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Keith gripped the controls of his lion tight as Red raced through the air, destroying Galra fighters left and right. The battle was right at that sweet spot, where the tide had turned in favour of the Paladins, and he and Red were so in sync it felt more like she was dancing than flying, and he almost didn’t need to touch the controls before she knew where they needed to be.
“Keith, on your six!” Lance yelled through the comms, and almost simultaneously him and Red were spinning in a tight circle to fire on the ship that had been coming up behind them. Yellow soared over their head, ramming headfirst into the larger battleship that was still spewing out fighters, the hull crumpling underneath her with a crunch. It shuddered, and listed almost imperceptibly to the side. Almost as one, the Paladins swung their lions around to face it at this small sign of weakness, and Shiro hardly even needed to call out “Team, let’s form Voltron!”, all of them already going through the preliminary motions.
It was strange to remember how difficult it had been to form Voltron, in the beginning. All of the team building exercises, everything they’d gone through together made it almost second nature, and manipulating the giant robot together as one was as easy as breathing. With Red’s sword, they sliced through the shield generator, and with a blast from Yellow’s shoulder cannon they blew a smoking hole through the engines. The Galra battleship made a high pitched whining sound, before all the lights across it flickered and went out, and as the connection to the mothership died all the smaller fighters around them screeched to a halt. With one swing of Voltron’s sword, the battle was over.
“Good work team,” Shiro congratulated them.
“Damn, we did good out there today,” Lance said. “You can’t see it, but I’m dabbing right now.”
“Please die,” said Pidge, as Hunk burst into uproarious laughter. Keith was nonplussed. What on earth was going on? What was dabbing?
“Hey guys, what’s-” he began.
“What’s dabbing?” Shiro asked. Keith breathed a sigh of relief. At least he wasn’t the only clueless one.
Hunk’s laughter abruptly cut off. It seemed as if the other three paladins had been shocked into silence.
“Did you just ask Lance what dabbing is?” Pidge snorted. “Good fucking luck.”
“Uh, yes?”
“What’s dabbing?” What’s dabbing?” Lance shrieked indignantly. “Who the hell doesn’t know what dabbing is?”
“I did spend a year in deep space as a prisoner of the Galra,” Shiro pointed out, quite rightly.
“But! Dabbing?”
“Nope, never heard of it.”
Lance let out a wordless noise of horror. Keith was suddenly glad that Shiro had asked first. He had no such excuses.
“I can’t believe this, I just can’t,” said Lance. “I’ve been sharing a headspace with someone who doesn’t know how to dab.”
“Lance, come on,” said Shiro, laughing a little at his melodrama.
“No! This is a lot to take in,” Lance said sadly. “I feel like I don’t know who you are any more, Shiro.”
“Is it really that important?”
There was a sharp intake of breath.
“Oh, shit,” said Hunk.
“Is it really that important?” Lance said, horrified. “Is it really that important?”
There was a loud metallic groaning noise.
“Lance!” said Pidge, suddenly alarmed.
“Wait, hold on Lance, calm down a little-”
“Calm down?!”
And with sudden flash, Voltron fell apart.
“What on earth happened out there, Paladins?” Allura asked, worried, as they returned to the control room of the castle of lions, with Lance sulking behind them, dragging his feet.
“Yeah, Lance, what the hell was that?” Pidge glared at him accusingly.
“I can’t believe you split Voltron apart over memes,” said Hunk, shaking his head. “Not cool, dude.”
“Memes are important, Hunk!” Lance insisted. “You of all people should know that.”
“I still don’t know what dabbing is!” Shiro groaned.
Keith stayed silent, hoping nobody looked in his direction.
“Dabbing?” Allura asked, confused.
“Not you too!” Lance cried.
“Jesus, Lance, she’s an alien,” Pidge rolled their eyes. “You can’t assume dabbing is universal.”
“My whole worldview has been shaken today,” Lance sighed sadly, slumping into his chair on the bridge, putting his head in his hands. “Just. Just leave me here for a minute to process this.”
“Okay, while Lance is sulking-” Shiro began.
“Hey!”
“-can one of you three explain what the hell just happened out there?”
Keith gulped nervously. He was included in ‘you three’. They would know. They were going to find out it was all a lie. Everything was a lie. All lies. Why hadn’t he said anything at the time, and took his fair share of the fire? Now it was too late. He was in too deep. He hoped the total panic he was feeling inside didn’t show too badly on his face.
“It’s nothing, Lance was just being dramatic,” Hunk assured him.
“Hunk!” Lance whined. “Take this seriously!”
“Oh my god,” Pidge groaned. “Why are you an actual twelve year old?”
“Don’t tell me you never dabbed before, Pidge!”
“What the hell is dabbing!?” Shiro yelled, interrupting them, finally at the end of his tether.
They all stared at him, startled, eyes wide.
“Sorry,” he said, gathering his calm again. “I’m just a little stressed. Voltron hasn’t fallen apart like that since we first started training together. Can somebody-” he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed “-please tell me what a dab is?”
“Lance?” Hunk asked hopefully. There was no reply, Lance staring determinedly straight ahead.
Is he actually pouting? Keith wondered to himself.
“Fine,” Pidge sighed. “He’s probably going to interrupt me halfway through to tell me that im ‘explaining it wrong’ or something, but I’ll try.”
“I’m literally right here, Pidge, I saw those finger quotes.”
“Shut up. Anyway, dabbing. It’s just an old meme.”
“Just.”
“Lance. You know what a meme is, right?”
“Of course I know what a meme is,” Shiro scoffed. “I only spent a year in space. Come on.”
Keith, who wasn’t really sure what a meme was, apart from a vague concept in his head of an image of a cat with a joke written on it in white text that he didn’t really get, tried to shrink back in on himself further.
“So, yeah. Just this weird dance move thing that people brought back,” Pidge explained. “Something goes well, you dab.”
“’Weird’. No respect, honestly.”
“Oh my god,” Hunk sighed.
“You see your friends, you dab,” Pidge said. “That’s it really.”
“That’s it?!”
“Hold on, I’m still stuck on memes,” Allura interrupted, looking very serious. “What is a ‘meme’?”
Thank god for Allura, thought Keith.
“That’s a tough one, actually,” said Pidge.
“It’s sort of like a really niche joke that you get off the internet…” Hunk frowned, and trailed off. “Actually, this is really hard.”
“They’re usually not funny by themselves,” said Pidge, “it’s funny because nobody else outside of the people who’ve seen it knows what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I think I might know what you mean,” Allura nodded thoughtfully. “Perhaps after you’ve demonstrated this ‘dabbing’, I can show you something from my childhood on Altea that might also qualify as one of your memes?”
“Of course, Princess,” Hunk said.
“I knew memes were a universal constant,” said Lance, smiling, safe in the knowledge that his universe, which had been shaken to its core, had been put to rights again.
“So, if something went well, we dab? Is that correct, Lance?” Allura asked.
“Yeah, that’s it.” Lance nodded wisely.
“Wouldn’t you say that mission went rather well, Paladins?” she said, with a mischevious smile on her face. Lance grinned back.
“Princess, I knew I liked you for a reason. Come on, everybody, up on your feet, lets show Shiro and the Princess how to dab.”
“Do we have to?” Pidge groaned.
“We’re sharing an important part of earth culture,” Lance replied, tugging on her arm to move her into position in a line next to him and Hunk. “Yes you do.”
“Just go with it,” said Hunk, leaning round Lance a little to talk to her. “When Lance decides we’re memeing it’s going to happen. You can’t fight it.”
“Keith, get over here,” Lance called out, beckoning Keith over with a wave of his arm. Keith froze in panic.
“Everyone get up includes you, moron,” Lance continued, oblivious to Keith’s inner turmoil. Everyone would discover his lie now. Everybody.
“Uhhhhhhhh,” said Keith eloquently.
“Come on, we need to teach Shiro! If he doesn’t know how to dab, we may never be able to form Voltron again.”
“Uhhh, Lance, I don’t think that’s-”
“No more Voltron, Keith.”
And so, against his better, judgement, Keith found himself standing in a line with Lance, Hunk and Pidge, ready to demonstrate a meme he’d never seen nor heard of before today for his older brother figure and the princess of an alien civilization.
“Ah, there you are, Paladins.”
And Coran.
“Coran, Coran, you’re just in time!” Allura said excitedly. “The Paladins are dabbing!”
Coran blinked.
“And… what’s dabbing?” he asked.
Lance groaned.
“Oh come on, let’s just do it. Okay, three, two, one, and dab!”
And there it was. The first dab in space. Allura gasped, her hands over her mouth. Lance stood there, arms held out in perfect dab position, basking in it, basking in the perfection, until he realised none of the rest of his team were down there with him. He straighted up, looked to his left. Keith was standing there looking very nervous indeed.
“Keith,” said Hunk, very gently. “Do you not know how to dab?”
Keith thought for a moment, then shook his head sadly. Lance burst out laughing, and Keith looked offended.
“I’m-I’m sorry-” Lance gasped as he tried to catch his breath in between giggles “-but were you seriously pretending you knew how to dab so you could look cool?”
“…yes,” Keith admitted in a small voice.
“Oh my god, Keith, never change.” Lance patted him on the shoulder. “It’s fine, we’ll just teach you too.”
“So, what is this dabbing for, exactly?” asked Coran.
“Just let him talk,” Hunk said.
“Alright, Team Voltron, lets go!” Lance cheered. “Time to learn to dab!”
Well, it’d been a hard five minutes, but Lance finally deemed them ready. Shiro was determined, Allura was absolutely enraptured by the entire concept, and although Keith still didn’t seem to really get it, he was still willing to join in. Coran was indulging them by promising to judge their performace, on enthusiasm and synchronicity, both things that Lance valued very highly in a group dab.
“I think you’re ready, guys,” Lance said proudly. It brought a tear to his eye, seeing Alteans and humans and weird desert hermit boys alike all partaking in what he considered a vital part of Earth’s culture. This was what it was all about. Space, the final frontier. All differences could be overcome by memes.
Lance wondered if the Galra had memes.
“Coran,” Allura called out. “Give us a countdown!”
“Right you are Princess!” Coran nodded. “On my count, Paladins. Three!”
Keith gulped nervously.
“Two!”
Allura hid a small smile of excitement behind her hand.
“One!”
Shiro steeled himself. He was ready.
“And dab!”
The Paladins of Voltron, plus Allura, threw themselves into the finest synchronised dab this section of the cosmos had ever seen.
“Oh, excellent, Paladins, truly excellent,” said Coran. “I can see now why this is an expression of victory.”
He walked up and down their line, inspecting their form.
“Lance, pefect as usual. Pidge, remember to look down. Shiro… also perfect. Hard to believe you’ve never done this before.”
Shiro glowed with pride, before remembering what he was actually being prasied for and feeling a little silly.
“Allura,” Coran continued. “Ten out of Ten for enthusiasm.”
“Can I come up now?” Keith asked.
“No!” Lance and Allura shouted together.
“Hunk, it’s just not quite as impressive when you’re laughing.”
Unfortunately that only made Hunk giggle harder.
“And Keith, oh, Keith. Arm up a little higher at the back there lad, now there’s a good sport. Aaaaaaand perfect!”
“My arm is cramping,” Keith said.
“He said it’s pefect, Keith, you’d better stay there!” Lance replied.
“Surely we have to come up sometime?” Allura asked.
“An eternal dab…” Pidge said, almost to themself.
“Lance, a dab isn’t supposed to last this long,” said Hunk. “I think we should come up.”
“Urgh, fine.”
Keith shook out his harm, making a big show of massaging the alleged dab related cramp, as if trying to make Lance feel guilty. It wouldn’t work. Lance had improved his life tenfold that day. He hoped he might next be able to introduce everyone’s favourite weird desert hermit boy to rare Pepes, but that might be hard without the internet.
“What a marvellous form of team bonding!” Allura gushed. “We should do that after every battle.”
“I love you,” said Lance. “I mean it.”
“I suppose that was kind of fun,” Shiro mused. “I think we have room for dabbing in our post-battle routine, if it’ll make our blue paladin happy.”
Keith grumbled something about his arm. Lance beamed.
“I thought I would’ve escaped meme culture, being in deep space,” Pidge lamented. “But nooooooo.”
“Memes are for life,” Hunk answered. “Lance has been telling us that all along.”
“Hey, can we make Voltron dab too?” Lance asked.