The Silent Kind

Episode 4

Keith hung his hat on the rack by the door and dropped his holster into the umbrella stand below it. Not at all proper gun safety but he couldn't care less at the moment. Right now he just needed a cold beer and to get out of these wet clothes. At least Pidge already had the space heater on so the chill didn't follow him in from outside. He was lucky the freeze had let up and it managed to stay only finger numbing cold and not frostbite worthy. Even luckier that he'd managed to get Dave to cover the rest of his shift. It would not have been a pleasant four hours sitting in that boat freezing his ass off while smelling of lake mud and still having to deal with drunk rednecks.

"Keith?" Pidge called from the back room, bringing him out of his thoughts.

"Yeah," he answered with a grunt as he kicked out of his boots so he could slough off the mud caked pants that weighed down his step.

"You're home early," Pidge casually talked at him through the walls.

"Got my shift covered," he stripped away all three layers of wet shirt and left a trail of discarded clothes from the front door to the fridge.

"You ok?" there was a hint of concern to her voice this time. Understandable given the rarity with which Keith usually took sick days.

"Fine," he grumbled back as he pulled a beer from the fridge then closed it with his hip, ignoring the way that movement sent a pang of protest through his knee.

Pidge accepted his answer without a fuss, something Keith truly appreciated, and just asked, "Wanna give us a hand in here?"

"I just want to sit down and eat and sleep," he popped open the beer can as if to emphasise his point then added, "I am a bear after a long day at the salmon canning factory." That got a little giggle from her, she always appreciated his subtle absurdity, but he'd not expected a confused grunt to accompany it. Much too deep to be Pidge. Keith started to tense at the thought there was someone else in the house but. . . nope. Too tired to give a fuck right now.

He turned to face the open doorway of the utility room and met eyes with Hunk. Big guy must have come over to help fix the water heater. Did not look prepared to see a nearly naked, still wet Keith standing in the middle of the open kitchen/living room as if he owned the place. Course he kinda did. But Keith wasn't so socially inept to not know this was what most people would consider an 'awkward' situation. He just didn't care.

"Beer?" Keith held out the can he'd just opened as some sort of peace offering. Hunk blinked and took a moment to process the offer before shaking his head.

"Ah, yeah. No thanks, man. That's. . . not really beer."

Keith was too tired to have that argument again so he just shrugged it off and told the room, "Gonna take a shower," then turned away to do just that.

Hunk frowned for the lack of fight then pointed out, "You're already wet."

"Was a stupid day," Keith didn't even glance back to grumble.

Hunk gave Pidge a worried look as she stepped up beside him to watch Keith's retreating back side. A pleasant sight for her if not for the limp that Keith was obviously trying to ignore as he pushed open the guest room door then disappeared behind it.

"We don't have company often," Pidge tried to explain why Keith was wearing just his boxers and socks.

"He didn't even defend his Lone Star," Hunk was more concerned about the beer. He had a good point. Usually Keith would have at least accused Hunk of turning Shiro into a beer snob with all his pretentious talk of flavors. It's beer. It's not supposed to taste good.

Pidge exchanged a look with Hunk as that began to sink in then she shook her head and handed over the pipe wrench. "I'ma go check on Keith."

The guest room shower was not set up for the kind of moping Keith liked to do. His shower had a tile wall he could fold his arms over and lean his head against while he let the hot water run down his back. But there wasn't hot water in his shower at the moment. Hadn't been for three days. Hunk being here did mean that he'd have his shower back tomorrow but right now Keith had to make do with this one. Which could only loosely be called a shower by merrit of the little hand held sprinkler incorporated into to the antique bath faucet to resemble a victorian telephone. Pidge had gone a little overboard with the grandmother aesthetic on this one. But she liked it and Keith had his own, simple, reliable, tile walled, no nonsense, standard shower stall in the other bathroom. This was only temporary.