He loves me, He loves me not ~ Shance

1

They had been flying for what felt like hours before Black's Sensors finally perked up.
Sure, they had been hours of fun banter, combined with a few word games that Lance remembered from family road trips, but they had been long hours.
Shiro was never good at long-haul flights.

"Alright team, look alive."
Slowly, Shiro dragged one hand down his face, gradually becoming aware of the return of control as Black began to come off autopilot. The planet - Trenzig, Coran had called it - was just about coming into view, a combination of lush green forest and solid white ice caps. Not too unlike Earth, he thought slyly, if Earth had about sixty percent less ocean and one giant continent rather than seven.

"Why do we have to do this, anyway?" Pidge asked with a huff, the roll of her eyes almost audible, and Shiro could just about make out a click of her tongue through the grainy audio feed.
"Because the Tenzin asked us to," Keith shot back, earning an irritated groan from Pidge in return.
One by one, the Paladins began to pop up on the screen; they were all in varying states of exhaustion, and Shiro felt himself relate. They all knew he had been on pretty much one diplomatic mission a day recently, and when half your team is comprised of introverts, having to enter long talks with aliens every day starts to get a bit repetitive.
He never thought he'd think it, but he would love a random Galra attack right now.

"That, and it would look bad for Voltron? Or something?" Hunk chimed in, quoting Allura's speech back on the castleship, "I don't really think we have a choice, either way."
In a way, Shiro agreed with both of them; really, officiating some kind of alien marriage ceremony was something they could really do without at the moment, but turning them down could affect the native's image of Voltron. This left him balancing the needs of the team against the needs of the coalition half the time, much to practically everyone's grief.
"I don't see why you're all hating this," Lance butted in with a carefree laugh, "think of it as a holiday, what could go wrong?"
Shiro felt himself grin, or at least, give a small smile; of course, the resident extrovert had no issue with this.
"Lance, don't you dare-"
"Guys," Shiro interrupted, speeding Black up to lead the other four down, "if this is paining you that much, think of it as another Voltron show - we may not like it, but we have to do bit."
"At least Keith is actually Keith this time," Hunk said with a laugh, and Shiro couldn't help but snicker in response, "I think Allura's gonna' explode if she gets called Keith once more."

As another laugh went around the group, the planet began to pull into view. Individual colours began to disentangle themselves from the flat green, which in turn split into mosses and limes and ferns.
Hopefully, they really wouldn't be down there for long; Coran was vague about what the entire process entailed, only mentioning some kind of evening meal and a large ritualistic event where loving couples were paired off to be 'together until the bebzels fly over the kinfams.'
So really, not much information at all.

"Hey, Shiro?" He heard Lance ask, and he shook his head to focus himself, "what kind of stuff are we even going to be doing?"
"I'm not sure," he answered honestly, laughing dryly, "Coran wasn't exactly detailed."
"Darn," Lance replied, and Shiro could hear him clicking his fingers over the comms, "oh well, looks we're in for a magical mystery ride kinda' thing."
"Maybe you should leave the talking to Shiro, Lance," Pidge snarked, and Shiro could practically picture the offended look on Lance's face, "you'll probably end up accidentally marrying someone."
"No, I won't," Lance shot back, "besides my heart belongs to another, anyway, so shut up!"
Did it?
A pang of jealousy shot through his gut, unbidden and angry.

Really, his crush on Lance wasn't exactly unexpected. He'd noticed Lance right from the start, only he hadn't foreseen it ever becoming a problem.
Only, now they were with each other pretty much all hours of the day, it was harder to avoid; the flutter of his heart at every smile Lance sent his way, the blush that he tried not to show when he complimented Shiro's leadership after every fight, the tingle that travelled through his spine at every throwaway touch or friendly punch.
It wasn't even just that. His jokes were terrible, but a good terrible.
And the only reason he ever got mad at Lance's pickup lines was because they weren't aimed at him-