What do you know about the Keroberos mission?" the man in black asked, and Lance blanched and clapped a hand to the back of his neck on impulse – although he himself wasn't certain why he did so.

"Keroberos?" Hunk said. "Isn't that the mission that failed over a year ago? Why ask us, we're just cadets."

Lance curled his fingers into the back of the chair he was standing behind. He stared at the man in black, he was familiar; dark hair cut short along the top save for a fringe that fell into his eyes ... Lance stared at him, frowned, couldn't connect the dots. "What do you want with us?" Lance asked, and the man actually laughed.

"Your friend is in a lot of trouble," he said mildly. "And so, by extension, are you." The laughter didn't reach his abnormally-colored eyes.

"Man," Hunk said. "I always thought it was Lance who was gonna get me expelled."

"You're not expelled," the man said. "You're under arrest. Although I can see how you might confuse the two...."

It was a split second decision; Lance wasn't even sure where he had time to come up with it, never mind execute it. He gripped the back of the chair he was leaning on firmly and hauled it up, clobbering one guard into the other so fast neither had a chance to do anything. Hunk's jaw dropped open as Lance grabbed his arm, prepared to yank him out of the office, into the hall, to flee, to do something –

– but Hunk didn't move. "Man," he said, eyes wide. "What are you doing?"

"Yes, Lance," the man in black said. "What are you doing, exactly?"

"This isn't right," Lance said. The first guard was out cold, but the second was working to shove the weight of his comrade off of him, to reach for his gun. "Hunk, we were supposed to be with Pidge last night; wherever she is we need to find her and help her-"

Hunk held up both of his hands. "Lance, buddy, you are off your nut-"

"No," Lance said. He kicked the gun out of the reach of the guard who was still struggling to get his unconscious partner off him, and he pointed at the man in black. "Whatever you've done with Pidge, or with Shiro, or Keith, I'm going to find them-" he said, and Hunk let out a little whimper as Lance scooped up the guard's weapon and, with one last look at Hunk, ran out into the hall.