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They had a system. It was all worked out, as fair as could be. Most alien parties had fun and mysterious substances, but Voltron couldn’t exactly have all its paladins running around drunk off their asses or otherwise under unknown influences. But they were defenders of the goddamn universe, they had to have fun sometime. So they worked out a system. They paired up, using the buddy system to switch off parties they could try the alien drinks at. One person always ended up the odd man out, so they had a schedule of who stayed at the castle, too.
It was fair, and solid, and if there was swapping of schedules and trading of good parties for future favors, well, that was young adults for you. But now Shiro was regretting ever agreeing to the system. Why, one might ask? Shiro had Lance as a partner this time. It was Lance’s turn to try the fun and mysterious alien substances. And it was Shiro’s turn to watch Lance try the fun and mysterious substances, Shiro’s turn to watch Lance, full stop. Shiro was regretting his life.
His dignitary clothes were uncomfortable. Stiff, and scratchy, and too tight in all the wrong places. They had just come from beating up a bunch of Galra forces camped on one of the moons orbiting this planet, and Shiro was feeling exhaustion beginning to drag at his limbs. He was lounging uncomfortably against a far wall, keeping out of the thickest crush of the party, while still keeping one eye on Lance. Who was flirting with pretty aliens. Of course. Out of all of them, Lance had gotten into the most alien beds, and it was definitely due to his considerable charms. And his determination. And his looks. And Shiro really, really needed a drink.
Parties weren’t even his scene, usually, but alien ones tended to be interesting, even though when it was his turn to be sober he ended up trying to keep an eye on everyone, not just his partner for the night. Currently, with the eye not on Lance he was watching Pidge ingest a startling amount of glowing green liquid, Keith nowhere to be seen. Hmm. Not his problem, but still… He made his way over to where the gremlin was, but was accosted by Allura before he could reach them.
“Shiro, please, have you seen Hunk anywhere? I lost him in the crowd, he was swept away, I don’t know what to do!” She was frantic.
“Calm down, where did you see him last?” Shiro tried to think. Two paladins losing their partners in one night, not a great track record. Though there had been that one time on Kelrack where a whopping six of them, including the mice, had gotten drunk on some very potent space juice, while Pidge had managed to crash the castle and Keith had almost gotten engaged to the aunt of the planet’s crown princess… ah, the memories.
He yanked himself out of his reverie to work out the problem at hand. Then he looked over his shoulder and sighed. Unable to form words over his immense disappointment, he just pointed. Allura followed his finger to where Pidge and Hunk were chanting, “Shots, shots, shots,” in a circle of aliens with vibrant yellow drinks while Keith looked on helplessly. Looking very put-upon, Allura hurried over to them. How could they do this? They were supposed to act professional! And to be even more cruel and do it when he couldn’t join in… There would have to be a stern talking-to later about when they were allowed to take shots (on his off nights), and when they weren’t (when he was on babysitting duty).
Shiro, lost in his disappointment, didn’t notice when one of the aliens native to the planet they were on came up to him. They tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped, and turned. Ospora was a nice planet, leafy and very pastel, with few bold colors and a lovely pink sky. The Osporans, however, were rather odd. They were tall, and slim, with stretched limbs and soft fuzz covering their bodies and the fronds growing from their foreheads. They had downy wings, too, rather like earth moths, which were covered in a light fuzz like the rest of them, in pale pastel colors like the rest of this planet.
“Do you need something?” Politeness was essential to any diplomat, and especially one of Voltron. Still, it was hard not to be unnerved by solid color eyes with no pupil.
“Nothing particularly urgent,” the Osporan buzzed, “but I did notice, your companion, the one with the soft hair and pretty blue eyes, was ingesting one of our particularly interesting mixed drinks. It has some rather compelling side-effects, but they can be alarming when on your own. I’d suggest finding them.” Them? It took Shiro a second, but he remembered: the Osporans had no concept of gender. Pidge was fitting in nicely. And who was this alien to be calling Lance pretty? Then the Osporan’s words sunk in, and he looked around wildly.
“Thank you for your advice, it is much appreciated.” He rushed off with barely a good-bye. Terribly rude, he knew, but he couldn’t find Lance. He’d lost him. He cursed himself for getting distracted, then sighed when he realized this was shaping up to be another disaster. Three paladins losing their counterparts, two taking who knows how many shots, and one ingesting a mysterious, maybe-harmful alien drink with alarming side effects. He hoped Coran, at least, was being responsible. Knowing him, though, he’d be getting the Altean version of wine-drunk and serenading the mice with tales of his past prowess. Shiro could feel a headache coming on.
But Lance, he had to find Lance. He pushed frantically through the crowds, shoving mothy aliens and a very flushed Pidge to the sides. Where could he have gone to? Shiro finally ended up back where he had originally started, out of the swing of the party against a far wall. He slumped against it, panting.
The voice of a drunk angel floated its way through the pack of bodies. “Shirooooo, where areee you?” Shiro’s head jerked up. Oh, thank Voltron.
“Here- Lance, I’m over here!” he called.
Lance stumbled out from the press of the crowd, a pretty flush painting his cheeks. “Oh there you are, I’ve been looking for you for ages.” It was Shiro’s turn to redden. Lance had been looking for him? It was his job to keep an eye out for Lance, not the other way around.
“I’m here. What do you need, Lance?”
Lance looked momentarily confused, then his eyes lit up. “Oh yeah! I needed to ask you something.” He grabbed the front of Shiro’s shirt and looked seriously up into his eyes, and nope, Shiro was definitely not blushing, no, not him. “Shiro…”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever thought that… like… spoons. They’re just… tiny bowls, but on sticks. You see it too, right?”
Shiro stared dumbly for a minute, then mentally facepalmed so hard he was sure Commander Iverson heard it all the way back at the Garrison. “No, Lance, I’ve never thought that, but it certainly is an… interesting observation. What brought that on?”
“I don’t know, I was looking at some spoons over there and the thought just sort of floated into my head…” He waved a piece of alien cutlery vaguely around in the air. Shiro snatched it away and set it on one of the hovering tables. Were these the side effects the Osporan wanted to warn him about? If so, he could handle it.
“Lance, are you feeling alright?”
Lance frowned. The pout looked incredibly cute on him, not that Shiro noticed. “I think so? It’s weird, everything’s a little more blurry than it is usually. And louder. Shiro, I think I can hear your heartbeat.” WIth how close Lance was pressing, Shiro was pretty sure everyone in the vicinity could hear his heartbeat.
“Um, that’s nice, Lance. Do you need anything?”
“Can we go outside? It’s way too loud in here. Follow me! One of the weird fuzzy moth people showed me the gardens!” Shiro could do nothing but be dragged along helplessly by the hand Lance had clasped around his. They passed Allura on the way out, and she tapped a hand to her face with a smirk. He reached up, and felt the goofy grin he had plastered to face. Oh, well. His outside would match how he felt inside, at least.
“Here!” Lance announced joyfully, before collapsing back onto the pale blue moss. Or what Shiro assumed was some sort of moss. One never could tell, with alien planets.
“Why did you drag us out here? I mean, I’m not complaining getting away from the party, but it’s not like you.”
“It was too loud in there, like every sound was amplified times a thousand, and one of the fuzzy aliens, they were pink, I think, suggested I go outside somewhere I could see the sky.” He turned to Shiro with a happy smile on his face. “So here I am.” He patted the ground next to him commandingly, then layed down. Shiro noted he hadn’t let go of his hand, but that definitely didn’t mean anything. Nope. Even if his heart said otherwise.
The moss was soft, like everything on Ospora, and Shiro made himself comfortable next to Lance. He let himself relax, sinking into the ground, and released a sigh that held all the pent-up exhaustion of the day. This was nice. He could get used to this, laying in the comforting darkness next to Lance, the three moons glowing gently overhead. He wouldn’t ever get the chance, but it would be nice to be able to get used to this.
“Hey Shiro, guess what?” Lance turned to him, voice soft.
“What?” Equally quiet.
“I can hear the stars singing. The moons, too. They have the most beautiful melody,” he whispered.
“Do they?” The only stars Shiro was concerned about were those in Lance’s eyes.
“You know what else?” He had gotten, impossibly, closer.
“What?”
“I can hear your heartbeat.” It was breathed like a secret, and Shiro would follow that voice to the end of the universe. He didn’t even mind that his treacherous heart was betraying his feelings, and from the quirk of Lance’s lips, neither did he.
The moment, impossibly, held. They stayed like that, gazing into each other’s eyes, until Allura searched them out and told them it was time to leave. And throughout the rest of the night, even on the ride up to the castle, even during the check in on the main deck, Lance did not let go of his hand, not once.