Current status: Sick and drowning in tissues.

⟴ ⛢ ⟴

Keith woke up by a loud, strident blaring, and out of pure instinct, he flew up into a sitting position, pulling out his dagger from under the mattress in one swift movement, holding it in front of him, ready to attack. The blaring continued though, but no instructions followed. It was too early for their alarm to go off, and Allura had promised him and Lance that she wouldn't wake them up ten minutes earlier for this time, so what was all of this? Another fake attack? But wouldn't Allura scream for them to get up then? Or maybe this was a real attack, and the princess was injured? Keith didn't want to risk anything, so he quickly got up, glad that he hadn't been able to fall asleep fully, and tore down his jacket from the wall, running out of his room. It would take too much time to go get his bayard in the other room, so he had to last with only his knife for now. Besides, the control room was closer to the armors anyway.

When he made it to his destination, he was surprised to find only Allura and Coran standing there, waiting for him with crossed arms. No one else was here.

"What's going on?" Keith panted once he stopped running, going up closer to the two Alteans. "Is there an attack going on? Where's the others?"

"Lance will be here any tick, just you wait", Allura muttered as an answer to Keith's latest question, looking at something over his shoulder.

"What do you mean ju..."

"WHAT THE HEEELL!" Someone shrieked from behind Keith, and he twirled around looking at who had appeared, frowning.

"Jesus~"

"Yeah, Jesus, Keith, Jesus! His help would really be appreciated right now!" Lance snarled, walking up to the trio. He looked like total wreck. His hair was beyond the average level of bedhead, his face partly smeared with a green face mask - but the where too many spots where it had gone off, which made him look terrifying -, and his blue pyjama robe was starting to fall off of his shoulder, the fabric wrinkled in too many places. One of his lion slippers weren't even on his feet.

"You look horrible", Keith pointed out, crossing his arms.

Lance whipped his head towards Keith, his eyes twitching, blodshot. "Hmph, thank you Keith, for making such an amazing observation! As if I don't quiznacking know!" He turned to the Alteans. "What the hell happened? And why won't the blaring in my room and phone stop?"

"We put up the alarm in your room, and made the other paladin's room's soundproof so they wouldn't be able to be awaken by the noise outside", Allura explained, like she had totally expected Lance's outburst and had rehearsed her answer beforehand. "As for you, Lance, I knew that the alarm had no effect on you since you always sleep with those ridiculously big headphones, as Pidge said they are called, so I made sure to connect the alarm to your communicating device too, to get you to really wake up."

"But why?!" the blue paladin wailed, looking jilted. "Is this your way of showing your love for me? Because then I might have to teach you a thing or two about affection."

"This is my way of showing a true punishment for your foolish behaviour." Her face laid in shadows as she continued. "If you two thought I would be kind enough to let you get on with what you're doing without teaching you a lesson, you are deeply mistaken. The second round of Query Quest starts directly after breakfast."

"But princess", Keith chimed in, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible. "You said that you would let us sleep. You said that you wouldn't take away any minute from our..."

"Well, I lied", she snapped. "You two don't deserve that kind of dispensation. I will pull through with exactly everything I first told you. This was your first punishment, now go head for breakfast before you receive your second forfeiture."

⟴ ⛢ ⟴

Their breakfast had mostly consisted of silence, much to Keith's liking, but something that was a little bit more disturbing was the fact that Allura and Coran had placed Keith and Lance beside each other, sitting in front of them and giving them deathly stares the whole time. The two boys could swear that a flash of lightning struck over their heads whenever they sensed that the two paladins would start anything. The only time the silence was broken, is was Lance asking:

"Hey, quick question about this whole Query Quest thing... How come we have to hold hands through it all? Isn't it already enough that we have to ask each other questions? I don't know about Keith, but I certainly find that stage difficult already, since, you know, I don't really give a shit about his life."

"The handholding is a very important part of Query Quest", Coran answered, putting his finger up for emphasis. "Physical contact brings a sense of intimacy. Especially for you humans. What I've gathered, you Earthlings seeks closeness more than ever, peculiarly out here in space. You two might not notice it now, but this propinquity will make it easier for you to not despise each other."

Lance snorted, clearly not satisfied with the answer, and if you looked close enough, you could see the faintest tint of red on his cheeks. "Well, that is clearly not working for us. So, I think it's just best to, you know, take away the whole handholding part, since it doesn't really have a good effect on us..."

"It is helping", Allura interfered, the imaginary lightning appearing over her head again. "You just aren't aware of it, since you two must have set your minds to believe that you will forever hate each other. Once you learn to see past that impediment in your heads, the intimacy will be evident."

Lance made gagging noises at what she had said, and as much as Keith agreed with him on that, he had to act mature. "Princess, I don't think you understand, but the hate we have towards each other is something very sincere, and I agree with Lance on this one. It would be best to just take the handholding part out, so there isn't another thing aggravating us."

"Damn right you agree with me!" Lance butted in, slamming his spoon on the table.

"Are you two questioning my interpretation?" the princess said with an offended tone, raising her eyebrows slowly. The thunder roared over her, and both boys stiffened. "Are you trying to prove me wrong?"

"O-of course not!" Lance stuttered, dropping his spoon with a clang. Then he looked to the side, perking up. "O-oh look! The other's are here!"

Everyone turned their head to look towards the entrance, and just as he said, the remaining trio of the team stood there, two of them very much still asleep, yawning their way over to the table, not seeming to notice the other's early appearance. Shiro was the only one to acknowledge such thing.

"What's going on here? Why are you awake before us?" He walked up to the table, giving everyone sitting there a quick glance.

"Good morning guys", Hunk slurred, sitting down next to Lance, yawning big again. Pidge sat in front of him - beside Allura - and immediately slammed her forehead against the table, not lifting it up after that. The snores came shortly after. "Slept good?" Hunk continued, looking at Lance's face, his tired expression not changing. "Oh, you look messed up, Lance. Someone must have had rough night. Speaking of rough night, I had one just now, so I'm just going to find a very comfortable position here and..." His face dropped to the table as well, and he instantly began snoring, drool slithering its way out of the corner of his mouth. Lance sighed, poking him hard at his side, making the yellow paladin startle awake again, blinking drowsily. "NO, nope, not doing that, of course not. I'm a paladin of Voltron after all. Sleep doesn't exist for paladins of Voltron. Of course not, I'm awake now. I will definitely not fa..." He fell asleep again, this time snoring with double the force as before. The whole table shook whenever he gave out a sound, and Keith glared at his quivering spoon on the table.

"Leave him", Shiro sighed, running a hand through the little white tuff of hair, looking at the two sleeping paladins. "Him and Pidge stayed up all night trying to solve a problem they've been trying to tackle for days, so they didn't get much sleep." He looked at Allura. "Princess, would it be possible if we could start training a little bit later? They need some rest before that."

"That's fine", Allura approved. "You need all the energy and rest you can get." She looked at the boys in front of her. "As for you, you will get that when you show that you've deserve it. Right now you aren't, so hurry up and eat your breakfast so you can begin the second round."

The two boys sighed simultaneously, picking up their spoon to finish eating, their answer coming at the same time, as if they were programmed to say it.

"Yes, princess."

⟴ ⛢ ⟴

The first thing Lance did this round was exactly what he was not supposed to do, and that was to be annoying. Just plain, throughout annoying.

"Do you ever, like, wash those gloves?" he asked, staring down at their interweaved hands, the same disgust on his face as before. "Because you have them on all the time, so I'm just very curious about your hygiene. Do you like... shower with those? Oh my God, don't tell me you pee with them too! Oh God oh God, am I touching your glove that touched your junk right now? Oh dios mío, I think I'm going to puke~"

"Mind your own business, Lance", Keith growled. It would take considerably shorter time for him to lash out today, since he was even more crankier than usual because he barely slept at all.

"So you do pee with them!" the brown haired boy wailed, backing away in the couch, trying to take his hand away from the other's grasp, but Keith sensed it immediately and held to his hand tighter, drilling his stern gaze into the squirming boy, not letting him get away. Lance made several attempts to withdraw his hand, but didn't succeed once. "Let go of me! I don't want your pee-pee bacteria on my hand! Gross!" He started to kick, trying to make Keith to surrender.

"Lance", the red paladin muttered, but the kicking intensified. "Lance! Stop it!"

His demands was to no use, he realized, so he needed to go for another tactic. Allura wasn't here now, so he could just discretely pull out his dagger... But no, the cameras around them would catch what he was doing, so he would get into trouble no matter if Allura was here or not. So that tactic wasn't really an option. Instead...

"Tell me about sharks!" Keith blurted out, fortunately making all the squiggle stop. He peered at Lance, unsure if he was calm or not, but judging by the surprised look on his face, he counted that as a win. Lance's grip eased a little, and Keith could breathe out again. "I want to... know more about them."

The shocked teen gawked, his lip flopping. "You're bluffing. You don't want to know shit about them."

Keith could sense the squirming coming back again, so he quickly said: "I'm not bluffing, Lance, I... truly want to know more about them... They seem... cool." It was nearly giving him a stroke to act like he was interested in something Lance liked, but at the same time, it put him at ease. This way Lance wouldn't be his obnoxious self for once, and lay down with the fighting for a bit, so it granted Keith some patience on the long run. It was a good tactic after all, that Keith would admit.

"Really...?" The blue paladin said, his voice uncertain, but mixed with the faintest hint of hope. Hope for Keith to be genuine, and actually wanted to know more about his favorite animal.

"Really", Keith sighed. There was no going back now. And hearing about sharks was better than being kicked, anyway, so it could have been worse.

"Oh! Okay, well..." Lance's face was already lighting up, and whatever doubt he had just now, disappeared. Maybe he suspected that Keith wanted to delude him, but if that was the case, he certainly didn't care about that now. "Did you know that sharks communicate through body language? Usually they communicate by zigzag swimming, shaking their head or head butts. It's so cool! When I was little I used to think that was just how they swam, to like, seem more intimidating."

"Seems logical", Keith mumbled, looking down. "Since, you know, you said they don't have any vocal cords."

It was quiet for some seconds, but for some reason Keith didn't dare look up. He waited for something to happen, tracing a finger over the hard surface under them with his free hand, wondering if he was being too nice. Maybe Lance was spotting Keith's real intention, and this silence was just a little pause before the actual storm would break out.

"Huh, so you remember that", he said eventually, sounding stunned. Keith didn't know if the increasing of sweat for a hand was his or Lance's. "I didn't think you actually listened, so I'll give you credit for that, Kogane."

I see this more as a must than a desire, Keith wanted to say, but he fought against it. Maybe that was the problem; his constant need to riposte, which ignited a need in Lance to retort back, which started the whole fighting thing. Maybe it just required one of them to shut the hell up, and they would actually prevent another argument, or at least make them not come so frequently. Lance definitely didn't deserve his kindness, but Keith deserved some peace, so it was just best that way. He tried for that tactic.

"Yeah", the raven haired murmured, still not looking up. "I told you I thought they sounded... cool."

"Hell yeah they are!" he exclaimed. "But what the hell you staring down for? You found a treasure down there, or something? Look up. It feels weird to talk to your forehead. Or do you even have a forehead? The only thing I see is hair."

Be nice be nice be nice be niceee...
When Keith looked up, the best he could go for now without causing a brawl again was to just glare, so that's what he did. Lance smiled.

"Ah, there's the emo Keith I remember. Welcome back."

"Lance...!" he closed his eyes for a second, exhaling hard through his nose before opening his eyes again. "Just... The sharks? Please just continue." He really needed the other to stop bringing up reasons for him to lash out. Keith personally thought he was managing this quite good. It required a lot of stamina to not blow up whenever Lance made his snarky remarks.

"You really like them, huh?" Lance's eyes twinkled with mischievousness. "Can't expect anything else though. Sharks are the coolest animals on the planet, an maybe the whole universe too. I'm so glad I could make you realize how uncool Hippos really are."

"Hippos is still my favorite animal!" Keith quickly defended.

"Yeah yeah, whatever. But just wait 'till I share more information about the sharks with you, and I will guaranteed make you rethink."

And for the rest of the hour, Lance rambled up different facts about sharks, and why they should be Keith's new favorite animal.

⟴ ⛢ ⟴

It was like history class all over again, listening to everything Lance said; trying so hard to actually listen to anything being said, but failing everytime. Keith didn't know how much information had stuck in his head, or how long they had been sitting here, but he knew it was totally worth it. Not once did they start an argument, and Keith didn't really have the urge to. Besides, Lance was enjoying himself, so Keith didn't need to do more than just stare at him and pretend he was listening. But maybe this was a case of fake it 'till you make, where he was pretending so hard that he was actually listening. Well, he would have to find out when it was time for Allura's interrogation. Speaking off...

"Hey...", Keith mumbled, interrupting Lance in his sentence. He seemed surprised that he was cut off so suddenly after babbling nonstop for at least an hour now, but then he hummed, showing he listened. Their intertwined hands had gone slightly loose through the long talk, and upon being reminded of it, Keith unintentionally gripped the other's hand a little bit harder. That gesture immediately made Lance's eyes flick downwards, but he said nothing about it, and Keith did nothing about it either, so it wasn't really considered as an issue. "Sorry to interrupt but, how much time has passed? Allura must be here any minute and we haven't really gathered anything new about each other today."

Lance's eyes flew upwards again, and a shocked look overtook his features. "Oh, right! I totally forgot about that." He flicked his own forehead in a dammit! kind of way, but then his shoulders slumped down from his rigid posture, and he waved his hand in the air. "But no worries, we can just tell her the things we found out yesterday. If I'm correct, you said something about missing fast food, liking to train - I'll skip all the nonsense you said about that - and liking dark places... No, wait! Quiet places! Oh, but then I interrupted you so you never said the forth thing..."

Keith dedicated a moment of stunned silence, looking at the boy in front of him as he scratched his neck, and then his shoulder, waiting for a reaction. The rasping sound lingered between them, until Lance must have thought it was too awkward and he abruptly stopped, continuing to wait for any kind of response.

"So you remember that", the red paladin muttered at last, more like a statement rather than a question. You can't seem to remember other important stuff, though, Keith thought grimly. Yeah, he was still bitter over their bonding moment, leave him alone.

"Don't feel special", the other quickly defended, putting his chin high to give out the impression that he was above Keith. "I just have a really good memory. It's like a superhero power, really. Everything sticks into my mind even when I don't even try to remember it." He knocked on his own head.

"Oh, so that's why you don't remember the name of your favorite planet, or our bonding moment?" Okay, Keith couldn't really resist. Don't blame him.

Lance seemed to process the last thing his rival had said, and he sighed dramatically and loudly, groaning afterwards. Keith, however, kept on a neutral face, waiting for a different kind of reply to his confrontation. It was an important subject, one that shouldn't be whisked away like last time.

"Oh my God", the tanned boy grumbled, squeezing his eyes shut in annoyance. "You're really not going to let that go, are you?"

"Not until you admit to remembering it."

He groaned again. "Okay, let me get this through your thick, ugly skull..." He leaned in closer to Keith, his eyes wide, his eyebrows raised. "I. Don't. Remember. Iiiittt." He made sure to punctuate every word in his sentence, drawing out the last one, all the while looking Keith straight in the eye.

"You pretend you don't remember it", Keith corrected, clearly ubothered by Lance's false claim. "For a reason I don't know. I don't understand why it's so important for you to pretend it never happened. If you hadn't, maybe we wouldn't be at each other's throat by now, and this activity wouldn't be necessary." That's all Keith ever wanted; good terms with the other. Not necessarily friends - he could live without that, and had done it his whole life - but something leaning towards that. It could even be indifference. Because then he wouldn't have to put up with the hate toward the other and there wouldn't really be any concern about their relationship whatsoever. It would be perfect with indifference, Keith realized then.

But Lance didn't seem to be on the same track as the other, as he frowned. "S-shut up! Just accept the fact that I really don't remember that absurdity. You probably made it up, anyway. You probably wanted to be my friend so badly that you made up a fake moment to bring us closer." Out of nowhere, he released his hold of the other's hand, hastily standing up and glaring down at the stunned boy on the couch. Keith's glove couldn't even hold onto the warmth for long, his hand already losing the heath that Lance's touch had shed him. "Well, I don't want to be your friend, so just accept that!"

"Why is it that whenever I walk up to you two, someone is standing and looking ready to murder the other?" they both heard from further away, and they quickly averted their eyes to the source of the voice, seeing Allura enter the lounge room, looking as serious as she had been these past days. "I'm hoping you made better progression than last time? Or did you two enjoy having sleep being taken away from you? Because I can do it again."

Before Lance had time to ruin everything with his mouth, Keith stood up as well, standing beside the fuming boy, waiting until Allura had made her way over to them.

"We did make progression, princess", he said, crossing his arms and making his face as blank as possible. "I can start telling you what I found out, if I may?"

The princess seemed taken aback by by the fact that this hadn't gone the way she was totally expecting it to go before entering this room, but she was glad that the two boys could rebut her claims.

"Oh! Go on, then...", she quickly said.

"Well, out of every planet we've visited, the Frozen Planet ruled by Queen Luxia is Lance's favorite. His favorite animal is sharks, he likes garlic knots, which is a kind of Earth food, and going to a beach called Varadero Beach, and he likes a song called Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake." The words ran out of his mouth like water, and he understood fully now how he could even remember all those things; it must have been like some kind of survival mechanism, just like his body moved in battles with real enemies without him even having control over it, but only now it was his brain storing everything Lance had said so he would manage Allura's inquiry. He could only assume that it was the same for Lance, since he managed to remember all the things Keith had said yesterday.

Allura's astonished look stayed on her face, and the red paladin counted that as a big win. Perfect, now he had stored more faith for him within her, and he was hoping he could make that faith last for some while.

"Oh...", she said again, her face softening, and she flashed a slow, honest smile. "Well done Keith, I'm proud of your amelioration."

"I've gathered some information on Keith too!" Lance asserted, taking a step closer to the Altean. He put up four fingers, lowering one by one for every thing he said. "I found out that he likes hippos, which is an animal on Earth, and he specifically said that baby hippos are adorable. He also misses fast food, likes training, especially hand to hand combat because he can calculate his next moves or whatever, and he likes quiet places like deserts." He had lowered all his fingers now, looking clearly proud of himself. "Although I didn't have time to hear the fifth thing he had so say. I was just about to ask him, but I had to stretch a little first, you know? Sitting for an hour straight is quite uncomfortable. But then you blessed us with your presence, so I hope that these descriptive answers I have is a kind of like compensation for not fully completeling today's task. I really don't want to disappoint such a strong and independent woman like you." You could practically hear the ding! when he shot her a grin.

"Well done to you too, Lance", she said, clearly too satisfied to care about his flirtatious behavior. She placed a hand on Lance's shoulder, and he reacted quite excitedly about that small gesture. He looked like he could melt to a happy little puddle on the floor any second. Keith gave out a snort. "And it's completely fine if you didn't have time for the last question. I'm just very glad over your improvement. Four things is better than nothing."

"I knew you would be so understanding", Lance said with a broad smirk, clocking his eyebrow. "How about a kiss instead? As a change for the last question?" He had already closed his eyes, beginning to lean closer to the girl in front of him as he put out his lips in an attempt to get what he wanted. Allura's joyful look was wiped clean off her face, and she frowned.

"You never learn", she groaned, turning around and leaving before the teenaged boy could fulfill his action, and Lance ended up stumbling forward when there was nothing colliding with his lips, and he quickly opened his eyes, only to find no princess in front of him anymore. He stood up straight, brushing off imaginary dust from his jacked, before putting his hands into his big jacket pockets, trying to act unperturbed, but the blush on his cheeks said otherwise.

"Better than kissing that mouse, at least", he said, clearing his throat afterwards.

What a sad life. "You brought that upon yourself."

Lance didn't say anything, just kept his gaze on his shoes.

"But hey", Keith added, trying to make his voice softer, hoping that he succeeded. By the way Lance was looking up again, he assumed he had. "We managed to complete the second round of Query Quest, at least. Allura seems happy about it, too, so we'll get our sleep today." Not that I sleep well otherwise.

Keith could see how the boy in front of him still looked conflicted about what had just happened, but it made him slightly relieved when Lance tried for a small smile, like he was appreciating Keith's little - and very feeble - cheer-up. Why was he relieved at all? Maybe he had a sense of worry for his comrades which he wasn't even fully aware of, and maybe he didn't want to see them sad. Maybe he was really turning into a softie.

"Yeah", the other mumbled, turning his head downwards again, this time tracing the tip of his shoes in circles on the floor, raising and sinking his shoulders, like shrugging, but more unevenly. "And... thanks for not like... making me look like a more fool by telling her about my difficulty with names. It's really appreciated, man. I'll give you another credit for that too."

He hadn't thought that such a small gesture would make the other so grateful, but he was glad that he had unintentionally made them end this on good terms. For now, at least.

"No problem", was the only thing Keith could answer, letting every other word in his mouth die out, thinking that this was the only thing he could say, or anything else would have surely been interpreted wrong. He didn't think Lance waited for more than that anyways, so he kept it short.
But then he saw how his smile still lingered as he looked up, and he couldn't help but add: "I'm glad I could help."

"Yeah", Lance murmured again, the blush on his face still there, probably like an aftermath embarrassment.

Keith didn't smile back, but he didn't glare either.

So they did end on good terms after all.

⟴ ⛢ ⟴

You BET I was going to make another bonding moment joke. I'll forever be salty about it, just like Keith.

So this was quite a long chapter, after all, and I hope that I can keep my chapters as long as possible, but still update frequently. Which is quite hard considering how chaotic school is right now. I hope you will still appreciate the short chapters; if I feel like I haven't published for a while, I might shorten the chapter a little to get them out faster.

The next chapter will hopefully come soon!