"What the quiznak, Lance!" Keith glared at the homemade checkerboard, and the smirking paladin facing him from its other side. "That's not—you can't even—ah, trisekal…"

"Don't be a gora, Keith." Lance stacked his captured red checkers with obvious relish. "Just because you're a pyk checkers player doesn't mean you can throw a tantrum when I win!"

Hunk rolled his eyes and put down the recipe he'd been trying to commit to memory. The two other boys were being far too distracting to get any real reading done. "Do you guys even know what all those alien curse words are?"

"Course we don't." Lance flapped a dismissive hand. "Doesn't mean they're not super satisfying to say."

"Especially when the situation pyking well calls for it," Keith growled.

Pidge looked up from where she had roped a bemused Shiro into helping her tinker with the video game console. "Getting slaughtered over there, huh?"

"I'm, like, ninety percent positive that sonofagora is cheating," the red paladin grumbled back. Lance scoffed and stuck his nose in the air.

"Oh, really? That's just cause you're a quiznaking lakoo."

Bluestone eyes glared up at him from beneath lowered brows. "You call me that one more time…"

Lance stuck his tongue out. "You'll what? Beat me at checkers?"

"I'll glue that tongue to the roof of your pyking mouth, for starters."

"You could try, but you'd never trisekaling—"

"Yowch!"

The bickering cut off abruptly as Pidge yelped and stuck a hand in her mouth, shooting a dark look at the console. Shiro leaned over to see what had happened, and the girl reluctantly let him pull the reddened appendage over for inspection. "Stupid pyking gora-faced quiznak… it shocked me! It's not even plugged in!"

The black paladin shot her an annoyed glare. "You're not using all that language now, too!"

"I'll use language when I quiznaking well want to, Shiro!" Pidge jabbed an accusing finger at the console. "It deserves it!"

"Guys…" Shiro looked like he desperately wanted to smack himself in the forehead, but both his hands were occupied inspecting Pidge's fingers. "We're the paladins of Voltron. People all over the universe look up to us. Just because we don't know what all those words mean doesn't mean at least some of them won't!"

"Aw, come on, Shiro!" Lance flopped onto his back. "Normal words just aren't enough sometimes!"

The black paladin looked stubborn. "If ordinary English can't fit the situation, you're probably better off not saying anything at all."

"…What about Spanish?"

"Spanish too."

"That's—that's not pyking fair!"

"Lance…"

"I dunno, Shiro, I might have to go with Lance on this one." Keith shot the blue paladin a glare, probably to indicate that this concession had nothing to do with checkers, and leaned on one elbow. "I mean, it's not like any of us curse all the time—"

"Then what were you just doing?"

"The situation called for it!"

"We're having down time. If you can't avoid cursing now, you'll do it in public in front of our allies. Cut it out."

"Hey, guys." Hunk waved a hand to draw the others' attention. "So, lemme get something straight real quick. You guys—" He pointed at Lance, Keith, and Pidge— "wanna swear because normal words just don't cut it. And you—" A thumb jab toward Shiro— "don't want us to curse because we're role models for the universe. Right?"

The other four paladins glanced at each other. Pidge shrugged. "I mean, yeah, pretty much. So?"

"So…" Hunk raised an eyebrow at the black paladin. "Shiro, if we could find some sort of substitute for cursing that wasn't crass at all, and would still let us blow off that curse-word-needing steam… would that be okay?"

"I suppose." Grey eyes narrowed a fraction. "What did you have in mind?"

The large boy smirked at the other three. "You guys ever heard about that thing with ice cream flavors?"

Lance blinked. Then he punched upward with all four limbs as Pidge snickered and Keith and Shiro looked at each other in confusion. "Oh yeah! Hunk, you're a… a mint chocolate chip genius!"

"We are totally doing this." The green paladin's face broke into a truly wicked grin. "How the chocolate fudge did you come up with that?"

Hunk watched the dawning glee on Keith's face—and the horror on Shiro's—and grinned back. "Elementary, my dear Pidge. Elementary."

"I can't get that strawberry cheesecakeing fighter in my sights! Hunk, can you—"

"Ten-four!" Yellow bulled his way through the stone pillars, his paladin whooping a battle cry. "Get your coconut almond butt out where I can see it, you rum raisin piece of carrot cake!"

"Hey, Hunk!" Lance chirped. "If the fighters are pieces of carrot cake, does that make the cruisers whole cakes?"

"Or are they just a different cake flavor?" Keith added. Shiro could hear the red paladin's smirk over the comms. "And, you know, still cake pieces?"

Hunk snickered. "You guys, asking the deep questions. Ooh, then Zarkon's command ship could be a triple tier cake, like at weddings!"

Shiro sighed, and resisted the urge to pound his head against Black's console.

I need new friends.

"So…" Coran twirled his mustache. "How does this work again?"

"You just take the curse word, like 'quiznak', and put in an ice cream flavor instead!" Lance flapped his hands. "It's super easy!"

"I mean, yes, but what's the point?"

"Shiro was trying to get us to stop using alien swear words," Pidge smirked. "So we stopped."

"Except we started substituting ice cream flavors instead," Hunk added. "That means we're not actually swearing, so technically we're doing what Shiro wants, but we still get to let off stress and his reactions are just great. Plus the whole thing is hilarious, which helps diffuse tension, so it's a super useful diplomatic strategy too."

"I suppose…" Allura looked just as dubious as the ginger as she eyed the list Pidge had drawn up. "But do we really have to memorize these?"

"Those are just suggestions," Lance shrugged. "You can do your own if you want. Kind of like… What the cookies and cream did you just call me?"

"Hold on, hold on, let me try." Coran cleared his throat and adopted a ferocious scowl. "Ho there, you… uh… karmilak caramel! How dare you, um, banana eshulz with that… that thing!"

The three paladins glanced at each other, all of them fighting to keep their laugher in check. Pidge adjusted her glasses. "Ah, um, ahem, yes, Coran, that's exactly it."

Thud.

"Vanilla bean!"

Pidge hopped on one foot as she clutched the stubbed toes of the other, glaring at the world. Shiro rolled his eyes. "Vanilla bean? Seriously?"

"Don't tell me you have something better," the green paladin sniffed, gingerly feeling at her pinky toe. "Ow, man, that hurt…"

"You get shot at on a daily basis."

"Stubbed pinky toes are right up there with stepping on a Lego in the dark, Shiro. Do not question my pain scale."

Coran popped his head in the door. "Did someone get hurt? I thought I heard a yell."

"Pidge just stubbed her foot," Shiro replied with a shrug. "Nothing major."

"Oh. Um, why the gubberlab split did you yell, then?"

The two paladins blinked at him.

Pidge smirked.

Shiro facepalmed.

Not Coran too…

Keith gripped the hapless smuggler by the collar, cocking his fist back for another punch. "Don't you ever touch her again."

"Hey, Keith, easy." Pidge tugged at his elbow. "I'm okay, and anyway, he has information we need. There's no need to beat the cookie dough out of him."

"I don't know." The red paladin released his grip, though he continued to glare as Pidge's would-be attacker scuttled backward with wide eyes. "I'm really, really tempted."

"Let's save it for after the interrogation." Lance kept his rifle trained on the smuggler's chest, glaring just as hard as Keith. "Whaddaya say, buddy, are we gonna make you sing in ice cream flavors, or are you gonna tell us what we want to know about that quintessence shipment you sold?"

The alien's jaw went a little slack as he stared wide-eyed between the three paladins. "Uhh…"

Keith pulled out his knife and slapped it against his palm. "So, buddy, which one of us do you want to peanut butter crunch you up first?"

"Lemme explain how this works." Pidge smirked at her erstwhile tormentor, wiping away a trickle of blood from a gash on her cheek as she held up her katar. "I'm shocky." She pointed at Keith. "He's stabby." A jab at Lance. "He's shooty. And we're going to be asking the questions, and if you don't answer us we're going to take turns getting in some weapons practice. So, which one of us do you want to go first?"

The alien goggled at them, and threw up his hands.

"I surrender!"

"Not what I asked. Though that's a good start." Pidge jammed the edge of her blade under his chin. He squeaked with fright as he tried to flatten himself against the wall. "Now, you're going to cooperate, or we're going to chocolate truffle you up. Got it?"

"Trufflebutterdoughgotit!"

Keith raised an eyebrow at Lance. "Can I just stab him?"

"…Later."

"Oh, white chocolate strawberry cheesecake…"

Shiro stifled a sigh and looked over at Hunk from where he and Allura were comparing data sets on Galra ship movements. "Something wrong?"

"This coffee chipping reading makes no sense!" The yellow paladin glared at his computer screen. "I've been trying to refine sodium aluminum sulfate, but even though I used all the proper reagents I'm still getting nothing!"

Allura's brows creased. "May I take a look?"

"If you want to, sure."

The princess leaned over the back of Hunk's chair and peered at the digitized tables. After a long moment she should her head. "I really don't know what to tell you. There really is no reason I can see for these chocolate mint results."

Blue eyes flickered up for the briefest moment. Shiro saw the regal, intelligent, well-mannered princess flash him a wicked smirk, and gaped at her in utter betrayal. "Now you're doing it too?"

Allura blinked innocently at him. "Doing what?"

"The… the… the quizna—"

"Ooh, careful of that language!" Hunk grinned at him. "Remember, if normal English doesn't cut it, just don't say it!"

Shiro glared. Sighed, and mopped at his face as a resigned grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You guys are ridiculous, you know that?"

Allura gave an exaggerated eye roll. "I haven't a banana pudding idea what you're talking about."

As the princess and the black paladin tried to stare the other into laughing first, Hunk tapped away at his computer with a satisfied smirk.

"Oh yeah. We are totally keeping this."

A/N: This pure, unadulterated crack, of which I am not ashamed in the least, was inspired by internet idiocy started (I believe) by the tumblr user deforrestkelley. Pidge's "vanilla bean" line was FaceplantNINJA's idea. And I was, in fact, googling lists of ice cream flavors for this.

If you were curious, sodium aluminum sulfate is baking soda.

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