#zarge

Allura Lyon was a prim and posh cultured lady who played three instruments, got straight As, never had bad hair days, was head cheerleader, and won homecoming queen every year since she was a freshman at Allen T. Easley High School. (1)

She was also the champion of the hotdog eating contest this side of Steorra City. (2)

And she modeled part-time.

Just kidding. She was a cam girl.

Haha, just kidding again. She was a part-time model. Duh.

Pidge was sitting on a park bench with said part-time model, watching Allura rip into a hotdog piled heavily with relish and mustard. She admired the girl’s ability to stuff large quantities of sausage into her mouth. Pun fully intended. Shiro and Sendak were a lot to handle for one girl. How did Allura do it? Pidge kind of didn’t want to know.

“Sorry that Shake Shack was closed,” Allura was somehow able to articulate with a mouth full of food. “We’ll go back when they’re finished renovating.” Allura swallowed her food and smiled with promise before taking another bite of her hotdog.

Pidge eyed the quantity of sausage that disappeared into Allura’s mouth. Already, two thirds of it was gone. She’d just bought it a minute ago. How was that possible? It was an anomaly; Allura couldn’t be human.

Allura chewed thoughtfully and cocked her head to the side. “So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked, lifting a half-empty bottle of seltzer water to her mouth.

Pidge waited until Allura swallowed both her food and a sip of her drink before she spoke. “I need Sendak and Shiro to fight Zarkon.”

Allura pursed her lips, the last third of her hotdog paused right in front of her mouth. She stared contemplatively at her food for a few seconds before pushing it forward.

“I think you should eat something.”

Pidge scowled and leaned back. “Gross, I’m not eating that. Just help me get your boys to fight Zarkon.”

Allura pinned her with a look. “You aren’t making any sense. It happens sometimes when you don’t eat properly. Here, eat this.” Allura practically shoved whatever was left of her hotdog ino Pidge’s face.

Pidge slid back on the bench with a scandalized look. “No! I don’t even like relish. Or mustard. Or hotdogs.”

Allura idly twirled a strand of her hair. “Well, I don’t like where this conversation is going. But I’m going to support you anyway by listening to you. Because that’s what friends do. They support each other. No matter what.” Allura smiled brightly and patted the side of Pidge’s face.

The gesture was patronizing, and Allura’s tone and choice of words was leaning slightly towards passive aggressive. Over what, only God knew. Pidge had no idea. It could be a million things. Did Allura take Pidge’s dislike of hotdogs as a personal offence? Did she just not like Zarkon? Was she serious about dating Shiro and Sendak? Did Pidge have bad breath? Who the fuck knew?

“Are you mad?”

Allura’s eyes widened. “Me? Mad?” Pidge watched the prim and posh Allura Lyon stuff the rest of the hotdog right into her mouth. Allura chewed vigorously, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a napkin, all the while looking at Pidge with a doe-eyed expression of wonder. “Why, whatever for?” she asked. A piece of chewed up food flung from Allura’s mouth and landed on Pidge’s shirt. Allura maintained her expression of incredulity. Pidge maintained her expression of “what Pandora’s box did I just open up?”

Pidge narrowed her eyes. “Don’t give me this shit. Just say you’re mad at me.”

“Well…” Allura was twirling a strand of her hair again as she spoke. “I’m not mad, per se. It’s more like I’m very curious as to why you’re asking me to help you get someone to mess up their academic career. Especially two seniors who need to stay golden if they want to score scholarship rides. It’s like you’re implying that, because of what kind of role I play at school, that I’d totally be on board with anything catty and nasty like starting fights.”

Pidge narrowed her eyes. “You told Keith that Lance was the one who plastered his old myspace photos all over the cafeteria when you knew it was Nyma.”

Allura smiled. “I never spoke a word to him.”

“Yeah, but looking at Lance right after Keith asked if you knew who did it is the same thing.”

Allura shrugged. She capped her bottle of seltzer water and took her wallet out of her bag. “I’m getting another hotdog. You want one?”

Pidge stared at her for a moment of confusion and disbelief. “No, I’m good.”

“You sure?”

Pidge sent her a flat look.

Allura looked away. She placed her wallet in her lap and neatly folded her hands on top. “You know… I didn’t exactly mean for that fight to happen in the first place. I honestly thought it would get them to be friends.”

Pidge gave a snorting laugh.

Allura’s face turned stern. “I’m serious,” she insisted, looking at Pidge again. “Sendak and Shiro didn’t exactly get along, you know. They had bad history together. But it’s what brought them together, in some weird, convoluted way of theirs. I thought it would work for Keith and Lance, too.” Allura cleared her throat and tossed her hair over her left shoulder. “Besides, Keith is the reason Haggar left my cheer squad. So, we’re even now.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay.” She picked up her bag from the ground and looped her arms through the straps.

“Are you leaving?”

Pidge got up from the bench. “Yeah. My mom’s probably pissed I didn’t get home right after school.”

Allura arched an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Pidge shrugged, hooking her thumbs under the straps of her backpack. “Yeah, you know. Beat up some kid at the corner store. You heard, didn’t you?”

Allura actually looked surprised. “What? No, I didn’t.” Her eyes sharpened. “Are they still bothering you, or--”

Pidge raised her hands. “No. No, they’re— It’s all good now, I think.”

Allura frowned. “Okay. You know you can rely on me, right?”

“Sooo,” Pidge drawled hopefully, “Does that mean that fight’s gonna happen, or…?”

“Definitely not.” Allura crossed her arms and put on a steely look. “Keep my boys out of this, whatever it is. They’ve come too far to throw it all away now.”

Pidge rolled her eyes again. “Gee, thanks. You got any dirt you can throw my way, though?”

“To get Zarkon?” Allura frowned again, arms still crossed. “Not really. Try asking Haggar. Maybe she’ll give you something. If she’s feeling like a renegade, that is.”

“Alright, thanks.” Pidge gave Allura a mock salute in farewell. “Later.”

“Bye, Pidge. Stay safe.”

Pidge turned out of the park and headed straight for home.

Just kidding, she was going to the druggie’s corner at the end of the block.

Nah, just playing. She was going home.

After going to the druggie’s corner. Because she wasn’t about to waste a whole afternoon for nothing.

END NOTES

(1)  Allen T. Easley = Altea

Zarkon. It was like the name of an alien spaceship. He was both the school’s ultimate blessing and ultimate curse. He single-handedly carried the entire football team to victory with the same hand that single-handedly ran the underground ring two blocks away that, allegedly, was the source of the school junkie king’s revenue.

Pidge had no idea what the “ring” was all about. But everyone said the UR in the Galra district was home to all nine layers of hell. There were no rules in the UR, except “Zarkon rules.” As long as you respected that, the tale went, anything and everything went.

Normally, Pidge couldn’t give a single fuck about the school’s star football player moonlighting as a crime lord boss in the precious after hours of post-academia, but she had a goal in mind and she wasn’t about to let anyone get in her way.

She had to hack into her teacher’s email and nab the EGG file to change some grades.

Usually, this was a job that she could do from the comforts of her own home. Unfortunately, she was grounded for fighting the guy at the corner store for calling her “a little pansy boy.” She would have pleaded her case, but her parents thought Katie Holt was still Kyle Holt because she… hadn’t told them yet about her preference. She and Matt were both 99% sure they’d be okay with the whole thing, but. Who knew, really?

Anyway, bottom line was that she was grounded and had no access to any technology whatsoever and she needed to attend anger management counseling to learn how to “self-regulate” her emotions better so she didn’t lash out all the time.

So, that meant all her hacking had to be done at school. Which meant she had to find a way to keep Iverson distracted long enough for her to get into his classroom, pick open his closet, grab his laptop, hack the password, figure out his email password (that was !iguanA55!), find the EGG file, and play around with some numbers. She probably needed, like… fifteen minutes? Thirty, to play it safe.

Lance was originally gonna goad Keith into a little ol’ mano-a-mano and Hunk was gonna run to grab Iverson, but Lance’s big sister was pushing out a little McClain, Hunk was sick with the flu, and Keith… Keith probably had no idea he was even part of the plan, to be honest, and Pidge didn’t feel like it was worth it to see if he even knew about it.

Which left her, really, with only one other option. The only option that could guarantee the distraction of the entire school staff.

Zarkon going faux-berserk on Sendak and Shiro.

There was a story once, a long time ago, about how the three of them once almost killed each other after some play on the field got messed up and cost the team the whole game. But that was just it—a story. When she’d gone to ask if the three of them had ever fought like that, Shiro had blinked at her and said “we did?” and Sendak had just given her a look and said “who the fuck are you?”

But Nyma and Rolo both swore to her that it had happened. And yes, they were both high as a motherfucking kite when they shared their little anecdote, but they’d never been wrong when they were high before—it was only when they were sober that you had to be careful with what they said.

With strong faith in the enlightenment powers of weed and just a hint of desperation, Pidge had waited outside the boys’ locker room after football practice for Zarkon to come out. She saw Keith and Shiro and Lotor (who tried to flirt with her and got an ass-full of Keith’s foot for his attempts) and Sendak and Prorok and Haxus and Myzax (who was still stoned—goddamn, what a champ), and even the team’s coach, Mr. Yurak, 

But no Zarkon.

Pidge had waited almost half an hour when the door finally swung open and Zarkon narrowly avoided trampling her by shoving her with a burly arm and growling “Watch it, kid.”

And Pidge was ready to flip her fucking shit. But, contrary to what her parents believed, she had ample amounts of self-control and could self-regulate her emotions just fine.

“Yo, Zarks,” she spat out in a saccharine voice, “got a sec?”

Zarkon kept walking.

Pidge grit her teeth. “Hey! I’m talking to you!”

Zarkon still kept walking.

Pidge slapped a hand to her face, stifling the stream of curses that poured out of her mouth. She hauled her bag on her back and sprinted after the hulking mass who looked way too old to be hanging out with nae-naeing, whipping, and twerking teenagers. She caught up to him and cut him off, making a sharp turn as soon as she got next to him and skidding across to stand right in front of him with her arms spread out and her face plastered with her fiercest look.

Zarkon stopped walking. He squinted down at her, his yellow irises glowing behind an irritated gaze. “Are you lost? Alfor Elementary is three blocks down.”

Pidge exploded. “I’m gonna fucking—” She slapped a hand to her face and choked down the rest of her threat. “Okay, look, you and I need to have a little chat because—don’t fucking walk away from me!”

“Go crawl back to the first grade classroom you escaped from, kid.”

Pidge watched her only option walk right out the main doors of the school. Her left eye twitched fiercely as she was left standing in front of the heavy double doors. 

“Um,” said a person behind her, making her turn around. It was Rax. He stared down at her with narrowed eyes and one arched brow. “Can you move out of the way? Some of us have actual things to do after school.”

“Forgive me, Rex,” she mocked. Pidge stepped aside, glaring at Shay’s jerkass brother as she sarcastically swept her arm to the side in presentation for Rax to leave through the double doors.

“It’s Rax,” he corrected as he pushed open a door. “And you’re crazy for talking to Zarkon.”

Pidge’s nostrils flared with a huff of anger. “You’re crazy for trying to sabotage your sister’s relationship with Hunk!” 

Rax just waved her off and walked out.

After making sure he was a good distance away, Pidge ran up and kicked the door. Then cursed and hopped around on one foot as she clutched her other foot in her hand because shit, fuck, damn.

“I need a plan,” she muttered. “And a burger. I need a plan and a burger. And… someone else that’s smart.”

With that, she raced out of school in search of Allura.