Here's a Lance prompt, lance finding a creature similar to a kitten while on another planet and decides to smuggle it back in his shirt. Shiro basically trying to figure out what the heck Lance is hiding.
I’m sorry this is like two days later than I meant it to be. I kinda changed it a bit. Also this is almost 3k. This was fun thanks nonny!
He was on his way back from a ground patrol around the main city of the planet they had just liberated when he heard it. A kind of soft, chirping noise, coming from behind one of the bushes. At first, lance ignored it, blaming the sound as a result from him hitting his head in the fight earlier. Shiro looked him over and said that he was fine, but maybe some ice and rest would be better than him saying so. He also told him to keep his helmet off, worrying that the pressure of it might make anything that’s almost there actually get there, but to keep it close.
He heard the chirping noise again and decided to check it out. He ventured closer to it, and, after moving some of the branches, found an animal that resembled a cat. It looked underfed, though that may have just been how it evolved seeing as how otherwise it looked healthy enough. It had a kind of pastel pink coat with light blue eyes that were wide and watchful.
“Here kitty kitty kitty.” He coaxed softly, crouching down and stretching his arm out, showing it the back of his loose hand. He gently clicked his tongue trying to get it’s attention.
After a few minutes it sniffed the back of Lance’s hand and sat just far enough away so that it was just out of arm’s reach. Lance grinned.
He had ‘adopted’ a cat with an attitude similar to this one when he was about ten. His mom had yelled at him when she had found out what he was doing with the fish he was buying at the pet shop. He was trying to coax the cat closer with fish, hoping that it would stay. Usually it would sniff the fish, grab it, and hurry back to being just out of reach. His mom had explained that some cats just enjoy having people nearby, the same way some cats like to sit on people.
He knew he couldn’t coax the cat-like alien closer by being gentle, but he might be able to if he offered food to it. He offered it part of a dried food goo bar that Hunk had developed as emergency rations for emergency situations. He hadn’t needed to use any for that occasion yet, but he was glad that he had it on hand.
Lance looked away from the cat-like alien thing and took the bar out of the pocket on his left side. He unwrapped it and looked over at the cat-thing again. It had come over closer. Still not enough to be able to pet it, but enough to offer some food.
He made a soft clicking sound again and offered it his hand, this time palm up with the bit of food goo coming out of his middle and index fingers, and thumb. He held his had as still as possible and waited for it to sniff it a bit. After deciding that it wanted to try it, he licked it. Just once. The cat-alien thing then sat on its hind legs, looking at the piece of dried food goo, then at Lance, and back to the piece of dried food goo. It did that a couple of times before Lance understood what it meant.
He slowly put the food goo bar down on the ground, just a little bit closer than where the cat-thing had just been. The cat-alien eyed him for a second, and then moved closer. Just enough to where Lance could offer his hand again, maybe pet it’s head if it’ll let him.
Lance broke off another small piece once the cat-thing was finished and set it down just a little bit closer to him than the last piece. The cat moved closer to eat it. This process repeated until it was right next to Lance.
He offered his hand out again, first the back, then the palm, waiting for permission to pet it. He knew he got it when the cat-thing bumped its head against the palm of his hand and stayed there. He slowly pet the cat-thing, see how far he could go. Surprisingly, or not really, it acted just like a regular cat when its being pet.
It climbed into his lap and laid down, making a little chirping sound that was different than before. This moment was a small, beautiful, peaceful moment in a war that was hard and cruel and unforgiving. It reminded him of the times when there was no infighting between his siblings and his extended family. Those precious times when everyone was getting along and no one was being hostile or passive aggressive with each other.
He wanted to keep the cat.
It wasn’t like Lance to not answer, and while the bump on his head hadn’t been so serious that he needed medical attention immediately, it couldn’t have been serious enough to make him pass out, could it? Shiro shook his head. He knew Lance, he would have made a small comment asking if someone could go to where he was patrolling. Responsible in radioing in, but unconfident in asking for help.
When Shiro asked him about it he said that he got it from his mom, and that all his siblings were that way. Always offering help, but not asking for it, whether due to stubborness or not knowing how to ask for it, no one in his family would ask for help unless it was from someone in the family.
He decided to try the coms one more time before going looking for him.
“Lance?”
“Yeah? Sorry I was focused and kinda had my helmet a bit lower than it probably should have been.” He apologized.
“Okay.” Shiro said. At least Lane was okay. “Just go ahead and come on back okay?”
“Roger roger.” Lance responds. “See you in a bit.”
He had just picked up the cat when Shiro called his name. Now he had to figure out a way to keep the cat.
“Hey kitty do you wanna come with me?” He cooed. The cat just nuzzled into his palm again. “Okay well I’m going to put you in my… uh. Huh. Well it might be a bit harder to sneak you on the ship than I thought. Let’s see if anyone in the village owns you first. You seem very docile for a wild creature.”
He walked back to the village cradling the cat in his arms, listening to the soft chirping that it was making, deciding that it was essentially purring. When he got back he asked some of the villagers if anyone had been missing a cat.
“First of all those are called Pucha and no, no one in their right mind would take one on as a pet.”
“They ruin our feathers. Just throw it back into the bush you found it in.
“Those things bring nothing but trouble.”
It made sense. The Paski were a bird like species. It’s understandable that they wouldn’t appreciate cat-like species. Lance felt a bit better knowing that no one was going to be missing their pet.
“Lance are you back yet?” He heard Shiro ask on the coms.
“Yeah. Just got to the castle.”
“Great. We could use some help bringing in the supplies.”
“Yeah, totally.” Lance looked around at the landing are “Is it just this one crate?”
“Yes. But we still need to get everything organized.”
“All right. I’ll bring it right up.”
“Thanks Lance.”
“No problem Shiro.”
Lance put down his cat and picked up the crate. “Come on Pucha.” He said, clicking his tongue three times afterwards. Pucha followed closely, perking its ears up and looking around at the new surroundings.
When they got up to the entryway of the castle, Pucha immediately ran for cover behind some boxes.
“You sure like to take your time on patrols.” Pidge jokes.
“It was a nice day, I was enjoying it.” Lance replies, putting his crate down.
“Well if you enjoyed it a little less maybe you would have had time to change like the rest of us.”
“Maybe I’ll just change first.” Lance shoots back. If he changed first he’d be able to get Pucha to his quarters without raising too many brows.
“Go ahead Lance.” Shiro interjects. “We’ll debrief when you get back.”
Lance hurries up to his room. He quickly changes out of his armor, which is more difficult than putting it on due to the body-molding technology the armor uses. He makes sure to grab his jacket when he leaves to go back to supply room.
“I think that’s a record.” Hunk jokes.
“Yeah, that was only like, five minutes.” Pidge muses. “Why don’t you always get changed that fast?”
“I guess I had some luck with the armor this time.” Lance says in his defense.
“You do know the suits have a release button, right?” Keith points out.
“And you’re still wearing the armor’s shoes.” Hunk points out.
Lance just looked at Keith. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious and mocking me, or joking and mocking me.”
“Did you really not know?” Pidge asks.
“You guys are serious?”
“How else do you think I can get mine off? They’re form fitting.” Hunk says.
“I know they’re form fitting, I just didn’t realize.” Lance pouts.
“Wait how have you been getting out of them if you didn’t know about the button?” Keith asks.
“Well, I kind of curl my shoulders in and shimy my way out.” Lance explains.
“That actually explains a lot.” Pidge says. Keith and Hunk nod in agreement.
“Okay, now that we’ve worked out-” Shiro starts to say.
“Wait where is this magic button then?”
“It’s on your wrist.” Pidge says flatly.
“Lance’s wardrobe issues, can we get back to organizing the supplies?” Shiro asks.
All of the paladins grumble and got to work organizing. Supplies going to refugees in one pile, and supplies going to help the next planet that needed them in another. All the while Lance was looking for Pucha. At some point, Lance threw off his jacket because it was getting in the way, and he hoped Pucha would recognize his scent and be drawn to it. He thought he’d seen a pink tail in the refugee pile.
“All right, I think that’s everything.” Shiro says. “Good job everyone. Debrief is gonna be on the deck. Grab some food and we’ll meet there in about ten minutes.”
Lance went to grab his jacket and waited until he was sure everyone was gone before he began looking around for Pucha.
“Pucha.” He called softly, clicking his tongue. “Come here Pucha.”
After a few stressful minutes he found Pucha and picked them up. “All right Pucha, you are going to be in my jacket until I can get back to my room. Hopefully it hasn’t been too long that me being late is rude.”
It took Lance about five minutes to get from the storage room to his room. It usually took him about five minutes to get from his room to the deck. If he didn’t hurry up he’d be yelled at by Allura. That was never fun. He understands why she does it. She yells at everyone when they do something that would be seen as ‘disrespectful’ to a princess. It was how she was raised. She’s gotten better, and she almost always apologizes after, but in the moment it just sucks.
He got to his room right as Shiro was coming through the hallway.
“Hey Lance, are you sure you’re okay? You weren’t exactly responding on the coms, and I know you said that it was just too low to hear but I just wanted to make sure.” Shiro explains.
“Yeah I’m okay.” Lance says.
“Great.”“I’m just gonna change my shoes and I’ll head right-”Pucha chirped. Lance coughed in an attempt to cover it.
“I’ll head right up.”
Shiro looked at him skeptically. “I think I’ll wait for you. I’m still concerned about your head injury. We’ll have Coran look at it after the debrief.”
This was going to be hard to explain.
Lance was acting weird. That wasn’t completely abnormal for Lance, but with the head injury, Shiro didn’t want to take any chances. He trusted Lance’s self assessment, but he was also a bit protective of his team. He lost his original space team, although that was completely out of his control, he’s not going to lose anyone on this one because of something he could have prevented. He’s protective of Lance specifically. He tends to throw himself in danger to protect the others. It would be great, except based on the lion’s ability, that should be Hunk’s thing.
The chirping is not something he expected. And he was looking unusually… pudgy for someone with his metabolism. He’d seen the way Lance eats, and he had no idea where all that food went. Allura once mentioned that he had the stomach of a professional Altean gladiator.
Shiro waited in the doorway, watching Lance switch from his paladin boots to his regular shoes. He was also acutely aware of how nervous Lance looked as he laced his shoes.
“That might be easier if you bent over instead of trying to do it on your knee.” Shiro suggests.
“Yeah, but this is how my mom taught us. She would have us copy what she did on her own shoe. That way we could see and do at the same time.” Lance explains.
“She sounds like a great teacher.”“Well she got three tries to figure it out before she got to me.” Lance’s face fell a bit. “I hope they’re okay.”“They are.” Shiro says. “They’re safe and they’re back on earth, and once Zarkon is defeated and we get the universe back in order we’ll go back.”Lance laughed. “Great. We only have to do two things before I can see my mom again.”That was the confidence and simplicity that Shiro needed. The ability put things in a perspective to weigh less that what they were meant to. Two things: defeat Zarkon and-
Something - chirped? It sounded like a chirp, and it sounded like it was coming from Lance. Shiro gave Lance a suspicious look, and Lance coughed.
“I think that patrol might have gotten some dust in my lungs.” Lance laughs. Before Shiro could ask why his shirt was chirping, Lance suggested they get moving, or they’d both be on the receiving end of Allura’s lecture on punctuality. At the mere mention of that Shiro picked up the pace and forgot the chirping altogether.
“Okay so let’s start with the fight in space before we formed Voltron.” Shiro says. “Keith, what happened?”
“I got hit, didn’t recover well, and Lance took a hit for me.”
“Okay. Pidge?”
“Same.”
“Hunk?”
Hunk paused. “I’m not really sure. It was really bright and I was definitely getting thrown around a bit.”
“Okay.” Shiro sighed. Lance was going to be the most accurate, but right now it wasn’t much help. He was probably more injured than he was letting on. “Lance?”
“No one was paying attention.”“That isn’t fair, you’re the one who’s supposed to take out the obstacles out of our range.” Pidge interrupts.
“You’re in a lion, nothing is -”
He heard the chirping again. And again, Lance coughed.
“Nothing is out of range.” Lance finishes. Something chirped, and Lance coughed. Twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.
“Let’s cut to patrols.” Shiro interjects, eyeing Lance. It’s better to end an argument before it can get there. “Keith?”
“Everything was fine.”
“Great. Pidge?”
“Nothing to report.”“Hunk?”
“Same here.”
“Lance?”
Lance was quiet. He was holding his stomach and looking wide-eyed. “Well,” Lance starts. “I kinda found something.”
“What did you find?” Allura asks. She doesn’t normally pitch in, the debriefing was so that Allura knew everything, and most of the time everyone is completely open in their experience in the field.
Lance slowly unzipped his jacket to reveal a pink, cat-like head.
“Lance?” Shiro asks.
“Yes?”
“Is that a cat?”
Lance bit his lower lip as he nodded.
“Have you named it?”
“It’s name is Pucha.” Lance says quietly.
Shiro knew it was too late for him to do anything. They hadn’t taken off yet, but he knows that once you name something, you get attached to it.
“Is this what you were ‘enjoying’ on your patrol?” Pidge teased.
“No. This was on the way back from patrol.” Lance says.
Shiro didn’t know what to do. This was a new situation that was not covered in any class he had taken while he was at the garrison, or during any protocol meeting he had been in while he worked. In this situation he usually defected to his commanding officer. But seeing as how he was the commanding officer, he had no choice.
“Allura, this is your call as to how we deal with it.”
He hears Pidge call him a wimp, but ignores that. He can see Allura is having trouble figuring out what to do, but he’s not going to be the one to tell Lance that he can’t keep it. Especially knowing that his family used to rescue strays.
“I guess it can stay as long as it stays in your room.” That’s not happening Shiro thought. “And it can not get on any of the furniture.” She knew it too. Also that rule is going to be broken in just a few minutes.
But the way Lance’s face lit up when it processed was something that tugged at Shiro’s heart. He had seen that same look on others throughout his life. That look was something he wanted to protect at all costs.
The look of pure joy.
