#the items in question are a storage container bin for extra blankets I have shoved in a corner of my room and a fitness tracker

[pinkplatiploo]

Girl help I want to make impulsive purchases in the name of being organized and seemingly having my life together

[sasuhinasno1fan]

Kitty at the Garrison

Ok so cross your fingers for me to actually catch up with the other prompts. And yes this is inspired from that one post on tumblr that starts with the same lines. Garrison

“I know what you’re up to and you won’t get away with it.”

“Oh god. I know I’m not supposed to have it in here but it’s so cold outside and I panicked –”

“Wait, what?”

This wasn’t at all what he expected. He was coming back from his tutoring session with Adam, who seemed like the only person who believed that he had a chance of getting into the fighter pilot program, when he saw Keith sneaking around. Keith was the best student at the Garrison and everyone knew it. His test scores were perfect, his flight simulations always passed and he was Shiro’s favourite. He was also stuck up, arrogant and an asshole, at least in Lance’s eyes. He’d tried being nice to him when he first met him and got it thrown in his face. Lance was hurt and tired of getting compared and told how he wouldn’t compare. Some dark part of Lance just wanted to get Keith into trouble. He got into enough of that by himself and was getting in constant trouble for it but he always seemed to get chances. So he went to scare him, maybe get a provocation out of him, but he hadn’t been expecting that response.

He watched Keith undo the top few buttons of his orange uniform shirt and saw a small ginger head poke their head out. It was a kitten.

“Did you see it’s mom?” Lance asked, jumping into fostering mood. His family fostered a lot of cats. The lived near a large colony and would help with TNR a lot of the times. Only when the moms weren’t around or they snuck in the house to give birth there did they take human action and help raise them before adopting them out. “Tell me you didn’t just pick up a kitten without checking to see if it’s mom was there.”

“No, I was outside for hours and I kept my distance. She wasn’t even well hidden so I was sure she was alone but I double checked.”

“Ok, I need to get a better look at her to find out how old she is but we need to get her warm first.” Lance started listing off.

“Wait, we?”

“Yes we. There is no way that kitten has a chance if you’re the one raising it. I’m helping you. Now, do you have a heating pad or something?”

“No?”

“Ok fine. I’ll do it the old fashion way. Come on, my room is empty now. Hunk still has class.” Without even waiting for an answer, Lance grabbed Keith by his arm and pulled him to the dorms. He opened the door to his room, revealing the messy yet well lived in room. The loft beds weren’t made and the desks that were under them were almost just as messy. One loft bed had posters and pictures all around it while the other seemed to be covered in gadgets and cook books.

Lance threw his bag on the desk with the photos and opened one of the drawers to pull out a bag of rice. He also pulled out a can of KMR, kitten substitute, a bottle and a small can have wet food. He also pulled out a package of sock and pulled out one side, pouring some of the rice in the sock and stuck it in microwave. He saw Keith was still standing in the middle of the room, the kitten still curled up.

“Off.” He ordered.

“Huh?”

“Take your jacket off.”

“What?” Keith asked scandalized.

“So I can see the kitten idiot. I need to know how old she is and check if it even is a she.”

“Oh.” Keith undid the rest of his shirt and let Lance take the kitten from him. She felt thin and cold, no doubt from the sudden chill the area was experiencing. She was wiggling in his hands a lot. He didn’t have a scale to measure her she he gently opened her mouth and peeked inside. Her incisors were poking out and he saw the beginnings of canines, so she was 3-4 weeks. A quick peek under the tail proved she was a girl. “Go into the closet and on the floor there’s a tub. Grab one of the blankets in there so she can get warm with the heating pad.”

“What heating pad?”

“The rice filled sock? It’s gonna act as a heat source for her. Luckily, whoever her mom was didn’t leave her really young. She still needs to be bottle fed and there’s a chance she might already go to the bathroom by herself already but we’ll have to wait to find that out.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Keith asked pulling a blue blanket out of the bin.

“My family fosters kittens. Animals aren’t allowed in the buildings unless service animals but I always have the items ready just in case.” Lance noticed Keith staring at him. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just…you usually seem to have nothing better to do than poke and prod at me so I didn’t realise you’d care about this sort of stuff.”

Lance bristled at that. “It might not accrue to you in the mullet head of yours, but I have other things I focus on and knocking you off your high horse is one of them. And another thing, even if I didn’t know how to properly take care of a young kitten, that wouldn’t stop me from trying. So how about you stop judging me and help me.”

Keith looked slightly apologetic and handed Lance the blanket, which Lance wrapped the kitten in and pulled the rice filled sock out of the microwave.

“Now start the kettle, I’ll teach you how to make a bottle. Once she gets warms, she’ll realise how hungry she is.”

Keith listened to Lance’s orders and watched as the hungry kitten downed the bottle of milk.

“Good girl, you were really hungry, weren’t you? Now the question is where the heck are we gonna keep you? Hunk is gonna be back in two hours, 3 if he decides to go sneak into the kitchen and cook something seeing how tonight is taco night. I swear, my family is Cuban, doesn’t really like tacos and can do better tacos than this place. She can’t stay here.”

“Well actually, I have a room all to myself.” Keith said.

Lance rolled his eyes, “Of course you do.”

“For your information, my roommate dropped out of the Garrison. All the other rooms were filled and no new students came in so I have the room all to myself. We can keep her in there.”

Lance thought for a second. “Fine. But I’m still helping to take care of her. I still don’t trust you to do this correctly. And you can’t tell Shiro, he’ll just go and tell Iverson.” Lance demanded.

“I can keep a secret.”

“But you can’t control your hair.” Lance muttered loud enough.

“Excuse me?”

“Pay attention, will you? She still has to be stimulated to go to the bathroom, unless she can do it herself, which in that case, you’ll be doing laundry a lot more. It’s gonna be kinda hard to hide a litter box.”

Keith sighed, like he was wondering what the hell he got himself into.

Keith flicked a wad of paper and watched the 5 week old kitten dash after it. She might just be at the age of wanting to start play but she was catching on pretty quick. Still a bit wobbly though. He still couldn’t believe he was keeping a cat in his dorm. It was a hassle having to rush back and forth between classes and his room to feed her, even with Lance’s help, but he was enjoying it. Even the extra time with Lance. He wasn’t sure if they’d ever truly consider themselves friends but they were pretty close. After the kettle in Lance’s room broke, they had to sneak into the kitchen to get hot water. Which meant Lance having to go and make some sort of fool of himself to distract everyone so Keith could fill a thermos of it. They worked well together surprisingly. Lance was still in charge of taking care of the kitten and he made it pretty well known. Keith just put up with it but Lance did know best. He’d watch Lance play with the cat and cuddle her, gently stroking her sleeping body with the pleasant smile on his face.

Speaking of which, Lance was late. His tutoring session with Adam had apparently been cancelled so Keith thought he’d be over once his classes ended.

There was pounding at his door, which startled the kitten.

“What?”

“There’s surprise inspections going on, they’re heading to our section next. I’d hide your things.” A cadet yelled from outside the door.

Shit. Fuck. Damn it.

Surprise inspections were just how they sounded. Different members of the staff would each take a section of the dorms and search all the rooms to make sure the students didn’t have anything they weren’t supposed to. They’d almost taken his mother’s dagger one time, but let it go when he mentioned it was a family heirloom. However that wasn’t going to fly with the kitten. He scooped up the kitten and hide her under one of the blankets at the end of the bed before shoving all the obvious cat stuff into his bag. The kitten started mewing in confusion but Keith quickly shushed her. Shiro had left a week ago on the Kerberos mission and even though he knew Adam and Shiro left on bad terms, Adam was still nice to him. He was hoping Adam would search his room, he’d understand.

“Inspection!”

Shit. It was Iverson.

With one last shush to the kitten, Keith opened the door, standing out of the commander. The man’s single eye took in the room.

“I should hope I don’t find anything in here.”

“No sir. Nothing at all.”

“Cadet, do you not have access to a broom? The floor is covered in paper.”

That it was. It was the simplest toy for the kitten to start playing with so pages had been ripped from his note books and made into balls. Most of them would end up in places the kitten didn’t want to reach so Keith would just make more.

“I was writing an essay sir. Wasn’t happy with what I was been writing so I tore it from my book.”

“Try not to kill the planet more.” Iverson ordered.

“Yes sir.”

The man walked around the room, Keith following him, hoping there weren’t anymore opportunities for him to get caught. He opened the closet, drawers from his desk and the extra storage containers. Keith glanced up to where the kitten was hiding, glad the blanket wasn’t moving. He might just get out of this. Then of course, Iverson lifted the mattress and the kitten made her displeasure known, loudly.

“What the?” ripping the blanket away, the kitten meowed even louder. Iverson turned to Keith, who looked away.

Shit. Fuck. Damn it.

Lance stood by the door that lead out to the parking lot and watched as a Garrison Jeep pulled in and Adam got out. He didn’t bother waiting for him to come into the building, Lance ran out to meet him instead.

“Is it true? Did they expel Keith?”

“No thankfully not. Luckily your sister pointed out everything that Keith had was to help raise the kitten, so most of the board couldn’t find fault in Keith taking in a kitten to take care of it, especially after the cold front.”

“Did he say who helped him?”

Adam looked confused. “What are you talking about? Keith said he found and raised the kitten himself. Apparently, he fostered kittens before so had the stuff needed.”

Lance was surprised. Keith never told the board he was involved.

“Where’s the kitten now?”

“With your sister. Why?”

“I need you to do me a favour and take me to where Keith is.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain later. Just wait for me ok?”

Lance ran back inside and tracked Veronica down, where he found her feeding the kitten. She pulled away from the bottle when she saw her other owner though.

“Hey sweetie.” Lance greeted.

“’Sweetie’? Lance how do…wait.”

“I might have been the one to help Keith, but I guess he didn’t give me up for some strange reason.” Lance still didn’t understand why. Ok yeah, they bonded over taking care of the kitten. It’d had might of only been 2 weeks of taking care of the kitten together, but Lance found didn’t hate Keith as much as he did before. They had a few things in common and could actually have a conversation. He still didn’t think it would not be enough for Keith not to give him up.

“Keith said he was the only one involved. He never mentioned you.”

“Yeah, I know. Look, can you help me? I want to take her to Keith. I need to talk to him anyway.”

Veronica looked like she had questions but agreed to help. She signed a pass for Lance to be let off the grounds and packed up the kitten’s things, making sure Lance wasn’t caught as he rushed back out to meet Adam.

“So…last time I checked, you didn’t exactly get along with Keith. How did that change?” Adam asked.

“Well, I found him sneaking back in and after getting yelled at by Iverson that day, I just wanted to get him in trouble. Then I found out he’s snuck this girl in and I knew he’d have no clue how to take care of her. So I told him I’d help and we bonded I guess.”

“I’m proud of you.” Adam said, Lance looking at him in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I know how much you don’t like Keith, even if I do. You could have gotten him expelled but you didn’t because you wanted to take care of the kitten and the fact that you were worried about him tells me you actually care about him.”

Lance shrugged. “I guess so. I mean, he’s not that bad.”

“I’m glad you think so. I think he could benefit from having a friend like you.”

Keith was on the porch of the wooden cabin Adam pulled up. He seemed extremely confused until he saw what Lance was carrying.

“How did you get her back?” He asked, meeting Lance halfway.

“My sister was looking after her.” Keith looked confused. “Communication Specialist McClain? That’s my older sister.”

“Oh. Um, can I?”

Lance let Keith take the kitten out of the bundle he’s kept her in so she wouldn’t squirm during the ride. She quickly made herself at home on Keith’s chest, her claws hooking to his shirt.

“Can I ask you something? You could have told the board that I was also involved, why didn’t you?”

Keith was pretty quiet before he answered. “I didn’t think you deserved to get in trouble. Besides, it would have pushed back your chances in getting into the Fighter Pilot program.”

Lance didn’t think Keith actually had been paying attention when he mentioned that. “But what about you?”

“I get in trouble all the time, this is nothing new.”

“Well, thanks. I thought that since you got suspended for a month, you could take care of her. Usually cats are adopted out at at least 8 weeks and I thought she would benefit staying with someone she knows. I can come by as much as I can.”

“You could get in trouble.” Keith pointed out.

“You’re not the only one who can break a few rules.” Lance answered, a confident smirk on his face.

“I’m sure.” Keith said, a teasing smirk on his face.

Adam couldn’t help but laugh at the scene. Those two, they were like him and Takashi. Maybe when he got back, he could talk things out with him.