I do not understand you," Lance muttered sleepily, not opening his eyes as he nosed his way further into Keith's hair.
Keith just hummed in response, shifting in Lance's arms to press their bodies even closer together to further soak in the shared body heat like a cat in a sunbeam. It seemed like Lance had gone right to bed after the teethbrushing, because he'd never put his shirt back on or showered and still had the faint faded scent of sweat and sex lingering on his skin like a manly, dirty perfume. Keith inhaled a deep and purposeful lungful of air through his nose, holding it in for a few moments before letting it slowly deflate out of him.
Directly into Keith's tangled hair, Lance mumbled out in bemusement, "M'serious, how long have you been here?"
Keith's brain absently fished for an answer, slowed by the cottony drag of his own tiredness. "Maybe an hour?" His chest contracted with something that might have been a yawn or a sigh or both, remembering walking into Lance's room to try to wake him up only to change his mind when he saw how inviting Lance's bed looked with his boyfriend lying on his back to leave a perfect Keith-shaped space on his left side. "Was already morning, anyway." Lance's naked chest had a light splatter of hair across the breastbone, which Keith happily rubbed his cheek against. Oh benevolent goddess of the harvest, may you bless this land with bountiful forests for me to smush my face into. Grant me a future with beard burn on my thighs.
The heavy embrace of sleep lulled Keith into barely hearing Lance's words. "You know what would have been even easier than sneaking into my room at ass o'clock in the morning? Not running off after sex and just sleeping here in the first place."
Why was Lance still talking when Keith was still trying to be asleep? Keith hummed, and it might have sounded annoyed if he had been awake enough to comprehend emotions. "Sure would have. Have to try it sometime."
Lance's chest rose and fell in a long sigh underneath Keith's head, and the hand on Keith's shoulder began absently rubbing the bare skin of Keith's arm. The gentle touch left light shivers behind in their wake, and that combined with the rhythmic rise and fall of Lance's breathing below him lulled Keith back into blissful doze. It was broken by a question from Lance, who was apparently awake and determined to drag Keith kicking and screaming into the morning with him. "Hey, Keith?" he asked softly, enough so that had he waited another minute or two to speak the words Keith might not have heard them through his doze.
Keith took a moment to answer. "Hm?"
"Back a couple months ago when I first asked out for that first, uh… date. Why did you say yes?"
Keith's eyebrows furrowed together. Hadn't he already answered this? He was sure he had just talked about this like, yesterday or something. "Surprised me," he said around a yawn that turned into a frown when it closed.
This again? Wasn't Keith allowed to be done being embarrassed about being so presumptuous yet? What else had he been supposed to think with Lance suddenly flipping from hostile to charming like a switch. It had been a perfectly natural assumption that it was because Lance was trying to flirt with him considering it was LANCE and hitting on people was what he did.
A dissatisfied hum rumbled from Lance's throat and his grip around Keith's shoulder tightened into a hold. "I surprised you?" Keith didn't notice the displeased note in Lance's voice, occupied by being pulled back into wakefulness by a memory from a day or two later when Lance had been talking to Keith and stopped mid-sentence with the observation that Keith's eyes were actually more violet than grey up close and that they were really pretty, and how that comment had dispelled the doubts Keith had developed after their first date ended with Lance ruffling his hair, because Keith maintained that was still a really weird fucking thing to say to someone you weren't actually trying to date.
Ah crap, he was pretty much awake now, Keith realized with distaste. That meant he had no excuses not to get up anymore, and Keith reluctantly started stretching and shifting out of Lance's hold. Lance's grip around his shoulder tightened and he whined out a thin "What are you doing, you aren't allowed to leave. "
Keith wiggled out of his grasp to push himself up onto his arms, rearranging until he was sitting upright on top of Lance's stomach. "We probably missed breakfast," he leaned down to kiss the furrowed line of Lance's brow. "If we don't get up soon they'll have to send someone to fetch us for morning training and we won't get to eat at all."
Lance's hands landed on his hips and he craned his neck up to kiss at Keith's jaw. "Hunk would never let me starve," he tried to pull Keith down on top of him to reach his lips again, and against his better judgement Keith allowed himself to be pulled into a slow languid kiss, reasoning that if they were already late a few more minutes wouldn't kill anyone.
A few more minutes would embarrass them, though, because having no sense of what time it was to begin with meant they could very easily lose track of how long they stayed in bed kissing and lazily pawing at each other, and had Keith ever mentioned that he tended to get a little bit swept up in the moment when Lance kissed him? It was scarily easy to let the world fall away around them when Lance was teasing Keith's lips with his own. So you know. Pidge kinda surprised the crap out of them when she knocked on the door.
"KEITH! I thought you said you were going to wake him up, not fuck him!"
Lance wheezed out a breath of punched air when Keith sat back too quickly on his stomach to shout back at Pidge through the closed door, "I'm not fucking him, we just did some of that last night!"
Lance and Pidge both made strangled noises, and Keith grinned as he rolled out of bed.
--
They didn't go without food, but that was probably because Lance had a tendency to throw up towards the end of training if he was too exhausted and no one wanted him to pass out from low blood sugar because he'd puked up all the food in his stomach. Again. But it didn't even turn out to be one of the mornings where anyone threw up anyway, so all in all Keith called it a good time.
Now that the usual morning routine had been cleared out of the way everyone was gathered together in the small theater Allura had been in last night. They were getting ready to head into town to get visas, and logically, seeing as they couldn't very well go into Concordia as paladins it made no sense to try to get into Concordia as paladins. As such it was time to make up their new identities, so trunks and boxes of clothes and props were strewn patiently around the floor as they all waited for Allura to reappear.
When she did, she made an entrance. Silver-blue curtains flashed and sparkled as she tossed them behind her, emerging from the gap between them and tossing a jewel-encrusted laser rifle over her shoulder. She was dressed to the nines in what could only be full space pirate regalia, from her polished knee-high boots to her heavy gold-lined shortcoat, all the way up the wide-brimmed hat that looked like it had been stolen either from a victorian duchess or Captain Hook himself. So impressive was the sight she cast no one was even annoyed when Lance wolf-whistled, feeling it was for once well deserved.
Allura grinned cockily, hefting her sword to point and Shiro and declare "My first mate!" Shiro looked appropriately honored, and she turned down the line to direct the sword at Pidge, Hunk, Lance, and Keith in turn and declare at each one "My hacker! My boatswain, my rifleman, and my raider!" Finally, she reached Coran, to whom she took off her hat with a flourish. "And of course, my navigator and helmsman, to whom we all owe our lives."
He twirled his moustache and preened. "You'd hardly be able to get anywhere without me, of course," and Allura dipped an elegant and respectful bow to him.
Allura looked back over the assembled crowd with a confident swagger. "Starting today, we embark on a most dangerous mission."
"...To sell furniture?" Hunk asked with a bemused frown.
Allura didn't let the question break her dramatic momentum. "To infiltrate the seedy underbelly of one of the universe's most prosperous cities, and to join - or failing that begin ourselves - a revolution!"
The paladins looked among themselves. Hesitantly, Lance offered "Yay?"
Allura tossed her hair and put her hand to her hip, apparently content to pretend that counted as a rousing chorus of applause. "The coming weeks will require your absolute dedication to discretion. Concordia is not a safe place for a paladin of Voltron to wander around blind in, and every one of us must diligently maintain our guard." Pacing across the stage, she continued "I do not trust the fact that we've spent two days on this planet and heard not one word spoken of the Galra. Something is amiss, and I will not have us fall into some kind of trap. Which means the roles we make for ourselves in this crew we have to totally commit to, without question." She stopped pacing to face her crew again, and her face light up into a brilliant grin as she declared "So make sure whatever costume you pick it's one you absolutely love!"
Allura's enthusiasm made it nearly impossible for the paladins to even try and take this seriously. She had thrown herself completely into her role as pirate captain, and Keith found even he couldn't help but be infected by her cheer. As such the next half hour or so of all of them toddling around a kiddie theater trying on clothes was lighter than they'd been as a group all month, reveling in their last chances to take time out to have fun and trying to make each other laugh by trying on the silliest costume choices they could find.
It didn't help that even when they tried to dress seriously, it was impossible to maintain any kind of coordination. No matter what anyone tried on the seven of them always ended up a mismatched mess, looking more like the confused attendees of a comicon than a pirate crew of any kind.
Keith himself was totally lost on what to wear, trying to remember what sorts of things the aliens he'd met over the past months had been wearing. It didn't help, too various the array of cultures they'd visited, and he gave up on the idea of blending in in favor of maybe finding something that actually fit him.
The others seemed to be having better luck, settling in to clothing choices and finalizing their disguises. Near one trunk Allura had taken to the contemplation of Shiro's conspicuously memorable appearance, trying to find ways to cover up the scar and shock of bleached out hair with a series of rejected hats and helmets. Pidge offered her own idea in the matter, taking a roll of bandages and sort of tossing it loosely around his face like a ill-dressed mummy. Was she trying to do that, or could she just not see anything behind those giant goggles she'd dug up that had been taking up half her face since the moment she'd found them?
Keith pulled a dark red tunic over his head and down to fit, just about deciding that it was good enough as long as he could be done with this. It was comfortable, he'd be able to move in it, and it had a collar that was tall and loose enough that Keith would be able to duck down and hide his face in it. It didn't happen to have anything as useful as sleeves, and Keith hated the thought of leaving that much bare skin exposed in a strange city, but he could probably dig out a jacket of some kind to fix that.
Not like Lance's chosen coat though, Keith thought to himself incredulously when he saw his boyfriend swish towards him. "There's no way you're going to be able to fight wearing that thing."
Lance's answer was to flap the tails of his trenchcoat like a cape. "Won't have to. I'm the rifleman, remember? No one's even gonna get close enough to come near me, 'cause I'm so fast on the draw I'll snipe 'em out before they even see me coming." He finished off by loudly miming the firing of a rifle.
Keith raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him before turning back to rummage around the trunk he was looking through. "We're gonna get into some kind of chase and that thing's gonna get caught on something and you'll die tangled up in your own stupidity."
From not far away, Hunk shrugged, "I dunno, they can't be THAT impractical. I mean, Nazis wore trench coats and they were some pretty efficient sons of bitches."
"Nazis?" Lance looked down at his coat with a dubious frown. "Fuck you guys, I love this coat and I'm not letting any of you ruin it for me." He turned back to Keith, who had found a pair of long gloves that went all the way up past his elbows to mostly cover his arms. He'd have to cut the fingers off, but it was better to settle on this than be stuck here trying to coordinate his freaking outfit like a… a different kind of homosexual man than he was, or something, who cares at this point let's go already. " ANYWAY," Lance segwayed with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Speaking of my perfect taste and awesome outfit, where's that bandana/handkerchief thing you got?"
Keith blinked at Lance, a little surprised he'd be asking for such a thing. He pulled it out of the pocket of his discarded jacket, offering with a little dubiousness "I was thinking of using it to cover my head with."
Oddly enough, Lance's eyes sparkled a bit at that sentence, and he grinned "Oh don't worry, I've got something for your hair." He took the bandana from Keith and tied it over his own hair mostly for the sake of getting it out of his hands, while Keith watched Lance's sudden excitement with a bit of suspense. Lance reached behind himself with the apparent intent to grab something from his back pocket, but hesitated before pulling it out to show Keith, face flushing a bit and eyes averting in an adorable display of unusual shyness, stalling with "Uhhhh, but come to think of it if you don't like it or feel the urge to get mad at me when you see it then I have the defense that when I saw it yesterday with Allura and said 'Oh my God wouldn't this be so perfect for Keith?' she said 'Oh my God yeah you should buy it for him,' so half of the blame for this goes to her. Especially since she loaned me the money."
Well THAT certainly instilled confidence in Keith. He might have asked but Lance was already whipping out his present to present to Keith, who was startled to find himself face to face with what appeared to be a red plastic headband. "Eh?"
Apparently content with Keith's confused reaction, Lance grinned again. Waggled his eyebrows with a flourish and flicked his wrist, at which point the headband snapped out of its curve into a solid line and the tiny teeth lengthened and sharpened into saw-like serrations. It was not just a headband, it was a headband that turned into a fucking knife, an invention only the Geruda would possibly entertain much less mass-market. Keith kind of loved it.
Carefully, he reached out to take it from Lance, who showed him the place to put his thumb that would turn the comb on and off. A bit shy himself but knowing Lance would be absolutely thrilled by the request, Keith handed it back to ask, "Put it in for me?"
Lance got even more embarrassed by the question than Keith himself had been, turning even redder as he carefully slid the headband into Keith's hair to pull his bangs back. The gentle slide of the plastic teeth against his scalp and sent shivers down Keith's spine and Lance's hands lingered to toy with the ends of his hair for a moment before retreating. And then the two of them were both just sort of standing there, inches apart and staring each other in the eye. Hesitantly, Lance stuttered out around a blush the words, "C-can I kiss you?"
Keith's skin grew even hotter in answer. "Why are you suddenly asking? "
Lance shook his head. "I don't know, you just make me nervous." They both burst into a set of matching quiet chuckles, still not quite able to meet eye to eye. Keith raised himself up to his toes and tilted his head back, meeting Lance halfway in a kiss that both of them were smiling into by the end.
Somewhere behind them Pidge made a sound like she was barfing, and when Allura turned to see what she was making noises at she chirped out, "Oh that's just perfect!" And when they pulled away from the kiss to step away from each other she had already strutted over to steal the bandana off of Lance's head. She danced her way back over to Shiro, who had pulled Pidge's bandages down from his face to rest in a scarf-like pool around his neck. Allura sashayed back over and snapped the cloth in her hand for a touch of dramatic flair, grinning to herself as she tied the folded bandana around half of Shiro's head in a makeshift eyepatch, successfully managing to cover it the entirety of the white lock in his hair after a small amount of tucking and finagling to stuff it under the fabric. "Ta-dah!"
An offended chirp trilled from Lance's throat, and the words "Yeah, but - that was - I was gonna!! "
Keith raised an eyebrow at him. "Why does it matter? We can just find you a hat or something."
Lance flailed. "That's not the point! The point is that now instead of me, Shiro is the one wearing something of yours for a whole mission!"
Keith felt himself flush again, eyes automatically darting upwards as if to somehow look at the headband currently occupying his hair. "O-oh," he said a little dumbly, waylaid again. He never was able to tell when Lance was about to say something stupid and weird or something stupid romantic. "Uh, if that's all you wanted," and as he picked up his recently discarded gloves there was only a moment where the voice inside himself insisted he needed to keep those to hide behind if he accidentally started biting again. "You could wear these? Since I've got a different pair on right now, I mean. Than, than my normal ones."
Lance's eyes widened, and he snatched the gloves from Keith's palm like he was afraid he'd change his mind and take them back. He slid them onto his own hands with something approaching reverence, adjusting the straps to fit around his own wrists and holding his hands in the air to admire them. Wearing an absolutely enamoured grin, Lance turned back to Keith to ask "So, how do they look on me? I'm totally cool now, right?"
Actually the fingerless gloves combined with the trenchcoat kind of left a street hobo impression, but Keith figured that wasn't what Lance wanted to hear. "You're very handsome," Keith said instead, meeting Lance back in reaching distance. "But I feel like you've managed to miss out on the 'in-disguise' part of this somewhere," he ran his hands through Lance's hair, dragging the short bangs backward to try to slick his hair out of his face. It was too short and too fluffy to hold like that, and Keith found himself mumbling "Hold on, I have an idea," to wander over to steal the hair gel Allura had been using to try to tame Shiro's hair into hiding.
By the time he got back Lance had started digging around in the trunk Keith had just been looking through, pulling out a wire-rimmed pair of glasses and turning around to call out "Hey, Pidge, you think you could do something cool like turn these things into a sniper scope, or night vision or something?"
"Sure, that's tinker-toys compared to what I'm planning on doing to these babies," the girl confirmed, snapping the strap of her oversized goggles meaningfully.
By the time everyone had picked their outfits and backstories and the crew was ready to head down to the visa office, they had almost managed to match themselves into a coherent pirate crew. A coherent pirate crew made up of a bunch of stragglers from different parts of time and space, or maybe just a cosplay troupe with a bunch of very different definitions of the idea of "space bandit." Lance had managed to end up matching Allura's gaudy steampunk air pirate chic, while Pidge and Shiro had landed somewhere around post-apocalyptic cyberpunk, complete with useless LED lights piping around Shiro's metal arm under attempts to make it look less obviously Galra. Meanwhile, Hunk had only been able to find in his size (and with no extra sleeves) a fur-lined greatcoat that found his image somewhere in the area of russian space viking, and Coran had, for reasons unknown, immediately and without hesitation donned a full set of armor with horned helmet. And as for Keith himself, he wasn't sure what the description "Vincent Valentine's gay little brother" meant but he had a feeling it was not complementary.
The acquisition of a passport, it seemed to Keith, was much the same all over the universe. It involved waiting in a terrible plastic chair among strangers for an hour until the bureaucrat at the counter was ready to receive or deny you at their leisure. And even when they reached the bored geruda they reached a whole new problem that should have occurred to them far, far earlier: Not even Allura and Coran could read the forums they were supposed to fill out. There was a moment where it seemed like panic would break and out Lance and Hunk would charge the counter and take hostages, but Shiro quickly stepped forward to do what he does best.
"Hi there," he said to the girl at the counter, beaming an awkward little smile at her. "Uh, may I ask a question?"
She looked more interested than before she got an eyeful of Shiro's jawline, but held her ground. "Fill out the forums and move to the back of the line, sir."
"I'd love to, but I'm afraid there's a problem there. We're all from, uh… A bit far away from here, and as it is none of us can actually read the current version of the local language. I don't suppose you have these documents in a version of Elpisian from about ten thousand years ago, or maybe a just a translator?"
The girl's eyes widened, blinking in surprise at him. "Ten thousand years? I can't believe you're that old! "
He chuckled a bit, leaning forward to rest an arm on the counter, "No, we're not ten thousand years old ourselves, but I guess our culture is." Keith smothered a laugh with the knowledge that Shiro wouldn't have realized the way he'd just changed his body language, but the geruda had taken note, leaning forward herself until their faces were only inches apart. "We're all from Magrathea, which unfortunately hasn't actually existed for quite a while."
She made an impressed sort of chirping sound, gasping "Oh, my! That planet's been dead for so long, I had no idea any its people could still be alive! How ever did you survive with no planet for ten millennia?"
"Well, as I understand it our ancestors immigrated to Krikket - "
"- Which was locked in a time bubbled five thousand years ago! Oh goodness, I wonder if there were many Magrathean refugees there when they sealed it up…"
Shiro nodded deeply, face solemn. "I'm afraid there were." He sure was laying it on thick for a story they'd cobbled together in ten minutes using a children's almanac they'd picked up on Trisol. "But on the plus side," Shiro smiled, "that means technically, they are all still alive!"
The geruda's eyes sparkled, and she clapped her hands together. "You know, I never thought of that! I guess time prison isn't such a bad punishment after all!" Her figure bounced up and down a bit behind the window, and Keith recalled a similar gesture from one of the local girls he'd seen before. "So, then how did your crew get out of being sealed away, too?"
"That's the fun part," Shiro grinned at her voice dropping like he was sharing a secret, and as predicted the girl swooned a little. "Our direct ancestors were actually pirates. They were off planet on a raid when they heard the sentence for Krikket, so instead of going back home to port they became nomads. Wandering the black skies for thousands of years, never making home on any planet too long in the hopes of preserving the ancient ways of our people."
"Oh, how romantic~!" The geruda cooed, batting her feathery eyelashes. "I bet you have so many amazing stories you could tell."
"I bet you have some stories of your own," they both laughed. "And as it happens, until our visas clear our crew will have plenty of free time around town… Ah, but we'll still need to fill out the forums?"
She waved a hand in front of her face. "Oh of course that'll be no problem! With my expert skills, we can have this wrapped up in like, two minutes! I'll just need a bit of information on everyone in the crew, I can fill in the blanks in just a jiffy after that!"
Shiro's smile was radiant. "That'd be a big help, I really owe you one."
A tittering laugh. "Well, I'm sure you can think of some way to repay me." It was only at that moment that a light of dawning came to Shiro's eyes as he realized what he'd just done. Keith was the only one who noticed, no one else in the room understanding what exactly had just happened here. There was no time for him to try to backtrack, because she was already cheerfully asking "Okay, so can I get everyone's names?"
Which was also the point every one of them realized they'd forgotten to come up with fake names for themselves. "R-right," Shiro said, taking his elbow off the counter and a step or two back away from the window. He gestured to Allura, standing behind him with her arms crossed and a look of quiet anger on her face that bordered on apocalyptic. "This is our illustrious captain -"
"Fenchurch," Allura cut in sharply. "Captain Fenchurch, ma'am."
Shiro pretended he wasn't terrified of her to continue with renewed confidence. "...Indeed, Fenchurch. Which I suppose would make me Zaphod Beeblebrox. And this over here," he gestured to Pidge, "Agrajag," to Hunk, "Zarniwoop," next to him was Coran, "Yooden Vranx..."
The next person down the line was Lance, who before Shiro could come up with a name for burst in with the introduction "Hotblack Desiato, at your service!"
When the girl gave him a weird look for his untimely interruption, Shiro sidestepped him casually. "You'll have to forgive him, his brain's still a little off after spending the last year dead."
Feathery eyes blinked rapidly. "Dead?"
"For tax purposes," Lance assured.
"Oh! Well that's a little brilliant, actually." She looked towards Keith. "And who's the last one there?"
Shiro and Lance both looked at Keith, and then, just for half a second, at each other. "Marvin," they agreed nearly in unison, and once again Keith got the distinct feeling he was missing something. Marvin… The Martian? Was this a Looney Toons joke? Keith could think of literally no other explanation.
"Perfect!" The geruda chirped, and went to typing rapidly on her computer for a moment. "If you've got an ECHO device I can get the details for, I'll be able to send you confirmation when your passports come through. And um, I'll go ahead and send you my number as well, so you can call me if you need anything else?"
Shiro nodded, giving her the address Pidge's funky internet goggles could be reached at. Having already taken up an extraordinary amount of one clerk's time, the lot of them left as quickly as they could.
When they got outside to the alley behind the office building, everyone turned to look at Shiro. Shiro didn't notice, having buried his face in his hands the instant he was out of the gerdua girl's sight. "Oh my god. Fuck. Fuck what just happened back there? Did I just make a date?" Keith finally let himself burst into laughter.
Lance's body flew into a spasm. "Did you not even MEAN to do that?! Did you just outdo every move I've ever made on a girl - combined - on accident?! "
"I was trying to be polite! I went into that trying only to be polite, it just… Got out of hand."
Allura looked like the answer had managed to offend her even more than the entire affair already had to begin with. "That girl has feelings! I cannot believe you would just lead her on for the sake of something as petty as skipping out on paperwork!"
The words hit Shiro like blows, his shoulders hunching low like a big berated dog. "I didn't -" he cut off the automatic defense, sighing. "I know. I'm sorry." Which turned the situation from funny down to just sad.
Keith cleared his throat, coming in with, "It's not his fault. This is what happens every time he talks to a woman when he needs something from her. He doesn't know how to handle girls," he snorted, trying to choke the laughter back into his throat. "So when he tries to be nice it ends up outrageous flirting." It was getting a bit hard to breathe around the laughter threatening to burst out of Keith's lungs, a memory he'd been lucky enough to be standing nearby to witness nearly breaking his composure. "Like this one time when Lieutenant Solomon came to give him a dressing down for getting loose with the rules, but when he tried to get out of trouble instead he ended up somehow sucked into some weird three way poly date with her and her boyfriend!"
"Shut up, Keith." Shiro hissed from under his palms.
Keith was the only one laughing, the others all looking somewhat baffled and unsettled. Keith figured they just weren't appreciating how truly hopeless Shiro was with girls, and was more than prepared to enlighten them. "It's only when he doesn't want to flirt though. Remember that one time when you were trying to chat up Lizzie Chavez, but you ended up telling her -"
"I know every person you've had a crush on since we met," Shiro interrupted in a coarse, desperate voice.
To Keith's credit, the first thing that statement brought to mind was the memory of the day after he'd twisted a foot and needed Hunk to carry him to the med bay, and the subsequent angry rant to Shiro about how unfair it was to Keith that a guy could be so nice and have arms that huge at the same time and even in SPACE he couldn't get away from distractingly hot guys. It was only after that that Keith remembered further back years ago to a botched confession of love to Shiro himself, and knew immediately that was not the sort of history that needed to be shared with Lance.
He glanced at Lance first, then back to Shiro, narrowing his eyes. "And you're saying you're willing to weaponize this information?"
Shiro returned the glare evenly. "You keep talking I'll start talking, young man."
Young man, huh? With that card dropped, Keith knew exactly the counterattack to make Shiro crumble. "If you do," he started slowly, voice dropped so low as to be barely audible. "I will tell you in exact, portrait-like detail everything Lance did to me last night."
As expected, a look of true and absolute horror split Shiro's expression. "Jesus christ, man."
"Truce?"
"Truce," Shiro dubiously agreed, and the two continued to stare at each other with eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Around them, the rest of the stunned crew had only one thing to add. And that was Lance's eloquent declaration, "What the fuck was that?! What just happened here?! "
Five minutes later as they were walking back to the castle to begin the long wait for their visas to clear, Shiro's eyebrows drew together lowly, and without thinking he turned to Keith to clarify "Wait a minute - last night ? Last night you had a panic attack."
Keith for once decided to embrace the urge to look smug. "Yeah, I did."
Frowning in confusion, Shiro turned back ahead to watch Lance's back as he walked ahead of them, "How did…" Apparently against his own wishes, Shiro looked impressed. "I don't wanna know, and I don't want to think about it."
"Nope," Keith agreed cheerfully. "You do not."
--
In the following three days it took for their visas to clear, nothing eventful particularly happened. Except for the part where Allura insisted that Shiro call the geruda clerk back and arrange a date with her, which she and Lance then not only orchestrated but also directly intruded on, clumsily stalking the pair until the poor girl got uncomfortable enough to go home. But other than that, pretty much nothing happened.
Even with the weird-bad date the girl had apparently delivered in good form, sending them a message telling them where they could pick up the physical copies of their visas and where to go to get into Concordia after a few short days. And suddenly, finally, they had made it. Their passes cleared and the guards let them through the gates and past the city's barriers, finally entering the metropolis they'd already spent a week just trying to get into.
Even having been able to see the city from Fyrestone, the view had in no way prepared them for Concordia's true majesty. The instant they got within the barrier Keith could smell the difference in the air, the hot dry smell of the desert instantly replaced with something not only at least twenty degrees cooler but somehow almost artificially clean, like the recycled air of a closed spaceship.
So disconcerting was the smell and temperature drop, it took well until they were into the city for Keith to realize how different it looked from the inside, as well. Looking at Concordia from outside of town, the barrier had colored everything in a shade of soft blue battling against the pale orange of the daylight sky. But from the inside it was invisible, leaving a clear view of Elips's orange creamsicle sky and red-purple mountains. The city was somehow even more colorful than the surroundings, starting with the coral pink shade of brick the buildings were hewn in. They weren't laid out like any city Keith had ever seen, instead of an array of singular buildings surging upwards like stalagmites the city seemed to be built on layered tiers. Entire blocks of buildings only two stories high with roofs that stretched out past the walls to make walkways reaching to building stacks next door that were even higher, and even stacks of buildings that seemed to start midair and only to climb and layer for the sole purple of filling more of the sky. The towers that did exist, shiny with mirrored glass instead of stone, still didn't stand by themselves. Skyways branching out of the walls randomly like the legs of a spider, connecting buildings to rooftops to buildings until the city had an interconnecting web of people-filled paths branching through the skies, everything connected to everything like threads holding the city together by the seams.
And then there were the airships. An entire traffic system moved into the sky, roads marked by the glow of holographic billboards, the panels of light casting the buildings around them in a reflected rainbow. On the very ground the city had never bothered to pave over the distemperate red sands, instead installing raised stone sidewalks to minimize the amount of sand in everyone's shoes and leaving the rest to the whims of nature. Not that the surface of Elpis had been abandoned by any means, white streets filled with the constant hustle of foot traffic and all around them in the sand were planted market stalls of every shape and size and color and ware imaginable.
The effect was nearly overwhelming to step into, and Keith was not the only one who seemed to feel that way. The instructions from the clerk girl had included directions on what part of the city they should exit into when they left the warp stations, which were a teleportation-type affair the paladins had met before on other high-tech planets. Thinking they basically understood what Concordia looked like they had all assumed they were prepared, and thusly all seven warriors of Voltron were struck dead still with wonder when they exited the building they were in to find more color than they'd probably seen in their life, all shining around an ever-moving cacophony of alien life. Looking around at the people it seemed like it hadn't mattered much what they picked to wear, after all - they might as well have stepped out of reality and into a scifi convention on that regard; a woman that looked like an armored valkyrie chatting amicably with a giant sentient blob with no face being among the most average of people their immediate surroundings.
It might have been a good thing that they all stood there boggling, because it had apparently given their tourguide plenty of opportunity to spot them.
"You lot standing around in awe like slack-jawed yokels wouldn't happen to be the crew of the Heart of Gold, would you?" The man who introduced himself seemed like a standard, albeit blue, humanoid alien. When he walked towards them the motion was fluid, though, too smooth for human eyes to register as natural and the first thing that Keith noticed about the man became the fact that his legs were not legs at all but a set of six squid-like tentacles, split into threes to form a pair of "legs" and bound at the knees with a metal brace that presumably gave him the support necessary to stand upright on land.
Allura regained her regal demeanor, turning a sharp glare on the strange fish man. "And whom might be so rudely asking?"
"Why madam, are you playing power games with me or are you really just that ignorant?" The grin that split the man's face was shark-like and pleased, slitted eyes casting up and down first Allura, then the rest of them with an appraising eye and low whistle. "My, do I like what I see! I had been wondering what Magratheans could possibly look like but I hadn't expected you all to be quite this pretty." He slithered around Allura to land behind Hunk, casting his eyes up and down the crew as he paced a slow circle around them. "All sorts of colors and sizes! What is this you're covered in here, is that skin?" A rubbery finger reached out as if to poke Pidge's face until it was unceremoniously swatted away. The man's pleased, jagged grin was undeterred, slinking back around to face Allura again. He offered a hand, only at the last moment pretending to be polite as he finally introduced himself. "Veret Everett at your service, and I'll be at your every whim as personal liaison to the Merchant's Guild of Elpis."
Which meant of course, they were all stuck with him. At least for as long as it took to set up their stupid furniture store, which meant today had just turned into an adventure in patience. The authoritative scowl didn't leave Allura's face as she met his hand with hers in something that loosely resembled a handshake, and Veret took great and obvious pleasure in the irritation he caused. "Captain Fenchurch. We're interested in selling off some antique furniture we've acquired, preferably in a hurry."
"And I will devote myself to helping you with this task~" Veret grinned, not letting go of Allura's hand. Instead he changed his hold into a caress and stroked his fingers down the length of her hand, admiring "My god, you're even softer than you look! Tell me darling, are you soft all over?"
Damn near every one of them all made a move towards the squid but it was Shiro who actually got there, metal hand clamping around Veret's wrist and yanking it away from Allura so fast even Allura herself hadn't had time to react. "Do not," he said lowly, voice dangerous. "Speak to our captain that way."
Veret failed to look intimidated, instead choosing to cast his lecherous gaze towards Shiro and leaning into the hold he still had on him. "Why there's no need to be jealous, Mr. Tall Dark and Terrifying. If you want to join the party I'm more than capable of handling both of you at once."
Somewhere behind him Keith heard Lance mutter "Oh my god please tell me I don't sound like that."
"Only a little," Hunk reassured him quietly.
"Yeah, you're less gross 'cause at least your lines are clean." Pidge added in a whisper.
Shiro ignored all of this. He kept a sharp, pirate-fierce glare directed on Veret, hissing "Just stick to business," as he let the wrist drop from his iron grasp.
Veret's laugh was obscene, shameless and deliberately taunting. "I do adore you bandit thug types, always trying to force your way around. But try to remember that I'm actually here to help you? The MGE isn't exactly aching for small-time business like yours, and should your guide decide to wander off instead of assisting you I think you'd have a hard time figuring out how to rent the space to sell your wares. You'll have come all this way to Concordia for nothing, what a pity!"
Unfortunately, he wasn't wrong about that. They needed a way to get information, a conversation opener to talk to strangers - an entire two days had been wasted just trying to get into the city, figuring out how to find a rebellion they weren't even sure existed would be impossible if they didn't have some sort of plan. Not to mention the fact that their visas would expire if they failed to actually work in the field they'd filed for. Which meant they weren't just stuck with a disgusting lech, they were stuck with a disgusting lech who liked to flaunt his power and fuck with people just because he could; a perfect combination. They'd be lucky if they went the day unmolested.
Allura's face was pinched, and Keith could see her headache from here. "If you intend to extort us, you'll find we don't need the business quite that badly, either."
Veret's smile changed like a mask slipped from his face, grin turning from wicked to charming and friendly with a casual shrug of his shoulders. "Nah, not really my thing." He dismissed easily, waving a hand. "It all just means I get to be as annoying as I want and no one can do anything." He grinned again, self-satisfied and indeed, annoying to behold. He clapped his hands together in a sudden start. "Allright, allright. So, furniture, was it?" He swished around to face the street, starting into a slithering stride before he even bothered to see if anyone was still behind him. "We'll need a pretty big space for you then, it'll hard to display your wares attractively if they're all stacked on top of each other willy-nilly like Tetra Blocks, eh?"
A bit warily, the crew had no real choice but to follow. "Now you just came out of Warp Station, does that mean your ship isn't parked anywhere close by? Do have dollies for transportation, or were you planning on moving your ship to one of Concordia's underground ports? Because the fee for that is a little pricey, especially if it's a big ship."
"We're landed outside of the city, and hadn't planned on moving our ship, no." Allura confirmed, and Veret made an understanding noise.
The city around them seemed to only grow denser with people, nary a single spot of land free of life no matter how the surrounding sand they wallowed in tried to discourage them. The sidewalks, it seemed, existed mainly for the flow of people trying to get to somewhere from somewhere than anything, so many shops planted directly in the dirt that the people had no choice or apparently qualm about milling about in the sand to buy things from them. "So the easiest thing will probably be to rent you a cargo ship," Veret said, an ECHO screen appearing something on his wrist as he paged through an illegible list on the translucent screen. "Oh, there's a Firefly class that's free right now, that'll run you nice and cheap, and the mid-sized hull ships like that are great for cargo transport. We can just make that another percentage fee like the land will be so you don't have to worry about any kind of down payment, since the Guild can always, you know. Rob you and break your legs, or whatever. I don't know, Collection isn't my department. I hear they can get pretty creative."
"Will we be able to get freely from our ship back into Concordia where our shop is located? Or are we to move all of the goods at once?"
"Well, the Firefly will be able to get you in and out of Concordia no problem, it's owned by the Guild so it has clearance to use the space ports with only a brief check of all your visas on the way back inside. But if you don't get a shop anywhere close to where you want the trip could take quite a bit of time since ships can't exactly use the Warp Stations to just teleport to where you wanna be in the city. We can look at a few locations, see if they look like what you need, but before anything else we need to get you into HQ to set up a contract. First things first, right?"
Allura nodded, her footsteps clicking oddly loud against the sidewalk even among the white noise of the city. "If possible, we'd prefer not to have to find lodgings within the city at night when the shop is closed. If we could find a location southern enough to make our trip back to the Heart of Gold shorter, we'd be much appreciative."
Veret grinned, slinging a friendly and completely unwelcome arm around her shoulder. "See, now that information is helpful to me! This is how we work together, yeah? Can't get you what you want if you don't tell me what you need ." He gestured between himself and Allura. "I like this, what we've got here. I think you and I have some good chemistry."
This time it was Coran who pulled Veret off of her, yanking him by the back of his collar with the cheerful "Off we go!"
Keith was just glad Allura wasn't expected them to sleep in some kind of hotel in town. It wasn't that Keith disliked Concordia, in fact as far as cities went he actually kind of liked what this place had going. But it was a still a strange city and he still didn't trust anyone or anything in it. Keith liked cities in general, preferred them over small towns for the anonymity and ease of access to places to sleep and dumpsters to steal perfectly good food from. But for all that he understood and felt comfortable in cities, that wasn't the same as feeling safe . Pretty much anywhere with people wasn't safe, actually, which meant that Keith had trouble sleeping any time they were out of the Castle of Lions. Yeah, cities were fine, but Keith still preferred the open empty space of absolutely nowhere if he could choose.
But not the desert, he thought with a sudden surge of bitterness. If he ever got the chance to retire to Earth and pick where he wanted to live, he was going somewhere with trees, damn it. And grass. Maybe a farm or something. Keith could totally be a farmer. Not like, a food farmer, because he was so bad with plants he'd managed to get impatient and overwater a cactus until it drowned. But maybe like… An alpaca farm, or something, he was good with animals. What would that even require, like, shearing wool and cleaning the stables and taking them out to graze? He could do that. Keith could totally retire to Canada to raise alpaca.
It'd be nice he wasn't completely alone though. Ideally, of course, Keith supposed he'd have Lance with him, although he didn't figure Lance would much like being stranded out in the middle of the wild with just Keith and some animals. Well there were farms that were close to rural areas, right? They could like. Drive over to visit Lance's family on the weekends, or something. Of course that still left him with just Keith and god knows what to do for the rest of the time...
Stupid. What the hell was Keith even thinking about right now, anyway? They were all gonna die in this shitty space war anyway, so it's not like it mattered what kind of half-baked plans for the future Keith might dream up.
He was snapped out of his thoughts with repulsed shudder when Keith felt an unfamiliar hand touching his hair, fingers brushing against the the puff of his ponytail for a half a second before he jerked away with an automatic draw of his knife. Veret held up his empty hands in defense with a playful shark-toothed smile, turning up the charm and using a syrup-sweet voice to pour out the apology "Sorry, it was just so cute I couldn't help but try to touch~"
Keith felt a hot itchy anger swell inside of him, familiar in a way he hadn't had to deal with in a long time. Another one of those jerks who thought they could talk their way out of anything just because they were good looking; Keith had met this type before. Keith had been a date and a half with this type before, which may or may not have involved more making out than Keith would ever now admit to. This guy wasn't even all that, he may have that sort of handsome-ish face but you'd have to be way into tentacles and douchebags to be attracted to this prick. "Yeah, well any part of you touches me again and it gets cut off."
"See, now you threatening me is actually not a deterrent at all, because I do like me the feisty ones." At this point Keith didn't even expect a response that wasn't smug so Veret's smirk was hardly a surprise. He leaned in to look Keith in the face, silver-blue eyes meeting his own in a searching look that set Keith on edge so much he flushed and took a step backwards before he could steel himself against reacting. "Goodness, would you get a look of those eyes! You are just an ungodly kind of pretty, aren't you?"
"HEEEYYY, now," Lance cut in, and Keith could see exactly where this was going. Keith would also be a lot more comfortable with this mission if some suspicious entitled jerkoff from the Merchant's Guild did not have so much insight into Keith's personal life as to know who he was involved with. As far as they knew right now MGE might actually just be a big crime organization, and showing any hints of personal attachments or weaknesses to this guy might result in their backs getting knived before they even knew what was what.
Keith turned his glare to Lance, trying to figure how how to communicate an idea somewhere along the lines of 'shut your fucking mouth.' What he said instead was a harshly hissed out "You just stay out of this."
Lance reeled back like he'd been slapped. "What did I even do?!"
Keith kept his eyes on Veret, who had unfortunately indeed been watching with a curious eye. The alien smirked to himself, the private little smile of a predator that had just caught the scent of blood. He turned his tentacles to Lance, swooping over to meet his eye next and cheerfully declare "And yours are just the most magnificent shade of blue! I didn't even notice, what a treasure ~"
Lance, unused being flirted with, tensed ramrod straight and flushed bright red like a cherry tomato. This was not the reaction that mattered, though - Keith had been watching Veret who had in turn kept one of the beady yellow squid eyes decorating his temple trained intentionally on Keith. And quite against his will Keith had been unable to stop himself from reacting, the petty possessive part of him screeching about getting that fucksquid off of his man making Keith's jaw clench and his fist curl around his still-drawn knife.
Veret looked like he had been handed a prize, and Keith felt instantly hideously transparent. Fuck. Fuck, he had been seen right through in an instant, might as well have handed Veret a silver platter labeled "vulnerabilities."
What was worse was that Keith became more certain that had been the man's goal all along by the second. He had started out floating around all the paladins neutrally before, making flirting remarks at each one of them in passing like he was testing the waters. After that exchange, however, Veret's attentions became quite focused, zeroing in on Keith specifically like a fox on a henhouse. Which meant that even worse than an indiscriminate lech, this guy was calculated. Keith was beginning to see that every word this guy said was intentional, either to provoke a specific reaction or leave a certain impression, he was sure of it. And if the impression he wanted to give was that of an irritating entitled fuckboy, then what the fuck could this guy be hiding that was worse than that?
The answer was probably deadly, and Keith was determined not to be caught off guard. If everything about his personality was designed to repulse people, then that meant Keith should do the opposite and keep a close of an eye on this guy possible.
It would be less irritating if his flirting were at least more charming. What the hell kind of moron thought it was a good idea to go around calling a man 'pretty' and think it was a compliment? This prick wasn't even the first guy to try to use that line. Keith already knew he was pretty, and it had sure never done him any fucking favors. Pretty had gotten him treated like a girl for an entire date with one guy, and it had landed him another date with a dude who had only been interested in actually learning about Keith as far as figuring out how to get into his pants. And he'd been the one Keith had tried out a second date with (2).
Unbidden, the memory of Lance's awestruck voice whispering "You're so pretty; look so gorgeous right now," echoed around in Keith's head, and he couldn't fight off the blush if he'd tried. Well. That had been during sex, that was a whole different thing altogether. Outside of sex Lance didn't call him pretty. Had called him prettyboy as an insult, but that didn't count either; same as how he called Keith's eyes or hair pretty once or twice, but had also managed to sound more like the fact offended him than he was actually trying to compliment Keith. No, when Lance wanted to compliment Keith he'd tell him he liked how Keith looked when he smiled, or how he loved the sound of his laugh. Freely threw out praise during training and combat, was always telling Keith how cool that move had just been or weren't they both such badasses together? That was... That was how you complimented another boy, right there.
"You know, babydoll, I'd be able to drop the pet names if you'd finally give up and tell me your real one."
Keith huffed an annoyed sigh out of his nose. There was no way Keith was giving him his real name, but at least Marvin would be better than 'Sweetcheecks.' Well. Maybe not Marvin . "Marv," he settled on telling him, which may have been a mistake to give the squid that much leeway because the smile he beamed at Keith was damn near radiant.
"Mars?" Veret asked with interest. Which, no, had not been what Keith said, but it was close enough and he was hardly going to correct him considering he'd given him a cooler alias than Shiro and Lance had picked. "What a gorgeous name! I think there's a star or a constellation called that few systems over."
Given how big the universe was and the current outdated language barrier between them there was a pretty good chance they were not thinking of the same Mars. Nonetheless, possibly because astronomy was largely the only topic Keith could add anything to a conversation about, he heard himself offer "There's a planet called Mars in the galaxy we came from." And, just as an idle afterthought he added. "It's covered in red sand, too."
"How fitting," Veret commented, toning down the flirtation in his voice enough to be tolerable to listen to. But not in his words, because of course he went on to say "If it's half as majestic as you are I'll have to visit sometime."
From the corner of his eye Keith could see Lance seething. Which Keith understood on a basic level but was ultimately also pretty annoying considering how he'd acted that first day in Fyrestone. The thought was enough to spark a renewed flare of saltiness, and just because he knew it would piss Lance off even more he continued where Veret had left the conversation open. "Never been there. I don't like deserts."
Veret laughed, loud and possibly genuine. "Bet'cha just fucking loooove Elpis then!" He had been weaving them through the maze of walkways towards a shining glass tower for a while now, and it seemed like the skyscraper they had just reached was the one he'd meant to arrive at. Still strolling casually like he was among friends and not a group of people he very badly annoyed, Veret entered the doors without looking back and finally stopped bothering Keith in favor of turning back to Allura. "Oookay, this is the lobby where your crew is free to not rob the place while I take you to meet some people and sign some tablet screens, shall we?"
Shiro was quick to step forward. "She will not go unescorted after you already insisted she disarm at the entrance."
Veret rolled his eyes, not pausing. "Fine, then come with, I don't give a shit. Just hurry up, the actual work part of my job is the part I hate most and I'd like to wrap this up in a timely manner."
Somewhere around the exact instant Veret lead her into the elevator and they were alone, Lance turned on Keith. "What the fuck was all of THAT?"
Yeah, saw this one coming. Keith lowered his voice, hissing out "Can't you even try to be subtle?"
Lance just bristled, voice still sharp and high as he snapped out "And what do you even mean by that? "
"I mean, " Keith bit out, not raising his voice because at least he wasn't trying to to attract the attention of everyone on the whole fucking floor. "Why don't you try being quieter and not spreading around my personal business all over the fucking city!"
Lance's face was contorted in irritation, but at least he stopped yelling to join Keith in an angry whisper. "Fine. But you still have to answer why the fuck you just spent the last ten minutes flirting with that… that fucksquid!"
"I was not flirting, you ass, I was being flirted at! Which considering how I let you act every time we land on a new planet makes one of us a fucking hypocrite!"
"Then it must be you because at least I never pretended I didn't have already have a boyfriend!"
And what did that even have to do with anything? "Did you forget we're trying to keep a low profile here? I don't want to go letting everyone around here know about my personal attachments. Do you even remember what we're here for!?"
"What does it even matter who knows that about us?!" Lance scoffed, nearly spitting out the next words. "Just because we're being discreet means the entire whoever-knows-how-long we'll be here I'm just supposed to pretend you're not my boyfriend?!"
"Now is not the time to deal with this," Keith's eyes darted around to the other occupants of the room who were starting to look curiously at the very obviously fighting pair. Still keeping his voice as quiet as he could when he was this pissed off, he hissed back, "You won't have a boyfriend at all if you keep trying to have this fight in the middle of a crowded fucking room!"
A gauntlet-clad hand landed heavy on each one of their shoulders. And if it had been anyone else it might not have been enough to stop the fight. But as it was, it was who Coran softly said, "I'm afraid he is right about this being rather a bad time. Now I'm all for having a good row to work things out, but it'll have to wait til we get back to the, uh, Heart of Gold, now won't it?"
Lance bit his lip, fist still clenched tight around nothing even as he looked away and nodded. Keith never did figure out exactly how or why Lance and Coran had bonded so, but not even Shiro's authoritative leader voice managed to get Lance to follow a request faster than a disappointed sounding Coran could.
And to be honest it was a good thing he'd stepped in when he did, because Keith was still full boil in his own rage. Fucking Lance always did this, could never manage to take these missions seriously even their lives were in danger. Why the hell couldn't he just understand how easy it was for someone to use the fact that they cared about each other against them? Was his stupid manpride more important than basic self-preservation?
When Allura and Veret came back downstairs it was to a tense and uncomfortable silence. Wearing her best pirate captain face Allura instantly dismissed it, "The arrangements are made. I'll need a couple of you to find your way down to the shipyard to secure the Firefly we've rented, but I want that cargo ship back to the Heart of Gold and being loaded by the time the rest of us pick out a decent shop location."
Without any kind of discussion necessary, Keith went with Coran to shipyard while Lance stayed to continue following Allura. They could both use a few hours away from each other right now.
--
(2.) When Keith insisted that their second date involve actually leaving his dorm room and getting food in the outside world, his date had proceeded to take him to a total dive, order only water for both of them, talk excessively about his ex-girlfriend, and hit on the waiter all while simultaneously groping Keith's thigh under the table. Keith had excused himself to the bathroom and then climbed out the window.
--
If you would like a visual aid, I drew some sketches of Veret and one of the geruda over at my writing blog, and bc the new season fucked me over I'm FORCING you to look at my illustration for their space prate disguises bc otherwise everyone's just gonna fucking picture what they wore in the mall episode.