Disclaimer: I do not own Voltron Legendary Defender or any of its characters. You know what I'd do if I did.

In Stitches

When Shiro heard Lance comment offhand about knitting sweaters for the Arusians, he thought he was kidding. After all, not only were there a lot of Arusians, there was no way they could get knitting supplies in space.

So he was very surprised the first time Lance brought his knitting to a briefing.

Shiro was not the only one who stared at Lance as he settled in his seat, knitting needles in hand with a project already started on it and balls of black and white yarn on his lap. Pidge and Hunk were the only ones who didn't seem too shocked, though Hunk did look a bit confused.

"Why're you working on that here?" He asked.

Lance shrugged as he got the needles in the proper position. "Couldn't find my cube. I figured this was the next best option." He immediately got to work.

Allura looked quizzically at his actions. "What exactly are you doing?"

"It's called knitting. It's one way to make fabrics for clothes and other stuff on Earth." Lance explained as he got into a easy rhythm.

"Ah! Is that what you needed the Sherpakian yarn for?" Coran leaned in closer to study the yarn Lance was using.

"Yeah, thanks for showing me the sewing and craft room." Lance grinned up at him.

"And it works?" Pidge seemed to get interested now, also studying it.

"Yeah, it's pretty similar to most Earth yarns I've used before. A bit softer though and apparently more durable." Lance said as he leaned over to Pidge's tablet and pulled up the relevant information. She hummed thoughtfully.

"Where'd you even get the knitting needles though?" Keith's brow crinkled as he stared at him.

"I always have my knitting needles and sewing kit in my pocket." Shiro wondered how large Lance's coat pockets were to fit his knitting needles in them. Lance continued before he could ask, "You never know when you might need them. Besides," he said as he finished off the row he was working on, "my sis said that if someone were to attack me, I could totally stab someone with them."

Shiro knew that look in Keith's eyes and that he should nip any following questions in the bud. "I do believe we're supposed to be making a plan here." He reminded everyone, drawing their attention back to him.

Allura, Coran, and Keith immediately straightened and everyone got down to business of making a plan.

Shiro was slightly worried that knitting would distract Lance from the meeting, but Lance was in tune with what was going on. He only glanced down at his work occasionally to see when to switch the colors and start a new row.

Despite bringing everyone back to the matter at hand, Shiro himself wondered what Lance would end up knitting.

Lance occasionally came into Pidge's workshop. Sometimes he came to tease and mess with Pidge. Other times it was to try to get her to eat or sleep if she had been working too long or too hard. The other possibility was when she needed him to help her with her work, either by letting him test her experiment or having him act as a rubber duck.

It was that last reason that currently had him seated on the floor next to her workbench, knitting away. Despite her occasional teases about his intelligence, Lance was pretty smart, having been at the top of the cargo class before being transferred into the fighter class and maintaining his other grades at the top tenth of the grade. He may not have had the expertise she and Hunk did, but Pidge found it helpful to explain her problems to him. It helped her sound things out, and he also asked questions that often made her look back at what she overlooked.

"Thanks, Lance." Pidge smiled down at him as she whirled back to her computer and started typing in the new code Lance had helped her fix.

Lance hummed in response, his full attention returning to his knitting project.

As she finished her typing, she decided to observe Lance knitting. He was working on something new, using two different shades of green. He almost seemed calmer than normal as he looped and pushed the yarn he was working on and it was somewhat strange.

Pidge had known that Lance knitted for a while. Despite her best attempts, and not really considering them friends, Hunk and Lance had occasionally managed to drag her into activities back at the Garrison. On the couple movie nights they had, as well as sometimes during study sessions, Lance had gotten out his knitting.

He never did it out in the common room or in front of other people, just in front of her and Hunk. He had said it was because they were teammates and he trusted them. Pidge hadn't really known why he would want to keep it hidden, especially as she had noticed that whenever someone was having a hard time in their dorm, they'd be mysteriously gifted with a knitted item and Lance's stash of completed goods got smaller.

She started a bit as Lance looked up at her. He must have sensed her stare as he tilted his head. "What?"

"Nothing!" Pidge said, about to turn back to her computer.

"No, no. It's obviously something." He countered, narrowing his eyes at her. His hands didn't even miss a beat as they continued their work.

"Well," if Lance really wanted to know, Pidge wasn't about to turn down the opportunity, "I was just wondering about that." She gestured at his knitting.

Lance frowned and looked down at it too, switching his colors. "Pidge, you've seen me knit plenty of times." A tinge of humor seeped into his voice.

"Yeah, but," Pidge adjusted her glasses, "why do you do it at times like this? You know, when watching movies, you need a break, or after getting frustrated with a problem?"

Lance blinked at her. Then he cracked a smile at her. "Seriously, that's your question."

Pidge huffed and turned away. "Well, if you don't want to tell…"

"No, that's not it." Lance waved her grumbles away. "I just thought it was a bit obvious."

"Really?" Pidge scrunched her nose, not quite believing him.

"Mmhm." Lance nodded. "It helps me concentrate."

Pidge blinked. "Really." She tilted her head in thought. That would make some sense.

"Yeah." Lance had switched back colors without Pidge noticing, because he was going back to the dark green again.

"So normally my fidget cube works great and all. I mean, it's perfectly fine." Lance said. "But if I'm watching a movie or getting frustrated, I found that this helps more. It gives my hands something to do while I concentrating on something else, the repetitive motions are calming, and it's actually productive." He shrugged. "It's nice."

Pidge hadn't thought of it like that before. It did seem to help Lance as she could recall him hopping back into his work a lot calmer and less frustrated back at the Garrison.

Well, whatever made Lance happy.

"Cool." Pidge said as she watched him continue to knit, finally finishing up the row he was working on. "Maybe make me something some time."

Lance grinned, his entire face lighting up. There was a glint of mischief and knowing in his eyes as he started the next row. "We'll see."

With those words, Pidge turned back to her own work. She didn't even think about Lance knitting again until she ran into another problem.

Keith found Lance knitting in the living room.

Keith had been training some more, for lack of anything better to do, but unfortunately, Shiro had found out that he was still training and kicked him out. After another lecture about how they couldn't afford to have him exhausted from training in case of an attack, Shiro had nudged him towards the common room with the suggestion of relaxing.

He didn't really know how to relax. Back when he was in the desert, there had always been something to do, whether it was day to day living stuff, maintaining his hoverbike, or tracking that mysterious energy and figuring out the hieroglyphs. Out here, training was relaxing.

But Keith could see the validity of Shiro's argument.

He hadn't known what he was going to do when he got there. After all, though the Lions helped with reading Altean when they were in the actual Lions, that ability didn't extend to when they were out of them. And Pidge and Hunk were still working on a translator device, so looking through the Castle's reading material wasn't an option.

So finding Lance sitting on the couch, knitting away and watching some Altean show, was a bit of a relief.

"Hey," he greeted as he took a seat next to him on the couch.

"Hey," Lance replied, eyes narrowed at the screen. He didn't seem to mind Keith being there, which he was grateful for. Lance was nice enough when they weren't training or doing something that could become competitive.

Keith followed his gaze to the TV. The show that was on was what they had figured was the Altean equivalent to a soap opera.

In other words, it was terrible. But it was the kind of terrible that was interesting to watch, even if someone didn't get the full context.

Keith let himself be drawn into the show at first, but, quite frankly, the drama that soap operas inspired was not all that interesting.

Instead, Keith watched Lance. His reactions, as well as the rhythmic clicking of the knitting needles was a lot more interesting to watch. Today, Lance was knitting using red and black yarn, switching between the two to form thick stripes on whatever he was making.

Eventually, Lance noticed his watching. "What?" He asked, a bit defensive.

Keith didn't bother making excuses. "You're really fast at doing that." He gestured at Lance's knitting. Whatever he was making would probably be great from Keith could tell.

A slight blush rose in Lance's cheeks. "Thanks." He mumbled. It always surprised Keith that while Lance would crow from the rooftops about getting in the right shot during training or pulling off the perfect maneuver in the field, he often took praise quite humbly otherwise, especially when it was about smaller, not as noticeable things. Like cheering people up or, in this case, knitting.

Keith watched, fascinated. "How did you learn to do this?" He wondered out loud.

Lance paused. He stared off into the distance, a wistful expression on his face.

Keith couldn't help but feel that he may have stumbled into some sort of social boundary. He hated when he did that.

But, to his surprise, Lance finally responded. "There are…" He paused again. "I have a really big family." He said. "I'm the youngest out of my siblings, with the next youngest being my brother that's five years older than me. I wasn't exactly expected. So everyone was older, with things to do. And everyone was always busy.

"So when I wasn't being dragged into doing whatever my sibs were doing, I'd end up being babysat by my abuela on my dad's side. She lived with us after Abuelo died when I was a baby, and she was retired so it's not like she had anything better to do. But," he winced a bit, "she didn't really have the energy to keep up with the games I wanted to play."

Considering how energetic Lance was now, Keith did not want to even imagine how hyper he must have been as a kid.

"So instead, she taught me how to knit." Lance smiled as he resumed knitting. "We'd knit together and watch movies or TV shows, sometimes stuff I liked or classics or soap operas she liked, and we'd talk together. It was nice."

Keith blinked as it dawned on him why Lance kept on knitting. It reminded him of home. And even now that there was a smile on his face, there was still that bit of wistfulness.

Keith wanted him to go back to his fully cheery self.

So he blurt the first thing that came to mind, something that'd been bothering him since the first time Lance knitted in front of them all.

"Is it true you can stab someone with a knitting needle?"

Keith wanted to bang his head against the wall at the stupid question. But when Lance barked out a laugh, eyes crinkling in amusement, he realized that maybe he hadn't messed up after all.

"Oh, I've never tried, but my oldest sister, one time she apparently - " Lance launched into his tale, and Keith listened, completely enraptured.

Slowly, Keith relaxed and fairly soon, the two were trading stories back and forth, the show on the screen completely forgotten as Lance's knitting needles clicked away.

It was nice.

Hunk had been secretly thrilled when Lance had started knitting in front of the others.

Lance was incredibly open for the most part, usually wearing his heart on his sleeve. Still, there were things that Lance didn't like to make public, and knitting was one of them.

It had taken several months for Hunk to learn of Lance's hobby himself, and that had made the mysterious gifting of several knitted hats, gloves, and scarves in the interim quite clear. Hunk had asked why Lance hid it and apparently some bullies in elementary school had discouraged him from telling others. Plus, Lance had told him that it had always been something he did with his abuela.

So Lance knitting in front of you was a sign that he truly felt comfortable with you. He'd been proud enough when he had started knitting in front of Pidge back at the Garrison (after a shorter time of acquaintance as Hunk been there to help back him up), but he was thrilled when Lance had felt comfortable enough to knit in front of the others on the Castleship, during a briefing no less.

It meant that Lance felt like he was home here.

That didn't mean that Lance missed his other home.

Hunk gazed worriedly at where Lance was sitting on his bed. Lance had come into his room without a word, holding his current knitting project in a tight grip, and sat down. He was just staring at his knitting, this time made of a calming yellow color with some bits of occasional orange yarn.

"Lance?" Hunk tentatively asked, sitting down next to him.

Lance's hands twitched around his knitting needles. "Yeah, Hunk?"

"Is - is something wrong?" He asked.

Lance was quiet for a moment. "It's abuela's birthday."

Ah. That explained a lot.

They all missed home, in one way or another. Coran and Allura had lost their entire home, and they both had their ways of coping with the loss. Pidge worried about her mom that she had left behind, so she threw herself into the diverse technology available to her and her search for her other missing family members. Shiro seemed to miss the simplicity of his life before he'd been snatched by the Galra. Hunk, of course, missed the foods he could no longer make and his family. Even Keith had said that he missed his little shack out there in the desert.

Lance missed his family. Even back at the Garrison he had missed them, and then they had only been a phone or video call away. Hunk had spent one holiday with Lance's family and there were a lot of them. His house had always been filled with noise and cheer.

A castle with only seven people in it was practically silent in comparison.

And Lance had always been close to his abuela who had taught him to knit.

Hunk scooched closer. "Do you want to do something?"

Lance hesitated before shaking his head. "No, just - can you talk about - something? Anything?"

Talking was the lifeblood of Lance's family.

So Hunk talked. He talked about the project he and Pidge were working on; he talked about some weird instruction videos he'd found that featured a younger Coran; he talked about how he had managed to sneak a visit to the Balmera and Shay.

The longer he talked, the more Lance settled, leaning into him with slightly shuddering breaths.

Eventually, Hunk began to hear the gentle clicking of his knitting needles.

And when Hunk finally paused, trying to find something to talk about that was out here, not back at home, he heard a soft, "Thank you."

It was only after he had pulled his friend into a tight hug that he worried about messing up Lance's knitting.

The grateful smile he got when he pulled away and began a story about the mice assisting him with some Lion repair told him that Lance wouldn't have minded if he had.

Humans were odd and yet fascinating.

That was a thought that came to Allura practically every day. All of them had particular quirks that were strangely familiar yet foreign.

In a way, Lance was perhaps the strangest of them.

He often flirted with her and other females, but he mostly seemed to do it for fun. He boasted of his accomplishments during training and pouted about not ever getting a parade, yet he never took undue credit after missions, often brushing aside things he had actually done. He acted annoyed with having to do chores around the castle, yet he still willingly helped Coran with the cleaning and she'd caught him sneaking away with the Paladins' Earth garments when they were damaged and they reappeared fully repaired.

And he also knitted, which, like his skin care routine, appeared to be a mostly feminine pursuit on Earth.

Allura narrowed her eyes, the mice crawling up to her shoulder to look as well. Lance was knitting in the common room again, a basket of different yarns at his feet. He seemed completely into it, even humming along to some song.

The knitting especially fascinated her. Althea's technology had progressed long before she was born so she had never seen someone actually make fabric like this. They either used a textile fabricator or inserted the yarn into a weaver.

Allura watched his hands as the moved in a rhythm that was clearly familiar to him, practically automatic. Lance was knitting something using pink yarn, though some light blue was at his side to be used at some point. But not yet as Lance knit on and on, not stopping even as a woven pattern seemed to emerge from the completed rows. She was so enthralled that she jumped when Lance's hands stopped.

"Question, Princess?" The teasing tone in Lance's voice made her look up and she saw more amusement shining in his eyes.

Allura scrambled to regain her composure. She straightened as if she had not been watching him from the doorway. The mice squeaked in protest at the sudden movement. "Ah, Lance…" She desperately tried to think of an explanation. After all, given the way he flirted with her, she didn't want him to think that she had been looking at him with that kind of interest. "I - uh - I - "

Lance chuckled a bit. "I know it wasn't really me you were looking at." He surprisingly didn't look too put out by that. "So you guys didn't have anything like this back on Altea?"

Allura cautiously entered the room and sat down by his side. The mice slid off her shoulder and scurried off as she did so. "No, or at least, not that I saw. Perhaps in the outer reaches some people practiced similar skills, but our technology compensated for most creation techniques."

"Yeah, Earth is pretty similar in that regard." Lance agreed with a nod. "Most stuff is done by machines, so not everyone really knows how to knit." As if proving his point, the needles, as she believed they were called, began to click as Lance resumed his weaving. "It's regarded mostly as a hobby."

"I see." Allura's eyes drifted back down to watch. "How did you know this was what I was interested in?" She wondered out loud.

"This isn't the first time I've caught you watching me." Lance admitted, to her shock. He laughed again as heat rose in her cheeks, but it didn't seem to be directed towards her. "It's always cool to watch something that you aren't familiar with. I don't know about Alteans, but on Earth you could find dozens of shows of people doing different stuff just to see how to do it or how things work."

"Really?" She didn't recall such shows back on Altea, but then again she had had other pursuits in her free time.

"Yeah." Lance was quiet for a bit, before he slowed to a stop. "Are you interested?" He asked almost shyly.

"If you've really seen me watching multiple times, it goes without saying that I find this interesting." Allura pointed out, not quite getting his point.

"No." Lance put his knitting to the side for a moment. He reached down into the basket, brushing aside some balls of yarn, and pulled something out. He presented it to Allura with a small, hopeful smile. "Would you be interested in learning?"

Allura's eyes widened. In Lance's hand was a pair of knitting needles. It wasn't quite like his; Lance had multiple pairs of different sizes though she hadn't seen all of them in use and they all seemed to be made of metal. These needles were made from the familiar material of the fabricator that created whatever tools they needed.

"You seemed really interested in the actual process, so I had Coran and Hunk teach me how to use the fabricator and it took me and Hunk a few tries to actually make a pair." Lance babbled on, obviously nervous. "I mean, it's only just this one pair, and it's the standard size for most yarn on Earth that seems to correspond with the yarn out here. I don't know - it seemed like you might be interested in learning? But you don't have to! I mean, knitting has been shown to help relax people and improve health and dexterity and all that jazz - but I'm not going to - "

"Yes." Allura cut him off, smiling at the kind gesture. "Yes, I would love to learn." Gently, she took the knitting needles.

Lance stared at her dumbfounded for a moment before his whole face lit up. "Awesome! Okay, so pick a color then and we can get started!"

Allura bent to examine the different yarns. She settled on a warm brown that reminded her of her father. The brighter colors were tempting, but as she was just starting out, she decided to go with something more familiar.

"Now what?" She turned to Lance, eager to learn.

"Okay." Lance nodded seriously. "So, first we have to get the yarn on the needle - it's called casting on…"

Allura followed along to Lance's instructions and explanations, carefully casting on the stitches and then attempting to knit her first few rows.

The two of them shared a grin at the first row she knit where she didn't drop a stitch.

One of Coran's many duties was to see that the Paladins had what they needed. This included training, battle, meals, and, of course, leisure time. For some Paladins, this was easier than others.

Keith seemed to enjoy doing physical activities in his spare time, training being his favorite. With him, it was harder to get him to sit still and actually relax. Shiro also enjoyed training, Coran assumed that was his experience as a Gladiator telling him to keep in shape, but he also like doing meditation as well. With Pidge and Hunk, if they weren't doing their preferred activities of looking for her family and cooking respectively, they were becoming engrossed in technology.

Lance had been a different story. In his free time, he either did more work or he actually relaxed. He tried to check on all the other Paladins or he helped Coran clean the castle, which he was admittedly thankful for. When not doing that, he seemed to try relaxing by going to watch Altean shows, puzzle over the books, swim, or nap. However, even when doing these activities, Lance had seemed restless.

When Lance had finally approached Coran, asking if there was a sewing or weaving room, he'd been ecstatic to show him the craft rooms.

Lance's eyes had shone like stars and Coran knew that he had found the thing that really help Lance relax.

And the craft rooms were where Coran found him today as well.

"Anything I can help you with, Number 3?" Coran asked as he poked his head in.

Lance was seated on the floor, a bundle of blue knitted cloth next to him, recently freed from the needles. He was critically eying various yarns, looking closely at the thickness of each one. "Nah, I got this handled. Just finished this," he nodded at the bundle, "and I'm looking for some thinner yarn for the final pieces after it. And then everything should be done…" The last sentence was mumbled almost too lowly for Coran to catch.

"Alrighty then." Coran conceded, though he stayed behind for a few moments, looking around the first of several rooms that had contained all sorts of different crafts people. He felt a slight pang in his heart at all that had been lost.

He didn't notice Lance glancing up at him and noticing his expression.

"Hey," he started a bit and turned back at Lance's call, "why does the castle have all this stuff anyway?" Lance gestured around the room. "Allura made it sound like everything was done by machines."

"Ah, excellent question, Number 3," Coran said as he twirled his mustache between his fingers. "Allura was not privy to everything that happened around the castle. These rooms were primarily used by servants and visiting crafts people." He held up a finger to make his point. "While machine or fabricated goods are all well and good for day to day use, objects made by hand are truly special."

"Yep." Lance smiled at him. "Humans feel that way, too."

"Naturally." Coran nodded. "Why, I myself was friends with some of the most high end fashionistas of the time. Some of them made their cloth and tailored them for me right here in this room."

"Oh?" Lance set the yarn to the side. "Want to tell me about it?"

With no further prompting, Coran smiled as he told Lance of his high fashion friends from back in the day. He knew Lance would agree that he was the pinnacle of fashion. Coran completely forgot about the ache he felt earlier as he talked more and more.

It was only after his story was over and Lance had gathered his things, including five different colored balls of yarn in black, red, yellow, green, and blue, that a new thought occurred to him.

"Speaking of creating things," Coran glanced at Lance as he walked beside him, "what have you been doing with your knitted creations?" He was curious, because despite seeing Lance work on several things before, he had yet to see anything besides the bundle he now carried, obviously folded in a way so he couldn't even see what exactly it was.

A mischievous glint rose in Lance's eyes as he grinned at him. "You'll see."

Though normally such a look would make Coran nervous, for some reason it did nothing but reassure him this time.

Lance woke up excited. Last night, he had finished the final piece. He hadn't wanted anyone to be left out, so he had waited until he had everything done.

As he finished getting dressed and started gathering everything together, he heard some excited squeaking at his feet. Lance smiled down at the space mice, Chulatt leading the way by crawling up his leg to his shoulder. "Hey, guys, guess I won't have to bribe you anymore to not tell Allura what's up."

Platt looked a bit put out about that, but as he presented them their share of the goods, he could see it was all right. Lance quickly finished getting ready, and took his surprise with him to the dining room.

Luckily, everyone was already up and eating some sort of pastry that Hunk had made from the food goo.

"Hey, Lance!" Hunk greeted him as he brought out another platter. "So, here…" His voice trailed off as he stared at the mice who'd leapt from Lance's shoulder to the table. "Are… are the mice wearing sweaters?"

Everyone else leaned in to get a closer look and Lance grinned. They were indeed wearing matching sweaters striped with the five colors of Voltron. He'd had to use his thinnest pair of knitting needles and the thinnest yarn he could find, but he had been able to make it work.

"Yep. Actually," Lance shifted a bit, suddenly a bit nervous, as they turned to look at him, "so, you know I've been knitting a lot but I haven't let any of you see the final results." He paused as they all nodded. "That's because I wanted to wait until I had something for each of you!"

They all started in surprise. Hunk and Pidge exchanged eager grins, while Keith looked as though he was excited but trying to hide it. Allura and Coran just looked at him in awe as he set his presents down.

Shiro gave him a soft smile as he gave him his first. "Oh, Lance, you shouldn't have." He said that, but he still looked incredibly pleased. For him, Lance had knitted a v-neck sweater, primarily black but it had white stars patterned on it.

"But I did." Lance replied, tossing Pidge hers. "Here ya go; just like you wanted."

Pidge unrolled hers and she laughed at the sight, matching Lance's grin. Hers had a scoop neckline and was mostly green. On the front, in a darker shade of green, he had knitted:

01001110

01100101

01110010

01100100

01010001

01110101

01100101

01100101

01101110

"Nerd Queen? Really, Lance?" Pidge asked, though her eyes twinkled in amusement.

"Hey, I call it like I see it." Lance rolled his eyes. "Here, Coran."

Coran blinked in surprise, before taking the light blue sweater from Lance. It had a stand-up collar and on it was written "I mustache you a question" in white. Though instead of the word mustache, it had a giant, orange mustache that matched Coran's own.

Coran laughed in delight. He had been taking lessons in English, the Paladins' common language, while giving Lance Altean lessons in return. Lance knew that if anyone were to enjoy that joke, it was Coran.

Lance turned to Hunk next. "Hunk, my man, my bro, my dude. I've given you a lot of knit stuff over the years, but here's your first Lancey Lance sweater."

Hunk practically danced in his seat as Lance handed him his sweater. It was yellow with a crew neck. On it, in orange, it read, "Come to the Nerd Side, we have Π."

"A pun?" Hunk gazed at Lance with tears of gratitude.

"The things I do for you, buddy." Lance patted him on the shoulder. He smiled at Keith next and held out his sweater. "Here ya go."

Keith's eyes were wide with wonder as he unfolded his sweater. It was a black and red horizontally striped, turtleneck sweater. He seemed so surprised that Lance wondered if he'd ever been given something like this before.

"I made sure to make it in your emo colors." Lance chattered on at the lack of reaction. "You know, wouldn't want to mess with your style."

"Thank you." Keith said softly.

Lance felt heat rise in his cheeks at the soft admittance of gratitude, but he quickly turned to Allura last to cover it up. "And here's yours, Allura."

Allura took her sweater from Lance. It was a cable-knit sweater, turtleneck sweater, mostly pink but it was emblazoned with "Princess" over the chest in light blue. "Ooo." She cooed over it, having been shown before what her rank was in their common language.

With the last of the sweaters distributed, Lance dusted off his hands and grinned at all of them. "I hope you like all of them. It gets cold out here in space, so feel free to use it if you need to."

Everyone smiled and gave thanks. Lance felt warm inside at how happy they seemed.

This was one of the most successful ventures of giving sweaters he'd had since he gave them to his family on Earth.

A few weeks later, Lance awoke to an announcement being transferred into his headphones.

"Paladins, please report to the common room. Wear a sweater."

Lance sat up, wondering what was up. He checked his phone, but it didn't seem to be anything special by Earth standards.

Huh. Maybe it was some Altean thing. Though that didn't explain the need for sweaters.

He shrugged, and got out of bed. Lance hadn't gotten around to knitting himself a sweater, as they'd been fairly busy between missions and diplomatic meetings, so he'd have to wear his usual clothes.

A squeaking noise stopped him as he went to get to his closet. Looking over, he saw the mice in their sweaters, jumping next to something. As he walked over to see what it was, a grin slowly spread over his face.

Oh, wow.

"Do you really think this will work?" Keith asked, arms crossed.

"I hope he likes it." Allura drummed her fingers nervously. "He hadn't taught me how to…"

"Don't worry, I've seen him do it before. We did it right." Hunk reassured her.

"Ya'll are worrying too much." Pidge grumbled from her seat.

"You say that as if you weren't worrying the most about finding time for this." Shiro teased.

"No worries, Paladins," Coran assured him, "my fashion sense is impeccable." He twisted his mustache with confidence.

The others were not filled with the same confidence.

"Well, isn't this a good looking bunch?" Lance's amused voice came into the room as the doors slide shut behind him.

In a way, he was right. The sweaters he had made for everyone fit pretty well, which was great since he had estimated sizes. However, he knew that he had the best sweater in the ship.

It wasn't as neat as the others' sweaters, true. It was blue and white striped, and some of the stripes were different sizes and lopsided, and not in a way that looked like it had been done on purpose. The scoop neck was also lopsided with some errant threads sticking up. It was obviously the work of an ametaur.

But Lance hadn't been given a sweater since his abuela had given him one before going to the Garrison.

"Oh, you got the sweater!" Allura perked up.

"Yeah, thanks to some lovely assistants." Lance gestured to the mice who had caught a ride on his shoulder. "It's awesome."

All of the others looked pleased with themselves, and Lance knew he'd made the right call, though he did mean that.

"So, what's up?" He noticed that Pidge's laptop was hooked up to a series of machines to connect it to the screen in the room. There were also several mugs of steaming liquid on a tray next to the couches.

"Well, we've all been working hard lately," Coran announced, gesturing along with his words, "so Number 1 suggested a movie day."

"I've got a bunch of movies downloaded on my computer." Pidge interjected. "I hope you guys don't mind sci-fi and Disney."

"And I made something that tastes a lot like hot chocolate!" Hunk picked up the tray with a wide grin.

"Sweet." Lance loved the thought of sharing movies with his friends, especially Disney ones. "And the sweaters? They were totally necessary?" He couldn't help but ask, a smirk twitching at his lips.

"They're comfortable." Keith grumbled, pointedly not looking at Lance.

"Alright, let's settle in." Shiro said before they could start bantering back and forth.

Oh, well. Another time.

Lance settled down between Keith and Hunk on the couches, gratefully accepting a mug of not-hot-chocolate, as Pidge pulled up a movie on the screen. Normally, if he was getting ready to watch a movie like this, he'd want to pull out his knitting to keep himself occupied.

But as he and Keith ended up arguing in low tones anyway at the revelation that Keith had only seen a few Disney movies and Hunk and Shiro intervened while Pidge laughed and the Alteans were confused, Lance got the feeling that at least this time, he wouldn't need it.

AN: Happy Holidays! Not exactly a holiday story, but the sweaters and stuff give it a wintery feel. I really do think that out of all of them, Lance would be the master of arts and crafts, including knitting and sewing. And you know he's got at least one set of needles on him as he wanted to make sweaters for the Arusians. Personally, I can only really knit scarves and baby hats, but I figure that Lance would probably be at Mabel levels of knitting skill (who can actually knit a sweater in a day, but given that Lance is in the middle of a war, he gets some leeway).

Anyway, hope you all enjoy!