The ShadowSong Discord has expanded into Voltron trash territory recently and it's really made me miss writing the Indigo team. 

Then I found some fanart of the Voltron team dressed in onesies and I am 100% not responsible for the trash fluff that I wrote because of it. Picture included down the bottom.

*+*+*+*

After a rather long day of arguing with idiots about what the law meant by 'using your Colour on an unwilling participant is bad', Athira was curled in her room and ready to spend the next three hours in the company of a book.

She had just found a comfortable spot and was halfway down the first page when she heard the sound of Shift's footsteps coming down the corridor.

Without taking her eyes off the page, Athira drew a deep breath and called out.

"If you open that door, turtle boy, I'm going to close it back on your face."

The door opened regardless of her warning, and thanks to that same warning, Shift stuck his foot inside instead of his face.

"I still have no idea how you know it's me," said Shift, keeping his face well away from the door.

"Zoe prances, Raph strides, Kione shuffles, and you strut," said Athira. She tried to keep her focus on the book, but though the words remained on the page, they went straight in her eyes and missed her brain on the way out. "It's not hard to tell the difference."

"I'm not even going to argue the fact that I do not strut," said Shift. "Becauuuuuse guess what tonight is!"

Athira lifted her eyes off the book and stared at him. "Just take another step inside for me, will you? Your face is out of range of the door, and Raph's blood pressure will probably explode if I break the door again."

"That is the wrong guess!" said Shift. The lack of hand movements accompanying the declaration made her realise that he was holding something behind his back. That was not a good sign. "Geez, Thira, you're really bad at that game. You never get the 'guess what' game right. You're supposed to say 'what' or make a legitimate guess, not threaten the wrath of ol' Rathey boy."

"I swear to the Sins I'm going to kill you one day just to get you to stop talking." Athira curled on her side and turned her head back to the book. "Now shoo. I'm reading."

"Sorry, my tiny little ball of rage, no can do," said Shift, taking her momentary distraction to step into the room and stand beside her bed. "It's Indigo's annual onesie party!"

Athira could not have heard that correctly. She turned over to look at him, leaving her book flat against the pillow. "I'm sorry, it's Indigo's annual what?"

"Onesie party!" said Shift.

In one, magnificent sweep of his hands, Shift brought out what he'd been hiding behind his back: a bundle of extremely fluffy looking black-and-grey material. After a few seconds of fiddling, he found the shoulders of the onesie and unfurled it from the ball.

It was a bird--more specifically, an Owl.

"We couldn't find something that was quite as dark as your usual getup," said Shift as Athira just kept staring at it. Most of it was made from a dark grey fabric with lighter patches. The wrist-length sleeves were shaped like little wings, the hood had a beak, and as Shift flipped it over, she realised that it came complete with a tail. "But it's definitely fluffier than what you're used to!"

"I'm not wearing that," said Athira.

Shift cleared his throat. "Zoe said that if you didn't come down those stairs wearing this onesie, she was coming upstairs with the ribbons."

Athira narrowed her eyes. "She wouldn't dare."

Shift just grinned. "You willing to make that bet?"

Five minutes later, Athira was standing downstairs in the common room, wearing the owl onesie.

"Thiraaaaa!" squealed Zoe, bouncing over and grabbing Athira's hands--wings?--from where they hung limply at her sides. "You look adorable! It took me ages to find an owl one that I thought you'd like, but it was totally worth it! I mean, I found a pink owl one in like the first five minutes, but I didn't think that I'd ever get you into it soooo I kept looking!"

Athira pressed her lips together and did her best to remain dignified with a fabric beak hanging over her face, right down to her nose. "I thought we were friends. Why do you hate me?"

"There is no way I was leaving you out of our onesie party," said Zoe, dragging her over to the centre of the common room. The couches had been shoved to the edges of the room, the table moved, and a there was a suspicious pile of blankets in one of the corners. "You're part of the team now. That means you're obligated to fight bad guys, deal with the Elites, and attend our onesie party."

Raph, Talia, and Kione arrived in the next minute, all of them dressed in onesies. Raph's onesie was a dog, complete with floppy ears, a nose, and a long, fluffy tail that hung down to the backs of his knees. Talia was a sandy-coloured cat. Her tail was far more sleek than Raph's was, and her ears were short and upright. Kione's looked like some kind of lizard-dragon thing, with a "spiky" line of scales that ran down his spine right down to the tip of his tail, and a few smaller lines on his face.

But no matter how much Athira looked at Zoe's soft, rounded ears, pink nose tip, and accompanying tail, she had no idea what she was supposed to be.

"I'm a ferret!" said Zoe when Athira asked. "I have two--another one is a firefly, Raph got it for me aaages ago, but I wore it so much that it's not as fluffy as it used to be."

"A ferret," mumbled Athira. "How I missed that one, I'll never know." She looked around. "Where's Shift? Don't tell me he's managed to wriggle his way out of this."

"Don't you worry," said Zoe, nudging Athira with an elbow and a conspiratorial smile. "He's coming down. He just had to change his onesie. I got him a new one this year that I think suits him muuuuch better than the old one."

"And that would be?"

Zoe pointed.

Athira turned to look back towards the stairs to find Shift strutting his way down.

He was wearing a turtle onesie.

Athira almost died on the spot, especially when he noticed her staring and winked.

"What are you gonna threaten me with now?" Shift murmured in her ear as he reached her side. She felt his hand reach around and brush against her opposite arm, pulling her close. When she automatically glanced at his hand, he leaned in and planted a kiss on her cheek. "I just turned myself into a turtle."

How do I write Athira.exe has stopped functioning without memeing my way to victory because that's literally what happens here

Zoe clapped her hands together. "Okay, everyone is heeere! Welcome back to the annual onesie party, I'm really glad you all decided to show up!"

"Like we had a choice," said Talia. Her hand was on her hip, but there was a smile lurking on her lips that Athira hadn't expected to see. "Shall we get to the building of the cubby house?"

"Indeed we shall!" said Zoe. "Kione, the blueprints, please!"

Kione extended a hand in front of him and brought up a globe of Orange. With a few quick flicks of his fingers, the globe flattened and laid a perfect rendition of their common room flat in the air. Everything was colour-coded: the blankets were orange, the structural supports were red, the pegs were green, the couches were blue, and the table was purple.

"I made a few tweaks to last year's design," said Kione. "I made it higher, for one thing. Our resident giants Raph and Talia kept headbutting the roof last year and pulling it down, so there's a few reinforcements in key areas that--"

Zoe bounced over to the blankets and scooped them up. "Bonus points if we can get it built before Kione finishes explaining! Raph, say the thing!"

Raph just shook his head with a quiet laugh. "Okay, okay. Ready?"

"Yes!" squeaked Zoe.

"Ready," said Talia.

"My explanation wasn't that long, guys," said Kione with a pout. "I was just saying that it's important that we--"

"Ready when you are!" said Shift.

"For what?" said Athira.

Raph pointed a finger towards the roof. "Then in that case--go go, Indigo!"

The next thirty minutes was an interesting, chaotic mess of blankets, pegs, couches, ropes and onesies. With some vague instructions from Kione that the rest of the group tried and usually failed to follow, they slowly began to build what was to be the masterpiece of the night: the cubby house.

Zoe kept insisting that they weren't allowed to use Colour because it was cheating, but when they got to the final blanket, realised they'd put the short side where the long side should have been, and Kione announced that they'd have to restart the whole thing to fix it, even Zoe didn't object to Athira using her Black and crystallising it over the gap.

Zoe's skin was glowing the faintest amount when she stepped back to admire their work. "Aaand it's done!"

Even Athira had to admit, it was pretty impressive. Kione called this design the 'castle', and it lived up to the name. Somehow, they'd made spires tall enough for Raph and Talia to stand, a blanket drawbridge that actually worked, a 'hallway' that linked the main cubby zone to the kitchen and stairs, and a small little room of blankets that Zoe had dubbed the dungeon. The castle was complete with pillows in appropriate places, a cushion-covered floor, fairy lights, and the television screen.

"Step one of onesie night is complete!" said Zoe once they were all inside and sitting in the main area, completely surrounded on all sides by more blankets than Athira had realised they owned. "Onto step two: ordering takeaway!"

"I'm not answering the door in my onesie again this year," said Talia. "That delivery girl is still calling me 'Kitty'."

"You know she's hitting on you right?" said Zoe. "You'd make a totally cute couple!"

Talia lifted her chin, picking up her tail from behind her to play with the end. "Well of course, I'd make a cute couple with anyone, but I can't put a delivery girl in a potentially dangerous situation by dating her, that'd just be irresponsible."

Raph planted his elbow on Talia's shoulder and leaned closer. "And we all know that a certain Keeper on the Amber team would be really disappointed if you went on a date with someone else, right, Talia?"

Talia nearly shot through the roof as her face turned redder than Raph's Keeper suit. "You told me you weren't gonna tell anyone about that!"

"Oh I didn't tell anyone," said Raph. He pointed at Zoe. "She figured it out all by herself and got it out of your Keeper friend."

Shift leapt forward with a selection of menus that he definitely hadn't had two seconds ago. "Okay, so! What do we feel like tonight? I got dessert ready to go at a moment's notice in the kitchen, so we only need some kinda pizza or something--"

"Did you cook the desert?" said Kione.

"I followed a recipe! Zoe was helping me for a bit, and we--"

Kione looked at Raph. "We need dessert too."

"Agreed," said Talia, taking the menus off Shift. "Gimme those."

"How about we let Athira pick?" said Raph. "It's her first one, and we have to be able to blame her for something later in the night when the pizza gets knocked on the floor."

Zoe squawked in protest, slamming her hands down on the blankets beside her. "That was once!"

"Once in a situation that should have been completely impossible to begin with," said Raph, grinning at Zoe as she made a rather un-Zoe-like gesture at him. Raph just laughed. "So, you up for deciding, Thira?"

They all looked towards Athira.

"Uh." She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips before she spoke again. "I'm really not sure I'm ready for this responsibility. I'd rather go fight Rathe until one of us dies."

"Too bad," said Zoe, plucking the menus from Talia's hands and dropping them on Shift's lap. "You have the greatest responsibility of all: deciding dinner on the best night of the year!"

Shift leaned over towards Athira and pointed a sneaky finger towards one of the menus as he whispered, "Just remember, there's only one correct choice."

"And that choice is pizza!" said Kione.

"I was thinking pasta," said Talia.

"We had pizza last year!" said Zoe. "This year it's clearly going to be burgers!"

Athira swallowed. Talon, help.

Nope, I ain't getting involved in this. This is an Athira problem.

I swear to the flames I will drag you out of my mindscape and--

Oh no! came Talon's voice, dripping in sarcasm. I think I left the oven on. Byyyeeeee!

Talon! Athira's own voice echoed back in her mind. Talon!

"Talon can't save you now," Shift whispered in Athira's ear, nearly scaring her through the floor. "Now, choose your destiny." He paused. "Of pizza."

Talia's laugh jolted Athira out of her frozen state. "Who would have guessed? All you have to do to take down the infamous Owl is to give her a couple of menus and shove her in a onesie."

Athira narrowed her eyes. "Oh, that's it. We're so not having pasta now."

Talia leaned forward, one perfect eyebrow raised. "Is that so?"

The blanket castle went silent for a moment.

Talia shrugged and leaned back on her hands. "I'm cool with that."

Athira blinked and looked back to the menus.

She made her decision based on which one mentioned chocolate milkshakes the fastest. "This one."

"Bunny chow it is!" said Shift, lifting the chosen menu from her hands. "Delicious food snuggled into a loaf of bread. Good choice." He shuffled into a kneel and produced duplicate menus of the one she'd chosen, passing it out to the others. "Give me your orders and I'll go call them up while you guys get get the cards set up for the door battle."

"Door battle?" asked Athira.

Raph's expression was rather concerning, mainly because Athira had seen that grin before: it meant she was in for a surprise she wasn't gonna like. "How do you think we decide who answers the door? We play cards, and the person who lost the most when the door rings has to answer it."

Kione threw the pack of cards onto the blankets between them. "Hope you don't suck at cards, Athira."

"I'll bet you two cookies that Athira loses," said Talia.

"Done."

*+*+*+*

In the end, it was Shift and Raph who were sent down to answer the door, with neither of them having won a single game in the time it took for their food to arrive.

"Just remember!" Talia called after them as they headed down the stairs. "If it's the one who gave you the really good Shiftael fanart last time, hold hands or something cute! She needs some inspiration for the new material!"

Raph and Shift's frantic replies shot back up the stairwell and set the rest of them laughing.

"That fanart concerns me," said Athira.

"Have you seen it yet?" asked Kione.

Athira pulled her beak down over her face. "Wish I hadn't."

"Psssht, they're harmless!" said Zoe. "It's pretty funny. You just gotta think of yourself as a character and then you do your best to avoid the results that you wouldn't wanna be looking at with an Elite over your shoulder, or you have to go to the bathroom and wash your eyes out with freezing water for the next eight hours until you catch hypothermia and die."

"Definitely not dramatic at all," said Talia.

Raph and Shift returned with the food a few minutes later, both desperately trying to avoid the other's gaze even as they crawled back into the cubby house and set the food down in the middle of the group.

"That bad, hey?" said Athira with a smirk, reaching for her chocolate shake.

Shift grabbed her milkshake when it was halfway to her mouth and took a long slurp as she stared him down.

"Don't make me tell you about the shipping fanart I've found of you, Thira."

Athira froze, milkshake forgotten in her hand for a moment before she shook it off and took a sip. "Don't think so, turtle boy. The only art your fanclub creates is scenes depicting my imminent demise so they still have a chance."

But when Shift simply gave her a knowing smile and went back to sorting out the food, Athira suddenly wasn't so confident.

"You gonna be brave enough to search that later?" said Kione. ""Shifthira" brings up most of the good stuff, but there's a few Athiralia and Zothira fans out there, but Raphira is probably the most popular from what I've seen on--"

"Oooooookay!" said Raph, holding up his hands. "That's enough talking about art and shipping and things that should not be spoken about over dinner!"

But Athira still had a question. She stabbed her fork in Kione's direction. "How come you get out of all this shipping business?"

Kione just shrugged. "You guys are the heroes right in the middle of the action, I'm just the guy who usually sits at the back and monitors the situation unless you really need the help."

"Don't worry," said Talia, ripping off a piece of bread and dipping it into the good stuff in the middle of her loaf. "I commissioned a few artists last year to draw some art involving him and spread it around. He doesn't escape it either anymore."

"That was you?" said Kione.

Talia only replied with an evil grin.

By some miracle, they managed to keep the conversation on other, more food-friendly topics as they ate. Athira was surprised how much it reminded her of the nights in so many years ago, when she, Raph, Zoe, and Miela had huddled in their lounge room, buried in piles of blankets playing Rainbows while it stormed outside.

It felt so strange to simply sit here, to eat and talk in a blanket castle with the same people she fought beside in life-and-death situations on a weekly basis.

Teases or taunts that would have been met with narrowed eyes and annoyance were laughed off here. Comments that would have been banned out in the field because they'd get someone killed were frequent. They were all wrapped in the same, ridiculously comfortable, animal-themed onesies that they'd otherwise never be caught dead in, and Athira found that she loved it.

"Thira!"

Athira blinked, turning her gaze to Zoe with her fork still stuck in her mouth.

"I said, are you ready to show them how it's done?"

Athira removed the fork. "How what's done?"

Zoe held up an all too familiar, albeit slightly battered box.

"We're playing Rainbows!"

*+*+*+*

Many hours later, when the City outside was quiet and the two movies Zoe had picked out were finished and the screen black once more, Shift released a quiet, contented sigh.

Everyone was still inside the blanket castle, but as per rule number four of Onesie Night, they'd all fallen asleep inside it, right beside the remains of the OmNom bar wrappers, the cookie jar, a milkshake jug and the remnants of the other snacks they'd decimated. Talia had claimed the couch that Kione had fallen asleep with his back against. Zoe was snuggled up on the floor beside Raph in one corner, and in the other, Shift sat, still awake, with Athira dozing on his lap.

He was surprised that she'd stayed there, in all honesty. They'd left the second couch free specifically for her--not that they'd told her that, of course--in case she'd ended up needing her space.

Somewhere during the second movie, they'd all rearranged themselves to get comfortable. With Athira roughly being the same height as a two year old--or so Talia had insisted--she'd ended up at the front with nothing to lean back on. Shift had offered his legs, and his shins had become her chair-back for the five minutes it remained comfortable. He'd moved his legs, Athira had shuffled backwards, and somehow she'd ended up laying down with her head resting on his legs.

Now, she was here, perfectly curled up in his lap, the hood of her onesie around her shoulders, and if he were honest with himself, Shift wouldn't have had it any other way.

"You ever gonna go to sleep?" came Raph's whisper.

"Probably not," said Shift, matching Raph's volume. "Thought you were all asleep already."

"I was, but Zoe keeps trying to burrow herself into my arm, and I'm pretty sure she's almost dream-lazered me twice," said Raph, carefully propping himself up on an elbow without disturbing Zoe. "Wanna swap?"

"Nope," said Shift, giving into the urge to brush his hand over Athira's hair. She mumbled in her sleep and curled up a little tighter. "I'm quite happy with my tiny little ball of rage right here."

*+*+*+*

A/N - YEAH I WROTE A THING THAT WAS ENTIRELY FLUFF WHAT OF IT 

Here's the said Voltron fanart that inspired the heck out of this: 

Artist: http://chishionrnr.tumblr.com/post/148953326845/team-voltron-kigurumi-party  

#ShiroProtectionSquad  #GiveSpaceDadABreak #Klance

If you haven't watched Voltron: Legendary defender yet, you 100% need to. GO AND DO IT! <3 ((just remember that Keith is my little crab and I'm not sharing with anyone but Lance))