Chapter Text
If Pidge had to listen to her mother ramble on about yeast and fungi and plants for another second, she was going to test the integrity of the Altas’ walls by banging her skull into it. Which would withstand the repetitive force - her head or the ship? She was curious. Also steer crazy and angry for being indefinitely grounded for doing the right thing of rescuing her father and brother from the horrors of deep space ruled by the universe’s worst enemy.
The ends justify the means, Pidge argued. No surprise, mother and daughter were at odds on this one. Which, as everyone in the Garrison knew, was why Pidge was under her mother’s ever-watchful eye and at her demanding beck and call. A reluctant assistant and goofer. Being grounded by Colleen Holt was not what one would call “normal.” Nope, odd jobs and being deprived of freedom and activities was the name of the game. Every day was different, a sense of comfort of normality taken away as well.
Today was no different.
Today, Pidge was ordered to bathe Bae Bae. Not a big deal. The dog needed it, they could bond, and it beat having to be stuck in the same room as her mother for a while.
Again, a sense of comfort was never on the table when being grounded by the woman who threatened that, because she brought her into this world, she could take her out of it if she ever pulled something like, say, leaving the planet without permission again. Oh no. No, it wasn’t just Bae Bae that Pidge had to bathe, it was -
“The wolf?” Pidge questioned. She had just gotten done with bathing and drying Bae Bae, the dog content with rubbing her body across the carpet of the family’s apartment within the Garrison to finish the job. The tub had drained, the tile floor was wet and slippery, damp clothes and loose, wet fur still clung to her body. She wanted and needed a shower. “Let me get this straight,” she said, trying to keep her temper at a simmer, not a rolling boil. “You want me to bathe Kosmo?”
“That’s right.”
Pidge gaped at her mom. The nerve, the ridiculousness! “He’s-he’s - that’s Keith’s wolf. I can’t just - that’s his problem, not mine.”
“Well, Keith’s busy at the moment and the wolf smells.”
He’s a space wolf. Of course he smells. All animals smell, even after a bath. And she’d be busy, too, if she wasn’t grounded. Guess who’s fault that was, huh?
But Pidge bit her tongue, mostly. “You don’t know Keith’s schedule.”
Colleen narrowed her eyes. “I know enough. Bathe him before the end of the day.” She then glanced at the mess around her before leaving to return to her work. “And clean this bathroom after you’re done.”
She glared at the wet clump of fur on the drain of the bathtub. Why was both wet human and animal hair so disgusting to clean up? She almost missed the yeast and fungi. “Permission to leave your sight, warden?” she called after her.
“Don’t sass me, Katie!”
“Don’t sass me, Katie,” Pidge grumbled.
The apartment door closing, Colleen shot back, “I heard that!”
It took all of Pidge’s willpower to only strangle the damp dog towel in her hands.
~o.o.o~
Pidge wanted freedom.
But this was not it. This was merely an extension of her mother’s leash.
Barefoot and in classic Galaxy Garrison-colored shorts and tank top, Pidge marched through the endless halls in search of Kosmo. A set jaw, squared shoulders, and sharp gaze parted the river of people before her, ignoring the lingering looks and whispers in her wake. Normally, he was easy to find. All she had to do was call for him, but he wasn’t listening today, or maybe they were too far apart. That meant doing the next best thing: Find Keith. If the wolf wasn’t with her or Krolia, who wasn’t even on Earth at the moment, then he was in Keith’s shadow. Only problem was: Where was Keith?
What she would give for a comm, a phone.
About the time she started to weigh the consequences of stealing someone’s tablet and hacking into the Garrison to call him over the speakers, a familiar mass of black fur appeared out of her peripheral vision.
Pidge jerked to a halt and switched direction. “Kosmo!” His name was barely out of her mouth before she launched herself at him, collapsing to her knees to hug and burying her face into his fluffy neck. Okay, maybe he did need a bath. “There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you, boy.”
Kosmo enjoyed the sudden affection from her, leaning into her scratches. But Keith had questions. “Is everything okay?”
She glanced up and reluctantly stood, recalling that she had been looking for Keith, too. It’s been a while she’s seen her friends unsupervised. “I need to borrow Kosmo.”
“Okay?” He watched her absentmindedly pet the wolf’s shoulder while he sniffed her shorts. Choose to push down the question of what the story of her strange appearance was. Seriously, where were her shoes? When the hell was the last time he saw her without her fake glasses? He knew he’s never seen her with some of her hair pulled back into a short half-ponytail, either. “But...why are you-? Did your mom unground you or something?”
“Ha!” she snorted. “Leave the lame jokes to Lance. It’s not your thing, Keith.” Kosmo fell into step beside her and she smirked as Keith hesitated in his decision to follow. “No, it’s not. No, it’s not,” she cooed to the happy beast at her hip.
Gobsmacked, Keith scrambled to catch up to them. Did Pidge just baby talk his cosmic wolf? He didn’t know how to feel about that.
Questions must have been written all over his face because Pidge gave answers freely. “I’m still grounded,” she explained, gesturing at her outfit. “I had to bathe Bae Bae earlier as part of my punishment for the day. But now….”
When she nodded at Kosmo, it clicked. “Oh.”
“Mom’s orders, not mine,” she added, briefly holding her hands up in surrender. “Sorry. She’s-”
“Your mom?” he guessed. No explanation needed.
Pidge sagged with a groan. “Yeah.”
“Hang in there,” he told her as they approached a fork in the road. He sided with Pidge in the argument of her being punished or not, having done the same if he were in her position. But his opinion didn’t matter in this. He wasn’t her mother. Pidge didn’t leave him without a word and disappear from the planet for a few years. Though he understood her mom’s point, he couldn’t help but think that she should be happy that her family was whole once more. That that should outweigh anything negative. “She can’t keep you grounded forever.”
“She’s making me wash your pet space wolf. What makes you think she won’t?”
Keith thought back to every interaction he’s had with Colleen Holt...and quickly concluded that she was definitely Pidge’s mother and shouldn’t be messed with. “Right. Good luck with that.”
When he took a right at the fork, Pidge stopped. “Hey,” - Keith turned back - “where do you think you’re going?” She didn’t allow him the chance to answer, though. Nodding to the left, she informed, “We’re going this way.”
The living quarters were in that direction, he noted. “And I have to go with you because…?”
She put a hand on her hip, almost challenging him. “You have anything better to do?”
There wasn’t much of anything he needed to do today. Voltron was on standby while the Atlas was being built. He couldn’t fight, couldn’t assist with the technological parts of the ship. There were no meetings, either. He could train; however, he couldn’t do it as he liked. Too many people, too many rules. Sharing equipment and having to play nice. He missed the Castle of Lions, the peace and solitude of the training deck. Where there were no curfew, no rules - aside from not getting yourself killed, no interruptions, no prying eyes or whispering.
Pidge took the lengthy pause as his answer. “That’s what I thought.” She turned on her toes and marched away, expecting him to follow.
Keith blinked at her back and his feet had him trailing after her like an imprinted duckling before he realized it once more. He could’ve refused her, gone the other way. But ignoring her was something that never sat well with him, something he couldn’t bring himself to do no matter the situation or request. Pidge asked so little of him, so little of anyone, really.
She grinned when she felt his presence at her side.
It was contiguous, that smug grin. I’m willing to bet they have a soft spot for the small one, echoed in his head as he matched her pace. They tended to prove that observation day in and day out, didn’t they? “Don’t get cocky.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
~o.o.o~
Hardly a glance and they knew Kosmo teleported them to the wrong location. “Kosmo,” sighed Pidge. “This is my Lion. Well, technically, this could be considered ‘my place’ because of how long it took us to return home.” She patted his head. “But, no. Try again, please. To my parents’ place.”
The second destination was also wrong.
Points for being creative and finding her father, though. Only, he was in the middle of a meeting and the trio were interrupting said meeting by blinking themselves into it. Sam’s jaw dropped when he spotted them, and Pidge had the nerve to wave before crouching down, jerking Keith along with her before others noticed them. She whispered into Kosmo’s ear, urgency creeping in, “Where is Bae Bae?”
Their surroundings shifted to something familiar, her Garrison temporary home. Much to Kosmo’s disappointment, his friend Bae Bae was not home and Pidge had to quickly make up the excuse that the dog was with her mom, helping her with work. Dejected, Kosmo busied himself with sniffing the family apartment. Keith made the smart decision in saying nothing.
“Hey,” Pidge nudged. “How’s he with baths?”
Keith stared at her. “Ah….”
His lack of an answer had her standing a touch straighter. “Keith. Dude. Seriously, do not tell me you’ve never given him a bath before.”
He looked away. “To be fair-”
“Oh my gosh,” she groaned. “Are you serious?!”
“-we found him in the quantum abyss,” he defended. “And there wasn’t exactly bath tubs, okay?”
“You couldn’t have found, like, a pond or a stream or something?”
“Our drinking water? No.” He shook his head. “We had more important things to do.”
A thought occurred to Pidge. “Keith,” she said, taking a tentative step away. “Don’t tell me that” - she pointed at him - “you didn’t….” Quiznak, she couldn’t even finish the sentence. She wrinkled her nose. “That’s disgusting.”
Keith ran a hand down his face. “Why are we talking about this?”
“I can understand forgoing haircuts,” she pressed on, pointedly glancing at his long hair. “But bathing? Keith, c’mon, ew. Your funk was vacuum-sealed.” She shuddered at the thought.
“It was for the better of the universe,” he grumbled into his palm.
“Look, I’ve done some questionable things for the greater good, too, but at least I cleaned myself.” She shrugged. “Even if it was a whore’s bath.”
One look at Keith’s face and she knew that “whore’s bath” was not in his vocabulary and he probably didn’t care to know its meaning. But this was Pidge. She gave more information than necessary - oversharing and secrecy, an odd combination, her favorite pastimes.
“A whore’s bath is when you only clean the necessary areas with a wet cloth.” She counted off her fingers, “Your face, pits, ass, and your” - she lazily gestured at his belt - “man or lady bits. Some call it a ‘dry bath,’ but ‘whore’s bath’ is more fun to say, y’know.”
He groaned. “I didn’t need to know that.”
“And I didn’t need to know that you didn’t shower the entire time you were in the abyss, you ecosystem of nasty.”
“Would you let it go already?”
“I’m not Elsa, so no!”
“I don’t know who that is!” That seemed to have sobered her a bit and she deflated with a huff. “Can we do this now? What do you need me to do?”
She quickly glanced at him from head to toe, then to Kosmo, and then back again. “Go change into some of Matt’s clothes. I’ll start the water.”
~o.o.o~
Pidge realized pretty quickly that they had a problem, a big one. And by that, it was Kosmo’s size. While Keith changed, she studied the length of the tub and then slipped out of the bathroom to mentally compare it to the wolf...and, if she was correct, he was either longer or too close for his comfort.
Then there was the issue of his unknown affinity to water.
This was...going to be a challenge. And not the fun kind.
“I hate Garrison clothes,” grumbled Keith, tugging at the material bunching around his torso. It itched and didn’t fit quite right. Duel memories he hadn’t completely worked through came with the uniform. But he’d deal with it if that meant helping Pidge.
It was odd - almost unsettling - to see him in something other than armor or his regular clothes. The Garrison-issued outfit too foreign for Pidge to get used to. Sure, she knew Keith had been a cadet prior to her illegally joining, but her mind refused to connect that version of Keith with the one before her. Refused to associate him with colors other than red or black.
She glanced him over at his approach, the nearly identical outfit, the bare feet, the -
Pidge bit back a smile and looked away to collect herself. “Are you planning to keep those on?”
“Huh?” Keith looked down at himself, confused.
“Your gloves,” she clarified, maybe enjoying this a little too much.
His face turned a touch pink, and she realized teasing Keith was something she’d been missing out on all this time. How glorious it was to witness him snatch off his gloves and cram them into his back pocket, claiming that he was about to take them off. Stop laughing, Pidge. It’s not that funny, Pidge. Only him threatening to leave stopped her from continuing her snickering.
Thankfully, Pidge managed to compose herself under Keith’s embarrassed glare and called Kosmo into the bathroom. He joined them in the small room, looking between his humans as if questioning why the three of them were hanging out in such a place. Pidge closed the door. “C’mon, Kosmo,” she cooed, tapping on the edge of the bathtub and kneeling. “Come here, let’s get in. It’s okay.” She stuck her hand into the tub and gently splashed the water. “It’s water, it’s okay.”
The beast skeptically inspected it himself and drank some of it. Confirming that it was in fact water, Kosmo cocked his head to the side, as if asking Pidge why she was showing him this very large water dish, why was the water warm, why was the door closed, why was Keith pushing on his back hide closer to the water dish, why was he being half-lifted into the warm water dish, why was the water dish so big yet so small.
Front legs in the bathtub, Kosmo froze at the new sensation. It wasn’t until Keith got his back legs in that Kosmo decided that he did not like this new feeling and tried to climb out. Pidge gently pushed him back with a firm, “No, Kosmo, stay.” He then did something that he’d never done before, outside of being hurt: He whined, gave both of them a look of betrayal and puppy eyes.
Pidge’s heart squeezed, but she stayed strong and grabbed the giant plastic cups on the side of the tub. “You’re a good boy, Kosmo,” she praised and handed one to Keith. Scratching a fluffy ear with one hand and dipping the cup into the water with the other, Pidge asked, “Isn’t that right, Keith? He’s being such a good boy.”
He felt her gaze on him. Two cups of water poured across Kosmo’s back and a flick of water from Pidge later, Keith stuttered, “Ye-yeah. He’s...he’s being...good?” He looked to Pidge, silently questioning if that was right, if that was enough. Praising wasn’t something he was particularly good at, and doing it for the simple act of staying still made him feel somewhat stupid.
That must have satisfied her because she staged-whispered to the wolf, “Keith’s being good, too.” She scooped up some more water to pour onto his head, turning it in a way that she wouldn’t get it in his eyes. “Yes, he is.”
Keith gave her a look before flicking water at her, praying for her to stop with the baby talk. “I can hear you.” He paused. “Yes, I can. Yes, I can.”
And that broke Pidge into a fit of snorted giggles, accidentally dumping the entire cup of water in Kosmo’s face.
Which he did not like.
At all.
Because one second he was all but glaring at two members of his people pack and the next second, he was gone in a flash of blue and the bathtub was empty. Including the water. Which would’ve been impressive had it not meant the beginnings of their troubles.
But not to worry! Kosmo reappeared behind the stunned pair a moment later, bringing and then quiznaking leaving the bathwater before blinking himself, alone, elsewhere. Pidge and Keith, squatting on the flooded bathroom floor, gaped as their brains tried to process the events that just unfolded and were yet to come. They stupidly turned to the other, mumbling, “Um…?” before the sudden severity of the situation clicked:
There was a very wet, very large cosmic wolf with the ability to teleport running loose within the grounds of the Galaxy Garrison.