Rule 24: If we can hear your music from the next room, it's too loud.

It all started when Lance passed by the open door the maintenance bays. Music wafted out of the door, odd and at once familiar. His experienced ear picked out multiple synth lines, tribal drums, and, of course, a drum loop, all repeating over and over. Unconsciously, he began to bob his head and tap his foot, and he cast about for the source of the familiarity.

"Where have I heard this before…?" he muttered, before shrugging and walking into the bay. Only one way to find out!

The source was obvious, Pidge hunched over a workstation topped with a pair of kludged-together speakers. She was also very far away, and Lance winced at the thought of what that was doing to her ears.

So, Lance marched towards Pidge, both to preserve her fragile eardrums and to find out what kind of music she was listening to. This quickly ran into the problem that the music shifted into a veritable wall of sound about twenty feet away from the other Paladin.

"Hey, Pidge!" Lance shouted, but the wall of sound carried his voice away like a leaf in a hurricane. "Pidge!" And that was a slightly bigger leaf dancing in the same hurricane.

Gritting his teeth, Lance wracked his brain for a way to oh wow he was an idiot. Reaching down, Lance detached his helmet from his belt and put it on. Much better.

Now that he could just walk up to Pidge, it was the simplest of matter to just tap on her shoulder. Pidge turned around, and Lance tapped his helmet where his ears would be. Thankfully, she got the message, and turned down the music to "background ambience" levels.

"Sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "Bit too loud?"

Lance's face went flatter than that one flat planet they had visited. "I could hear it through the door," he said, jabbing his thumb at the door in question.

Pidge leaned around Lance, following his thumb, and then graced him with her own flat expression. "I don't believe you."

"Hey, Pidge!" Hunk called as he walked in. "Thought I heard those weird tones you like to listen to!"

"They're not weird tones!" Pidge snapped. "It's trance music! Art!"

"Okay," Hunk said, nodding. "But they're also weird tones. Anyway, do you know where I can find a hammer."

Grumbling under her breath, Pidge reached down and grabbed a claw hammer before pitching it at Hunk to catch.

"So, why're you all annoyed?" Lance asked. "He seemed pretty agreeable about it."

"Yeah, too agreeable," Pidge groused. "I don't buy it."

A raised eyebrow, and an unspoken question.

"He listens to classical and jazz!" Pidge snapped. "Good jazz! He's supposed to be all smug and snooty and pretentious about it!"

The other eyebrow joined its brethren. "So… you're annoyed that Hunk isn't being a pretentious ass?"

Pidge froze, before turning her glare on Lance. "Shut up."

"Tell me about this music and I will," was the reply.

Eyes glittering, Pidge immediately launched into a well-practiced spiel. "I can't believe you've never heard of trance music! Oh, man, you're missing out! Trance music is… well, it's a little hard to describe-"

~o~

Sleep time on the Castle of Lions was a cherished, precious thing. And not just because of Shiro. All of the crew of the Castle put in intense physical labor - or were Coran, and thus were running around attending to a thousand and one minor problems. The point being, if anything interrupted the sleepytimes, the Paladins tended to get… grumpy. As one hapless Galra battlecruiser had found out the hard way.

So when some very Galra-esque guttural roaring, backed by a harsh but decidedly melodic guitar line, suddenly started blasting near the sleeping corridors, it was little surprise that Bayards were activated and pointed, regardless of the fact that they were all in their pajamas.

Of course, there were no Galra, and the music - if it could be called that - was still blaring. So tempers cooled quickly, which just led to finger-pointing.

"I should've known you'd be a blaring metalhead!" Lance said, pointing an accusatory finger at Keith.

"Me?! I listen to pop!" Keith protested, realizing one second too late that that was probably not the best answer.

At least the finger-pointing stopped as the Garrison trio switched to gaping openly at him.

"You mean… indie pop… right?" Pidge very carefully stated.

"Or Latin pop, that works too!" Lance added.

Keith sighed. "No, I mean regular, American top 40 pop." Protests of outrage immediately sprang up, and the Paladin rolled his eyes. "The only station I got out in the desert was a top 40 station, sue me."

"That's no excuse!"

"Uh, guys?" Hunk tried. "Maybe we can deal with the blaring death metal first? Before it wakes up Shiro or something?" No response, the other three Paladins too busy bickering. Besides, he could see Shiro ambling up the hall behind them. "Never mind. Now, let's see if I still have some popcorn…"

~o~

Two minutes ago…

Unlike everyone else's bedroom, Shiro's was heavily soundproofed. Everyone had kind of insisted. So it was a credit to the loudness of the death metal blaring in the halls that Shiro could kinda sort hear it. Not enough to really wake him, but enough to get him to tap a finger to the beat.

Suddenly, Shiro's eyes shot open, and he clambered out of bed and then out of his room, following the sound of the music.

It didn't take him long to find the source; it was fairly close by, after all. The only surprise was that it was Allura listening to it - and also scrambling around trying to find… something.

"Allura…?"

"Sorry, I'm sorry!" Allura frantically said, still scrambling around. "I'm trying to stop it but the volume control isn't working and-"

CRUNCH!

Allura blinked as Shiro extracted his artificial arm from one of the speaker's, the device in pieces.

"Er, that works too," she said.

"I didn't take you for a death metal fan," Shiro commented as he wiped electrical components off his hand.

"Well, it's Galra death metal…"

A pause as Shiro turned that statement over.

"Death metal performed by Galra?" he asked. "Or death metal about Galra?"

The princess nodded. "Yes."

The pause that followed was significantly more awkward.

"Well, I'll have to get Pidge and Hunk in to fix this tomorrow."

"And I should get back to bed." Shiro turned to walk out, but stopped in the doorway. "Good night, Allura."

A smile quirked at the princess' lips. "Good night, Shiro."

~o~

Breakfast the next morning was a subdued affair from lack of sleep. Only Coran was fully awake, and he was, in fact, annoyingly chipper.

That Lance wasn't present probably had something to do with it, too.

And then… suddenly, a very familiar synth line.

"Oh no," Pidge breathed, her face chalk-white. "He wouldn't-!"

"He would," Keith signed, resigned.

And then, Lance strutted in, sunglasses covering his eyes and Gangnam Style blaring in the background.

Keith groaned and dropped his head to the table. Hunk sighed and went back to eating. Shiro facepalmed. And Allura and Coran just watched in confusion.

And Pidge…

"Why?!" she wailed.

"Because I'm sick and tired of people blaring music loud enough to be heard outside their rooms!" Lance snapped. "And if I have to suffer, so does everyone else!"

On cue, the music cut out, and then…

"Oppa Gangnam Style!"

Lance did the horsey dance. No shame.

"Oh, is this an Earth dance?" Allura said, clapping her hands. "It looks fun!"

"Princess, no," Pidge deadpanned.

"Don't worry, I'm studying the moves," Coran announced, serious as a heart attack. "When the chorus hits again, follow my lead, princess."

"Is this actually happening."

Sure enough, the chorus rolled around again, and there were Allura and Coran, doing the dance right next to Lance. A little out of synch, a little jerky, but they were doing it.

It was at this point that Pidge just gave up and dropped her head to the table.