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Shiro was honestly getting really sick of weddings.
It was a surprising concept of course, if anyone knew he thought that. But as he stood among Allura’s entourage as her ceremony with Lance dragged on and on, he couldn’t help but feel completely and utterly Done(™) with weddings.
Part of it was because of his life before Kurboros. Back then, when he was sick and was expecting to die before he even hit his mid 30’s, marriage was something of a fairy tale; something nice to think about but would never happen because who would bind themselves to a dying man? So daydreams of suits and veils, flowers and cake, smiles and laughter simply stayed as vague imaginings with no further thought. The closest he had gotten to that vague dream come true was his time with Adam, but that had crashed and burned before any ring had a chance to come into the picture. However, even at that point, the idea of disliking weddings had not crossed his mind.
During the war, there had been no dreaming of weddings. Just nightmares and the almost non-existent spark of hope of surviving through the war.
Now the war was over and with reconstruction thoroughly underway, it seemed that the universe had caught some kind of wedding fever. This soon became the bane of Shiro’s existence.
So many weddings. Shiro had been invited to so, so many weddings. Adam’s was among the first. He and a couple of others from his platoon had miraculously managed to survive their failed counter attack against Sendak, though now he was permanently scarred and could only get around on crutches on his good days. He and a man named Curtis got married almost as soon as they had gotten back to earth after the war was officially over, with Shiro and the Paladin’s invited.
After that, it seemed that people were getting married left and right. Friends from before the war invited him as Shiro, their old friend, while several of the bridge crew members invited him as Shirogane, the guy who kept them from dying. Lance and Hunk seemed to have a never ending stream of cousins and aunts and uncles and there always seemed to be celebrating something and at least half of them were weddings. Already married couples, like Sam and Colleen, had taken to renewing their vows. And whenever visiting other planets, the hosts got it into their heads to invite their guests to a wedding or whatever sort of binding ceremony they celebrated.
Shiro smiled through it, but honestly he was tired of it all. The production, the set up, making sure everything was just so, that all the colors were just right, standing here at this point of the ceremony or sitting there at that point. Then there was the reception or whatever sort of afterparty that particular planet had after weddings. It usually just involved a lot of food and schmoozing, which Shiro got enough of while being pushed into an ambassador role, thanks.
He couldn’t help but pity Keith. After the war and they had officially become an item (“Finally!” was the general consensus of the Paladin’s), Keith had done his best to be his Plus One to every wedding that Shiro was invited to. And despite all the progress he had made in being the leader of Voltron and more recently his promotion in the Blades, Keith still wasn’t one for crowds or large events, so Shiro could tell that Keith was getting fed up with all the weddings as well.
But when Allura and Lance started planning their binding ceremony, regardless of how Shiro felt about weddings at this point, he and Keith couldn’t not be part of it. Allura was a dear friend of theirs and after all she had gone through and given up during the war, she, out of all of them, deserved a dream binding ceremony.
Shiro had to keep reminding himself of that while they were sorting through the mountain of invitations. And again while planning the nightmare of seating arrangements. And again while he had to get himself fitted for his suit. And again while they spent hours rehearsing. And now he reminds himself once again as the ceremony drags itself into hour six. At the very least the whole thing is almost over...which would then lead to the four hour long afterparty. Shiro did his best to keep his internal dread off his face.
Still, he couldn’t help but smile whenever he looked at the altar. Even after six hours, Allura and Lance were practically glowing. Good. They deserved this.
Shiro may have grown a dislike for weddings but it wasn’t any trouble at all to be with his friends on the best day of their lives.
It was late and Shiro was tired but instead of crawling into bed, Keith’s warmth soon following and Kosmo settling on his custom extra extra large dog bed, Shiro was in the near empty reception hall, sipping a cup of hot tea while sitting with Keith, Krolia and Kolivan at one of the more secluded tables. The afterparty had finally ended and the guests had gone to their guestrooms to turn in for the night. The service workers were cleaning up, collecting dishes and putting away tables, snacking on and boxing the leftovers to take home.
Tired as he was, Shiro didn’t really like going to bed without Keith if he could help it and was content to simply sit silently, listening to Keith catch up with his mother and drinking his tea as the stress from the past few months began to slowly ease out of him. Across from him, Kolivan appeared to be in a similar state, slowly drinking from his cup and occasionally joining the conversation. Closing his eyes, Shiro took another sip of his tea and then sighed as the warmth filled his chest, shortly followed by a yawn. Beside him Keith gave a soft chuckle.
“Tired old man?”
“Honestly? Yes. It’s been...a long couple of months.”
Keith snorted. “Tell me about it. I know that Allura had a tiny army helping out with the wedding plans and everything, but the whole thing’s been a nightmare.”
As if taking Keith’s words as permission, the floodgates opened. “I know! All the frills and decoration and color coordinating. There’s just so much unnecessary stuff . Not just here too, but for all the weddings we’ve been to. Everything’s just so grandiose and so… so... much! I’m so sick of it. So much planning and resources and time wasted to put on a show when I could just go to the court house, sign some papers and be just as married. By the stars, I’m happy for Allura and Lance but I’ve just been waiting for this whole thing today to end.” He ended with a huff as he took another gulp of his tea. Then he noticed the other three staring at him, various levels of shock on their faces at his outburst.
“Wait, you… don’t like weddings?” Came Keith’s disbelieving question.
“Well, I mean, kinda? After seeing so many the whole thing feels more like a performance for other people than for the actual union between lovers. I know that the topic of marriage hasn’t come up for us so I hope it doesn’t upset you. But I don’t really like weddings. Not even small ones, at this point.”
Keith just stared at him in open surprise. “Really?”
Shiro gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, Keith. I hope you weren’t set on a more traditional wedding.”
“No, no it’s fine. I’m not a fan of weddings either and honestly I just wanted to elope or something. I thought you would be the one who wanted a wedding!”
“Definitely not. When we get back to earth, do you want to get married? It only takes a couple of weeks for the marriage licence to go through.”
“Why wait? Kolivan, you could marry us right now, couldn’t you?”
Suddenly remembering the other two were there, Shiro eyed them nervously. Krolia was extremely protective of her son and try as Kolivan might to deny it, Shiro knew that the older man had a small soft spot for Keith as well. Shiro did not want to be on the receiving end of their ire in response to Shiro’s shotgun proposal (oh stars, he had just proposed to Keith!). However, it didn’t seem that he had anything to worry about as Krolia was smiling lovingly at her son and Kolivan was simply nodding to Keith’s question.
“Two witnesses is all that is needed and then I can start filing the paperwork. I already have the digital certificate to my datapad for you both to sign. Once it all goes through, you will be recognized on Dibazzal as a mated pair. And since Dibazzal is part of the Coalition, your marriage will be recognized by all planets among the Coalition… including Earth.”
Shiro looked at Keith, who was practically vibrating in excitement, and then back to Kolivan. “Well, let’s do it.”
Keith had called for his wolf, and with Kosmo and Krolia acting as witnesses, Kolivan pulled up the paperwork and with little fanfare Keith and Shiro signed where the older man indicated. In under three minutes, they were married.
(Shiro had asked why Kolivan even had those kinds of documents on him. Apparently his position among the Blades had granted him the power to bless and validate unions, and since traditional weddings were a drain on resources, as Shiro had said earlier, almost all unions among the Blades were done the way Shiro and Keith had just done it.)
(Once the newly married couple got back to their room, the two stayed up a bit looking at rings before sleep overtook them. It took them two weeks to find rings they liked and another week and a half for them to arrive in the mail. They put the rings on their fingers just to take a picture before taking them right back off and putting them on necklaces so the rings wouldn’t get in the way of their active jobs (and to rest closer to their hearts). They texted the picture to their friends with a caption announcing their marriage before putting the phones away and settling down on the couch for their movie and pizza, giggling as their phones buzzed insistently.)