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"Paladins! I've found some juice in the hold of the castle! Let us celebrate this magnificent victory!" Coran booms across the kitchen/common room. Keith lazily looks up from cleaning his bayard.
Allura claps, "How lovely, Coran! You have all earned a celebration!"
"Go ahead without me, I'm heading to bed" Shiro walks out the door and waves.
"Coran, what kind of juice is it?" Hunk inquires.
"Quiznak if I know, number 2!" Coran shrugs as he begins doing impressive bartender tricks with the six cups he brought out.
"Coran, has this juice been here all 10,000 years?" Pidge innocently asks.
"Number five, where else would it be?" He chuckles as he pours a glass of the mystery juice for everyone. The present paladins, plus Allura and Coran, all take a glass.
Keith watches as Lance takes a sip and makes a face, "This tastes like liquor!" He exclaims, "I mean if I knew what liquor tasted like, this would be it!"
Pidge grabs Lance's hand and shoves it to his mouth while chanting "Shots shots shots shots!"
Lance downs the whole cup and makes an even more exaggerated face than before. Keith chuckles to himself as he downs his own drink.
Allura and Coran sip theirs as if it was a delicacy. "What a deep, rich taste! I taste some undertones of smackleberry and," Coran pauses to think for a second, "Nunville!" He exclaims.
While Coran went on his juice connoisseur ramble, Pidge had already whispered to the rest of the paladins. When she whispered to Lance, he suppressed a giggle.
"Hey, Keith, I bet I can drink more than you can!" Lance challenges, downing a second glass he poured himself.
Keith stared at his empty glass and thought to himself how bad could it be? He smirked at Lance. "It's on."
"Coran, how much of this stuff do you have?" Pidge asked.
"I've got plenty to go around! Drink up, paladins!" Coran said as he pulled out three more bottles from behind the counter.
Keith takes two and hands one to Lance. Lance is flushed, but seems at ease. Lightweight, Keith thinks to himself.
Pidge holds up her hand like she's starting a drag race (not RuPaul). "Ok, whoever can drink more of their juice in 30 seconds, wins"
Pidge is about to start the timer and Keith is prepared to chug when Lance interrupts. "Wait, what does the winner get?" He slightly slurs his words and Keith snorts. "What's so funny, mullet man?"
Keith was almost crying with laughter. Lance sounded like he said "Whasso funnyyyy, mulllllet maaaan?"
"Nothing. Winner should get to record the alarm sound." Keith suggested. He knew Lance would try really hard to win, but would fall over before time was up.
"Gonna make sweet love to that microphone." Lance rambled. Hunk busted up laughing and Pidge began to cackled. Allura and Coran were puzzled by the earth expression. Now Keith was crying from laughing. "Y'know what, Keith, your laugh is so pretty." Lance added. Keith froze.
"Ok, ok enough flirting, starting in three, two, one!" Pidge sent them on their way. Keith was shocked and it took him a second to realize that the race had started.
Lance was chugging, but very slowly. Keith took enormous gulp by enormous gulp, hoping to catch up. The juice burned his throat and tasted like ass. Not like Keith knew what ass tasted like. Lance winked at Keith from behind his bottle. Keith almost choked on his juice.
"And," Pidge started, "Stop!" The boys broke away from their bottles.
"Yeah, how are we gonna figure out who won?" Keith pressed. The bottles were opaque, so they couldn't tell.
"We'll pour them out and whoever has less to pour, wins." Pidge suggested.
Keith and Lance presented their empty glasses they abandoned. Pidge took each glass and poured the respective bottles out. The liquid was a gorgeous dark gray purple. "Hey, Keith, it looks pretty like your eyes!" Lance sloppily exclaimed. Keith's face burned with a deep blush. Pidge noticed and snickered to herself.
Keith's glass was near empty, but Lance's was roughly two-thirds full. "That can't be right," Lance grabbed Keith's bottle and begun to shake it wildly over Keith's cup. To his avail, nothing came out.
"Too bad, Lance, you lost," Keith shrugged.
Lance rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, mullet boy, what are you gonna choose?"
"Cho-? Oh the alarm noise!" Keith had forgotten all about his prize. "Hmmmm, I think the noise should be you saying 'I love Keith Kogane's mullet' with enthusiasm." Keith smirked with a defiant air.
"Joke's on you, Keithy, I love your hair. Not even worried about it." Now it was Lance's turn to smirk. Except, Lance was a little too intoxicated to correctly control his facial muscles. He sported more of a stupid grin than a smirk.
"Let's do that tomorrow morning. Someone might be too drunk for that." Hunk glanced at Lance, who's face was flushed and his eyes were glassy. Lance stuck out his tongue at Hunk.
"Can we do karaoke?" Lance gasped.
"We don't even have a karaoke machine," Keith added.
"Pidge has one that she worked on!" Hunk suggested.
"And I've been waiting for this moment to try it out." She smiled.
"Wonderful! What's karaoke?" Allura asked as she poured herself another glass. She had several glasses but seemed unfazed by the potent liquid.
"It's an earth tradition!" Coran said, sloppily. "I miss Altea," his mood immediately dropped. He was definitely the emotional drunk.
Pidge carried a small gray box out from her room. "It's got a lot of songs. Mainly ones I had downloaded on my phone before we came here. I had a lot of music."
"Dibs on first!" Lance yelled a little bit too loud. He pushed a button on the side, which lit up a screen on the top. He flipped through the selections and clicked on one.
"Here's a mic." Pidge offered a high tech looking mic to him. He took it and smiled.
Lance stood in front of the couch, where the rest of the group had crashed to watch. Pidge looked at his selection and bust out laughing, "Whenever you're ready." Lance nodded and Pidge pressed the screen.
A techno beat emitted from the small machine. Hunk slapped his hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing.
"Where did you come from lady
And ooh won't you take me there
Right away won't you baby
Tendoroni you've got to be
Spark my nature
Sugar fly with me
Don't you know now
Is the perfect time
We can make it right
Hit the city lights
Then tonight ease the lovin' pain
Let me take you to the max"
Lance didn't sound a thing like Michael Jackson, but his voice was golden Despite his drunkenness, Lance was incredibly talented. Keith slowly realized that Lance seemed to be singing to him.
"I want to love you (PYT)
Pretty Young Thing"
Lance was pointing right at Keith, who's face was as red as his lion.
"You need some loving (TLC)
Tender loving care
And I'll take you there, boy"
Lance wore a shit-eating grin as he paused between the chorus and second verse. The music faded out and Lance smiled in Keith's general direction. Lance flopped down onto the couch between Hunk and Keith.
"Oh my god, Lance, I hate you" Keith mumbled through his hands.
"Awww, but Keith, you're so pretty!" Lance cooed.
The rest of the group was laughing their asses off. Allura and Coran joined in the laughter as well. Even Coran, in his wasted state, understood what happened.
Keith quietly smiled to himself through his hands that still covered his face in embarrassment.
"Paladins, I bet I could throw one of you easily!" Allura challenged the group. She was on her sixth or seventh glass and the juice was definitely was getting to her. The marks under her eyes were a much darker pink than normal. Coran's were very dark blue-green.
"None of us doubt you, Princess." Hunk chuckled.
"I'm throwing one of you." She insisted. When she reached out to Pidge to grab her, the small teen clutched to the arm of the couch. Keith shot her a glare before she could try to pick him up.
She glanced at Lance, who was ambling towards the bar for another glass, maybe his second after the chugging competition. She followed behind him and grabbed the tan boy under the arms.
"What the fuck?" he exclaimed. He tried twisting out of Allura's grip to no avail. Eventually, Lance gave up and went with it.
Allura looked down at the ground and decided she was too short for this task. She closed her eyes and began to grow taller.
Now, she could hold Lance off the ground without having to reach up.
She fumbled around until she was holding him by the wrists and ankles. She walked in front of the couch and started swinging Lance back and forth. After gathering enough momentum, she let go of him. He flew towards the couch, but not the empty section she was aiming for. Lance slammed into Keith, landing in his lap.
Lance looked up at Keith where he lay on his lap. "You come here often?"
Keith snickered. The juice might have been getting to him. "I cannot believe you just said that to me. Oh my god, you just got thrown onto me." He busted out laughing.
"Is that a yes?" Lance asked.
"Get the fuck off me." He said as he tried to shove Lance off his lap.
Lance dug his feet into the cushion beside him and didn't budge. "Oooh, I like it rough." He winked.
"You massive douche." Keith grumbled as she put all his force into pushing Lance onto the ground. "I'm going to bed." He announced gruffly.
"Can I come?" Lance flirted.
"No." Keith bluntly stated as he left the room.
Keith flopped onto his bed, dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and let out an elongated, distressed groan. Thank god these walls are soundproof, he thought to himself. He's so fucking cute I wanna die. He repeatedly hit his pillow against his forehead.
A deep need for sleep overcame the boy and he conked out.
<+>
Lance awoke to a pounding in his head and a hunger for anything greasy. He pulled on his shirt and jeans, and ambled out to the kitchen.
Before he made it there, Hunk stopped him.
"Lance, before you go out there, you need to know what happened. You may or may not have said several things and sang a song to Keith." Hunk explained.
"I what?" Lance gaped.
"He seemed pretty uncomfortable." Hunk said.
"Uuuugh, I cant believe myself" Lance groaned. Hunk quickly dashed away. Keith was walking down the hall. When he saw Lance, he immediately looked at the ground and laid no attention to Lance. "Keith!" Lance called. Keith started walking faster. "I'm really sorry I made you so uncomfortable last night." He began.
"It's fine" Keith shrugged.
Lance began to ramble. "No it's not. Hunk said you were weirded out so I'm apologizing. If it makes you feel any better, what I said was probably true, unless it was mean, then I would never say that. I don't actually remember-"
Keith cut him off, "Lance are you fucking with me?"
"No, I'm a lightweight, not a liartweight!" Lance awkwardly joked. The two boys stood there, not making eye contact, and blushing furiously.
"That was so bad." Keith laughed and his eyes crinkled up. Lance felt his heart fill with joy as his soul left his body.
Keith glanced up. He looked deep into Lance's eyes, and planted a small kiss on his cheek. Lance almost fainted on the spot. He gasped at Keith, who had a smug look on his face, as if to say "Oh how the tables have turned." Lance reached up to feel his cheek where Keith's lips had landed. His heart was burning up and so was his face. He grinned from ear to ear.
Keith began to walk away but turned back for a second. He had a puzzled look on her face. "Also, what is tendoroni?”
Lance shrugged and laughed, “I have no clue.”
<+>
Shiro pulled a lever in the head of the black lion. The team merged into a group. Minds melded and general emotions swept through his mind. “Coran, let them know we’re coming. Sound the alarm!”
A loud, repeating chorus of “I love Keith Kogane’s mullet!” followed by rounds of giggling and snorting rang out through the emptiness.
“Uh, Coran? What was that?” Shiro called through the comms as the other paladins laughed.
“Oh that’s the new siren, don’t you remember when we- oh you had gone to bed! Don’t worry!” Coran responded.
Shiro pulled a quizzical look, shrugged, and continued berating the Galra fleet with his team.