Work Text:
Keith grumbled as he stumbled into his bathroom at too early in the morning for a Saturday. He scratched lazily at his belly and yawned widely. He shook his bed head as it fell all into his eyes, it sticking up in ways he couldn’t begin to comprehend before coffee. Then, while rubbing at the sleet in his left eye he reached towards the bathtub faucet with his right hand, intending to warm up the water so he could shower in hopes it’d wake him up a bit.
That’s when Shiro—who was humming brightly in the kitchen while clutching a mug of coffee that was making an assent towards his lips—heard an all too high pitched shriek. He sputtered on the coffee and began to choke. He was quick to set down the mug, still coughing into his elbow while he rushed towards their bathroom.
“Keith?!”
Keith was pressed against the farthest wall from the tub. He was plastered to it, hands pressed firmly against the peeling paper. He was inching up the wall, rising up on the tips of his toes, like he was trying to float away from some unseen enemy.
“What’s wrong?” Shiro asked panicked.
He’d seen Keith face off against the biggest and baddest enemies space had on offer to throw at them and never before had he seen Keith react like this. To anything! Not towards the Galra or their Ro-beats, or that creature that ate Galra up.
Keith simply pointed towards the tub. Shiro glances slowly towards it, half expecting some sort of beast to lunge out towards them. Nothing.
Shiro frowned. Keith couldn’t be overreacting over nothing. He was paralyzed. Keith wasn’t the type to let fear paralyze him. He took his fears as challenges and then he overcame them.
Slowly, he crept towards the tub and peered inside. Then, it moved!
Shiro let out an inhuman roar which quickly changed in pitch as the monster revealed more of itself. How dare such a foul creature invade their home!
“S-spider!” Shrio pointed as one knee jerked towards his chest while his other foot raised him to his toes. He bounced a little on said toes and he pointed rapidly.
“Kill it!” Keith yelled.
“No, you kill it!” Shiro demanded as he jumped back from the tub and tried his best to curl around Keith. He did his best at trying to disappear inside of Keith to get away before it noticed him.
“Shiro,” Keith whined, “what use are all these muscles if they can’t kill a spider! Get it, get it, get it!” He pushed at Shiro’s shoulder and tried to force him back towards the tub. Easier said than done. Shiro was a wall of muscle. Those bulging biceps were no joke. They should intimidate the spider! If only Shiro would actually get around to using them!
Keith planted a foot into the base of his boyfriend’s shoulder blade and attempted to extend his knee so it would edge Shiro towards the spider. His knee was smushing his nose as Shiro leaned back against his foot, causing his leg to cramp uncomfortably.
“You have an actual sword!” Shiro pushed back into Keith in protest, “why don’t you slice it in half or something?”
“Don’t you think that’s overkill?”
“No!”
Both were yelling at insane decibels. If their neighbors were any closer they’d think the two were being murdered from the sounds of their shrieks. It was quite a scene the leader of Voltron and Captain of the Atlas were making.
“Shiro!”
“Keith!”
They attempted to wrestle the other closer to the tub, really just tumbling their way ever closer to the threat. Keith would push Shiro forward and then Shiro would flip their positions and manage to push Keith’s socked feet sliding across the floor before Keith managed to dig his heels in again and climb his way behind Shiro’s large form. Rinse, repeat. On one such attempt, Keith’s feet slipped out from under him and he dropped to the ground. Since he and Shiro were entangled, Shiro ended up tumbling down with him.
Now they were wrestling on the ground which was honestly quite distracting. Why were they fighting again?
From the corner of his eye, from his position straddled atop Shiro’s hips, Keith saw the spider crawl over the lip of the tub. He wailed before darting from Shiro’s grip and plastering himself back to the wall once more.
Shiro blinked. Keith had left his outline behind; he'd zoomed so quick across the floor. Shiro saw the spider web it’s way down to the hardwood. He scrambled to his feet and resumed his position curled around Keith and they held one another while the spider approached.
It watched as they trembled in fear.
“No, no, no,” Keith begged.
Shiro picked up a discarded toilet paper roll and tossed it at the spider. He missed.
“Really?” Keith exclaimed.
Shiro shrugged.
“It’s blocking the door, what are we going to do?” Shiro whined.
When a miracle occurred. Kosmo stepped through the door and crushed the spider beneath his paw. He titled his head and looked at his trembling humans.
Keith and Shiro felt sheepish under the cosmic wolf’s silent judgement. Kosmo was not amused by all the ruckus his human’s were making.
The boyfriends exchanged a look.
“Good boy!” They praised.
They could swear they saw Kosmo roll his eyes. He turned and trotted back towards the kitchen. The squished spider remained and Keith made a face.
“Gross,”
Then an argument ensued about who would clean it up. The thought made Keith’s skin crawl. He hated the way it felt to pick up the remains of a bug after killing it. Shiro wasn’t so keen to get near it either, even if it was dead. It might have been crushed beneath the power of their mighty space wolf but what if when he reached for it with a piece of tissue it moved! He hated the feel of an insect twitching even after you’d stomped on it a thousand times! It was eerie.
Or worse! What if it was still alive somehow? Nope, Shiro was not about to go messing with the zombie spider.
“Shiro!”
“Keith!”
Everyone, these are the defenders of the galaxy.