I was asked on both here and AO3 if this was finished. The answer is no and I have no idea when it would be finished because I just write on this every time I can think of something to write about. It's very difficult since every chapter is about 4 scenes.
They were all guarding their Earth belongings with great vigor. Of course, most of their belongings were just the clothes on their backs when they had left the atmosphere but they had a bit more than just that. Keith had his dagger, Pidge had her computer, and Lance had brought nail care and pictures in his pockets. That vain bastard.
It had been so long since they had seen Earth that just looking at Lance's pictures were more than enough to entertain everyone in the group. Allura and Coran joined for a while but lost interest before long and left the paladins alone in the lounge.
"Hey, Lance, what's that on your arm?" Pidge asked as she looked closely at one of the pictures.
"Hm?" Lance hummed and looked over to the picture in Pidge's hand. "Oh, that's my tattoo."
"You have a tattoo?" Pidge asked while Shiro simply sent Lance a raised eyebrow and slightly widened eyes.
Lance took a second look at the picture and blushed when he saw how proud he looked as he pointed at his naked bicep decorated with a black, Korean sign.
"How have I not noticed that before?" Pidge asked herself but still loud enough for everyone to hear.
"It was just a temporary tattoo, okay?" Lance asked and refused to meet anyone's eyes.
"You got multiple pictures of yourself with a temporary tattoo?" Pidge deadpanned while Hunk tried to keep his suppressed laughter secret from Lance.
"Yeah, okay! It's silly. Ha ha. But maybe I'll get it for real one day," Lance said defensively.
Keith stretched so he could take a look at the picture. Lance was wearing a wife beater and a snapback and looked like a huge douchebag. His only saving grace was the huge smile on his lips that made him look more like a little kid than a fuckboy.
"I don't think you should do that," Keith told Lance quietly.
"And why now? It means 'strong' or 'powerful' and that's pretty much me!" Lance retorted.
Maybe the lines and two circles actually meant that and maybe not. Keith knew as little Korean as the average American did but he could have some fun with this.
"It does describe you well, but it doesn't mean that at all," Keith responded calmly. Maybe too calmly but Keith had never claimed that he was the best liar in the Universe but he hoped he was a good enough one to fool Lance once again.
"Sure." Lance rolled his eyes before continuing, "and what does it mean then?"
"It means," Keith hesitated for a moment to think of what to say but looked at the picture while doing it in the hope that the others would just think he was reading the symbols again. Well, Shiro wouldn't think so as he knew how bad Keith was at every Asian language and he couldn't even read one bit of Japanese even though he knew some words of that.
"It means," Keith started again when too much time had already passed "Dumb American."
Keith leaned away from the picture to get further away from Lance. "So it describes you pretty well."
"What!" Lance exclaimed and looked at first Hunk then Pidge for help. When they just answered with a shrug each, he looked at Shiro and Keith was ready to be ratted out when he caught a glimpse of Lance's teary, wide-eyed and all in all pathetic expression. Not to mention that Keith already knew that Shiro was a big, fat traitor.
"Is it true, Shiro?" Lance asked.
Shiro sent Keith a glance and Keith was ready to leave. He wasn't about to stay and see not only Shiro betraying him but probably also his whole operation of agitating Lance go up in flames.
"I wouldn't know, Lance. Keith," Shiro sent Keith another glance at that "is the one who knows Korean."
"It's Korean?" Lance asked and looked away in his confusion. Keith had to look away too before he killed Lance with a death glare.
"Yes, it is," Shiro confirmed slowly so everyone could understand. "And it seems to say you're a dumb American."
Keith looked back at Shiro and saw him looking completely calm everywhere except his eyes that showed how much he enjoyed watching Lance splutter in an attempt to defend himself and tell the others that he was in fact not a dumb American.
Keith found Lance in the lounge again the day after looking at the picture of the past Lance in his douche clothes and shit-eating smile. The current Lance however was looking every forlorn and Keith almost regretted lying to Lance about the meaning of the temporary tattoo. It probably didn't mean anything good but at least there was a chance and Lance would probably have lost interest in the tattoo by the time they returned to Earth. If they ever returned to Earth.
"I'm not even American," Lance mumbled.
"You're not?" Keith asked and Lance jumped at the sound of his voice.
Lance furrowed his eyebrows. It was puzzling to Keith, either he was or he wasn't.
"I kind of am and kind of am not," Lance settled on and just confused Keith even further.
"You're one of those illegal border jumpers or something?" Keith asked and realized his racist mistake before Lance had sent him a dry and unamused look.
"No, Keith," Lance forced out between his clenched teeth. "Are you fresh off the boat?"
"No," Keith answered and almost wanted to pat his shoulder for only sounding sorry and not insulted.
"Well, then stop asking me stuff like that, you Texan chink!" Lance shouted and breathed heavily as he glared at Keith.
"Call me that one more time and you'll never say anything ever again," Keith promised Lance sternly and clenched his fists both to show Lance that he was serious and in an attempt to control himself. "And I'm not Chinese. Probably."
Lance deflated. "Okay, I'm sorry."
Keith searched Lance's face for any insincerity and gave him a curt nod when he found none.
Doing paladin work was dangerous no matter how reckless or cautious one was but Keith was sometimes just tempting fate. He was looking Death right in the eyes and mooning him. If Death ever found the roof of his house under a blanket of toilet paper, it would be from Keith. Used toilet paper after he had drunk a gallon of milk so his shit would be really runny and disgusting.
So watching Keith laugh about it was agitating for everyone involved. Even the mice huffed and found refuge in Allura's long, white hair when she let it down. It wasn't really that Keith found the situation he had just come out of funny. Well, the adrenaline did make it somewhat enjoyable but it was mostly just pend up relief. It was just a shame no one else seemed to know it.
"Keith, that was really dangerous," Shiro scolded.
Keith was still laughing but he made a visible effort to calm himself down.
"Sorry, Shiro," he got out somewhat comprehensible. He let out a quick chuckle and finally got over his fit of laughter.
"I thought you knew better than that," Shiro said quietly. Keith flinched. It would have been far less effective if Shiro had shouted instead of sounding so disappointed and almost grieving.
"I'm sorry, okay?" Keith answered with a downturned mouth and furrowed eyebrow. He sighed when Shiro just kept staring at him and Keith continued, "But nothing happened."
"But something could have!" a voice yelled. Keith was looking at Shiro who still had his mouth shut and the voice didn't sound like Shiro's but he had expected Shiro to know telepathy before hearing Lance sound both furious and worried about something Keith had done.
Lance turned Keith halfway around with one hand on each of his shoulders and looked so much like he was about to give Keith a head butt that Keith closed his eyes for a second to prepare himself for the impact and only opened them in wonder when he wasn't hit with anything.
"What the fuck were you thinking!?" Lance yelled and shook Keith's entire body.
"Nothing!" Keith yelled back but with far less fire than Lance.
"Exactly! You never think about anything!" Lance was panting with anger. "Didn't it cross your mind that we like you far better alive than dead, you piece of shit? Or are you really that brainless that something like that would never occur to you?"
Keith kept looking blankly at Lance as he took in Lance's words. Was he telling Keith that he liked him alive? As in, he didn't dislike him? He sure tried to make Keith's life miserable a lot for him to like him one bit, but then again, Keith wasn't much better himself.
Lance exhaled loudly and said with wide eyes as he shook his head at Keith, "You're unbelievable, you know that?"
"I hate you so much," Lance continued and let Keith's shoulders go.
"Well fuck you too, Lance," Keith said and narrowed his eyes in both annoyance and in thought as he tried to figure out what Lance's deal was.
Lance turned to walk away from Keith and the others but stopped in his tracks. "If you ever do that again," he said and turned around before continuing with a firm finger pointed towards Keith, "I will kill you."
Keith found it smarter to not answer that. Killing him would kind of defeat the purpose but he got the message behind the threat.
The team had received some spices from a very grateful planet that had been saved by them just a day after the first Galra reached their planet.
Keith had been looking forward to dinner just as much as the rest of the castle had. Coran still wanted to make the food but the paladins, luckily, outvoted him. Allura had been more or less neutral. She probably liked Coran's traditional, Altean food better but she liked Hunk's food too and the absence of complains when it wasn't Coran cooking was a plus.
They sat at the table. Allura at the end of it and the rest of the team on one side of the table. Keith still didn't understand why no one was sitting on the other side of the table. It would make it a lot easier to hear everyone, but he wasn't bothered enough to say anything.
The food was brought in. It steamed and looked almost appetizing with its light brown color and meatloaf-like appearance. The glassy look of it didn't entirely agree with Keith's senses and it appealed much less to him when Hunk cut it and it looked far more squishy than before but most food since he left Earth didn't appeal to any senses so he couldn't very well be too picky if he didn't want to die of starvation.
Everyone got a plateful and Keith brought his spork down to take some of the gooey dinner when Lance came with a surprised yelp on Keith's right side and he stopped bringing the food to his mouth so he could look at Lance instead.
"Are you okay, man?" Hunk asked.
"No, no, I was just not expecting it to be so spicy," Lance assured his friend.
Hunk widened his eyes as he asked, "I didn't make it too spicy, did I?"
"What?" Lance looked properly at Hunk instead of focusing half of his attention on his abused tongue. "No, I'm Cuban. Maybe it would be too spicy if I was Keith."
Hunk looked past Lance to look at Keith with less worried but still slightly widened eyes. "Is it okay for you, Keith? I don't know how used you are to spicy food."
Keith was so close to ask Hunk how he could possibly know if it was too spicy for him before he had had a single bite when Lance started crying out before anyone else had a chance to say anything, but he didn't comment on Lance's unmanly squeak and answered Hunk, "I'm sure it's fine."
Pidge took a bite on Hunk's other side and breathed out heavily. Hunk turned around to look at her. Keith couldn't see Hunk's expression but he could guess how he looked based on how he sounded, "Pidge, are you okay?"
Pidge nodded jaggedly and made vaguely agreeing sounds.
Keith was about to just give up on trying the food when Lance put another sporkful into his mouth and breathed out heavy but not nearly as heavily as Pidge had and looked Keith right in the eyes as he showed that he could eat the food. It was a challenge and Keith would rather die than let Lance win.
He looked down at his own spork to make sure there was still something on it, there was, and brought it back to his mouth. Keith hesitated for a second as he saw Pidge down a huge glass of milk they had gotten from Kaltenecker, but then Lance smiled smugly and Keith couldn't have that and brought the food into his mouth.
Itwas really spicy, but if there was one thing Keith learned the 6 months he stayed with an Indian family with a love for spices, it was to ignore the pain and just continue eating and sometime along the way of staying with them, his taste buds died just enough for him to enjoy their food. His stomach had taken longer and Keith lost almost two stones after his mouth became used to the food but it too adapted itself eventually.
This food would have been spicy enough to make Mr. Khatri, his former foster father, laugh and tell his wife, "Ritsika, you've been far too liberal with the spices!". Or Mr. Khatri would probably say the specific spices since he had known it 99% of the time but Keith could never remember the names of all the spices he had tasted. However, this level of spiciness wouldn't be enough for them to deem it inedible.
Lance looked at Keith with disbelieving and impressed eyes when Keith simply lifted his eyebrows half a centimeter at the taste but otherwise didn't react.
"Spicy enough for you, Mullet?" Lance asked.
Keith had no idea what Lance wanted now. They had just figured out that they both could eat the food without too much fuss when they were prepared on it being hot.
"Like I said to Hunk," Hunk looked up at them at the sound of his name, "it's fine."
"I don't know," Lance said and sent Keith a cocky smile. Keith knew it had some kind of meaning from the way Hunk reacted but Keith didn't know exactly what it meant.
"You really don't have to," Hunk told them hurriedly.
"Don't you want some more flavor in it?" Lance asked and both looked and sounded innocent. Okay, Keith knew what Lance wanted now. He should just be the bigger man and make Shiro proud instead of letting Shiro's stare turn more and more irritated the longer Keith didn't answer Lance with a big no.
"Sure, do you want some more too?" Keith asked as innocently as a stripper that was late on rent and felt Shiro's intense stare burn holes in him from the seat next to him.
Lance's smile turned into something more alike the Cheshire Cat. "Oh, I just didn't want to take it all. It wouldn't be fair to you."
"Of course," Keith replied, as he looked at Lance stand up to fetch the spices from the kitchen.
"Keith, just admit it's too spicy for both of you," Shiro sighed.
"No, Shiro, don't ruin this for me!" Pidge protested. "There's no TV in space and watching the idiots burn their faces off is the next best thing."
"Fine," Shiro sighed dejectedly and bended his neck. Keith looked at him and saw Shiro trying to hide his amusement. He looked back at the others and wondered how he could be the only one not fooled by a poser like Shiro.
All such thoughts however was ruined by Lance walking into the room with a small, transparent bag filled with red spices and a bottle filled with purple liquid.
"What do you wanna try today?" he asked with a shit-eating grin.
"Whatever was in the food I guess," Keith shrugged.
Both Keith and Lance turned their eyes on Hunk who made an unsure sound in the back of his throat.
Allura sat up straighter. "You didn't put both things in the food, did you?" she asked.
"Yes? It tasted fine separately so I just thought…" Hunk stopped talking and looked at her with a devastated expression. "I haven't poisoned them or anything, right?"
"No, no," Allura giggled but still pushed her bowl of food away from her. "They just… enhance each other's taste and I now understand why you reacted like Altean children."
They waited for her to say something else but after a few ticks Lance lost interest and shook both the bottle and the small bag. "You ready for some flavor?"
"Sure," Keith mumbled and looked warily at Lance's hands as they added a few crushed, dry leaves and a few drops from the bottle on both of their plates.
"No, guys, don't! That's too much," Hunk tried to stop them but Lance looked challengingly at Keith and sealed both their fates. Keith was not backing out now and Lance too had too much pride to back out without a fight.
They mixed their food and ruined the little firmness their food had had. It was now a darker shade of brown and Keith felt a flicker of doubt as he heard Allura shush Hunk and saw her amused stare in the corner of his eye, but he couldn't back out now and pretended nothing was wrong.
Lance and he brought their food to their mouths simultaneously and looked at each other to see any weaknesses in the other. It was so hot Keith thought his mouth would burn off. He would probably never taste anything again and his throat was sure to have a giant hole in it when dinner was over.
Keith felt the blood rush to his face and he knew his pale face didn't do anything to hide the blush but he still felt like he had the upper hand as Lance's eyes started to become glassy and a single tear ran down Lance's cheek before it was stopped his hand halfway down.
They swallowed and Keith barely succeeded in hiding how much his mouth burned. Fuck lactose intolerance, Keith would drink some milk to get rid of the burning sensation in a heartbeat.
"Is it too much for you?" Lance asked and somehow it both made it better and worse that Lance looked like he had just cried.
"No, it was pretty mild," Keith replied and hoped Lance wouldn't see though his bullshit.
"For sure," Lance answered and put a bit more from both the bag and the bottle on each lump of food. His hands shook as he did so but Keith didn't feel the need to comment on that.
They mixed and took another sporkful. Keith could still feel all the eyes in the room on them as they looked at each other with firm mouths and sharp stares. Both of them wanted to appear fearless and like they were just waiting on the other to collect his courage when the truth was that they both wished for the other to forfeit.
Keith brought his spork in front of his mouth and Keith closed his eyes and prepared himself to endure another mouthful of fire.
Keith heard someone's spork touch a bowl and was sure it was Lance taking another bite and not even Zarkon could prevent him from taking another sporkful of torture. He closed his eyes even tighter in concentration so he wouldn't spit the goo of fire out of his poor, abused mouth.
"Aww, come on!" Lance exclaimed loudly when Keith had put the brown goo in his mouth. "How can you keep going!?"
Lance threw his spork on the table and Keith realized Lance hadn't been taking another bite. He looked just past him and saw Pidge smile wickedly as she sat in front of a bowl with a spork in it. Keith cursed himself for not leaving the rest of them behind when he had saved Shiro on his hover bike back on Earth. They didn't deserve happiness with how they were treating him. Shiro sniggered on the other side of Keith and he corrected himself and concluded that everyone, beside himself, deserved to burn in hell. Even Coran for having great camaraderie with both Lance and Allura.
"Eating spicy food is my thing!" Lance scolded. "It's in my blood and you can't have it!" Lance looked far more devastated than Keith thought he was but it wasn't directly Lance's fault as the tears was at fault for most of it.
"He kind of already did, Lance," Hunk informed him.
"Hunk, you are supposed to be on my side, you traitor," Lance sulked before leaving the room to go to the kitchen.
"Bring some milk for Keith too," Hunk commanded and Keith decided Hunk didn't have to die. Shiro laid a hand on his shoulder and shook his head while tittering. Keith should have never told Shiro why he couldn't drink Shiro's milk chocolate when they had just met each other. It could have killed Keith in a storm of chocolate milk and it would have been far less painful than the eternal burn he was feeling now.
Shiro didn't let go when Keith tried to shake his hand off to get his own glass of milk. Instead, he tightened his grip and sniggered harder but hid it with tittering. Keith hoped Shiro would just skip laughing at him and kill him already. This kind of pain wasn't something he could survive anyway so what was a few minutes when he was in such pain?