lance alvarez (powpowpow) wrote in valloic, @ 2021-09-04 11:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, voltron: keith kogane, ₴ inactive: lance alvarez |
During any given patrol, the Voltron crew could be found together in any number of combinations. Today Lance and Keith took off together, arguing about the merits of bringing pineapple pizza to Blue’s birthday event. It was probably why Shiro had decided to leave them to it and join up with other members of Team A. He might have looked upon their bickering more fondly these days, but only to a point.
“I’m telling you, if I start acting nice, she’s going to get suspicious and probably try to stab me to make sure I’m not a clone,” Keith said, emphasizing his point by stabbing the air in front of him like Blue would stab him in this scenario. “Wouldn’t you?” Sure, he and Lance had grown considerably closer over the last few months and Keith was still trying to figure out how to handle that particular development without it getting weird, but being outright nice was still a foeign concept for all of them.
Twirling his blade in the air then, he caught it and sheathed it again. “Anyway, what are you getting her?”
"But it is also her birthday, Keith," Lance pointed out. Keith was a weighted word there, as it often was when they got like this. Not necessarily just his name, but also not necessarily in a bad way either. Just… pointed punctuation.
"You're supposed to be treated nicer on your birthdays," he added with a flash of a grin. "But yeah… if you were nice on like a - Tuesday - then yeah, definitely. Suspicion city."
He watched as Keith flipped the knife, the enviable smoothness of the movement. Lance had his bayard at hip, but so far it'd been a quiet day and it seemed doomed to remain there.
Lance rubbed at the bridge of his nose and shrugged a little. "Uhhh… I found this guy on kijiji selling some weird hamster battle armor set for like twenty bucks so I was gonna get that and something else." He was pretty sure Blue didn't even have a hampster but it looked ridiculous in the ad and he was sure she could repurpose it for something else and it was cheap enough to fall under dumb gag gift category.
“Me showing up to give her anything is being nicer!” Keith protested, though he sighed and linked his fingers behind his neck, as he looked up as they walked. It was turning out to be a boring patrol, yeah, and his guard was down a little lower than normal. He trusted Lance to tell him if he was going to walk into a killer wombat or something. “I don’t even know why a set of weird hamster battle armor exists, but you should definitely get it for her. It’s very…you.”
Here Keith turned his head to smirk at Lance, ready to jump out of the way if Lance came at him.
The smirked softened into a smile, when he added, “I was thinking about throwing a half birthday for Shiro though, since we missed it this year and he deserves to have the attention on him for a bit.”
"If you mean totally awesome then yes, it is me," he chose to go with in lieu of smacking Keith on the arm for the remark. A smug smirk flashed Keith's way with the retort.
A smug smirk that quickly turned into the look one might give a kitten who had just done something particularly cute. "Ohmygod Keith that is adooooooooorable," he drawled out the last word and leaned in to pinch at Keith's cheeks. He ducked from the inevitable and flashed Keith a less teasing smile.
"It's a good idea though," he said more seriously. "And would definitely be a surprise because who expects…"
His line of thought cut off as he heard something to the left of them. And it was immediate - bayard suddenly in hand, open to the Altean greatsword he'd unlocked after his gun, free hand held out in front of Keith. He didn't run after the noise, but prepared to do so if needed, or defend if the noise came to them guns blazing so to say.
"You hear that?" he asked quietly as he nodded to the trees where another distinct sound came. One that sounded a little like mooing?
There was a second between the complete shock he was feeling at being pinched and the immediate need to punch Lance. Keith didn't stop himself from throwing a punch either, though in all fairness, it was basically a love tap against Lance's shoulder.
He was gearing up to give Lance all kinds of shit when the sound reached them. His hearing perked up as he focused to listen for more sounds - discreetly pulling Krolia's blade back out and calling it to its full form. He took Lance's lead and made no other movements, until he heard that same mooing. Confused, he stood up straighter. "Maybe one of the farms nearby lost one of their cows?" Keith ventured as a guess, as he stepped around Lance and in the direction of the sound.
Lance kept on guard even as he placed the sound as mooing. Everything he'd come to know of Vallo pointed to the chance this might not be a normal cow.
"Hopefully it's not a killer cow," he muttered as he fell into step behind Keith.
And indeed there was a cow as they stepped through the trees. A cow perfectly content to be munching on the grass that lifted its head and gave another moo as the pair stepped into view.
Lance raised a brow, but then his eyes landed on the markings on the cow's flank, the ones he recognized immediately and his swordfell back into bayard form. "KALTENECKER!" he shouted gleefully as he pushed past Keith to run at the cow and fling his arms around Kaltenecker's neck. "Oh hey buddy I missed you so much!"
Keith stared blankly at the sight in front of him: Kaltenecker, with not a care in the world as she kept munching on the grass in her mouth, Lance, getting teary eyed over the space cow that had somehow become a part of the Voltron family. He sighed as he returned the weapon in his hand to dagger form and replaced it in its sheath once more.
“I thought we were finally going to see some action,” Keith muttered, even as he stepped closer to the cow and placed a hand on her flank. The markings that set her apart from other cows sat under his hand and made him reluctantly smile at the sight of them. He supposed it was nice to see something like this from home. But after giving Lance a moment longer to have his reunion with Kaltenecker, Keith asked, “Are you done making out with your cow yet or should I give you some privacy?”
Really, Keith wasn't that far off. Lance had nuzzled right in there, muttering soft little platitudes at the poor cow that seemed to not notice or care about the love currently being thrown its way. Though Lance knew, and would fight tooth and nail over the subtle shifts in the moos and gaze in Kaltenecker's eyes to point out the feeling was mutual.
But he turned his head and shot Keith daggers at the comment. "Please, you want in on this hug action… I know you do," the last bit taunting. Daring Keith to admit he was heartless and felt nothing at the sight of their beloved cow.
Crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow, Keith explained, “My heart is black and cold and I feel nothing. Try again.” It wasn’t and he did love that cow, but...it was a cow. It wasn’t as if Kaltenecker cuddled back, like Kosmo did. Dropping his arms to the side, he ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up everywhere, and gestured north of them. “Come on, we’re not too far from the Castle. We can radio in that we’re taking lunch and get her there? And maybe actually get lunch too.”
Lance gave Keith a look of shocked indignation and clamped his hands over Kaltenecker's ears. "Don't listen to him, buddy, he doesn't mean it," he cooed at the cow (and yes, he was aware that it was ridiculous).
It was maybe dumb to have a soft spot for a cow, but Lance did. Their weird little Earth cow they'd stumbled upon so damn far from Earth. And more than that, the memories of running through that space mall and finally having a moment of feeling like the dumb kids they had been back then in all the crazy of those first few months in space. Everyone's excitement when they realized a cow meant milk and milk meant milkshakes. The bonding in the kitchen when Hunk made them up and that little piece of home in the cold of space.
Lance stood though and reached for the rope around Kaltenecker. "Sounds like a plan!" he agreed cheerfully and tugged on the rope to try to get Kaltenecker to follow. Which got him a disgruntled moo and not much else.
"Ohhh… come on, we're gonna get you back to your room," he pleaded and tried to get the cow to move again.
Lance had a connection with Earth that Keith lacked and it had nothing to do with his half-alien status. Everything he now cared about was in space, but he could understand why Lance put so much love and attention into Kaltenecker. She represented a home that he was missing, family and a connection that Keith simply just didn’t have. Shiro, the Voltron crew, Krolia, and the Blades - they weren’t on Earth, only pain and loss was on Earth.
But he didn’t say any of that, simply rolled his eyes at Lance’s theatrics and put his hand on Kaltenecker’s rump to try and push her along. “Come on, girl. Let’s get going before he starts crying, yeah?”
"So rude," Lance snuck in before they went back to working on Kaltenecker.
And that seemed to do the trick and with Keith pushing and Lance pulling the cow mercifully started to step forward.
Lance whooped a little and grinned brightly. "Atta girl!" he exclaimed and gave the Kaltenecker a fond look.
It was easier, but still slow moving, now that Kaltenecker was somewhat cooperating. "Think she'll pick up on all of Atreus' animals that were hanging around?" He wasn't worried about it. Cows were usually on farms with other cows and animals, more just an idle musing as they worked on getting her to the Castle. "Maybe we should get her checked out too? Make sure the trip didn't do any damage."
“She’s always been pretty relaxed, even when we’re going through something,” Keith grunted, as he kept pushing on Kaltenecker’s rear to keep her moving forward. It was not the ideal place to be, but he knew that if they didn’t get the cow to the Castle, Lance would never let him hear the end of it. “I think she’ll be fine if she picks up on the other animals that had been around. I honestly doubt she’ll care as long as we keep her fed.”
He nearly tripped over a root as he was so focused on pushing the cow, but caught himself before he faceplanted. Lance would absolutely not let him hear the end of it, if he had. Huffing, he added, “Probably a good idea to get her checked though. Who knows what the trip did to her or if Vallo added any special surprises for us.”
Lance stopped when he heard Keith trip. He'd been so excited that he'd pretty much missed Keith's rather precarious position until then. Lance couldn't help the laugh that rippled up and he shot Keith a playful grin. "Careful there, Kogane - not sure if Shiro will wanna kiss that mouth if it ends up on cow ass." Crude maybe, but he wasn't above being crude from time to time.
He went back to coaxing Kaltenecker along and frowned. "You had to put that into the universe didn't you?" he said with a sigh as Keith mentioned Vallo surprises. "If she starts trying to eat us, I'm blaming you."
Lance got a finger for his remark. Not the nice one either. "Bite me, Lance." For the remark and the paranoia that Keith had cursed them to dealing with an evil Kaltenecker. But yeah, he was more careful going forward because he really didn't want to know what it was like to fall face first into cow ass.
God, Lance could be so annoying. "Pull your weight, we're never going to get there if you keep stopping to smell the roses."
Lance just flipped the finger back at Keith in return with a grin. He had made getting under Keith's skin an art and he was a master at it.
"Hey Keith?" he started in reply to the smell the roses comment, "shut the hell up," he finished off, without any heat behind the words. He tugged on the rope around Kaltenecker a bit harder though and pleaded with the cow. "Come on girl, you gotta help us out here too," he spoke softly.
Lance craned his head upwards, to see if the Castle was even in sight yet and sighed. "How much further?" he asked.
This was going to be a long morning.