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From the leader of Voltron and the Captain of the Atlas it is understandable expecting they can take care of themselves.
They can’t.
Sure, they can kill a man, they can command an army and win a war. They can survive if the situation requires it. But definitely they don’t have basic human skill. Like, for example, doing the shopping.
Shiro is used to the Garrison’s canteen for years he hasn’t needed to actual cook. He doesn’t know how much things buy, the expiry date or how to organize a simple dinner. Those things make him anxious. He spends hours preparing a list of products to buy and most of the time he forgets it at home before heading to the market. It results of him buying too much or too little, and definitely not what the put on the list.
Keith, on the other side, hates lists. He lived in the desert, alone, for one year, surviving with small cans and what he found around. He used to eat the same thing for days and he doesn’t really mind: just go to the market and grab what it looks edible. It results of him buying things they don’t get along well and that are impossible to cook together.
It’s not like they don’t like eating. They just don’t like much the idea of buying things to eat. It’s fortunate from their side they both have a job that guarantee them other people will take care of the shopping for them.
But, the few moments they manage to spent together in their house, are dramatic for that point of view.
Like now. Keith refuses to bring the list Shiro made for him and forgets to buy the milk. And Shiro needs the milk for the dish he’s cooking.
“Go buy it.”
“It’s late. Stores are closing.”
“First of all, we have 24/h market. Second, you have a space wolf that can teleporter.”
“Can’t you make something else that doesn’t need milk?”
“No.”
Keith tries to throw at him his puppy face, but Shiro crosses his arm and decides to resist. Changing the menu of the evening will result in changing the menu of the entire week and this is unacceptable. With a sigh, Keith surrenders to his destiny. He grabs his jacket and goes outside, calling for Kosmo (he became too big for staying in the house). Shiro returns in the kitchen and starts preparing the rest of the ingredients.
Half an hour later, Keith isn’t returned yet. Shiro frowns: he isn’t worry about Keith’s well-being because he can handle himself, more about the fact he’s probably buying the entire supermarket but the milk. So, as he hears the familiar wolf’s bark, he approaches the front door with wariness.
It turns out he’s right.
“Look what I found!”
Keith is kneeling down and next to him there is a scarred pit-bull. A very enthusiastic pit-bull, at least from the way it wags his tail and licks Keith’s face, two paws placed on Keith’s chest to stand up. Keith is rubbing its head and murmurs, “good boy.”
Now. Keith loves dog, that much is clear. He literally adopted and tamed a space wolf. And dogs love him back.
Shiro… not so much. It’s not like he doesn’t like dogs. They’re cute. They’re puppies and they follow you around and love you unconditionally. Some of them are even beautiful looking. But he never manages to connect to them, not like Keith does. It goes for every animal. He once had a golden fish, and it died.
“It’s cute, isn’t it?” Keith says, and smiles, and Shiro really wants to tell him that they aren’t going to adopt another dog because Kosmo already is big trouble alone, but he doesn’t have the courage.
“Uhm, well… can you explain how you buying milk ends up in you bringing a pit-bull at home?”
Keith frowns. “Pit-bull are good dogs.”
“I’m pretty sure of it. I just miss their connection with the milk.”
Meanwhile, the pit-bull is running around Keith, barking, and then jumps on him and licks him again. Shiro is definitely starts to be jealous.
“Okay, well. I went to the store, the big one near the street to the Garrison. But there were a lot of people, so I thought that maybe the grocery shop in Midson Square was still opened. It’s small, but it should have milk. So I got there and it was opened, but then Kosmo noticed them,” and at the same time Keith squeezes the pit-bull’s face, “and they played together and then I just couldn’t let them go.”
Shiro doesn’t say anything, but now he understands why Lance insists so much to call him a Disney princess.
“The owner of the shop said they’re stray, and I looked at them and I decided I had to pick them. I mean, look at him!”
He still squeezes the pit-bull’s face and it earns him another lick.
Something clicks inside Shiro’s mind. “Them?”
“Them,” Keith confirms. “The shop’s owner said they’re inseparable.”
He points out at the pocket of his jacket. Shiro kneels down and squints his eyes to look better. There are two strange fluffy triangles coming out from it. Shiro touches one of it with his prosthetic hand and something rushes outside and attacks his finger before disappearing into Keith’s lap.
Keith laughs. “Don’t scare him.”
Shiro observes better and he understand. It’s a cat. A skinny, completely black cat. It looks as Shiro as it’s ready to murder him, but as soon as Keith caresses his head it purrs a little and rubs his head against Keith’s fingers. The pit-bull head-butts Keith’s side, reclaiming his attention.
“Here.”
Keith sweeps the cat and places it gently on Shiro’s hand, before turning and scratch the pit-bull’s belly. Shiro keeps his metallic hand completely still. The cat is small, it looks even smaller in his palm. It turns around, sniffing the palm of Shiro’s hand until it decides it can trust it to be safe enough and starts exploring the rest of the floating arm, with prudence. Shiro puts near one of his human finger and the cat sniffs him before giving him a little lick.
Okay. It’s cute. They are both cute.
He looks up and meets Keith’s smart smile. He’s condemned, because now there is no way to find an excuse for not keeping them. He regrets all the times he called Keith ‘kitten’ in bed. All of them, and they’re not few.
So he changes subject.
“What about the milk?”
“Oh. Well… I kinda forgot?”
Shiro lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed, and that’s all it takes for Keith to understand. He stands up, much with the pit-bull’s annoyance, and heads out. Kosmo is waiting already for him and they disappear with a small pop. Shiro sighs.
The black cat is still on his arm, studying the way to jump from it to Shiro’s shoulder. The pit-bull, noticing only Shiro remains in the room, stands up and sits down in front to him, tongue out and wagging his tail. There’s nothing else Shiro can do but to rub its head.
As his fingers passes through the short fur, it’s even easier to notice the scars that cover the dog’s body. They seem healed, but Shiro wonders if the dog itself is. Shiro is informed that, after Sendak’s war, Earth went through another period of assessment. The numerous aliens that came from the Voltron coalition did help, but small criminals still erupt from time to time. Dogfights are just a consequence of it, and a small one.
“You had it rough,eh, buddy.” Shiro pats gently his back and smiles. “Don’t worry, Keith will take good care of you.”
In the meantime, the cat tries the jump and it results in it hanging up at Shiro’s t-shirt with the forearm, nails striking into it. It meows loudly. Shiro laughs and grabs it to put it down on the ground. He returns in the kitchen, the dog and the cat follow him and he has to admit, it’s funnier having them around. They both tries to stick their nose in everything Shiro is doing and the results are usually catastrophic for them. The pit-bull makes an entire pile of stoves falling and the cat ends up throwing flour everywhere.
When Keith returns, an hour later, he finds Shiro (with clothes changed) in the bathroom, trying to clean a very angry black cat from some pastry that remained stuck in one of its paw, while the pit-bull observes everything carefully from the door. As soon as he sees Keith, he jumps on him. Keith laughs and tickles its ears.
“A little help?” Shiro pleas, as the cat grabs the washbasin and doesn’t let it go.
“Oh, poor boy,” Keith murmurs and Shiro is annoyed he isn’t addressing him. Keith rubs slowly the cat’s back. He takes a small towel and places it upon the cat, using it to wrap the small body entirely. The cat meows a little and Keith rubs its nose. “Here, kitty, kitty.”
Shiro looks at himself and at his wet pants and he realizes he needs a change of clothes. Again. He looks at Keith with a disapproving look, but Keith is too busy cuddling the cat to notice it. And he’s too cute for Shiro to be actually angry at him, with that half soft smile on his face. He shrugs and leaves the bathroom for the bedroom.
Keith moves in the kitchen as Shiro ends to chance, so Shiro reaches him there. And frowns at the quantity of packages that occupied the living room. Well, at least there aren’t any more animals.
“The animal shop was opened,” Keith informs him, “so I had to buy something.”
“Something doesn’t mean all the shop,” Shiro replies, an eyebrow lifted.
“It’s not so much,” Keith defends himself. “Food, dog’s basket, some toys… That’s it. Oh, and brush for brushing them, and some products for the bath.”
Shiro isn’t sure that ‘that’s it’ is the correct expression. “You don’t buy so much for Kosmo,” he points out.
“Kosmo grew up in a Space Whale when not even mom and I had something other than the ground to sleep on,” Keith replies. “He doesn’t enjoy the conveniences. He tele transports away the only time I tried to bring him to the veterinary.”
“Well, they don’t expect space wolf to be domesticated, you know.”
Keith nods, and there is a small, proud smile on his face. “I know. And he doesn’t even play fetched.”
He throws the ball he has in hand in the living room and both the dog and the cat rushes towards it, almost crashing against the furniture in the meantime. The dog is the first one to reach it. With the ball in its mouth, he returns proudly to Keith and let the ball falls in Keith’s lap. Keith awards him of a small caress on his head.
“Good boy.”
“Keith,” Shiro calls.
“What?”
“The milk.”
He doesn’t have to add anything. Keith stands up and for the third time he leaves the house with the help of Kosmo’s tele transportation powers. Shiro sighs. The dog is looking at him with expectation; it pushes the ball near Shiro with its nose.
“Already spoiled, aren’t you?”
Shiro definitely doesn’t want to think about how much Keith can spoil a child, because thinking about Keith with a child is too much. He is already too cute with only a puppy. Well, three at the moment.
Shiro throws the ball, causing another run, and in the meantime he puts in order all the things Keith bought. He placed the food and the water in the two bowls and finally both dog and cat look too hungry to play again. The cat sniffs the food before deciding it’s edible, while the dog is sweeping everything with his big mouth. Shiro chuckles at their difference and then decided to put their baskets in the bedroom.
Once he goes back in the kitchen, Keith is back. With two pizza in his arms, but no milk.
“I give up, okay?”
That’s all the explanation Shiro gets and he can’t even manage to be angry about it. He shakes his head and kisses Keith’s forehead, as he pouts.
“You’re washing the dish,” he informs him.
Keith is about to answer back, but he stops. He probably understands he deserves it.
They eats the pizza in the living room, on the sofa and directly from the box, as they watched a romance movies from the holo-television (Keith can bear the sight of Shiro’s sappy movies for once, and he doesn’t complain about it either).
Keith let the pit-bull eating the remaining of the pizza and the cat licking his dirty fingers. Satisfied, the dog curls on the sofa next to Keith, its head placed on Keith’s leg. The cat stretches against the dog’s lap and starts licking itself.
“We should name them,” Shiro says.
“Nah,” Keith replies. He leans against Shiro’s side, the head lands on Shiro’s shoulder. “They have names. Kit and Bull. Otherwise, we shall wait for them to give their names.”
Shiro takes a while to get the pun. “Okay. I’ll call Hunk and ask him to name them.”
Keith emitters a sounds half annoyed half amused. Shiro wraps his human arm around his shoulder, so he can brush the back of his neck and his long black hair, now freed by the ponytail. He doesn’t notice Keith falls asleep until the movie ends.
He smiles softly and places a small kiss on Keith’s head. He doesn’t want to move him, so he just stays there, feeling his low breath against the chest. In the silence of the room, now that Shiro turns off the holo-tv, the purrs of the cat are audible too. Shiro moves the head a little too see it: it’s curled up entirely against the dog’s body.
The contrast between them is remarkable. The cat is dark and small, a little grumpy, while the dog is white and big, and friendly, still they love each other. Revelation hits Shiro as his eyes passes on the dog’s scars and he finally realizes why Keith can’t let them go.
“God. They are us.”
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