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“Lance…what are you doing?”
“Looking for a pumpkin.” He didn’t even stop his search to look at Hunk as he answered the question. They were surrounded by trees and other foliage. Brown leaves – too similar to Earth’s in the fall to be a coincidence – crunched under his feet as he ran this way and that. There had to be something pumpkin-shaped.
“A pumpkin?!” Pidge demanded. “We’re on an alien planet!”
Shiro sighed. “Lance, stop. We’re supposed to be on patrol. Queen Ausrianna thinks there’s some beast out here threatening villagers. We need to stay alert.”
“Yeah, yeah.” The queen also thought Coran was some mythical, trickster creature sent by the gods and that bunnies were terrifying. Forgive Lance for not taking her seriously.
“Lance!”
“Fine. I’ll stop looking.” He set the rock back down, next to the tree, and returned to his team.
While Lance didn’t remember the name of the planet they were on, he knew it was filled with all sorts of alien creatures. Maybe there was some monster sniffing around; maybe there wasn’t. In the scheme of things, it didn’t matter. Voltron would deal with it easily and be on their way. What mattered to Lance was the crunching leaves and the crisp breeze. The shining sun and the spiced scent in the air and the fruit-covered trees in the forest.
The environment reminded him so much of Earth around Halloween that he couldn’t help the nostalgia. How many holidays had they missed while in space? Was it fall on Earth? Would his family be picking out costumes and getting Nadia and Sylvio’s candy bags? Or was it really summer, and they were heading to the beach? Sue him for giving in and searching for a pumpkin after so long stuck in the boring void of space.
“I think we should split up,” Pidge declared. “It’s been an hour, and we haven’t found anything yet.”
Shiro hummed thoughtfully. “We would cover more ground that way…Alright. But we’ll separate into teams, and whoever finds a trail will call in back-up before following it. We don’t know what this thing is, but if the villagers are scared of it, we shouldn’t take chances.”
“Mm-hm. Mm-hm.” Hunk nodded emphatically. “What could scare aliens who are fifteen feet tall?!”
“Bunnies,” Keith muttered.
Lance stifled a snort. He still didn’t get what the queen found so scary about the things. Pidge had showed her a picture of the cuddly pets and everything. From the sound of it, there was no difference between the bunnies on the planet and Earth’s.
“Keith, you go with Lance. Search the cliffside again. Pidge, Hunk, you two search near the river. I’ll take the forest.”
Wait, what?
“Why do I have to go with Mullet?!” Lance demanded, spinning on his heel to face Shiro. He hated how Shiro always paired them up. The rest of the team assumed it was because he hated Keith. They would be wrong. Completely and utterly wrong.
“Because I don’t trust you not to run off in search of pumpkins in a new area,” Shiro said. “And if it comes to a fight, Keith will be better off on flat, treeless ground instead of near the river or in the forest.”
Lance fumed. Why did Shiro have to be right? “I wasn’t planning to look for pumpkins,” he lied. Hunk would have humored him if they’d been paired up. Might have even helped.
“Whatever you say.”
The others walked away, towards their assigned tasks, leaving Lance to stew in his frustration. Why was it always him and Keith? Shiro just got off on torturing him. They’d already searched the cliffside, anyway. They may as well head back to the castle and wait for a call. At least then, Lance and Keith could separate, and Lance wouldn’t have to fight back the urge to kiss Keith whenever he said anything.
Allura would probably send them back if she caught them.
Keith rolled his eyes. “Come on, Lance. Let’s go search the cliffs.”
“Fine. But not because you told me to.” He just couldn’t stand being so close to Keith for too long.
Lance didn’t know when it started, but he’d noticed it a few weeks into their space adventure. Keith had said something stupid, and the thought crossed his mind, I bet if I kissed him, it would shut him up. He hadn’t been able to look away from Keith’s lips since, and the urge to follow through on the thought only grew.
Then, he realized how many other things about Keith he’d noticed. Like the other’s eyes. His abs. His swordsmanship. His laugh. His-
“Why do you want to find a pumpkin?” Keith asked. Lance jolted at the interruption to his thoughts. “What’s so important about it?”
He shook himself. More used to his thoughts wandering than he should be considering Keith was his rival and teammate and would never feel the same way about him. “…You wouldn’t get it.”
Keith didn’t miss Earth. Not like Lance did. And he’d never celebrated the holidays. Even when they were younger and still in the Garrison together, Keith was one of the few who didn’t dress up for class on Halloween or attend the Fall Fest the COs held in the observatory.
The other frowned but didn’t say anything else.
They walked through the forest in silence, and Lance allowed thoughts of fall on Earth to distract his mind. He had the tendency to stare at Keith’s ass when thinking about him and didn’t want to be caught. His homesickness was a safer alternative.
If they were still on Earth – assuming it was fall – he’d be getting ready for the Fall Fest. Going on the annual trip with his teachers to find a costume. Buttering up his favorites to try and get better candy than his classmates. Hunk would spend most of his time in the kitchens, baking Halloween-themed cookies and candy. Lance didn’t know what Pidge or Shiro would do, but they’d most likely have their own traditions and ways to celebrate. And Pidge would definitely be one of the nerds who spent most of her time studying for the November exams.
Lance was brought out of his thoughts when Keith snorted.
“What?” Why was he laughing?
Keith grinned. “I just remembered your last Halloween costume. The last one I saw anyway.”
‘The last one he saw’?
“What do you mean: ‘The last one you saw’?” Lance demanded. “You said you didn’t remember me.”
“And you said you didn’t remember our bonding moment.”
Touché. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Keith ignored his denial, still grinning. “You dressed up as Dracula, but you forgot the cape and used so much white and red make-up that you looked more like a clown.”
Oh, yeah. So many girls had teased him for that. Said that he finally looked the way he acted. Lance had done his best to repress the memory. “Well, I fixed it and looked drop-dead gorgeous later. Which you would know if you’d gone to the party that night.”
“No, you didn’t.” Keith laughed. “Half the make-up washed off in the water when you were bobbing for apples.”
How could Keith possibly know that? “Don’t tell me you were actually there.” He couldn’t have been. While he’d never admit it, Lance actively searched for him every year.
‘I’d recognize that mullet anywhere.’
Yeah. He’d been an oblivious idiot.
“Shiro took pictures of everything and showed me later. He always tried to get me to go.” Keith smirked at him. “You were in some of them. Looking half-drowned.”
The make-up had been a bad idea all around. Lance groaned.
“What’d you dress up as the next year?”
For some reason, Lance humored Keith, despite the teasing start to the conversation. It was something to talk about, at least. And it got his mind off of missing home. “Spiderman.”
Keith eyed him contemplatively. “I can see it, actually.”
Lance preened under the compliment. “The Lance Man can rock any look.”
“Never call yourself that again.” Keith grimaced.
He grinned. Crush or no, any opportunity to annoy Keith was the best opportunity. “The Lance Man can call himself whatever he likes.”
Keith groaned. Then, he tripped.
“What?” Lance looked to the source and found…
“A pumpkin?”
“What?”
Despite his search, he hadn’t expected to find an actual pumpkin. Maybe a pumpkin-like gourd, but not an actual, real-life pumpkin. It was even orange! And there were a dozen others around them!
“We found a pumpkin patch,” Keith muttered, seeming dazed. He had just tripped. Maybe he’d hit his head.
“We have to get these back to the castle.”
Lance was reaching down to pick one when someone yelled, “Hey! Get away from my beesums, you hoodlums!” The ground shook as the tall, purple man stormed over to them.
“I think the pumpkins belong to him,” Keith said, slowly standing and reaching for his sword.
Oh. Lance dropped the pumpkin. “Sorry!” he shouted. “We were just leaving!” He grabbed Keith’s arm and ran towards the cliff, only stopping once they were far enough away from the farmer. They couldn’t steal someone’s pumpkins just because he wanted one.
“I can’t believe we found pumpkins,” Keith muttered. “How did they get pumpkins here?!”
Lance shrugged. “Maybe the ones on Earth came from here.” They had no way to know what Earth things were originally from alien planets. “We found a cow in the mall,” he added.
“True.” Keith frowned and flopped down to catch his breath. “Hey, Lance?”
“Yeah?”
“Why did you want a pumpkin?”
Lance almost refused to answer again. Then, he sighed and dropped to the ground next to Keith. After all that, he might as well tell him. It’s not like it was a horrible secret. And something in him always wanted to talk to Keith. “I wanted to carve one. This place reminds me of fall on Earth, and my family and I always used to carve pumpkins together for Halloween.”
Keith was silent for a moment. Then: “What would you carve into it?”
“A scary face. Yours would work.”
Keith gave him a look. “Ha. Ha.”
“Not joking.” His smile probably gave him away.
“…I’d carve a moon,” Keith decided, turning back to stare at the sky.
“You’re just scared you’d mess up something more complicated.”
“No. I just like the moon. And aren’t candles supposed to go inside carved pumpkins? What better window for the light than the night’s biggest light?”
Lance frowned. “The moon doesn’t give off light.”
“So? Faces don’t either.”
“You’re forgetting the Glocknins.” Lance smiled, thinking about the small, fairy-like aliens from three planets back. They’d been ferocious and deadly with their sharp and venomous teeth, but there was no denying their beauty. The princess had taken his breath away when he first saw her. Nearly took his finger, too, if Keith hadn’t pulled him out of the way in time.
“Who wouldn’t want to? Those guys were jackasses!”
Lance snickered.
After a moment, Keith stood. “We should probably get back to searching for that monster.”
Lance groaned. “Why bother? We’ve already checked the cliffs. I’m not convinced this thing exists!”
“Shiro gave us orders. We have to listen to him.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Despite his complaints, Lance took Keith’s offered hand and rose to his feet. They had a mission to accomplish and villagers to appease.
As it turned out, the beast did exist, and it wasn’t a bunny. It was a mountain lion.
“Why are there so many Earth things on this planet?!” Lance demanded, running for his life. He dodged tree after tree, trying to get away, but the constant detours kept slowing him down. He’d climb if he thought that would do any good.
“I don’t know!” Hunk yelled back. “But you’d think they’d be like regular cats to the D’Quoii!”
“Would you want one of these as a pet?!” Pidge asked through the comms. They’d all been separated during the fight.
“No! That’s a definite no!” Hunk dodged the lion’s pounce.
“Hold on,” Keith said. “I’m coming!”
Their only warning was a roar before Red swooped over the trees, just barely missing the top layer. Lance and Hunk were knocked to the ground from the blast, and all of the birds went flying, terrified of the robotic beast. They weren’t the only things.
The mountain lion whimpered and ran off, tail tucked between its legs like a frightened dog.
Hunk groaned and clambered to his feet. “Should we go after it?” he muttered, rubbing his head.
“You want to go after it?!” Lance stayed where he was. Thanks for the warning, Mullet. “That thing nearly made us its dinner!”
“Shiro’s got it covered,” Keith assured them. “He’s trapping it in a blocked section of forest where it can wander free but can’t hurt anyone.”
“Sounds good to me.” Hunk flopped back down with another groan. “That dive really did me in.”
“Yeah, ditto.” Lance glared up at the Red Lion. “Little warning next time, Samurai. If the lion hadn’t been scared off, we’d be lunch!”
“I did warn you.”
Pidge dropped down from one of the nearby trees before Lance could argue. “We should get back and let Queen Ausrianna know we succeeded.”
Lance and Hunk nodded and stood. The quicker they saw the queen, the quicker they could get home. Keith, on the other hand, had different plans. “I’m actually gonna head back to the castle. I’ll see you guys when you get there.”
“Keith-” But the Red Paladin disconnected his comms.
“Come on, guys,” Shiro said. “Let’s get going. I’m headed there in the Black Lion right now.”
“Why does Keith get to skip?” Lance complained, already walking.
“One of us missing, we can explain. Any more and the D’Quoii might take offense.”
That still didn’t explain why Keith got the pass.
Hunk laughed and threw an arm around him. “Come on, Buddy. Don’t you want to flirt with that cute servant girl again? What was her name? Quinley?”
Lance honestly didn’t remember. Sure, he’d flirted. He’d said, “If I wrote the dictionary, I’d put your picture under ‘Gorgeous’,” figuring that Google was an Earth-only thing but dictionaries would be universal. The girl had gotten confused. Then, Keith chimed in with a, “Would your picture be under ‘Idiot’?” and distracted him from anything else.
“Yeah. I guess that sounds fun.”
When they got back to the castle, Lance went directly to his room to shower. The last thing he expected to find when he exited the bathroom was Keith. In his bedroom. Sitting on the floor. With two pumpkins in front of him.
Pumpkins! Where in quiznak did he get the pumpkins?!
“Wha-? Were you waiting in here the entire time?!” Lance had a pretty elaborate shower and post-shower routine. He’d probably been in the bathroom for an hour.
Keith shrugged. “Most of it.” He didn’t look remotely concerned.
“What are you doing in here?! Did you steal those pumpkins?!”
“No, I convinced the man to give them to me.”
‘Convinced?!’ Keith was such a-
“How? When?!”
Keith shifted awkwardly. Oh, so that embarrassed him. Not, say, admitting to spending the better part of an hour waiting in Lance’s room while he took a shower. Anyone else would consider that creepy. Even to Lance, it was borderline.
“Before getting back to the castle.”
He was avoiding the most important question. “How?” Lance repeated, throwing his hands in the air to release some of his frustration. “That guy seemed pretty possessive of his pumpkins.”
Keith grimaced. “I may have implied that I owned a pet bunny and said that I would sic it on his garden if he didn’t give me two pumpkins.”
“Keith!” The word should have been scolding. Or horrified. Keith had threatened an innocent man out of his pumpkins. Instead, it escaped on a laugh. “Why would you-?” Lance shook his head, unable to wrap his head around what Keith had done.
“You said you wanted to carve pumpkins,” Keith muttered, staring at the ground. “I…know that you miss Earth, and this is a tradition for some people. I thought it might make you happy.”
Those words struck Lance straight in the heart. He felt like he was seeing the Glocknin princess again. Only that time, there was no immediate danger of appendages being bitten off. “You threatened an innocent alien to get me pumpkins because you thought it would make me happy?” he whispered.
Keith nodded sheepishly. Then, he did something else Lance hadn’t expected. He started rambling. Keith Kogane – the coolest, most unaffected cucumber Lance had ever met – started rambling.
“Yeah…I mean, it wasn’t just that. I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I wasn’t sure how you’d take it, and this seemed like a good way to start – to break the ice, you know – and I don’t know what I was thinking. It was a stupid idea. I mean, we were arguing just this morning. We argue all the time! There’s no way you’d like me back. Yeah, this was stupid, I’m gonna-”
I need to shut him up. Lance bolted forward to kiss him. Finally. That instinct he’d fought back for so long? He didn’t have to fight it anymore. Keith liked him, too.
“I like you back,” he said, pulling away as Keith gaped at him.
“Oh.” Keith glanced between him and the pumpkins while Lance waited for the verdict. For the official question. “Do you still wanna carve pumpkins, or…”
That was not the question he wanted. Lance rolled his eyes. “Seriously? I just kissed you, and you’re asking if I want to carve pumpkins?”
“Is that a no?”
“Oh, we’re still carving them, but we should definitely talk about the state of our rivalry before that.”
Keith eyed the pumpkins again. “I’d rather just carve the pumpkins.”
“Alright.” Lance leaned close to him again, regaining Keith’s full attention and lips inches away from the Red Paladin’s as he breathed, “Did you bring anything to carve them with, Mullet?” He didn’t see a carving kit or a single knife.
Keith’s eyes dropped to Lance’s lips as he licked his own, clearly distracted. “…I have my dagger.”
Lance ignored that. “We can’t carve pumpkins until we’re properly equipped. Why don’t we do something we are properly equipped for? I have lips…You have lips.” He leaned closer, teasing.
Keith tried to close the distance, but Lance pulled fully away and stood. “Let’s use these lips for talking.”
“Do we have to talk?” Keith demanded, leaning back with a huff. “I’d rather just kiss you!”
“Why should I kiss my rival?” Lance spun on his heal and began putting away his armor. He’d strewn it all across the room before heading into the bathroom for his shower. It was a nice distraction from Keith’s confused fumbling and excuses for why they shouldn’t talk. Lance rolled his eyes at his left arm brace. He didn’t need some big speech. He just wanted to hear one question.
After much too long, Keith finally yelled, “Do you even want to be my boyfriend?!” It was much more exasperated than Lance had ever expected, and Keith shouted it in the middle of a huge rant about how Lance was the most annoying and obnoxious guy in the universe, but it was enough.
He stopped folding his socks and practically skipped back to Keith. At some point during his rant, the Red Paladin had stood, so reaching him was easier than it had been the first time. “Yes.”
Before Keith could voice the confusion on his face, Lance leaned in again and pressed their lips to each other. Keith groaned and probably rolled his eyes before giving in and pulling Lance closer to deepen the kiss. The pumpkins could wait. They had better equipment for their current activity anyway.