The story of us (Shance Fluff Week 17/18)

The life and times of Andy and Akira (Day 3: friends/family)

To nobodies surprise, the war lasted a long time.

Within that time, birthdays had passed tenfold - the fact Shiro was in his thirties now was something Lance frequently had to remind himself, along with the idea that he was less than a year away from that himself - along with marriages, anniversaries, births and deaths.

Sure, Earth wasn't as far away as it used to be, and Lance now had his Mama on speed-dial from halfway across the universe, but it was an endlessly weird feeling.

If it was one thing that they all had to learn, it was that war didn't just end with the fighting.

Oh no, the fighting ended quickly. Haggar's attempt at an uprising had ended with her death in a blazing, writhing, screaming ball of quintessentence, along with the destruction of the solar system that was caught in its blast, but it ended the fighting. Lotor assumed the control he promised he would, and nine years later had yet to go back on his promise.

Lance was twenty-one when the guns stopped, after only three years in space.
The next day was weird, quiet. Everyone kept to themselves, filling the usual mission time with coding, programming, training.
He recalled he spent the day teaching Shiro about proper skin care and ways to make his standout scars heal and fade, and asked him to marry him in the most informal way ever.

To his surprise, Shiro said yes.

Their wedding was a small affair- well, small compared to every wedding Lance had ever been to. Of course, his family was there, along with Hunk's Moms, and the Holts, and the Alteans who had spent the months leading up to it the most excited Lance had ever seen them. Keith doubled as Shiro's family and best man, toasting the happy couple as Varadero's waves crashed in the background.

The tide came in sooner than Mama thought it would; one of Lance's best memories was having their first dance in warm, ankle-deep seawater, with lasting salt rings on their suit pants and soaked socks to prove it.

But it couldn't last. War was war even once the fighting stopped, they all repeated as Allura hauled them back into space a week later.

"A wedding present," she'd explained afterwards, as she dragged Lance and Shiro down a side corridor away from the bridge, "Hunk told me married humans like their own space, and Father always kept this wing for visiting families." She winked slyly, pushing the door open to reveal a reception room not unlike those of Earth, all squishy couches and windows out into space. "We do hope you'll make use of it!"

Turns out that when you're friends with space royalty, the equivalent of a six-bedroomed house spread across three floors of one side of the castle was considered a 'small wedding present'.

"I could get used to this," Shiro had told him their first night there, curled up together in a bed bigger than anything Lance had actually seen outside of the royal chambers, "it's like our own little home, if you ignore the fact that we're in space."

"A minor detail," Lance had replied with a groggy laugh, pulling the duvet further over his shoulders, "like, no big deal. What are we gonna' do with all these bedrooms?"

Turns out Shiro did have an idea, and Lance quite agreed.

~

"Andy, for the last time, you're not taking the trials!"

Opposite him on the couch, the Galra huffed again, folding her arms and rolling her eyes away from Lance. "I'm telling you, Papa, Kolivan says I'm ready!"

She was being stubborn today.

"Yeah, for the intellect test, Andy," he shot back, leaning forwards over the small coffee table, "not the trials, not yet."