"Well, duh. I'm Lance McClain, I'm always right."

Hunk has heard it before plenty of times: the standard Lance response to a standard Lance-directed query.

The thing is, he agrees. Lance McClain is always right.

Hunk is that one kid with the two dads, the one who turns into a nervous wreck at the drop of a hat. He's not a pilot, nor is he charming or handsome or popular enough to stand out in a crowd.

But he is the kid who can handle machines like nobody's business, and it's a fact he takes great pride in.

With Voltron, he's strong, happy, and friendly. He's the smart goofball, the engineer who loves food and, yeah, the one who tends to blabber and gets anxious quite easily.

More importantly, he's the Yellow Paladin of Voltron, who cares for his team and strangers equally, whose belief in justice is as strong as his muscles and as threaded in his being as the Quintessence of his Lion.

Hunk is the weakest of the five Paladins.

He's seven years old when a kid sneers at him about his parents and the others turn to look at him with the same disgust. Hunk wants to speak up, he really does. The anger lights inside him, waiting, but the jeers get to him and he finds the words dissolving on his tongue as his heart beats itself into his ribs.

He's short on breathe, suddenly, and his vision is dotted with black spots, blurring and swaying until he can no longer distinguish their faces, can't hear beyond the rushing in his ears, can't move, can't breathe can't-

It ends with him in the nurse's office, cringing away from adults touching him and telling him to 'calm down', which is just about the stupidest thing he's been asked to do. Because if he could actually get himself to calm down, did they not think he would have done it by now?

Adults made no sense in general though, excepting maybe his dads, and Hunk manages it finally, pulled back to reality to face the concern of his teachers. 'Everything's fine, you're fine', they tell him. And he agrees that he is. He can roll with this, has been rolling with it since long before he could put a name to his panicked gasps for air, before he could define the oily feeling of knowing he was different and being unable to change it.

Then one day, he gets a different kind of attack and the diagnosis comes in.

Epilepsy.

The air seems to be sucked right out of Hunk's lungs every time he thinks it. The word is ugly and awful, bruising itself into an imprint in his sluggish mind.

'It's likely genetic', the doctors tell him, and he's somehow all the worse for knowing it.

He has always respected his unknown birth family's traits and genes, has always felt deeply connected to his culture, and appreciated his parents' efforts to ground him with that connection.

But this is one thing he doesn't want, and it's been passed down and dropped on him without preamble, tasting foul and sour of betrayal.

With a few tries, they find the anti-epileptic drugs which suit him and Hunk pockets the pills in his jeans and resigns himself to a lifetime of depending on them. His big sister trails after him with constant reminders to take his medicine, spouting random health tips pulled up from the internet.

In the rare occasions when he slips up and forgets, his dads' tendency to fuss over him rises sharply, and they scold him and worry about him in the same breathe, no matter how mild the seizure.

At times when Hunk can admit it to himself, he wishes that they would stop treating him like a dormant volcano and more like a normal boy. And sometimes, just sometimes, he feels himself slip into a dark space in his head, where he thinks 'Why bother? Why bother with all this?'

But their love for him is persistent, and anything but a hardship, and Hunk finds that he is always up for spontaneous cuddles from his family.

No, the real challenge is when it comes to letting other people know about his…condition.

He's heard all the arguments for it. Better safe than sorry and all. But even then, he can't wipe away how much he hates the bracelet on his wrist which labels him for all to see, marks him out as different, more than ever now.

He hates that he doesn't have the ability to choose.

At the Garrison, Hunk gets that choice. Well, almost. Some of the officers and staff know, which makes for a lengthy and rather upsetting medical for him. But with assurances that his medicine keeps the seizures under control and enough evidence to satisfy them, he's enrolled into the Garrison.

Life seems to start afresh into a whole new phase then, where his epilepsy is not constantly shoved to the forefront of his mind. He's a student in one of the most elite space programs on Earth, on his own merit. The thought still makes him giddy at times.

He knows his family worries about him, and he honestly loves and misses them. Even then, Hunk can't help but revel in the freedom when away from home.

His medical bracelet stays in his dorm, stuffed into the back of the closet under a layer of clothes he'll never use.

Lance is the first and only friend he tells willingly, because despite his jokes and flippant attitude, Hunk knows within mere months that he can trust him to be serious and responsible about it.

Lance doesn't disappoint, and he quite solemnly promises to stay by his side in the unlikely event of a seizure getting past his meds. And yes, okay, he also snaps a dramatic salute at Hunk and loudly declares to forfeit his 'honour' if he fails in his 'duty' towards their friendship, blah blah blah. But…well, Hunk is 75% sure he's done the right thing in trusting him.

Lance is a better friend than he could ever have hoped for.

Finals hit them hard and fast, and in the midst of stress and a string of sleepless nights, Hunk slips up and forgets to get his refill on time. He has a partial seizure that hardly anyone notices, and a tonic clonic a week after that, that everyone notices.

But he's also proven right in his choice.

Lance bolts into action and helps him through both times, standing by as a steady and warm presence, even if Hunk isn't aware of it at the time. He holds off other curious cadets with gentle admonitions, and then cutting sarcasm and pointed glares when they can't take the blatant hint to fuck off.

Most of all though, he never makes fun of Hunk and simply takes it into stride, as though it were expected of him. Lance smoothly slinks into the cracks in his life and begins keeping track of Hunk's doses, always flinging him a reminder when Hunk is too caught up in cramming his studies to remember for himself. But he also lets Hunk have his space and tries his best not to be overbearing.

Lance makes it normal.

Somewhere in their second year, Lance's eyes catch onto the photo of Hunk's family, which sits slightly askew on the book-littered table in his room. He lingers for a moment on the faces of the two men, one with thick glasses and a wide smile, the other with long hair tied back neatly, captured mid-laugh at something his husband had said.

He plops on to the bed next to Hunk and is quiet for a few seconds, then almost offhandedly tells him: "So, I'm bi."

There's an undercurrent of tension but it's not apparent in his words so much as his shoulders, which are actually in danger of reaching his hairline.

Hunk nods, tactfully holds back the silly dad joke that sits on the tip of his tongue and pats Lance on his back.

"Alright. Thanks for telling me, buddy. Love you."

Lance's shoulders inch right back down to a more anatomically acceptable level, and a huge grin cracks across his face.

They go back to reviewing for their exams, leaning into each others' sides.

After the Blue Lion, after the crazy space battle and the Galran battleship, after forming Voltron for the first time, they settle down in their assigned rooms and Hunk finally gets a breather. The first thing he does is anxiously check his pockets.

His pill bottle is there, right where he's always kept it, and he's overwhelmingly thankful to his dads (and Lance) for making him carry it around all the time until it became second nature. It's a relatively new bottle and he'll be okay for a while at least. They should be back home by then.

A single pill sits at the bottom of the bottle, gleaming at Hunk rather mockingly, he imagines. He's almost out of medicine.

He takes a deep, deliberate breath, and pushes down on the panic he feels bubbling already. After the event with the Balmerans and the Galran attack on the Castle (Lance, laying so still, wounded-), he's changed his mind on quite a few of his perceptions of the world, and the prospect of going home seems…so far away, so unattainable.

It's with a steely resolve that he manages to get a hold of himself somehow, breathing in and out slowly. His emotions don't help, not here, so Hunk picks at the facts and holds on to them desperately.

He, the boy who has epilepsy, is almost out of anti-epileptic drugs while caught in the middle of an all-out space war against a murderous species of aliens who have ruled for over 10,000 years, so far, and have very specific motive to hate him and the grand resistance: his team of five people, seven if you included the other aliens (eleven if you count the space mice).

Right. Alright.

With no real thought or idea on why, Hunk doesn't take the last pill. He leaves the bottle in the alcove by his bed, setting it on an empty shelf like some kind of memorial to his epilepsy. He wishes dearly that were the case.

So, maybe he hasn't changed that much. His thoughts clamour to be heard, and in the pit of his stomach, he knows he's being stupid. So damn stupid.

He'll think about it later. So that when later comes, he can avoid it again, then again and again until he can almost convince himself that he's okay.

He hasn't had a seizure since that first year in the Garrison. He doesn't…he doesn't actually need the meds. He doesn't.

In the middle of group training against the Gladiator, Hunk's leg suddenly just stops as he's turning, and he stumbles, losing control of his body for just a few seconds. The seconds cost him, and the bot fells him easily. Luckily, no one notices the reason, and he's able to move again quickly enough.

Lance gives him an odd look, narrowing his eyes at him speculatively, so Hunk starts complaining mournfully about the level being set too high, which is enough to bring back normalcy as Lance joins him. Shiro just shakes their head at them while Allura puffs up in indignant fury at their fooling around.

Inside, he feels his heart beat too fast.

As it turns out, Lance is no one's fool. The moment training is over with, he corners Hunk in the hallway near his room and stares at him a little more cautiously than his approach had been. He looks a little guilty too, as though just realizing he had never asked Hunk about-

"You have your medicine, right?"

Hunk nearly winces. Trust Lance to get to the heart of the matter so quickly. As it is though, Hunk has become terribly good at faking it when it matters.

He smiles and waves his hands dismissively.

"Yeah, of course I do. I have about half a bottle left. I think they'll last another few weeks."

Lance squints at him for a few seconds before nodding slowly.

"Okay," he murmurs, "But then what happens when you run out? Shit, Hunk, we need to-"

"I'll talk to Coran."

The sweat at his temple feels suddenly cold, but Hunk keeps talking blithely, nearly convincing even himself that everything is fine. Because it is.

"I'm sure he can find some kind of substitute, and we can probably synthesize it ourselves, if not," he blurts, and his grin stretches wide, feeling so manufactured he's sure Lance will figure him out soon enough.

Lance seems visibly relieved though, the stress lines around his eyes lightening as he sighs. He still looks guilty though, squirming and shifting on his feet, a hand drifting up to his mouth automatically. Hunk understands.

"Lance, it's okay that you didn't remember."

Lance freezes, teeth grazing his thumbnail, and Hunk patiently drags the hand away. Honestly, if Hunk didn't stop him, Lance would have no nails to speak of. Not that his stubs count as nails anyway.

"It's okay, buddy. We've been through a rough couple of weeks with the whole, 'trying not die while perfecting Voltron simultaneously thing'. And you were hurt pretty bad too, just recently." Hunk will never be able to forget that image. "So don't beat yourself up over it, alright?"

His best friend sighs again, sagging just a little as he goes to lean on the wall.

"Yeah, okay...You want me to come with, when you talk to Coran?"

Oh, Lance. What did Hunk do to deserve him?

"Nah, I'll be fine. Maybe…maybe I'll rope Pidge in too, they could help me figure out the composition of the medicine and produce something close to it."

Lance is quiet for a long moment, eyes wide, and a smile slowly creeps on to his face.

"Yeah? I mean, yeah! Tha-that sounds great; get the little gremlin to join in! And, uh, also maybe don't tell them I called them that!"

He slings an arm around Hunk's shoulders as he keeps talking, and they move off to the showers. Lance thinks Hunk is getting better about his epilepsy, he hasn't found out about the medicine, no one else suspects yet, and everything is perfect.

And Hunk has no intention of talking to Coran or anyone else about this.

It keeps happening every now and then. He'll find himself disoriented or standing a few paces away in a completely different position from where he'd started, with no recollection of the last few seconds. Then he'll be okay again, back to normal, more or less. Somehow, luck favours him; barring the first time, no one is nearby when the seizures happen, and they're minor enough to let him go on with the day mostly unhindered.

He knows. He knows he should be talking to the team, should seek out Lance, or Coran and Pidge like he'd said he would. But every time Hunk imagines it, every time he thinks of speaking up and telling them everything, his breathe catches in his throat and he just can't.

The thought of being weak and incompetent haunts him, hangs over his head like a hangman's noose, and a part of him acknowledges that he's over-thinking it, but…

In the Garrison, he'd held onto the knowledge that his talents as an engineer made him valuable, and capable, and he'd never had a single interest in piloting. Up here though, he's a Paladin of Voltron and he needs to be at his best, which he cannot manage without his medicine. What if he told them and they couldn't actually find an alternative for his medicine, and he was just stuck with debilitating seizures?

What if they made him give up the Yellow Lion and found someone more suitable for his role?

No. No, he can't bear to think about it. He's grown too attached to Yellow, to his team and to the feeling of being useful, of being invincible. He hasn't felt that way in years, since he was just a kid.

Hunk knows he's already the worst of all the Paladins and the last thing he wants is to prove it further by being the burden that his epilepsy makes him. It's inescapable, but for now at least, he can close his eyes and pretend.

Things come to a head sooner than Hunk expected, when they're eating lunch one day. Coran had apparently whipped up another terrible dish from the depths of the old Altean records AKA Hell in Hunk's mind. Hunk is hungry enough after the training session they'd just had though, that he's almost willing to overlook the odd blue, pulsing, mushroom-like things which sit on his plate.

He hasn't slept well in the past few days, and he knows the others have noticed.

Shiro keeps trying to ambush him to have a 'talk', but Hunk has found that the easiest escape is made by blabbering on about some updates to the Lion and rushing away in the pretense of doing so. It always works for Pidge, so it only figures it would for him too.

Coran and Allura don't approach him, and he suspects that Shiro may have requested them to let him handle it, because there's no way they wouldn't have asked by now if the case were otherwise.

Lance shoots him worried looks whenever they're together but he actually refrains from saying anything, for which Hunk is grateful. Lance has somehow understood that at the moment, all Hunk wants is some space (ha, space).

Keith and Pidge are surprisingly more subtle (or more awkward about confronting Hunk) and do their best to find excuses to simply sit with him, perhaps in the hopes that he would eventually break and spill.

Clearly, they have yet to see him at his most desperate.

The day has been overall terrible though, and he can't bring himself to relax, his mind wandering constantly and incapable of focusing on one thing for too long. His stomach has been a little off all day, and he thinks maybe he's coming down with a bug. Which is just what they need, really: space viruses. He can't bring himself to even try the blue mushroom food, no matter how many wounded looks Coran gives him.

That's when the odour of rotten eggs reaches him. It's out of place and not even coming from his plate.

"Do you smell that?" he asks, and as the others turn towards him, he immediately wishes he hadn't said anything. He recognizes the signs just a little too late and he makes to stand up, walk away, something, but his vision is suddenly bleary and he… he doesn't think he can move. The thought of running slips away from his grasp and he can't think suddenly, feeling muggy and disoriented.

It doesn't last long, but then, he can't trust his perception of time right now. Not like this.

When awareness comes back to him, Hunk can hardly speak. He opens his mouth and his tongue flops uselessly, slurring whatever he'd meant to say. He can't see anything except white and vague distortions of objects in the distance; then a face appears in his eye line, tilted to look down at him…?

Lance.

Lance, face ashen with an angry flush on his cheeks, eyes blazing with both fury and concern.

"Hey, big guy. You back with us?" he asks quietly.

Slowly, Hunk realizes he's on his side, limbs arranged carefully around him and something soft placed under his head.

He'd had a seizure. His body aches and he's on the floor, and he'd had a seizure in front of the others.

He can hear the murmur of voices over his head. They reach his ears in disjointed phrases, as though his mind isn't quite ready to process them whole.

…it over? That was Allura.

Never seen…it. Coran, deep and uneasy.

That was scary…didn't like that. Pidge, voice pitched high and sounding younger than ever.

He'll be…guys...time to recover, right, Lance? Shiro. What did Shiro think of all this?

He wonders if the others would let him lay down here forever, let him merge with the floor until they forgot this had happened at all.

Sitting up is almost too much for him at the moment but Lance helps him up, letting Hunk lean against him. There are two hands at his back, bracing him forward so he doesn't fall and Hunk is helplessly at their whim as they keep him upright.

Unbidden, he feels his eyes stinging.

He's tired. He's so, so tired.

He's too exhausted to move or even speak, so he leans his forehead into the crook of Lance's neck and pretends he's not two seconds off from crying.

Startlingly close to his ears, he hears Lance speak again: "Hunk? You alright to talk, buddy?"

His throat tightens at how soothing Lance's voice is, and he suddenly registers the way he's holding on to Hunk without complaint, running his hands lightly through his sweaty bangs over and over again like a cat grooming its kitten.

The tears break out of him then, and he silently lets them fall, powerless in the wake of yet another thing he cannot control.

Lance's hands stop their movements for a second as the tears splash down onto his neck.

"Aw, Hunk…," he sighs, and Hunk feels something twist in him at that.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles, slurring slightly around his unwieldy tongue, wishing he could at least speak. He's crying in front of his team, and he can't even find the strength to stand up and walk out of the room to hide his face.

Lance backs off suddenly, grasping Hunk by the shoulders and pushing him an arms-length away. Behind Hunk, the person with their hands on his back readjusts themselves, their arms coming to wrap around him instead. Vaguely, he sees the fingerless gloves resting against his torso and thinks, 'So that's where Keith was.'

"Hunk, dude. We are going to have a very long talk awaiting us when you recover," Lance's eyebrows twitch slightly, the way that Hunk knows they do when he's upset. "Right now though, you're heading to bed."

He offers no resistance as Keith and Lance help him up, just concentrates on not falling over. His legs tremble, muscles feeling weak and aching, and he can feel bruises on several parts of his body. His arms, his back, his hip, even his face.

As he's hustled off to his room, he sees Pidge lean down to pick up something cloth-like off the floor. The olive green colour is familiar, and he realizes: Lance's jacket. The soft cushion under his head.

Hunk looks away, because if he doesn't, he knows he will crumble.

Before he knows it, he's in his bed, covers pulled up to his chin. He feels simultaneously too wired to sleep and too drained to stay awake. The last thing he sees as the others leave is Lance slinking in, jacket wrapped around his waist. His eyes shut as he feels the bed dip down near his hip, and he drifts away into sleep with Lance's fingers laced through his.

Hunk sits on the bed with his head in his hands, and thinks of a world far away from here. His knee bounces up and down in an endless rhythm, without conscious thought, lightly thumping the sole of his foot against the floor.

Lance watches him from where he's leaned up against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in perfect imitation of Keith's natural state. His face is partly lit with the soft glow of light from the night lamp on the shelf, while the rest of him is drowned in the shadows of Hunk's room.

"Can we talk?"

The statement isn't surprising, as much as the point that it's Hunk doing the asking.

Lance comes out of his slouch, moving further into the room, and plops himself down next to Hunk.

"You know I'm always here for you, Hunk," he says, words murmured low, as though he were afraid of breaking the somber mood.

Hunk nods, because he's always known that. Then he keeps nodding, because he doesn't know how to start. Where to… what does he say?

Lance just sits, waiting patiently for him to speak, and that's what pushes him in the end.

"I hate being like this," he blurts out. "Being that…that one boy with epilepsy. I…I hate it. That the only thing anyone will ever see is this, and how it…controls every part of my life, that every day the sun will rise and fall and keep rising and falling, non-stop, while this one part of me exists like nothing else about me matters, and I'll…I don't know how long I can go on with that."

Lance makes an odd choking sound. Hunk closes his eyes as the words pour out, shutting out everything else until all he can hear is static in his ears and all he can see is the darkness of his eyelids.

"I didn't want anyone to know, but now it's too late, everyone has seen, they saw me like that and none of you deserved to see that. Pidge was scared and Allura and Coran must have been horrified by...by…Un-unless they had something like that back in Altea, so then they'll know exactly what it means, that I can't go into battle now and I can't take Yellow, I can't be a Paladin and then if we don't find a new Paladin, it'll be my fault when Zark-"

"Hunk, no, just stop!"

Hunk startles as two hands grasp his shoulder, and he blinks his eyes open, a little dizzy from spitting out those damning words in what feels like a single breath. Lance is looking right at him, and he's crying.

Lance is crying.

"Why are you crying?!" Hunk exclaims, and moves almost automatically to hug his best friend, except Lance will have none of that and grabs his face instead. Hunk huffs and flails a little, but Lance is careful to keep away from bruise on his temple. He holds him steady, and moves closer until their noses are mere inches apart.

"I am crying because you are the most precious, most amazing, most lovable dingbat ever!" Lance practically shouts, hardly paying mind to the torrential tears that keep slipping down his cheeks.

Hunk is…confused. And quite concerned.

"Lan-"

Lance shakes his head wildly and shushes him.

"No. No no no, sorry, this is about you and I'm going to stop crying right now, this instant, just as soon as my eyes decide to listen to me."

Hunk waits as Lance gets himself under control and tries not to think of the hands that are still on his face. Or how pretty Lance's eyes are and how he can never get tired of seeing that shade of blue, glistening as it is with tears, because they are really pretty. No. Not thinking about it, no.

Finally, Lance seems to calm down enough to try talking again, which means he takes the opportunity to do so quite passionately.

"Hunk, buddy, you are way too hard on yourself and, and you have a lot of weird thinky thoughts about things which no one even thinks about you but you think they think about you."

Hunk stares at him. After four long seconds, Lance clears his throat and nods.

"Yeah, let's try that again."

Then he leans forward even closer and presses his forehead to Hunk's, and Hunk tries his best not to flush. He can't see Lance's eyes anymore without going cross-eyed, which is a little disappointing.

"Epilepsy sucks. Okay. But Hunk, no one here thinks you're…weak for it. No one. Are they super worried about you? Hell yes. Because they love you and want you to be okay, a-and replacing you is like the farthest thing on anyone's mind, man! I… I'm so sorry that we let you think that, somehow, but it's definitely not true!"

Lance doesn't blink the whole time he speaks, and Hunk belatedly realizes he's doing it on purpose, like he feels the need to prove his sincerity by keeping his eyes wide open throughout the whole spiel.

"And another thing!" his best friend continues loudly, with enough desperation to stun even Hunk, "Yeah, the others were scared when they saw you seizing, but Hunk, buddy, there were scared for you."

Oh.

What?

"What?" he asks out loud, without thought.

Lance nods, widening his eyes even more, for emphasis.

"Yes. Yes, Hunk. They were scared, but only because they didn't know what was going on or what to do. They thought you were dying or something! And they were panicking because they care about you, so much."

Silence falls over them again, and those words keep echoing in his ears.

The thing is, there is nothing really new in what Lance was saying, nothing that Hunk hadn't already known. Only whatever Hunk had denied himself, out of fear and…habit.

He finds himself latching onto the idea though, because Lance has never led him wrong before. And he trusts the team, knows that they do care about him, no matter how short a time it has been since they were thrown together in this crazy space battle.

He trusts them.

"I've…I've been an idiot," he mumbles, and he wishes he could stare down at his shoes but Lance has still not released his face.

"Sorry to say this big guy, but yeah, you have been."

"I was just, so stubborn-"

"The stubbornest-"

"-and I honestly thought that the others would freak-"

"For different reasons, yeah-"

"Plus, I figured that they wouldn't want me around after-"

"Shows what you know-"

"I'm sorry, Lance."

Lance opens his mouth to interrupt again, then stops, caught off guard. The smile that springs up after is so bright, Hunk feels his breath catch.

"I forgive you, Hunk."

…even now, Lance knows just what to say. Even now, he knows Hunk won't be alright with empty platitudes, because what had happened was not okay, not exactly. But this way, he can move past it.

With a numb nod, he finally hugs Lance, who enthusiastically reciprocates. They hold onto each other for a long, long moment, and Hunk doesn't need any mind melding equipment to know how relieved Lance is. He can sense it just fine in the trembles that shake Lance's body, so he pulls him in even tighter to smooth those trembles down, so that they're quiet, and breathing together, and good.

They break the hug, finally, and look at each other for a few seconds through the dimness of the room, until Lance smacks a hand down on his leg and jumps up.

"So, then! You finally ready to leave your tower, Rapunzel?"

Something that feels like home slots right in near Hunk's heart. He stands up as well, slowly, still a little off kilter despite the nap he'd taken. Lance, steady at his side, makes up for it easily. He winds a hand around Hunk's and pulls him along gently, and they both ignore the heat rising in their faces.

"That makes no sense at all, Lance. I don't even have the hair. Or the singing voice."

"You shut your mouth, you have a beautiful voice."

"Thanks, but I don't think the others would agree."

"Trust me Hunk, I wouldn't even have to threaten the others to get them to agree with me."

"Okay, one, that's not a sentence I ever thought I'd hear you say, though I definitely should have expected it. Two, that's probably 'cause the others would win, no matter what you threatened them with."

"Hunk, I seriously recommend you take that back right this instant."

As they head out the door, Hunk pauses and turns back on a whim to grab the medicine bottle with the final pill in it. To his surprise, it's not on the shelf where he had left it. Lance's fingers tighten over his then, and he turns to find the boy fidgeting, staring down at his feet and chewing on his thumbnail again.

"Uh… I may have kinda given Pidge the medicine so they and Coran could start figuring out how to replicate it?"

Hunk is struck silent again and Lance's fidgeting becomes that much more intense.

"Lance."

Lance chances a look up and freezes as Hunk pulls his hand away from his mouth and cups his face, mirroring Lance from earlier.

"Can I kiss yo-"

"Yes."

They both blink at each other, and Lance's face burns. Hunk snorts, and gently tugs, pulling Lance towards him.

Like a dream, Lance drifts forward slowly, his fingers encircling Hunk's wrists, and Hunk moves to meet him. His stomach twists with butterflies and his brain is filled with white noise but he knows this is it. This is the right moment.

Their lips meet and its…Soft. Soft and familiar, though he's pretty sure he's never kissed Lance before, because he would definitely remember if he did. And wow, he's kissing Lance.

And then it becomes 'Wow, Lance is kissing me', and Lance is pressing closer, pushing their lips together firmly and it's warm, wet and clumsy, it's gross and embarrassing and so lovely that Hunk can feel his heart squeeze tight with emotions he can hardly distinguish beyond a huge ball of happiness.

He feels arms wind around his neck, Lance's mouth on his, lips meeting for another slick kiss, then another and another. Then suddenly, Lance laughs into his mouth, and they pull away. Their eyes meet for one electrifying moment, and they both start laughing, hard.

Because this was always where they were headed, wasn't it?

Lance is giggling against his neck, and Hunk nuzzles into his hair, breathing in the scent which smells vaguely similar to lemongrass.

When Lance finally pulls back, he's a rather pleasing shade of red, with a dopey smile taking up most of his face. Hunk feels the same heat in his own cheeks and wisely does not comment.

"Alright?" they both ask at the same time, which makes them dissolve into laughter again.

This time, Hunk grabs Lance's hand and, on impulse, presses a kiss to his knuckles. He's rewarded with the dark flush spreading down to Lance's neck at the gesture and he can't hide his grin fast enough.

"Hunk! You can't just do that, give a guy some warning!" Lance's voice comes out as a strangled squeak and Hunk laughs all over again, overwhelmed by the sheer light he feels inside himself. The weight that he had knowingly and willingly held on to for so long is gone, replaced with a newfound airy joy.

Lance looks at him, blue eyes bright, smile tender and fond. Fond of him, of Hunk, and his heart throbs again, just thinking it.

"Come on. The others are waiting to see you." Lance tugs him forward by the hand once more, and Hunk follows, as he's always done, having long found himself tethered to this boy without even noticing.

They walk together, hand in hand, and Hunk finds he's not nervous, at all. Not with Lance beside him, and not when he knows that the team was worried about him. It was about time he talked to them, and he knew he would not have to fear rejection, not from them.

And besides, Lance McClain was always right about these things.