With both hands spent keeping their occupant from flying down the castle corridor, Pidge was unable to properly knock and instead beat the door with her foot. A moment later, the door slid aside, and it took Lance all of half a tick to realize who it was and for his face to sour accordingly. "Coming back for round two?"

She released her hands. The blue caterpillar sprung from his prison, bursting against Lance's face fast enough to make him yelp and stumble back. The corner of Pidge's mouth twisted up. "He's pretty good at sensing heartbreak." The caterpillar moved slower now, rubbing his fluffy body against Lance's cheek as Lance could only watch with trepidation out of the corner of his eye. "And comforting for it. I'm sorry if we took the teasing earlier too far." Although she would be lying if she said it hadn't been a little cathartic.

Lance gave an uncertain pat, and at last relaxed as the critter continued to nuzzle his face. "Thanks." He lifted a hand to make a platform with his palm. The caterpillar landed there, allowing Lance to stroke it. "I guess I'm just not used to this whole seeing someone I like go so hard for someone else thing. I just, I want her to be happy, and if she's happy with someone else, fine I guess, I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do with all these feelings."

"Yeah." What was he telling her for? Pidge didn't know how to comfort him, especially about this, that was the entire point of bringing the caterpillar to do it for her. "I need to get back to helping Hunk with the particle barrier, but he can stay with you, if you want."

Lance rubbed a finger on the caterpillar's belly, and upon receiving a high-pitched, almost purr-like trilling, grinned for the first time Pidge had seen in days. "I think this lil guy'll come find some space juice with me."

She started for the lab. "You better be a better influence on him than you are on Kaltenecker."

Only Allura and Lotor were going into the rift, yet Shiro insisted that all of them be in their armor to watch the event from the castle bridge. For Lotor's sake, she reckoned. He was their ally and they needed to maintain an image of professionalism, Shiro would reason. As if Lotor had any notions of their professionalism after he learned they blasted a reprogrammed sentry into space on a robeast coffin.

Pidge had attached all of the upper pieces of armor and was working on her legs when the armory door opened. Jeaned legs stopped in front of her bench. Lance, not even in his undersuit yet, with his arms behind his back and a lip gnawed between his teeth as he watched her. He still had not spoken by the time she finished, so she propped her hands behind her, leaned back, and quirked an eyebrow at him. "Yes?"

He took in a deep breath, easing forward onto his toes so that he seemed to be lifting into the air, then let it out just as slowly, coming down once more. "Okay. So, Azure and I have been bonding, right?"

"The Blue Lion took you back?"

"What—No, Azure, your trash floof! So we've been bonding, exploring the ship together and junk." With his hands trapped behind his back, he could not talk with his arms, and instead rocked back and forth on his heels. "And we were, y'know, messing around with this Altean tech that we kind of broke, but before we broke it, we, uh—" He brought his hands forward. "It's a hair dyeing thingyjig so."

Pidge stared at the dazed critter laying in his palms, then up to Lance. "You turned him yellow?"

"On accident. I'm really sorry, but he's still okay!"

She lifted her own palms to receive the caterpillar, then delicately set him on her lap. His eyes flit around, uncomprehending, and the tiny marks on his cheeks blinked rapidly in his distress. She stroked his back until the flashing slowed. "If you bring the dyeing thingyjig to the lab, I'll fix it next chance and we'll change him back."

"So, you're not mad?"

"No. It's not like it actually hurt him, even if he's a little stunned." When she looked up, Lance looked surprisingly relieved, and she tried not to think about how he expected her to go off on him. "I'm going to take him back to his green pal right now so he can recover while we do this rift thing, but you can have him back after if you want."

The relief turned into something almost too bright to look at, yet too beautiful to look away from, and then without warning he had enveloped her shoulders with his arms and was pressing a sloppy kiss to her cheek with an emphatic and unnecessary Mwa! when he released her. "You're amazing, you know that?"

She shoved him back and wiped traces of saliva off with her arm. "And you're gross."

His beaming smile was short-lived, as the door opened and Allura strode to her own armor. Lotor following her. Pidge's chest hollowed with the fall of Lance's face. She stood, cupping the yellowed caterpillar in her hands as she shuffled to the door. With it closed behind her, she rubbed two fingers against her cheek.

Azure flew up from her hand to nuzzle against her face.

A/N Originally, this was it. Then I wrote a sequel because reasons. All the pining, but with extra humor, so, slight tone change? Thanks for reading! Next part coming soon!