it's me again and i would like to suggest to you
keith being weirdly good at card games bc in the foster home he used to play them with the younger kids when they couldn't sleep
stop i love good with kids keith. im gonna cook hold on just you wait.
“That is the fucking fourth time you’ve won in Go Fish, Keith!”
Keith shrugs and gathers up the deck of cards to shuffle them between his two thumbs and forefingers.
Zarkon has decided to give the Paladins a night off from the war raging its path around the universe, so on their off day they sit in a loose circle on the main deck of the ship.
Originally, they had tried charades, but one too many altean animals from Allura had killed the mood.
They were at a loss for a while, bickering quietly, when Keith produced a worn pack of playing cards from the inside jacket of his pocket and put together a quiet game of Solitare for himself.
Lance glanced over and saw him shuffling those cards like a pro, and his brief moment of silence was crushed to bits when Pidge suggested they play card games.
“I’m sorry you’re bad at Go Fish,” Keith offers blandly as he shuffles, sounding not at all like he’s even remotely sorry, “But I’m not and you just have to live with it.”
“Are we sure his cards aren’t rigged?” Lance comments, leaning towards Pidge for support.
Keith’s nose wrinkles as he shuffles, “How would you rig a fuckin’ deck o’ cards, huh?”
“I—I don’t know, maybe you carved shit into them!”
One single raised eyebrow and Lance’s defense crumbles with a huff.
“How are you so good at these human cards, Keith?” Allura asks, leaning forwards with interest.
Her hair is down and shifts like the steam curling off of a waterfall down over her shoulders.
Keith shrugs. “Go Fish again?”
All of them nod in ascent. He begins to deal out the cards evenly and methodically, and while he does, Keith gradually dredges up the memories associated with his bent and worn red playing cards. “I grew up in an orphanage, yaknow? And nobody really looked at a little ol kid like me, so I had to find ways to entertain myself.”
They begin to play while he talks. Keith stringing together more than six words in a sentence in a normal speaking tone outside of a mission was basically unheard of. “I found a deck of cards one day. One of the older kids taught me how to play Go Fish, and whenever we had time thats what we did. And cards was my only social skill.”
Quietly, Shiro asks Hunk, “Any sevens?”
“I eventually picked up Solitare from the old folks home we visited as community service. All the younguns seemed to really like playing cards with me, so when one of them couldn’t sleep they’d come get me and we’d play a game. Somethin’ easy, even just Solitaire while I sat with them. Shiro, you’ve got a nine, give it to me I know it.”
Begrudgingly, Shiro hands over not one but two nines.
“That’s quite sweet. But I assumed you weren’t fond of other members of your kind?” Allura shakes her head when Lance asks for a six.
Lance gives Keith the finger when Keith mouthes skill issue at him. “Mostly, I ain’t. But little kids are different. They haven’t done anythin’ to deserve being disliked yet. And I know that when I was their age, I needed someone to stay up and play cards with. So I figured I would be that person for them.”
Small tears are beading in Shiro’s eyes.
Playing cards becomes tradition between the seven of them, whenever they get the chance, even if its four in the morning. Keith and his cards are always a comfort.