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Lance blew into the kitchen like a tornado, slippers skidding across the floor, and he windmilled his arms frantically before sliding into the counter and finishing his grand entry with a bang and a crash to the floor.
“Seriously?” Keith grumbled, hair still mussed from sleep. Shiro stifled a smile as he went to help Lance to his feet, but Lance bounced back up on his own, beaming with his own grin.
“Guys!” he yelled excitedly, pointedly ignoring Keith's grouching about volume in the morning. “Why didn't anyone tell me what day it was?”
“Uh, what?” Hunk asked around a mouthful of breakfast goo (seasoned with some kind of spice from the last planetside market, something like a cross between salt and cinnamon. Weird but not bad, in his expert opinion.)
Shiro put his hands on his hips. “I have absolutely no idea what day it is. I haven't known what day it was in almost two years, actually,” he said dryly. “Care to tell us why it matters?”
Lance grabbed at Pidge’s wrist, eliciting a sleepy squeak of surprise. He activated her wrist holocomputer and scrolled through the menus, ignoring her increasingly murderous expression, all the while babbling excitedly: “Okay, so, Hunk made that Earth-equivalent calendar, right, like, ages ago? And I haven't looked at it a lot because last time it was my sister's birthday and it was really depressing, but I happened to check it this morning and look!” He found the display he was looking for and held Pidge’s wrist up to show everyone.
“December 24th,” Shiro read aloud, eyebrows raising.
Lance nodded eagerly, then screeched and jumped a foot in the air when Pidge jammed him with her bayard. “Ow! Pidge! Why are you always tasing me!” He glared. Pidge, by contrast, put her bayard away and went back to her goo with a rather pleased air about her.
“Dude, you know the rules,” Hunk said, patting Lance on the shoulder and passing over a plate of breakfast to smooth his ruffled feathers. “No annoying Pidge in the mornings.”
“Also, no bayards at the table,” Shiro said pointedly.
Lance rolled his eyes. “Yeah, well, whatever. Point is, today is Christmas Eve! It's our first Christmas as Team Voltron! We gotta celebrate!” He looked around eagerly, but wasn't met with the expressions of holly jolly joy he was expecting. Keith just shrugged, apparently uninterested, and Shiro’s face suggested he was supportive but not completely invested. Pidge hadn't reacted at all, and even though Hunk looked excited, he was the only one. Allura and Coran just looked confused.
“Excuse me,” Allura started, in the same tone she used when questioning most of the “human things” her paladins talked about, “what is the relevance of 24 decs? And what is this… Christmas?”
“Christmas Eve!” Lance repeated, spreading his arms. “And then Christmas on December 25th, aka the greatest holidays of humankind!”
“Debatable,” Pidge muttered under her breath, but still loud enough for Lance to hear.
He frowned at her, then turned his nose up and said, with great magnanimity, “I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that.” Pidge rolled her eyes.
“A holiday?” Coran perked up. “I do love a good holiday. What's it for?”
Before Lance could answer, Pidge said, “It's a flagrantly commercialized relic of a hokey old human religion with no relevance to modern life.”
Lance gasped and dramatically crossed himself several times. “Pidge! How could you! It's a celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ!”
“Lance, you haven't been to mass in like three years,” Hunk pointed out.
Lance shrugged and dropped the offended act. “Eh, yeah, the fun part is the commercialization. Point is, you're supposed to celebrate and have fun with your family. Bonding,” he added, with a cheeky glance in Keith's direction. “With presents! And food! So much food! My family always does a big beach party, there's like sixty of us, and we'd roast two entire pigs, and me and my sisters and our aunt would fry up, like, the biggest pile of plantains you’ve ever seen in your life. And make cookies, duh, and rum cake, and fruit cake, and normal cake, and at least two or three kinds of pudding…” he trailed off, smile slipping at the corners, before he forced it back up with only slightly diminished cheer. “Anyway, point is, Christmas is the best and it’s tomorrow and we totally have to celebrate.”
“I think it’d be fun,” Hunk offered, smiling when Lance beamed at him. “My family is pretty low-key about Christmas. My dad’s really big into, you know, honouring our roots? So we do stuff for Makahiki. But we always go all-out with food on Christmas Day. Lots of ham and sushi.” He rubbed at his stomach, thinking about the feast. “I’d be totally down for space Christmas.” Addressing Lance, he added, “You wanna see if there’s a, like, tropical-y planet nearby? We can show these guys how to have an awesome beach party.”
“Uh, no,” Pidge piped up, fortified with food goo and apparently now ready to face the morning. “If we’re gonna do Christmas, we have to do a real Christmas.”
Lance squinted at her, hands on hips. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”
She pushed her glasses up and steepled her fingers, looking for all the world like a tiny mob boss. “Snow,” she declared. “We have to do a real ‘white Christmas.’”
“Dude, your dad worked at the Garrison, you lived in Arizona.”
Pidge waved that away with a dismissive gesture. “My mom’s sister lives in Vermont, we always go -- uh, went, up there for Christmas. Because Christmas in a desert is just depressing.”
“Hmm, you may be right,” Lance said, smiling slyly as he looked out the corner of his eyes at Keith. “What could be more depressing than Christmas as, say, a desert hermit?”
Recognizing the familiar barb, Keith bristled. “I’m not depressing!” he protested.
“Well,” Hunk started, playing peacemaker, “what do you usually do for Christmas?”
Keith shrugged, looking vaguely uncomfortable. “Never really celebrated it.”
Lance and Hunk looked at each other. “I was wrong,” Lance said, “that’s way more depressing than desert-hermit Christmas.”
“Oh please. Like I’m missing anything.”
“Dude, you are.”
“Shiro,” Hunk interrupted, before the argument could escalate. “What about you?”
Shiro was watching them all with vague amusement, but when they all turned to look at him curiously he just shrugged. “I’m Japanese, remember?”
“Yeah, so?” Lance countered.
Shiro gave him a wry look. “My ‘traditional’ celebration is basically just fried chicken and waiting for New Year’s. Though I did go to the holiday parties at the Garrison.”
All five paladins winced in unison.
“Yeah, so. Not a big deal for me. I’m open to the idea, though.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “We could probably turn it into a training exercise…”
Lance groaned. “Please, for the love of sweet baby Jesus, do not ruin Christmas for me, Shiro.”
“Kidding,” Shiro said, grinning at Lance’s expression. “I think we deserve a little holiday.”
Lance, Hunk, and Pidge cheered, and even Keith looked tentatively hopeful about the idea.
“Wonderful!” Coran said, clapping his hands together. “So, we need, er, a beach vermont and some pig plantings and ham?” He scratched at his moustache. “I’m afraid I don’t know what any of that is -- other than the beach, of course -- but!” He pointed upwards with a definitive motion. “We’ll make do, won’t we? I’m very curious to experience this holiday of yours. Personally, my favourite holiday was always Quorzap Day, do you have that one? It sounds very similar, what with all the feasting. Does your Christmas have the Quor excavation ceremony too?”
“Er… no.”
“Ah, what a shame. Oh well, can’t be helped.” Coran continued chattering away to himself, but with the ease born of long practice, the paladins tuned him out and let him talk.
Allura pressed her hands together. “I too am curious about this celebration,” she said, “and I think there is a suitable planet in a nearby solar system.” She pulled up a star map, and pointed to a planet, which lit up red and magnified at her gesture, showing what was unmistakably a tropical beach, albeit one with green water and reddish sand, bordered by lush-looking vegetation with coiling, deep purple leaves.
“Aw, nice!” Lance cheered, leaning on her shoulder for a better look, and barely reacting when she frowned and edged out from under him. “That beach looks dope as hell, man.”
Pidge hopped up onto the counter and shoved her foot against Lance’s back. “Okay, two things. First -- don’t ever say that again. Second -- no. Where’s the snow? We need a snow planet. Allura, do any of the planets further from the suns have colder biomes?”
“Hmm, let me see,” Allura mused, fingers scrolling through the projected map. “Ah, there’s this one here, Polix-4-3J. Uninhabited, at least as far as our records show. Temperatures consistently below 270 Kelvin, so primarily solid-state precipitation. Will that do?”
Lance scrunched up his face. “In English?”
“That is English,” Pidge said with exaggerated patience. “Kelvin is the standard unit of temperature in scientific fields, how do you not know that?”
“I do know that, I just don’t know how to convert it! Cut a guy some slack, Pidge, geeze!”
“It’s around 26 Fahrenheit,” Shiro cut in, before Pidge could retaliate beyond aggravating smirks. Hunk and Keith both made noises of apprehension, but, somewhat surprisingly, Lance didn’t seem likely to argue.
“I think that could be fun,” he started, only to be interrupted.
“Are you nuts?” Keith demanded.
Hunk’s protest was a weaker, “But that’s so cold…”
“Babies,” Pidge chirped from her perch on the countertop.
“Yeah!” Lance agreed, with mounting excitement. “Our paladin suits will do the thermoreg thing for us, anyway, right? And besides…” He started singing, much to Keith’s horror, “I’m dreeeaming of a whiiite Christmas! Just like the ones I used to, uh, see-in-old-movies!”
“Where’s his off-switch?” Keith grumbled as Lance continued to sing.
“There isn't one, I've checked,” Hunk said, very matter-of-fact.
“Hey, c’mon, guys!” Lance wrapped an arm around both Keith and Hunk’s shoulders, pulling them both off-balance for a companionable squeeze. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
Hunk squirmed briefly against Lance’s surprisingly strong headlock, before giving up and accepting it. “We live on a space ship and fly around in sentient robot lions that stick together to make a giant robot man to fight a bunch of evil fluffy aliens. That’s enough adventure for me, man.”
“Laaame,” Lance drawled in Hunk’s ear. “It’ll be fun!” He clamped down harder as Keith struggled with increasing vigour, ignoring the way his face was rapidly turning red. After a minute of this, Shiro took it upon himself to intervene before things got violent. More violent. And all this before training had even started for the day.
“Alright, alright,” Shiro said in his no-more-nonsense-I-am-the-leader voice. He gave Lance his best stern look and Lance willingly let go of Keith -- who sprung back immediately, hackles raised and spitting like a cat. Hunk, though, he kept holding onto, albeit in a looser, friendlier manner. Hunk, for his part, wrapped his arm around Lance’s waist and they stood leaning against each other and looking at Shiro as he presented his plan. “How does this sound: we’ll head down to the tropical planet tomorrow morning, do some easy wilderness training and scavenge for edibles --” Hunk perked up hopefully “-- and then hang out on the snow planet in the afternoon and do Christmas… stuff. Princess?”
Allura nodded her approval as Lance cheered, and even after a grueling day of practice, spirits were high that evening when they all broke to wind down before bed. Hunk and Lance took to discussing the possible menu, going over the inventory of shipboard foodstuffs and making lists of what they should look for down on the planet, and they spirited Pidge away for her input and insight as the only one of them who’d experienced the fabled “white Christmas.” Keith and Shiro met by unspoken consent back on the training deck for a few rounds of sparring, but were drawn back down to the kitchen by the unmistakable scent of baking.
“What’s this?” Shiro asked, sniffing and rubbing a towel over his head. There was a distinct scent of vanilla and something tangy floating around the room, and he leaned over Pidge’s shoulder to peer into a pan of something crumbly and sweet-smelling.
“Baking doesn’t work well in space,” she said, deadpan, while Hunk muttered something in the background about altitude and atmospheric pressure. Pidge plucked out a broken piece from the pan and popped it in her mouth. “This is experimental cake number four. It didn’t meet Hunk’s dumb high standards, so.” She scooped up another crumble of cake. Through a full mouth, she added, “Still tastes good, though.” Upon sampling, Shiro had to agree. Even if the sandy texture meant that a few crumbs fell into the joints of his prosthetic fingers.
“What are they doing now?” Keith asked, appearing at Pidge’s other side and reaching for the cake, but with one wary eye on Hunk, who hovered near an oven giving off an aura of stress, and Lance, who was vigorously mixing something in a bowl.
Shiro sniffed the air again. “Gingerbread?” Pidge hummed assent.
“Yeah, well,” Hunk muttered, not looking away from his oven, “that’s what it’s supposed to be, anyway, you know, sort of, we used that plant from the desert planet so it’s not, like, that ginger-y but maybe this time it’ll work out. I can’t believe I’m failing at baking, what is the universe coming to...”
“Space baking,” Pidge added, glancing up at Shiro with a mischievous half-grin. He rolled his eyes at her.
“Space baking,” Hunk groaned. He opened the oven and reached halfway in, then squinted, shook his head, and slowly closed the door again, staring all the proto-cookies all the while. “Not ready yet,” he muttered.
“Smells good, though, I bet they’ll be delicious,” Shiro said, and to his satisfaction a little bit of the tension in Hunk’s shoulders eased away.
“I’m making shortbread,” Lance announced, unasked, still mashing away at a bowl full of --
“It’s green,” Keith noted.
Lance prickled. “Well, it’s not like we have real butter, okay, and it’s not like you could do any better!”
“Boys,” Shiro warned when Keith opened his mouth, and he shut it sullenly, instead reaching for the bowl and yelping when Lance rapped his knuckles with his spork.
“Ow! Dude, what the hell!”
“No sampling until it’s ready!” Lance brandished the spork again, and Keith crossed his arms and scowled.
Digging back into the failed cake, Pidge said flatly, “Now now, children, no fighting, or Shiro Claus won’t bring you any space presents.” Hunk immediately started snickering and Shiro’s ears burned.
“Shiro Claus,” Hunk giggled, and after a beat Lance joined in.
“Oh man,” he said, between fits of laughs, “I’m just picturing Shiro with a fluffy white beard.” He dissolved into laughter again, and even Keith’s mouth twitched into a smile when he met Shiro’s eye.
“Ho ho ho,” Shiro intoned, and finally Pidge cracked a grin, too. His ears were still pink with residual embarrassment, but Shiro looked over his team fondly. Until the unmistakable smell of burning food hit him.
“Oh, quiznak!” Hunk yelped, and nearly fell over in his haste to take the cookies out of the oven.
*
The next morning found them split up into groups of three, hiking through the lush tropical forest with Hunk’s PASSE (Palatable And Safe Stuff to Eat) scanning algorithm running on their wrist-mounted holocomputers. It being a rain forest, the vegetation was particularly dense and made for slow going.
“At least the suits take care of the humidity,” Lance said cheerfully, ever the optimist, as he followed behind Hunk and Shiro, who was doing the hard work cutting through the thick plant growth with his arm, and therefore slightly less enthused, especially when Lance burst into yet another rendition of “Mele Kalikimaka”.
Hunk groaned loudly enough that Shiro could hear him even without the helmet comms. “Lance, again?”
“Dude, this is the song of your people! C’mon, Hunk, you should be singing with me!”
“I already sang it with you like six times.”
Lance hummed. “Maybe something else then?” he said, tapping his fingers on his thigh contemplatively. There were a few minutes of silence, during which Shiro focused on most efficiently creating a pathway through the brush and Hunk focused on his scanner. Then Lance took a deep breath, about to start singing another carol.
“Wait!” Hunk burst out, interrupting him before he could begin. Shiro paused, looking over his shoulder, and Hunk pointed at a low-growing shrub, coil-leaved branches being weighed down almost to the ground by large, shapeless fruits the colour of eggplant.
“Whatcha got there, Hunk-a-roni?” Lance asked, peering around Hunk’s shoulder.
Hunk tapped the holocomputer. A wide grin pressed his cheeks into the sides of his helmet, but he couldn’t help it. Lance was going to be so excited. “Nutritional analysis of that fruit? Take a guess at what the best comparable is.”
Shiro went for the low-hanging fruit -- pun intended -- and chose eggplant. Lance flung out a variety of guesses, going far afield to lemon, cucumber, and sweet potato.
“Nah, but the last one was closest,” Hunk answered, practically vibrating with anticipation. He tapped the scanner and nudged Lance with an elbow. “Gonna have to fry up a mountain of those for us, buddy.”
Lance’s entire face lit up and he immediately plucked one of the fruits, bringing it to his face and inhaling deeply. “Oh man,” he groaned, “it smells like home.”
Hunk was watching him with a fond grin, and he said, “They’re probably a little starchier than they should be, and the PASSE scanner says that the the sugar composition is a little different, but --”
“They’re perfect,” Lance declared, already snapping open a carrying bag and beginning to fill it.
Shiro sniffed one of the fruits, too, and while the scent was pleasant and familiar in a vague kind of way, he didn’t recognize it. “What are they?”
“Space plantains!” Lance answered excitedly, and Shiro had to smile.
The planet proved to be a veritable goldmine of edibles. In addition to the space plantains, Shiro’s crew found some kind of small, orange berries with a sharply acidic citrus flavour, a cinnamon-like tree with bark that smelled like curry, a single gigantic gourd, and -- the one Shiro was personally most excited about -- a prickly bush that Hunk thought could be used to make tea. They brought back an entire plant of the latter, roots and all, and Allura immediately took it to plant in what basically amounted to the Altean space ship-equivalent of a greenhouse. Pidge, Keith, and Coran came back with an even greater variety of plants, as well as somewhat grim, determined expressions and the fresh body of a vaguely mammalian animal that Keith and Hunk butchered with practiced smoothness, only bickering a little over how to handle the more alien parts of its anatomy, while Coran and Pidge hovered in the name of scientific curiosity. Lance had immediately commandeered a large workspace and was busily peeling and slicing the lumpy purple fruits, which turned out to have a surprisingly beautiful interior, with lavender flesh that was almost translucent around the edges and tiny, pinprick black seeds arranged in concentric rings.
Hunk fired up the oven and set the whole animal to slow roasting -- “Just like space mama used to do it,” Lance quipped, to snorts and eye rolls -- and once everything else was prepped for cooking later, they put it all into stasis preservation and stood grinning at each other.
“I’ll go set a course for Polix-4-3J, then, shall I?” Allura said with barely-concealed excitement, and she rushed off for the bridge without waiting for a response.
“Last one ready for a snowball fight is a rotten quiznak!” Lance shouted, and barrelled out of the kitchen. The others followed on his heels, lead by Keith, who, if he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about the idea of snow, couldn’t resist the challenge from Lance, especially not when goaded by a twinkly-eyed Pidge.
But when they landed on Polix-4-3J a few minutes later, there was some muttering and jostling before anyone stepped outside.
“I’ve never actually seen snow before,” Hunk confessed, standing in the open doorway of the castle and looking out at the planet. The entire surface seemed to be covered in sparkling white snow, which, when combined with the dim, purple hue of the sky and the hint of far-off mountains, made for a rather eerie, desolate landscape. “It’s pretty, but, uh, it looks… cold.” Keith made a noise of agreement.
“We’re wearing our suits, you can’t feel the temperature,” Pidge scoffed from beside Shiro’s elbow, but she didn’t make much move to venture out first, either.
“The atmosphere is acceptable for both of our species,” Coran pointed out, “and the temperature is within safe boundaries. One could easily go and frolic with a minimum of protective clothing, if you’d prefer?”
“I’m good,” Hunk was quick to respond, hands raised. “I’ll keep the suit.”
Coran nodded, moustache twitching. “Very well, then.” And without further ceremony, he tucked his hands behind his back, shifted his weight onto one foot, and with the easy strength typical of Alteans, he planted his other foot in the small of Hunk’s back and shoved him out the door.
Hunk’s yelp was audible over the comms, but he promptly disappeared face-first into a deceptively-deep pile of snow, with only his backside and one foot poking out of the drift.
Lance and Pidge immediately burst into gleeful laughter, and Lance launched himself out the door to flop into the snow beside the spluttering Hunk. He patted Hunk on the back, hard enough for Hunk to lose his balance on his propped-up arm and faceplant into the snow again. Growling, Hunk rolled over in the snow, and then kept rolling until he plowed over Lance and they both ended up squirming around in the snow together, giggling and flinging friendly insults at one another.
“Enough snow for ya, Pidge?” Lance called, once his wrestling match with Hunk had been settled and they were both lying on their backs, staring up through the frame of snow around them. Lance leaned up on his elbows -- looking around, he saw Shiro standing with Allura and Coran, forming a mountain of snowballs (that was going to be a problem later, he expected), and Keith still standing awkwardly in the open doorway, arms crossed. But Pidge was nowhere to be seen. Sitting up a little straighter, Lance squinted as he looked again. “Pidge?”
Then, his suit beeped -- the “seal broken” sound, if he remembered correctly -- and a sudden icy coldness hit the back of his neck. Lance screeched like a banshee and tried to scramble away, but he couldn’t get purchase in the shifting pile of snow and ended up flailing around ineffectually while Pidge cackled and continued shoving handfuls of snow down the back of his suit.
“I’m not used to this much snow,” she said cheerfully, straddling Lance’s legs as he wailed at her, “but it certainly makes it more fun to try to sneak up on someone.”
“Why are you so evil?” he moaned, trying and failing to kick her off. “Someone save me!”
In response, a snowball zinged into the side of Pidge’s helmet, hard enough to make her overbalance and tip off of Lance’s thighs into the snow. She squawked indignantly and sat up to glare at Shiro.
“What?” he asked, deceptively innocent, both hands held loosely behind his back.
Pidge pointed at him. “I know that was you! This means war, Shirogane, mark my --”
Another snowball smacked her in the back of the head, having been thrown by a giggling Allura.
“Lance! Hunk!” Pidge yelled, squatting down to ball up snow between her hands, never taking her eyes off of Shiro, who had given up his pretense of innocence and was full-out laughing now. “Sim Squad Six, form up!”
“Why should I?” Lance complained, still sitting in the snow. “I seem to recall being viciously attacked -- ow! Allura! Hey!”
The princess smirked and made ready to throw another missile, and Lance leapt sprawling to relative safety behind Hunk’s bulk. The snowball smacked against Hunk’s chest plate with a muffled whumph and he grunted in surprise.
“Oh, it’s so on!”
And with that, all-out snowball warfare was unleashed on the previously-peaceful planet, with viciously strategic attacks happening on both sides. However, the superior strength and military prowess of the Alteans, coupled with Shiro’s brief but informative experience on Kerberos with a shipful of Holts, soon turned the tide of the battle in their favour, until both side dug in and were reduced to quick potshots back and forth.
“This is ridiculous,” Lance complained, breath ghosting white. He was lying pressed into the deep snow with Pidge and Hunk on either side, comms turned off and helmets open so that they could speak freely without being overheard by the enemy. “How are we losing to them?”
“They’re a princess, a military commander, and Shiro,” Hunk said dryly, “and we always got in trouble at the Garrison for not being able to work together. I don’t know why you’re surprised, dude. Can we go inside now? My face is cold.”
Lance waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, Hunk. There’s gotta be a way we can beat them.” He paused to leap up, fire off a pair of snowballs, and then dive back into the relative safety of their foxhole. Five snowballs came flying over, one landing in the back of Hunk’s knee and making him kick in surprise.
“There’s an obvious solution you seem to have forgotten,” Pidge said, and she paused for dramatic effect when both Lance and Hunk looked over expectantly.
“Yes?” Lance demanded, impatient.
In answer, Pidge simply reached up and pointed.
Lance poked his head up briefly, dodging back down fast enough to avoid getting hit. “What? The only thing over there is Keith.”
Peeking up to confirm, Hunk saw Keith standing a little awkwardly in the snow a few feet from the castle, tentatively shuffling his feet and glancing frequently between where each side of the great battle was encamped. Hunk felt a little sorry for him -- he looked like he wanted to join in but wasn’t sure which side he’d be welcomed on.
When Hunk took a snowball to the side of the head, filling his visor with snow, he dropped back down, whining under his breath about the cold and already forming a plan.
“We don’t need Keith,” Lance was saying, and Pidge was rolling her eyes.
“Oh, sure,” she answered, voice dripping with sarcasm, “we’ll definitely win without him.”
“We can!”
“Our best bet is with him!”
Ignoring them, Hunk turned his comms back on and opened a private channel. “Psst.”
“Who’s that?” Keith’s voice said in his ear, surprised and suspicious.
“Me,” Hunk replied, “C’mon, man, get over here, we need you.”
This was followed by a pause long enough for Hunk to think that he must have gotten snow in his mic and Keith hadn’t heard him, and he was about to ask again when Keith said, “Really?”
Hunk simply peered up over the snowbank again and jerked his head at Keith. Keith glanced at the other trio again, before giving Hunk a determined nod. Hunk gave him a thumbs up and opened his visor again.
“Solved your argument for you,” he told Lance and Pidge casually.
Lance had just enough time to open his mouth before there was a puff of flying snow and an impact and Keith landed on his stomach in their little hollow, red-cheeked and trying not to look too excited.
Lance spluttered. “Hey, what the hell are you doing here? We don’t need you!”
“Shut up, Lance,” the three of them said together, Pidge punctuating it with an elbow in Lance’s side and a grin towards Keith.
“Glad you could join us,” she said cheerily, belying the calculating glint to her eyes. “Here’s the plan…”
*
“I can’t believe you tricked us into training on Christmas,” Pidge groused, curled around a cup of the newly-discovered space tea, hair still damp and dripping onto her collar from her post-snow-battle shower.
Shiro grinned at her, unrepentant. “Hey, you still had fun, right?” Pidge’s response was an inarticulate grumble that only made Shiro’s grin widen.
“We beat you,” Keith pointed out, obviously trying not to sound too smug about it, and immediately giving that up when Pidge solemnly raised her hand for a high five, which he returned with enthusiasm.
“And I’m very proud of you,” Shiro said, half-sarcastic and half in earnest. Keith smiled at him, though, and when Shiro ruffled Pidge’s wet hair she didn’t protest.
“Wonder how things are going in the kitchen,” Shiro mused, glancing at the closed door.
“Hey, they don’t want our help, we’ll just show up for food, I’m totally okay with that,” Pidge said dismissively, sipping loudly at her tea. Keith hummed agreement, slumping onto the couch next to her and watching Shiro with an open, relaxed expression.
“It’s not like you’d be helpful, anyway,” Keith said to him, characteristically blunt. Shiro gave him an unimpressed look. Though he couldn’t deny that his skills in the kitchen were… underdeveloped.
And he had to admit, later, that the spread that Hunk, Lance, and Coran managed to produce was far beyond his level of ability, and probably also beyond their collective ability to consume in a single sitting. There was the promised pile of space plantains, and the roast and giant squash, and the rest of their huge table was loaded and groaning under platters of salads and orange mashed potatoes and jellied berries and a tray of pseudo-sushi and a broad assortment of rice dishes and even something that outwardly looked like baked potatoes but, to Shiro’s surprise and delight, tasted just like fried chicken. Not to mention the trays of yellow gingerbread and green shortbread cookies, and two bowls of sweet, custardy desserts that didn’t taste remotely familiar but were delicious anyway. They all ate until they were stuffed and groaning, and even then, nearly half of the food was left on the table.
“That,” Hunk said, leaning back in his chair and cradling his stomach tenderly, “was awesome.”
“I’m never eating again,” Pidge declared, and only shrugged when Keith pointed out that she’d be hungry by the morning and Coran interjected with his commentary on the dietary needs of humans.
Shiro, on the other hand, was watching his team, and he casually stood and made his way around the table to lean in beside Lance. He asked, in a low voice, “So, how was that? Good enough?”
Lance had been staring absently at the others with a wistful expression, but he blinked and smiled up at Shiro before leaning against his arm. “Yeah,” he sighed, “it was good.”
Shiro squeezed him in a brief, one-armed hug. “Any other Christmas traditions we should know about?”
Lance was quiet for a long moment before he finally admitted, “Carols under the stars.”
“I think we can manage that,” Shiro said, and they did.