#established shance

Shiro pouted, and Lance huffed at the expression. He leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to the tip of Shiro’s nose. “You’ll be fine. They’re going to love you. They love pretty much everyone,” he reassured, smiling softly as he turned towards the door, arm reaching out to knock.

It was at that moment the door was swung open violently, revealing a girl who came up to Shiro’s stomach. Her skin was caramel and the smattering of dark freckles across her cheeks stood out like a neon sign. Her warm brown eyes flitted between Lance and Shiro, eyebrow raised and hip cocked to the side as she asked, “How much longer are you going to stand out here? It’s pretty weird, you know.”

“Harmony! Let them come in when they want!” A distant voice shouted from deeper within the house, causing Harmony to pout at being scolded.

“No worries. We were just on our way in.” Lance’s eyes looked pointedly at Shiro, who offered a weak smile. Shaking his head, he stepped inside the house with Shiro shuffling in after him. The door was shut gently behind them as they shed their layers of warm clothing, hanging coats and hats and scarves on whatever free hangers they found.

“UNCLE LANCE!!” A voice screeched, followed by the sound of thundering footsteps. There was a warning to stop running, but it went in one ear and out the other as Lance squatted to scoop up the children bolting towards him.

“Isabella! Isaiah!” Shiro watched as Lance placed exaggerated, wet kisses against the twins cheeks, chuckling at the way they burst into giggles. “How are my favorite twins?”

“Good!” They responded in unison, high-pitched voices harmonizing and green-blue eyes shining in joy.

“Uncle Lance brought someone with him. Would you like to meet him?”

“Is it the boyfriend that mama keeps talking about?” Isabella asked, head tilting in curiosity.

Lance flushed. “Y-Yeah. His name’s Shiro.” The twins heads whipped around as Lance turned to face Shiro, who had been silent behind him, enjoying seeing Lance with his family. He choked up at the pair of gazes trained on him, feeling like he was under intense scrutiny, despite the obvious young age of the twins.

“He has cool hair! And a robot hand! Does that mean he’s secretly a superhero? Do you know, Lance?” Isaiah rambled.

“Well—”

“He’s really… pretty? No, handsome!” Isabella exclaimed, grinning brightly at Shiro.

“Okay, let’s let them meet the rest of the family, huh?” Harmony announced, coming up to Lance to take the twins into her own arms. She carried Isabella and let Isaiah ride on her back. “Everyone is in the living room and the kitchen.” With that, Harmony disappeared.

“Did meeting the kids relax you a little bit?”

“Yeah,” Shiro confessed, smiling.

“They have that effect on a lot of people. People hang out with them for a bit, and the rest of the family is a breeze.” Lance reached for Shiro’s hand, squeezing it reassuringly. “Let’s go tackle the rest of the relatives. They’re probably all hanging in the living room while my parents and siblings make dinner. I’d be roped into helping, but I don’t want to leave you alone just yet.” Shiro silently thanked him for his consideration.

And as he followed Lance into the living room, still hand in hand, they were greeted by a loud uproar. Relatives young and old hugged and kissed Lance, and Shiro wasn’t treated any different. Like he was already part of the family. The thought made his heart soar.

Shiro sighed softly as he added another finished pancake to the growing stack beside him. He reached for the mixing bowl and peered into it, seeing just enough batter for two more pancakes, give or take. Slowly, he poured some of the batter onto the griddle in front of him, stopping once a medium sized circle took up the middle of the griddle. Placing the mixing bowl back down, he shuffled to the right of the stove, picking up a discarded fork to flip the sausages, licking his lips as he stared at them. Cooking while his stomach growled and tried to eat itself wasn’t a good idea, but at least he had things to snack on.

Trading his fork for a half eaten banana, Shiro pulled at the peel to give himself easier access. Taking a bite, he let his mind wander back to his dilemma as he chewed slowly. A gift for Lance. It wasn’t like he didn’t have one. He was just worried how his gift would be taken. It was severely different from what Lance was used to, and, despite Lance being pretty open-minded, Shiro couldn’t stop himself from becoming nervous to the point that he didn’t want to give the gift at all.

Can’t do that. Mom would kill me, he thought as he swallowed his banana and returned his focus back to the stove, putting down his banana once more in favor of a wooden spoon to push around the scrambled eggs cooking on the back burner. Engrossed in making breakfast and worrying about Lance’s gift, he almost missed the sound of slow, quiet footsteps heading his way. He made no move to acknowledge the newcomer until he felt a smaller body press up against his back, mumbling something—probably a greeting—into the fabric of his pajama shirt.

“Morning, Lance,” Shiro said. “Did you sleep well?” He felt the movement of a nod against his back. “Well, you’re up just in time. Breakfast is almost ready.”

Lance’s head shifted and then, “You’re cooking?” The “Why?” wasn’t said, but the curiosity laced his tone, and Shiro picked up on it.

“I felt like it’d be nice since it’s Christmas,” Shiro explained. He got a hum and a squeeze around his midsection before Lance was pulling away, shuffling to one of the many cabinets to retrieve two plates. The noises of a busy kitchen—metal clinking against metal, sizzling food, pans being moved around—filled the comfortable silence between Lance and Shiro as breakfast was finished up and food was being placed on multiple napkin-covered plates.

“I was thinking that we should open gifts after,” Shiro suggested as he cleaned up and Lance made their plates.

“Sounds good. Then we can get dressed and head over to Allura’s,” Lance added. “Says she has gifts for us.”

Shiro tensed. “Allura got us gifts?”

“Don’t worry, we’re not going empty-handed. We got her one, too.” Lance smiled as he took their plates to the living room, bypassing the giant, fancy dining room that they rarely use. Shiro was left with his thoughts as he tried to remember buying a present for Allura. Knowing Lance, he probably suggested something and Shiro unconsciously agreed to it. That tended to happen more than Shiro would like to admit. Finishing the dishes, Shiro dried his hands and left the kitchen to join Lance in the living room, settling on their rug beside him.

“I love it when you cook,” Lance confessed as he ate, embarrassing Shiro. For Lance to love his cooking, despite always being fed by a professional chef, meant a lot to him. Especially since his cooking was nowhere close to the standards of a professional chef.

“Maybe I should cook more often. Give the chef some needed vacation,” Shiro joked, chuckling at his words. His laughter stopped abruptly at the wide-eyed, pleading look Lance was giving him. “Y-You really want me to cook that much?” Lance nodded eagerly. Shiro shrugged. “If that’s what you want.” There was an excited squeal before sticky lips pressed against his own, tasting of maple syrup and fluffy, buttermilk pancakes and bacon and something that was indescribably Lance. It ended before he could kiss back, and he was left to lick his lips of maple syrup.

They ate the rest of their breakfast in silence, and Shiro observed Lance in his good mood. He couldn’t fathom that his cooking would make Lance that happy, but he wasn’t going to question it. He’d do anything to please Lance, who always did so much for him. Lance took their empty plates back to the kitchen, leaving Shiro to get to his feet and make his way towards the room their tree was set up.

The tree stood six feet and was covered from bottom to top with decorations of ice blue, silver, white, and gold. A snowflake sat at the very tip of the tree. Memories of letting Lance sit on his shoulder to get to the higher branches filled his mind, making him smile fondly. Their hard work had paid off. Shiro has never seen a more beautiful tree. Its elegant appearance fit well with Lance’s tastes and the rest of the luxurious house.

“I’m going to be sad when we take it down,” Lance said from behind him, eyes fixated on the tree as well. Shiro felt the same, even if only slightly.

“Let’s see what we got underneath.” Shiro bent down, reaching for the sole two gifts underneath the tree. There was only two of them, after all. It didn’t help that Shiro disliked being showered with gifts from Lance, and he never knew what to get him either. He straightened up, handing the white box with Lance’s name to him while holding onto the other. “Do you want to open yours first?”

“You go.” Shiro began to tear away the generic wrapping paper, revealing a red jewelry box decorated with gold accents around the edges. With furrowed eyebrows, he opened the box to show a steel watch with royal blue Roman numerals replacing regular numbers. The longer he stared at it, the more his eyes widened. The name Cartier stood out like a sore thumb.

“Do you like it?” Lance asked softly, observing Shiro’s reaction. “You’ve been talking about getting a new watch for a while. I had another one in mind. It was so gorgeous, Shiro! All gold with the same blue. But I thought that steel would go better with your outfits because steel matches anything.” Lance chewed on his bottom lip as Shiro stayed silent, gently removing the watch from its box. “Is it too much? I… I know you don’t like, uh, fancy gifts, so I tried to… hold back a little bit.”

Shiro placed the watch on his left wrist. The cold metal against his skin sent shivers up his arm as he fastened it, twisting his wrist in awe. “It’s nice,” he admitted, eyes flickering from the blue of the watch to the blue of Lance’s eyes. “Not too much at all. Thank you.” He took a step forward and pressed a chaste kiss to Lance’s forehead. “I’m glad you went with this one,” he said as he pulled back. “The gold one? That would have been too much.”

“If only you seen it, Shiro! And it didn’t even cost that much. Only… thirty-two thousand, I think—”

Shiro choked, but Lance was none the wiser, too engrossed in his rambling.

“I would have expected a higher price. I would have paid it, too. A watch like that deserves half a million, to be honest. Don’t you think so, Shiro?”

Shiro couldn’t have agreed less. He was still recovering over the watch’s initial price. Hearing Lance spout such numbers like they barely made a dent in his bank account, which was probably true, only reminded Shiro of his own gift. His worry returned tenfold. But it was too late to back out now.

“We can talk about ridiculously high prices for watches another time. Right now,” Shiro gestured to the box in Lance’s grip, “you have a gift to open.”

Lance must have forgotten about his present, if the way his eyes widened was any indication. Shifting his focus to the white gift box decorated with a simple red bow in the corner, Lance removed the top, setting it down gently at his feet. Inside was two hand-sewn sweaters. One was white with the word ‘PRINCE’ sewn in navy blue across the front and a little, golden crown sewn on top of the ‘P’. The other was black with the word ‘KNIGHT’ sewn in white with the ‘I’ being replaced with a gray sword facing down. It wasn’t rocket science to figure out which sweater belong to who, and Lance wasted no time in taking his out, handing the box back to Shiro as he admired his sweater more closely.

“I know it isn’t much,” Shiro began as he watched Lance run his fingers over the visible stitches and patterns in the sweater, “but it’s a tradition for my mom to knit me a sweater every Christmas. And since you’re apart of the family, it’s only right that you start getting them, too.” Shiro paused, swallowing silently. “I-It’s nothing compared to your gift, but I hope you still li—”

“I love it!” Lance interrupted, tearing his gaze away from the sweater clutched to his chest and surprising Shiro with his watery eyes. He sniffed once and blinked, causing tears to roll down his face and catch on his chin for a second before falling, wetting his new sweater.

“Lance—”

“I’m such a crybaby,” Lance chuckled brokenly, wiping away at his eyes. His face was flushed a pretty pink as he futilely tried to stop himself from crying. “It’s just… n-no one’s ever made something for me,” he hiccuped, tears falling faster than he could wipe.

A fond smile graced Shiro’s features. Out of all of the reactions he imagined, Lance being so overwhelmed to the point of tears wasn’t one of them. But he wasn’t complaining. Setting the boxes in his hands aside, Shiro closed the distance between them, bringing Lance into his embrace. He rubbed soothing circles on Lance’s back and pressed his lips to the top of Lance’s head while he cried, babbling “thank you”s and gasping “i love you”s into Shiro’s shirt.

For once, Shiro actually appreciated the sweaters his mom knitted.