Chapter Text
“Would you please take the dog out? I’m pretty sure he’s going to pee where he’s standing.”
Keith looked up from his sandwich, first at Shiro, arms crossed in front of him, then towards Rover, the whimpering little mutt with his ears and tail lowered. Keith had to admit, the little pooch looked like it was ready to burst, but why did he have to do it?
“Isn’t Rover Pidge’s dog? That should be her job, not mine.”
“At the moment, I don’t care whose dog Rover is, and you’re the only one not preoccupied with work or school. So, would you please do this one favor for me?”
With a sigh, Keith sat his sandwich down and grabbed Rover’s leash. Once Rover saw him grab it, he sprung up with a bark and started furiously wagging his tail, tongue lolled out to the side. As Keith hooked up the leash, Rover began to spin in circles, making Keith miss his mark.
“Do you want to go out or not? Sit!” With that, Rover sat his behind down and Keith was able to hook him up. “C’mon, let’s get this over with.”
As Keith and Rover walked out the front door, Keith could hear Shiro thanking him, but slammed the door shut in the middle of Shiro’s sentence. He knew Shiro was going to give him a lecture about it later, but at the moment, Keith didn’t care.
Rover ran over to a bush immediately and began to relieve himself. Keith could have sworn he heard the dog let out a sigh. They began to walk around the little yard in front of the rental house that Shiro, Pidge, and Pidge’s brother, Matt, were currently renting.
The house was nice, and the rent was cheap, but Keith wished the walls were thicker and the place had one more room. Keith understood that it was fair Shiro and Matt should get their own rooms, since they paid a majority of the rent, but it was not fun sharing a room with Pidge. More than half of their room was filled with Pidge’s unfinished projects, and she constantly pulled all-nighters that left Keith to sleep on the living room couch. However, while Keith didn’t like sharing a room with Pidge, he did like to hang out with her. She was a surprisingly good cook, and the best partner in crime against Shiro and Matt.
“Rover, stop! Don’t eat the grass, you know you’ll just throw it up later, and I do not want to be the one to clean it up.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Rover took the pooping position and began to poop. While Rover was doing his business, he looked back at Keith and just stared at him.
“I know it’s in your nature to do that, but it’s really freaking me out.” As Keith bagged the poop, Rover pranced around him, letting out happy little yaps. That was when it happened.
Keith heard a bike coming down the sidewalk, he tightened Rover’s leash to keep him by his side, and heard a person scream out “PUPPY!” The moment Keith looked up, he saw the person fly over the handle bars and smack face first into a light pole.
Instantly, Keith jumped to his feet and ran over to the person. The person laid there prone, and Keith panicked for a moment thinking he was dead. In his panicked state, Keith ran to the front door and opened it yelling, “Shiro! I think some guy just accidently killed himself!”
Shiro popped his head around the corner with a confused expression on his face, “Huh?”
“Don’t look at me like that, some guy just slammed his face into the light pole out here, and he isn’t moving.” With that Shiro quickly walked over to the front door and ran down the steps once he saw the motionless person.
Keith nervously stood over them as Shiro checked the guy’s vital signs, then heard Shiro give out a sigh of relief.
“Well, the guy’s not dead, I think he just knocked himself out. Looks like he’s going to have a huge lump on his forehead and some bruising, and he might have a concussion, just a mild one though. Let’s move him inside.” Shiro picked the guy up and laid him on the couch.
Keith ran into the kitchen, put some ice in a plastic baggie and wrapped a towel around it. As he walked out of the kitchen, he heard Pidge talking to Shiro.
“What’s going on? I was in the middle of my school project when I heard Keith screaming his head off and you guys running around. Who’s that?”
“Keith saw this guy ride his bike into the light pole out there.” Shiro replied as he grabbed the ice pack from Keith.
“No kidding, I bet it looked pretty funny. Did he do that thing you see on TV where the person flies over the handle bars?” Pidge let out a little snort as she pictured it.
“It did look kind of funny,” Keith said with a grin, but then dropped it when he thought about the scene again, “but it was scary when he didn’t get back up.”
As soon as Keith said that, the boy sat up suddenly and gave a gasp, clasping his hands to his forehead.
“Whoa, take it easy, you just had a run in with a light pole.” Shiro placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders and gently laid him down. “Can you tell me what your name is?”
“Huh? Oh, my name’s Lance. What happened?”
“Well, you rode your bike into a light pole after yelling puppy at the top of your lungs.” Keith helpfully told him.
“Oh. Oh! Right! The puppy! That was a super cute dog.” Lance grinned happily to himself as he remembered the fluffy little puffball.
“You ran your bike into a light pole because you were looking at a dog? Never thought I’d hear something like that in my lifetime. Speaking of dogs, where’s Rover?” Pidge looked around the room, noticing the excitable dog was not jumping around everybody’s feet.
Keith let out a loud gasp, “I forgot about the dog!” He hurdled over the couch and Lance and threw open the front door. He heard a bark from below, and Keith looked down to see Rover sitting on the front porch with his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his head cocked to the side. Keith gave a huge sigh of relief and called the dog in. He turned around to see all eyes trained on him, with Lance’s mouth slightly hanging open in awe. Rover trotted up to Lance and licked the hand hanging off the side of the couch, but Lance kept his eyes trained on Keith.
“I thought you were going to land on me, how did you do that?” Lance absentmindedly began to pet Rover’s head.
Keith just shrugged, “Practice.”
Shiro frowned, “Something I really wish you would stop practicing. By the way, Lance, could you give me your parent’s numbers, I’m going to give them a quick call and tell them I’m taking you to the hospital, just in case you have a concussion.”
“What? You don’t have to do that, I’m sure I’m fine!” Lance quickly sat up, which caused him to groan in pain once again and lay back down.
“I think you and I both know what the right thing to do is,” Shiro said in his stern, dad voice. Keith and Pidge just looked at each other and rolled their eyes, knowing that Lance was going to give Shiro the numbers, whether he wanted to or not. After Shiro got the numbers, he walked into the kitchen with his cell phone in hand.
“What was that? I felt like if I didn’t give him my parent’s numbers, he would have grounded me or given me a time out.”
“That’s what Keith and I call Shiro’s dad voice. You just have to do what he says, or else you’ll feel like you let him down or something.” Pidge said as she sat herself on the armchair beside the couch, looking at her phone the whole time. “Poor Keith had to live with that voice practically his whole life.”
Lance put his hand up to his forehead and saluted Keith, “You poor soul, I think I would go crazy if one of my siblings had a voice like that.”
Keith just rubbed the back of his neck, “Yeah, well, you get used to it.”
“Get used to what?” The three of them jumped as Shiro walked back into the room, keys in hand. “Never mind, I probably don’t want to know. C’mon Lance, I’m taking you to the hospital where your parents said they’d meet you. Keith, you come to, just to keep an eye on Lance while I drive. Plus, you can explain what happened to his parents, since you witnessed the whole thing.”
“You really don’t have to drive me, I can just ride my bike to the hospital.” Lance said as he slowly started to sit up.
“Don’t worry about it Lance, I have to take something up there anyway, so it’ll be killing two birds with one stone.”
Keith noticed that Shiro was holding a plastic bag in his hand and rolled his eyes. “He just wants to see Allura.”
“Allura?”
“Yeah, she’s this really pretty doctor. Keith and I are still wondering how he was able to pull that off,” Pidge helpfully supplied without looking up from her phone. Lance looked at Shiro with astonishment.
“No way! You’re dating Allura? How did you pull that off?”
This caused Pidge to pull her gaze away from her phone, “You know Allura?”
“Um, yeah.” Lance sheepishly grinned.
“Alright, that’s enough for now, let’s head up there before Lance’s parents arrive.” With that, Shiro turned around and headed for the garage, not even checking to see if Lance and Keith were following him. Keith smiled to himself since he noticed that the tip of Shiro’s ears had turned bright red.
“See ya later, Pidge. Make sure Rover doesn’t pee on anything. C’mon Lance, the cars this way.” Keith threw a hand her way and began to head toward the garage, with Lance following behind him.
“Is her name really Pidge? Like the Pokémon?”
“Nah, that’s just a nickname her brother gave her, and I’m pretty sure you mean Pidgey.”
“Oh yeah, that’s what that Pokémon is called! What about you Mullet, what’s your name?”
Keith gave him a glare before answering, “I’m Keith, not Mullet. Make sure you remember that.”
Lance just grinned and rolled his eyes, which caused him to wince in pain. “We’ll see about that Mullet, unless I wake up in the morning with a case of amnesia forgetting this whole conversation.”
With that, the two got into the back seat of the car, and Shiro backed out of the driveway heading toward the hospital.