#shlunk

Shiro was still getting used to coming home at the end of the day.

In the abstract, of course, he’d come home at the end of the day for most of his life. When he was a kid he’d come back to his parents’ house, and those sixteen years had been far longer than the years he’d spent at the Garrison, where ‘home’ was somewhere you only went for a few weeks of the year and your bunk was where you collapsed at night; or the year in a Galra prison, where there was no such thing as a bed, let alone a home; or the heady, terrifying years of Voltron, when ‘home’ had been a wondrous if capricious alien ship that he lived in most of the time, and returned to on a schedule that varied based on the local politics and whatever the Galra were up to at any given time.

Going from a cabin in the Castle-ship, drifting through the endless wonders of space, to a cosy two-bedroom house in a quiet suburb had been enough of a change. And now, adding to the surrealism, he came home every day to somebody else. To two somebodies.

It wasn’t the way he’d ever thought his life would go, but Shiro wasn’t complaining in the least.

He landed the hoverbike carefully, lifted the bag of groceries, and swung the front gate open, feeling faintly ridiculous. The front garden was a complete disaster zone and had been since they bought the property. He was probably going to have to do something about that if they stayed. The house itself was in decent shape, as far as he could tell. Lance had been lobbying to repaint the front – “C’mon, what’s the point of having a house if we can’t have a Voltron mural on the front?” – but so far he’d been voted down.

He had, however, proudly brought home a Voltron-shaped door-knocker, now mounted over the letter box. The robot hung by both Lion-arms from the flaming sword, poised in mid-stomp, with the Yellow Lion kicking back into a metal plate with Zarkon’s face painted on it. Shiro didn’t even know where Lance had found it, but it still got a smile out of him most days.

The smell of baking flooded out when Shiro opened the door. Somewhere in the house Hunk was singing cheerfully. Shiro toed his boots off into the pile by the door, hefted the groceries, and followed his lover’s voice into the kitchen, where Hunk was elbow-deep in the sink with his back to the door. The radio was playing something Shiro vaguely recognised as a classic, and Hunk was singing along with a lot of substitutions.

Space hadn’t been easy on any of them. Pidge had a cybernetic right eye, courtesy of the Olkari after one of Haggar’s smaller experiments had taken a swipe at her face. Keith had regrown so many teeth they’d lost count – a side benefit of Galra genetics – and three of Lance’s ribs had been outright replaced after a particularly nasty fight.  Hunk had taken his own share of hits. Even from the door, Shiro could see three faint white scars traced across the back of Hunk’s neck, just visible under his hair and the faded ribbons of his headband, the leftover signature of a Druid’s twisted curiosity.

And the radio played on the countertop, beside half a dozen racks of small golden pies, and below the scars on Hunk’s neck was the fading hickey Shiro had sucked into his skin two nights ago, upstairs.

They took on the Galra Empire and won, and this is what they won. It’s strange, in so many ways, but Shiro likes it.

“Hey, Hunk,” he calls, dumping the groceries on the table and crossing the room to his partner.

“ –old-fashioned way – hey, Shiro!” Hunk slotted a mixing bowl into the drainer and turned away from the sink, holding up a hand when Shiro leant in for a kiss. “Whoa, let me dry off.”

“You’ve been busy,” Shiro commented as Hunk quickly towelled his hands dry. “What’re you making?”

“Something special.” Shiro snagged Hunk’s waist and leaned in again, and this time Hunk let him, curling one arm around Shiro’s shoulders to pull him in for a quick kiss. “You know, festive season, we’re back on Earth, we should do it properly. You’re early.”

“Today’s debrief was pretty short. We’d covered a lot of it already.” Shiro’s current job description might as well be ‘Go over the entire Galra war with every officer in the Garrison, twice.’ It was important work, there was no denying that, and Shiro was still a Garrison officer. Still, it got frustrating, sometimes, going over the same thing again, even if he was careful not to let it show. He ran the fingers of his metal hand through Hunk’s hair and smiled. “You have flour on your nose.”

Hunk wrinkled his nose and pulled back, scrubbing at his face. “Thanks. Naxela again?”

Shiro let him go and started unloading the groceries. “The Balmera. I think Professor Montgomery’s going to be after you about power sources again, he seemed frustrated when I couldn’t tell him anything about the resonance.”

“He called earlier,” Hunk said, making a face. Flour was smudged down the side of his nose. “I told him he could wait ‘til tomorrow. Did I get it?”

"You’ve got a spot –” Shiro gestured to his cheek. Hunk scrubbed again, missing the trace of flour by an inch. “No, left a bit – you’re good. What are these, anyway?”

“Mince pies.” Hunk bent down to help Shiro with the groceries, and straightened up with a bottle of milk in his hand. “You know, that was always what I missed in space. Don’t get me wrong, Balmeran cave bugs are amazing, but sometimes I just wanted something familiar, you know?”

Forming the Coalition, Voltron had visited a lot of different planets. A lot of those planets had been pretty spectacular, even to someone who didn’t have the curiosity needed to fly out to the edge of the Solar system in the space equivalent of a rattletrap buggy just to see what was there. Every day had brought a new species, a new culture, or a new natural wonder to marvel at. Mablis had been one of the high points: The capital city was a miracle of engineering, suspended in a gorge by a thousand narrow filaments, with waterfalls pouring down to either side. The fighting hadn’t been too gruelling, and the native Eriglits had been happy to host them for a few days, had offered food and comfortable rooms and surprisingly bouncy music.

It had been peaceful. Pleasant.

At the end of the fourth day, Shiro had slumped back into the bed and realised that he would willingly trade – maybe not his entire remaining arm, but at least a couple of fingers, for a battered paperback murder mystery and a mug of hot coffee.

“I know the feeling.”

Hunk looked down at the milk and smiled wryly before putting it in the fridge. “It was the holidays, mostly. Even when we got the calendar working, we could celebrate but the food wasn’t right. It wasn’t the same. So – this year, we’re doing it right.”

Shiro looked at the racks of cooling mince pies, thought back to his childhood, and smiled. “You know, if we’re going to do it right, we ought to get fairy lights.”

“Already done,” a smug voice said from the doorway.

Shiro jumped and turned around. Lance grinned at them both and hefted a carrier bag triumphantly, then stepped forward to press his lips to Shiro’s cheek. “I got fairy lights. And tinsel.” He bumped his mouth against Hunk’s and dropped the bag, reaching for a mince pie.  “I am prepared. This house is going to make people on Pluto jealous of our decorating prowess.”

“Careful, they’re –” Lance spluttered around a mouthful of pastry. “-hot,” Hunk finished.

“Worth it,” Lance managed, though he was panting to cool his tongue down.

“You don’t have to burn your tastebuds off, babe.”

Lance took the glass of cold juice Shiro handed him and gulped it down gratefully. “First mince pies in seven years,” he said between swallows, and put the glass down. “Man, I missed those.”

“So I see,” Shiro said. “And…tinsel, apparently.” He nudged the carrier bag with his foot. Strands of glittering gold, green, and red bulged out of the top.

“Way better than that glittery string we used in the Castle,” Lance said. “We had loads, when I was growing up. We used to wrap it around the bannisters. And then we’d take it off to play with it, and Mom would yell at us for making a mess – we got bits of it everywhere. My cousin made a beard out of it one year.”

"No,” Hunk said immediately, shaking his head. “Lance, I love you, but not the bannisters.”

Lance grinned and wound his arms around Hunk’s shoulders. “How about the door frames?”

“…yeah, okay.”

Shiro shook his head. “So…we’re decorating.”

“We don’t have to.” Lance hung his weight off Hunk’s shoulders and bent back until he was looking at Shiro upside down. “We can leave it if you don’t want to. But I’d like it.”

“No, I don’t mind.” Shiro stepped in and pulled Lance the right way up so he could kiss him properly, quick and sweet. “It’s just…” He laughed, surprising himself. “It’s pretty domestic, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Hunk said, tugging Shiro closer. “I think we earned it.”

Yes, Shiro thought. They really had.