Chapter Text
“I should totally get credit for the kittens,” Lance says, on December 19th, as they cart the box containing one mama cat and four balls of fluff back to the house after an enlightening visit to the vet.
“Uh, no, I found them,” Keith protests as he holds the front door open for Lance and feline company.
“Yeah, but I convinced you to keep them.”
“They’re adorable kittens, I found them abandoned on the loading dock at the performing arts center. It’s not like it was a tough sell.”
“Still,” Lance argues at they make their way into the kitchen, “You were all ‘we’re just going to get them out of the snow, Lance’, ‘we’ll leave then at the vet, Lance’, ‘someone else will definitely adopt them all, Lance’, ‘they’ll go to great homes, Lance’, ‘don’t get attached, Lance’.”
“And look what happened,” Keith says dryly, “You got attached.”
“Because they’re freaking adorable,” Lance rolls his eyes, “Duh.”
Keith sighs, “We can’t keep all of them, you know that, right?”
Lance pouts briefly but then shrugs, “Yeah, I know. But the vet said we have to keep the babies with their mama cat for a few more weeks anyway, so we’ll wait until then to adopt them out.” His face must be doing something because Keith’s expressive eyes narrow.
“You’re adopting them out to Pidge and Hunk, aren’t you?”
“Don’t you think the big gold tabby kitten would be perfect for Hunk?! Gentle giants flock together and stuff.”
“You’re mixing idioms.”
“And the little gray and white one with the green eyes can go to Pidge – ”
“You have this all planned out, don’t you?”
“And the reddish tabby and the gray tabby with the blue eyes can stay with us – ”
“You really do have this planned out.”
“And I’m pretty sure Shiro or Allura will want the mama cat.”
They both look at the big black and white cat as she gently corrals her litter of kittens into some kind of order. Their father must have been a tabby because while their mother’s fur is a multi-color hodgepodge dominated by black and white, the kittens are mostly of the striped variety.
“Maybe they’ll agree to time-share Mama Cat,” Keith offers.
“Or we cleverly use the existence of Mama Cat to get them to finally date already. We could parent-trap them with an actual parent,” Lance says with a gleam in his eye that bodes no good for anyone.
“No.”
“Oh come on, I’m already going to leverage the fact that Hunk has a kitten for all it’s worth with Shay.”
Keith frowns at him, “You ever think that you’re maybe a smidgeon too invested in our friends’ love lives?”
“Nope,” Lance blithely disagrees, “I’m just the right amount of invested. Hunk needs to date Shay. She’s great; he’s great. They’re actually perfect for each other. This will help fix the problem that is them not dating.”
Keith sighs but doesn’t argue. He’s learning. “But what about Matt?”
“What about Matt?”
“He’s going to be sad he didn’t get a kitten.”
Lance yelps in overblown protest, “He can’t have one of my babies! He can’t be trusted with himself, much less a living thing!”
Keith stares at him a moment and Lance can practically see the gears turning behind his eyes before he finally says, “Okay, we can ask Pidge to make him a robot cat so he doesn’t feel left out.”
“That we can do.”
…
Their friends are, of course, delighted with their future pets. “I’m going to name mine Daisy,” Hunk coos as the delicate flower in question bops one of her smaller siblings on the head and a knocks a second over on accident.
“Yeah, because she’s so dainty and floral,” Pidge mutters, teasing her future kitten with a finger, “Mine’s gonna be Rover II. But I’ll call him Junior so his big brother doesn’t get confused or jealous.”
“Your robot can get jealous?” Keith asks with some trepidation.
Pidge raises an eyebrow, “I don’t want to find out, do you?”
Keith decides to drop it. He can’t really make fun of their choices, he’s still calling his kitten ‘Red’ in his head, although he’s pretty sure it’s taking all of Lance’s willpower not to start calling her ‘Rose’ without Keith’s permission. (Lance’s kitten was named within the first day – Lazuli or ‘Laz’ seems to like her name or at least hasn’t protested being named after a semi-precious stone).
He leaves his friends to their kittens and ponders what it would take to get Shiro and Allura in a bidding war over Mama Cat.
…
(Matt adores the robot kitten Pidge builds for him – he names her Violet and she follows him around on robot legs and confuses the hell out of her flesh and blood counterparts).
…
On Christmas Day, after everyone has dispersed to various parts of the house to play with their new gifts Keith walks up to Shiro and drops a legal envelope in his lap. “Don’t say I never gave you anything,” Keith mutters at his brother as Shiro opens it.
“Oh my god, Keith,” Shiro murmurs as he begins to page through the chapter Keith wrote for his book.
“Don’t let your editor change too much of it, okay?”
“I won’t change a thing.” There are actual tears in Shiro’s eyes.
“Stop that, you haven’t even read it. It could be garbage.”
And then Shiro’s standing up off the couch and hugging the holy hell out of him and Keith’s just trying to breathe. “It isn’t garbage,” Shiro says, “I can tell.”
“Quit believing in me,” Keith grumps half-heartedly, “You’re making it hard to be cynical.”
“Just shut up and enjoy the moment.”
…
The dedication page of Shiro’s book reads: ‘To my mother; a free spirit and a free thinker. And to my brother; one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”
Keith will deny it until the day he dies that he cried when he read it, but Lance knows the truth.
…
The day they bring the kittens home Lance looks at Keith over the box and says, “This can count as our big-gesture Christmas gifts to each other, right? Please say yes.”
“Thank god,” Keith visibly deflates, “Christmas is fucking stressful. Please let the cats be our big-gesture gifts.”
“Have I mentioned I love you?”
“Many times.”
“I do.”
“Cool.”
Lance glares at him.
Keith rolls his eyes, “I love you too; it should be obvious. I let you convince me to bring home five cats, I’m either brain-damaged or in love.”
Lance stares at him thoughtfully, “What do you think about Vegas in the spring?”
“Summer or nothing and I’m not getting married by Elvis no matter how drunk we are.”
“Sweet.”