Chapter 2 Go for it Romeo

"WHAT THE QUIZNAK JUST HAPPENED?!" Lance yells once they are alone in the room again.

"You just volunteered to compete to win Keith as your bride." Pidge said with a smirk.

Not helping… Lance thought. "Why me though?" he asked incredulously still trying to figure out what all just happened after everything they tried to do to make this marriage impossible. How was it that he was now all that stood in the way of Keith and the sound of wedding bells?

"Well you did basically just volunteer like I said, by challenging the King. Besides Keith and Allura clearly have nothing between them romantically, I'm too young to get married and I'm not into Keith thanks, and like Hunk mentioned, Coran's like everyone's uncle so he's out too, plus Hunk already has Shey." Pidge added.

"Hey! Wait, do you really think. I mean um ahahha…." Hunk pipped up and blushed as he let out a nervous laugh.

Lance ignored Hunk trying to wrap his mind around his feelings for his rock girlfriend and focused on Pidge. "But what am I supposed to do? Keith and I are rivals, we practically hate each other!" Lance flailed his arms as if to get his distress across to his friend.

Pidge rolled her eyes at his dramatic antics. "No you don't."

"I-" Lance tries to fight some more but is at a loss. "Fine I don't actually hate him. So what am I supposed to do to make sure that mullet doesn't end up marrying King Playboy here?" Lance asked leaning back against the wall behind him with his arms crossed over his chest.

Allura is confused by the strange term. "Playboy?"

Pidge just waves the question off and focuses on Lance again. "You know Keith; you've got the advantage here. Besides it's not like you actually have to get married, we're just trying to make sure that Keith doesn't marry the king and we still get our alliance formed."

This seemed to calm Lance down at last. "Okay, so who's going to tell Mullet about all this?" Lance asked looking around.

Allura sighed and walked towards the door. "I'll do it. Maybe I can help keep Keith calm about all this."

They all thought that this was a long shot but no one argued.

…

Allura left the guest wing they had been taken to and goes to the room where Keith is after asking for directions and Knocks on the door.

Keith opens the door and Allura sees that he is wearing what appears to be local clothing. The outfit resembles a loose fitted tunic and tights or leggings and is belted at the waist.

"Is that what they gave you to wear? I thought for sure that it would be more… ceremonial." She asks with a raised brow.

Keith looks away and crosses his arms. "I think they were trying to get me to wear a dress, I refused, but they had already taken my clothes after forcing me into a bath so this was what I got instead." He huffed in annoyance.

Allura puts a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing and to hide the grin that's spreading across her face at the image of Keith being given some kind of wedding gown. "I-is that so?" she clears her throat before continuing with what she came here for. "Well I have some news for you regarding this marriage…"

This gets Keith's full attention. "What is it?"

"Well um you see we tried to get the King to reconsider."

Keith looks hopeful for a tick.

"But that didn't work,"

His face fell.

"The others managed to stall by educating the King on Earthly customs for marriage." she said to try and explain what happened in the other room though she didn't fully understand it herself.

Keith looks confused by this.

"And in order to stall the wedding they told him that it was required for the two of you to date first."

Keith's jaw dropped. "What?!"

Allura tries her best to placate him. "I also, um, helped at this point, I told him that there's a possibility of a romantic rivalry and that you would then need to choose between the two suiters to decide whom you are to marry." She tried to grin at him but it wasn't working.

Keith still looked pretty worried. "I don't think I like where this is going…" he said.

"As Pidge put it, Lance volunteered to play role of the romantic rival when he basically challenged the King, so now you are to go on dates with the two of them and then decide which one you will marry!" Allura tried to sound excited and cheerful but it clearly wasn't working.

Keith sputtered at that. "L-L-Lance?!" his face went bright red; so much so you'd think he was trying to become the red lion that he piloted.

"Well as I said, we tried to explain Earth wedding rituals to King Thanton and Lance was very helpful in that regard but nothing the others came up with seemed to bother the King or deter him so I thought I'd help by saying that it was customary on Altea to compete for the hand of another with a romantic rival. Lance had been quite obvious with his displeasure whenever his majesty spoke of marrying you so when Lance had his little outburst we kind of played it to our advantage as best we could." She explained.

Keith was just as flustered as Lance had been when they had sealed the deal with the King; clearly this wasn't something that either of them had imagined coming to pass.

Keith leaned against the door frame with his head in his hands.

Allura tried to comfort him. "We told his majesty that the marriage could not take place if you did not wish for it to, so you don't have to worry about that right now. Unfortunately we will probably be stuck here until you are able to make your decision."

Keith glanced at her for a moment. "Can't I just say that I… uh that I pick Lance and be done with this?" he asked.

"I highly doubt it; I don't think King Thanton is willing to let this go without at least trying. The Maltakians are a proud race and take competition very seriously so he'll want to see this through to the end." she said with a sigh.

"Great… so what exactly am I supposed to do then?" Keith asked crossing his arms once more.

Before Allura could reply a soldier approached them and bowed respectfully before speaking. "Honored guests; the King requests your presence in the dining hall immediately. I shall escort you there."

Allura did her best to smile warmly to the soldier. "Very well."

Keith reluctantly stepped out of the room and the two of them followed their escort to the dining hall where the others were already waiting for them, as well as King Thanton who smiled broadly as they entered the room.

"Ah that Maltakian attire suites you beautifully!" he said as Keith approaches the table after the soldier showed him to his seat.

"Uh thanks…" Keith said as he sat down.

Lance had a look of irritation on his face and leaned over the table as he spoke. "Well I think he looked better in the paladin armor." he said as he glared at King Thanton who paid him no mind.

Allura caught the slight blush on Keith's face though; she turned to Pidge who sat next to her for any information on the situation. "So what did I miss?"

Pidge glanced over in Lance's direction and watched as he stared daggers at King Thanton from his seat next to Keith who was caught between the two. "Well when we were summoned to the dining hall we greeted the King and he insisted that we call him by his name and not his title and then asked more about courtship before he and Lance kind of just went back and forth about who Keith would choose and then you guys were called in." she said as they watched Lance slump back in his chair across the table.

The seating order had Thanton at the head of the table while Keith sat to his right with Lance next to him and Coran beside him, Allura was on the left hand side and Pidge was next to her with Hunk after that.

…

Lance was very thrilled with the seating arrangements because he was next to Keith and could keep an eye on King Playboy to make sure he didn't try anything but had to play along with this whole 'suiter' thing to keep King Playboy here from winning Keith's heart, like that would ever happen but boy was he trying and every word out of his mouth left Lance wanting to roll his eyes, like come on man that's not how you sweet talk someone! But he had to bite his tongue to keep from showing him how it was done because come on this was Keith!

"I must say, the cleansing room did wonders for you, you were quiet impressive before but now you're simply captivating." Thanton said as he leaned on his hand propped on the table as he gazed at Keith.

Lance actually scoffed. "Oh please, besides he looks much better when he's actually dressed comfortably not all gussied up like some medieval Ken doll." Lance said as he picked up his cup to drink some water. He didn't see Keith glance over at him.

"I don't really know what you just said but I'm sure Keith would look good in any attire." Thanton said winking at Keith and Lance nearly choked on his water.

Oh so it's going to be like that huh? Well two can play this game!

"Keith can pull off any look he likes; he's got his own style though that suits him just fine and I think he should stick with it." Lance said as coolly as he could. To be quite honest he really enjoyed knowing that Thanton had yet to see Keith in his everyday clothes and could only guess at what that might look like. Let him keep guessing.

Keith was practically gaping at him since Lance was usually telling him that he dressed like some time-traveler that got lost in a department store clearance sale rack. But he was being completely honest now, Keith had his own style and it really did work for him. Mullet and all.

"Your companions have explained your planet's courtship customs to me and I have planned a wonderful evening for the two of us and I must say it's quite impressive." He flashed a charming smile Keith's way.

Keith looked at the others across the table from him with a raised brow questioning them silently about what courtship customs he was referring to.

"For example I was told that many Earthlings prefer a quiet stroll through a garden or by water in the moonlight and I must admit there is some appeal in that so I will be leading you through the royal gardens to the pools to enjoy the night sky."

Oooh this guy was good and Lance was really steamed about it. "Well I can come up with a totally awesome date too!" Lance said defiantly and felt his face explode with heat at the word date.

"Of course, but I'm sure it doesn't matter because in the end you'll see that I'm the clear choice. Everyone can see that." Thanton said sitting up in his chair as their dinner arrived.

Lance could feel his eye twitch in annoyance by how conceited this guy was. "You do know that there's a really good chance that not everyone in the universe is going to like you right?"

Thanton smirked at that. "It's crossed my mind a time or two but then I remember that I'm amazing and laugh about how silly it was to think something like that!" he let out a laugh before beginning to eat his own dinner.

…

Hunk leaned over and whispered to Pidge. "I think these guys shop for their confidence at the same place."

Pidge shook her head as she inspected her plate. "Actually I think Lance shops at the costume store while this guy goes for Gucci."

Allura shot them a confused look as she sat quietly and watched the way Keith reacted to the 'courtship' he was now the recipient of.

At some point while she was talking to Keith about the little arrangement they had come to with Thanton about the alliance, the others had explained dates to him. They actually seemed similar to things they would have done on Altea.

After dinner Coran was to go along with Keith and Thanton on their date, as a chaperone was required to be there to monitor dates as Pidge had explained.

Once the three of them had left for the gardens Allura had asked for more information on these dating customs and Pidge admitted that those sorts of things were more outdated or precautionary measures that no one really followed anymore except for kids or really traditional families.

"It was really just an excuse to have someone tail them and report back later about how things went; besides I think Coran is enjoying his role as honorary uncle."

She then turned her focus to Lance who hadn't stopped pacing since they had arrived back to the guest wing. "As for you, we still need to put together some kind of 'Totally awesome date' for you and Keith for tomorrow." She said using Lance's own words from earlier. "Come on Romeo, we need to get you your Juliette."

"Actually I think something like Bassanio and Portia from the merchant of Venice or Viola and Duke Orsino or Olivia and Sebastian from Twelfth night would be a better analogy, at least they got together and lived happily ever after, Romeo and Juliette died before they could actually get married." Hunk said sitting cross legged on the rug nearby watching his best friend pace around.

"Fine whatever, the point is we don't want Keith to somehow fall for King Charming." Pidge said.

"Oh come on, I mean how the heck could Keith ever fall for a guy like that!" Lance asked, stopping his pacing and threw his arms up into the air. "Like come on, all he does is talk about how great he is like he's the universe's gift to every living thing out there!" he scoffed. "All that bravado about how he's so great just because he's a King of a planet, big deal. All he does is flirt and talk about himself!"

Allura was confused now, that seemed to just about sum up how Lance acted since she'd met him. She even said as much to Pidge in a hushed tone as Hunk tried to placate Lance.

"Well you see Lance actually just likes to flirt, he'd sooner take a bullet for someone than truly believe that he was hand made by God just to impress people, I actually think it's his own way to keep himself from being hurt, if he comes on too strong from the start people will either say no thanks or they'll laugh it off and think of him as the loveable goofball guy that doesn't like to take life seriously, but truth be told he cares way too much about what people think and would do anything to see someone he cares about happy."

Allura had never thought of it like that, now that she thought about it Pidge did have a point. She'd seen time and time again how willing Lance was to make someone happy with his antics even if they didn't reciprocate his apparent feelings.

"Lance may act like a flirtatious goofball but he really doesn't want to see anyone get hurt or do something against their will, like Keith having to get married to some alien King when he's never shown any really obvious signs of liking anyone before, though if you ask me given time I think there could be something there. Not between Keith and Thanton I mean, Keith just seems like the type to like to take things slow and grow to like someone, so honestly my gac is on Lance."

Allura sat back and quietly observed Lance planning something 'totally awesome' with Hunk and thought about just how emotionally complex humans could be, this was going to be an interesting experience for them all she was sure.

I honestly meant for this story to be funny and lead to lovey dovey stuff but the more I wright the deeper it gets, either it's my emo side or the Langst getting to me but this is getting deep.

Anyway I think this is mainly going to be Lance, Allura, Keith, and Thanton's POV. Lance discovering his feelings, Keith growing in love, Thanton totally captivated, and Allura as the observer while we get input from the others to kinda just explain things.

Please let me know what you think!