#Fictober18day15

[ebhenah]

Spirit Week (Voltron Fanfic)

Fictober 18 Day 15

Voltron fanfic featuring Klance future family (as seen in "Forts" from Day 11) FLUFF

Minor S07 Spoilers

Rating- Pg (minor language, same sex couple)

Prompt: "I thought you had forgotten."

Halloween was one week away and for some reason, this year, everything was beyond busy. The little school on board the Atlas had chosen this week to be 'spirit week' and the preschool had joined in- which meant that three of their four kids had different thematic activities every. Single. Day. If that wasn't busy enough, there were Coalition meetings every single afternoon that required the full complement of Paladins and MFE pilots to be in attendance. Plus, Thace had been sick the week before and was trying to catch up on his missed work, AND Kashi was teething.

All those things combined had left both Keith and Lance wrung out and twitchy Keith loved their life, and most of the time they did a great job juggling work, family, friends, and couple time. But, every now and then, everything seemed to happen all at once. It didn't help that Lance insisted that McClains went ALL OUT for Halloween, and that making sure the kids got to fully participate in all the 'fun' school activities was important to Keith. He remembered how much he'd hated it when he was in the system and his foster parents, or group home workers couldn't be bothered to make sure that the kids in their care were wearing silly socks, or all blue, or dressed as their favorite story book character, or whatever. It sucked to be singled out for not doing the fun stuff, and Keith wanted to make sure that his kids never knew what that felt like.

So, on the weekend they'd prepped for each and every day. Monday- crazy hair day. Easy- Talia and Rai had long hair and Lance had grown up with sisters, so he was a whiz at that. He'd made tiny little buns all over Rai's head, then added pipe cleaner legs and googly-eyes stuck to bobby pins to turn them all into spiders. Talia's hair was pulled into a high ponytail and threaded through a thoroughly cleaned pop bottle with strategic holes to pool in a plastic drinking cup stuck to a headband. Thace's hair was shorter and paler, so he got spikes and colored hairspray. Done. The kids were thrilled and Lance had taken about 400 pictures of them before they'd left their quarters.

Tuesday was color day. Each class was assigned a color, and the kids dressed head to toe in it. More colored hair spray, and a deep dive into the McClain's family hand-me-down bins had outfitted Thace in "lime" (seriously, though? Lime? Not just green? Why so specific?) and the twins in "purple". Talia had been thrilled, purple was currently her favorite color. Again, leaving the quarters took longer than usual because of the photoshoot with Lance.

Wednesday had been 'silly socks'. That had required an actual shopping trip, and not only had they worn the silly socks on their feet, Lance's sister had shown the kids how to cut socks into fingerless gloves… which was cute, but had led to far too much teasing about his own teenaged fashion choices for Keith's liking.

Thursday was 'dress as your hero day', and when they'd gotten to school, a good 75% of the kids were dressed as Paladins, which was sweet and heartwarming (and led to about a million pictures, since Lance had INSISTED that they bring the kids to school wearing their armor). However, none of THEIR kids wanted to dress up as the Paladins of Voltron. Their parents and honorary aunts and uncles were definitely not 'cool' enough to be their heroes. Oh no- he and Lance had had to put together one Bi Boh Bi costume (Talia had been unable to explain to either of them WHY Bi Boh Bi was her hero, but he suspected she just liked yelling the name at the top of her lungs), one King Alfor costume (thankfully Coran had stepped in to help for that one), and one Kosmo costume. He wasn't cool enough for his actual son to consider his hero, but their space wolf WAS, go figure. Although, honestly, he was just glad none of them had wanted to dress up as Uncle Shiro with his 'cool arm' or Kolivan.

Friday felt like a gift to the parents after all the work of coming up with hero costumes- Pajama day. It should have been easier than it was. None of their three wanted to wear 'boring old' pjs, they all wanted new onesies in very specific themes (and yes, he realized his kids were spoiled… but they were perfect and they deserved to be spoiled and that was final). Of course, none of them had mentioned THAT until they were sitting down to supper on Thursday, and there was nowhere on the Atlas to get that kind of thing, so all six of them ended up on the surface, well past bedtime, with a cranky, teething baby, shopping for footie pjs: one alicorn (very specific- an alicorn has both a horn AND wings. If only one was present it was either a unicorn, or a pegasus- the things you learned from a four year old), one shark (because Thace was basically just 'Lance, the sequel' at the moment), and one 'scary halloween skulleekin' (that was too cute to ever be corrected- if Keith had his way, Rai would be calling skeletons 'skulleekins' until he was 50)... and OF COURSE as soon as Lance saw that they made them in adult sizes, he insisted on getting them pjs, too. A penguin one for Lance, and a purple hippo one for himself. Even Kashi got one- his was a panda, and even Keith had to admit their little roly poly drool machine made the cutest panda ever.

Spirit week cost a small fortune… but the kids had been thrilled, which was what really mattered. It was just that between all that, AND the meetings, AND taking turns walking the halls with a howling infant every night, AND making sure they were all ready for the shockingly long list of Halloween-themed activities Lance's family had as traditions in the latter half of October, Keith really just wanted… like… a nap. Not even a long one. Just like, half an hour of solid sleep, without being chewed and/or drooled on by their youngest. He was seriously cute. Absolutely loveable… The apple of his daddies' eyes… but right now he was a slobbery mess who really needed to let his parents rest before they went completely off their rockers.

So, he'd been absolutely overjoyed when he'd gotten a text from Lance letting him know that Veronica had volunteered to take Kashi for the night, and that the other kids had all been packed off to sleepovers with various teammates. Talia at Shiro's, Thace at Pidge's, and Rai at Hunk's. All he could think about was how good it was going to feel to sleep through the entire night and wake up rested- and free of baby drool. Man, parenthood really changed your perspective on how to spend a night off.

He was barely awake when he reached their quarters. He hardly even recognized that he was hungry until he smelled the food that was waiting for him, which brought him up short. He took a deep breath, letting the aroma fill him. Lance had cooked. Not only that, Lance had cooked his absolute favorite Cuban meal, a secret family recipe for pernil relleno de moros y cristianos. If he was really lucky there would also be croquetas and Cuban corn on the cob. Special occasion cooking.

"It smells AMAZING in here, babe," he called out, toeing off his shoes and hanging up his uniform jacket. He picked up a few stray toys on his way through the living room, tossing them into the toy box with practiced ease. "I can't believe you cooked! How did you have the energy to cook?"

He rounded the corner and was caught up in a warm, lingering kiss from his husband, who took one look at his surprised face and chuckled. "Mmhmm, just what I figured. It's been so busy this week… no one would believe me when I told them I thought you had forgotten. But I know you. I knew it. You've barely stopped moving in days. You are running on autopilot. Babe, what's the date?"

Keith blinked at him, confused. "Umm… it's Friday," he started, glancing around for some kind of clue. He knew it wasn't their anniversary- they'd gotten married in June, and he NEVER forgot that… but Lance was one of those romantics that remembered every little milestone- although thankfully, he never expected Keith to remember the little ones. Finally, his eyes lit on the counter and the few small wrapped gifts that sat next to his favorite Hummingbird cake. "Shit… I can't believe I forgot."

Lance just laughed, handing him a drink and steering him to a seat at their table. "Yeah. Of course I cooked… AND made sure we had the night to ourselves. Happy Birthday, babe. Love you so much."

Keith snaked his arm around Lance's waist and pulled him into his lap, "how did I ever luck into marrying you? You're amazing, I can't believe you did all this! Thank-you." He took his time kissing his husband, wanting to make sure that there wasn't even the tiniest shred of a doubt in Lance's mind about how much Keith loved him and loved the life they'd built together.