Long-story short, I fell into Voltron fandom and I can't escape, and it's Shiro's birthday, and I've had this idea floating around for a bit, so I'm writing it real quick.

Takes place right after "Space Mall".

Shiro sighed in defeat. His team had gone to a space mall of sorts to get scaultrite discs for the teladuv. That was all they were supposed to get.

He wondered, then, how they returned with a cow and a video game system, and most likely more.

"Patience yields focus," Shiro reminded himself. "This isn't all that bad. It could be much worse. They could have brought home more animals. They could have been arrested. But they didn't, and that's all that matters."

"So where should we put Kaltenecker?" Lance asked, breaking Shiro's concentration. "You wouldn't happen to have a field for grazing animals in the castle, would you?"

"For now, Kaltenecker can stay here," Shiro replied, cutting off Allura. "We'll find a permanent place after I ask some questions. Everyone to the living room."

A chorus of groans echoed from the paladins, alongside Pidge's cries over the video game system, but they did as Shiro asked of them and headed to the so-called 'living room'. According to Allura and Coran, it had a different name, but for the team it served the purpose of a living room where they could all just talk.

After the paladins left, Shiro turned to the Alteans. "Allura, I have to ask-"

"No need!" Allura cut off Shiro with a smile. "The mice did my hair. I must say, it was quite fun!"

Shiro was silent for a moment, before shaking it off. "Would not have expected that."

"They're smarter than you think."

Shiro cracked a smile, before turning to Coran. "You… did get the lenses, right?"

"Of course I did!" Coran heartily replied. "Got 'em right here!" Coran proudly patted the top disc in the stack next to him. "We accomplished what we needed to do, even with distractions."

"You could say that again," Shiro sighed. "I'm just glad the trip wasn't entirely for nothing."

Shiro made his way to the living room, and found the team lounging around. Keith looked almost resentful to be there, but the others seemed content for the time being.

"Alright, team."

Shiro's voice called their attention to him, and they seemed to be paying a bit more attention.

"Can someone explain to me how you went in with no money but came out with the system and the cow?" Shiro asked.

The team's voices erupted as they began to speak over one another.

"It was Pidge's idea-"

"-it came with the power glove-"

"-I thought the food was free-"

"-not my fault he wanted it-"

"-raided a fountain-"

"-Lance became a dolphin-"

"-showed him how-"

"-cop started chasing us-"

"Settle down!" Shiro shouted over the chaos. The voices of the younger paladins faded away, leaving only the sound of Shiro's voice and the hum of the castleship in the air. "One at a time, please. Hunk, you go first."

"Sure. I mean all I did was try to get help finding the lenses, but I ended up in the food court, and I thought he was handing away free samples but it turns out they weren't free," Hunk explained. "He chained me up in the back and told me to start washing dishes, but then his robot broke down so I took up the role of a chef and taught him how to make food that wasn't just blobs of brown. Then Varkon showed up-"

"Varkon?" Shiro asked.

"He seemed like what would happen if Paul Blart was a Galra and ran a space mall," Lance laughed.

Shiro shook his head in amusement. "Really? Space Paul Blart?"

"You had to see it to understand."

"Guys?" Hunk spoke up. "It's still my turn right?"

"Right," Lance replied with a sheepish smile. "So, continue. What happened?"
"He chased after me and I ran into Keith."

Shiro looked over to Keith. "I guess that means it your turn next."

"What?" Keith snapped out of a daze to stare at Shiro.

"What did you do at the mall?"

"Nothing important," Keith swiftly replied. Lance raised a questioning eyebrow.

"That means you did something. What was it?" Shiro asked again.

"Nothing." Keith answered, staring directly into Shiro's eyes.

Lance leaned into Keith's side and whispered "Spacedad doesn't believe you." Everyone in the room turned to stare at Lance. "What?"

"You just called Shiro Spacedad." Pidge repeated. "What."

"Did I stutter? I meant it. He's like our dad out here in the universe, and thus, Spacedad." Lance calmly replied.

"I don't know what's worse: the fact that you called Shiro Spacedad, or the fact that you calling him Spacedad made me want to tell him what happened." Keith whispered.

"So something did happen."

"Uhhh…"

"What did you do?"

"Okay if I hadn't stolen the knife the dealer would've stabbed me! He had probably already called security."

"You stole a knife." Shiro repeated. "Where is it?"

Keith sighed and pulled a knife out from his jacket. "He thought I stole this knife," he explained, bringing out his other knife. "and he tried to take it and threatened to call security. We had a mini duel, but to get out alive and unscathed I HAD to take the one he was showing off."

Shiro took the new blade from Keith and after receiving an apology from Keith for his actions, turned to the last paladins. "And what about you two?"

"Lance was flirting with aliens at an Earth store," Pidge started, covering Lance's mouth with her hand before he could speak. "I had been looking for any sign of the lenses."

Lance easily removed Pidge's hand from his mouth and kept talking. "But then Pidge saw the Mercury Gameflux II and a game and demanded that we HAD to have it. So we ran off to the fountain-"

"Is THAT what you were trying to hook up?" Shiro asked.

"Of course it was! Anyway, we ran off to the fountain and started picking up the cash from it so we could get the Gameflux-"

"-and we thought we were gonna come up short but then Pidge spotted someone throwing in a coin so I dolphined over there-"

"You what?"

"He dove underwater and just before the coin his the water Lance sprung out and caught it in his teeth and made a dolphin noise!" Pidge quickly explained. "It was awesome."

"That it was. Anyway we ran back to the store and Kaltenecker came free with the system, but we ran into the others and escaped!" Lance finished with a smile. "We should go back there sometime. I'm telling you, those aliens were digging me."

Shiro couldn't help but smile. "That actually went better than I was expecting."

"Really?"

"I half-expected for one of you to end up in mall jail."

"WHAT?!" the paladins exclaimed.

"I'm just kidding!" Shiro laughed.

"Alright, now tell us: what were YOU doing here while you were waiting for us to come back?" Pidge suddenly questioned.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you kind of took a nap. How does that even happen?"

"Oh! That…" Shiro trailed off. "You wouldn't believe it, but I fought Zarkon on the astral plane and won Black's respect as a paladin."

Silence greeted the black paladin, until Lance said, "How?! Did you defeat him or something?"

"Well, the answer to that question isn't so black and white."

And with that bad pun out of the way, my first contribution to the Voltron Fanfiction community is complete! I honestly never thought this would happen. I love fandom, but when I try to write about a thousand ideas come rushing in and I can't decide what to write first so nothing gets done. Curse you self.