A/N: I was bored and this popped out of my head. Please enjoy
"Hu-unk," Lance whined. "I'm boooored."
"For the hundredth time, what do you expect me to do about it?" the big teen answered in irritation. "There's only so much we can do."
"Yeah, and you're not the only one," Pidge said. "This is the twenty-seventh time I've fixed this Altean cube."
"How can you even do that?" Hunk asked. "All the pieces look exactly the same."
"On the contrary," Pidge stated. "If you look closely, each one has a slightly different surface area and mass. They're very intellectually stimulating, but you eventually memorize which piece goes where and the puzzle is gone."
"Well sorry but not all of us are geniuses like you," Lance muttered. "I doubt I could even do that once."
"Yeah, I doubt that too," Pidge agreed, to which Lance let out an indignant cry. She sighed, stretching out on the couch and letting the cube bounce onto the ground. "Never thought I would miss Rubix cubes but at least those are colorful."
"Can you all shut up?" Keith interjected. "Some of us are actually trying to be productive here."
"What, you finally realize your inferiority to me? Gonna change your emo ways?" Lance snickered. Keith glanced at him and scowled.
"No, dipshit, I'm reading," he snapped. "Maybe if you had half a brain, you'd-"
"Enough, you two," Shiro interrupted before the two were at each other's throats (again). "We're all bored from being holed up in the castle but we need to make the most of the situation, and that means no constant bickering."
"Um, I don't know if you've met these two, but that's pretty much the only type of interaction they have," Hunk answered, to which both boys in question turned to glare at him.
"Whatever," Keith said, rising from his seat at the end of the couch. As he started to leave the room, Shiro called after him.
"Where are you going, Keith?" The boy glanced behind him, shifting just enough to meet eyes with the black paladin.
"Training," he answered simply, before striding through the open door. Shiro sighed, shaking his head as Pidge frowned.
"He's gonna train himself to death one day," she said. "I've never actually seen someone work themselves to death, how fascinating."
"It's not 'fascinating', Pidge, it's bad," Shiro replied. "Even I know that people need to rest sometimes."
"Aw, who cares?" Lance said. "If he wants to be suicidal, then let him. To quote his own words 'whatever'."
"You're not fooling anybody, dude," Hunk said, barely looking up from the Altean cookbook he was studying. "We all know you're worried too."
"Yeah right!" Lance scoffed loudly. "I could care less!"
"I believe the phrase is 'couldn't care less'," Pidge answered with a smirk. "Saying 'could' implies that you do care."
"That's- I mean- ugh, whatever!" Lance mumbled rolling over on the couch so he was facing away from the others but everyone noticed the awkward flush creeping up his neck. They had realized early on that when Lance was embarrassed, he turned red all the way down to his neck. Even though he absolutely hated it, the others found it oddly endearing.
There was silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being the soft clicks coming from Pidge's Altean cube as she quickly worked through each level of difficulty with the same level of relative ease and the occasional flip of the page as Hunk studied each recipe, marking a few to try out later that week. Eventually Lance had had enough of the silence and declared the very question that started the minor fiasco that was about to follow:
"Shiro, who was your first kiss?"
Three heads whipped around to stare at the tanned teen who had rolled back over to stare at the now-extremely-flustered man with that same shit-eating grin he wore when he knew he was causing trouble. When Shiro didn't answer, Pidge and Hunk slowly turned to look at him. Now keep in mind this was a very rare site, so you can't really blame them for immediately jumping on the bandwagon when they saw the furious red shade Shiro had turned.
"Yeah Shiro, who was it?" Hunk inquired.
"I'm gonna lose my shit if you say Keith, please say it wasn't," Pidge said almost immediately after Hunk.
"What?! No!" Shiro cried indignantly, doing his best to ignore the fact that his voice cracked just a little on that last word. Obviously the other three heard it and dissolved into fits of giggles.
"Don't tell me you've never been kissed before!" Lance crowed, suddenly ecstatic that he might've found something he was better at than Shiro.
"That's not true either!" Shiro responded awkwardly. "Of course I have, I just…"
"Just what?" Pidge asked. "Oh God, it really was with another guy wasn't-"
"Will you stop with that?!" Pidge almost didn't listen, but after hearing the desperation in Shiro's voice, she quietly complied by falling back against the couch with a huff, arms crossed over her chest as she glared at him furiously. Shiro promptly ignored her.
"And why does it matter, Lance? What could you possibly have to gain by knowing this information?" Shiro questioned.
"The overwhelming satisfaction that comes from learning something new," Lance cooed out a response he had clearly practiced and used before on countless teachers in the past.
"Fine," Shiro answered, raising his head to stare straight at Lance. "It was with Lana Thomson in eighth grade, right before I left for the garrison. She was a close friend of mine and was sad to hear that I was leaving and asked me to kiss her goodbye so I did. Satisfied?"
"Hardly," Lance scoffed. "I don't mean a kiss on the cheek, gimme the juicy details of your first Frenchie."
Shiro scowled at him for a moment before he suddenly smirked (a very odd sight) and answered "How do you know that wasn't my first French kiss? Not all of us have to play 7 Minutes in Heaven or Spin the Bottle to get girls to kiss us."
Complete silence filled the room. No one moved, no one even dared to breathe. It didn't matter that it wasn't the funniest thing ever said, no, what mattered was the person who had said it, and that was Shiro. He had successfully roasted someone for the first time in his life and this was a moment that needed to be stored deep inside their memories and cherished for the rest of their lives. And then, as if bursting out of a dam, a loud bark of laughter escaped Pidge's mouth. Hunk quickly followed suit, falling onto his side as guffaws shook his large frame. Even Shiro uttered a soft chuckle at his own joke. And this would have ended right then and there if it hadn't been for the rusty wheels in Lance's head beginning to whir as the hamsters that normally slept in his empty skull yawned and began to lazily trot on their exercise wheels.
He stood up suddenly, taking everyone by surprise with the expression of sheer delight on his face. "I've got it!" He yelled excitedly, and by the look on his face, they could tell it wasn't good. No one even wanted to ask, but, as it normally does, curiosity overtakes even the best of men. Or in this case, women.
"Got what…?" Pidge asked slowly, knowing full well she was going to regret his answer.
"The best, most ingenious, boredom-killing idea ever!" He answered with a smug grin stretching across his face.
"And what would that be?" Hunk asked, utterly confused at this point.
Lance looked directly at him and, without even blinking, answered: "Spin. The. Bottle."
"That's stupid," Pidge answered almost immediately. "Why would we do something like that?"
"Because there's a certain someone who's just dying to get me to kiss them," Lance replied, not missing a beat. "And that someone is-"
"Oh no need to us, we know," Hunk interrupted. "So we're gonna play spin the bottle huh? I guess that doesn't sound too bad…"
"That's just because nothing bad has happened yet," Pidge said, clearly not wanting any part in this. "C'mon Shiro, back me up here."
"I actually think it's a good idea," Shiro answered, and once again all heads swivelled to stare incredulously at him. Glancing around confused, he held up his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "It'll be good for bonding."
"Ugh, you and your 'bonding'," Pidge grumbled. "What good is bonding if it puts sexual tension on the team, Shiro, what then?"
"Well then they'll work through it," he answered. "We're all mature adults here-" he broke off, glancing around him, before clearing his throat and continuing. "We're all adults here, we can handle a little game. Besides, it's a good chance for Allura and Coran to learn more about Earth culture."
"And the truth comes out!" Hunk cried as Lance smirked and started making kissy noises. "You wanna kiss Allura!"
Shiro, precious, precious, Space Dad Shiro, blushed. He blushed. This day was just filled with unusually oddities, wasn't it?
"Th-that's not true!" He stammered in embarrassment. "That has nothing to do with it! I just think it'll be a good experience for all of us, that's all."
"Suuuuuuuuuure," Pidge replied, making extra careful that she drew out that 'oo' for as long as she could. "If you say so."
"Well," Hunk said, standing and stretching. "I guess we should get everyone if we're gonna play, right?"
"Aw, can't we leave Keith out?" Lance whined. Hunk shot him a funny look.
"Of course not," he replied. "That would be missing the obvious."
"Fiiiine, whatever," Lance groaned, shooting a weird look at Hunk before leaving the room with a cry of "I'm gonna get Allura" thrown over his shoulder.
The other three paladins looked at each other before smiling knowingly.
"He's so obvious," Hunk said, to which the other two nodded in agreement.
…
With the promise to meet back in the recreation room in ten minutes, Shiro left to go get Keith from the training room while Pidge and Hunk trailed after Lance. They caught up to him in a surprisingly small amount of time, something that they soon realized was on purpose by Lance's all-too-apparent expression of having yet another idea.
"So here's the plan," he unnecessarily whispered. "Pidge, remember that magnet thing you rigged at that Galra battleship? The one to get the thingamajig pointing the right direction so you could shoot it without being in the room or anywhere near the cannon?"
"Yes…?" She answered with growing dread. "And technically it's a specific type of magnet; I reversed the polarities to double the strength on the two ends and attached them between the electromagnetic device so it could absorb-"
"Yeahyeahyeah, whatever, I need you to get it and put one half in this bottle," Lance interrupted, raising a dull green glass bottle that was stained almost completely matte with some strange brown paint he had found from who-knows-where. "And then give the other half to Allura. And give me the remote control so I can activate it when it's my turn to go."
"...So basically, you want me to cheat for you?" Pidge asked slowly, raising an eyebrow.
"Yes." Completely unsurprised by his answer, Pidge was fully ready to launch into a lecture about integrity and maturity and really Lance, just how desperate were you when something clicked in her mind. You could practically see the lightbulb going off in her skull.
"Sure."
"Yeah, yeah, it's morally wrong and- wait what?" Lance asked in utter confusion, unsure of what to do with the mental speech he had prepared about why cheating was always the right answer.
"I said sure," she answered. "I'll get things set up, you just take the bottle back to the rec room and get Allura."
Lance stared at her for a solid minute before breaking into a grin. Pulling the small girl into a tight hug, he said happily "Thank you Pidge!" then quickly pushed her away as he ran down the hallway yelling something about looking for his sweet honey and where were you my fine Altean babycakes? Hunk watched him go before turning to look at Pidge.
"You have a plan don't you," he said, not even bothering to wait for a response when he already knew the answer. "You'd better tell me right now, or I'll go tell Allura everything."
"Calm down big guy," Pidge answered as she spun around to head down the hallway towards her workroom where she kept everything she made and/or stole. "You'll like it. Just trust me."
"Oh, you know I have trust issues!" Hunk cried as he trailed after her.
…
In Lance's mind, nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan. It was genius, pure genius: he would go somewhere in the middle, so as not to draw suspicion, then act all embarrassed but also adorable and cool all at the same time when the bottle landed on her, and when he kissed her, he would wow her world with the most mouth-dropping kiss ever- pun intended. It was perfect! So when all of Team Voltron gathered in the rec room for the game, he was more than ready.
"Tell me again what the point of all this is?" Allura asked inquisitively, and Lance almost felt bad when he realized she was truly interested in playing. Almost. Then he remembered the plan and all shreds of guilt fell away.
"It's simple, really, it promotes bonds and unity and the sharing of feelings." Lance listed off all the excuses he had thought of to get the princess to play the game in preparation for this very moment. A loud scoff caught his attention and he turned to stare at Keith, seated two seat to Lance's left, with a gaze as pissed and irritated as he could manage. "You got a problem, mullet?"
"The only one with a problem is you, dumbass," Keith retorted. "Clearly, something is either wrong with your brain or you're plotting something."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lance answered, waving his arms innocently in front of him. "It's impossible to do that with this game, how could you cheat at spin the bottle?"
"No one said anything about cheating, and yet it's on your mind, huh, Lance?" Keith said snidely, not missing a beat.
"Okay, okay, tone it down," Shiro said. "Why don't I go first? That way you two can see an example on how to play." He nodded at Coran and Allura. "Then we can go in a circle in this direction, so Allura, you'll go last after seeing a few examples."
"Sounds good to me!" Coran said excitedly. "I do love learning a good old-fashioned mating ritual. Especially if it's tradition!"
"Um, yeah," Lance cut in. "Let's get on with it!"
"Here I go," Shiro said, reaching out to the bottle and spinning it with a flick of his wrist. The green bottle spun lazily around the circle a few times before settling on a startled Hunk.
"Wait, me?!" He cried anxiously. "Can't I just pass or something?"
"What do you think the point of the game is Hunk, you can't back out!" Lance said. "Just do it already!"
Hunk groaned as Shiro moved towards him. The black paladin knelt in front of him and whispered softly "Just close your eyes and imagine I'm Shay." Hunk frowned but did as he was told, squeezing his eyes shut so tightly it seemed liked tears would start falling. Shiro swept in quickly, barely brushing his lips over Hunk's in a faint but firm kiss before pulling away. Slowly, Hunk opened his eyes as the frown faded from his face.
"Huh," he said in surprise. "That wasn't so bad. Lips were kinda rough though…"
"Okay, that's enough, we all saw it, no need to hear the details," Lance said. "Moving on. Coran, it's your turn."
"Oh I can't wait, I'm so excited!" The redhead spun the bottle enthusiastically, not noticing the silent prayers in everyone's heads as they all begged whatever gods were in space to please not let the bottle land on them. Sadly, Pidge was none-so-fortunate.
"This must be karma for helping you cheat," she whispered to Lance as the blue paladin smiled at her smugly, incredibly thankful the bottle just barely missed him. "I'd kick it's ass if I could, only karma doesn't exist. Unfortunately, you do. Expect payback. Expect it big time."
Lance didn't give too much thought to her threats, too focused on what was coming right after Coran's turn finished (although he did make a mental note to ask Coran later about whether the doors to their rooms have locks or not).
Pidge turned to stare at the approaching Altean, already dreading what was coming. Her eyes darted around frantically, searching for something to use as a buffer. She had gotten herself into this by playing the game, well goshdarnit, she was damn well going to get out of this. Her eyes lit up when they landed on one of Allura's mice scampering past. Quick as flash she had grabbed it, biding her time to smash it into Coran's face. Luckily Coran had imitated Hunk and squeezed his eyes shut so at the last second, she brought the fidgeting mouse in front of her face and Coran's lips pressed into furry mouse belly. The small green creature wailed in agony before going limp, twitching every once in awhile in an overly dramatic manner.
"It's more furry than expected," Coran said curiously. "How interesting."
"Hey, that's cheating!" Hunk cried as the Altean opened his eyes and realized what his mouth was touching, letting out a cry of shock and yanking away, sticking out his tongue to pick off small green hairs. "You can't have someone else kiss them for you!"
"The mouse was behind me, so the bottle was pointing at it too, and are you really one to talk about you-know-what?" She argued. Hunk opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it, instead choosing to cross his arms and pout instead. "It's your turn Lance."
"Aw hell yeah, here I go!" The blue paladin, barely able to contain his excitement as he practically flung the bottle around in a circle. As it spun, he reach into his jacket pocket and pressed the center button, activating the magnet inside of the bottle. It quickly finished it's rotation before coming to rest on a very surprised person.
…
"Y'know, I do like that plan," Hunk said as he walked side-by-side with Pidge down the hall. "But how are you going to convince them to take it?"
"Easy," she answered. "We'll just say it'll prevent the bottle from landing on Lance. That's sure to work, not just on them, but on anyone."
"I guess you have a point, but what if it's the opposite?" Hunk mused. "I think maybe saying the truth would work too."
Pidge stopped to look at him. "You really think we should just tell them 'hey, this'll let you kiss Lance, here ya go' and they'll accept it as if it's the normal thing to do."
Hunk frowned. "Good point. We'll go with your idea."
"That's what I thought," Pidge answered. "Besides, who're we kidding, they'll both be happy about this whether they know it or not. After all, if Lance could be anymore obvious, he'd have to have a giant flashing red sign with the words 'I like Keith' on them. He's not fooling anyone."
"Agreed," Hunk replied with a smile. "We're such great friends."
…
"Oh no," Lance said, shaking his head furiously. "No, no, no, what the fuck, this was not supposed to happen, what the fuck." He swung around to glare at Hunk and Pidge as a very confused, very red Keith nodded in agreement.
"Wow, didn't see that coming," Pidge said innocently. "How could anyone have known this would happen!"
"You traitor!" Lance cried, quickling realizing what had transpired just minutes before. "You can't make me; I refuse!"
"There's no way in hell I'm kissing that," Keith hissed. "Especially not when you two lied to me!"
"You're telling me!" Lance cried. "And don't call me 'that', asshole!"
"Unfortunately, them's the rules," Hunk said, clearly enjoying this too much. "Tough luck bros, but time to make out."
"Who'd wanna make out with him!" Keith cried angrily. "I bet he's never even kissed someone before! He probably practiced on a stuffed animal or something!"
"Whoa, whoa, I think you're talking about yourself there, Mr. I'm-Emotionally-Distant! On the off chance we do kiss, I'd rock your world!" Lance retorted.
"Oh really now?!" Keith yelled back, his competitive side taking over. "I'd like to see you try!"
Pidge and Hunk shared a glance, both not missing the fact that Keith had basically provoked Lance to do it, a clear sign that kissing Lance was certainly not out of the question like he had claimed. Of course, they had predicted this. What they had failed to predict, however, was that Lance would fall for said provocations.
"Fine then!" The blue paladin cried and without another word had practically jumped over Pidge, pressing his face against Keith's.
It was momentary, obviously, since Lance realized what he had just done about a second afterwards. However, when he went to pull away, he found himself unable to, drawn in by the shocked-yet-watery blue-gray eyes beneath his gaze. Keith was staring at him in confusion, but Lance could see a mixture of different emotions in that stare as well. So he did the practical thing and closed his eyes before his gaze made it awkward. Which really just made things more awkward so Keith closed his eyes too and now they really were kissing, their lips were even moving against each other's as their mouths parted open. Lance was shocked and at the same time… happy…? He had never actually enjoyed kissing girls, their lipstick was always getting smeared on him and they always seemed to want him to lead, and he had had very little experience kissing, so it was always a very awkward experience. But this felt… different. It felt oddly satisfying and actually kinda not-terrible and he was well on his way to trying tongue before a throat was cleared and the two ripped apart like tape off a package.
Shiro had been the one to do it, now averting his gaze, while Pidge and Hunk stared at them in shock. Coran and Allura looked a bit confused, which wasn't surprising considering the past two rounds of spin the bottle hadn't been very long nor passionate- not that they were being passionate, oh no sir, that was not what had just happened, Lance decided, nope, that was just him getting swept away, it didn't mean anything… but it had felt… good? No, no, he wasn't gay, that wasn't good, that was awful, it didn't matter that Keith had looked kind of cute beneath him and that his lips were super soft and smooth and that he wanted to use tongue and maybe he wasn't opposed to kissing him again and- oh fuck it, maybe he was gay. But Keith definitely was, and that made this whole situation much, much, much more awkward, especially since Keith looked like he kind of wanted to go back to kissing Lance too, but there was a game to play, and it was gonna get played by golly, because that was what Lance had decided to do in one of his many, many bored moments and he never went back on a decision, goshdarnit.
So Keith didn't say anything and Lance didn't say anything and the game progressed as Lance considered whether to use that magnet again when it was his turn. He glanced at Keith out of the corner of his eye and grinned. From the look on the red paladin's face, it didn't matter. The continuation of their bonding moment was definitely going to continue no matter what happened in the rest of the game. And hopefully it would be in bed, or was that moving too fast? Nah, just fast enough, Lance decided.
