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His cheeks were flushed a deep red, almost bright enough to hide the messy splash of freckles thrown over his face like a toddler attacked him with a dried paintbrush.
He had reason to be so hot, practically suffocating under the mass of fur and pillows he’d found himself in.
Matt had been stuck with babysitting duty when the majority of Voltron was called away, and Keith couldn’t leave. Pidge didn’t explain much, but his leg was in a thick blue cast after a long battle. The battle that also managed to sap enough power from the Castle that they couldn’t run the healing pods. So, she had called him, using the secret code only Holts knew (and Shiro, but he was an honorary Holt anyway).
He had the time, having just finished a mission of his own, and he’d be an idiot to pass up the warm safety of the castle. Even without his best friend and baby sister, he had his own room and unlimited food.
This conclusion was drawn before he learnt that the Blade of Marmora would also be on the ship, taking care of their kit. Matt had tried to walk out the moment he heard that, but it was Shiro scooping him up into a hug and a small whispered ‘please?’ that swayed him. He couldn’t say no to the guy in the Garrison, and he couldn’t now. So he had stayed, sitting on the couch as far away from the organised group as possible. Keith was surrounded by them, quietly directing one to help build what looked like a giant nest.
It was definitely a nest, big enough for all the blades to lay in. Once again, Matt was wondering why he was even needed for this (chances were Allura knew he held similar unease towards Galra that she did, and wanted some insurance.)
“..Matt. Matt?” Keith’s rough voice yanked Matt out of his daydream, and he looked up.
“What’s up, ducky?”
“I was asking why you have your staff.” Oh. Matt had been holding onto it rather tightly, rubbing his thumb over the scratched in name. He’d wrote it on the day he earned his freedom and Te’osh pressed it into his hands, using a sharp rock to scrawl ‘Matthew Holt, son and brother’ into the metal. It was his defence in case these Galra decided they didn’t want to play house anymore.
“Protection. I know you’re all tough, Keith, but you’re kinda handicapped. I’m not just here for my pretty face.” He winked, leaning back against the sofa and twirling the staff above his head with a flourish.
Keith just scoffed, wobbling to his feet and using his crutches to navigate the nest and flop down next to Matt. None of the Blades tried to stop him, but the leader certainly looked uneasy at letting him go. Good. Something frightened and bitter in Matt’s stomach insisted the leader should be uneasy, uneasy that Matt was stronger than he looked and could defend his friend against anyone.
“Don’t be stupid. Kolivan’s been a fighter for longer than you. If anything happens the Blades will hold down the Castle and you’ll help me get to my lion.”
“Yeah, dude, forgive me for not having all that much faith in them. We don’t have the best history.” There was only one Blade he recognised, Thace, who shot him a glare Matt was all too happy to match.
“Wait, what? But you’re both a part of the rebellion. Why wouldn’t you want to work together?” Keith frowned, his new long ears twitching a little.
A more accurate assessment would be why would they? You would have serious trouble finding a rebel that trusted any Galra-especially the Blade of Marmora. Their operations had a habit of screwing rebels over. Whether it was to take the information they needed, or killing them to save their own undercover skin. Going undercover like that, hiding under that purple was a lazy trick and a privilege. Matt had lost enough friends to save the hide of a Galra that never did anything for them. He relayed this to Keith, and the acid in his throat grew. He didn’t even notice Keith’s complete shock, too busy trading sharp looks with Thace.
“Seriously?” Keith sat up a little straighter and looked between Matt and the other Blades. He shook his head hard and raised one hand, waving it in front of Matt to snap him out of his little staring competition.
“Okay, firstly, you sound like Allura right now, which is a bad thing. Secondly, you killed rebels?” Kolivan stood up from his cross legged place on the floor, towering over them both and ignoring the way Matt’s grip tightened on his staff.
“Sacrifices were necessary. The information gathered by our forces were far more useful for the defeat of the Empire than anything your rebels may have amassed.”
The acid inside Matt boiled over, starting to violently bubble from the entire day spent simmering. He stood up, spinning his staff and slamming it into the ground.
“Sacrifices? That’s what you call the useless murder of my teams? The slaughters that you’re responsible for just to save your own skin, you coward!” He hissed, leaning up and poking the end of his staff into Kolivan’s shoulder. The leader just reached up to knock it away, prompting him to swing the staff into the assholes head and show him exactly how important those lost rebels were-
Keith’s crutches slammed into their knees. Matt’s metallic prosthetic immediately buckled, and he tumbled backwards onto the sofa. Kolivan was less affected, but he grunted painfully and took a stumbling step back to avoid the wrath of the kit’s improvised weapons.
“Stop it.” He ordered, commanding silence over the room. It took ten painful dragging tics before another Galra spoke up, the only one that had flat out refused to remove his mask. Matt vaguely remembered Keith introducing him as Antak, or something.
“You have a right to hold judgement against us.” He rumbled, standing next to Kolivan. Then he surprised them all, by getting down onto his knees and meeting Matt’s eyes (the rebel could only bear it for a second, his eyes glancing off to stare at the edge of the mask instead of the glowing circles).
“We are doing what we can to fight against the Empire. But we aren’t good, or bad. We’re survivors. You’re a survivor. If it was a Blade in your way, would you take them down?” Matt glanced down at his staff. Honestly, he would. Without hesitation, he could cut them down. That realisation turned the acid into nausea.
“The rebels are working on scraps. We always have been. You’re the top of the revolution food chain, you have more options. Options that don’t include taking what little we have and then refusing to even give us the information.” Kolivan huffed, eyes narrowing.
“Knowledge or death.”
“Enough of my damn family died so you could have your knowledge.” Matt snapped, ready to throw himself at Kolivan again if it wasn’t for Keith moving his crutch over his lap to hold him down.
“You don’t get to use that phrase. Not when it isn’t your life you sacrifice.” Antak, or Antok, Matt wasn’t quite sure, shook his head, gesturing for Kolivan to step back.
“Do you have a saying?”
“Yeah. The sacrifice of the few for the future of the many.” Matt scrunched his nose, crossing his arms.
“We sacrifice our lives now, of our own volition,” he glared at Kolivan again, “so the universe can have a future. And one day, they will honour us in return.”
“Is that why you always try to bring bodies back with you?” Thace spoke up. Keith watched as Matt glanced down, sliding his hand over his staff and nodding.
“We have a planet for a graveyard. It was started recently, which is why there’s only one planet filled rather than the hundreds needed to hold every life lost from this war. But it’s always better to have something from the person to bury. Their ashes or their picture. We honour the few that pass, and we can’t do that if you keep tossing them out of airlocks like pebbles on your path.” Maybe he was too caught up in his anger. Maybe he was just much more oblivious than he thought, because Matt only realised just how upset Keith was until one shaking (and clawed, Keith’s claws only came out when he was really worked up) hand gripped his sleeve.
“Stop. This isn’t doing anything.”
Matt would disagree. It was excellent stress relief to tell Kolivan exactly what he had been bottling up. But he didn’t doubt that Keith would just hit him again.
“Then what will do something? I doubt you’re just going to stop crushing us for your own victories.” He pulled one knee up, wrapping his arm around his prosthetic to tuck it closer to himself.
It was quiet again. The separation between everyone in the room reminded Matt of the prison cells again. Back then, no one trusted anyone, just how the Galra planned. You could be in a room stuffed with people and have no idea which one was Haggar’s puppet, only there to catch you out.
“We could work together?” Everyone in the room stared at Thace, and he threw his hands up in defence.
“Hear me out! If we can collaborate, we can avoid clashes between us. No rebels where we have Blades, and we can give each other information. I know the rebels have every detail of the underground Empire’s working, details we don’t have.”
“You’ve worked together before, in our bigger battles. We accomplished so much then.” Keith pointed out. Kolivan didn’t look as keen, shaking his head again.
“The rebels are disorganised, and half of them are pirates. The risk is too high that they would reveal our operatives themselves to collect reward money.”
“Of course you think we’re that low,” Matt tossed his head, “But contrary to what you think, we have an inner circle of command filled with people I trust with my life. People I trust with Pidges life. Any information would be kept to that circle, and most lower rebels just follow the orders given. But I’ve the same concern for your self serving asses.” Was it ironic, the fact trusting someone with his baby sister's life meant so much more than trusting them with his own?
“Okay, so the issue is trust? Then you’ll work on trusting each other.” Keith came to the decision quickly, nodding as if that solved every problem.
“Ducky, I’m not trusting them. I don’t even like them.” Matt deadpanned, taking the consequence of Keith’s crutch cruelly prodding his ribs.
“In Galra culture, they stay in packs and sleep in nests. Sharing a nest with someone is the quickest way to build bonds and trust. It worked with me, it worked with Voltron, it’ll work with you.” The protest was, as expected, immediate and loud.
“Wh-no way! I’m not sleeping in a puppy pile with them, Keith-”
“The nest is place of safety and to put a human in-”
“He looks so pointy! He’d be a terrible cuddle partner-”
“Okay.”
This time, it was the palest blade that spoke up for the first time that day. He was fluffing pillows, starting to continue his building process of the nest walls.
“Ulaz, what?” Kolivan sounded even stonier than normal.
“I said okay. Medically speaking, the human rebel would also benefit more than just building relations. Most humans have a requirement for physical contact just like we do and I suspect this one has not been fulfilling that requirement.”
“He’s touch starved?” Antok confirmed, cocking his head and looking back at a now very uncomfortable looking Matt.
“Most likely. Are the rebels particularly fond of contact?” Matt felt his ears go pink.
“Sometimes. I haven’t seen many of them in a while, I was on a mission and before that I ran a communications base on an abandoned planet. But I’m not touch starved and I don’t need your pity.”
“They aren’t pitying you, Matt,” Keith promised, shuffling along the sofa and bumping their shoulders together. “Give it a try? Or else I’ll tell Shiro you hurt my feelings.” Dammit. Keith had Shiro wrapped around his finger, and the Black Paladin would do anything his duckling asked. Including skinning his best friend for even daring to speak against Keith.
Matt was stuck, but at least he wasn’t the only one that looked unhappy with the situation. Kolivan and Thace looked just as unhappy, Kolivan moreso.
Which was how Matt got into this... predicament. After a brief introduction to every Blade there, Matt was pulled into the nest and prompt snuggled within an inch of his life. Keith had sat next to him first, his cast resting on one of the pillow walls and his head on Matt’s bare chest (He had insisted Matt strip down to his leggings, for the sake of all his concealed weapons and the risk that someone would get their eye poked out by a secret dagger). This was fine. Matt definitely wasn’t used to it anymore, but he could remember when he was back at the Garrison, when finding three students sleeping on top of each other after a late night studying was one of the more normal occurrences. Matt used to ramble about conserving heat in the freezing desert nights and the stingy heating system to convince Shiro and Adam. Eventually, Adam would just get tired of his talking, and sit on him until Shiro joined.
There were a few differences between then and now. For one, Matt was covered in scars, some of which he didn’t really want to show off. But it was mainly all the damn fur. Regris was the second youngest next to Keith, and definitely the most outgoing, snuggling around Matt and wrapping his tail around his waist. Regis was fluffy. Not as fluffy as Thace or Kolivan, but still pretty fuzzy, heating Matt’s skin within tics. Thace, Ulax and Kolican were similarly situated around Matt, literally forming a cuddle pile that he was at the bottom of.
At least he had insisted on keeping his staff, retracting it and attaching it to a loop on his leggings. And the cuddling was nice. Matt liked being warm more than being cold, and just Keith pressed against his quickly beating heart was enough to lift his mood. He hadn’t realised just how much he craved these simple touches.
Maybe that was why he yielded so easily whenever Shiro hugged him.
They still had a lot to discuss, of course. Meetings to arrange, plans to make, probably a good few shouting matches and threats. But this was a start. A bumpy start, and definitely not one Matt would ever have anticipated, but a beginning was better than an ending. It would take time to address the acidic hate simmering inside of Matt, the pain and suffering from the Galra condensed in a bubbling ball of anguish.
For now he would ignore it as best he could, slipping into the first dreamless sleep he’d had in years.