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Lance has always been a party type of person. Not in the let’s all get black out drunk and do stupid stuff we will regret forever genuinely way but more like my cousin likes this guy but he doesn’t know if he likes him back so go and sneakily ask him way. Which is really funny considering his first ‘party’ was technically when Lance was ten.
Growing up, he didn’t really have cousins his age, which is crazy considering the size of his family. He had family two years older than him, who felt like they were years more mature than him, and family two years younger than him, who were actually immature and silly. So Lance was in this in between where he was simultaneously extra mature to fit in with the older kids and also the most immature person ever to entertain the younger kids.
As the extra mature ten year old, when his older sister decides to go sneak out to a party and he barters with her to let him tag along, neither really see the issue with it. Veronica couldn’t care less, as long as Lance kept his mouth shut, and Lance would keep his mouth shut because he was mature enough to realise he wasn’t really meant to be at this party.
And, as something that Lance thinks about often, this singular experience probably sent most of Lance’s life into the direction it has gone in. Maybe not the whole ‘escaping Earth to fight evil aliens in magical robot cats’, but the general vibe is pretty accurate to how little Lance felt at the shittiest house party to ever exist on a much larger scale.
It’s also pretty accurate to the vibes in this club, with its sweet alcohol that reminds Lance of the punch and rum he used to be a master of mixing. He wishes there was a lime for him to suck, but of course the closest he can get to that is a bitter shot of something that Lance tried once with Allura in preparation for this mission and had then lost an entire day of memories.
Speaking of Allura, he searches the club for her white hair and fur coat, sighing in relief as he watches her cosy up to their mark- a galran guard who announced his pit stop over an intercepted transmission (kudos Pidge). He’s… not terrible looking, if Lance is going to be honest. He has purple curls that reach his shoulders, and a lean build, neatly disguising at least three weapons under the loose jacket and trousers he’s wearing.
It would be a perfect match to Allura’s fur coat and short black dress that glitters under the low light, if it weren’t for the fact that he is equally uninterested in Allura as she is in him. He is respectful and, if Lance is hearing him properly over his hidden comm, very clearly uncaring of Allura’s shins or the slip of shoulder she shows off.
He winces as Allura becomes increasingly desperate and mutters a, “Loosen up, princess,” which apparently goes unheard as she tries to grab the guards wrist when he gives her a resounding ‘no’. This is their one chance to get some consistent information on where the next set of galra fleet will be going, Lance cannot let this go.
“Hey, he clearly said no! You got a problem, ma’am?” He pulls Allura’s hand off the guards wrist and squeezes it once.
Her face flutters through a variety of expressions before settling on cool annoyance. “Of course not. I simply misunderstood.”
“Well, let’s keep these… misunderstandings out of the club, yeah?” He turns to the guard, “Are you okay?”
The guard seems to blink away any vestiges of shock and shakes his head. “Thank you. I think I should leave-”
“No!” Lance blurts, before composing himself, “I- It seems like a waste for you to leave because of one bad person. How about-” He slowly brings them towards the bar seats and settles on one of the high chairs, “-I treat you to a good experience?”
The guard looks him up and down, and Lance lets him, well-aware that he has pink and blue scales in patches all over his skin and there’s little actually hidden. The little alcohol he has had is not enough to cause him to feel actually drunk, but he knows he has that drunk flush and he looks like a guy searching for his next high.
“How about I treat you?” The guard grins, also sitting down, “Bar keep, I’d like two sweet drinks and ten grams of-” He rattles something off that Lance doesn’t recognise, but knows instantly is a good drug, based on the way the bar keep stumbles at the request and repeats the ‘ten grams’ incredulously.
“You certainly know how to treat a guy.” Lance grins, making a show of scanning the guard. He spots the purple communicator block on the guards waist and knows he just needs to slip the little code Pidge had them memorise into it. The only issue will be getting and keeping the communicator long enough to do so without the guard noticing.
The bar keep slides their drinks over, both bright blue in colour, and Lance downs it as fast as possible. It’s sweet like pure dilute, and he really wishes he had a lime to balance it. The guard laughs in surprise.
“Experienced, are you?” He chuckles, merely sipping at his glass. Lance politely giggles in response.
“Only drinking.” He says as the bar keep returns with a small pouch of pink powder.
“Well, I shall teach you how to consume this.” He grins, pouring out way too much of the powder. Like three grams, which would be too much for cocaine, let alone this outer space drug that is probably way stronger. He cuts it with his nail, splitting it into to long lines, and sniffing them both up in one go.
For a second, Lance is worried the guard is dead, all slumped over in the seat. Then he sighs, and his eyes open, all narrow pupils and easy breathing.
Lance hums. He can work with this.
“Did you see how?” The guard asks blinking slowly.
“I don’t think I can sniff that much. Could you do that again? It looked really cool.”
The guard laughs heartily and pours out another three grams, splitting and snorting it again.
He stays slumped over for longer this time, and Lance takes the opportunity to pull the communicator off the guards waist. He barely manages to tuck it under his shirt when he sits up again, pupils practically pinpricks.
“Your turn?”
Lance grins. “My turn.” He pours out just under half a gram, pitiful in comparison to the guard, but the bar keep glances an approving nod at the amount. He cuts it with a menu card and sniffs it. His vision blurs, and he struggles to stay sat upright.
“That’s good shit.” He giggles. The guard pours out the remainder and snorts it again, like it’s a matter of pride and not drugs that have definitely slowed Lance’s heart with the minimal amount he took.
He manages to plug the code into the communicator, keeping a close eye in case the guard wakes up sooner this time. The bar keep leans over with a suspicious glance, and Lance hums something about revenge against a friend’s ex. They nod understandingly, and replace his drink with a wink.
The guard sits up and leans forward as Lance is starting to sip at the new drink. Lance glances at him over the rim of the cup, and leans back purposefully. The guard moves a hand onto his thigh, and Lance quickly finishes the drink.
“Let’s find somewhere.” The guard smiles.
Lance smiles back, and pulls out the pouch of GAC Coran had insisted he take. The galra shoves a much more full pouch onto the table before Lance can and tugs him away. He waves at the bar keep as they go.
The guard barely pulls them into the alley next to the club when Lance leans forward as if he’s about to kiss. He clips the communicator back onto the belt with a light flick.
The guard pushes him against the wall, and Lance has done his job so he doesn’t have to make out with anyone. He takes great joy in headbutting the guard and feeling something crack against his forehead.
The guard crumples to the ground, and Lance finds a light heart rate that he thinks is good enough to excuse leaving.
He taps his earring as he goes, jumping at the sudden barrage of sound.
“-can’t see him but he left-”
“-not good, not good, shit-”
“-I should have stayed there but-”
He decides to cut in as he sits back at the bar. “Hey, it’s all good.”
The chatter cuts off and there is a brief moment of blissful silence. The bar keep grins at Lance, and passes him a token. Lance tries to refuse it, but they insist, saying it has a blessing or something. It’s definitely important, so Lance thanks them a lot, and then asks for a phone, mostly so he doesn’t seem insane talking to thin air.
The bar keep passes him a shell from under the table and Lance thanks her again.
“Okay, I no longer seem like I’m talking to thin air. Did it work, Pidge?”
Pidge sighs, “Yeah, it did. Good work Lance.”
Lance grins.
“What the fuck was that?” Keith hisses. Lance can almost imagine his expression right now, all constipated and angry.
Lance giggles airily, and Hunk sighs.
“Is it finally hitting you?”
“Mmmmhmmm. You’re my favourite Hunk, ‘cause you’re so cool and calm and awesome.”
“Great, I know. Do you want one of us to come in and extract you?”
Lance blinks slowly as he registers the question, and then shakes his head. He pauses, remembers that they can’t see him properly on the cameras, and says out loud, “Hrrrng” instead of an actual word.
“Allura’s coming to get you dude. What did you even have?” Hunk asks, genuinely interested.
“Sweelly.” Lance mumbles against the shell.
A flash of white has Lance sitting up straight, and he grins at Allura. “Here.” He hands the shell back to the bar keep, or attempts to. It falls between them and Lance mumbles an apology as Allura helps him down from the chair.
The world spins for a moment, and Lance tries to spin to make it stop. He gags and something bright blue stains Allura’s coat. It takes a moment but he apologises again because that blue is something he recognises.
Allura squints at him with concern, and they make their way back to the Castle of Lions, definitely slowed by Lance.
The moment they make it into the hangar, they’re surrounded by the everyone else. Except Hunk, because Hunk’s smart and knows Lance is about to-
“Hrk!”
“EW.”
“GET AWAY!”
“LANCE-”
Hunk steps around the pink-blue vomit and takes Allura’s place holding him up. “Let’s get some food goo in you, huh?”
Lance cheers weakly and doesn’t move from where he’s dangling off Hunk’s arm. The makeup suddenly feels thick, his clothes too thin, and everything underwater.
Hunk drags him to the kitchen and forces some food goo down his throat before helping him bath and change and tucking him into bed.
Hunk goes about cleaning the kitchen calmly, ignoring the pointed stares of the rest of the awake.
Shiro clears his throat and sits directly in front of Hunk as he wipes the table down again.
Hunk groans, “What?”
“I have never seen Lance like- Like-” Pidge gestures wordlessly in the direction of Lance’s room.
“Okay, what I am about to tell cannot, under any circumstance up to and including death by a thousand paper cuts, reach any senior officer at the Garrison. Especially Iverson.” Hunk tells them with seriousness he normally reserves for missions. Pidge and Keith’s faces turn understanding at the mention of the last name, and they swear to take it to their graves on their family (Pidge) and Shiro (Keith). They turn to look at the remaining individuals, and Coran and Allura share a glance before shrugging.
“We will not be meeting this Iverson anyways, so this is not difficult to pledge.” Allura smiles, and Coran agrees.
Shiro sighs heavily. “I swear I won’t tell anyone at the Garrison anything.”
Hunk squints, evaluating their trustworthiness, before sighing.
“Fine. Back in our first year, Lance used to sneak out to the graduate parties and get really drunk or high and come back with all the best gossip. And then we’d go to class while he was still a little drunk and just never got caught and it was honestly really cool in retrospect but also entirely terrifying.” Hunk rushes out, before relaxing and speaking a little more consideringly, “He did know a lot of graduate cadets though, which was less funny as a cargo pilot but then Keith dropped out and he joined fighter class and most of the class already kinda knew him from the parties and the fact that he was keeping the rumour mill running. Best source of info was always Lance.”
“He- I couldn’t even get into the graduate parties as a graduate!” Shiro protests, “How the hell did he manage that?”
Pidge shrugs, surprisingly accepting of the new information. “It’s Lance. How the hell does he do anything? Pure determination, probably.”
“Actually, he’s just been going to parties since he was ten? I think. I remember him telling me about Veronica vomiting after he snuck out with her, and he was really little.”
That makes everyone pause.
“Ten?!” Keith bursts out, “When I was ten, I was trying to watch in bed and he was sneaking out?!”
“When I was ten, my father refused to let me near Sukuberries due to their alcoholic effects! You mean to say that Lance has been having true alcohol since he was a child?” Coran exclaims.
Hunk shrugs.
“But- But Lance is a good student! He behaves, he listens-”
“He's really good at holding his alcohol and has a very high tolerance. I'm not kidding, I've seen him walk in straight line after a shot of everclear and strawberry juice. He can handle his drink insanely well.”
Pidge, who has been suspiciously quiet since the ten year old reveal, excitedly whispers, “Holy shit. Lance is a frat boy. He- He's living to his stereotype-” She wheezes.
Hunk blinks, and snorts loudly. “Don't say that to his face. Or do actually- I need it on record.”
Shiro groans and rubs his forehead. “And Lance managed to keep this a secret from every teacher at the Garrison.”
“That's not the shocking part, Shiro.” Keith protests, “The shocking part is that Lance can hold his alcohol well enough to remain top of his class while drunk! That- That is insane.”
Allura grins brightly. “Well, we always knew Lance was quite skilled, but the sheer level is… inspiring! I must ask him to train myself in the art of handling my drink.”
“And that's enough discussion for tonight!” Coran interrupts with fervour, “We should all rest well!”
Lance wakes up with a burning headache and swears at the sun that slips through the curtain. He curses himself and everything he can name.
Jesus, this is what he gets for dry drinking after nearly a year of nothing. The fact that it was alien probably didn't help.
He feels a roll of nausea and leans over the bed to spit into his bin.
Three doboshes, and then he has to get up. He counts the ticks, staring at the door that will lead to his inevitable doom of social interaction while hungover.
He groans as he hits one hundred and eighty ticks and rolls off the bed onto his feet. He manages to the door in a straight line and slowly makes his way to the kitchen, hissing at how bright it is.
The everclear had a better letdown than this, holy shit.
“Morning everyone!” He cheers, with a hoarse but bright voice.
“How the quiznak are you standing?” Coran hisses, “Between the sweeppy and the drinks, we weren't expecting you for a quite a few more varga!”
Lance shrugs. “I'm just good at handling my drink, I guess. Though my head kills, can I get a painkiller please?”
“How did you get into the graduate parties Lance?” Shiro asks, scaring the living daylights out of the younger boy, who immediately swings his fist and lands a solid punch to the face.
“Shiro what the fuck. Don't do that. My heart is going to leap out of my chest, ohhhh my days.” Lance points at Shiro accusingly, “Don't- Don't fucking do that. I will not apologise, that was entirely your fault.”
Shiro rubs his jaw. “How did you get in?” He asks, reverently.
Lance gapes in confusion. Stares. Shrugs.
“Fuck if I know, I just want some aspirin and coffee.”