Give it up for day two of @allurashipweek !!
“You are not meant to go through that door.”
Allura glared, rubbing her injured shoulder through the suit they had lent her. This all seemed extraordinarily over the top just to prove that she was worth trusting with their secrets. Onward she went through the door, finding two people instead of one, then three, then four, on and on the number climbed, and each time she lost a little faster. She ached all over, each breath sending a sharp, shooting pain through her ribs, her shoulders. Her knees ached and popped as she moved, and she was afraid that if she knelt she would not be able to rise. This was torture.
“This is torture, just call it quits and let her leave!” Hunk told Kolivan, a daunting and icy presence at his side, watching the screen as impassively as a man might watch space-paint dry. “She couldn’t win against one of your dudes, she’s not gonna win against ten of them!”
“Oh because that’s so much better,” Hunk said sarcastically, crossing his arms. On someone more confident, the arms might signal some sort of closed off aggression. Hunk, however, was just worried.
Allura limped forward, breathing hard and dangerously dehydrated. She needed a way out. Not quitting, quitting wasn’t an option, but she needed an answer, a solution, something that didn’t involve her fighting-what? Twelve, thirteen adult Galra? In an act of desperate adrenaline, she threw her borrowed knife into the recessing wall door, and barely managed to slip through, sporting a new, deep slice on her bicep for her efforts where a Marmoran tried to stop her.
The simple relief of not being surrounded by enemies was enough to make her fully collapse, her adrenaline spent. Around her, the suit quietly hummed.
“Allura!” Hunk called as he rushed to her, kneeling down and gently cradling her shoulders, lifting her head up against the soft, warm bulk of him. She couldn’t think of a single thing she possibly could’ve wanted more, right then, and smiled weakly up at him, with just a hint of mirth.
“I suppose I really wasn’t meant to go through that door,” she joked, and his face creased into a worried smile.
“Wait, what’s happening?” Hunk asked Kolivan, still standing next to him, watching a phantom of himself rush to Allura’s side and lift her like he so dearly wanted to.
“The suit has a function that projects the wearer’s greatest hopes and fears,” Kolivan explained, “Right now, your friend desperately wants to see you.”
Hunk tried not to think too hard on what that meant. Allura tried rather hard to think anything at all. It was difficult, through the pain and receding adrenaline and the soft promise of safety that Hunk’s presence always emanated. It would be so easy to just rest a moment, trust that Hunk would never let any harm come to her while she was out. Slowly, her eyes dragged closed, and it grew harder and harder for her to open them back up with each blink.
“Hey, stay with me now,” Hunk said, worried yet always so gentle. His words were always spoken so kindly. “C’mon Allura, let’s get you upright.”
Even with Hunk’s help, standing was a monumental effort. Every fiber of her being protested it. She opened her mouth to make a rather morbid joke, aiming to soothe some of the creases around Hunk’s beautiful brown eyes, but was stopped by the door getting shot open.
Galra who were not Blade members, who were wearing the same armor as the soldiers who had been there when Allura’s father had-
Allura couldn’t react fast enough, her pathetic body too injured, their guns too swift, Hunk’s body too obvious a target.
“NO!!!” Allura cried, feeling like she herself had been shot, watching Hunk stagger back a half step before collapsing on the ground.
“No, no, no, Hunk no, don’t, you can’t-“ she babbled as she fell to her knees next to him, vainly pressing her hands to the bleeding wound, her enemies forgotten, irrelevant.
“No, please, Hunk, no, I’ve lost everyone, Hunk I’ve already lost everyone, not you too, I can’t lose you too, no!” she begged as she began sobbing, her tears falling hard and fast. “Please,” she screamed, voice raw and hoarse, “please! I’ve lost my family and my friends and my home already please not you too not you too not you not Hunk please,” her pleading quieted, choked whispering strangled out past her sobbing. “Please I can’t bear to lose you too.”
“This is cruel!” Hunk told Kolivan, fingers itching, blood pumping agitatedly through his ears. “Enough! Just call it off!”
“Victory or death. She either proves to us that we can trust her, or she dies.”
Hunk looked Kolivan in the face for a solid two seconds before punching him in it. Sure, Kolivan was a Galra, but Hunk was many, many pounds of hard work and pissed off. He brought the butt of his gun down on the other guy’s head, a little less hard, and then had to apologetically hit him again to knock him out. He rushed to Allura, needing her to know he was okay, needing to get that quicknaking suit off of her.
“Allura!” Hunk called as he barreled through the door, finding her sobbing over his (strikingly realistic) corpse (don’t vomit don’t vomit don’t vomit). The illusion wavered, but Allura just stared at him with incomprehension.
“Allura, none of this is real, this is all fake, it’s okay, I’m right here, the Galra dudes in weird armor are gone, they were never here in the first place, I’m safe, you’re safe, I’m okay, it’s okay, you’re okay,” he assured her, kneeling to her side and rubbing her shoulders. “Well, sort of. You’re pretty banged up from fighting a whole bunch of people, but nobody’s like, dying.”
Allura, wordlessly, reached out and cupped Hunk’s face, then turned so swiftly her neck popped and felt the apparition. Her hand passed through the corpse like mist, and she felt herself keen again. Hunk was alive. She hadn’t lost him. It was enough to set her crying all over again, flinging herself at him and burying her face in his shoulder. His warm (alive!) hands soothed her, stroking her aching back and petting gently at her hair above her bun. His voice in her ear was so heart wrenchingly gentle she felt she could die.
When the door opened again, she was on her feet in an instant, blade drawn, her body between Hunk and whoever was there, the memory of his death still fresh in her mind.
Kolivan glared at them a moment, flanked by two soldiers with their masks up. His was down, and he was sporting a truly impressive bruise and what looked to be a broken nose.
“We’re. Leaving,” Hunk asserted from behind her, bayard drawn.
Kolivan nodded. “You are not meant to go through that door,” he said, gesturing behind him.
“Then what door are we meant to go through!” Allura snapped, unwilling to admit she was afraid of what would happen to Hunk if they tried to pass by Kolivan.
“Go up the elevator you took down here, then back the way you came.”
“Is this some sort of riddle?” Hunk asked as Allura’s brain started turning.
“Hunk, let’s just do it,” Allura said softly, and Altea bless this precious, perfect boy, he nodded his assent. They followed Kolivan’s orders, going past the throngs of people that had soundly defeated Allura. She remained utterly on edge throughout, worried of one of them attacking, of somebody going for Hunk.
But they didn’t. They left the way they came. Allura got her armor back on when told she wasn’t meant to wear the BoM suit, they kept walking when told they weren’t meant to know the BoM’s secrets, and Kolivan met them in the hangar with the blue lion.
“I think I understand now,” Allura said, and Hunk made a soft, questioning noise behind her.
Kolivan arched an eyebrow.
“Trust. You gave me orders that didn’t fit with what I believed made sense, and I disobeyed them. Thinking I knew better. The result was pain and-“ her voice caught, thinking back to the blood, her palms itching with the phantom memory of it, “-and loss. I needed to trust your direction, even if it went against what I wanted, because if I can’t trust you to guide me, you cannot trust me with your secrets, or trust me to be a worthy ally.”
Kolivan was not an expressive man, but he did smile a little at that. “And our trust, I think you may have earned. We will not tell you everything, only what you need to know, but the Blade of Marmora is willing to partner with the Paladins of Voltron.”
