Teetering unsteadily, balance lost, and down she blows - a loud thump, followed by a pained, frustrated groan. The thick foam yoga mat did little to cushion the blow against the Blue Paladin’s limbs, boney prominences of elbows and shoulder blades sure to pool with bruises later. Lance limply remained flat on his back, glaring at the ceiling as another groan slipped past his lips.

“Hunk, my man, this isn’t working.” he whined, rubbing a sweaty hand over his damp forehead, then wiping down over his eyes.

Beside the weak-limbed lump of boy, Hunk carefully straightened out his legs and lowered himself down from his Scorpion pose. Safely on his hands and knees, he leaned over to give an encouraging pat to his best friend’s shoulder.

“Your headstand was looking great, dude! Y’know, until you fell over.” He threw the wet noodle he called friend a warm smile and thumbs up.

Lance grumbled, inching himself up into a sitting pose, weight baring with one arm braced behind him whilst the other hand fanned his face, desperate for a cooling breeze. He wore only a loose fitting pair of boxers, navy with little stars, peeling away every piece of clothing he normally wore as his blood boiled in his veins. Since waking up hours before, Lance had mysteriously been dying of heat. He’d already tried numerous cold showers without any relief, and swiping any device in the castle that appeared to work as a fan, again without success. Lance resorted to start stripping. He felt so strange.Besides baking beneath his own skin, he also felt a faint tingling in his limbs, almost as if he was softly vibrating,so full of energy that he couldn’t sit still. He’d been an energetic guy before, but now we was practically twitching.

The strangest part of this new affliction, however, was definitely hearing Blue nonstop in his head all day. She wasn’t saying anything in particular, just rumbling out a deep, pleasuring purr. The rhythmic hum of the lion’s purr within his mind felt to be what trembled down his limbs, and also caused the sweltering heat cooking him from the inside out. Was something up with his lion? They’d not been a mission in days! Though it would explain why no one else he’d seen today was also dying of heat.

“I dunno, Lance, yoga tends to do the trick when I’m feeling wonky.” Hunk shrugged, handing Lance a bottle of clear fluid, ‘water’ so they’d been told -  or at least, the deep space equivalent. “Maybe you’re…getting sick, somehow? Space flu?”

“Nah, I don’t think. I’m not queezy, or achy. I’m just baking to death, and my body feels so - so twitchy. Like a zillion tiny shocks are making my muscles jump. Ugh.” Lance pressed the heel of his hand into his eye. “And Blue, she won’t shut up, but she’s not actually sayinganything, just freakin’ purring. Loudly.”

“She’s purring? What for?”

“Hell if I know, but she hadn’t stopped all morning.” Lance flopped flat on his back once more, with overdramatic flair. “Maybe someone broke out the cat nip down there.”

Hunk chuckled at his friend. “Somehow, I don’t think that stuff would work on robotic space cats.”

Lance threw a playful sidelong glance with a smile. “Not a bad idea, though. I should patent it.”

“Genius as usual, my friend.”

The door of the lounge slid open mechanically, and to the surprise of both floor-bound paladins, a frazzled looking Keith tripped through.

He leaned on the door frame, looking a touch out of breath. He too was shirtless, a visible gleam of perspiration across his toned chest, muscle pulled taut beneath pale flesh. He’d managed to keep his pants on, unlike Lance, though they hung low on his hips, and the button and fly were undone as if they’d been pulled on hastily. The end of each pant leg bunched with extra length around his ankles and caught under two bare feet – he really had yanked them on in a rush; hadn’t even gotten his feet through all the way. Black hair stuck to his neck and cheeks wetly, deep violet eyes lidded and burning with anger.

To put it bluntly, Keith looked absolutely wrecked.

 “You,” he spat on a large exhalation of breath, glaring holes through Lance’s head with a finger pointing sharply. “Control your fucking lion.”

“The Hell’s your problem, man?” Lance threw the same glare back at Keith defensively, sitting up. “Don’t talk bad about Blue!”

“I’ll shit talk your cat all I want, if you can’t keep her under control.” Keith challenged, a bead of sweat running down his neck as he straightened himself in the doorway. He looked to be baking alive in the same mysterious heat as Lance, maybe even more so. His tongue darted out, quickly wetting dried lips.

“What are you getting at, Mullet? I’m not in the mood.” Lance forced himself to stand on slightly wobbly legs, puffing his chest and squaring his shoulders against the boy at the door.

“You’re a ball of sweat.” Keith was nearly panting. “You can hear her, can’t you? In your head?”

“So what if I can?” Lance stepped closer to the other paladin, Hunk scrambling to his feet, throwing a hand on Lance’s shoulder in an attempt to hold him back from doing something stupid. His brown eyes jumped from one paladin to the next, utterly confused by the sight of a second person sweating puddles with no known cause. Things were getting weirder by the minute.

“She’s fucking purring, isn’t she.” Keith snarled. A giveaway twitch of his lip said he was hearing the same in his own mind, from Red. “You haven’t gone down to the hangar, have you?”

“Why, you do something to my girl? I’ll kick your ass if you touched Blue – ”

“I should be kicking your ass!” Keith’s fingers curled into his palms, quaking, holding back. Breath came as hot puffs from both paladin’s mouths, close enough to brush one another’s faces. Keith swallowed through a dry throat, voice edging on raspy. “Downstairs. Now.”

There was, um. There was a lot to take in.

In the belly of the castle ship, the Lions’ hangars were large, high ceilinged and open. The massive robotic cats were by no means crammed into the room tightly, in fact, each had their own area, or parking spot if you will, partially enclosed by tall walls from the other beasts but left open on one side where each connected to one another. There was a generous amount of space between one Lion’s flight bay to the next’s. Heaps of room.

So seeing two of the massive creatures clustered in one bay – yeah, that was odd. Doubly odd, since that was definitely not how the Lions had been parked by their paladins after the last mission.

Yeah, there was no diplomatic way to describe the scene before Lance’s eyes. Blue had somehow moved flight bays by herself to pay her neighbour a little visit, and, uh –

She had mounted Red from behind. And was humping her.

Blue looked massive as she draped over top the smaller lion, slamming her sexless metallic, uh, ‘pelvis’ into Red’s rear. The latter cat had her front legs folded down, ass stuck high in the air and tail curled up over her back, much to her paladin’s revulsion. The crashing and thumping of their thick metal frames colliding was ear-splitting, everyone present to view the abhorrent scene covering their ears with both hands, yelling at one another over the noise.

“Tell you lion to get the Hell off!” Keith punched Lance roughly in the shoulder, trying to snap the boy out of his own headspace.

Lance wasn’t sure what to think. Or feel. Or do. Shock was the predominant sensation overwhelming him now, the sight of two massive robotic cats attempting to shag blocking out most other sensations. It was like flicking on the Discovery Channel by accident as a kid and not understanding why the animals were giving each other ‘piggy-back rides’.

Lance was…embarrassed? Sort of. Which was weird? It was his Lion, not him, like, himself. They were semi sentient robots, so clearly they could act on their own sometimes. Not everything Blue did was by Lance’s order. Still, it felt pretty awkward to watch. Was it because it was Red beneath her? Keith’s lion, of all choices? So, like, symbolically, did that mean Lance was humping Keith –

He also felt he just might piss himself laughing. Despite the scorching heat that still overwhelmed him (maybe it had finally cooked his last brain cells, who knows) Lance struggled not to bend at the waist and burst into hysterics. This was amazing. Gigantic robot lions were goin’ at it in the flight bay, and Mister Grumpy Gills himself was turning twelve shades of mortified over it.

Lance’s bottom lip quivered as he held back with all his might from an eruption of laughter. “What can I say, my lady knows what she wants!” quickly followed by an “Ow! Jesus – ” and several Spanish words, Keith’s kick cutting hard into his Achilles’.

Blue was horny. That was the blistering heat he was feeling, and the itching of too-jumpy-to-sit-still. The purring, hoo boy – but Keith, he looked even worse than Lance did. Was Red was even hornier, then? Had the smaller lion started this whole shebang?

“C’mon Lance, you should probably tell her to stop.” Hunk leaned in to his friend’s side to better be heard over the crashing metal.

“Don’t, don’t!” yelled Pidge, who’d been in the hangar since the trio arrived, waving a hand frantically to catch the others’ attention. She, too, was fighting fits of raucous laughter, one hand holding her data pad open to face the lions. “I’m recording this!”

“Don’t fucking record it, you little – ” Keith made a lunge for the data pad, Pidge ducking deftly out of the way, evading Keith easily in his flustered, jelly-legged state.

“H-Hey, girl, uh – “ Lance cleared his throat, uncovering his ears to hold both hands out in front of himself in a gesture of surrender. He took several slow steps closer to the massive cats, eardrums screaming their displeasure at being unsheilded. “C’mon, Blue, you should probably get off. I mean, uh, not like that, you’re already doing that – I mean, get down, scram!”

Surprising utterly no one, the massive lion did not obey. Another deep, earth quaking rumble thundered through Lance’s mental link with the beast.

“She’s not listening to me!” He yelled over his shoulder to the others, glancing a look backwards as well. “You give it a shot, Mullet head!”

“You think I haven’t?” Keith ground out, voice barely audible over the cacophony. He’d slunk against the nearest wall, using the sturdy surface to support him trembling frame. Huh. Keith really didn’t look so good, face entirely flushed, rosy hue seeped down his moistened chest which rose and fell with too-fast breaths, fingers gripping the metal wall. Ugh, was Lance gonna get that bad too? What noises and sensations was Red pumping into Keith’s head?

Lance faced the lioness pair once again. “Alright, ladies, that’s enough. Blue, get off of Red! Return to base! Abort mission! Dis – ” The words on the tip of his tongue suddenly registered in Lance’s mind, and his eyes peeled open widely, mouth pulling into a cheesy grin, before the words were even fully announced.

“Disengage thrusters!”

Finally unable to resist, Lance folded at the middle and barked out uncontainable laughter. He faintly picked up the sound of Pidge shrieking in delight, as well. Hunk snorted, but quickly reigned himself in. And Keith –

Lance looked behind himself again. Keith had collapsed.

Not from laughing at the most masterful pun in the universe, no – it seemed the throttling heat had finally weakened him beyond his limits, and he’d slid down the wall to crumple in a sweaty, half naked pile on the floor.

Hunk seemed to follow Lance’s startled gaze, hot-stepping towards the Paladin pile. He grasped a bare, slick arm and hauled Keith up to his wobbly feet, holding the arm around his own neck and supporting Keith with a thick arm around his waist. Keith looked exhausted, but still conscious, and grateful for the help.

“I’m gonna take Keith back to his room!” Hunk hollered over the crashing, screeching metal. “You really gotta get them to stop!” He turned himself and his new sidekick, bearing all the weight of Keith’s body as the two shuffled away to reach the elevator.

Pidge was still snickering madly, a tear dribbling down her cheek.

“You think if they try hard enough, they’ll make little robot kittens? Purple robot kittens? Ah!” She was practically rolling around on the floor of the hangar, her feet slapping the steel plating repeatedly like the playing of a drum. “Get it? C-Cuz red and blue, fucking, hah! They’d make purple!”

“They’re lions, so wouldn’t they be cubs?” Lance joined in, grinning once more.

“They’re both female!” Keith growled stubbornly behind them, just as the elevator doors zipped shut and he and Hunk were gone. As if robots could mate, biologically, even with a male partner. But hey, Keith was a littlefrazzled.

“Yeah, I really don’t think I can stop them. Any ideas, Pidge?” Lance sent a hand carding though his short wetted hair, wiping the perspiration off on his boxer shorts.

“Well, I do have one theory.” She began, slowly calming from laughter, ending the video feed before rotating her data pad, starting a new shot in widescreen. “But you’re not gonna like it.”

Lance felt his smile twitch in the corner. “O-Oh yeah? Hit me.”

“Well, as you know, we all share a pretty strong connection with out lions, subconsciously.”

The purrs in Lance’s head ramped up in volume, as if Blue was hearing Pidge’s words and hinting that the girl was on the right track.

“Uh huh?” Lance wiped sweat from his nape.

“Maybe Blue and Red are, uh -”

“Yeah?” Blue roared fiercely in Lance’s head, making it hard to focus.

“-  acting on the feelings you two are feeding them.”

The lion’s cry zipped down Lance’s spine, bursting out straight into his gut. A new, budding spiral of flame began to burn beneath Lance’s skin, curling and twisting in his abdomen. Tendrils of excessively searing heat licked low in his belly, and even further south, so familiar yet hard to focus and put a name on through the roaring in his mind and the smashing metal echoing in the room –

“Look, my brain’s fried, Pidge, you’re gonna have to spell it out for me!” Lance yelled over the racket.

“Fine, buddy, you asked for it! Ahem,” she cleared her throat mockingly, smirk devilish. “You two wanna screw each other! And it’s coming out in your lions!”

“What?!”

“You guys are pining so bad after each other’s dicks that you’ve thrown your lions into heat!”

“WHAT?!” Lance gawked a second time, with added emphasis.

“Y’know, heat, like actual, organic, carbon-based felines! Estrus, the urge to mate and procreate, yada yada!” She beamed with a shit-eating grin, seeing Lance’s evident distress and embarrassment. “I’d say Red went down first, and Blue just responded to the call – but now it’s triggered her, too. Nice job, Casanova!”

“Look, do – do you have any suggestions, or are you just gonna make fun of me? –” Lance hoped he wasn’t as crimson faced as he felt. Sweat dribbled down his spine, breaths heaving a little harder, whoo, it was getting hotter by the minute again, ramping up – knees getting weaker, ugh, would he be collapsing too?

The tantalizing clenching and curling low in his belly swelled even more. An aching brush of cloth, a familiar strain, and Lance’s eyes were flicking down his bare chest and Hijo de puta – no no no, he was – he was notgetting hard right now! Wearing only boxers, nothing to hide the evident shape of his dick –

Lance turned tail and booked it – well, at least, stumbled at a hurried paced on noodley legs – towards the elevator.

“You two need to fuck! There’s my suggestion!” Pidge called after him, a new wave of unrestrained laughter peeling out.

His head hurt. His body ached. His dick was getting chaffed by the palm of his hand.

No amount of lotion and tissues touched the blazing inferno eating Lance alive. He growled a pitiful snarl of frustration, slumped in a terribly awkward position between his bed and the cool metal floor.

Four times. Four times now he’d blown his load into his own hand, in a pitifully short span of time. It barely even chipped away at the heat enveloping him. It wasn’t enough. Not enough by far. A pounding, pulsing urge in the back of his skull shot commands through each limb as instruction to his thoughts, whispering to him, begging him to just go next door.

He hadn’t noted pulling his crumpled boxers back on, in a mockery of having any decency left, before traipsing out his door and staggering the few yards of the hall to the next room.

“Keith,” his voice sounded broken, warbled, his lips grazing the metal of the door and he’d nearly face-planted into it. “ ‘S just you and me, buddy. Gotta fix this. I’m coming in.”

A weakly wail seeped through the door, and Lance took it as permission. He slapped the control panel and slunk into the room.

The tiny, barely lit quarters were easily enveloped by the scent of sex, sweat and teenage boy. Keith was sprawled face down on the bed, legs parted widely, completely naked. The sheets were half torn off the mattress, draping onto the floor along with his scattered clothing. One hand was tucked tightly under his belly, wrist and arm jerks giving away his actions. His other arm followed the curve of his hips and ass raised slightly off the bed, at least two fingers invisible from his hand as they were buried inside himself. Keith turned his face to Lance, the fabric beneath his face soaked with drool.

“Lance.” Keith managed, pulling out his fingers and ceasing his strokes, though it looked like it pained him to stop. He struggled to lift himself up onto his forearms. “What are you…”

Lance cut to the chase, stumbling the few steps to the bed and crawling on, shaky thighs placed on either side of Keith’s. With both hands on the other’s upper arms, he managed to turn Keith onto his back so they were at least face to face.

“Look, this doesn’t seem to be going away.” Lance swallowed, tongue thick and parched in his mouth. “Not…not by goin’ at it solo, anyway.” He shoved his sweat soaked boxers down his thighs and sat down in a proper straddled, dick freed to spring up against his stomach, flushed and purpled. Keith’s heavy-lidded gaze widened slightly, as if his own cock wasn’t in near identical condition.

When Lance grasped Keith’s dick and tugged, standing it up and nudging his own into his grasp as well, both paladins gasped. Lance’s hand was large enough to hold both weeping cocks almost entirely, and the press of velvety, blistering flesh one against one was like a shockwave to both their systems. Lance swore he heard another roar of approval from Blue in his mind.

He held them loosely at first, dropping and raising his hand in a rapidly quickening pace. As his grip tightened, he soon found Keith’s hand filling in the space his own left uncovered, and was surprised to find the for-once-gloveless hand wet and slick, a thankful additive to the paired jerk that was becoming rather dry and chaffing.

“S-Stop,” Keith breathed stalling his own slick hand’s movement. Seriously, had he lubed up? He had been fingering himself, Lance rationed.

“No more hands. Already rubbed myself raw.” Well, valid point. Lance wasn’t