Work Text:
Noche Buena
Lance was hurrying down the street when his cell phone rang. Handing the few bags he was holding in his left hand to his dewott, Micro, Lance answered the call.
“Oh hey babe!”
“Hey Lance, are you on your way home? Your mother called a little while ago.” Keith tried to keep his voice level, but Lance could tell his boyfriend was multi-tasking.
“Yeah, I just have to make one more stop before we catch a cab home. It shouldn’t be too much longer.” Micro grabbed Lance by the pant leg as they crossed the street, and kept looking back and forth the entire time.
“Okay, cool- shit okay well we’re here waiting for you! Oh make sure to pick up an extra jug of non-alcoholic eggnog before you come home. Shire told me that Allura is having extra strong cravings.”
“Hah, yeah I already got it. See you soon. Love you!”
“Love you, Lance.”
As soon Lance slipped his phone into his coat pocket, the pair were standing in front of a little storefront. As Lance opened the door, the smell of cooking meat and spicy vegetables hit him in the face. “Oh boy Micro, I can’t wait until Keith smells this! He’s going to be so happy and surprised.” He approached the counter, put in his order, and moved on into the convenience store side of the little shop. It took him a few rounds of the aisles to find what he was looking for, but eventually he found exactly what he was looking for. By the time he returned to the front counter, the woman had his order ready to go. Lance paid of the bottles he grabbed and the containers of fresh food, and he and Micro walked out the door. Outside, they quickly caught a cab, and were off to the town home that they shared with Keith and Lina, his quilava.
~~~
After hanging up, Keith dropped his phone onto the counter and rushed to the stove. “Ah shit Lina, I almost burnt the onions. Can you check on the oven for me? Let me know if you think it needs more basting.” As the pokémon jumped up to open the oven, Keith poured the contents of a can into the active pot on the stove. “I’m really nervous Lin, are you sure we can pull this off?” Lina chirped comfortingly, and Keith laughed. As the beans in the pot came to a boil, Keith turned to the oven and basted the pork roast over. “This is the recipe his mom gave me, so hopefully he’ll recognize the food, at the very least.”
Once he was feeling comfortable with the way things were going in the kitchen, Keith moved out into the living/dining room. He doubled checked the place settings, doing a mental count of the guest list. “Okay Lin, Shiro and Allura are coming, with Matt and Pidge, and Hunk is coming with Shay. They should be here soon, which will be perfect, as long as Lance gets home before them.”
Keith went back into the kitchen, to check on dinner. Reaching into the fridge, he pulled out the bottle of wine Shiro had suggested to him and the carafe of non-alcoholic punch he had made from a recipe from Hunk. “Okay, everything is almost ready. I hope Lance comes home so-“
“Keith! We’re home!”
“Well speak of the devil, and he shall appear huh, Lin?” The quilava chirped, but went to the front with Keith to greet their housemates. “Hey Lance, dinner is almost done, and- oh? What’s all this?” Keith went to grab the bags from Lance’s hands, but Lance pulled them away at the last minute.
“Hey babe, what, no hello kiss first? And don’t worry about those bags just yet, the gifts for everyone are in the ones Micro has. Take those, most of the gifts are already wrapped so we don’t have to worry about that.” Keith just shrugs and takes the bags from the dewott. “But hey, go put those in the living room, and then come to the kitchen with me.”
Keith does as his boyfriend says, but only because of his curiosity as to what’s in the other bags. On his way back to the kitchen, he remembered that what exactly was in the kitchen. “Oh Lance wait, don’t go into the kitchen yet! Oh-” He rushed into the kitchen to see Lance in front of the open oven with his eyes open wide. “Oh I wanted to be here to show you..”
“Keith, you made lechon asado?” Lance reached into the oven, almost burning himself, to grab a piece of pork and stuck it in his mouth. “And you did a great job at it. This- this is delicious Keith!” He turned and smiled at his boyfriend. “You really did all this?”
Keith blushed and looked down. “Yeah, I, uh- I figured that you might be missing home this time of year. I called your mom a few weeks ago, to ask her what your family usually does for the holidays. She said that your family isn’t overly religious, but that you still get together on, what did she call it? Nacho Buena?”
Lance laughed at his boyfriends accent and said, “Noche buena. You made a full Cuban meal for noche buena, just to make me feel more at home here?”
“Yeah, I mean. This is our- your first holiday fully away from your family. I thought I could make this feel more like our home, you know? I mean, I wanted to help start making our own traditions, but I didn’t know where to start. So I asked your mom what your family did.” As he was speaking, he couldn’t look at Lance. He was afraid he overstepped boundaries, by calling Lance’s mother. He finally looked up to see Lance beaming at him.
“Keith, this is amazing. I can’t believe you went through all the effort to make all of this! I don’t even know where you found half of the ingredients. This all looks delicious!” Lance pulls a startled Keith into a hug, but Keith hugged him back. “But oh! I completely forgot, I have a surprise for you, too!” Quickly turning back to the counter, Lance starts pulling containers out of the bags he brought it. “I wanted add something to our dinner. I didn’t know what you were going to make, but I figured it probably wasn’t going to be anything Korean. So I, uh, I found the best Korean place in town and ordered some of the things I remember you talking about before. I hope you like it, I haven’t had any of it, but it smells delicious.”
Now it was Keith’s turn to be surprised as his boyfriend’s actions. “Jjajangmyeon, tteokbokki, japchae, and kkultarae? Lance I can’t believe you found a place to get all of this!” Keith grabbed a fork from the counter and twirled some noodles into his mouth. “This is delicious, Lance!”
“Oh and that’s not all!” Lance reached into the last bag on the counter and pulled out the bottle. “I thought I’d grab a bottle of mak- makgeolli.”
“You remembered makgeolli from when we met?” Keith turned to his boyfriend with a smile. “That was 4 years ago!”
“Yeah, I uh, that night is not easily forgettable.” Lance was blushing at the memory. “But yeah, among all of the… embarrassing details, I do remember how much you love this stuff. I wasn’t sure that the store was going to have it, and this was actually the last bottle they had on the shelves.”
“Lance this is amazing! I can’t believe you got all of this for me!”
“Gosh no, all of this is nothing compared to what you’ve done! All of this food smells amazing!” Just then, the doorbell rang. “Oh wow, that must be Shiro and Allura. I’ll go let them in.”
“Lance wait.” Keith grabbed him by the hip, and pulled him in for a kiss. “Thank you.” He looked into his boyfriend’s eyes and smiled.