Author's Note:

Hello everyone and welcome to another chapter. This one features the dinner scene a couple of people suggested, I'm not entirely sure it's what you wanted but I hope you enjoy it anyway. As I said last chapter, I'm open to suggestions for chapters so please tell me if you have any. Thank you for your continued support, and I hope you enjoy the chapter.

I own nothing.

Chapter 4

Lance stared at the plate before him.

It appeared that Hunk had finally found the edibles he'd been after, instead of the green goo they'd been supplied up until now, they had a variety of cooked vegetables.

At least, that's what he thought they were called.

Glancing around the table (did they always have to sit at it to eat?), he saw his fellow humans seemingly in ecstatic's over Hunk's creation, maybe the green goo had really been getting them down as Hunk claimed.

Personally, Lance hadn't cared either way, he'd been too busy getting used to having three full meals a day and the goo had been miles above some of the stuff he'd eaten in the past.

During their first proper meal in the castle, he'd attempted to devour as much as he possibly could, too used to doing so in the rare times he had a chance to in preparation for possible lean times. Initially, the others had heaped as much on his plate as possible, encouraging his gorging, but after a few days, they started restricting his portions more, completely confusing him. Eventually, Shiro explained that they wanted him to eat more to begin with because he'd been so thin and underfed, but now he'd reached a healthy weight, they were attempting to keep him stable there. He no longer had to worry about not eating for long periods since he would definitely get meals at the castle from now on.

While he still had to check himself from time to time, Lance was starting to understand that Shiro meant what he said.

Seeing the joy on the team's faces, as well as the Altean's, Lance prepared to dive in himself, then stopped with his hand above the plate.

That first meal, he'd effectively shovelled the food into his mouth with his hands, the way he'd always done. Hunk had almost immediately stopped him and then shown him how to use the spoon, explaining that that was they way most people ate. This marked Lance's first brush with table manners, and he had a feeling he'd be meeting them a lot.

He looked around the table again, finding that everyone was using two tools he'd yet to encounter.

The knife and fork.

While the spoon fairly easy to master, the knife and fork seemed more complex and he watched the others for a while, trying to work it out.

"Lance?"

Hunk's voice attracted his attention, and he turned to find the other boy looking at him in slight confusion, "Aren't you going to eat?"

Lance hesitated, the more he learned, the more he felt self-conscious about all the 'simple' things he didn't know. He was starting to feel like a bigger and bigger burden to them all.

"It's the knife and fork, isn't it?"

In the time he'd been hesitating, Hunk had reached the answer on his own, and Lance reluctantly nodded.

The other boy grinned, "No sweat, I'll teach you."

With those words, Hunk reached across and grabbed Lance's knife and fork, "Firstly, you hold the fork in this hand like so…"

He placed the fork in Lance's hand, adjusting his fingers around it.

"…and then you hold the knife in the other like this…"

The knife was place in his other hand and arranged into the correct grip.

"…and then just use them like this."

Hunk showed him by spearing one of his vegetables with the fork and holding it in place as he cut it with the knife, then lifted the cut piece into his mouth with the fork, he smiled, "Simple."

Lance quickly copied, finding the technique far easier than he'd thought and proceeded to eat his first ever bite of a proper, cooked for him meal…

Damn that was amazing!

Never, in his entire life, had he ever had anything as good as this. How had Hunk done it? Altean magic, it had to have been.

So, caught up in the delight he was feeling, Lance failed to notice the others staring at him.

Hunk watched Lance worriedly.

The other boy had frozen, fork in mouth after his first bite, completely unaware of everyone else staring at him.

Coran spoke up first, "Are you alright Number Three?"

Lance didn't even respond with a nod or shake of the head, but he finally pulled the fork away and chewed rapidly. As he did so, Hunk noticed something even stranger.

Lance was actually crying.

Instantly, he began to panic, had his meal not turned out okay? Was it in fact disgusting and everyone else was simply to polite to say so? Did Lance just hate it?

Then he saw the huge smile on the other teen's face and he realised that these were actually tears of happiness.

That threw him a curveball.

While he knew he was a good cook (mostly thanks to his mom's teachings), it hadn't been that much of an exciting dish, just some cooked vegetables with what seasonings he could find. It was actually pretty basic, given his limited choice of ingredients and combinations, but Lance was reacting like it was the highest quality dish in the world.

He frowned, had Lance's experiences been so bad that even a basic meal would bring him to tears? Just what else had he never had?

"Is Lance okay?"

Allura had also noticed the teen's tears, and her question had been directed at Shiro, since Lance was, apparently, too caught up in eating his food to even notice them.

"He's fine princess." Their leader answered quietly, "I think its just the first time he's had a proper meal."

She nodded silently, then looked back at the Blue Paladin with a hint of pity in her eyes.

By this time, Lance had polished off his plate, having eaten voraciously, and blinked in surprise at them, his tears having dried.

Hunk was the first to speak, "You want seconds?"

The other boy nodded furiously and practically thrust his plate in Hunk's direction. With a chuckle, Hunk heaped a generous portion onto the plate and handed it back.

"Just try not to eat the plate, okay."

His little joke went unnoticed by Lance, as he launched straight into his second serving of dinner.

He even had using a knife and fork mastered.

It was well after dinner, and Keith wandered into the lounge after a personal training session to find Hunk and Pidge huddled together, clearly plotting something.

Shiro had taken Lance to the Blue Lion, having decided to give the boy some one-on-one piloting tutoring, since he was the only one out of them with no knowledge about it whatsoever. Allura and Coran were continuing their checks of all the castle systems and repairing what needed repairing, leaving Keith curious as to what the Green and Yellow Paladins were up to.

Walking over to join them, he found Pidge typing out some sort of list on her laptop, and she looked up as he arrived.

"Keith, perfect! You can give us a hand."

He frowned, "With what?"

Hunk quickly explained, "You see, we're making a list of all the fun things Lance might never have experienced before, we're planning on helping him do as many as possible."

"Why?"

Pidge gave him a look of disapproval, "Keith, remember how he reacted to Hunk's dinner, he's literally never had a proper home-cooked meal before today, heck, he's probably never had a proper meal all his life."

Hunk nodded in agreement, "Right, and it got us thinking about what other things we took for granted he's never had. So, we want to help him experience those things because he more than deserves them."

Keith had to admit, they had a point, and he did want to do what he could for his fellow Paladin.

He sat down beside them, "Okay then, how can I help?"

Pidge shoved the laptop across to him, "Firstly, you can look through what we already have and suggest anything else."

The Red Paladin began reading through the list, finding it to be quite long already. He raised an eyebrow, "Blanket forts?"

Pidge folded her arms, "Of course, who hasn't made a blanket fort!"

Keith shook his head and kept reading until another item caught his eye, "Wait! 'Building with Lego', seriously?"

This time Hunk looked at him disapprovingly, "C'mon Keith, everyone needs to build with Lego at some point, I used to do it all the time."

"But where are we going to get Lego out here?"

"Well, we don't have to do everything on the list out here! Some of it can wait until we get back home." Pidge exclaimed.

Keith blinked, "But we don't know if he'll be able to…"

Hunk interrupted, "Look, we all know that we're not going to let Lance go back out onto the streets when we go home, not after finally giving him something like an actual home."

"I'm certain Shiro will make sure he is properly taken in, even if he has to adopt Lance himself." Pidge added.

"But Shiro is way too young to adopt someone Lance's age!" Keith argued.

She waved her hand dismissively, "Then my family will."

"Or mine." Hunk threw in, "My mom will definitely take him in."

"And if all else fails, I'm sure Coran could adopt him." Pidge finished.

Keith sighed, "Well, I guess you're right." He looked over the list, then frowned, "Hey, you haven't put 'Fishing' on here!"

"Because fishing is boring." Pidge groaned, "All you do is sit there in the wet and cold and wait."

"But I like fishing." The Red Paladin argued, then began typing determinedly, "Well I'm putting it on the list."

Hunk shrugged, "No harm in having it as a suggestion."

The youngest of the trio grumbled, "Sheesh, fill up our fun list with boring."

Keith suddenly stopped typing, "Hang on! 'Winding up Shiro', why is that on here!?"

Pidge stared at him like he was mad, "Seriously, every kid has to wind up whatever parental figure they have at some point." She smiled mischievously, "I'm sure I can teach Lance how to drive Shiro up the wall."

"But Shiro's not his dad."

Hunk rolled his eyes, "Seriously dude, we know where this is going. Lance already goes to Shiro first about things, its obvious that he's going to start seeing him as something like a father, or at least an older brother."

Pidge nodded sagely, "Yep, there's no other way it's going to go."

Keith opened his mouth, about to list the many reasons why it wasn't going to end up that way. Then he thought on the interactions he'd seen between Shiro and Lance and sighed.

"Yeah, you guys are right."

PS-So a little extra scene there where the others predict how things are going to go. Please let me know what you thought and any suggestions for future chapters and I'll hopefully update soon.