"I don't appreciate when you're during your… flirting with me, but I do both find it irking and admirable your will to try to find someone even when we're in the middle of war," Allura said in a surprisingly nice reaction to seeing Lance send a long look after a slim but still pleasantly curved alien girl.

"You know it, Princess," he said and sent both a wink and fingerguns in her direction.

Keith didn't know what was going though Allura's mind but it had to be a lot because she looked far more perplexed than he had ever seen her before.

"I'm not personally interested in children yet even if I did find another Altean man, so I'm very curious about why you are already looking for someone to reproduce with."

Lance choked on either air or spit. It didn't matter as the sound alone made Keith wrinkle his nose in disgust.

"Children? You're moving a little too quickly for me," Lance forced out between coughs.

That made Allura's face turn even more perplexed. "If not for reproduction, then why are you so insistent on finding someone?"

Lance's shoulders and eyebrows rose as he pressed his lips together. "It's fun?" His shoulders and eyebrows fell again. His eyebrows in straight lines right over his eyes and his shoulders until they were only slightly higher than when he was relaxed. "What's wrong with looking for a hot alien?"

"Nothing I suppose." Allura didn't look like she was supposing anything through all her uncertainty about the current conversation. Keith would have said something either to take away both Lance's and Allura's obvious destress or just make them aware that there was at least one paladin watching but Keith was also really curious about how this would end.

Lance looked at Allura as she argued with herself mentally and only sounded slightly judgmental when she asked, "But what would you do with your 'hot alien'?"

"Have fun with them? Argue about stupid stuff? And kiss them a lot of course." Lance counted the things on his fingers before he let his hands fall and ended with a final statement about relationship, "A girl- or boyfriend is really just a friend you kiss and maybe have sex with."

"You want to find a partner to have sex with?" Allura sounded like it was the most illogical thing she had ever heard of and Keith got really curious about what Alteans did when they were in relationships. He had just assumed that they worked like humans' relationships did since Alteans looked mostly the part and Allura was very close to her father before she had to delete the AI. Even the little things he had heard about the society there had seemed like it could have been a human civilization in a mixture of the far future with amazing tech and in the distant past with ruling monarchy.

"No, not for that," Lance answered and furrowed his eyebrows. "And I wouldn't like do it right away or even ever if they don't want to." Lance hurried the last part out and his cheeks reddened.

"I thought you said you didn't want children?" Allura asked and titled her head to look at Lance from another angle.

"Sorry, I just thought you would have like space condoms or something so you could have fun without, you know, babies." Lance shrugged but even Keith could see that he was really embarrassed about the conversation. Which was saying a lot because Keith had heard Lance hint at liking really kinky sex more than once when he was tied to a tree or when a pretty alien girl once accidentally scratched him and he told her that he liked it rough too.

Allura got a look of horror and disgust. Keith almost said something only because he was so surprised to see her react like that to a pretty normal statement on romantic relationship. "You would have sex with someone for fun?"

"What's wrong about that?" Lance asked with a high pitched voice and the look and sound of offended defensiveness put Keith over the edge and he started to laugh loudly.

Lance and Allura didn't say anything at first, not that he would have heard them unless they talked loud enough to deafen his laughter, but Lance eventually stepped closer to Keith.

"What are you laughing at, Mullet?"

Keith tried to answer but just laughed harder. It shouldn't have been funny and if he could probably not tell anyone about this in a way that would make anyone understand why he found it this funny, but the Allura's disgust about sex for enjoyment and Lance's defensiveness about his wish for such a thing was a wonderfully amusing mixture.

"What do you know anyway? I bet you haven't even slept with anyone," Lance grumbled.

Keith's laughter died down a little but he kept it up so he didn't have to lie himself out of that statement because there was no way he was admitting to Lance of all people that he was right and that Keith had in fact not slept or even did anything remotely sexual with anyone

"Hey, Keith, What's wrong?" Lance asked weirdly concerned for Keith. It wasn't like Keith had been great at hiding his negative emotions and it wasn't like Lance was a bad guy or anything, but Keith was always a little surprised every time Lance showed genuine concern for him.

"Nothing," Keith sighed. "It's stupid."

"Look, man, this is obviously bothering you. Haven't your mother ever told you that it's not stupid if it's bothering you?" Lance widened his eyes in shock. "Fuck, I didn't just say that!"

"You did."

"Aw, man, I'm so sorry I can't imagine not having my-," Lance stopped himself before he could go further. "No, forget that I just said that."

"It's okay, Lance," Keith assured him in a hoarse voice.

People always laid too much into the concept mothers. Sure, it must be nice to have one but Keith had never been genuinely bitter about others having one and he was rarely sad about it when he saw it in action. Only few lonely nights had he felt lonely because of his lack of permanent parents but mostly he just didn't know what to miss and he therefore didn't miss it.

"It's not, you're sad and I'm-," Lance shook his head. "What's wrong, buddy?"

"I said it was stupid," Keith told him and curled up his fists to help him keep his emotions in check. It really was stupid and Keith knew it. "And I don't want to hear your shit if I tell you."

"I won't pick on you, Keith," Lance said in a voice so full of sass that it was practically rolling it's non-existing eyes.

"Fine," Keith gave up. "Shiro said I would be banned from the training room for a day if I went up a level before he thought I was ready, and then Shiro followed though."

"It's not stupid," Lance told him and almost sounded like he meant it. "That sounds... annoying..."

"I know it's my own fault," Keith told him with eyebrows just as flat as his voice.

"No," Lance said in a slightly higher pitch than he usually talked with.

"I mean-" Lance furrowed his eyebrows as he looked for words to say that wouldn't put too much blame on Keith but he couldn't find any and instead sent a soft and very awkward smile.

"Lance, it's okay," Keith breathed out with a slight headache blooming quietly in his temples waiting to grow if Lance wouldn't cut the hurt and well-meaning puppy dog act out soon.

"I don't even know why you care this much," Keith admitted and didn't realize how harsh the words sounded before they had left his mouth. Oh well, no going back now.

"Of course I care, we're Voltron and we can't let Voltron be only three limbed, right?"

"Do you even like me, Lance?" Keith asked. It still sounded harsher than intended but he didn't know how to ask in a nicer way while still getting the same question out.

Lance just looked at Keith with his mouth in a thin line and wide eyes as if that expression was supposed to mean anything.

"Are you going to answer?" Keith asked impatiently because fuck it. Lance was a big boy and could take uncensored words. Keith was an equally big boy, if you excluded height, but couldn't take that Lance's only answer to Keith asking again was a frustrated sound originating from the top of his throat. If someone had a right to make frustrated noises, it would be Keith but he wasn't the one standing there making choking noises.

Pidge had been working on a dictionary that could automatically turn text from Altean to English but it had been a work in progress for a long time both because the little true free time any of them had was not exclusively used on this project but also because there was a lot of words to go through.

It was because of that that some of the other paladins at times offered to help and Pidge was always thankful even if it was just helping her for a few minutes.

Keith had been helping her for about 20 doboshes with writing down the long technical and often also Altean words she told him letter for letter when Hunk walked into the room.

"Hey, guys, I hope I'm not interrupting anything but I have time now if you still need my help with your lion, Pidge." Hunk smiled at them and just radiated friendliness and comfort. Hunk was the most anxious of all the paladins but he looked completely at ease now.

"That would be great, Hunk" Pidge turned around to look at Keith. "If it's okay with you of course, I've just had problems with the Green Lion for a while and I thought maybe Hunk would know what was wrong or how we could figure it out."

"It's fine," Keith told her truthfully. He would have been fine with going through more words but it was more than fine that he could do something more exciting now or even just typing some of the words in himself.

"I bet you can ask Lance to help you if you want to keep going," Hunk informed Keith but Keith just hummed unimpressed at the thought of Lance sitting down for possibly hours while they went through one Altean word after the other.

Keith sighed silently "I don't think that's-."

"Hey, Lance!" Hunk interrupted him by yelling somewhere behind him and the door. "Can you help Keith with Pidge's translation program?"

There were an answer and Keith recognized Lance's voice but he couldn't identify any of the words.

"It will be fine, he's already helped Pidge so he know the program," Hunk promised and Keith thought that maybe he should stop Hunk before he promised something Keith would have no way of doing.

"Fine!" Lance shouted loud enough for Keith to understand and less than a dobosh later they were alone with Lance in front of a tablet with a list of words Pidge had figured out and Keith in front of another tablet with the program that she had created. It had a simple layout with a box for writing the Altean words and another box to write the English ones and with a box for explanations further down the page.

"Okay, what word did you reach?" Lance asked casually as he laid on his stomach with one hand holding his head and the other laying close to the tablet and ready to scroll up and down.

Keith pressed 'back' on his screen and answered, "Heximite."

"Okay, cool," Lance mumbled and let his eyes search up and down the tablet as he looked for the word. It took a while but not as long as Keith thought it would since none of the words had been alphabetized.

"The next one's Ytoia Quintessence," Lance told him and had to sound out the first part of the word so much that Keith was sure he wouldn't have recognized the word even if he had known it. "It's Concentrated Quintessence."

Keith scrolled down under the translations and started writing in the box named 'explanations' by Pidge and wrote 'concentrated quetentance' before he stopped and scrolled up again. He would have to edit that part in a moment but he would rather do that than forget the explanation and having to ask again.

"And how do you spell that?" Keith asked.

"Well, Pidge have written it Y-T-O-I-A," Keith wrote the letters down as Lance said them, "and then just quintessence."

"And how do you spell quintessence?" Keith asked a little annoyed about having to ask but not overly so.

Lance sent him a furrowed-eyebrowed look with narrowed eyes. "Are you serious right now?"

"Yes?" Keith asked and tilted his head the side and felt how his hair tried to stay up against the wall his head moved against.

Lance looked down at the tablet on the floor in front of him before looking back up again. "Just spell it out."

Lance said it like it was the easiest thing in the world but it wasn't. Keith could see that he had spelled the word wrong but he didn't know how to spell it right and the only letters he felt like he had chosen correctly was 'qu' but that wasn't even close to good enough especially for an automatic system that needed the absolute correct spelling of the words.

"Just tell me the letters, Lance," Keith grumbled and he tried to keep his cool but Lance was annoying and Keith felt defensive and hurt. Keith did fine and it wasn't really any trouble to ask for the spelling of certain words if it wasn't for the fact that people somehow thought that he asked for fun and not because he genuinely couldn't spell the word. Keith had never met anyone who just asked how to spell something for fun and he was flabbergasted every time someone assumed that was what he was doing.

"It's literally spelled how it's said, Keith." Lance looked annoyed and Keith tried to find the strength to not lash out when it looked like Lance was about to roll his eyes. "Stop playing dumb."

Keith almost threw the tablet but contained himself until he had put it on the ground almost as carefully as he was supposed to. "I am not dumb!"

"I know, so stop pretending to be!" Lance spat back with just as much power.

"It's not funny, Lance," Keith told him with even more poison but with a much lower voice. He wanted to ask why Lance could even be this mean to him and why he found enjoyment in picking on Keith for something he was genuinely insecure about and couldn't change.

"If you didn't want to help, then you should have just said so instead of being a dick!" Keith had raised his voice again and loudly voiced a little more of his mind than he intended.

Lance smashed his hand on the floor next to the tablet loudly and pushed himself up into a sitting position so he and Keith was on the same level. "If I had known that you would panic over spelling one word then I wouldn't have. I've seen you write on the board at the Garrison and I know you can spell all kinds of long Latin words about spaceships and airplanes so sorry for not knowing that easier words is where you draw the line."

"Knowing the words amazingly enough happens when you read the assigned homework," Keith informed Lance with no wonder in his eyes as people usually had when they talked about amazing occurrences. "Even someone with dyslexia can learn that."

"Why are you-? Wait, you're dyslexic?" Lance moved his head back and almost looked like he had a double chin.

"Yeah?" Keith answered and looked at Lance with big eyes as he thought about how stupid Lance had to be to not get that concept.

"You're dyslexic?"

"Yeah," Keith said with slightly more fire.

"You literally corrected the guide to the simulator because they had forgotten a silent 'h'." Lance told Keith disbelievingly and Keith was so close to just throwing something in Lance's head. It wasn't like there could be any damage if his brain got smashed around a bit.

"I can remember the spelling of words just fine, Lance." Keith sent Lance a tired and annoyed look. "Just because I can't voice out quintessence doesn't mean I'm a fucking moron or have no memory."

"Isn't the words supposed to like, I don't know, swim around?" Lance's hands flew around as his fingers moved around in a weird mixture between the movements of a corny magician and someone demonstrating the want to tickle someone.

"Do we really need to talk about this now?" Keith asked but didn't even give Lance any time to answer before he hid most of his face in his palm. "Fine. Yes, it's like that for some but not me. Middle of words disappear and I can't voice words out. There, happy? Will you spell quintessence for me now so we can at least finish one word before Pidge and Hunk comes back?"

"Okay, sure, yeah, we'll do that," Lance mumbled and brought the tablet to his face again. "But like, did you just know or did you have to take a test and stuff?"

"Yes, I took several tests, and will you shut about this now or do I have to do this alone?"

"Sorry, sorry, I'm just surprised."

"Be that in silence."

Keith watched Lance trying to convince Shiro to put on a brown jacket he had found in an alien market. Shiro didn't seem too eager but their clothing was bound to tear or get worn down eventually so they might as well have more than their uniform and one outfit before that happened. Even if the jacket did look very similar to the one Lance had been wearing when the Blue Lion flew them to space. There was some differences but besides the new one having two nuances of brown and looking like it was made of some kind of skin instead of fleece or whatever Lance's brownish, green jacket was made of, there wasn't a lot of differences.

Eventually Shiro did put it on and Keith's eyes widened and he made a choked noise because suddenly everything about him and Shiro made sense. Painfully much suddenly fell into place like an equation that had been missing just one variable but now Keith knew everything he needed to solve it. Keith suddenly wished that he had failed math.

Lance and Shiro looked towards him and he put a hand over his mouth.

"Are you okay, Keith?" Shiro asked fatherly and Keith's breath was suddenly stuck in his throat.

Hell to the no. This was not happening.

"The jacket's not that bad, Mullet," Lance sneered but he too seemed like he knew this was about more than Shiro's outfit.

Keith turned around and put his hands in his hair.

No, no, no, no, no!

Keith started to walk away but Lance closed the distance between them and moved in front of Keith before Keith had moved much farther away.

"What's your deal now?" Lance asked.

"Nothing," Keith mumbled and refused to look at Shiro to see if he too was coming over.

"You like him or something?" Lance scoffed.

Keith's eyebrows furrowed and he looked up at Lance with slightly narrowed eyes. "What are you talking about? Of course I like Shiro."

"I knew it," Lance commented. Keith had expected Lance to be unable to say such a sentence without shouting and acting like he had won the lottery but it was just a quiet comment under his breath.

"Don't you like Shiro?" Keith asked and tilted his head to the side as if seeing him from another angle would help him understand Lance better.

"What, no?" Lance's eyes went from narrowed to wide and his eyebrows rose. "I mean I like him as a friend? But not like-like him."

Keith felt how his face paled as nausea painted the inside of his throat a disgusting green. "And you thought I did?"

The inner teenager in Keith let out a single 'ew' at the thought of that.

"Okay, so you don't," Lance stated with acceptance of Keith's lack of romantic interest in Shiro. "What's your deal with the jacket then? I know that it's not that bad and you can't really comment on fashion when you're an edge lord."

"No-it's just. I'm just-," Keith stumbled over his words intelligently as he tried to figure out an excuse. "I-he-um…"

Lance looked over Keith's shoulder. "If you don't want to tell me, then you can just tell space dad."

"He's coming over here?" Keith asked with wide eyes. Seeing Shiro was usually nice but Keith would need some time before he could face Shiro even without the jacket.

"Erh, in a moment or two," Lance answered and shrugged before turning his eyes back on Keith. "Wanna tell me or wait until Shiro comes?"

Keith collected all his strengths and looked back at Shiro over his shoulder. At how he couldn't get the jacket properly on while he was wearing his Paladin Suit but it was almost certain that it would fit him perfectly when he was only in his normal clothes.

Keith looked back at Lance's curious and impatient eyes.

"He looks just like my dad with it," Keith whispered.

Okay, Keith admitted to himself, Shiro didn't look exactly like Keith's father but the only major differences were his hair, his skin color and Shiro had a big scar over his nose where his father had a smaller one splitting one of his eyebrows in two. The resemblance was uncanny now that Keith had opened his eyes to it.

Lance's eyebrows furrowed as he looked at Keith and did so even further when he glanced at Shiro. He didn't seem to understand Keith exactly but nodded and walked back to Shiro who was taking the jacket off soon after.

Keith thought that Lance had simply told Shiro what Keith had told him but there was no concern nor sympathy pulling Shiro down.

Keith gave up the notion of Lance telling on him completely when they went back to the castle and Shiro only asked him once if he was okay, but Keith had been analyzing Shiro's every move for hours at that point so Keith couldn't very well blame Lance for that one.

It made Keith happy and warm to think that Lance would consider his emotions both about the jacket and about telling Shiro even if he didn't understand the reason for Keith's emotions.

Maybe he even felt a little giddier than he thought he would because of any developing friendships but Keith was too relieved that Shiro wouldn't know that Keith basically saw him as his dad to care about the bubbly feeling in his stomach.