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i.
“So. Hunk.” Lance says, leaning on the frame of the transport vehicle Hunk’s trying to fix. “Say, like hypothetically, I wanted to woo someone. What would be the best way?”
“You want to woo Allura? Dude, you already know she’s not into you.” Hunk says without looking up - Lance is his best friend, and Hunk’s totally willing to help him even if all it will result in is Allura turning him down again, but he’s also having trouble figuring out the problem with the Altean technology that keeps making the transporter run out of fuel after only five minutes. Which isn’t exactly easy.
“Okay, first of all-” Lance’s voice is rising, and sure enough when Hunk looks up Lance has the worked up flush on his face he gets whenever he’s too emotionally invested in something, “I said hypothetically, so technically, I’m not wooing anyone.”
Hunk waits a few beats, but Lance doesn’t say anything else, lost in his thoughts, so he asks: “Second of all?”
“What?” Lance jumps, as though he had forgotten that he was in the middle of a conversation with Hunk - one of the first things Hunk had learned about his friend when they had first met was his short attention span and ability to be distracted by just about anything. Even though Lance had been the one to start the conversation, Hunk was willing to bet that, even for just a minute, Lance had forgotten about his question altogether, too caught up in what (was probably) the logistics of whoever he was trying to woo.
“Right. Nothing.” Hunk sighs. “Um, okay, I’ll help you? I don’t know why you’re asking me though.” He shoots Lance what he hopes is a knowing smirk (even though he honestly at this point has no idea what's going on other than the facts that Lance is terrible at hiding things and that he’s definitely trying to woo someone). “Especially if you’re not actually wooing anyone.”
“Dude, your name is literally Hunk.” Lance says (completely blowing off the smirk-and-emphasis combo Hunk had thrown at him), as if that explains everything, and when he sees Hunk’s confused face he goes on. “You’re like, super hot, you have more muscles than fricking Shiro, who is by the way like the greek god of being toned, and you’re really nice and everyone always likes you, even if it’s in a more platonic than romantic way. Though I’m solidly sure at least ninety percent of people have had at least the tiniest bit of a crush on you at some point.”
Lance stops, derailed for a moment at the thought of how many people have potentially had crushes on Hunk, before he starts back up again. “You had a boyfriend at Garrison for like three months and you guys even stayed friendly when you broke up. Plus you’re the only one of us to actually score with a hot alien chick, technically. That makes you the one with the most romantic success on this ship. I’m guessing. I mean to be fair Shiro’s a babe and I really don’t want to know about Coran’s love life, but based on what I know you totally have the most game of anyone in the castle.”
Hunk splutters (which makes him miss the fact that the expected “besides me” isn’t tacked on to the end of Lance’s ‘most game’ comment) “When did I score with a hot alien chick?”
“Shay?” Lance says, again as if it explains everything, and Hunk splutters again.
“We’re just friends!” He yells, and okay, maybe it’s too loud. He’ll admit that. Definitely too loud.
“Yeah whatever that’s why I added the ‘technically’ to the end! Anyway. Help me.” Lance actually looks genuinely desperate, so Hunk decides to let his (totally untrue, okay?!?) assumptions go for now.
“Well I mean, you should just tell them you like them? Ask them out but don’t put any pressure on it? If you start ‘wooing’ them before you date it could be weird. Like, don’t do your overly flirty thing. That can make it weird.”
Lance smiles awkwardly, not even jumping on the chance to try and prove Hunk wrong by bragging about his flirting skills. “Okay. Great. But like. What if we were already dating? Like I wanted to make our relationship more romantic and like, I don’t know, show them I was invested or cared or something. Hypothetically.”
“...Right.” Hunk says. “Um, like making dinner and setting up a romantic table might be something? Plus it gives you time to talk. Flowers are good. I think. You could try doing something they like? Movies are nice too because you can like. Cuddle?” Hunk blushes and the squeaks out, “I don’t know you’re putting a lot of pressure on me!”
“Dude. Bro. It’s okay. Just stop.” Lance says, grabbing Hunk’s shoulder and looking him deep in the eyes. “You were very little help. But I appreciate you trying.” He holds out his fist for Hunk to weakly bump.
“What was this about, anyway?” Hunk asks, and Lance’s face flushes again.
“N-no one. I mean nothing. Just wanted some - you know - ideas! For the future. The hypothetical future.” He mumbles, and turns to sprint out of the room. He makes it all the way to the door before whirling around and walking back.
“Also,” Lance says sheepishly, hand rubbing the back of his neck, “Could you not mention this conversation to Pidge? And definitely not Keith. Or, well, anyone for that matter. Don’t mention this conversation to anyone.”
Hunk nods, and stands there for a few seconds after Lance leaves trying to make sense of what just happened, before giving up and going back to the literally much easier to understand alien technology he’s been trying to figure out all (of what he assumes is the) afternoon.
ii.
“Keith!” Coran happily calls out, making the boy in question nearly spill the water in the glass he’s carrying. “Have you seen Lance anywhere? He was supposed to be helping me clean the dining hall after last nights…” A pause; a wince, “fiasco,” honestly, sometimes the paladins so called ‘bonding’ exercises could get a little out of hand, “but I can’t find him anywhere.”
“Oh. He’s in my room.” Keith says.
“Perfect! Then I’ll just go get him!” Coran goes off in the direction that Keith had been walking, towards the dorm rooms in the castle, but Keith moves in from of him to stop him.
“Actually, he’s not feeling that well.” Keith says, and for the first time Coran notices that in addition to water Keith is carrying the vitamins from Altea that they’d learned worked pretty well as human painkillers. Coran quirks an eyebrow.
“Really? He should spend some time in one of the pods then.” Corn says - having a paladin down could be bad news. Coran’s still not entirely sure about earthling’s biology, but any problems Lance may be having should be able to be handled relatively quickly by the pods.
Keith shakes his head. “It’s not anything too bad. He has a pretty bad headache and got a little dizzy when we were in the training room earlier, and he said he’s gotten them before and that he can usually sleep through them, so I made him go lie down for a bit.”
“In your room?” Coran quizzes, and he can see a slight color on Keith’s cheeks.
“It’s closer to the training room, and he was dizzy, so I thought…” Keith trails off.
“Well, it’s nice to see you two getting along better!” Coran exclaims. “The bond between paladins must be strong, you know. Even though you all had gotten over what was preventing you from forming Voltron, I must admit the Princess and I were a bit worried about any personal drama between the five of you causing trouble.”
Keith nods. “Yeah. Right. Our bond is definitely much...stronger. Than it was before. Anyway, I was going to take him this stuff before he fell asleep, so…”
“Right, right, go on your way.” Coran sighs. “I guess I’ll have to find someone else to help me clean up the dining hall...though I was starting to enjoy Lance’s company when we cleaned.” He shakes his head. “Well, make sure that if Lance feels any worse you get Allura or I to take him to one of the pods, don’t want him not feeling well if something happens with the Gal’ra.”
Keith nods again. “Sure, thanks. It really shouldn’t be that big a deal though, Lance is probably just being a baby.”
He says the last bit without conviction, and as Coran watches him make his way down the hall, Keith is careful not to spill the water he’s carrying in his hurry to get back to Lance.
Really, the trust that was growing between those two, who had seemed like the most problematic of the paladins in terms of relationships at the start of this whole ordeal, was quite inspiring. At the rate they were going, Coran wouldn’t even be surprised if they were friends by the end of the week.
iii.
Pidge is just minding her own business, walking down the hall of the castle, when she hears yelling. Like, lots of loud, angry yelling coming from the slightly ajar door of the room just a little bit down the hallway (she’s pretty sure it’s a room called the undercroft, whatever the hell that is - the castle is large and confusing but she’s good at memorizing schematics, so beyond Allura and Coran she probably knows the layout of the castle best).
She’d just turn around and walk the other way if it wasn’t for the fact that the place she’s going can literally only be accessed by going down this hallway. Even then, she’s just about to turn around and maybe crawl through some vents or something (ever since that first time with the Gal’ra she has been wanting to try it again) when the door slams open.
An angry Lance stomps down the hallway, right past her without saying a word, which is enough to stop Pidge in her tracks.
A few seconds later, and equally angry but maybe slightly more moody Keith slinks out of the room, which would be enough to get Pidge to turn around and hightail it out of there if it wasn’t for the fact that Keith is kind of just standing there, watching the empty hallway that Lance just stomped down, looking right past Pidge.
Now, see, Pidge isn’t bad at talking to people or anything, and she and Keith do share some mystical lion-robot bond thing, but still, going up to him and asking, “What was that about?” is a little weird.
She does it though. Mostly because she doesn’t feel like waiting for him to move of crawling through vents or just straight up ignoring him, which could potentially be even more awkward.
“We were just fighting.” He answers, in a way that totally says they weren’t just fighting.
“You always fight.” She points out. He shrugs.
“Not,” Keith swallows, “not like this. This was a-. A bad one. A real one.”
“What did Lance do?” She asks, because, look: she knows Lance. She likes Lance. She’d been (albeit kind of forced in the beginning) friends with Lance longer than she’s been (albeit kind of more like acquaintances who share the Voltron-mind-bond, though she likes to think they’ve come a bit farther than that is the past few weeks) friends with Keith. But Lance totally starts most of the fights, so it seems like a good guess.
“Nothing.” He says, and then sighs. “I mean, obviously something, but it was me who screwed it up.”
Pidge doesn’t really want to urge him on (because, awkward), but Allura was at least a little right with the whole ‘green paladin has an inquisitive mind’ thing.
Luckily for her, Keith decides to keep talking. “We were just - I mean, we were arguing, but it just kept getting worse and worse and he got under my skin and I said some pretty terrible things.”
“It couldn’t have been that bad-”
“No.” Keith cuts Pidge off. “It was. I was an asshole.”
“What did you say?”
Keith looks away. “Just- some stuff about his flying and his training…”
“You say stuff like that to him all the time, though.” Pidge points out.
He winces. “I also said some things about - about some personal stuff he told me. I was being an ass and we were fighting and I...I went too far.”
Pidge almost asks when Lance decided to share personal stuff with his supposed-rival, but she decides to stay focused on the issue at hand.
“Look,” Pidge sighs, “Lance is pretty loyal, and while he one hundred percent does hold grudges he usually is willing to forgive people he’s close to. You guys seem like you’ve mostly gotten over the whole rivalry thing and he obviously cares about you, so even if whatever this fight was about is as a bad as you’re saying it is, when push comes to shove if you just give Lance some time to cool off and then apologize to him, he’ll most likely forgive you.”
“I guess.” Keith says.
Pidge awkwardly pats his shoulder (awkward because of the emotion thing and because she’s so much shorter than him). “Seriously, the longest I’ve ever seen Lance honest-to-god mad at someone was when I accidentally stepped on a package of food his family sent him back at Garrison and that literally only lasted for an hour. I know the fact that he’s had the rivalry thing with you for months makes it seem hard to believe, but Lance will forgive you.”
Keith nods. He doesn’t really looks like he feels much better, but he still gives her a shaky smile. “Thanks, Pidge.”
She returns his smile, and then he’s off down the hallway too, which - finally - frees up the stupid hallway from drama and lets her get back to what she was doing.
…
That night at dinner Keith and Lance don’t show up, but the next morning at breakfast they’re both there acting like nothing ever happened - other than the quick smile Keith shoots Pidge’s way as he hands her a bowl of goop.
iv.
“Allura!” Lance asks, once everyone else has left the room after the meeting they were having. “Can I ask you like, a huge favor.”
“What would you like, Lance?” Allura, responds, trying to keep the wariness out of her voice as she looks up from the data about the next planet they’re visiting to the boy standing next to her. Even though his flirting with her has decreased to practically zero in the last few earth-weeks or so, she’s still a little afraid to hear what he considers to be a ‘huge’ favor.
“Well, you know how we’re visiting this planet,” he pokes his finger towards the screen Allura should be reading right now, nearly hitting the ‘delete data’ button as he does so, “tomorrow for this whole diplomatic meeting thing?”
Allura gives him a look she hopes conveys get on with it. “Yes, Lance, I do know that. We just had a whole, long meeting about this.”
“Right! Well, in said meeting, it happened to be mentioned that the planet has one-hundred-percent safe for human oceans that are a lot like earth’s oceans, right?”
Allura sighs. “Yes, but it literally only came up because you decided to interrupt the very important brief I was giving on the planets diplomatic customs to ask about the quiznarking ocean!” Okay, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Except it was totally rude. And she’d really like to get this conversation over with.
“Right. Sorry about that.” Lance does have the decency to look at least slightly guilty before he continues on. “Um, so I was thinking. Keith and I were talking a bit ago about how I lived by the ocean growing up? And I was telling him about how I missed it and stuff and then he said that he’s never been to the ocean. Which is like insane! I don’t know if you had oceans on Altea but they rock. It’s like a crime that Keith’s never been.”
“Lance. I really don’t need a backstory for whatever favor you’re going to ask.”
“Sorry!” Instead of looking guilty with this apology, Lance looks...almost nervous? “I was just thinking that since Keith’s never been to the ocean, and since we’re not necessarily the best diplomats on the team - and really do you need six people to play diplomat? - we could maybe sit this one out and I could take Keith to the almost-earthlike oceans? I mean, I’d suggest we do it after the whole diplomacy thing but then that’s cutting into Galra-fighting time, so…” Lance trails off, looking at her hopefully.
“I suppose it’s true that neither of you really add much to a diplomatic party,” Allura mused - Keith was a little awkward whenever it came time to talk to people - aliens - and Lance was always a bit too willing to flirt with whoever he saw first, which often ended up bad fast. Though, to be fair, Pidge was nearly as awkward as Keith, Hunk got flustered easily, and even Shiro, who was the best at diplomacy of all the paladins, wasn’t necessarily good when compared to anyone other than his teammates.
“Fine.” Allura finally says, which is nearly drowned out by Lance’s cheer.
“Thank you so much! You’re the best!” Lance yells, practically bouncing. “This is gonna be awesome - do you guys have like, swimsuits or anything like that in the castle? Ooh, I wonder if there’s anything I can make into like a boogie board or surfboard-”
Lance stops his rambling. “Anyway, I guess I should leave you to do your super important diplomat preparedness stuff.” He says sheepishly.
“Yes, you should.” Allura answers, but she can’t help but smile at his excitedness as he leaves - she knows he’s been homesick, and maybe seeing the ocean would help.
If nothing else, now she could take off her to-do list making the ‘clean up after Lance’s poor attempts at flirting’ plan she usually had to have in place on missions like this.
v.
The thing about living in a giant castle with only six other people it - if you ever get sick and tired of the others, there’s usually an empty room (or wing - it really is a big castle) somewhere for you to be alone in.
Which is why Shiro is a little peeved when he opens up the door to the room far off the left wing of the castle that he’s been going to whenever he’s feeling overwhelmed only to find Keith on top of Lance, on the floor, both of them red in the face and looking shocked at having been interrupted.
“Oh my god, you guys.” Shiro sighs, exasperated. “Seriously?”
Lance shoves Keith off of him and scrambles to stand up, ignoring the other’s spluttering. “It’s - It’s not what it looks like?”
“What it looks like,” Shiro growls, “is that the two of you were fighting! Again! And I thought you guys were finally starting to get along, what with the whole trip to the ocean.”
“That’s not what we were-” Keith starts, but stops with a yelp when Lance elbows him in his side.
The two of them stare - or maybe glare is the better word - at each other for a few seconds before Lance turns to Shiro. “I guess it is what it looks like, because that is what we were doing!” He says in a squeaky, oddly robotic voice, before elbowing Keith again.
“Ow! Stop doing that!” Keith yells, and then he’s pushing Lance to the floor again, Lance screaming as he goes down.
“Guys! Stop!” Shiro yells, and ok, he’s being a little mean, but he’s sick of them fighting (he really was starting to think they were actually getting along - they still argue, sure, but it had been in an almost friendly way that made it seem like they enjoyed their bickering more than actually being angry with one another) and he’s feeling overwhelmed and they’re in his room (that’s not his actual room) and it’s stupid to be so attached to this room but it’s got a holograph projector that shows different images from Altea and seeing places other than space, even if it is an alien planet, helps him calm down.
Luckily, Keith and Lance pull apart, and stand up looking properly chagrined. “We’ll just, uh, leave.” Lance says, grabbing Keith’s arm and pulling him out, ignoring Keith’s grumbling.
“God, that was close,” Shiro hears Keith say as the door starts to shut, and can just barely make out Lance’s sarcastic reply of “no thanks to you” as the door, finally, closes, and Shiro finally gets some peace and quiet.
+ i.
They’re sitting at the dinner table, all of them worn out from their earlier fight with some low-rank Galra soldiers at an outpost, eating the actually kind of good dinner that Hunk cobbled together from Altean goop and various other alien food they’d gotten on their trips to other planets, when it happens.
“Hey babe, pass me the salt-like-alien-crystally seasoning stuff.” Lance says, and almost in slo-mo all but one head turns to him.
“No.” Keith says, both he and Lance oblivious to the way everyone else has stopped eating and started staring.
“What do you mean no! It’s sitting right next to you!” Lance yells, gesturing to the container of what they’ve been calling and using as salt that’s next to Keith’s elbow. “I could literally grab it for myself, only I was trying to be nice and not crawl over you to reach it!”
“I told you not to call me that.” Keith huffs, purposely picking up the salt and moving it farther away from Lance.
Lance, in return, screeches. “What, ‘babe’? It’s a nickname! It’s supposed to be cute!”
“Well it’s not. I specifically told you I didn’t think it was cute. Who wants to be called babe?”
“Plenty of people! Just be glad I didn’t call you ‘baby’.”
Keith stills, pointing his silverware at Lance. “If you ever call me baby, I might honestly dump you. I’m not joking. I honestly might. As it is, you’re not getting the salt, or anything else, unless you promise not to call me ‘babe’ ever again.”
“Babe is a perfectly acceptable nickname!” Lance sighs, before quickly turning to the rest of the group, who are watching the exchange in silent surprise. “Right, Hunk?”
Hunk, singled, out, splutters, before yelling almost as loudly as Lance and Keith had just been, “You were wooing Keith! That’s what...how long have you guys been dating?”
Lance, for the second time, screeches. “You said you wouldn’t mention the conversation to anyone, traitor!”
“Wait, is that what the Altean porno and the gross dinner you made me a few weeks ago were about?” Keith asks. “You wooing me?”
“In my defense-”
Keith quickly cuts off Lance with an eyeroll, “You didn’t know it was a porno and you’re actually a good cook when you’re not working with weird alien food, yes I know.”
“Hold up.” Shiro says. “Were you guys actually fighting when I found you a few days ago, or were you-”
“OH MY GOD.” Lance screams, face bright red. “Is this ‘say embarrassing stuff about each other’ time, because, because-” he comes to a screeching halt, “ok I can’t think of anything embarrassing off the top of my head about you guys, but when I do, oh when I do you better watch out!”
“Wait, did you guys not know we were dating?” Keith asks the group, face as bright as Lance’s. Lance focuses on them too, suddenly realizing the implications of Hunk asking how long they’d been dating.
The five of them look at each other, and then back at Lance and Keith.
“I didn’t.” Hunk says.
“No idea.” Pidge chimes in, and then Shiro, Allura, and Coran all nod their heads no.
“You’re kidding me.” Lance chuckles. “We haven’t exactly been subtle.”
“For the entirety of the conversation I’m not allowed to talk about you said dating someone was a hypothetical.” Hunk points out.
“And I thought you guys had just gotten over your ‘rivalry’.” Pidge says.
“Okay, Pidge, were the air quotes really necessary. And my secret conversation with you was weeks ago, Hunk!” Lance scoffs.
“I actually have to agree with Pidge.” Allura says, and Coran nods his head rapidly. “I honestly thought you two were just starting to be friends.”
“Actually, it kind of makes sense.” Hunk muses.
“Thank you, buddy!” Lance smiles, reaching over and slapping Hunk on the back.
“I mean, think of how much Lance talked about Keith at Garrison.” Hunk turns to Pidge, and she hums in agreement.
“Yeah, even after Keith got kicked out, and before we started living in close quarters with him, there was a lot of Keith talk.” Pidge smiles, almost wickedly, and Lance is pretty sure he audibly gulps. “It was all, ‘I’m totally better at this than Keith’, ‘god, did you see his stupid jacket’, and my personal favorite, ‘what do you think Keith’s doing right now?’.”
“‘If I had hair like Keith I wouldn’t wear it in a stupid mullet’.” Hunk interjects.
“You know what!” Lance says, hands slamming down on the table as he stands up. “I thought we were talking about how unobservant you guys are!”
“This coming from the guy who didn’t know Pidge was a girl.” Keith says, and Lance turns to him.
“You’re supposed to be on my side!” he whines, slumping back into his chair.
Keith shrugs nonchalantly. “I’m still mad about the whole ‘babe’ thing.”
Lance’s long, dramatic groan is practically covered up by everyone else at the tables laughter.