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'Pidge, why don't you look like a girl?' Lance was lounging on the sofa in the common room, visibly bored.
'What!?' Pidge's voice was as cold as the eyes she just raised from her laptop screen.
'We all know you're a girl now.' Lance dangled his leg. He meant his pose to be one of languorous grace but the effect reminded more of ice-cream left forgotten in the sun. 'You can make yourself look pretty now. Allura probably has something…'
'Princess Allura already offered me her help but I quite like the way I look right now, thank you very much . Do you want me to look like a girl so you can practice your stupid pickup lines on me?'
Lance jumped.
'They're not stupid .'
'They are pretty lame, you know,' Hunk waved his lollipop. It turned out Hunk's engineering skills combined with his gourmet tendencies in the most enjoyable ways. There was now a gradually disappearing batch of various sweets he made out of Arusian fruits. The sweets combined a palette of interesting flavors with nutritional values and health benefits which made it impossible for Coran to object to paladins eating them.
'They are not!'
'Oh, be honest' Pidge tilted her head. 'Have they ever worked?'
'Have they w… Look, I don't have to answer that.'
'Yeah, thought so.' Pidge went back to typing. 'Honestly, they're so bad I think even Shiro would not be able to use them without scaring people off.'
'Huh, what?' Hearing his name Shiro raised his head from the piloting manual of the castle that Pidge machine-translated for him with the Altean-English translation program she created with Allura. The translation wasn't pretty and not everything was entirely understandable but it was enough - he wasn't planning to pilot the ship, he just wanted to generally know how it works. It was Shiro's little professional bias as a pilot - he felt more at ease knowing how to operate vehicles he was in.
'Yeah?' Lance got up from the sofa. 'I wonder what kind of pick-up lines Shiro uses, then.'
'Er, I don't…?'
'Oh come on, Lance, Shiro doesn't need pick up lines to pick up someone. He just needs to exist.'
'What.' Shiro blushed slightly. 'That's…'
'Fair.' Lance folded his arms. 'I guess that was a bad example. We have to consider a much harder case.' Lance wandered past Shiro and hovered over Keith. 'Keith, how do you pick up girls?'
Keith didn't even bother to lift his eyes from the handheld gaming console.
'I don't.'
'But if you wanted to seduce a girl, what would you say?'
'The same thing I say to a guy? I mean if you both want to have sex you just have to agree on it, right? And if not, that's the end of it.'
Lance moved even closer to Keith and leaned over him, trying and failing to obscure the console from Keith's sight.
'I. Am. Asking. You. Mr. hot guy. What pickup lines would our second ace pilot use to start flirting with someone. Not that he would know.'
'No, I don't.'
'See?' Lance grinned.
'I was never the one to start those conversations. Now will you get your face out of my game or do I have to kick you in it?'
'See, I knew… wait, what did you say?'
Keith sighed and kicked Lance away.
'THAT WAS UNCALLED FOR!' Lance shouted in a dignified tone which contrasted strongly with the definitely undignified position he was in, on his head with his butt high in the air.
'I warned you. Look, if you want to have a fight we can go to the training deck. If not, just get off my face.'
Despite his arrogance Lance had some survival instincts and thus stayed where he sat after awkwardly getting back to a horizontal position.
'Jeez, why are you so asshole-like? Why do you keep playing those RPGs all the time anyway? Aren't you supposed to be a suuuuper committed pilot? You should be playing flight simulators.' said Lance, who only even practiced on a flight simulator when he had to.
'I'm taking a break from them. I mastered all the simulators that were released for this system before we left Earth. I have no way of getting new releases right now.' Keith paused the game and got up. 'And you are still talking.' Still on the floor Lance backed away, but Keith simply directed his steps towards the exit. 'Unless there is an emergency I will be in my room. Locked.'
There was a moment of silence after he left.
'Uhm, is it me or did Keith suggest he was dating people.' Hunk asked the question that had been hovering in the air.
'Oh come on!' Lance jumped to his feet. 'I can believe we're the Chosen Ones to save the universe with a magical robot but I won't believe in Keith DATING.'
'I have to agree with you on that one; I don't think Keith would date anyone.'
'See, even Shiro agrees!'
'I think he might have only been talking about casual sex.' Shiro's expression was thoughtful.
'Not you too, Shiro. Pidge, back me up on this!'
Pidge, who seemed lost deep in thought, reacted to the sound of her name.
'Oh, you were saying? Sorry I was considering how you know the castle has this simulation mode for lions? Oh you don't know? Well it does and I was thinking if I could port it to our devices we could practice more in our free time and maybe I could analyse better the possible new functionalities our lions may have? I'm gonna go ask Allura if I could get at some of this code…'
'Wait, I don't even have a device to use it on…' Lance looked helplessly after Pidge leaving the room.
'Ah, this reminds me' Shiro got up and followed after Pidge. 'Princess Allura mentioned something about more advanced training program in the training deck; I'd love to try it out. Anyone wants to go with me?'
'No, but if you're gonna use up as much energy as you did last time I would like to try again to turn that high-nutrition food goo into something resembling food.' Hunk got up from his seat. 'If we leave it to Coran it looks like soylent green and I keep thinking it's made of people.'
Lance looked at the door closing after Hunk then threw himself on the sofa and posed dramatically.
'My life is suffering, everyone here is insane.'