The video opened to a darkened hallway with a single doorway emanating light. The view shuddered as the camera's operator padded to the door, attempting to be stealthy. The view moved nearer and nearer until it was pressed against the doorframe so tightly that one could distinguish the grain of the wood. It was jerked to the side and light drenched the camera.

"Matt, what are you doing?" a girl's voice asked before it hitched with an impending snigger. The view gradually adjusted to the increase of light to reveal the upside-down figure of a boy flung over a homey couch next to a dog, camera in hand. His pale pastel green sweater crumpled over his chin as he scrambled to not fall to the floor after being startled.

"Absolutely nothing!" Matt stuttered out before regaining his balance. He ran a hand through his disheveled honey brown hair before his bangs resettled over his comically large glasses and now-crimson ears. "Look what you've done now, Katie!" he said with a teasing grin. "BaeBae's scared!"

Both siblings turned their attention to the white pitbull, pink tongue drooped over her slightly ajar jowl. The dog sleepily blinked at them during their short-lived silence. Katie stifled a snicker before she suddenly remembered the camera and centered BaeBae in the shot.

"Wait, you've got a camera out?" Matt said. Katie cheekily grinned before panning her camera to the boy.

"So do you, Matt. Which brings up the question…" Her voice trailed off before she leaped onto the couch beside her brother, causing the couch to squeak in protest and actually startling BaeBae. She lifted the camera to frame both Matt's flustered face and her smug one. "Why were you terrorizing BaeBae just to get a picture?"

Matt raised an eyebrow. "Terrorizing? You've never been one for the dramatics, sis." His mouth twisted into a smirk. "Well, except for that one play in middle school…"

Katie's face became stone cold. "Matt, you promised not to speak of that."

"You were cute! It wasn't that ba-"

"Matt. Not on the camera."

He sniggered at the ground one last time before straightening up to smile at his sister. Katie huffed in approval. "Much better. Now that I'm in high school, we don't speak about middle school." She paused.

"Speaking of school, why was my brother, a student of the prestigious Garrison mind you, upside down on a couch trying to pose with my dog?" Katie beamed at her brother's blush. "You can't evade the question that easily."

He took a deep breath. "Ok. So-"

"Wait!" Katie shouted. She sprung up from the couch before bending to the ground. She held up the camera directly in front of Matt then preceded to zoom in even more till the entire screen was filled by his face. "Ok, now you can go."

Matt chuckled and pushed up his owlish glasses. "As I was saying, I have a reputation to keep up."

Katie narrowed her eyes. "You don't have a reputa-"

"Shhhh, this is my story, Katie. Anyways, I may have created a bit of an online presence for BaeBae, and um… Well, BaeBae's natural charm and beauty have become a topic of interest." The dog huffed out a contented sigh before drifting to sleep, inadvertently lobbing a tendril of slobber onto the couch in a way that only BaeBae could make precious. Matt gave a nod of approval. "Exactly, BaeBae. Anyways, she now has about 16,000 fans-"

"What."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. It got out of my control, but honestly, the fame doesn't seem to be getting to BaeBae." He gazed affectionately at the slumbering furry mass.

"No, that's fine. I always knew BaeBae was meant for stardom, but Matt-" She leaped to her feet. "We could profit from this! We could make mugs, and stickers- do you think blankets would be too much? Would someone buy that?" She twiddled with her hair while pondering before snapping her fingers. "If it's a dog blanket they would!"

"Ok, wow. No. We're not doing that, Katie. We can't monopolize off of our child," he protested, gesturing at the entirely unaware dog.

"You mean to say you're not doing it."

"No, I- ok, I couldn't stop you anyway." He chuckled. "Anyways, back to my reputation… I may have casually mentioned that I was the owner of the world famous BaeBae-"

"And I'm 'not usually one for the dramatics?'" Katie objected.

"Anyways! Apparently, that information spread around, and considering the Garrison is almost entirely full of nerds who would be interested in pet accounts, everyone now wants to find out if it's true. I figured including me in a picture with BaeBae might help and I can only take it while I'm visiting back home."

"Ohhhhh. Ok." Katie zoomed back from her extreme close-up of Matt and sat back on the couch. "That doesn't entirely explain it though. What about being upside-down on the couch?"

Matt's ears warmed once again. "It just fits the theme more, I guess? Despite what they say, the Garrison doesn't entirely suck the life out of its students." He wiggled his fingers in front of his face as if impersonating some life-extracting alien. "So the account isn't exactly professional."

Katie smiled before jokingly punching her brother's shoulder. She had been a little worried about that. He rolled his eyes with a grin before speaking. "Speaking of which, you aren't exactly professional today either. I mean, less professional than usual."

It was Katie's turn to blush. "That would be the coffee."

Matt's eyebrows quirked up. "How did you manage to drink that much coffee milk?"

Katie beamed. "I've graduated to black coffee! But don't tell Mom." She suddenly noticed the camera still trained on her. "Oh."

Matt's sincere laughter filled the shocked silence. Katie took a moment to enjoy the familiar sound before leaning into his side and giggling also. The camera shook as Matt slung his arm over her shoulder and ruffled her hair. Her gales of laughter increased as she batted away his hand.

"I suppose it is almost midnight," Matt commented after the laughter faded enough to hear. "Coffee is warranted, huh?" Katie nodded.

"Hey! Let's go to the roof again," he suggested, getting off the couch. "For old time's sake." He turned to his sister with a somewhat pleading gaze. "Please?" It didn't take any convincing for Katie, but she did have one other thing on her caffeinated mind.

"Sure, but first we have to take pictures."

He looked confused a moment but then remembered. "Oh, with BaeBae!" Katie nodded emphatically. "Well, then who's going to hold the camera?"

Katie tilted her head. "...me?"

"Oh no, you aren't. You're going to be in this picture too, sis." He reached over and poked her cheek teasingly.

"Well, I suppose my reputation could use a boost…"

Matt's face softened. "They're still messing with you?" Katie flinched, ready to deny it, then gave a rueful smile to her brother.

"Yeah, but it's okay. You're visiting, and it's spring break anyways, so it's okay."

Matt suddenly wrapped his little sister in a firm hug. Katie wasn't shocked. This was always her brother's go-to method to cheer her up. She let her face lean against his crinkled sweater and breathed in deeply.

"We can talk about that on the roof too." Matt paused and pulled her back from the hug to look in her eyes. "If you want." Katie hesitated, then nodded. This was evidently the answer Matt had wanted. He grinned and ruffled her long hair before she ducked out the way, laughter edging out.

"I've got to look good for the photos!"

The video abruptly cut off, exiting to a black screen. Pidge's hand tightened on the camera as she felt herself jolting back to reality. She had forgotten how much she missed him. Forgotten how much she missed home. She hadn't felt as vulnerable as she'd been around Matt in… She couldn't remember how long it had been since the Kerberos mission report had come in.

Lance, sitting beside her and clutching a pillow to his chest, spoke up. "You were right, Pidge. That did help."

"I knew it would. I'm never wrong, Lance." She shot him a grin, trying to ignore the tear tracks that were streaked down his face.

Lance returned a deflated smile before glancing down at the beanbag chair he was curled up in. Pidge bit her lip. She didn't know what to say. She had never been as good with words as Matt had bee- No. As Matt is.

"Hope," Pidge said. "We all have to remember there's a reason we're fighting. That's what stuff like this can give us."

Lance looked stunned. "Pidge, that's the most intelligent thing you've ever said that didn't include so much technobabble that it sounded alien." He paused. "Well, not alien, but… something different. Yeah. Something different."

Pidge rolled her eyes. "Sure."

A knock sounded at the door. Pidge flinched, forgetting she was in Lance's room because she had heard someone crying inside. People didn't normally knock on her door. Depending on the time of day, she would either heave a grandiose sigh upon entrance, hide so no one could bother her, or screech at the intruder until they left. Eventually, the other paladins caught on. Coran still made the mistake on some days.

Lance stretched out from his fetal position in the beanbag and lessened his deathgrip on his pillow. "Come in," he shouted.

The door parted to show Hunk looking concerned. He gave a slight wave before his smile faded to confusion, partly due to the fact that Lance had red, puffy eyes and partly due to Pidge holding a worn camera. Hunk wouldn't have expected Pidge to have something that old-fashioned.

"Oh, we're just reminiscing on- I don't know. What are we doing, Pidge?"

She adjusted her circular glasses. "Well, I was showing Lance my dog." She clicked once more in her camera's album to the next picture. It was the picture that she and Matt had decided to put on BaeBae's account. BaeBae was front and center donning Matt's (and hers, she thought with a certain pride) oversized glasses while both siblings wrapped an arm around the dog, one on each side. They hadn't noticed until after the picture was taken that they had both decided to put a peace sign above the other's head. Pidge smiled at the memory and held out the photo to Hunk.

Hunk's face lit up. "Oh, I had a pet once!"

Pidge chuckled at Hunk's enthusiasm. "We'll need photo evidence," she joked.

"I've got better than that."

This is the first of a couple of Voltron pet oneshots I will be writing. I hope you enjoyed! If you have any suggestions or critiques (or ideas about what pet a certain Paladin should have), feel free to comment them!

Farewell!