#tatted lance

part two

———

Hunk wakes up groggy and confused. Why is he awake? He doesn’t usually wake up in the middle of the night. That’s more Lance’s thing.

Wait.

Lance.

He shoots straight up, heart pounding, turning desperate and bleary eyes to the oven’s clock. He finds, to his horror, that it is currently three in the morning, meaning three hours past midnight, meaning he fucking missed the chance to wish Lance his first happy birthday of the day.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he curses, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and rushes the finish icing the damn cupcake he apparently fell asleep trying to decorate. It’s not like Lance will be mad at him, or anything. But the two of them have had the midnight birthday wishes tradition going on for years, and Hunk is upset to have been the one to break that streak. And on such an important birthday, no less!

He finally finishes icing the cupcake, sticking a candle in it and shoving a lighter in his pocket. He slides the cupcake onto Lance's favourite plate (it’s the only plate in the set with a tiny chip on the side, and as with most broken or disliked things, Lance loves it for the simple reason that no one else does), and pauses, taking a deep breath. He’s already late. It’s done, it cannot be undone. Continuing to fret about it will only make him frazzled and upset, and he doesn’t want to be frazzled and upset. He wants to celebrate his best friend’s birthday. Once he feels calm enough, he heads over to Lance’s room, peeking his head in.

No Lance.

That’s not unusual. Lance is the worst sleeper Hunk knows, and likes to wander around. There’s a list of other places he tends to frequent, and Hunk checks the list off one by one – observation deck, pool, Keith’s room (not that Lance would ever admit to spending a ridiculous amount of time hanging out with Keith, but Hunk knows better), Pidge’s workshop, the long-range training deck, the sewing room – but Lance isn’t in any one of them. At this point, Hunk is starting to freak himself out again, so he decides to stop and approach the situation a little more rationally.

Lance could be anywhere, really. He likes to explore. Hunk could spend another fifteen minutes searching for him, or he could just borrow Pidge’s B.L.I.P. reader and find him immediately. Hunk doubles back towards Pidge’s workshop, quickly locating the device and booting it up.

Ah, Lance is on the bridge. And he’s with Coran, apparently. Hunk quickly makes his way over, finding Lance and Coran deep in conversation about the differences in Altean and Terran precipitation.

Nerds.

He clears his throat to make his presence known, and is a little pleased to see how quickly Lance lights up as soon as he sees Hunk. He knows Lance loves him, obviously, but nothing boosts your confidence like someone’s first reaction to your presence being overwhelming joy.

God, Hunk loves his best friend.

“Hunk!” Lance greets, waving him over. “Come sit with us!”

“Happy birthday, Lance!” Hunk says as he walks over. He holds the cupcake in front of him, which makes Lance clap his hands and then hold them out expectantly. He hands Lance the plate, and Lance wastes no time squeezing his eyes shut and making a wish before blowing out the candle.

“What’d you wish for?” Hunk asks, like he does every year.

Lance makes a face at him, like he does every year. “It’s like you want my wish to not come true.”

Coran looks intrigued. “Humans have the power to negate wishes simply by hearing them?”

“No, no, that’s just a superstition,” Hunk assures.

“No it’s not!” Lance argues. “The only time my birthday wish didn’t come true was the time I told you I wished for a pet black widow in grade three!”

Hunk just shakes his head in fond exasperation, deciding not to mention the fact in no universe would Mrs. McClain ever allow tiny, clumsy, excitable baby Lance to have a deadly venomous spider as a pet.

“Anyways,” Lance continues, changing the subject. “Guess what I’ve done for my birthday so far!”

Hunk raises an eyebrow. “In the three hours since midnight, you’ve managed to do something specific?”

“You’d be surprised,” Coran comments, chuckling.

Honestly, Hunk has known Lance long enough that he doubts it.

“I got a visit from my future self telling me a list of places I shouldn’t ever visit so I visited them and they were so fun!”

Hunk blinks. Huh. That is surprising. He stands corrected.

“And I got a bunch of cool shells and I met a dragon and she gave me a really cool face scar –” Hunk does a double take, noticing that yes, Lance does have a new scar running from just above his left eyebrow to just below his cheekbone, what the fuck – “and also this huge diamond and I got this tongue piercing and I got to watch a real live supernova! Isn’t that the coolest thing in the world!”

Hunk barely understood the last couple part’s of Lance’s sentence, as Lance had his tongue stuck out to show off his piercing, but he gets the gist.

You know what? This isn’t even the craziest thing Lance has gotten into. It really isn’t. That title remains for the time trained a raccoon to attack on sight and almost got Hunk’s childhood bully scratched to death. (They were 9 at the time.)

“Alright,” Hunk says tiredly, because being friends with Lance is really just Like That sometimes. “I’m assuming you’re trying to hit every location on the list?”

“Of course!” Lance says cheerfully, and honestly? Hunk won’t lie. It sounds kind of fun. Besides, if Lance’s future self hasn’t popped back up to stop them, then it’s probably okay.

“Prepare yourself for the next wormhole jump, lads,” Coran says, and off they go.

When the wormhole aftermath clears, they find themselves right in front of what looks to be a very busy Earth, if Earth was pink and orange.

“The coordinates for this location are some of the more specific ones, like the third one, so it’s probably a specific place on the planet,” Lance explains, “so we’ll have to take Blue.”

The three of them make their merry way towards the Blue Lion’s hangar, and Lance pilots them down to the planet’s surface with no issues (and only one random and nausea-inducing barrel roll, but Hunk allows it because it is Lance’s birthday and he’s allowed to do dumbass things on his birthday. That’s, like, the rule).

Lance leads them through an incredibly busy city, through crowded roads and twisted alleyways, until he stops right in front of what seems to be a tattoo parlour.

“Sick!” Lance cheers. “More impulse body modification! Awesome!”

Hunk and Coran share an amused look.

“Do you even want a tattoo?” Hunk asks.

“Yes, obviously. I want, like, 200, but I’ll settle for maybe six.”

“You’ll be here all day, child,” Coran reminds him.

“Ugh, I forgot about stupid time,” Lance pouts, making Hunk huff and nudge him in the side.

“How about we get that matching tattoo we’ve been wanting to get for a while?” he suggests.

Lance brightens immediately. “Yes yes yes! The goggles?”

They had the idea when they were about fifteen. They’ve been friends all their lives, a team in every possible way, but there had been something especially exciting about being on an actual team together, for the first time at the Garrison – the engineer and the pilot. They’d wanted a way to commemorate that, and both wanted a symbol that was common between them but different enough to be individual, as well. They’d come up with the idea of aviator goggles and welding goggles – same concept, entirely different functions, entirely intertwined. As dorky as it was, Hunk found it charming.

“The goggles,” he agrees.

They make their way into the tattoo parlour, luckily pretty empty at this hour, Lance explaining the concept to Coran as Hunk sorts out payment with the receptionist. Twenty minutes later, they’re both sat on giant, leather chairs that remind Hunk of the dentist’s office.

“Where are these tattoos going to be, gentlemen?” the artist asks.

Hunk and Lance turn to look at each other.

“Any ideas?” Hunk asks.

“What if he got them on our legs? Like, side of the calf, right above our ankles?”

“Hugely specific,” Hunk notes. “Why that place particularly?”

“Our first team was the engineer and the pilot. Our new team, our most important team, is the Legs of Voltron. I think it’d be a cool reminder,” Lance explains.

Hunk grins at him, and then nods at the artist. “That sounds perfect.”

The artist – who almost looks like a humanoid octopus slash iguana, and works on them both simultaneously which is so cool – gets right to work.

Lance and Hunk inhale sharply at the exact same time, because holy shit, that hurts more than they expected. Like, they’re Paladins of Voltron, sure, but yeesh. It turns out that a very sharp needle stabbing in and out at 3000 times per minute and dragging through their skin actually does hurt a whole lot, Jesus Lord Above.

Lance reaches out a hand, and Hunk does not hesitate to grab and squeeze it. They keep their hands clutched the whole time the artist works, which honestly doesn’t take long because the tattoos aren’t that big.

On their way back to the castle, after the artist flashes some sort of light on their fresh tattoos which heals them immediately (space is so cool, man), Coran sends Hunk a photo to his holopad, one he took while the artist was working.

It’s a picture of Lance and Hunk, hands held together tightly, grinning at each other as their matching tattoos are nearly finished. It’s abundantly clear how excited they are, how much they care about each other. Hunk makes it his lockscreen immediately, thanking Coran profusely.