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The university was a well-known one, very old and very cutting-edge. They had one of the best theoretical astrophysics programs on the planet, and had been very excited to invite the saviors of the universe, and actual aliens, to a dinner party with the faculty of that department and various rich and influential alumni.
Allura still didn’t seem to see the point in schmoozing with so many people on Earth, as opposed to the wider universe, but accepted that it meant a lot to the paladins to spend time networking on their home planet. She’d have preferred to be speaking to world leaders, rather than academics at a single college, but she came nonetheless, Coran in tow. She spent most of her time with Shiro and Coran, speaking with various distinguished persons who had flown in from all over the world to meet her and talk science. It was engaging enough that she didn’t even notice when the four younger paladins snuck away.
She noticed half an hour later, and asked Shiro, and got a look of confusion in reply when he looked around and also realized that the younger members of the team were nowhere to be seen.
“Pidge?” Shiro asked, phone in hand. “Where are you?”
Allura barely managed to catch the answer.
“Check Twitter.”
o.o.o.o.o
“I can’t believe they were this irresponsible!” Shiro said as the dinner ended. He’d been unable to convince the paladins to come back, and Allura still didn’t know what a frat party was, but Shiro assured her it wasn’t a good thing.
Shiro was also the one driving them to pick up the younger paladins, and had handed off the phone to Allura to check for updates and watch the GPS so they made it to the right location.
“Oh! This social media updated. Twitter, yes? Pidge must have posted something.” Allura opened the app. Pidge had insisted on setting up verified official social media accounts for the team as soon as they’d gone public with their existence. She and Lance were the ones who did the most on them.
“…Ah.”
“Allura? Is something wrong?”
“Why would Keith need pipes?”
Shiro frowned for a moment. “Read it out to me? I don’t think Keith would be doing drugs, but that’s the only thing I’m getting from this.”
“Who knew that Keith had such a good set of pipes under all the emo?” Allura read aloud. “Video to follow, from Mod Pidge.”
“They got Keith to sing?”
Allura shared Shiro’s apparent surprise once she understood what was happening. “Well, we will be there in a minute or two.”
“I can tell,” Shiro muttered, peering through the windshield. “That thudding you feel? Probably music.”
Allura frowned, looking out the window at the darkness that marked the passing of agricultural land, rather than an urban setting. “Where is this party?”
“Some farm? Outside a barn, with a makeshift bar or something, from what Pidge said. I couldn’t hear her very well.”
A large building loomed in the low light, and there were colored lights peeking out from behind it, just barely in their line of sight.
“Why would they have parties all the way out here?” Allura asked. “Wouldn’t the city be more convenient?”
“Lower likelihood of someone making a noise complaint and more room, is my guess.” Shiro turned smoothly into the drive, parking the shiny government-issued vehicle in the middle of a large number of banged-up trucks and minivans.
They got out, and Allura realized that the music was even louder now, with a deep, thudding bass line that made her chest reverberate. There was… a familiar voice singing.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Shiro muttered. Allura’s hand drifted down to her waist, where she still carried her collapsible staff.
“What kind of bad feeling?” Coran asked. “Are we going to get attacked?”
“Probably not, but I’m expecting a PR disaster.”
“Why?”
“It’s a frat party. Who knows what’s going on over there?” Shiro shook his head, weaving between vehicles towards the smaller building next to the barn.
“You’ve said yourself that they’re all adults now,” Coran said. “I’m sure they can take care of themselves for a single night on their own home planet.”
“They’re still kids in some ways, though. They missed a lot of stuff by being part of Voltron, and I just… I’m worried both that they might hurt themselves, and that they might do something to damage our reputation.” Shiro rolled his shoulders as they got closer.
Allura had to lift her dress at this point. She wasn’t sure what she was walking through, but was glad that she’d changed her shoes in the car.
“In which case it would be allowable to let the kids have their fun, yes?” Coran asked, stroking his mustache.
“Not if there’s—oh no.”
Allura turned the corner just a second after Shiro, and immediately saw the problem.
“Shiro, you didn’t say that—”
“What are they doing?” Shiro demanded of no one, staring in mild horror.
“Shiro!”
Allura turned to see Pidge, seated on some high stool, at the makeshift bar. She was waving them over, and Allura could see Hunk playing around with bottles behind her, passing out drinks to whoever asked.
Shiro put on his Black Paladin face and strode over, Allura and Coran trailing in confusion.
The stench of alcohol was strong. People were screaming. There wasn’t a lot of clothing.
And on the makeshift stage… well. Lance had certainly always had some significant stage presence.
“Yo,” Pidge said, waving. Her black waistcoat and green button-down were still on, thankfully, though the top few buttons had been undone. Allura didn’t blame her; it was very hot here.
“How drunk are they?”
Pidge grinned. “Tell me what you think, first.”
Allura turned to the stage at the same time as Shiro and Coran, considering.
“—Shake it for the young bucks sittin’ in the honky-tonk, for the rednecks rockin’ ‘til the break of dawn, for the—”
Keith was singing into a microphone, for one thing. He was shirtless, and had at some point changed into the pants that Allura now knew were called ‘jeans.’ He’d ended up with some strange hat, and stranger shoes, and Allura didn’t recognize the accent he had now as he sang.
Lance still had on normal shoes, and no hat, but he was also shirtless and wearing jeans.
He was also dancing very provocatively, had a microphone of his own, and kept pressing himself up against Keith.
They seemed to be having fun?
Shiro turned to Pidge again. “Very.”
“Fun fact: Keith is apparently a fucking lightweight, because all he had was two shots of tequila before people, meaning Lance, convinced him to do karaoke in the cowboy hat and boots. Still not sure where they came from, but I don’t think we need to worry about anything. He’s fine other than, you know, lowered inhibitions and whatnot.” Pidge wiggled her own glass. “This is just a club soda, by the way. Hunk’s been making sure I don’t touch any alcohol. Eighteen isn’t old enough, apparently.”
Shiro turned to frown at Hunk. “Neither is twenty.”
“Dude, I’ve had a single beer. I’m not going to get myself in trouble for something that dumb. And I can’t do anything to stop Keith. He did hit twenty-one a few weeks ago.”
“Lance didn’t!” Shiro said, pointing at the stage, where Lance was doing some dance on top of a chair that mostly just seemed to involve stomping repeatedly and clapping above his head.
“Lance,” Pidge said with relish, “Is stone-fucking-cold sober.”
Allura glanced at the stage, where Lance had jumped down and was now rhythmically walking across the stage, pointing and winking and making come-hither gestures at different parts of the audience with every line. She turned back to Pidge, knowing that her doubt was obvious on her face.
“What.” Shiro didn’t seem to believe her, either.
“Lance hasn’t touched a drop of alcohol tonight. He’s just high on life.”
“But—”
“Think of it this way,” Hunk said cheerfully. “Do you really think Lance WOULDN’T do shirtless karaoke on a stage while sober?”
Shiro pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s not—”
“Lol,” Pidge said aloud, taking a picture of Shiro and fiddling with it. Just seconds later, Allura got the notification that the official Voltron Twitter had updated with the picture and a caption.
Space Dad’s mad LMAO #TakashiShirogane #SpaceDadShiro #TakashiShiroDONE #RedAndBlueAreInSoMuchTrouble
Allura heard Keith almost shouting as the song behind started to climb even louder. It still sounded fairly nice.
“—girl, shake it for me, girl, shake it for me. Country girl, shake it for—”
Lance seemed to have taken this as a reason to start dancing and running across the stage, clapping his hands in huge overhead movements to… rile up the crowd?
“What is this?” Allura asked as the song ended.
“A bunch of drunk college kids who really like country music and karaoke,” Pidge answered. “It’s a frat party.”
“Let me hear you scream!” Lance yelled into the microphone, leaning over to put as much volume as he could into the words. “Whooo!”
The crowd screamed back.
Lance jumped straight up into the air, pumping a fist above his head, over and over and over, hooting with each movement. The crowd mimicked him.
Allura could feel herself gaping, just a little.
“Welcome to the college life,” Pidge said, grinning. “We all missed this by being out in space, and I guess Lance always wanted to experience a frat party at least once.”
“And Keith?” Allura asked, trying to draw her eyes away from the fairly intoxicated crowd.
“No clue. I guess he just really loves country music. He doesn’t even need to look at the lyrics to sing along.” Pidge grinned wider and waved her phone in the air. “Like, really loves country music.”
“Humans are strange,” Allura said after a moment. “I can’t imagine such a raucous party on most planets.”
“Guess we specialize in hooliganry,” Pidge said, and almost continued, but the next song started up, and Keith made his way back on stage. “Oh my god, they didn’t.”
“Well, I walk into the room, passing out hundred dollar bills,” Keith sang, once again with more skill than Allura expected.
Half the people here were singing along.
Lance joined in on the next line, a massive, self-indulgent grin on his face.
“They wouldn’t,” Shiro said, looking up in horror.
“Oh, they would,” Pidge cackled, phone lifted and taking video as Lance and Keith…
Well.
Lance had, to put it crudely, pressed his ass against Keith’s crotch, and leaned over forward until his torso was parallel to the ground. Keith seemed to have no problem with this, as he was holding on to Lance’s hip with his free hand, and leaning back himself. They were both still singing into the microphones, and Lance was still pointing and winking at the crowd.
It was all very crude, and the crowd seemed to love it.
“Save a horse, ride a cowboy!”
They dropped the pose after a few seconds, but it didn’t get any better. Allura had already learned what grinding was a few years ago, but this just seemed… excessive.
Keith’s insistence on leaning back so that their pelvises and hands were the only points of contact somehow only made it worse.
“Come on, vaquero!” Lance shouted into his microphone during an instrumental break, pushing Keith down into the chair and straddling him.
“A lap dance?” Shiro practically squeaked as the music changed, though still the same song, with the lyrics covering something about a thoroughbred and a truck bed with innuendos that Allura didn’t recognize. “Do they have any idea what kind of PR nightmare this is going to be?”
“Do they care?” Pidge asked, still filming.
“I can’t decide if Keith is going to be pissed about this or not when he’s sober again,” Hunk mused. “I don’t think he’s that drunk.”
“He drank those like an hour ago, dude. I’m half convinced he’s just using the alcohol as an excuse to let loose,” Pidge said, stowing her phone away as the song started winding down to a close. “And, to be fair, shirtless karaoke isn’t all that scandalous compared to what they could be doing with all the money we got for the Voltron stuff from the UN.”
“That’s not—” Shiro started again, trying to take advantage of the slightly quieter period between songs, but got distracted by an abnormally loud shout from the audience of frat boys.
“THAT WAS GAY!”
Keith turned to glare at the audience. “I’M GAY!”
Lance, apparently unable to help himself, held a hand up and cheerily added, “Bisexual here!”
There was a momentary pause during which the din got just a little quieter, and then the same voice yelled, “PROVE IT!”
“They wouldn’t,” Shiro breathed out.
“They would!” Pidge laughed, pulling out her phone again.
Keith seemed to contemplate the challenge for about three seconds, then turned and grabbed Lance by the back of the head and pulled him into a deep, sloppy kiss.
Pidge was practically screaming with laughter, and the frat kids weren’t much better with all the catcalls, hooting, and hollering.
“Oh my god,” Pidge cackled, struggling to keep her phone steady.
“Oh my god,” Shiro moaned, burying his face in his hands so he could mourn their reputation in peace.
Allura patted him on the shoulder. She wasn’t actually seeing the problem, though she supposed intoxicating substances could have had something to do with the reputation. Or was it the partial nudity? Or the exhibitive crudeness? She wasn’t sure what Earth’s standards were, in this regard.
Keith broke off the kiss and spun to stomp off the stage. “Where’s the next song?”
Lance just swayed on the spot, grinning dazedly. He raised the microphone to his face and turned his face up towards the sky, still smiling. “Thank you, God.”
The audience laughed.
“Well, he certainly seems to have retained his ability to control a crowd,” Coran noted.
Another instrumental line picked up, and Keith made his way back onto the stage. Allura turned to Hunk. “Is there anything I could drink?”
“Do you want it to be alcoholic or not?” He asked.
“Not,” she said. “And… something fruity, perhaps?”
“They’ve got orange juice back here for the screwdrivers,” Hunk told her. “I can get some of that.”
“That would be lovely, thank you.” Allura turned back around, eyes on the stage.
“—from her cowboy boots to her down home roots, she’s—”
“I’m actually kind of amazed at how many of these songs they both know,” Pidge commented. “Like, this is actually pretty amusing. Lance always says he hates country music, and yet…”
“And yet,” Allura agreed, taking her drink wordlessly from Hunk as he offered it. Lance and Keith were once again, to put it crudely, ass-to-crotch, singing with gusto about country girls and gesturing for the audience to sing along.
A movement caught the corner of her eye. A young man approached Pidge, leaning up against the counter and saying something that Allura couldn’t quite hear.
“Not interested,” Pidge said shortly, eyes focused on the stage.
“But—”
“Buddy, she said she’s not interested,” Hunk said, leaning over the counter. “And trust me, she could kick your ass if she wanted, so let’s not have any trouble.”
Pidge gave the boy a dismissive look, and then turned back to the stage.
The boy’s eyes slid over to Allura, gained another spark, and he opened his mouth to speak.
Allura felt a cold metal arm slide around her waist, and the boy’s face fell, something akin to fear crossing it.
“Never mind,” he muttered, almost inaudible as he turned to go back to the crowd. Allura watched him leave without any real opinion, though she did have something to say to the man that had interfered.
“Shiro, I could have handled that myself,” Allura said, turning to him. “That was unnecessary and a little patronizing.”
“Sorry, I just… you never know what kind of person you’re dealing with. Sometimes, the fastest way to get rid of someone like that is to imply that there’s already someone else in the picture.” Shiro rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “It’s easier than letting an argument happen.”
“It’s annoying as fuck, but if they see you as being taken, they don’t want to make a move, especially around someone as intimidating as Shiro,” Pidge drawled. “Like, I don’t like being treated like territory that someone’s staked a claim on either, but it’s a hell of a lot easier for Hunk to pretend we’re dating than for me to field five minutes of questions and insults about why I’m not interested.”
Allura made a face. “Shiro, I would prefer to handle this on my own in the future anyway.”
“Understood, princess,” he said with a nod, looking contrite. “But if you do want me to get involved…”
“You’ll know if I do,” Allura said, and was then distracted by a sudden rise in volume from the crowd.
She wasn’t sure what she expected when she turned to look, but Lance’s dancing was…something else.
“Is he breakdancing to country music?” Shiro asked, disbelieving.
“Yeeeeeeeup,” Pidge said, once again filming with her phone. “Lance is a goddamn gift at parties.”
“They are just going full Brokeback Mountain up there, aren’t they?” Hunk said. “Just… damn. So country and so gay.”
“Let them have their incredibly stupid fun,” Pidge said, once again putting her phone away as there was yet another song switch.
(Allura was fairly certain that the social media pages would have a number of new photos and videos by morning.)
“Where are you going?” Keith demanded, on stage as Lance walked off to the side.
“I don’t know this one, and I’m really thirsty,” Lance said, grabbing a plastic bottle of water from someone offstage. There was a crackling noise as he opened it next to the microphone, and then he started chugging.
“It’s half instrumental!”
“So I’ll dance once I’ve had my water,” Lance retorted. “Now start singing, flyboy.”
Keith rolled his eyes, visible even from Allura’s position on the other side of the audience.
“The Devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal,” Keith sang, something a little different from what he’d been singing so far.
Allura just enjoyed the performance, amateur as it was, with her drink in hand.
“Fire on the Mountain, run, boys, run. The Devil's in the house of the rising sun.”
When Lance did join in, it was with some pantomimed instrument-playing, and at one point, an odd sort of dancing she’d seen him do before, with lots of jumping and stomping.
“Is he… is he riverdancing?” Shiro asked. “To country music?”
“Are you surprised?” Hunk asked. “He already did some breakdancing to the earlier stuff. With all the violin in this one, I’d be more surprised if he didn’t try.”
“But…”
“Shiro,” Pidge said, kicking him lightly in the leg. “Chill out. You’re stressing out over Lance dancing wrong. You do realize that, right? You’re stressing out over nothing. You really need to find a way to relax, because this isn’t healthy.”
Shiro winced. “I know, I know, but this entire situation is—”
“OI, SHIRO!”
Allura flinched a little at the shouting, but it was obvious what had happened. The boys on stage had figured out that the team adults were here.
Lance was jumping up and down on the stage, waving energetically in the lull between songs. Keith had a hand to his forehead, shadowing his eyes and trying to see out to the bar.
“Shiro, Allura, Coran! Join us!”
Shiro blanched. “God, no.”
Pidge stood up on her chair and cupped her hands around her mouth. “ALLURA AND CORAN DON’T KNOW ANY OF THE SONGS!”
“SO SEND JUST SHIRO! WE NEED MORE PEOPLE FOR KARAOKE.” Lance yelled back. “SHI-RO! SHI-RO! SHI-RO!”
The crowd joined in, chanting for Shiro to join in on the fun.
Shiro took a step back, bumping against the bar. “No, no, no. I do not need this ending up online.”
Allura looked over at Shiro, then at the stage, and shrugged to herself.
She threw him over one shoulder and headed for the stage.
“Allura!”
“It’s for your own good,” she told him. “Pidge said you need to relax. This will help, and if anyone asks, you can tell them it was my fault. I’m technically still your boss.”
The crowd screamed their approval, Lance urging them on as Keith disappeared to… choose a new song, most likely.
She dumped Shiro on the stage, and he rolled to a crouching position and glared at her.
“If I have to be up here, then so do you.”
Allura blinked. “I don’t know any of the songs, Shiro.”
“Then you can be my moral support,” he said. “Just… I can’t do this. I don’t do singing.”
“You do now!” Lance said, grabbing him by the shoulder and pulling him up straight. He held out a hand to Allura. “Princess?”
She thought about it for a moment, and… well, it wasn’t like any real harm would come of it. She took Lance’s hand and let him help her up onto the stage, as unnecessary as it was.
In her sparkly purple floor-length dress and Shiro’s matching black waistcoat, purple button-down outfit, they looked a little too formal compared to Keith and Lance. The crowd did not seem to care.
Keith came out and gave Shiro another microphone. He nodded to Allura, and then turned to Shiro again, pointing to an old-fashioned flat physical screen on the side of the stage. “Lyrics are there if you forget. I chose a song that I know you remember.”
Shiro groaned as the instrumental started. “I hate you.”
“Pidge, I hope you’re filming this!” Lance yelled into his microphone.
And then it was too late to keep talking, because Shiro was singing.
“Becky was a beauty from South Alabama, her daddy had a heart like a nine-pound hammer,”
He wasn’t as good as Keith, or even as good at Lance, but he was passable, and he could fit the smugness of the lyrics very well, no matter how nonsensical they seemed to Allura.
Lance darted by and grabbed Shiro’s arm, draping it over Allura’s shoulder.
“’Cause I was thinkin’ of a little white tanktop sittin’ right there in the middle by me, thinkin’ ‘bout a—”
Allura saw Lance slip under Keith’s arm, putting one hand on his hip and looking as smug as he could as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other in time to the music.
She mimicked him, gaining a handful of grins from her paladins and the approval of the crowd.
Lance rushed by during an instrumental break and dragged her into a short dance, only a few short bars, and then let her spin back to Shiro as the words started up again.
Shiro seemed to be having much more fun than he’d expected, given how he was leaning over to sing into the microphone, one foot tapping against the ground in time to the beat.
“—then she gave a ‘come and get me’ grin, and like a bullet we were gone again!”
The rest of the song passed in a flurry of giggling on Allura’s part as Shiro finally got into the groove of things.
“Alright, how did we all like that?” Lance demanded as the song ended, getting up on the chair again. “Was that worth it?”
The crowd roared its approval.
“That is so going to come back to bite us,” Shiro whispered into Allura’s ear. She shrugged. They could handle something like that. It wasn’t another Galra Empire, and they’d handled that well enough.
“You can sit back down if you want,” Lance told them, getting off the microphone for that. “I told Keith which song to grab next, and it’s literally all about the booty.”
Shiro made a strangled noise. Allura shrugged. “I think I’ll just stay in the wings for now.”
“I’ll join her,” Shiro said quickly, following her off-stage.
“Suit yourself!” Lance yelled as they left, the next song starting up. He turned back to the audience and started yelling again. Allura didn’t even need to listen to what he was saying to know that he was getting them excited again.
She had no frame of reference for what a ‘honky-tonk badonkadonk’ was meant to be, but the overtly sexual manner in which Lance was dancing, focusing especially on the hips and buttocks, along with the fact that Keith repeatedly slapped Lance’s rear end during the song, even when Lance was up on a chair to dance… well. It was fairly obvious by that point.
“The news cycle is going to tear us to shreds,” Shiro whispered, face in his hands again.
Allura patted him on the shoulder, and then pecked him on the cheek for good measure. “It’ll be fine, Shiro. I can just say that I expressed interest in the lives that humans of this age, and what they did for entertainment. A cultural excursion.”
“Sure. Right. Okay. That totally explains Lance and Keith grinding on a stage while half-naked.”
Allura planted a kiss on his lips, hands on either side of his face. “Shiro, this isn’t a problem. They’re just having fun.”
The music changed again.
“—got a hillbilly bone down deep inside, no matter where you’re from you just—”
Allura turned to see Lance curling his fingers in their direction, inviting them back out onto the stage. She shook her head, and he shrugged and pranced back out onto the stage.
Keith was sitting in the chair, the very picture of laziness as he sang, seated sideways with one foot up on the seat and his free arm hanging off of it. It was nice to see the chair finally being used for its intended purpose, as opposed to being Lance’s dance floor.
“He’s getting very invested in this,” she noted.
“Who is?”
“…both, I suppose.” She tilted her head. “I suppose I can understand the point of this song, at least. It’s meant to imply that anyone, regardless of background, can enjoy the music of this part of the country, yes?”
“Yeah, basically.” Shiro shrugged, then made a face and rolled his shoulders, taking a seat on an overturned wooden crate of some sort. “It’s a good one.”
“Mm,” she hummed her agreement, then took a seat on Shiro’s lap, hands folded in her lap. No use in getting her dress much dirtier than it was already.
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his face into her back. “I’ll try not to worry too much.”
“I know, Shiro.” She’d have run her fingers through his hair if their positions were better suited to such.
Keith adjusted his position, facing forward with his legs spread wide and his forearms resting on his knees to keep his torso up in an odd hunched position that nonetheless seemed to suit the new song.
“This is for all you sophisticated ladies out there,” Lance drawled, winking and pointing to the audience as he took up a position behind Keith, leaning forward against the back of the chair.
Keith took on most of the actual singing for this song, while Lance… well, he continued his pattern of occasionally singing and almost always dancing.
“She grew up in the city in a little subdivision,” Keith started.
Allura smiled, leaning back against Shiro. “It means a lot that they can relax like this, you know.”
“Ladies love country boys!” Keith sang, with the apparent implication that he was the country boy that was drawing in… something. Lance, Allura recalled, was neither from a city nor a lady, despite his occasional penchant for skirts and dresses and his suitability to an urban environment. Nonetheless, he was playing the role for Keith, draping himself over his fellow paladin in all sorts of manners that mostly came off as silly instead of provocative.
She considered that for a moment, and nodded to herself as she realized that most of Lance’s cruder dances tonight had been for a laugh, rather than to titillate.
Well, whatever. It would all turn out fine.
Song after song passed, and people eventually began trailing out. Allura and Shiro managed to finally talk Lance and Keith into leaving the stage, heading back for the car as soon as they picked up the others from the bar.
“Somebody’s in trouble!” Pidge said, all sing-song, as they came within audible distance for normal speaking voices.
“Fuck off, Pidge,” Lance said, making a rude hand gesture in her direction. “I’m tired.”
“That’s because it’s almost five in the morning,” Pidge said, snickering. “By the way, do you want videos of your performances? Because I have so many.”
“Do you have Shiro’s performance?” Lance asked, suddenly much more interested.
Pidge grinned.
“Alright, everyone in the car,” Shiro said, arms spread wide as he walked to herd them in the right direction.
“Ah yes, to the government-issued soccer mom car,” Lance snorted. “Whatever. So long as I don’t have to drive, I’m cool.”
“I’ll drive,” Coran offered. “We Alteans need less sleep than you Earthlings, so it may be safer than for Shiro to drive while tired.”
“Thanks, Coran,” Shiro said, tossing him the keys. “Allura? Are we all good?”
Allura slipped her hand through the proffered arm. “I’m ready to go. I can’t speak for the rest of the team.”
“We’re fine,” Lance said, slinging an arm over Keith’s shoulder, which garnered him an eye-roll but not much else. “Even mister ‘drunk after two tequila shots’ here.”
“You do realize that my system processed that after just an hour or two, right?” Keith asked.
“Still doesn’t change the fact that you got drunk off of just two shots,” Lance teased. “Seriously, though, good on you for going the liquid courage route. I didn’t think I’d be able to talk you into getting on stage.”
“Neither did I,” Keith said. He pulled the hat off of his head. “Do we… know whose this is?”
Lance shrugged. “No idea.”
“Leave it at the bar?” Pidge suggested.
“Works for me,” Keith said, dropping it off as they passed the end of the makeshift bar, heading towards the care park. “Kind of wish I could keep it.”
“Nah, you don’t know where that thing’s been,” Lance assured him. “We can get you a new one, mullet boy.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Quieres que te llamé vaquero otra vez?” Lance said, eyebrows bouncing.
“You are insufferable,” Keith said, though there was no bite to it. “And no, that’s not acceptable either.”
“I have full rights to call you vaquero if you’re wearing a cowboy hat or otherwise doing something reasonably Southern or Western,” Lance insisted. “Which reminds me: you’re taking me horseback riding. You promised.”
“Fine, fine, whatever.” Keith rolled his eyes again. “But if you call me that in bed, I will kick you out.”
Allura tilted her head. Horseback riding? They’d mentioned it before, but… “May I join you?”
“…in kicking Lance out of my bed?” Keith sounded very confused.
Allura shook her head. “No, no, the horseback riding. You’ve mentioned it before. It sounds interesting.”
“Sure,” Keith said. “Anyone else?”
They’d made it to the car at that point, and the positive answers from everyone acted as a fairly accurate head count.
Allura rested her head against Shiro’s shoulder as the car started. Hunk had taken the front seat, and Pidge was in the back next to Lance and Keith, who appeared to be falling asleep now that they could finally take a seat for real.
“You’re all in trouble,” Shiro reminded them.
“Hush, dear,” Allura told him. “There’s bigger things to worry about.”
“Not really,” Pidge said. “I posted pretty much all the safe-for-work stuff to Twitter or Instagram or the tumblr.”
o.o.o.o.o
Shiro was right, in that their attendance of a frat party caused a media stir for days.
Allura was right, in that the whole thing blew over without many long-lasting consequences.
All was well that ended well, yes?