You don't NEED to have read Hot Like Magenta to get this fic since that one's pure porn, but the very END there AFTER the porn I go into some details about Keith's whole... breeding cycle. And also, if you have not read it but read the smut in THIS fic, you will... be very confused. So confused. I's xenoporn, guys. I write alien sex.

OK ANYWAY so this is a fuck-off fic for my to have fun with so updates with be sporadic and of no particular length, I have only a few vague actual plans for his story, and uh... All the comedy and porn starts in chapter 2. Have fun everybody.

Work Text:

It started, unusually enough, on Earth.

Keith had come down on vacation, visiting Lance's family for what now amounted to the fourth time in their marriage. Not that Lance didn't want to come more often, but even with the war technically officially over, the work the legendary Defender of the Universe never ceased. From Zarkon to Lotor to Haggar, to general after general after general, the Galra had no short supply of commanders to take over their ten thousand year old empire. Which meant that the paladins of Voltron were pretty officially locked into this profession for life, slowly cleaning up the universe damn near planet-by-planet from the way it felt sometimes.

Still, they could hardly live in space a hundred percent of the time, and what with Earth's governments finally acknowledging Voltron's existence when the entirety of Denmark watched them fight off a Galran battleship, that left them with an open excuse to swing by and visit everybody's families when they could in the name of diplomacy. Usually these lasted only a few days at best, but ever since their honeymoon Lance had managed to convince Allura that he and Keith would be much more efficient soldiers if they got two solid weeks without engaging in active combat once in awhile.

Of course, Keith had naturally already met Lance's family before they got married, but that wasn't the same as actively staying at his mother's house for a week(1.). Keith…. wasn't used to this many. Well, human beings, to be honest. Keith wasn't used to dealing with humans.

And not even because he was an alien himself, either. For one Lance had told everyone that little fact pretty much the same time he'd announced that the piloted a giant robotic lion, and the general viewpoint seemed to be that Lance dating an alien was probably the least strange thing about it all. It also helped that within just a few months of his body turning Galra Allura had managed to figure out how to use her own magic to turn him back, even if it was so inefficiently that he still tended to transform again whenever he got exhausted like his body had decided that this strange half-galran purple shape was the one it was supposed to be in, after all. Years of casting the same spell over and over and Allura finally figured out how to magic him up so that he could turn back and forth without her, and voila. Lance's family had never even seen Keith's other body. Probably even forgot he wasn't human all together.

No, the reason Keith was bad with humans was because he had always been bad with them, and lack of exposure over the last five years in a space war hadn't helped. Needless to say, staying in a house with four generations of McClain progeny constantly wandering in and out, even if three people only officially lived there, took some getting used to.

Especially since three out of the eight times Keith had met Lance's brother Merle, they'd gotten into a fist fight. Fortunately the entire family's view on that seemed to be "well then Merle should have been less of a dick, huh?" So no one had held any grudges besides Merle who, as mentioned, was kind of a dick.

Merle aside, Keith found the members of Lance's family he related to most easily were the kids. And thank god for that really, because Lance's siblings apparently viewed their visits as a week of free babysitting so if he HADN'T liked the kids there'd have been a huge problem what with the constant gaggle of them he and his husband were swarmed in.

Lance of course, lived for this kind of stuff. Had probably volunteered them for this himself, seemed to want nothing more out of life than having a pair of nieces swinging off his arms. It helped that the kids loved him too, of course.

They had also, to Keith's utter astonishment, seemed to have taken to him, as well. He and anyone under about ten or so shared a uniting incomprehension of human social behaviors, and in turn became the only adult around any of them actually understood. He had even been caught arguing for their side against a parent, even if it was only because he was pretty sure if a little girl wanted to wander around in clown makeup and a plastic fireman's hat she should be allowed that personal expression, even to school and not just at home. He had lost this argument, but either way he went from 'Uncle Lance's weird husband' to 'Uncle Keith' somewhere around that same day.

Which led him to where he ended up on this trip. Namely, sitting on the floor with aforementioned personally expressive little girl perched on the couch behind him playing with his hair. He'd let it grow long, not so much because he himself liked it as much as the fact that the only way to prevent Lance from complaining about how Keith cut his hair was to have Lance do it himself, and Lance apparently had a thing because he only ever trimmed it. Keith tended to wear it up most of the time; it had gotten to the point where leaving it down left sort of a wild-man impression. Before Keith had gotten used to needing to shave every day and tended to let his beard grown in wildly and at random, he had been on Earth for a visit, and he'd stumbled on Lance's youngest brother's new girlfriend when he'd had his hair down. Her reaction to his unexpected presence had been to ask why Genghis Khan was eating peanut butter out of the jar in the McClain kitchen. His first thought was that that had been kind of racist, until he'd caught sight of a mirror and realized that he did in fact see how he could be mistaken for a Mongolian warlord and had made a note to make shaving part of his morning routine from then on.

Elaine at least, seemed to be quite fond of his hair regardless. She had spent the last half hour poorly un- and re-braiding it, tiny clumsy fingers tugging painfully at his scalp with her enthusiastic weaving. He didn't mind playing along with her for a while, but nonetheless when her cousin Kay scurried in with a baseball bat and a grin asking Keith to pitch for him he was relieved to have an excuse to remove himself from her grips.

As soon as he confirmed with Elaine that his hair was now adequately magnificent and stood up, Kay began celebrating, swinging his bat enthusiastically as he darted towards the porch door and nearly nailing his sister Trista in the head on the way.

"Don't swing the bat in the house like that," Keith scolded automatically, causing a sheepish backwards look from Kay. Keith used the fact that the boy was actually looking at him to nod towards Trista with a firm, "And apologize to your sister for almost hitting her."

Kay scratched the back of his head with a sheepish grin, belting out a fast sorry to his exasperated little sister and dashing out the door with his plastic bat curled around his little fist a his side.

And it was somewhere around then that all the pieces in his mind started drifting together and clicking into place. Starting with: "Well shit, that was easy. He really listened and apologized, just like that." Keith didn't know why, but somehow he'd gotten the impression it was a lot harder to get kids to listen than it was actually proving to be.

They'd gotten outside and started playing, but Keith's mind had already began to drift. It didn't help that the moment they got onto the lawn it became apparent just where his husband had wandered off to, because Lance was planted in yellowed grass to soak up the sunlight he had been so sorely missing. With of course, his niece Isolde and a pair of gameboys.

But what was distracting about Lance was not the nine year old beating him at Mario Kart. What Keith couldn't unnotice was the baby on Lance's lap, his nephew Gwaine's tiny face buried against Lance's shoulder as he napped there without a care in the world. He was just sort of holding a baby, so casually like he wasn't even thinking about it; natural as if he could live his entire life with a kid in one arm and not even notice.

God, he really would have made such a wonderful father, wouldn't he? Lance loved them so much, and was so great with them. Well of course; he'd been so good at taking care of Keith all this time, hadn't he? Caring for people was jus in his nature. It was such a shame he only got to see his nieces and nephews twice a year at best, he knew his husband would just love to have kids around to play with all the time.

"Uncle Keith, stop daydreaming, we're in the middle of a game! Throw me another pitch! " Kay whined, swinging his whiffle bat meaningfully.

Keith blinked, and not quite back to reality yet, obeyed without thinking. Fortunately the ball was plastic and filled with holes, because otherwise there might have been some damage when Keith lobbed the ball with all his force, whizzing past his surprised nephew's face to bounce off a sedan door.

Keith winced, and Lance burst out laughing off to his side. "Keith, he's seven years old! How the hell was he supposed to hit that?"

"Do it again!" Kay instantly demanded. "Throw me one like that again, I bet I can hit it! Bet a million dollars, I'll knock it out of the park!"

The smile that curled across Keith's lips was automatic, warm affection blooming in his chest. Sounded just like a tiny Lance when he talked like that. Actually, he looked like Lance too, but that was hardly surprising considering how much Lance himself resembled the brother who'd fathered Kay in the first place. Still, it made Keith wonder if this is what Lance had been like when he was a little boy. Made him wonder about if Lance had a son of his own, and how much like his father he might turn out.

Even once he'd forced himself back into the game and forgotten that odd train of thought, the idea itself refused to entirely leave. It didn't help of course that pretty much the moment they had a break in playing he'd had Gwen's baby unceremoniously dumped into his arms, which, did Lance not realize this was a baby and Keith had, up to this point, been trying to avoid holding this thing? What if he dropped it?!

Lance only smiled at him reassuringly as he ran back into the house to pee. Keith looked down at the baby. The baby looked back up at him. Hesitantly, Keith one fingertip to Gwaine's tiny nose. "Boop."

Gwaine went cross eyed trying to look at his finger, then blinked a couple times and looked back up at Keith.

The baby smiled. Keith fell in love instantly.

He could have this, Keith suddenly realized with a start, looking at the child in his arms with awe. He could have a baby of how own. He could have Lance's baby. Good lord, that couldn't be right, could it? Like, technically he had known for years that his Galran body was capable of getting pregnant, but he'd thought of it as more something to be cautious about than…. Than… The actual possibility of having a child. The thought had never been able to compute - he'd been male his whole life and he'd been gay his whole life and he'd been alone his whole life; he hadn't resigned himself to the fate of never having children as much as just always thought of it as something that didn't apply to his life in the first place. The newly dawning knowledge that that wasn't so, that this was something he could have for his own life, that this was something he might even want was… Jarring. Flooring, even.

But no, it didn't matter even if he did want it. They were still in the middle of a space war, for god's sake. Nothing was LESS practical than trying to raise a baby in that. Just because something was technically possible didn't mean it wasn't still completely impossible. The very idea was absurd.

Hell, even if they hadn't been at war it would still be a bad idea. Lance may be father material but Lance wouldn't be the only father; the kid would still be half Keith . And Keith was the last person cut out to be a parent. He'd never had any himself for god's sake, what the hell did HE know about being a parent?

Hell, even just contributing his genes to this mess was a recipe for disaster. The kid would be a quarter Galra and half crazy, he couldn't even begin to picture the mish-mash of personality disorders he and Lance would cocktail into.

This was fine. Keith only thought he could handle kids because he saw them one week a year. It was best to just do like Lance and enjoy the short time they spent on Earth, pretending to be normal.

Lance returned and Keith reluctantly handed back Gwaine, a seven-year-old excited at his side eager to resume their game.

Or, the other side of his brain offered as he returned to pitching slightly unreasonable pitches at a child, sometimes kids don't turn out anything like either one of his parents. Just look at Kay - his father Merle was one of the most pretentious jackases Keith had ever met in his life and this kid had come up an angel. Well. More angelic than Merle, anyway.

Almost to spite himself, Keith was already trying to imagine it. What WOULD a kid of theirs really turn out like? Would they be loving and friendly like Lance? Straightforward and determined like Keith? Competitive and obsessive like both of them? Would they be strong-willed? Confident?

A son of his own… A life that Keith had created and nurtured until they grew into… who knows what. Someone good, hopefully. Someone who knew the weight of war, certainly.

Whiiiich brought Keith back to why having kids was a terrible idea. God, what had he been thinking, letting himself carry on like that. He couldn't believe he'd let that stupid spark of… some stupid hope that he could actually give Lance the family he deserved.

By the time Kay had finally had enough of Keith and gotten distracted with something else, Keith had managed to banish the thought from his mind almost entirely. And since the concept was so foreign to begin with, he didn't even think about it for nearly the rest of the trip, truth be told.

Except…

Except for that night. That night, as they went to bed, when Lance curled up around Keith with his arms around him… It wasn't that weird of a way for them to fall asleep. Lance liked to cuddle but always flopped onto his back at some point while he was asleep, so Keith didn't tend to be the big spoon often because he didn't particularly enjoy being suddenly piledrived onto his back to be crushed by his husband in the middle of the night.

So nothing had been particularly weird, because they slept like this a lot. And Keith had been warm and comfortable, curled up on a worn guest room mattress with Lance's arms heavy around his side, drifting slowly into sleep. And then Lance had shifted behind him, burying his face into Keith's hair with a snuffle and wiggling until he'd unwrapped from Keith a little, his hand winding up splayed over his stomach where before it had been curled loosely on the bed. And… that was it, actually. Just Lance's hand, resting unconsciously on Keith's belly. And for some reason he wasn't so relaxed anymore.

He could feel his heartbeat suddenly, and was all too aware of the feel of it gradually speeding up. Lance's arms around him had become a foreign weight, and out of nowhere Keith felt almost awkward. Nervous, like the first time they'd shared a bed to sleep. And far, far too aware of Lance's hand on his body, resting with unconscious possessiveness low on his stomach.

It was stupid, really. Keith had no reason to react that way; no reason for his body to suddenly take notice of something that had happened a thousand times before. But… It was just so easy . So stupidly, pathetically easy to imagine what it would be like. His belly swollen with their child, and Lance's hand right there on top of it. There wasn't even any question about it; Keith knew Lance, and he knew that every single night he'd want to fall asleep like this, wrapped protectively around Keith and their child.

It was harder to breathe now, and Keith realized he was shaking. He opened his mouth to take in deeper breaths of air, trying to calm himself and ignore this strange ocean-heavy swell of longing rising in his chest to steal all the air from his lungs. He didn't need this. He didn't need this and he wasn't crying, he was just… Hormonal. He was still in estrus, and knowing him was likely to break out in another heat spell the instant they got home to the castle. He just needed to pull himself together, and in a few months when he wasn't in heat anymore everything would be back to normal and this whole thing will seem ridiculous. Keith had never wanted kids before, why would he change his mind just because he had gotten older? And married. And in a stable living situation. And would… and would be the one nurturing a life inside himself for the better part of a year, in his own body, with the person who had already given Keith more happiness than he'd ever known he was capable of...

"Keith?" Lance murmured sleepily, unwinding his arm to rub a soothing line up and down the length of Keith's shaking arm. "S'mthin wrong?"

A shaky sigh escaped from Keith's open lips, and he shook his head minutely. "Just cold."

"Y're too used t'space," Lance slurred like it was supposed to be scolding. Either way he just pulled Keith closed back to his chest again, even going so far as to fling a long leg over Keith's, apparently in an attempt to make himself into some sort of human blanket.

Lance was back asleep in seconds, and Keith felt himself smile into his pillow. This was enough, he told himself firmly. Keith loved everything about his life and wouldn't change anything.

He didn't need more.

But maybe, he finally admitted to himself in the last moments before falling asleep. But maybe he wanted it anyway.

(1.)The other five days of their trip being involving a reserved hotel room, where the two of them had started off their vacation off with a bang by letting Keith's heat run for two days in the name of devoting a solid forty-eight hour block to rolling in bedsheets. The next three days were pretty much just to recover from the last two. It was, they both determined, totally worth it.