Rate yourself and rake yourself - thecityofthefireflies (2024)

The most sickening part was how easy it was to choose who to hurt.

The Paladins of Voltron were on the planet Iaspis, a mineral rich world surrounded by an even more mineral rich ring. They had taken their lions down, forced to leave Allura and Coran up on the Castle of Lions in a distant orbit, which required constant correction and monitoring due to the number of asteroids in the system, as well as electromagnetic interference. They had been briefed that the Iaspides had been conquered by a nearby system thousands of years prior, then transferred between various Empires as a token of various alliances over the years, including a recent stint under Galra rule. Now they were technically a territory that was part of a neutral commonwealth, and their sources suggested they may be open to helping Voltron fight the Galra.

They had also been warned that the Iaspides were very ceremonial, with public rituals before alliances or agreements to trade in their planet’s resources.

And thus, the Paladins had found themselves on a stone dias in the public square. It had been framed as some kind of ceremony, just a cultural hoop they needed to jump through to affirm the commitment of the Voltron side of this alliance and to gain access to Lyngurium ore, a necessary metal for some of the fine electronics in the Lions. It had almost seemed like a game show in Hunk’s opinion, one of the weirder ones Lance would show him clips of on youtube.

They had been led up onto a platform with chairs in a semicircle around a hearth holding coals in a big metal tripod with metal pokers sticking out from it. They were asked to be seated, guests of honor enthroned before the crowd.

And then manacles had shot up and clamped around their wrists and ankles. Immediately they all began shouting in protest, and the hair on the back of Hunk’s neck prickled with the ozone hum of Shiro’s arm activating.

But the restraints did not budge.

Hunk felt familiar panic well up inside him.

The leader of the Iaspides, a tall, long limbed older woman with shiny grey skin the luster of squid flesh, who had before been welcoming and receptive to their overture of friendship, now turned cold eyes on them, steel in her gaze.

“You are just like the Galra and others who come to exploit our world for metal alone. Would your gaze even turn to us had we not resources you needed to take? This planet’s Lyngurium ores have brought nothing but pain to us, and we will not give them away idly. The Galra forced us to choose a member of each household to work in the mines as a slave, and we do not forget the hands that carved out the tunnels of our Lyngurium mines.”

Hunk protested with the others, but the Leader's gaze caught on him as he spoke through the overlapping shouts. “We are not here to exploit you, we want to liberate everyone under Galra rule, and we’re sorry that your people and planet have suffered, but we need the ore to fight Zarkon, to fight the Galra, to keep anyone else from going through what you did.”

“Noble sentiments.” The Leader said dismissively. “You then.”

The attention of everyone shifted to Hunk. He did not like that.

“You. You, Yellow Paladin. Rise.”

The restraints on his chair released. There were a dozen armed guards on the platform with them, and a few hundred spectators with their eyes on them. Hunk’s mind raced. With his restraints opened, there was now the possibility of fighting, but the odds seemed impossibly stacked. He stood slowly, trying to come up with some kind of strategy. His mind was drawing blanks. There seemed no viable options. The others resumed shouting. Lance and Keith and Pidge begging for him to be left alone, Shiro offering himself up, demanding to be taken instead. They were ignored.

Hunk forced his rubbery legs to carry him to the hearth where the leader was. He stood before her. Uncomfortable, unsure what to do with his hands. He squared his shoulders and met her gaze.

The corners of her mouth lifted, a grim smile that paired frighteningly with the cold glint in her eyes. She spoke, words directed both at him and performatively for the watching crowd.

“When the Galra took our people as mine slaves, the unlucky chosen ones were branded as property of the Empire.” She pulled one of the pokers from the hearth. The end was a looping shape, it had no meaning to Hunk, but the crowd erupted with shouting. Hunk could only focus on the glowing orange color of the metal. “You Paladins of Voltron, you are a household- a family - you must make the same choice we did, but we will not make one of you work in the mines, we have mechanization for that now, but you will bear the pain of our history. On of you will wear the permanent mark of our history, just as our people were forced to.”

The Leader grabbed Hunk’s wrist with a firm grasp and forced the handle of the brand into his palm.

“You, yellow paladin, you must pick who will wear the brand.”

Hunk’s mouth went dry. His thoughts became panicked static. The others were yelling, shouting but Hunk couldn’t process any of their words. Distantly, he realized he was probably having a panic attack.

Clarity struck his mind. Part of him wanted to turn the brand on the leader as a weapon and burn her face, a violent impulse he felt repulsed by. He knew that would bring only worse violence on them, outnumbered, surrounded, and shackled as they were.

He would have to play their game. There was only one clear choice.

“Myself. I choose myself.” He was not offering himself out of real bravery or selflessness, he did not want any of them to be hurt, but more immediately, he did not want to choose between them. Offering himself was the cowardly way to avoid making this decision or even processing the pros and cons of hurting his friends.

“No.” The answer was definite. “No. You must choose one of the others.”

She turned to face the bound paladins. Hunk turned as well, now forced to contemplate.

Hunk felt frozen, brain sluggish. Part of him was equally hopeful and afraid that if he waited long enough she would pick for him. That the choice would be lifted from his shoulders.

He felt sick forcing himself to analyze his options for real now. Pidge was not even worth contemplating. Hurting her, the youngest of them, would break him and the team in a way he couldn’t imagine coming back from. She seemed unaware of this, and was yelling at him to pick her. Lance and Keith were both also telling him to pick them, alternating with arguing with each other to not offer themselves. Hunk knew he could not bear the thought of hurting either of his closest friends, his brothers even, and that picking one of them would drive a rift in either direction of friendship. No. The choice was easy and Hunk hated that it was easy. He hated it in such a way it felt like a weight turning his bones to lead.

Shiro was not shouting or thrashing in his bonds the way the other were. Hunk met his steady gaze. His scarred face was set with determination and his gaze was unwavering. He nodded slightly.

Hunk felt tethered by Shiro’s gaze, grounded from the haze of panic, the shouting of his friends and the crowd, all of it background noise to the silent communication between them. Even in this position, bound to a chair on a stage before aliens clamoring for pain once again, Shiro was trying to be a leader, selflessly taking what he could from the burden on their shoulders.

Hunk loved him more than he hated him for it. He felt overwhelmed with warring relief and guilt.

“The Black Paladin.” Hunk said the damning words. The crowd roared and the paladins stopped shouting. Lance and Keith turned matching glares of betrayal towards him.

“Fine.” The Leader said. ‘The Black Paladin it is.”

She took the brand out of Hunk’s hand and plunged it back into the coals of the hearth, stirring it deep, sending a plume of embers and sparks swirling into the sky.

“Strip him of his armor where you want it, but the restraints stay on.”

Hunk walked to Shiro with shaking steps. He rested his trembling hands on the shoulder joins of Shiro’s breastplate.

“Where?” He choked out quietly. A pragmatic, calculating look passed over Shiro’s face.

“Pectoral. Right pectoral.”

“Okay.” Hunk agreed weakly.

Hunk fumbled with the hidden latches and pulled off the white breastplate. The pauldrons and upper arm pieces would have to come off as well. Each piece of armor he carefully put on the floor by Shiro’s chair, and with each piece he brought them closer to looming threat of pain. When Shiro was down to his black jumpsuit, Hunk’s hands hesitating over the invisible fastening at the neck, Shiro whispered to him.

“You made the right choice. I’m the right choice. I forgive you. Be strong.”

Hunk felt choked up, strangled by affection for his leader, fear over what he was about to do to him, rage at the situation, and overwhelming helplessness. He couldn’t think of anything that he could say with the Leader watching and the crowd’s attention.

The jumpsuit split down the middle, and Hunk rolled it down Shiro’s shoulders to expose his chest. Shiro’s torso was covered in scars. They rarely saw it, another part- a physical manifestation- of the trauma that Shiro tried so hard to keep from being their concern. There were overlapping burns, claw marks, bites, lacerations, Hunk couldn’t even process what some of the scars meant.

A new fear crossed his mind. Would the leader decide Shiro was too scarred already for this ceremonial mark? Would she make Hunk pick from the others, so that unblemished skin was marred?

But the Leader turned and took the brand from the coals, now glowing hot with shifting orange and yellow, and forced it back into his hand.

“Proceed.” She said imperiously. Hunk gulped, turning back to Shiro and meeting his eyes. Hunk couldn’t bring himself to move his arm. Shiro looked expectant, tensed and braced and waiting, but Hunk couldn’t do this. “Are you reconsidering your selection? Perhaps the green one instead?”

The Leader’s voice came from closer behind Hunk’s shoulder than he wanted.

Shiro’s chest heaved with a bracing breath again and Hunk forced his arm to move, pressing the brand to Shiro’s pectoral, over a jagged grid of claw marks.

Hunk’s brain was white static. Shiro’s flesh sizzled. He grunted, teeth clenched hard, and slammed his head back into the chair, spine arching. He tried to writhe away, held fast by the manacles. The smell of burning meat made Hunk gag. Shiro’s grunts turned higher, into a growl and then pitching up to a pained keen and Hunk wrenched the brand away, unwilling to give the crowd Shiro’s scream.

Hunk dropped the brand, unsure what to do. Part of him was afraid the Leader wouldn’t be satisfied, that he would have to burn Shiro again. It looked bad. Hunk didn’t have a lot of experience with burns, but this was the kind of thing that would have made his skin crawl in a movie, but knowing it was real, smelling the sick scent of meat, hearing Shiro’s ragged breathing, feeling a phantom of the metal handle in his hand, made it hellish.

The Leader came over, stepping around Hunk to lean over Shiro. She traced her fingers over the brand, drawing another pained noise that Shiro tried to contain between clenched teeth. His eyes were unfocused and terrified.

She stepped away, satisfied, turning back to the crowd. Once again, she addressed the paladins with a performative air.

“Now that you know a fraction of the pain we have felt to mine our ores, a fraction of what outsiders coming to our planet for our resources have done to us. But we are not unfair. You will be released and we will supply you with a quantity of Lyngurium. We have merely ensured that you will always remember the price such resources come with.”

Her speech, the diminishing crowd, it was all suddenly anti-climactic. They had been satisfied with their distress and pain, and now it was back to civil negotiations.

“The ore will be brought to your lions. Replace his armor and then the manacles will be released.” Her voice was quieter, no longer projecting for the masses. Hunk gave a shaky nod.

He was relieved that this was over and that they had the Lyngurium, but he was also incredibly angry at what they had to do to get it. And overall, he was worried about Shiro and the team.

Shiro still looked dazed, head lolling slightly to his left side, away from the burn. And the other paladins, Hunk’s friends that he could barely bring himself to glance at, looked stricken and angry and their glaring eyes bored into him.

Hunk stepped back to Shiro, hating that he felt like he was looming, just as he had to burn him. Hunk dropped to his a knee, pressing close to Shiro’s planted legs. He reached up and cupped Shiro’s cheek, bringing his head to face him.

“Hey Shiro, Shiro, are you with us?” He hissed urgently. He drummed his finger tips against Shiro’s cheek. Shiro’s eyes fluttered and he met Hunk’s gaze. He took a ragged breathe and nodded.

“Yeah.” His brow knit into a glare. He shifted in the seat, regaining his persona of control. “Yeah. Hunk.”

“Ok. Ok.” Hunk pulled his hand back from Shiro’s face and looked at the burn again. They needed to get out of here as quickly as possible, but closing the bodysuit over the raw burn seemed like a bad idea. He fumbled in his beltpack, finding one of the emergency bandage patches imbued with antibiotic ointment that they were supplied with. It was hardly adequate for the injury, but it would be something. Hunk pressed the bandage over the burn, Shiro flinched at the contact.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Hunk muttered, feeling utterly inadequate, feeling anything he could say right now would be inadequate. He pulled Shiro’s jumpsuit back up over his shoulders and pressed the seal of the fabric back together. He rushed putting Shiro’s armor back on, nearly dropping the pieces.

Hunk finished Shiro’s armor and stepped back, looking expectantly at the Leader.

“I expect you to leave peacefully, or else you will get nothing from us, and your pain will have been for naught.” She looked at Shiro when she said this. He nodded, glancing sidelong at the other paladins. They all looked ready to burst from their seats.

“We will not attack.” Shiro said sternly, voice tight. It was directed more at Keith, with a flicker of his eyes in his direction, than at the Leader.

“Of course.” The manacles released. Keith sprang from his seat, shoving past Hunk to get to Shiro’s side. Lance followed after, shooting Hunk a look that he couldn’t interpret. Pidge stood near them, glaring at the Leader with her bayard out, never taking her eyes off her.

Hunk let the others take over, the adrenaline that had kept him going through the ceremony fading and leaving him in a haze of anxiety and nausea.

Keith and Lance were on each side of Shiro, helping him up and hovering on each side as they stepped off the platform as a group. Hunk held back as a rear guard on their trek back to the lions.

* * *

Hunk couldn’t bring himself to be there in the infirmary when Shiro came out of the pod. He had tried to wait there with the others, but he felt wracked with anxiety and guilt, and the side-long glares from Keith and Pidge, combined with the pained sympathy from Lance, Allura, and Coran proved too much to bear. So he had slunk off, giving some vague excuse about the bathroom and then never returning.

That had been vargas ago, it had been in the evening when they had been rescued and now it was solidly into the castle’s nighttime. Hunk had managed to avoid the others, showered, cried in the shower, and dressed in his Altean pajamas. He wasn’t tired, but the soft texture on his skin was one less thing to think about.

Normally when he felt like this he would get dressed and work on a project, something to keep his hands busy. Either cooking or baking in the kitchen, or maintenance on any of the systems, machines, or appliances they relied on. Tonight he couldn’t bring himself to leave his room. The kitchen ran too much of a risk of the others coming by, and he didn’t want to be around any heating elements for a while. Working on an engineering project was also out. His tools were all in Yellow’s hanger and he didn’t want to be in Yellow’s presence at the moment.

Some compassionate yellow paladin he was. He didn’t want to risk Yellow’s disapproval, nor did he want her comfort. He was used to being the tank of the pride, the sturdy lion that could handle the hits for other people. That hadn’t been an option today.

So he was sitting in his room. Part of him idly thought about taking up crocheting or knitting, to have some other constructive hobby to use his hands. Mostly he was sitting staring at his shaking hands, trying not to remember the smell of Shiro’s flesh burning or the sounds he had made between his clenched teeth.

His spiraling mire of thoughts was broken by a knock at the door. It was firm and high up, and Hunk knew who it would be.

“Come in.” He said, unable to force himself to rise.

Shiro walked in, also in his Altean pajamas, white tuft of hair limp with dampness from the shower.

“Hey Hunk.” He said quietly, stepping in.

Just looking at him, everything welled up in Hunk at once. His eyes watered and his throat closed. Shiro’s gentle expression only brought a sob to his throat. This was his friend, his mentor, the only human adult they had right now, and Hunk had hurt him. Shiro had quickly become his family and Hunk loved him and had chosen to hold a brand to his chest until he screamed. It had been the only option, and Shiro had practically ordered him to do it, but Hunk wouldn’t blame him for being mad at him. It felt like everyone else was. But instead of glaring, Shiro’s brow was knit in concern.

Hunk opened his mouth to reply and only managed a gasping, wet sob. His hands came up to cover it, and his eyes welled over, tears leaking onto his hand.

Shiro stepped closer, spreading his arms.

“Come here, Hunk, kiddo, please.”

Hunk lurched up from the bed, and nearly stumbled into him. Hunk wrapped his arms around Shiro, hands grasping into the back of his black pajamas. Shiro wrapped one arm securely around Hunk’s back, his other hand guiding Hunk’s face to his shoulder, fingers nestling into his hair. Hunk sobbed into his shoulder, unable to stop himself, but feeling guilty for it. He hadn’t been the one hurt, but he was the one being comforted.

“You’re okay, buddy, I’m okay, everyone else is also okay.” Shiro said quietly, among shushing noises, eventually carding his hand through Hunk’s hair. Hunk cried hard, sickeningly aware that his head was only inches away from where he had branded Shiro’s chest. Shiro maintaining his gentle murmur of reassurances with the rhythm of his fingers in Hunk’s hair.

Shiro barely pulled away, keeping his arms around Hunk, and led them the few stumbling steps over to the bed, sitting down, pulling his head back against his shoulder.

Eventually, Hunk cried himself mostly out, and groped at the shelf near his bed for one of the handkerchiefs Coran kept them supplied with instead of disposable tissues. He scrubbed roughly at his face with it, only to have it taken from his hand. Shiro wiped his face gently, then put aside the cloth.

“You weren’t in the infirmary when I got out.” He said levelly.

“I hurt you.” The words felt childish bursting out of Hunk’s mouth.

“No, you didn’t, you were just the conduit. The Iaspis Leader hurt me. She used you to do it and hurt you too.” Shiro was firm in his explanation of events. It was both reassuring and frustrating.

“Fine, I was coerced, but I still had to hurt you. I still had to make myself put that brand on your skin and-” Hunk felt worked up, all the anger that had been set aside for worry coming back at once. “I don’t like to hurt people! I know I’m a big guy, I know I’m strong, I know how easily I could hurt someone, and I try so hard not to - to not crash into people, to pull my punches, to not step on any toes- because I hate the feeling of knowing I hurt someone. I hate the guilt, I hate thinking about other people hurting, I hate worrying if someone is afraid of me. I’m the Yellow Paladin, I’m meant to take the hits, not dish them out. And it wasn’t like hitting someone sparring, or in a fight… It was torture.”

The wind left Hunk’s sails. Shiro looked wide-eyed for a moment, taking in the rant, but he took a breath before replying.

“I understand, I don’t like causing pain either. And I understand the responsibility of knowing the damage you’re capable of. And Hunk, you have admirable self-control, and well, statements like that are why you’re the compassionate yellow lion. But, taking hits as the armored and reinforced yellow lion is one thing, but outside of the lions, we’re all equally vulnerable. I don’t want you thinking of yourself as a human shield. But, more to the point. Yes. It was torture. But it was also psychological torture for you. Making you pick a victim? Making you perform it? That was traumatic for you too. I don’t want you discounting your experience just because you don’t have a physical wound.”

“I still wish she had let me pick myself. I don’t understand why I couldn’t.” Hunk said quietly. His posture slumped, bending over with his hands clasped. Shiro looped an arm over his back and tugged him snugly against his side.

“Again, psychological torture. And I don’t envy you. I don’t know what I would have done if I had been the one choosing between you four. But, you made the right choice. I was volunteering. And even if I wasn’t able to communicate that with you, that’s the choice I want you - or any of the others- to make every time.” He nudged Hunk to sit up, turning to look at him, desperate seriousness in his eyes.

“Hunk, I - the burn today? Not even in the top ten most painful injuries I’ve had in the past year that I can remember. And I’m not saying that’s good, I-” he choked on his words for a moment - “I know I’m traumatized, but… my point is… I’ve been burned before, I’ve been burned and whipped and cut and electrocuted - “

He stopped at Hunk’s stricken expression and pained noise. Hunk grabbed Shiro’s flesh hand clingingly. “The point being, I can handle pain. I know how to cope with it, how to endure it, how to resist interrogation, and even how to… to perform when someone is hurting me for sick entertainment. It’s a skillset, and I’m not saying I want to be hurt, but today you let me use that skillset to protect the rest of you. The burn today was just a drop in the bucket of injuries for me, but it would have been life changing for any of the rest of you. I would take being tortured every day than for one of you to experience pain the way I have.”

“I-, we- we don’t want you to be tortured either. Especially because you have before. And, when she touched you and you got that faraway look… It’s… bad… when you have flashbacks like that. I don’t want you to be tortured again.” Hunk struggled to find a sufficient rebuttal for Shiro’s speech. On the one hand he understood what Shiro meant, and it was logical and had been the solution taken today, but on the other hand Shiro was family and none of them wanted him to be hurt again. Pidge still had nightmares about him being electrocuted by Sendak to threaten her. Shiro smiled at him, both fond and grim.

“Sometimes you might not have a choice. What I’m saying is that if today ever happens again, and you need to pick someone to be harmed, or to risk leaving behind, I’m volunteering myself. I know what I can survive.” Shiro took his hand out of Hunk’s and rubbed at his face, grip lingering as it usually did on the scar over his nose. “And I’m not putting this just on you. I’ll tell it to the others. But I mean it.”

“Fine - maybe-” Hunk did not want to agree to this, nor could he think of an argument. “But if we ever do have to… leave you, we’re coming back for you. No man left behind and all. For your sake, but also… Shiro, we need you. We can’t do this without you.”

Hunk didn’t want to think about what it would be like to be up here, so far away from Earth, fighting in a galactic war, with just teenagers and two aliens. Shiro was the linchpin of the team in so many ways, the only possible adult that all of them could trust to this level. His history as Keith’s adopted brother, friend of Pidge’s family, and Lance’s hero gave him an ethos no other leader could have. Shiro was the only thing keeping them together many days, through their paladin training, through battle, through the butting of personalities.

“We’re a team. And I know you’d try to save me. I trust you.” Shiro brought his other arm back around Hunk and squeeze gently. Hunk clung back. “Just like I trusted you today.”

“How… how did it heal… in the pod?” Hunk asked, almost afraid to know. He knew the pods seemed miraculous most of the time, but he didn’t know how the technology would interact with a burn over scar tissue.

Shiro pulled back and tugged down the neck of his pajama shirt. His pectoral was slightly pinked, either an aftereffect of a healed injury or from scrubbing at it in the shower, but on the skin the brand was only faintly shinier than the surrounding skin. Hunk could only trace it if he looked for it. Relief washed over him, yes it would leave a mark, but it was not the dark, swollen burn it had been hours ago.

“I don’t think it’ll be the first thing anyone looks at.” Shiro said lightly.

“I’m glad it healed so well. I didn’t want you to have to have that on you.” Hunk squeezed a fist and looked away, brown knit. “I hate that it was a Galra mark. You escaped them before and now that you’re free, you end up marked as Galra property.”

Shiro was quiet for too long, and Hunk felt a swoop of unease. He turned back to Shiro who had something adjacent to guilt on his face.

“... I already have one. The Galra symbol has changed since the time they controlled Iaspis, and the tool to mark me was different, but I’m already marked as Galra property.” He pulled up the back of his shirt, showing a vibrant purple mark on his left shoulder blade. It was a tattoo more than a brand, and the ink was a magenta that almost glowed. It was cut into by several scars, but the ink must have had some way to reform on top of the healed tissue.

Hunk lifted a hand, impulsively reaching to touch it, but Shiro pulled his shirt back down. Shiro redirected the motion, and pulled Hunk back against his side.

“I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.”

“It’s okay. I survived. It’s over. And as for today, I’m telling you again. You made the right choice and I forgive you. And I’ll keep reminding you of that.”

Hunk nodded against his shoulder.

“I think I’m beginning to accept that.”

“Good.”

“But… Keith and Pidge were pretty upset… I don’t know if they said anything when you got out of the pod, but I understand how they feel, and I hope it doesn’t interfere with our team…”

“I need to talk to them about this anyways. It was a bad experience for everyone, being helpless and having to listen and watch... I think it’ll be well-received coming from me.”

“Okay.” Hunk acquiesced. There was a lull and then Shiro stood up, rolling his shoulders. Hunk rose too.

“It’s getting late. Are you okay to sleep? It’s been a long day.” Shiro put his flesh hand on Hunk’s shoulder, giving a fond squeeze.

“Yeah. Knowing that you’re okay made me feel a lot better. And talking… helped…”

“Good.” Shiro pulled him in for a final hug. “If you need me for anything tonight, my door is open. I know what nightmares can be like, and if you need to see that I’m okay, it’s fine.”

“Okay.” Hunk buried his face in Shiro’s shoulder one last time. “Goodnight. Love you man.”

That got him a kiss on the hair and one last squeeze before Shiro pulled away and stopped at the doorway. “Goodnight Hunk. Lance was worried about you. Can I send him your way?”

“Yeah. yeah.” Hunk wiped a hand over his face. Lance would probably insist on a sleepover, knowing without making Hunk say it that both of them were afraid of nightmares tonight. Hunk felt exhausted, but better. Shiro would be okay, he would be okay, team Voltron was going to be okay.