#tomorrow it's time for a lil introspection time with Blue instead

[otterknowbynow]

Gotcha Day (1/3)

The catalyst for Team Voltron adopting a dog might be an offhand demand from Lance, but let's be real: several of them are very much on board with this plan.

Written as part of Gentron Week 2020 as a combination of the prompts "Adopting a Pet Together" and "Cultural Exchange", in two three parts.

Part 2 Here | Part 3 Here | Also on ao3

“Listen, Kaltenecker needs a puppy friend,” Lance says one evening. Keith blinks and props himself up on his elbows from where he’s been lying on the couch. He turns his head toward where Lance is sitting on the floor, trying to remember if there was any context for this in previous conversation, but he doesn’t think so. All five paladins are in the lounge, which seems to be why Lance has brought it up, despite the fact that he and Pidge are currently deeply engaged in some kind of fighting game with tiny laser-blasting spaceships. If it were a bit more realistic, it might be good flight training for the lions, Keith thinks. 

“Does she?” asks Pidge, pressing a few buttons in such quick succession that Keith has no idea what they were. Glancing at the screen, he’s not sure what they did, either. 

“Of course she does,” Lance says, not looking up from the screen in front of him. His fingers still moving rapidly on the controller in his hands, he continues. “Who among us has experience with bovine needs? Me, I do. Who among us can read her body language and tell you what those needs are? Me, I can. Therefore, I can tell you: she needs a puppy friend.” 

“And this would have nothing to do with you wanting a puppy for yourself,” Keith says flatly, sitting up all the way now. This might be interesting. 

“Definitely not,” Lance agrees, sticking his tongue halfway out of his mouth and holding his controller to one side as his ship on the screen executes some kind of quick maneuver around Pidge’s. 

“I don’t think it’s a terrible idea,” Shiro says mildly from a couch across the way. He’s still looking down at whatever he’s been reading on his tablet. Keith isn’t sure if it’s the tone in Shiro’s voice that gives him away or if he’s just remembering all the times he heard Shiro talk about getting a dog back at the Garrison, but it sure seems like he thinks it’s a better idea than just not terrible. 

“You planning on raising this puppy yourself?” Pidge asks skeptically. 

“I’m planning on all of us raising this puppy together,” Lance says decisively, and apparently he’s equally decisive in-game, because there’s a trilling victory sound from the screen in front of them and Pidge’s shoulders drop before she hits a few buttons on her controller. 

“Rematch,” she says, and Lance nods. 

“I don’t know, raising a puppy is a lot of work,” says Hunk thoughtfully. It’s clear his mind is only half on this conversation, though, since he hasn’t looked away from the small white devices in front of him that he’s been working on for the better part of an hour. 

“Seems like you should talk to Coran,” says Shiro mildly. “Seems like he’d be best equipped to handle the situation.” 

“You don’t think I can handle one puppy?” Lance asks sharply, looking up from the screen for half a second just to direct a glare at Shiro. 

“Oh, handling the puppy won’t be the problem.” Shiro grins, and Keith huffs a small laugh to himself. 

“Of course it won’t,” says Lance irritably, this time still zipping his little ship around the screen, tongue out to one side again in concentration. “I can handle a puppy in my sleep -- I could handle puppies, plural, in my sleep.” Keith snorts at that, remembering a foster he had who raised a new puppy while he lived there.

“I’m pretty sure sleep loss is part of the deal,” he says before he can stop himself. Not that he would want to -- Lance can’t just be spouting inaccuracies when they’re talking about bringing in a whole-ass animal they’ll be responsible for. 

“It’s a figure of speech, pal.” He would probably be more irritated if he weren’t mid-game, but Pidge seems to be gaining the upper hand and all his focus is on that. Shiro clears his throat before continuing. 

“What I was saying is that Coran would know where we could go about finding a puppy out here -- in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not exactly in a position to visit the humane society or research a local breeder or anything. Coran could probably figure out where to go and give us some idea of what kind of, uh, dog we could really even hope of finding.” 

“That’s fair,” offers Hunk. “We don’t want to end up with some weird alien puppy without even any guidance from someone who’s, like, familiar with at least a reasonable variety of weird alien puppies.” 

“You got me there,” says Lance, and Keith is puzzled by the irritation in his tone until he realizes Lance is talking about his match with Pidge, who has dropped her controller and leaned back on her hands swinging her knees a little side to side and looking very pleased with herself. 

“I sure did,” she says, grinning. “Best two of three?” 

“Definitely.” Lance hasn’t even put his controller down, and waits for her to pick hers up again before apparently starting a rematch. “Anyway -- that makes sense, but as you all can see, I’m occupied, and can’t go ask him, so…?” He trails off, raising his eyebrows, even though he’s still looking determinedly at the screen instead of around at any of them. Keith snorts. 

“You expect someone to go running off to talk to him right now?” he asks derisively. Sometimes, it sure does seem like Lance thinks he runs the world. 

“Uh, I think someone is,” says Hunk, nodding toward the doorway, where Shiro is standing midstep, looking back at the rest of them with his eyebrows raised, as if he paused only when Keith spoke up. 

“Yeah, I’ve got this, guys,” he says. “It seems like I’m the best person to talk to him anyway, considering I’m the --” 

“-- fearless leader, space dad, you speak for the trees, et cetera, et cetera,” says Hunk, nodding as he turns back to his work. 

“Pretty sure I speak for the trees at this point,” Pidge puts in, fingers still moving quickly over her controls, eyes on the screen.

“I was going to say I’m the responsible adult, but fair enough,” Shiro says, shrugging, and turns back to walk out into the hall, presumably to find Coran. 

“Well, okay then,” Keith says softly, and lies down again, since apparently that’s settled. 

--

As they walk into the main hall of the recollection center, Keith has the creeping feeling he’s been here before. It takes him a moment to place it. The decor is different, for one thing: all sleek white couches and light blue accents. But as Coran leads them past several doors with large windows on either side and large signs written in glowing Altean script, it hits him that this place reminds him of the space mall where they found the replacement scaltrite lenses. 

“...it’s changed a bit, of course,” Coran is saying as they make their way down the corridor, navigating around small groups of various humanoid and non-humanoid creatures. Most of them are aliens Keith can’t identify, but he does see a few olkari families, and at one point someone who’s clearly a member of Slav’s species. “But the general principles are the same -- I got in touch with my Unilu contacts and they redirected me to the Venri contingent -- ever since the recollection center split off from the original swap moon, they’ve been in charge of running it here -- and they sent the new coordinates.” 

“So, what is this place exactly? Where are the dogs?” Lance asks, looking around as if puppies might start spilling out of the doorways around them at any moment. 

“It’s not just full of dogs, Lance,” Keith says, shaking his head. “Weren’t you listening when Coran went over all of this? Recollection as in they collect everything living that isn’t where it’s supposed to be and offer it up for trade, like -- like that space mall, apparently, but for things that are like...alive.” 

“Essentially, yes!” Coran says enthusiastically, gesturing around them at the whole of the space as they make their way toward the end of the row of storefronts. “Plants and fungi and animals of all sorts, from various corners of the universe, all collected here for redistribution! Apparently as the swap moon became more commercialized, they needed a space like this, one where some more...specialized shopkeepers could maintain living things. They also seem to have kept its location -- and its mere existence -- under wraps, which is especially good for us. We don’t exactly want to advertise to the empire that we’re active in any area they’re in.”

“If they’re trying to keep organisms alive from all sorts of different environments, they’ll need a lot of energy,” Shiro says. Keith glances over at him to see he’s stopped walking, frowning off into the middle distance. “And yet they’re keeping the place a secret? They must have a quintessence supply that’s off the charts.” 

“Oh, yes,” says Coran, his own step faltering as he turns to reply. “There’s a whole board of managers whose job it is to keep quintessence coming in and keep everything secret.” 

“It’s not that secret, though, if we found out where it is.” 

“I -- well, not everyone has the contacts I have!” Coran finishes with a smile, though Keith thinks there’s definitely something forced in his tone. “Besides, that’s why we’ve got the others back at the castle monitoring things from their end. We should be fine.” Shiro nods slowly, still frowning, and they start making their way toward the end of the corridor again. 

“Should be,” Keith mutters, following at the back of the group. The whole place feels a bit shiftier than it did before. 

--

“How exactly are we supposed to be setting up some kind of animal nursery when we don’t have any idea what kind of thing they’re going to be bringing back?” Hunk’s question echoes through the open air of the room Allura’s led them into. It’s bare, for the most part, easily the size of a small warehouse, with a ceiling just as high. Katie frowns -- that concern echoes the thoughts she’s been having ever since Coran suggested they prepare for the new arrival. Arrival of what? 

“Oh, well, there are things we’ll need no matter what!” Allura says brightly. “And if nothing else, we can start worrying about the basics -- they’ll need light, well, unless they end up with a cave-dweller, and food...unless it’s something that photosynthesizes, in which case we’re back at the light…” She trails off, frowning. “Well, we can start with decor, at least! Pick a color scheme!” Hunk is looking at her blankly, and Katie blinks, realizing she’s doing the same. Shakes it off. 

“We can work on putting together a system with adjustable outputs,” she offers, grinning at a relieved Allura. “It’ll be fun,” she continues, bumping against Hunk’s elbow with her shoulder. “Try to figure out what kind of nutrient combinations we can manage in different states of matter -- Allura, do you have any idea of what kind of thing they’re most likely to bring back? If we have a starting point, we could probably actually manage a number of contingencies for different energy sources, feeding behaviors, oxygenation needs…” Allura nods quickly. 

“I can get you a list, absolutely. I’m sure there are only four or five species Coran would be comfortable with, although there’s no accounting for the others, and of course we don’t know what the center will have --” 

“-- just get us those four or five,” Katie says, looking around the room and trying to imagine how they’ll divide the space. “Hunk, we’re gonna need to start talking construction.” 

--

“As you can see, we have a wide variety of domestic creatures available at the moment, though not many specimens of each.” The Venri staff member leading them through the facility glides across the floor on six neatly-swishing tentacles. She speaks in clean clipped tones, which Keith appreciates for their clarity if nothing else. He’s a bit impressed she can project as loudly as she can considering she barely comes up to his waist, but apparently Venri are small but have mighty lung capacity, or something. In any case, the others seem to be more interested in the fenced-off runs they’re surrounded by, each containing a different sort of creature. 

Some of the enclosures have small ponds, or are small ponds, as in the case of one containing some kind of aquatic animal that looks a lot like a bat, or like a bat would if it were scaled instead of furred, with enormous fins instead of wings. Others of the cages look a lot more like ordinary dog runs -- and, to be fair, others of the creatures look a lot more like ordinary dogs. There’s one like a whippy all-black german shepherd in the corner whose eyes keep emitting some kind of pink smoke in little bursts. In one of the stacked cages for smaller creatures that they pass, right at Keith’s eye level, is a group of labrador retrievers in perfect miniature, so small he could hold three of them in the palm of his hand, emitting little play growls as they wrestle with their fellows. He watches them for a while, wondering what it would be like to have a pocket-sized pup, until he realizes the others are halfway across the row of runs, the Venri indicating various creatures as she continues her pitch. He half-jogs over to rejoin them. 

“Now, did you all have a particular species in mind? If you’d like, you’re welcome to tell me about your living situation -- whatever it may be -- and I can recommend one for you.” She looks around at the four of them expectantly. Keith looks from Coran to Shiro and back again. It’s definitely not his place to take the lead here. But it’s Lance who jumps in. 

“Oh, we’ve got quite a bit of space,” he says airily. “That’s certainly not an issue. We’re hoping to get a puppy who will get along with our cow, maybe give her some companionship, cultivate that interspecies friendship and all that.” The Venri's eyes grow wider and wider as Lance continues. “After all, what’s the point of a dairy cow without a puppy, you know?” 

“A...did you say a dairy cow? Where did you say you’re from again?” 

“We didn’t,” says Shiro, taking a well-placed step so he’s standing between the Venri and Lance. 

“We’re looking for something in the canine category,” says Coran brightly, gesturing toward the row of runs that includes the shadowy german shepherd, now crouching near the front of its run and emitting glittery aqua smoke from its mouth as it looks at them silently with solid black eyes. 

“Do you have a particular biome in mind?” The Venri looks up at him expectantly, holding one thin hand over her tablet, ready to type. 

“Oh, I rather think --” Coran cuts off suddenly, eyes wide and fixed on one of the runs. Keith follows his eyeline and sees a small furry brown shape curled up in the corner, covered in little white speckles. Whatever the creature is, it’s tucked itself firmly against the wall of its enclosure, so he can’t really discern anything about its shape, nor why it seems to have grabbed Coran’s attention so strongly. 

“Coran?” Shiro asks, frowning. Lance, meanwhile, is darting his eyes back and forth between the brown lump and Coran, eyebrows lowered sharply. Keith sees him open his mouth to say something -- probably a strong objection to anyone else getting to pick their puppy -- and knocks into him with his shoulder, muttering a “shush” under his breath. Lance huffs once at him, but shuts his mouth. 

“Is that a white-spotted hyrassie?” Coran breathes quietly after what feels like an eternity of silence.

“Oh, absolutely,” says the Venri, and she’s smiling for the first time since they’ve entered the runs.