Mr. Snuggles
Keith/Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Pidge & Lance (Voltron), Fluff and Humour, 1.5k Words
Summary:
Lance had always had a soft spot for things that were outcasted.
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Keith shares an amused grin with Pidge when Lance’s humming fills the comms. Lance never remembers to mute himself when he was stationed somewhere, and he was physically incapable of staying entirely silent for long periods of time, so these stakeout missions were always filled with Lance’s singing. Sometimes, he talks to himself, making little jokes or skits that were always hilarious to hear. Right now, it sounded like he was humming a strange mashup of Uptown Girl and Party Rock Anthem, which was amusing on its own. Lance had an interesting brain.
“Everybody just have a good UPTOWN GIRL! She’s been living in — oh, aren’t you the cutest spider I’ve ever seen!”
Hunk’s sharp inhale over the comms reflected Keith’s own panic — Lance had a hard time remembering that some animals were dangerous, and should not be interacted with. Hunk has tiredly explained (dozens of times) that this is something that Lance has been doing his whole life — Hunk still gets nightmares from the time Lance just gently grabbed a fucking tarantula hawk wasp out of the fucking sky and started pointing out its features. Imagining it makes Keith a little green, and he doesn’t really have much of a problem with bugs. He can’t imagine how Hunk handled that particular situation.
“Aw, aren’t you sweet! Oh, hey, you’re not a spider — you have a separated thorax! What are you?”
The faint sound of their in-armour scanner went off, and all listening paladins sigh in relief. At least this way Lance will find out if the damn thing’s venomous and stay the fuck away.
“You’re a… sil-ti-fal-o-cus tel-o-fay?” Keith imagines the squinty face Lance makes when he is struggling to pronounce a foreign word, and smiles. Lance is adorable, that much Keith could admit in his head.
“Adorable, huh?” Pidge teases, winking at him. Keith scowls, going a little pink. Maybe not so much in his head, then. Oops.
“Oh, wow! That’s not a thorax, it’s a venom sac!” Lance laughs delightedly, and Keith and Pidge share another panicked look.
“Please don’t touch the fucking death spider, Lance,” Hunk whispers, knowing damn well it’s futile and Lance can’t hear him. Not that it would matter, anyway. Lance doesn’t really listen to anyone (except, shockingly, Coran, but Coran was just as much of a tree-hugging explorer as Lance, so that’s a bust).
“You know,” Lance continues, “Coran did say this armour is supposed to hold out against chemical attacks. And venom is a chemical. If there was ever a time to test it…”
“I’m going to kill him,” Hunk says, faux-casual. He turns his video on, showing how he’s smiling in the way that tells you he is actually very angry. “If this spider doesn’t poison him to death, I am going to stab him.”
“I don’t blame you,” Pidge says breathlessly, as she hacks through Lance’s helmet so they can see through his visor.
It takes a moment for the video feed to pop up, but everyone gasps sharply when it does. Instead of a tarantula-sized bug, like everyone was expecting, Lance is holding his hand out and making kissy noises at a spider the size of a fucking cat.
“C’mere, buddy! I won’t hurt ya. I don’t think you’re an aggressive beast who attacks on sight, and whoever wrote that in your file is probably a creep who can’t respect your boundaries and tried to scoop you up or something. Isn’t that right, buddy?” Lance is using the baby voice people often associate with, you know, babies. Or puppies. Things that are cute, not scary murderous poison bugs!
Keith realises he’s holding his breath when his eyes start to spot, and he quickly releases and tries to force himself to breathe normally. If this stupid fucking stakeout mission wasn’t so important, he’d send Hunk to go get his dumbass right hand immediately.
To Keith’s horror, the spider starts to listen to Lance, and advances closer. Lance makes a noise of absolute elation, and his flapping hands are briefly visible before he goes completely still in an effort to be more inviting for, and Keith can’t emphasize this enough, the deadly fucking venomous giant spider.
“Why can’t he be interested in plants, or something?” Pidge says weakly.
“Oh, he is,” Hunk assures darkly. “He’s just only interested in plants he feels are snuffed by others. You know. Plants that can kill you. He has oleander and water hemlock growing in his room back home, because he feels bad that no one else likes them.”
Keith can’t quite help his smile. Yes, Lance is ridiculous. But he’s just so cute. He’s a sweetheart. He just has so much love for everything and anyone — it’s no wonder that Keith fell for him. He’s always had a soft spot for the kind ones.
The spider finally crawls into Lance’s lap and he giggles, and despite everyone’s stress, the sound makes everyone’s lips quirk up.
“You are the sweetest, most adorablest, most wonderful spider in the universe,” Lance coos, scritching the spider under its chin.
In between it’s humongous fangs, Jesus Christ.
“I cannot wait to snitch on Lance and show this to Shiro and Allura,” Pidge comments. “I hope he gets in so much trouble.”
“You know he just has to throw out the puppy dog eyes and he will not even get a slap on the wrist.”
“…Yeah, that’s true.”
The three of them watch, speechless, as the spider seems to nuzzle into Lance.
“What species did he say it was?” Keith asks, bewildered.
“Way ahead of you,” Pidge says, searching through Lance’s scan history. “Holy shit, Lance scans a lot of things every mission. Like, thousands in the past month alone,” she mutters. “Aha! This thing is called a siltifalocus telofay, and of course it’s one of this planet’s apex predators. Because why wouldn’t it be?”
“Are they… usually this cuddly?”
“No, this thing says they usually attack on sight by spraying venom because they feed on fear.”
“Oh. Cool. Lance is canoodling a literal demon spider.”
“I mean, in his defense —”
“No, Keith, he gets no defense! I lose ten years every time he does this! I am seriously going to collapse one day!” Hunk interjects.
“In his defense,” Keith insists, looking pointedly at Hunk, “if the thing didn’t attack him on sight, then it probably doesn’t plan on doing so. He’s probably safe.”
Hunk frowns, but doesn’t argue any further. The three of them turn their attention back to Lance, catching the tail end of his one-sided conversation with the demon spider.
“— and I don’t think anyone on the ship is arachnophobic, so you should be fine, Mr. Snuggles! And your file says you feed on fear, so maybe you can even be trained to attack people! Oh, Keith will love that. Keith is our leader! He’s super cool and intimidating, but don’t let that fool you. He’s a softie, promise. He’s the tall buff one with long hair, you’ll know him when you see him.” Lance lowers his voice, whispering conspiratorially. “He’s the hot one, but don’t tell him I said that.”
There’s a pause as the paladins absorb this information.
“Does he thinks he’s bringing that fucking thing in the castle?” demands Hunk.
“Did he name the demon spider Mr. Snuggles?” questions Pidge.
“Did he call me hot?” asks Keith.
Shiro’s voice comes from behind them, fond but exasperated. “I think that’s a yes for all three,” he says. Keith and Pidge whip around, and Hunk (still on the comms) looks his way.
“Did you get the guy? Is the mission over? Can we come back?” Hunk asks.
Shiro nods. “Yeah, he ended up trying to escape through the South end, so Allura and I got him. He’s in cryo until we can ship him to Kolivan for questioning. Hopefully he has some good information.” Hunk is contacting Lance before the words are even out of Shiro’s mouth. Everyone watches the video as he answers.
“Hey Hunky-bear!” he chirps. “What’s up?”
“The mission is over, Lance, Shiro and Allura got the guy on the South end,” Hunk says carefully. “You and I can head back to the Castle now.”
On screen, Lance carefully sets down the demon spider, standing up. “Sounds good!” he says. “I’ll see you on the ship.” He hangs up before Hunk can say anything further (namely: “Lance, you are not bringing the fucking demon spider home.”)
He turns to the spider, patting his thighs and inclining his head towards Blue. “Okay, Mr. Snuggles. I read your file. You feed on fear, and there’s plenty of that where I’m going. In fact, I think you can be an asset! You haven’t hurt me, even though your file says you’re normally aggressive. All these are good things and indicate to me that you should come along with me to the castle. However. I have been lectured ad nauseam by Shiro and Allura about bringing strays home, and I don’t want to go through that again. But,” Keith can hear the grin in his voice, “they never said anything about stowaways! So I am going to board Blue, my lovely and amazing lion, and if you happen to follow me and I happen to not see you, well. Can’t help fate, can we, Mr. Snuggles?”
And with that, Lance strides over to Blue. Shiro sighs again.
“Well, at least I know he hears me when I lecture him.”
Mr. Snuggles does, in the end, turn out to be a wonderful asset. Turns out Zarkon’s soldiers are terrified of the damn thing, and they didn’t even need to send their prisoner to Kolivan. He spilled every base secret he had the second he saw the creature, and Mr. Snuggles enjoyed the terror radiating off the soldier immensely.
Man, fuck. Convincing Lance to leave strays behind was never going to happen, at this point. The castle is going to become a goddamn zoo.
part two (the tarantula hawk wasp incident)
