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Anyone could tell you Keith was a loner. He got kicked out of the Garrison for fighting and went to live out in a house by himself in the middle of a desert. He just didn’t have time for any attachments, and he frankly didn’t think he could handle them. So yeah, he was a loner, and there was nothing wrong with that, or at least that’s what he told himself.
So shoving him in a room full of alien children, yeah, not so great of an idea.
Keith was so not fucking in for this. His knowledge, while certainly pretty extensive in piloting, did not include anything on taking care of children. Especially not alien children with blue skin and yellow eyes that looked a bit like the ones from Avatar. It was all Lance’s fault that he was even here.
The ship had recently landed on a planet with vegetation that was eerily similar to Earth’s so Hunk had gone out and collected all the plants he could. Using this as inspiration, Lance had challenged him to a cook off in another attempt to goad on the so called “rivalry” he had with Keith. A cook off for quiznak’s sake, and Keith was pretty proud of his cooking after living on his own for so long, so he had agreed. It was at least a non-aggressive form of competition…or so he thought.
The entire thing had ended with both their bayards out, Keith’s stuck deep into the food goo machine, Lance’s causing several holes in the kitchen’s walls, and them both drenched in each other’s dishes.
Keith had honestly never seen Coran’s face so red with fury, or Shiro’s disappointed dad face so strong. Well, at least now he knew Lance wasn’t kidding when he said he made a mean guacamole, but in his opinion it had nothing on his own chili (though in all reality he was kidding himself although he would never admit it, Lance’s guacamole made him almost as weak as the man himself).
So now they were here on babysitting duty in an old room on the ship while the rest of the team helped the adult aliens rebuild their village after an attack from the Galra.
Keith snuck a glance at Lance. He was probably as freaked out as Keith was. But to his surprise, Lance looked delighted to be standing in front of the kids.
Keith looked on in amazement as Lance kneeled down in front of a little blue alien girl, who looked about 6 in Earth years.
“So what’s your name?” Lance asked her softly. The girl looked at him shyly with big yellow eyes.
“Nyxana” she replied fiddling with her hands.
“How about I call you Nyx, it sounds like a princess name and you’re obviously a princess” Lance said in his version of a “formal” voice and dropping into a bow. The little girl giggled and stepped closer to Lance. This seemed like a signal to the 20 or so other children in the room to swarm Lance, and soon he was on the ground almost overwhelmed with the amount of prying and curious hands.
Keith didn’t find this cute at all, nope not cute at all, especially not the way Lance’s nose scrunched up as he laughed.
He watched as more names than he could remember were thrown at Lance and somehow the asshole remembered every single one. It figured that he couldn’t memorize any of their codes but he could memorize this. Lance was soon on first name basis with all the kids and was dragged along by a whole throng of them as they asked him questions like “Why are your eyes white and blue and not yellow? Do you have a disease?” and “Your skin is so brown, do you want me to color it blue for you? I’m pretty good at it.”
Lance was looking happier than Keith had seen him in a long time, looking so in his element, his face stretched out into a brilliant white smile and laughing with his head tilted back. And fuck, if that wasn’t just Keith’s heart fluttering in his chest, which it definitely wasn’t of course.
The not fluttering got even stronger as that smile turned on him and faded into a smirk as Lance called out to him.
“Is the big bad paladin too great and amazing to have a little fun? Stop just leaning against the door and looking angsty”
Keith, in response, threw a throw pillow from the nearest couch at him, which Lance promptly dodged. Lance got a mischievous look on his face before cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling “PILLOWFIGHT!”
Apparently a pillowfight was a universal thing as the children immediately scrambled for the pillows on the nearest couches, which littered the room, to get weapons, and soon there was an all out war. Lance was the quickest to grab the biggest pillow, and turned to Keith, who was left pillowless. Lance wore a wicked grin as he slowly creeped toward Keith.
“This is not what I signed up f- Lance I swear to god if you hit me with that pillo-“ Keith’s voice was cut off as Lance swung the pillow right at his head.
Oh, it was so on.
Keith rolled avoiding Lance’s next swing as he grabbed the pillow on the couch nearest which, obviously due to his shitty luck, turned out to be one of the smallest.
Lance glanced at his pillow, which was gigantic compared to Keith’s, and gave a self satisfied grin. Keith gave an equally smug one back, thinking it funny how Lance thought size mattered when it came to skill. Keith winced internally at his own thoughts; of course it somehow turned into a dick joke.
But then he barely had time to think as Lance was swinging the pillow at his side, letting out the worst war cry Keith had ever heard, which in turn all the kids copied. Keith blocked the attack with his own pillow and drew back, looking for any openings in Lance’s defense.
His head went into battle mode as he scanned for any weaknesses. Lance tended to go full offense, and favored his right side when he swung the pillow leaving his left side wide open, now if he could just-. Keith’s thoughts were interrupted by a snort. He looked up to see Lance trying to hide a grin behind his hands.
“Dude chill,” Lance laughed. “I can literally see your head going at the speed of light. This isn’t training, and it’s not a life or death situation either. This is about having fun, just go with the flow and stop thinking so much.”
Lance gestured broadly at all the kids, who all had no idea what combat training even was, and were just nonsensically hitting each other having the time of their life. Keith was kind of embarrassed at this point, because of course it’s all fun and games, that’s what pillow fights were supposed to be right?
Lance smirked, “But that doesn’t mean go easy, because there’s no way I’m going easy on you.”
“No one asked you to.” Keith replied hotly and swung the pillow down on Lance’s head before making a tactical retreat. “Payback’s a bitch”
Lance’s shocked expression quickly dissolved into one of amusement as he chased after Keith with his pillow. Keith laughed as he ran, dodging in between kids having their own fights. He stopped every so often to have a little scuffle with Lance before ducking under Lance’s arm and running again. He literally couldn’t remember the last time he was so carefree about anything. It was exhilarating. Being with Lance was exhilarating.
Lance finally ran him into a corner.
“Nowhere to run now” Lance grinned. Keith thinking fast swung his pillow at Lance’s face while he swept Lance’s feet from under him. But, in an unexpected move, Lance grabbed Keith’s jacket and dragged him down with him.
Keith landed with his head on Lance’s chest and their legs entwined. Keith lifted himself up on his arms with a groan.
“You could have not pulled me down too you asshole” Keith muttered before looking down at Lance and realizing how close they were.
He could see the faint freckles scattered on Lance’s nose and felt the rise and fall of Lance’s chest on his own. Keith could’ve counted every one of Lance’s eyelashes if he had wanted to. He could physically feel himself drawing closer to Lance, Lance’s blue eyes flickering from his lips to his eyes. Their lips were almost touching when a loud sob interrupted them.
Lance’s head rose up so fast his head butted Keith’s, which left them both groaning. Keith wasn’t sure if he was glad he hadn’t almost embarrassed himself by kissing Lance, or disappointed. He looked up to see who was crying, and there sitting on the ground next to a couch crying was Nyx. The room had gone deadly silent as well, as all the children turned to see who had been crying.
He immediately heard Lance get up and walk towards the girl.
“Ay chiquita,” Lance tutted and knelt down with open arms, into which the girl promptly shuffled into, pressing her face against Lance’s chest and letting out quiet sobs.
“I swear it was an accident,” a voice sounded out on the couch next to Nyx. A little alien boy who looked about 9, looked at them sheepishly holding a pillow guiltily behind his back. “I hit her with my pillow and she fell off the couch.”
Lance gave the boy a gentle smile as he picked up Nyx and gently started rubbing circles into her back.
“It’s all good, accidents happen,” Lance said as he rocked the crying Nyx in his arms.
This entire Lance-being-good-with-kids thing was not good for his heart, Keith realized as he watched Lance rock Nyx and his heart nearly gave out. It wasn’t fair that he was this good with them when Keith could barely hold one.
Lance rocked Nyx a few more minutes as she wouldn’t stop crying when he was struck with an idea. Keith watched as he spoke to all the children.
“Hey, who wants to hear a story?!”
A chorus of “me” was heard all around as Lance sat down on a couch.
“Now circle up kids” Lance said in a singsong voice as the kids sat in a circle around the couch. “That includes you too Keith, come on front and center.” Keith rolled his eyes and sat down in the very front, where to his utter surprise a softly sniffing Nyx was placed on his lap.
Keith looked up at Lance, eyes widening. Lance laughed at his expression.
“C’mon man, that’s a kid I put into your lap not a time bomb, plus I’m doing this to distract her anyways.”
Keith knew that, but he also knew that from what little experience he had with children, that he was absolutely terrible. One time he had scrunched up his eyebrows while he was thinking about what to buy at a supermarket, and a baby passing by had burst into tears when it had seen him. Keith honestly had a better chance of making her cry than anything else.
Keith held Nyx gingery in his lap, but the little girl seemed to have no problem cuddling against him and wrapping her arms around him, her sniffs now down to one every few seconds.
Satisfied that Keith was going to keep Nyx in his lap, Lance began to regale the kids with how they had first found and formed Voltron. Although Lance extremely exaggerated his own role, he was a good storyteller and kept the kids engaged with his hand gestures and variety of expressions, even Keith was into it. Meanwhile, Nyx every so often dug her way into Keith’s side even further until he had fully engulfed her in his arms and she was sitting contently in his lap
At the end of the story Lance looked down at Keith expectantly.
Keith sighed. “I guess it wasn’t as shitty as it could’ve been.”
Lance quickly kneeled down and covered Nyx’s elven ears with his hands.
“There are children here,” Lance said in a mock offended voice, while some of the older kids laughed.
Keith looked down at Nyx who was now looking sweetly up at him. He had somehow managed to not fuck this up like he usually did with kids and in all honesty she was adorable. He brushed some hair out of her face softly and thought hey, maybe I am cut out for this.
Keith looked up to see Lance looking at him with an unreadable expression that somehow looked fond.
Suddenly from the back of the group a voice sounded out.
“It’s Nap Time”
All the children, including Nyx ,who shook off both Keith and Lance, seemed to stand up at once muttering “It’s Nap Time”
Keith and Lance looked around in confusion as all the kids started to pick up their thrown down pillows just to lie down with them tucked under their heads.
“I guess I’ll explain,” said the boy who had hit Nyx with the pillow as he walked towards them. “At a special time of day any kid under the age of 10 years in this planet’s years has to go to sleep at that time and take a three hour nap. We have to do this if we wanna grow up"
Lance seemed to understand, although Keith was a bit rocky.
“Oh okay, let’s go see if everyone has a pillow Keith.” He said dragging Keith up to go check to see if everyone was comfortable. A full 2 rounds and 5 extra pillows later everyone seemed comfy.
As Keith and Lance passed Nyx she tugged them both down until they were lying down on either side of her, Keith to her left and Lance on her right.
“Stay” she whispered to them, basically melting their hearts. Then came the next words which basically froze Keith.
“Sing.”
The kid next to Nyx had heard and soon the room was filled with soft whispers of “sing”. Keith might have been freaking out a little…okay a lot because he ever had sang to anyone other than his shower, and was pretty certain he sounded like a drowned cat. That was until he heard a soft, lilting voice from his right.
“Duérmete mi niño, duérmete mi amor
duérmete pedazo de mi corazón.
Este niño mío que nació de noche
quiere que lo lleve a pasear en coche.
Este niño mío que nació de día
quiere que lo lleve a la dulcería.
Duérmete mi niño, duérmete mi amor
duérmete pedazo de mi corazón.”
Keith basically died on the spot because Lance could fucking sing too and in Spanish? That was on a whole ‘nother level of hot and it really wasn’t fair. But it had seemed to have worked as the entire room but Lance and him were now asleep, including Nyx between them.
Keith took that quiet time to remember the almost kiss that had happened, and became flustered.
“So you’re really good with kids huh?” he asked Lance trying to keep his own mind off it.
Lance laughed. “Yeah, it was kind of a necessity in my family ya know? My mom has 4 siblings and my dad has 6 which makes for a lot cousins, especially younger ones since I’m like the 4th oldest”
Lance was quiet for a bit. “I miss them, I was gonna become an uncle while I was on Earth too, but this entire Voltron thing happened and by Pidge’s calculations the baby was born two months ago” Lance sighed.
“I think you would have made a great uncle,” Keith said quietly, almost not saying it.
“You think?” Lance smiled at him
“You were amazing with the kids today, they loved it. I know I did.” Keith said, determinedly not looking at Lance. “That was the first pillowfight I’ve ever had.”
That seemed to jolt Lance out of his gloom.
“First? Dude what kind of childhood were you living?” Lance asks him.
“I don’t know, I was kind of alone most of the time.” Keith shoots back, regretting it as he sees Lance wince.
“I’m making you a bucket list,” Lance declared “of all the experiences you are required as a human being to have.”
Keith snorts and spends the next half hour talking about all the things he has and hasn’t done.
Two hours later the team show up to find Keith and Lance snuggled close together, with a small blue child in between them. Pidge finds this an excellent photo opportunity and snaps a photo.
And later when the children wake up and are returned to their parents, Nyx tells hers that “Keith’s snuggles are almost better than Mama’s” and that “Lance is a much better story teller than Papa”, leaving Keith flushing and Lance grinning.
Now if only that bucket list had kiss Lance on it…