i started writing this like. three weeks ago. and then i got possessed by motivation and passion for writing yesterday and finished it, so do with that what you will. congrats to @bluemantics for 700 followers!!
Over the years, many concepts had grown distant for Lance: greasy food, the Internet, not wondering if every day would be their last, gray-colored mice… and rain.
However, since the universe thrives on misery, he now had the pleasure of being very well-reacquainted with rain.
The paladins were stuck on a planet they’d recently rescued from potential Galran control—Zephyrus—and the aliens were just so thankful for their help that they’d wanted to throw them a feast as a sign of their gratitude. And of course, the paladins just had to stay at the King and Queen’s palace overnight, too, definitely not so that they could brag about their trillion thread count duvets and marshmallow-y pillows. Honestly, it was the same old song and dance, and that’s all it should have been.
Except the rulers of the planet had conveniently forgotten that the Zeyphyrian-equivalent of monsoon was supposed to start soon. And it did, the very day they were supposed to leave. It should've been fine, really, and they were trying to explain to their hosts that yes, the lions that fight an intergalactic war against angry raisins can withstand some water. Until they set their eyes outside.
The paladins stood slack-jawed as sheets upon sheets of water poured down, each so dense they appeared white, slapping against the ground in all their wet glory and effectively drowning out anything in a ten-feet radius. They couldn’t see, couldn’t hear and even the thought of stepping outside made Lance shudder. Zarkon himself could’ve been standing in front of him, monologuing about all his evil, slimy plans for the universe and he would’ve been none the wiser.
They turned around to face Queen Xyna, who only smiled disarmingly. “Feel free to explore the palace as you please.” She then turned around and went back deeper inside the palace, off to do whatever alien queens do. That, or brag to her alien queen friends about how the Paladins of Voltron were staying at her palace.
Shaking themselves out of their reverie, they, too, began trying to find their way through the labyrinthine hallways.
“Why do I feel like this was a ploy to get us to stay here longer?” Lance said aloud, taking off his helmet and wiping the mist that had gathered on it.
“Oh, definitely,” came the response from Hunk. “I had this feeling, but I didn’t think it was important. Sorry, guys.”
Lance turned to look at Pidge, who he’d thought was tuning out the conversation. He wrinkled his nose at her. “What do you mean, ‘why?’”
She pushed her glasses up by the tip of her finger, adapting her patented “well, you see—” tone. “Think about it. We’re stuck in a giant, unexplored castle, where we can do basically anything for the next few days, so why—”
Lance caught on quick. “Why wouldn’t we want to be here? Pidge, you’re a genius!”
“I think I saw a lounge somewhere,” Keith said, cutting off the “I know” from the green paladin.
“Boring!” Lance exclaimed, letting a small smile slip nonetheless. “What do you expect us to do in a lounge of all things?”
“I don’t know! I just thought you’d like to be informed—”
The younger paladins all blinked in stunned disgust at Shiro for his abhorrent suggestion. Even Hunk, who valued his eight hours as much as Lance, seemed aghast.
“What? If we’re getting a chance to relax, we should relax!” Shiro said, sounding distressed at the united judgment they were leveling at him. They all made the collective decision to ignore him and move forward.
Sending one last side-eye in his brother’s direction, Keith continued, “And anyway, I’m pretty sure I saw a TV in there, too.”
“Well, why didn’t you lead with that, samurai?”
——————————————————————————————————
The contraption mounted into the wall in front of them may have been flat and black, but that was about where the similarities ended. It was completely smooth with no buttons in, on, around or connected to it. After thoroughly searching the room—which, to Keith’s credit, could be called a lounge—they hadn’t come up with a remote, either.
The room was sparsely furnished, but modern in the way things in space tend to be. There was an L-shaped couch in the middle, with the screen-in-wall-thing in front of it. There were blankets draped over the back and a few cushions. A few cupboards and shelves were placed against the far walls.
After the devastation of discovering the TV wasn’t a TV, Hunk had groaned and flopped over onto the couch, very much given up. Pidge and Keith continued to try to figure out how the thing in front of them worked. Shiro stood hovering behind the two, occasionally offering unhelpful advice and ideas, hands on his hips like some middle-aged suburban dad. Lance gave it four more minutes before they bullied him into backing off.
It was while his eyes were roaming around the room, looking fondly at his teammates, that he saw it. He let out an inarticulate screech and rushed over, eyes not once straying. Vaguely, Lance heard Keith whisper, “I think the boredom finally got to him.”
Once he reached his destination, he once again released an excited scream.
“Nevermind, he’s just possessed,” Keith said, but Lance could hear the hint of concern in his voice.
“Fuck you, too, Keith!” He said, eyes bright and grin wide as he stared at the treasure in his hands. “I just found the cure to all our problems.”
With that incredibly dramatic statement, Lance turned around with his prize held aloft. He watched as understanding slowly dawned on each of his teammates as they recognized what he was holding. Then the pieces in their brains clicked and their expressions quickly began turning evil.
“Is that Space-Monopoly?” Hunk asked, and Lance noted the undertone of excited mischief in his voice with only mild fear. Hunk had been an absolute beast at board games back at the Garrison.
“Can it really be called Space-Monopoly if it’s literally what we’d get on Earth?”
“The answer to both of those is yes.” Lance replied primly, setting the box down in front of the couch.
Keith, shockingly, nodded. “If it’s in space, it deserves to be called Space-Monopoly. Who knows, maybe we’re the ones who stole the idea of Monopoly from aliens. Maybe it was Space-Monopoly all along.”
“Wait, so are we just not going to question how there’s Monopoly in some random royal alien lounge?” Shiro, ever the sensible one, voiced the disbelief that had been brewing in all their minds.
“That observation is entirely correct.” Lance said, plopping down right on the floor and opening the box. His delight only grew as he took out the familiar pieces and started setting up. The others followed, Shiro taking his place in the loose circle they’d formed around the board with a long-suffering sigh.
Once everything was in its place, Lance took out the tokens and set them in front of him in a line. The others immediately turned their gazes to it with single-minded focus. “Now comes the important part: choosing our tokens.”
Lance barely got the words out before all four paladins descended on the pieces with shark-like hunger.
“No, I want the thimble!”
In his periphery, he could see Shiro intelligently grab the rubber duck while everyone else was distracted, but he paid it no mind because Keith was going after the thimble. Lance’s hand landed on the token just seconds after Keith’s. He looked up, determined, and stared straight into Keith’s equally stubborn—and very pretty—eyes.
“It seems we’re at an impasse.”
Lance squinted at Keith. Keith squinted back. They kept making increasingly ridiculous faces until Lance sighed. Keith suspiciously narrow his eyes at him, not quite daring to hope just yet.
With a final roll of his eyes, he released his hold on Keith’s hand (something he would be later replaying in his mind). “You totally owe me for this.”
“Sure, after I wipe the board with your ass, sharpshooter.” Keith smirked, teasing, though he looked adorably happy at having gotten the thimble.
He winked back. “You wish, samurai.”
Ignoring the “that’s so gay” he could just make out from Pidge and the subsequent nods from Shiro, the hypocrite, and Hunk, the traitor, Lance settled back. He distributed the beginning $1500 to everyone as the self-appointed banker and let them get settled, too.
Lance nodded once at each person seated around the circle. He could see Pidge rubbing her palms in anticipation. “Let.”
Hunk sported a downright nefarious smirk. “The.”
Shiro and Keith wore similar expressions of spunky resolve. “Games.”
Lance sucked in a lungful of air. Exhaled it. “Begin.”
Unsurprisingly, the game swiftly devolved into chaos.
Shiro kept getting sent to jail. Pidge and Hunk were going toe-to-toe for victory. Keith was... already bankrupt, and Lance would be quick to follow with the depressingly low amount of money he had.
A few turns passed, and oh, who would’ve guessed! Lance was, officially, also bankrupt. Muttering a few choice curses, he heaved himself up off the floor and went to sit next to Keith on the couch.
Lance immediately dropped his head onto Keith's shoulder, who in turn dropped his onto Lance's, secure in the knowledge that no one was paying attention to them. “I love our little space-family.”
“I love our weird little space-family, too.”
Lance felt Keith shift slightly, and then a small kiss was pressed into his hair. “I love you, too, y’know.”
“Did you just Han-Solo me?”
With that, they sunk into silence, content to simply watch the other paladins bicker and squabble. They seemed to be locked in a heated debate over, knowing them, something inane, all three of them nearing their wits' end.
Shiro, in particular, seemed very done: with Hunk and Pidge, with Space-Monopoly, with the day in general. His hand was steadily inching towards the game board.
“Shiro wouldn’t flip the board, would he?” Lance whispered, mostly joking.
“He definitely would. He used to do it all the time when we played Scrabble.” Keith whispered back, sounding like he was reliving the horrors of playing board games with his brother.
Keith hummed and Lance frowned, suddenly doubtful. He considered the way the frustration on Shiro’s face was mounting, his hand rubbing the edge of the board.
“I’M NOT GIVING YOU ANY RENT!”
“YOU LANDED ON MY PROPERTY!”
“YOU’RE IN JAIL! FUCK YOU, YOU QUIZNAK!” With that incredibly eloquent statement, Pidge grabbed the nearest token and flung it at Hunk. It was Shiro’s rubber duck.
“Watch, he’s gonna do it.”
“No, he’s not.” Even as Lance said it, he knew it was a lost cause.
Pieces went flying, houses and hotels rained down and Monopoly money found homes in every corner of the room. Hunk and Pidge sat in bewildered silence at the wreck that used to be the game board. Shiro looked a mix of satisfied and surprised at his handiwork. Keith was giggling with unrestrained glee above him, and Lance was stifling a few chuckles of his own. It was very amusing seeing their fearless leader lose his complete shit.
Finally, Pidge opened her mouth. “Well, that was a certified shitshow.”
They started laughing even harder, slowly but surely sliding back down to the floor. Shiro snorted. Hunk joined the laughing gaggle of limbs that was Lance and Keith, and predictably, they were all soon cackling on the floor, a mess of legs, arms, and a fuckton of armor.
Sandwiched between Pidge and Keith, who it seemed were doing their best to poke Lance in increasingly vulnerable places with their pointy appendages, he realized that, for the first time in a while, he truly felt good, like things would be okay. His lips curved into a rather dopey smile.
“I love family game night.”
