Written for Day 4 of Voltron Fluff Week - prompt: Movie Night/Game Night.
This is admittedly a rather loose interpretation of the prompt (basketball is a game, but not usually a 'game night' one) but the idea jumped me and wouldn't leave me alone!
"What is going on?" Allura asked as she heard the sounds of her Paladins running about on the training deck, interspersed with laughter and shrieks.
Coran stepped aside, gesturing towards the deck below, and Allura stepped forward to look. "Basketball." Coran said. "Or some version of it, at least. They said they couldn't play it properly here."
Allura nodded, watching the Paladins fight over a large ball that bounced energetically off the floor, walls, and other Paladins' heads when thrown at them. She stifled a laugh as Shiro paused to admonish Pidge about her usage of elbows and the ball hit him squarely in the chest.
Keith laughed, and ducked away as Shiro returned fire with the ball, evading the strike.
"What is the objective?" Allura asked, leaning forwards and bracing her forearms on the narrow edge of the console under the window. As Coran explained what he had gleaned, she watched the Paladins run circles around each other, dodging and jumping, passing the ball around and throwing it towards the dangling goal hoop.
It was being supported by what appeared to be a small, repurposed drone designed to circle Paladins and fire upon them for drills. Currently the drone was drifting around the training deck in a narrow vertical range, usually slowly, occasionally still, with a large metal circle suspended from it. Allura thought it looked like a spare piece of pipe.
Pidge bent her knees to jump, then stopped, stretching upwards, the ball held between her hands over her head. She scowled.
"How am I supposed to reach the goal way up there?" Pidge complained, ducking away from Hunk as he reached for the ball she held. She bounced it against the floor, darted back around Hunk, and caught the ball again as she ran away.
"Guess you can't, short stuff!" Lance teased as he lunged in to try and steal the ball.
"Pidge!" Shiro called, tilting his head and beckoning her to him. He crouched, and Pidge let out an unholy shriek that had taken Allura a few exposures before identifying it as a human sound of happiness - Lance's was even worse - and ran to him, jumping and climbing up to sit on his shoulders.
Shiro steadied her with his hands curling around her knees, and Pidge held the ball up high as he carried her towards the goal. She tossed the ball through it easily, and Keith snagged it as it rebounded off the wall nearby, twisting and ducking away from Lance, who had gone for it at the same time.
"No fair!" Lance yelped, pointing at Pidge. "Shiro, come on, how is that fair!"
"It looks a little like playing against an Unilu might." Allura commented, lips twitching, as Pidge intercepted the ball Keith had just thrown and dropped it down into Shiro's hands. Shiro grinned and threw it over Hunk's head, sending it soaring neatly through the goal hoop.
"Hunk!" Lance called, drawing himself up, and Allura watched curiously. Lance flung himself at his fellow Paladin, sprawling over Hunk's back. Hunk laughed, but helped Lance get up to sit on his shoulders - though the manoeuvre was much more ungainly than tiny Pidge perching on Shiro's shoulders.
"Haha!" Lance said, pointing accusingly at Pidge again. "Cheaters' advantage lost!"
Keith, Allura noticed, had fallen back out of their way - he'd been near Hunk when Lance started to climb him - and was just staring at his fellow Paladins in a way that made Allura guess this was not a traditional part of 'basketball'.
"By . . . cheating?" Keith asked, and Lance gave him a comically overblown look of shock.
"Cheating? Why Keith! This is just evening the playing field!" Lance protested.
Keith slipped close by Shiro as he bounced the ball against the floor, snagging it away as soon as he began to throw it. Pidge yelled something unintelligible and Keith laughed, losing his hold on the ball, which bounced towards Hunk.
He bounced it harder, letting it rebound up to Lance's hands, and he crowed as he shot it right past Pidge - close enough to ruffle her hair with the breeze of its passage - through the goal hoop.
Pidge yelped and Shiro patted her knee as he went after the ball, throwing it back up towards the hoop but missing as Pidge slipped and resettled herself on his shoulders.
Keith caught it, and then, to Allura's surprise, loped right past the goal hoop, circling around Hunk and Lance to wind up in front of them again.
Keith stretched out on his belly, cheek resting on Lance's shoulder. "Thank you for not jumping on me today. When we were playing basketball." he clarified.
Lance did enjoy a good round of jumping on Keith, with a good excuse - reason - but he thought he'd made the right call for his ride today. Except-"You could have thanked me by not throwing the ball at me so hard I crashed to the ground." he pointed out.
Keith sighed sleepily, snuggling into Lance's shoulder and curling his arm a little tighter around Lance's waist. His heart fluttered and he trailed a hand up and down Keith's back.
"I play to win." Keith half-mumbled against his shoulder, not bothering to lift his head, and Lance snorted.
"Truer words, querido." Lance agreed, shaking his head fondly as a dozen instances of his boyfriend's actions more than confirming that flitted through his memory. "Perhaps I should just be grateful you didn't aim it at my face."
"Wouldn't hit you in the face." Keith sounded funny, and when Lance craned his neck to look down at his boyfriend, his thick brows were drawn together. "Could get hurt."
"Crashing to the ground wasn't the most fun either." Lance told him - true; he had a couple of bruises - and waited to see if Keith would respond again. Arguing with Keith when he was half-asleep was a pleasure Lance really hadn't seen coming - if comfortable where he was, he got mildly confused and very entertaining when he was mostly asleep.
He was evidently too far gone now, though. "Catch you." he mumbled, possibly in response to Lance saying 'crashing', but there was nothing more forthcoming.
Lance trailed his hand down his boyfriend's back again and closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth of Keith halfway draped over his chest.