Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Keith couldn’t remember what happened. He remembered the victory, the party, the ballroom. He remembered asking Allura if he could leave. He remembered her annoyed expression and the reluctant yes. Then nothing-- nothing that could explain his throbbing headache, the points of dull pain over his body that he knew from experience would soon darken into bruises, or how, when he tried to raise a hand to his head, it was pulled to a stop after a few inches with the tinny clinking of metal. 

With a groan of confusion, he peeled his eyes open. Then he laid there and blinked, because he didn’t think the Castle of Lions had any rooms that looked (and felt) like a dark, dank underground dungeon with walls of stone, lit only by the flickering flame of a torch on the opposite wall. It’s green shine was the only hint that he hadn’t been transported back to medieval Europe and that he was still on an alien planet. 

Instinctively he tried once again to move, only for his wrists to pull up short again. Craning his neck, Keith peered down at himself, stomach dipping at the sight of shackles. They looked like Earth steel, closed around his wrists and ankles with a few inches of chain between the cuffs and the metal slab he was laying on. 

God damn it. 

Keith let his head fall back to the table with a dull clang. Why did it always have to be him?

He didn’t have long to brood; a few minutes later the metal door on the rightmost wall began to creak open. Keith wasn’t surprised when a couple of the local aliens entered, a species that could only be described as vaguely humanoid at best, with their bulbous red bodies spattered with eyes in seemingly random places and their matchstick thin limbs, but he was surprised when the two were followed by a familiar third. 

That third was a shade of dusky pink, eyes all battery acid green, and draped haphazardly in black cloth which marked him as a noble-- the king, as a matter of fact.

Well, shit. If the King was involved, there was no chance of an easy rescue, the others would be fighting the royal guards as well, not just the two that had entered first. Fuck. 

Keith didn’t wait for them to say what they wanted. Before the door even closed he lurched up, straining against his bonds, and shouted, “Let me go!”

They didn’t answer right away. Slowly, one of the unfamiliar pair closed the door, the click of the lock echoing through the room. He knew they were a slow, plodding people; they took their own sweet time for everything. Keith, however, was not so patient. 

“Let me out of here! You have no right to lock me up like this!”

Again, no answer. The three aliens plodded across the room toward him, even their many many eyes taking three full seconds to blink. Without any other facial features it was impossible to discern what, if any, emotions they were bringing to the situation. 

Eventually the trio reached him, and laying back with three eldritch monsters leaning over him, dull green light in the background, he felt like an insect pinned under a microscope. His skin crawled, and Keith squirmed, pulling uselessly at his bindings. 

“What do you want?” he asked in a low growl. For a moment there was yet more silence, then the King slowly blinked his eyes. 

“You are the Red Paladin?” His mouth wasn’t clearly visible, but that didn’t make his voice difficult to hear. The problem was the speed-- he talked like there was an ellipsis between every letter, slow, drawling. It had nearly driven Keith up the wall during negotiations after they drove out the Galra, and in this situation it was that much more maddening. 

“You know I am,” Keith spat at him.

The King blinked again, and Keith yanked his wrists against the shackles in pure frustration. 

“You often obtain intelligence from the Enemy?” That’s what they called the Galra-- The Enemy. “You know of their movements?”

“Sometimes.” His tone was clipped with impatience. “What do you care? We already told you everything you needed to know.”

The King leaned down, getting uncomfortably close, while his cronies waited on the other side of the table. The eyes were even more distasteful up close-- all bulging and rotating in their sockets in ways eyes weren’t meant to move. 

“You will tell us more. You will collect, you will inform, you will come when called. You will serve my house, my line preserved.”

For a second Keith just frowned, not getting what any of that was supposed to mean. Until he went over it again in his head, then it clicked. 

“You want me to spy for you?” he asked in disbelief. “To make you look good? To make sure you stay in power?”

The King rumbled, long and low. “You understand. Good.”

Keith bared his teeth at them. They probably didn’t understand the gesture, but they definitely understood when he said, “No. I won’t do it. Voltron has bigger things to worry about than petty political maneuvering.”

Keith imagined that the King frowned. Raising one twig-like hand, he gestured to the other two. “You will not have a choice.”

The pair stepped forward in tandem. One gripped Keith’s left arm by the wrist and elbow, pinning it down despite his struggling. The other produced a thin knife, and in the other hand something small that looked alarmingly like a computer chip. 

“No!” Keith shouted, throwing himself against the cuffs until they cut into the skin. “No! Let me out! You just wait until the other Paladins get here, they’ll kick your asses into next week--”

He felt the cold hint of the blade against his forearm and clenched his fists, bracing for the pain, but before any pressure was applied a tremor rocked through the room. 

The aliens’ bodies didn’t move, but all of their eyes began to flick around in a frenzy. The room shook again, dust falling from the walls and ceiling. Then again, even stronger. Almost like footsteps. 

A mechanical growl rang in Keith’s ears, bringing a smirk to his lips. Half a second later the ceiling was cleaved aside, only a few feet below ground, and stars lit up above Keith’s head. The Red Lion roared. It was too loud to tell for sure, but Keith thought he heard the aliens cry out, in pain or maybe even fear, before they turned and fled, slowly, towards the door. 

Keith’s cheeks ached from his grin. “Hey, Red,” he called up to her, coughing lightly on the dust. “Just in time.”

Red purred. A white helmeted head peeked out over the edge of the now-destroyed ceiling, then a whole torso followed, arms waving in excitement. 

“Guys,” he heard dimly, “Down here, I found him!”

The figure then swung their legs over the edge and let themself drop into the room.

Lance hurried over to him, a relieved expression underneath his visor. “Dude,” he said in a teasing tone as he began to work on the shackles. “You have got to stop getting into these situations.”

“Right.” Lance got the left cuff off and Keith cradled it against his chest, hissing at the sting of rubbed off skin. “Remind me to wash off the ‘kidnap me’ message on my forehead.”

Lance laughed. A minute later Keith was freed from the table, and with only one burst of Lance’s jetpack they were back at surface level. Keith could see the other Paladins across the field, already heading in their direction, and Red let out another pleased growl, tail lashing behind her. 

Keith patted her leg. “Good kitty.”

Chapter Text

“Be still.” 

Keith kept struggling. He’d already been stripped down to his undersuit, his bayard and knife taken, but that didn’t mean he would stop fighting as the two Galra tried to get his hands cuffed behind his back. Until that happened he still stood a chance of being able to slip away, to run, but he knew that as soon as they got him bound he wouldn’t be able to get out again. 

One of the soldiers let out a frustrated growl. Yellow eyes shone in the dim lighting of the cruiser, then, as though moving as one, one of the Galra hooked his clawed hands into Keith’s elbows, holding him still long enough for the other to deliver a punch to his gut. 

Keith couldn’t help doubling over as the breath was knocked out of his lungs. While he struggled to breathe the soldiers managed to get his hands behind him long enough to close the magnetic cuffs around his wrists. One of them kicked the back of his knee, forcing him to the floor, and there was a dim hum as the cuffs attached to the wall behind him, holding him fast. 

Still panting, Keith glared up at the two soldiers. The expressions on their faces were gleeful and haughty, and Keith’s blood burned with the desire to punch those smirks right off of their mouths. 

“There, that should keep you occupied for a bit.”

Keith glanced over his shoulder. The cuffs weren’t attached directly to the wall; there was a green line between the cuffs and the wall, about six inches long, like chains attached to shackles. Which gave him some room for mischief. 

He let his body go slack, falling back onto his heels with what he hoped was a contrite expression. The Galra exchanged cruel grins at his show. 

“See, now, was that so hard?” one of them cooed. He stepped forward, reaching out a hand as though to pat him on the head, like a child-- or an animal. “Everything is easier when you don’t fight ba--”

Keith lunged forward. He’d been hoping to catch a finger or two, but the Galra instantly recoiled from his snapping teeth, dark fury coloring his cheeks. His partner moved forward and drove his foot into Keith’s side in a blossom of sharp pain. 

“Damned mutt,” muttered the one he’d tried to bite. “Too stupid to realize it’s been caught.”

“Fuck you,” Keith replied. He’d kept himself silent since the sentries cornered him, refusing to give into taunts and get himself killed or accidentally reveal information among his insults, but what could he say. Impulse control wasn’t high up on his skills list. “I’m gonna get out of here, and when I do, you’re going to regret this.”

The Galra who had kicked him simply snorted. But the other still looked angry, and after a moment’s contemplation, dared to step forward again as he pulled another cuff from his belt. It looked different from the wrist ones; it was longer and thinner, and there was only one. It took Keith a second too long to realize exactly what it was. 

“Don’t!” he cried, trying to move back, but the wall kept him captive. He tried biting again, but ultimately there was nothing he could do to prevent the soldier from clasping the collar around his neck. For a moment it was roomy, too big for him, but then it shrank, constricting until it was just barely too small, pressing on his throat just enough to make him notice, but not enough to strangle him. “Fucking--”

The guard grabbed a fistful of his hair, turning Keith’s curse into a yelp as he pulled Keith’s head back towards the wall. His back was forced to arch at an uncomfortable angle, and the dreaded hum sounded again in his ears. 

The Galra stepped back, out of Keith’s sightline. With the collar keeping his neck pulled back, only a few inches from the wall, all he could see was the ceiling. 

“There. Try to bite me now, mongrel.”

Keith let out a frustrated snarl, but that was all he could do. 

“Come on, Tevran,” said the other. “The captain will be expecting a report.”

Tevran made some kind of agreeing sound, then the two left, leaving Keith contorted against the wall.

Immediately he went about testing his restraints. The results weren’t encouraging-- they’d attached the collar too high for him to stop sitting upright on his knees, if he tried to sink lower the collar would dig into his throat and cut off his air, and he already knew from previous events that the magcuffs were too strong to pull apart by pure strength alone. 

So it would be a waiting game. The tracker on his armor was activated, he just had to sit tight until the others tracked him down. He hoped it would be soon. His spine was already starting to ache, and he was already sick of staring at the purple ceiling. 

Keith took a purposeful breath and ignored how his heart jolted when it didn’t come easily. Patience yields focus, he told himself as he counted his breaths. Patience yields focus. He’d be fine as long as he remembered that. 

Patience yields focus. 

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. All he could see was the seamless metal above his head, and the ship was silent around him, giving him no clues as to how long he’d been in this stupid cell. The only indication was the steadily building pain. 

His knees had long since gone numb. His thighs were trembling from the effort of holding his weight. His spine was a long line of fire that spread across his shoulder blades and wrapped around his neck, the ache was tissue deep, bone deep, and the longer he was forced to hold the position, the more it built, until sharp shards of pain were lancing up his back, between the shoulder blades, across the back of his neck. 

Keith closed his eyes and tried to focus on  breathing. He was shivering, covered in cold sweat, and every breath he took against the tightness of the collar made him feel a little more choked. But he kept breathing, mentally chanting patience yields focus, patience yields focus. 

His thighs burned and suddenly gave. The collar yanked tight across the underside of his chin, cutting his breath off short. The jolt of panic got him back up on his knees, but his muscles screamed; Keith knew he wasn’t going to last much longer. The team had to come soon, before his body gave out and he strangled himself with his own weight. 

Sharp pain dashed up his spine. A keen ran up his throat, but he kept it in with a firmly clenched jaw, reducing it to a muffled whine. He opened his eyes again, hoping to find something to focus on-- a stain, a crack, a chip, anything, but found only unending purple, and hot tears welled in his eyes as his neck began to throb indignantly. 

When they’d first joined Voltron, Keith had told himself that he would never break under torture. That he could take whatever they could throw at him. But everyone had their limits, and his were rapidly approaching. 

Metal suddenly clanged on the other side of his cell wall, the noise making Keith jump, the pain making him immediately regret it. The noise was fast and getting louder; it took him a minute to think through the fog and recognize the sounds of footsteps. 

Relief and dread warred in his stomach. If the soldiers were coming back they might let him down. They might also leave him there or hurt him worse. He would still try not to tell them anything, but he’d be willing to take a hit to his pride if it got him out of this demented backbend. 

The footsteps paused outside his cell door. It only sounded like one set, which was worrying on its own, but he didn’t have time to stress about it before the door hissed open. He couldn’t see who it was, but their gasp sounded surprised. Horrified, even. 

“Keith.” It was breathless, but even so he recognized the voice, and the tears returned. It was Shiro’s voice.

Clang clang clang clang. Four footsteps, and out of the lower corner of his eye Keith caught a glimpse of white before he felt Shiro’s hand just barely brush over his neck, tracing the collar. 

“Fuck,” he hissed. For some reason that made Keith chuckle despite the pain the action caused. “Ok, hold on, I’m going to get this off of you.”

Keith felt the pressure as Shiro tapped around the collar, searching for the release. There was another dull hum and suddenly the pressure disappeared. Keith collapsed down and forward simultaneously, slumping in blissful relief, only for the pain to double as his spine bent the other direction. 

“Woah, woah, hold on, you have to go slow.” With an arm around his torso, Shiro hauled Keith back up right, though took all of his weight, keeping it off his abused knees. Then he slowly, slowly helped him bend forward until Keith’s forehead rested against his shoulder. Reaching his arms around in an almost hug, Shiro then released the magcuffs, letting them clank to the floor as he caught Keith’s wrists and began to pull them around. 

His shoulders pulsed and Keith let out a shallow sob. Whether it was from pain or relief, he didn’t know. 

“Alright, it’s alright, Keith. I’m going to carry you, ok?”

Keith swallowed the gravel in his throat and managed to say, “M’k.”

Shiro began to move him around, getting his limbs arranged properly, and Keith didn’t so much feel the pain as he saw it in the black dots decorating his vision. 

Before Shiro even stood up, Keith was unconscious. 

A few vargas and a brief stint in the pods later, Keith felt approximately 65% better. The pod had been able to fix any of the damage he might’ve suffered, but it didn’t ease much of the ache. Which is how he found himself laying in his bunk on his stomach while Shiro sat behind him, gently rubbing the pain out of his shoulders. 

Normally he would’ve refused such treatment. Now he probably would’ve cried if Shiro stopped. 

“The Galra like doing that,” Shiro murmured, rousing Keith from his doze. “Stress positions. Haggar must have studied a lot of different aliens to learn what will hurt each one the worst.”

“Mm.” 

Shiro paused, just for a half second, then continued. “Are you doing ok? You haven’t been talking much.”

Keith made another noncommittal sound. “‘M tired.”

Shiro’s fingers curled over his shoulders. “You can go to sleep. I won’t be offended.”

“If I sleep, will you stay?”

Keith could feel the difference when Shiro’s hands gentled. Fondness was in his voice when he answered. 

“Of course I will.”

Chapter Text

Shiro was in the middle of planning a lecture when he got the call. Luckily, his office was only a floor above that of the disciplinary officer; unluckily, it meant he didn’t have much time to compose himself beforehand. He’d anticipated some… difficulties with Keith, but he didn’t expect them on the first day, for God’s sake.

He arrived at the office before either of the boys that had been involved in the “altercation”. Shiro used the time to send an update text to Adam, just in case this was going to be serious, and practiced his ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ expression. He was just hitting send when a sound echoed down the hall toward him. 

He looked to his right before even processing that the sound had been Keith’s voice. Sure enough, there was a little procession at the end of the corridor, having just turned the corner towards the office. The hall was long, but Shiro had pilot’s vision, and he could make out the two shorter figures in uniform being shuffled down the hall by two armored security officers. Shiro let out a breath and tried to stand up a little straighter-- this wasn’t going to be fun. 

When they got close enough, Shiro wasn’t surprised to see that the other boy was James, the kid from Keith’s school that had gotten in due to stellar grades and not raw potential like Keith had. Then Shiro had guessed the two of them didn’t get along; apparently his assumption was correct. He was walking in front of the security officer, who didn’t have a single hand on him, and his expression was a scowl, a red, swelling bruise on his cheek. Shiro cringed internally.

Keith was another matter. He had more than one bruise forming: one on his chin, another beside his mouth, another on his right temple. But it was hard to get an accurate count, since Keith kept moving, trying to get out of the guard’s grip on his elbow. 

“Let go!” Shiro heard him snarl as he planted his feet in defiance. “I can walk by myself!”

“I don’t think so,” the guard said back. Keith’s face momentarily twisted, like the guard had tightened his grip, before it vanished again under the mask of rage. “That’s exactly what you want, little runaway.”

The guard hauled him a step forward, then another. James and the other guard had paused to watch, the latter’s expression covered by his helmet, the former wearing a smug smirk. 

Even from two dozen feet away, Keith’s eyes looked wild. His other hand rose to the guard’s, trying to claw it off, and with a frustrated grunt the security officer stopped dead, the sudden change in direction making Keith stumble forward over his feet. 

Before he could fall, the guard grabbed his wrist, twisted it behind his back, and shoved Keith up against the wall. Keith let out a small sound of pain-- it was quiet, but it was enough to snap Shiro back into his body.

“Hey!” he said, very carefully not raising his voice as he strode down the hall towards them. “That’s enough.”

The guard looked up, as though surprised, then scowled at Shiro. “It’s a necessary precaution. I was told he’s a flight risk, and--”

“I said enough.”

The officer studied him for a moment. The other guard no longer seemed like he was enjoying the show as much, but James still looked perfectly pleased at the treatment Keith was getting. Shiro knew he shouldn’t judge him for it, he was just a kid, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t tick him off, just a little bit. 

“Fine.” 

The second he was released Keith spun around to face the guard. But instead of throwing another punch, as Shiro feared, he shuffled quickly backwards towards Shiro, like he didn’t want to expose his back to them.

“Thank you,” said Shiro, as curtly as he could without being blatantly disrespectful. When he looked down at Keith he was still drawn tight, muscles coiled, ready for another fight at any moment, so Shiro didn’t try to touch him. “Keith, will you sit down and wait for me, please?”

Keith’s eyes flickered up to him, just for a second before darting back to the guard. Despite his clear apprehension, he managed a nod and, still facing the guards, moved over to one of the chairs outside the discipline officer’s window. 

The door to the office opened, and the officer stuck her head out, looking at the group of them with stern eyes. 

“Officer Shirogane first, please.”

Shiro subtly rolled his shoulders, ignoring the cramp that had just appeared in his right wrist. 

Time to face the music. 

Afterwards, when he was walking Keith back to his dorm, Shiro’s brain was still running in circles. Keith wasn’t going to face extra discipline this time, the drills Iverson set seeming to be sufficient for a first infraction, but there was something off about the whole situation-- some kind of disconnect that Shiro couldn’t quite put his finger on. 

They boarded the elevator in silence. Shiro hit the appropriate floor, the doors slid closed, and Shiro finally decided to say something.

“So, are you going to tell me what happened?”

Keith, who had been much more relaxed since their mini-pep talk, suddenly tensed up again. 

“Why?” he asked, folding his arms. He might’ve been imagining it, but Shiro could’ve sworn he winced at the motion, just for a second. “They already told you.”

“They said you punched Cadet Griffin, but I don’t think that was all. I haven’t known you for long, but you never struck me as the type to start a fight without a reason.”

Keith shifted on his feet. His brows were furrowed, like he was thinking hard, and after a few seconds of Shiro’s pointed silence, he caved. 

“The drill thing pissed him off. He said some stuff.” He gave a stiff shrug. “I shouldn’t have gotten so mad. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.”

That made Shiro’s eyebrows rise, but a possible history of bullying between the two was a matter for later discussion. Right now he just wanted to find out why the cadet looked so beat up; his bruises were starting to darken to black and blue, and his arms were less crossed and more like he was crandling one of them. 

“And that was it? He didn’t get any hits in?”

Keith shook his head and muttered, “Guards pulled us apart first.”

“I see.”

The elevator jolted as it arrived on their floor. The doors opened and Shiro stepped out, making sure Keith was right behind him as he turned in the direction of his bunk.

“So if that was the only hit, where did those bruises come from?”

Keith’s frown deepened, as though he was confused by the question. “What do you mean?”

Well, now they were both confused. “I mean-- if Griffin didn’t get a chance to hit you, then who did?” Suddenly he remembered the guard, how he’d thrown Keith against the wall, and his stomach twisted. “Did the security officers do that to you?”

“Not… not really?” Still tucked against his chest, Keith curled a hand into a fist and ran his thumb over his bruised knuckles. “I mean, probably not on purpose. They were just pushing me around a little, you know? Making sure I didn’t go anywhere.” He shrugged again, but his shoulders couldn’t go far with how tightly they were bunched around his neck. “The usual.”

Shiro wasn’t sure what was more horrifying-- the way Keith excused their behavior for them, or the implications of his last sentence. He couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t just baffled swearing, so he didn’t speak until they arrived at Keith’s door. Even then they just stood for a moment in awkward silence, Keith carefully examining his boots and not looking up at Shiro, and Shiro staring at the top of his head, trying to figure out why two grown men felt the need to manhandle a thirteen year old kid. 

Keith opened his mouth, but Shiro spoke first. 

“Would you mind if I came in and looked at those bruises? Just to make sure.”

Finally Keith looked up, eyes wide in amazement, and stammered, “I-- I guess? If you-- if you want to.”

Shiro nodded, putting his warmest smile on his face. Keith dazedly unlocked the door and let Shiro in. 

His bunk was the same as all the other Garrison bunks. Neat and trim, minimalist, utilitarian. Keith immediately staggered over to his bed, once again trying to suppress a wince as he sat down. Shiro fetched the standard issue first aid kit from the cabinet over the desk and brought it over. 

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Keith said, sounding a tad freaked out. Shiro ignored him and opened the box. 

“Better safe than sorry. Are the ones on your face the only ones, or are there others we need to worry about?” As he talked he dug through the kit to find the bruise cream. He looked up after the sentence ended and startled.

He’d seen Keith sad before, that day in the hangar when he talked about his dad, but he’d never seen him as he was now, with glossy eyes and a quivering chin. 

“Keith? What’s wrong?”

Keith immediately dragged his sleeve over his eyes, tipping his head to hide his face behind his hair. “Sorry, sorry. It’s nothing, I just-- I’m not used to this, I guess.”

“Used to what?”

Keeping his eyes fixed on the floor, Keith shrugged. “People caring.”

Ow, my heart. Still, Shiro kept his expression as open as he could. “Better get used to it,” he said, injecting a teasing lilt to his voice.

Keith risked a glance to give him a puzzled look. 

“Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Chapter Text

His mouth always tasted like dirt. His waking mind would’ve known that wasn’t true, that he only tasted it when he was in the grip of a nightmare or recently dug out of one, but in his dreams it seemed like he had never stopped feeling the grains of sand on his tongue. Those grains lined his throat, ground between his teeth, ached sharply in his eyes when he squeezed them shut in a vain attempt to block out the darkness. They coated his skin so closely, making it feel like the cracking of a dry lakebed whenever he curled his fingers, gathering still more earth into his palms as he tried to dig. 

Dig where? Keith never knew. He just knew, with bone deep certainty, that he had to dig. The darkness and the earth was everything, the weight pressing his insides flat, and he had no way of telling whether he was digging up, or down, or in circles, or if he was even moving at all. But he had to dig. He had to try, or he wouldn’t get out. If he didn’t keep fighting he’d be stuck down there forever, staring up at the Sunken Sky. 

The soil always felt so… eternal. In the beginning there was earth and in the end there will be earth and everything will be buried beneath it-- it was an unyielding truth that had taken root in Keith’s mind the first day his father had taken him into a cave. One day everything will be gone, and anything you could even vaguely describe as ‘alive’ would be buried, turned to stone, fossilized beneath the weight of the ages passing overhead. 

One day, he would be Buried again. 

Despite that, it wasn’t surprising when the soil began to compress and harden into stone. It was the same material, only in a different form; when earth gave way to rock even the life that grew within it would cease to exist, and there would be only the Center. 

The stone hurt more than the soil. The weight pressing him down only grew, and the rocks scraped against his skin, stinging, though if he bled, Keith couldn’t see well enough to tell. The stone pressed down, down, down, forming a sarcophagus out of a grave, squeezing until he tasted bloody mud in his mouth and his bones shattered. He opened his mouth to scream, and suddenly there was more soil, even though there was barely room for him in his stone prison; it rushed down his throat, filled him up like a garden sack, he didn’t even have room to gag, and his eyes burned hot like he was going to cry. 

He might have escaped the cave, but Choke would never leave him. 

At some point Keith opened his eyes. He didn’t know why-- maybe it was desperation, or resignation, or some combination of the two-- but he opened them. And instead of endless soil and rock, he saw a familiar woman, standing in the darkness, her silver hair seeming to glow. She was watching. She was always watching. The eyes were everywhere, and they burned. 

But Keith was relieved. The terror she brought was of a different sort than the terror of the Buried. The fear of the Archivist wasn’t tinged with perverse love or twisted longing. That fear was clean and simple. He never had to fight not to give in to that fear. 

The Archivist was terrifying. And she was his savior. 

“Keith? Keith, wake up!” He was shaking. An earthquake? It grew stronger, and the voice in the background that he’d barely noticed said his name again. 

Light. Keith gasped, and this time air entered his lungs instead of dirt. When he finally managed to open his eyes there was no dirt, no earth, no darkness… and no Archivist. There was just light in his familiar bedroom, and Shiro sitting on the edge of his bed, wearing that face of weary concern that had become so commonplace in their home. 

For a second Keith just lay there, reveling in the feeling of air in his lungs. Then he rolled to the side and moaned, “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Shiro sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I heard you thrashing around.” 

Keith groaned again and peered blearily at his alarm clock. It read 3:27 AM. “Did you have one too?”

Shiro nodded. “I just set alarms now. Every hour or so.”

“Smart.”

Shiro just shrugged. 

Slowly, Keith levered himself upright and rubbed his eyes. There was no dust painting his face, but he always had to check, just in case. “You should try and go back to bed,” he said, even though he knew the words were empty. “You have work tomorrow.”

“Maybe later,” was his response. “Right now, I’m gonna make coffee. Want some?”

Keith glanced at the clock, weighed the pros and cons, and decided, “Yeah, why not.”

The two of them ambled down the hall towards the kitchen. There was always a tired aura in the house these days, but even that was an improvement over the emptiness that had lived there when Shiro was in the Spider Cave. It had been six months or so since Allura had saved Keith from a similar fate, and they were beginning to live life again, in as normal a way as they could. They were tired a lot, definitely traumatized, and didn’t know what to do with the knowledge Allura had given them, but they were learning to cope with it. The future didn’t seem so impossible now, but sometimes it was easier not to think about it. 

There were still dishes piled in the sink. Keith was supposed to have done them that night, but he’d been so tired from his shift that he just crashed the moment he got home. A dart of guilt went through him, but Shiro didn’t pay any attention to the mess; he just pulled some cups down from the cabinet and started the coffeemaker. Keith perched himself on a bar stool to wait.

His body was still exhausted. His eyes struggled to focus and the lids sagged, but he refused to let the fatigue win. Going to sleep wouldn’t help, anyway. 

A few minutes later the coffee machine beeped. Keith was staring straight down at the granite countertop, but he heard the clinking of glasses and liquid pouring, then a cup was slid into his sight line. 

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and took a sip. Shiro wordlessly came around the counter and sat next to him. They drank the coffee in silence, letting the warmth and the caffeine boost wash away the last of the dust. 

It was true that one day Keith would be buried. But it wasn’t today. 

Lance was still trying to catch his breath. Every domain was awful, every place they went through in this Fearpocalypse was hell on Earth, some more literally than others, but the Vast was always the worst. He’d never felt such peace as when he got lost in the ocean of the last domain, surrounded on all sides by unending, empty blue. He’d never felt so alone. 

But he wasn’t. Despite everything Allura was still there to pull him out. Lance followed where she led, letting her drag him along with one hand. He was still shaking, but eventually, when the smell of salt and the roar of waves disappeared, he was able to process his surroundings again. 

Ironically enough, it seemed that they’d gone from the ocean directly into a desert. A dry breeze shifted the sand under their feet, the soil just barely enough to keep the yellowed shrubs alive. There was no road, but Allura didn’t need one. The ground grew rockier with every step. 

Lance distracted himself by counting cacti as they walked. He was starting to feel tired-- not physically, he hadn’t felt the need to eat or sleep since the world changed, but mentally. Emotionally. He wanted to stop somewhere and sit, bury his face in Allura’s neck, and pretend that he was back in the cabin, just her and him and the quiet. But the sky was wide and blue over their heads, not a cloud to be seen, and Lance didn’t want to stand underneath it any longer than he had to. 

Allura stopped. Lance stumbled a bit and blinked, bringing his eyes reluctantly into focus. 

“Are we stopping?”

Allura looked up at the sky. It had been hard to decipher her expressions since the change, but now the downward tilt of her eyes hinted sadness. 

“Do you know where we are?” Her tone said she knew, of course she knew, she couldn’t not, but Lance wasn’t sure.

He glanced around the desert for a moment. The low purple shadow of the mountains along the horizon seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t pin it down. 

“No.”

Allura squeezed his hand. “Look down.”

He did, and his breath caught again. At their feet was a dark depression in the ground-- a very specific dark depression. He’d only been there twice, but it was hard to forget things like this. 

“The Spider Cave.” Lance saw the silver of Allura’s hair move as she nodded. Licking his dry lips, he asked, “Is he down there?”

Static buzzed in the air as Allura looked. “They both are.”

“Fuck,” Lance wheezed, mostly out of shock, as Allura nodded again in agreement. This whole time, however long it had been, the brothers they’d saved from the Buried had never entered his mind. He tried to avoid thinking about the Buried in general; it was one of the Fears that terrified him in a different way than the Vast. But now he had to remember, and somehow there was still enough of his heart left to ache for them. 

“This is going to suck, isn’t it?”

“Hm,” said Allura with another hand squeeze. “No more than the last one.” She stepped forward, and though the dread was already building in his gut, Lance followed. 

Inside the Spider Cave was much the same as it had been in the old world, as far as Lance could tell. They didn’t have flashlights, but there was a grey light filling the corridors, just enough ambient light so that he could see the stone that surrounded them. The Buried shared some similarities with the Dark, but here it must have decided it was more important to see what kept you imprisoned.

After a few minutes of quiet walking, Lance frowned to himself and whispered, “Where is everybody?”

“What do you mean?” She spoke at a normal volume, unheeding of the weight of the air around them. 

“The-- the victims. Who is it feeding from?”

Allura stopped walking and looked right at him. He wasn’t afraid of her, but the green backlight of her eyes was eerie, especially in this dusky half-life. 

“It’s the Buried, Lance. Where do you think they are?”

Not even a second later, a hand burst through the wall right next to Lance’s head. He shouted and leapt away, clinging to Allura as the arm waved and clawed at the air, grasping for a handhold. It was grey with dust, the nails torn and knuckles bloody from desperate digging, and as Lance watched a muffled scream sounded from inside the stone. 

The arm began to retreat, disappearing back into the wall inch by inch. Judging by the continued screams, being pulled back was the opposite of what it wanted, but there was nothing in the corridor for it to hold onto. It only took about ten seconds for the stone to close around the clawing fingers again, and the voice in the wall fell silent. 

“Jesus Christ.” You’d think, after so many years of dealing with the Fears, that he’d be used to it now. But he wasn’t. He so, so wasn’t. 

“Come on,” Allura murmured in his ear, tugging lightly on his arm. “We’re almost there.” 

Lance was unsurprised when they ended up back in the Ghost Room-- it was fitting. He also wasn’t surprised at who they found there, sitting in the center of the cavern with his knees pulled to his chest. 

“I thought you’d show up eventually.” His voice echoed hundreds of times, far more than Lance’s or Allura’s had, to the point where it was difficult to discern the words.

“Hello, Keith.”

Slowly, Keith stood up. He didn’t look all that different from the last time Lance had seen him-- he was bedraggled and covered in dust, but he still looked mostly human. He was barefoot, in loose fitting clothes, like he’d still been in his pajamas when Allura unwillingly opened the door and let horror pour in. 

“As soon as it happened I knew it was you. The big eye in the sky kinda gave it away.” 

“She didn’t mean to,” Lance said automatically, but all that got him was a nudge from Allura and a blank look from Keith. Undeterred, he continued, “What about you? Did you fall off the wagon before or after the end of the world?”

Keith frowned at him. Lance hadn’t known him well, but the Keith he’d met before would’ve snarked or snapped at such an accusation. But now he seemed a lot more like Allura-- resigned. 

“After,” Keith answered, wrapping his arms around his middle. “I had to. I won’t let it take Shiro.”

Right, Shiro. The other one, who was conspicuously absent from the room.

As though he could hear what Lance was thinking, Keith cringed. “He’s topside. He doesn’t go far, but this, me… it’s hard for him.”

“It’s hard for you, too,” Allura responded in a surprisingly gentle voice. Keith flushed, and after a few moments of hesitance, gave a stiff shrug. 

“I never wanted to be this.” He’d lowered his volume, but that didn’t reduce the echoes. 

Allura smiled sadly and said, “Neither did I.” 

Lance’s eyes darted between the two of them. They were having some sort of avatar moment. He was starting to get antsy; the longer they stayed in this domain, the more weight he felt building on his chest. He was just about to interrupt and remind Allura that he wasn’t an extension of an eldritch fear god and was still subject to discomfort, but Keith sighed and dropped his arms before he could. 

“I’ve heard about what you’ve been doing, Archivist.”

The moment was over. Keith was pulling back, falling into his role in the cosmic chess game they now played. Despite that, he didn’t sound too upset when he said, “You’ve been going through domains, killing avatars. Feeding them to the Eye.”

Lance shifted anxiously, but Allura didn’t answer. What Keith was saying was true, he and Allura had taken advantage of her new power to take some revenge, smoke some people. Keith had never been on that list, but things were different now. Allura was different. Maybe she knew something about Keith that Lance didn’t. 

Keith sank back to the ground, this time sitting cross-legged, open. 

“I’m ready. Just… I know you don’t owe me anything, but would you take Shiro with you? He doesn’t deserve to suffer.”

“None of us get what we deserve here.”

Lance squeezed Allura’s hand in silent question. She squeezed back. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, Keith.”

His head came up in surprise, and Lance couldn’t hide the proud smile that appeared on his lips. Allura was different, but not that different. 

“Killing you wouldn’t do anything,” she continued. “The Spider Cave would still exist. The people would still be buried. And Shiro would be alone.”

Keith didn’t answer right away. He just looked at Allura, like he was an avatar of Beholding instead of her and could see her thoughts. 

“So what do we do?” he asked eventually. “Just keep going?”

“For now. Until it’s over.”

Keith frowned. He, of course, didn’t know all of the gritty details of this new Fearpocalypse like Allura (and by extension, Lance) did. He also didn’t know about their plan to kill the person who was really responsible for the end of the world. 

“Will it ever be over?”

And Allura, avatar of the Beholding, the Eye, Ceaseless Watcher, It Knows You, said, “I don’t know.” 

Chapter Text

1, 2, 3, 4.

Keith held his breath as he counted out the steps of the sentries. The moment they were far enough that he wouldn’t be detected he darted into the hallway, making it a few dozen feet before he had to duck into another alcove. 

1, 2, 3, 4. 

Shiro had taught them all the counting cycle once he remembered it, just in case of situations like this, when one of them got captured and had to escape solo. It was serving him well-- he’d barely been in his cell for ten minutes before breaking out. If his luck held up, he could make it back to the Castle before anyone had time to freak out. 

The one problem he was finding was that, even though he could follow Red’s energy to where she was, the halls of this cruiser were winding and labyrinthine, and having to stop and wait every few minutes was making him itchy with impatience. 

But it was going ok. He’d made it down to the same level as the hangar, now he just had to make it the rest of the way. 

1, 2, 3, 4. 

With his confidence high, Keith left his current alcove and started down the next hallway. Ahead of him were the silver backs of the last drone patrol, and the next would be coming up behind him in a dobosh or so. Everything was going according to plan.

Then a door to his left slid open, and Keith barely had time to throw himself around a corner before the person who opened it saw him. 

Once again he held his breath. The drones had decent hearing in short range-- he’d have to wait for it to get far enough away before moving again. Then it was just a few dozen feet to the next turn. 

1, 2, 3--

“What’s this?” The unexpected words were accompanied by a purple face popping into his line of sight; Keith managed a strangled inhale, but the soldier (the far more intelligent, far less predictable, live soldier) moved too fast for him to dodge the blow that drove into his gut. 

Keith’s lungs screamed at him. Before he could breathe in, the soldier grabbed him by the shoulders and swung him around, slamming him against the opposite wall. He leaned in close as Keith gasped for air. 

“An escaped prisoner,” the Galra growled, yellow fangs glowing in the low magenta lights. His eyes were covered by his helmet’s visor, but Keith didn’t need to see them to know they would be full of bloodlust. “And I only got the notice about a capture a few doboshes ago. You Paladins work quickly, don’t you?”

Baring his teeth in a snarl, Keith braced one foot against the wall and used it to add force to the knee he drove upwards. The Galra uniform had more padding around the midriff than the Paladin armor did, but the hit was hard enough and aimed carefully enough for the general area of the kidney for the iron grip on his shoulders to loosen. That tiny amount of room was all Keith needed to squirm free and hit the ground running. 

He half expected to be tackled immediately, but he made it four steps, then another four, and another. There were angry growls echoing behind him as the soldier gave chase, and Keith’s heart raced in his chest as he pushed himself faster. He was fast, he could make it. He’d turned in the direction of the hangar without noticing, subconsciously following Red’s call, and he recognized the symbol on the door ahead of him. It was the hangar. 

Just a little farther, a little faster--

The Galra made an animalistic sound of rage. Keith made it three more steps towards the hangar door before a weight slammed into his back, the Galra taking them both to the floor. His head smacked into the metal; thankfully he had his helmet on, but the impact still made his vision go double for a moment, and by the time his eyes recalibrated, the Galra had most of his bulk on top of Keith’s jetpack. His arms and legs were free, but there wasn’t much he could do at this angle. So he went limp, hoping the soldier would turn him over. 

That didn’t happen. Another growl sounded in Keith’s ear, followed by a metallic shing as the soldier drew a blade. 

“You like running?” 

A light pressure on the back of his right calf. A chill went down his spine as the knife sliced through the straps holding his shin guard on, and another at the quiet clatter of the armor falling to the floor. 

“I wonder,” hissed the Galra in perverse glee, “if your species have tendons in the same place as ours.”

Keith couldn’t help jerking when he felt the sharp edge against the back of his leg. His blood pounded in his ears, adrenaline screaming for him to runrunrun but the threat of the blade freezing him in place. He didn’t know how far the pods’ healing abilities went. If he got hurt like that, he didn’t know if it could be fixed. And if it couldn’t, if he couldn’t run…

“Ah, that got your attention. Are you scared, Paladin?”

Keith didn’t answer. With his head pressed to the floor the way it was, he could hear every creak and thump against the metal. And for the last few seconds, he’d been listening to a steady pair of footsteps coming in their direction, the pace far faster and heavier than the drones’ usual patrolling speed. 

Apparently sick of waiting, the soldier began to press down on the blade, slowly increasing the pressure, trying to make it last. Keith squeezed his eyes shut and prayed, come on, come on, come on. 

The pressing paused. The Galra must’ve just noticed the footsteps as well, but by then it was too late. He barely got out a gasp of surprise before a familiar bayard fired over Keith’s head and knocked the soldier off of him. 

Keith had already scrambled halfway to his feet when a hand grasped his arm and pulled him the rest of the way. 

“Dude,” Hunk exclaimed, “are you ok?”

“Fine,” grunted Keith as he steadied himself. “Come on, let’s get out of here before more of them show up.”

The two of them hurried into the hangar. The doors were open, the Yellow Lion floating outside, waiting for his Paladin. Red still had her feet on the ground, eyes alight and head turned towards the door. Keith felt her rush of relief in his chest and couldn’t fight the smile. 

I’m ok, Red. 

She purred in his mind. 

Hunk was already heading for Yellow. Keith kicked off the floor, letting the lack of gravity carry him up to Red’s waiting mouth. As he settled into the pilots seat, he finally breathed all the way out-- now that he was with Red, he was safe. 

Without meaning to, Keith leaned forward, his fingers brushing across the back of his leg, and a shudder ran down his spine. 

That had been way too close. 

Red gave him a brush of concern, and Keith shook himself. There wasn’t time to freak out-- the others were probably waiting for them. 

“Come on, Red. Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

“It won’t be a problem, Princess Allura. As we said in our invitation, although Radck has been battling the Galra Empire for many generations, we welcome any hybrids, rebels, or defectors.” Their guide gave the Princess a wide, dazzling grin. It was impossible to tell where they were looking, their eyes were entirely white except for the black specks of their pupils, but Keith was fairly certain they weren’t looking at him. Probably. 

“The Protectorate is aware that you’ve had some rather distressing incidents in the past, but he wants to assure you that the heritage of your Red Paladin will have no effect on the alliance negotiations.” 

“That’s relieving to hear,” Allura answered. She glanced back at Keith for a moment with a hopeful expression; Keith responded with the best smile he could muster, small as it was. 

There wasn’t much to be worried about. He and Allura had been on their tour of the Grand Palace for about an hour now, being shown around while the expectations for the negotiations were being set. So far he’d detected no animosity from anyone, no side glanced or angry looks, no secretive whispering following them through the halls. 

The Palace was massive-- hundreds of rooms, dozens of floors, tens of enclosed gardens and plazas, and thousands of intricate carvings and lavish decor. It was built entirely of a polished white stone, like marble, mottled with the lightest touches of lilac and gold. The whole place had an airy, peaceful vibe to it. It was beautiful. 

And Keith’s skin was crawling. 

He couldn’t explain it. He hadn’t seen or heard anything to suggest mischief, but something about the place was pinging his paranoia. They were just… too nice. 

That was ridiculous. He knew that. So he didn’t say anything to Allura as the guide let them into yet another large room. This one was bustling with activity, though all of the other aliens made way for them, shooting them wide smiles as they passed. Keith couldn’t resist the urge to fold his arms over his chest for some form of protection from their pin-point eyes. 

Despite their strange eyes, the Radck were one of the less outlandish species they’d encountered-- they had two arms, two legs, two eyes, one nose, one mouth, two ears. Their skin was covered in a short fuzz of fur in various shades of purple, blue, pink, and yellow, many with elaborate multi-colored markings that reminded him somewhat of Kolivan. 

But only somewhat. For all of their similarities, these people were very much not Galra. Keith wasn’t sure how he knew-- maybe it was just a halfbreed thing, but he knew instinctively that most of the people they’d seen in the Palace weren’t the Galra that they claimed to welcome. Which begged the question: where were they?

The guide led them across the room to the other side, where a large, ornate pair of double doors awaited them. The guide stopped just in front of them and turned to Keith and Allura. Their smile hadn’t dropped one bit. If they’d been human, their cheeks surely would’ve been aching by now. 

“Princess, I understand that you are interested in seeing how we manipulate quintessence.” 

Allura’s eyes lit up. She’d been going on about this for days; apparently the Radck were known throughout this system for their quintessence manipulation, not unlike Altea. Even so, the Princess hesitated. 

“The other Paladins will be arriving soon,” she said, glancing across the room to the set of doors that would lead back to the front of the Palace. “We should be prepared to begin negotiations--”

“Go on, Allura,” interrupted Keith. She shot him a look of surprise, so he put extra effort into his attempt at a reassuring smile. “I’ll wait for the others here and ping you when they show up.” 

She paused for a split second longer before turning back to the guide, her eagerness obvious in her posture. “Lead the way, then.”

The guide’s smile never wavered. They turned and opened one of the doors, just enough for them to slip through, and led Allura inside. A spike of apprehension went through him as Allura disappeared from his sight, but he forcefully shrugged it off and turned to lean against the wall. 

It was fine. Allura and Coran were certain that Radck was genuine in their request for an alliance, and Lance had already done a sonic scan of the palace-- without the Radck’s knowledge, of course-- and found nothing suspicious. All evidence pointed to this mission going perfectly fine. 

So why couldn’t he relax? 

He’d only been standing there a few minutes when someone came up to him, a Radck several inches shorter than him, with pale yellow skin and purple tipped ears. They wore the same plastic smile as the guide that made Keith’s spine tense. 

“Hello, Red Paladin,” they chirped, their voice just this side of too cheerful. “Please follow me to the testing room.”

“Uh--” The alien had already spun around, ready to lead him off to whatever the heck the testing room was, and didn’t notice he wasn’t following until he spoke again. “Wait, hold on.” They turned and made some sort of motion with their hand; a gesture of confusion, maybe? 

Keith tried to gather his thoughts. “What-- what test? What’s going on?”

“Ah.” The Radck turned back to him, folding their hands in front of them. “It wasn’t explained? All foreign entities must pass the test before entering negotiations. Very simple, very easy, it will only take a few doboshes.” 

Keith frowned to himself. His translator had tripped a little over the word ‘foreign’, like it didn’t know which word to use. It wasn’t the first time, sometimes alien languages didn’t have the same concepts as Alteans or humans, so he made himself ignore how his stomach flipped and straightened up. 

But he didn’t follow them just yet. 

“What about Allura?” he asked, watching the Radck’s expression carefully. “And the other Paladins? I should wait here for them.”

Their face didn’t so much as twitch. Something he’d noticed was that none of the other Radck scurrying around seemed to be smiling. Maybe they only did it for certain situations, or maybe it was a diplomatic gesture. Either way, the smile didn’t budge. 

“The Princess is taking her test now. The other Paladins won’t be a problem, as according to our sensors they’re still half a varga away. Quickly, please, Paladin.” 

Keith didn’t want to go. He didn’t trust any of it. Every hair on his body was standing straight up. But what other option did he have? Allura probably got hers out of the way quickly before going to look at her magic stuff, and the two Radck they’d spoken to didn’t seem incredibly concerned about it. Probably just a fingerprint or a scan or… something. Best not to make a fuss out of it, right? 

“Alright, I guess.”

“Excellent! Please follow, Paladin.” 

Reluctantly, he did so. 

The Radck led him out of the room, through a set of doors directly opposite the ones Allura had gone through and into a narrow, windowless hallway. Keith noticed the difference, but he didn’t have time to ask about it, as the Radck stopped at the first door they encountered. It was much smaller and less grandiose than the other doors Keith had seen in the palace. 

The alien pushed the door open before standing to the side. 

“Please enter, Paladin.”

He warily peered inside. The room was small, unfurnished except for a single armchair. The only other thing in the room was some sort of a glass bubble, five feet across at least, suspended from the ceiling just a few inches in front of the chair. Not low enough to hit your head on, but only just. 

“What’s the test like?” he asked without moving a step. “What will I have to do?”

“Almost nothing, Paladin, I assure you. Just sit quietly for a few doboshes, that is all, very simple, very easy. A technician in the next room,” they waved a hand behind them, “will handle all the rest.”

Keith very much did not want to sit in the vaguely ominous chair. But what else was he supposed to do? There was no obvious danger, and if he refused it might start a whole political thing that Allura would have to fix. 

So, swallowing down his trepidation, he muttered a quick, “Fine,” and walked inside before he could talk himself out of it. 

Nothing crazy happened, no sudden attacks or gas seeping in or spikes sprouting out of the ceiling. The chair was simple, covered in a plush, light green fabric. Keith laid one hand on the left arm of it and held his breath, but once again nothing happened. The alarms were still ringing in his head, but he shut them down forcefully and made himself sit down.

Lo and behold, nothing happened. 

“Very good, Paladin,” said the Radck from outside the door. “Please look to the oculus, your test will begin momentarily.” With that, they closed the door.

Keith took a deep breath and let it out. There was still light in the room, coming from a source he couldn’t see in his current position, but as long as it stayed on he would be alright. He just had to look at the bubble for a few minutes while the aliens did whatever weird alien thing they were gonna do and then he could go. 

He looked up at the orb. 

For a moment nothing happened. Then it began to fill with white fog that swirled and pressed against the glass. It reminded him of hands, searching for a way out, and he shuddered despite himself. 

An intercom crackled. “The test will now begin.” 

The fog changed. Now it was yellow in the center, almost sepia tone, only maintaining the white around the edges. In the new color an image began to form: a distorted image of what could’ve been a house, all of the furniture looming high above the viewpoint. Keith’s breath caught before he knew why. Then he saw a pair of legs in black pants, and he realized what was happening. 

“What--” he gasped out. He wanted to throw himself out of the chair, crash through the door, maybe smash some heads together while he did it, or at the very least, scream until someone heard him. But he couldn’t move, his body wasn’t responding, and he could barely breathe through the emotions rising in his chest that were both familiar and unknown at the same time. “What is this?”

It was a rhetorical question. He already knew as the view in the orb tilted back and revealed a blurry rendition of his father’s face. This was his first memory, the one he conjured when he tried to remember as far back as he could. Joy and grief slammed into him at the same moment, and unwanted tears welled in his eyes. 

“Interesting,” said the voice over the intercom. “Let’s see the next one, hm?” 

Keith was helpless to stop them. 

“It’s so interesting,” said the Radck as they pulled their hands apart, displaying the blue energy flowing between them to Allura. “The relationship between quintessence and memory. We’ve been studying it for several centuries, and still so much of it is a mystery.”

Allura nodded her head in eager agreement. Altea had known of the relationship, of course, it was how the Castle could extract memories from someone. But they’d only barely begun to really study it when the war started. 

“What have you found out so far?”

The magician gave a quiet chuckle. The one who had been their guide stood silently in the background, waiting for whenever Allura wanted to move on, but she wasn’t ready yet. She could’ve stayed in that laboratory for vargas and quintants, studying and learning from people who still knew what they were doing. 

“The research is extensive, but one application has proven of great use. I’m sure you know, Princess, that quintessence can be used to distill memories from one's mind?”

Holding back a grimace at the image of Sendak, Allura nodded. 

“Well, several generations ago we discovered that given a proper viewing vessel, neither the quintessence nor the memories need be completely removed from the subject’s body. With the right equipment you can watch the memories without removing anything from the subject. Much less dangerous, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Of course,” answered Allura. “But what about the subject? What do they experience during the process?”

The Radck shrugged, letting the quintessence in their hands dissipate. “They generally feel the same emotions those memories carry, which can be painful in the moment, but no permanent damage is done to them, physically or mentally. Unpleasant, but worth it.” 

Allura frowned-- she wasn’t in a position to judge given what she had decided to do with Sendak, but…

The Radck turned before she could finish the thought. “It’s proved exceedingly useful,” they said. “When you can watch someone’s memories from start to finish, it’s much easier to infer what kind of person they are, how their experiences have shaped them, and even where their loyalties lie. This discovery is the entire reason we can allow foreigners on our planet.”

The word 'foreigners’ sounded strange. It took a moment for Allura to realize that it was a different word than the one they’d applied to her throughout her visit-- this word must be specific to Galra. 

It was past experience that made her heart beat a little faster. She shouldn’t be worried, the Radck had already voiced their intention to leave Keith alone, but after everything she’d been through, caution was a virtue. 

“How so?” she asked, keeping her tone casual. 

“You scan their memories, of course,” said the magician. “And make sure they’re not hiding anything.”

Her guide suddenly stepped forward, still with that permanent grin on their face. “Fear not, Princess. Your Paladin is already taking his test. It shouldn’t be more than half a varga.”

“What?” Allura kept her tone carefully even, although in her head she wanted to scream. How many more times… “We didn’t consent to any sort of testing.”

“It’s required for every foreigner who steps foot on Radck,” said the guide, as though it was obvious, still with that special word that made her translator skip every time they said it. “He may be out of sorts for a brief period, but--”

“We didn’t consent to this,” Allura repeated. The emphasis she placed on her words was enough to make the guide’s smile slip for a moment. She narrowed her eyes. “Take me to Keith at once.”

Neither the guide or the magician tried to dissuade her any further. The guide turned back in the direction they came from without another word, and Allura followed, disguising her clenched fists in the folds of her dress. 

All she wanted was one, easy alliance. Was that so much to ask? 

Keith couldn’t have said when he started crying. If he had to guess, he’d say the memory of the night before the fire. His father tucking him into bed, promising that he’d be home in time to drive Keith to school. Even then he knew that it wasn’t a promise he could keep-- he had no control over when that bell would ring-- but with his childish trust, he’d believed it and let himself fall asleep. And that was the last time he saw his father alive. 

The memories after that were even worse. All of the foster homes and the grief and the bullying. But the worst thing wasn’t the memories; it was the Radck he could still hear over the intercom, discussing what they were seeing with an indifferent, barely there curiosity. Like they were interested in Earth, but not enough to justify lingering any longer than they had to. 

Then Shiro made his first appearance in the oculus, and Keith couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Please,” he managed to murmur despite the dread welling in his chest. “N-no more…”

The memory kept playing. The aliens didn’t seem to have noticed his pleading. So he trapped any more pathetic words behind his teeth and tried to brace himself for when they inevitably came to Kerberos. 

He couldn’t look away from the oculus, but out of his periphery, Keith saw the door open, and a familiar voice rang out. 

“Stop this at once!”

Allura. A Radck was scurrying along behind her, muttering something, but the Princess ignored them and stomped across the room. For a second he thought she would break the oculus, but (sadly) she stopped just before it. 

“Turn this off,” she demanded. There was a moment of hesitation, where the fog in the glass stayed frozen on a panorama of the desert like a movie on pause, before the aliens acquiesced. 

The fog thinned and vanished. Finally able to move again, the first thing Keith did was slump forward and bury his face in his hands, trying to both hide the tears and wipe them away, but it was too late for that. Allura had already seen. 

She murmured his name, far too gently, and reached out a hand. Before he even processed her movement his body jerked out of range, making him jump again at the loud noise his armor made as it collided with the chair. 

It was over, Allura had made them stop, but Keith was panicking. There was lightning in his blood, he was jittery with adrenaline; he knew he had to speak, to explain to Allura why he was breaking down so badly when her test probably went just fine, but when she said his name again all he could manage was a shake of the head, the words unable to escape. 

He’d failed the test. He failed, and now their alliance was probably shot to hell, and it was all his fault, and the oculus had just reminded him of how things went when he fucked up, and he couldn’t stop crying like a fucking baby--

Allura knelt down to get a look at his face. Keith immediately planted his shaking hands back over it, like it would do anything, and a fractured, “I’m sorry,” forced its way out of his throat. 

“It’s alright,” Allura answered softly. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Keith.”

That was a lie. He didn’t know why she’d lie about something like that, but it had to be a lie. A trick to get him to let his guard down. Less than an hour ago that might’ve worked. Now it just forced more adrenaline into him, and a sob got trapped in his throat. He didn’t know what to do, how to fix it, how to appease her, and he couldn’t think. 

He was just so scared. 

“Keith, you’re hyperventilating.” 

He couldn’t see her face through the tears, but Allura’s voice was perfectly calm. “You need to breathe. Has Shiro taught you any breathing exercises?”

The familiar name was surprisingly grounding. Enough for Keith to nod. 

“Good. Why don’t you try one? The Paladins will be here soon.”

His answer was a long, shaky inhale. After a few deep breaths the panic began to subside, enough for a tiny part of his brain to start whispering in the voice of reason. The others are almost here, it said as he counted the seconds. Shiro’s almost here. 

Shiro. The Radck had seen more of him than Keith wanted them to. They’d almost gotten to Kerberos-- God, Kerberos-- 

A light pressure landed on his knee. “Keep breathing, Keith.”

He forced himself to exhale. Then inhale. And exhale. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. As long as he was counting, he wasn’t thinking. If he didn’t think, the fear couldn’t catch him. He just had to outrun it. 

At some point his brain registered the sound of footsteps, but only dimly. Then the hand on his knee vanished, and Keith peeled his eyes open to see a familiar black and white silhouette in the doorway. 

“Allura, what’s going on?”

“There was a… misunderstanding. Did you come down in the shuttle like I asked?”

Shiro nodded as Keith cast his eyes away. The fear was beginning to ebb, and shame flowed in its absence. 

“If you wouldn’t mind, will you take Keith back up to the Castle? I’ll send you a ping if I need you.”

“Sure,” Shiro answered, and took a step forward. Keith automatically lurched to his feet before Shiro could try and help him, then flushed when he realized what he’d done, but Shiro didn’t say anything. He just turned his body towards the door and waited for Keith to move to his side before leaving. 

The others were waiting for them near the door that exited the palace. Keith ducked his head, hiding his tear-stained face. 

When they got close enough, Shiro just waved a hand at them and said, “It’s alright, guys, Allura will be out in a minute.”

Even through his armor Keith could feel the burn of their curious gazes. But none of them spoke up, not even Lance, and within another minute they were stepping out of the dreaded building. 

Keith finally let out the breath he’d been holding. Shiro was still silent, probably waiting for Keith to talk first. He held off just a moment longer, giving himself a moment to process that Shiro was there beside him, with his scar and his white hair, not about to vanish into the stars. 

“It wasn’t a fight,” he mumbled eventually. He hadn’t intended to sound so defensive, but he was still rebuilding his walls. Crossing his arms helped. 

“I didn’t think it was,” answered Shiro evenly. 

“They said it was a-- a test.” Keith turned his head away from Shiro and looked out across the palace gardens. Most of it was made up of some sort of yellow tree and/or bush, cut in a variety of fantastical shapes that he traced with his eyes as he forced the words out. “They said everyone had to take it, but I think… I think they lied.”

Shiro made an understanding noise. “What did they do?”

“Memories.” Keith paused and swallowed hard. “They were looking at my memories.”

Shiro inhaled quickly, but instead of saying anything else, he just raised a hand and gave Keith a firm, sympathetic pat on the back. Then his hand slid up to the back of his neck and he tugged Keith into his side, under his arm. 

Keith pressed closer without a word. 

Chapter Text

“Of all the missions to break down on.” Lance kicked at a stone on the ground, sending it ricocheting into the trees. “It just had to be this one. Of fucking course. Because the universe never gives us a damn break.”

“Lance.” With only one word Keith still managed to sound irritated. Lance pretended not to hear him and continued. 

“You know, I should’ve gone to church more often. This has to be some sort of divine punishment: getting stuck on a middle of nowhere planet, shuttle busted, comms on the fritz, with the one person I hate the most in the world.”

“Lance,” Keith said again, more loudly. “Complaining isn’t helping.”

Lance kicked another stone. Like most other planets the team had visited, this landscape was strange compared to Earth: the ground was soft under his feet, like freshly watered turf back home, and littered with rocks in a variety of sizes and colors. The one he just kicked was round and gray, but there was another on the other side of the impact site that was almost as tall as he was, jagged, sharp, and a pale, translucent yellow. 

Kinda pretty, mostly weird, and Lance didn’t want to stay even a minute longer than he had to. 

“Not like there’s anything else to do,” Lance shot back. “What do you want, a freakin’ cheerleader?”

“Some peace and quiet would be nice.”

Lance scoffed and went back to pacing. They’d been stuck for almost an hour now, and no matter how many times he rebooted the comms, his suit just couldn’t find the Castle’s signal. He didn’t know what the problem was, and even if he did, he probably couldn’t fix it-- he wasn’t like Pidge or Hunk. And, unfortunately, neither was Keith. 

“Man, why did it have to be you? Hunk or Pidge would’ve been so much more useful.”

With a sound of frustration, Keith sat up from where he’d been laying on the forest floor, tinkering underneath the shuttle to try and make it stop smoking. 

“At least I’m trying,” he spat at Lance. “All you’ve been doing is walking around whining.”

“Yeah, because I know it’s useless to try and fix that thing!” he exclaimed, waving his arms at the downed shuttle. “It’s Altean! Even Pidge doesn’t understand their tech a hundred percent of the time, and you’re a drop out!”

Keith’s expression twisted into a snarl as he got to his feet. He always got so riled up whenever Lance called him that; even in their shitty situation, it was kind of funny. 

“So what’s your idea? Sit around doing nothing until we starve to death?”

“You’re so dramatic,” Lance said with a roll of his eyes. “The others will find us first.”

“Oh, I’m dramatic? You’re the one talking about divine retribution!”

Lance groaned. “See, this is exactly why I didn’t want to get stuck with you, you always take everything so seriously.”

Keith opened his mouth to respond, but suddenly the angry expression on his face dropped, his head snapping to the side. Lance took the opportunity to continue his train of thought. 

“Really, you couldn’t recognize a joke even if you tripped over one. You’re such a sarcastic asshole all the time, but you can never tell when I’m being overly dramatic on purpose.”

“Lance.” Keith’s eyes were locked on something among the thin, slate gray trees. Probably just a frog or some shit, Keith being overly paranoid, as usual. So he kept talking. 

“It’s not that hard, man. Besides, you talk yourself up so much you’d think you could tell when something’s an exaggeration. I know you think you’re the best pilot in the universe, but--”

“Lance! Shut up!” 

“What? What is your problem?”

“There’s something out there,” Keith hissed, right as a long, almost metallic sounding moan echoed out of the woods. It sounded like flint fingernails over steel on top of the groan of metal bending under immense pressure, and Lance’s skin prickled with goosebumps. 

He whirled to face in the same direction as Keith as he summoned his bayard to his hands. They stood there in tense silence for a few seconds, staring into the forest of needles. Had some kind of animal made that sound itself, or had it been made by something moving through those weird trees? Neither answer was good, but as the silence stretched on, the dread of not knowing started to get to him. 

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” Lance whispered at Keith. He didn’t take his eyes off of the trees, but out of his periphery he saw Keith brandish his bayard in annoyance. 

“I tried!” he whisper-shouted back. “It’s not my fault you’re so oblivious!”

“Hey, I’m not nearly as oblivious as you!”

Keith’s answer was a quiet scoff. Their voices were steadily getting louder the longer that the forest remained silent, but Keith still kept his below the normal level.

“Please, you wouldn’t know a freight train if it was barreling right for you.”

Lance finally gave up on staring at the trees and snapped his head around, ready to give Keith a piece of his mind, but the angry words died on his tongue the moment he saw the massive shadow looming over them.

Keith caught sight of it a half second before Lance shouted his name. He whirled to face it right as it finally decided to charge, leaving the cover of the trees. 

Keith dodged out of the way with an aggravatingly extra little somersault. Lance threw himself to the side much less gracefully and smacked into the side of the shuttle just as the beast charged past at a speed that was, quite frankly, alarming. It skidded to a stop at the other side of the impact site and swung itself around, which gave Lance a chance to get a good look at it for the first time. 

It was kind of moose-like. Certainly just as big, just as stocky, and with huge silver antlers that gleamed like scalpels along the edges-- probably razor sharp, because of course it would be. The rest of it was a dim, dusty gray, and the only way he could describe the shape of it was somewhat ovular. Give him a break, he was fighting for his life. 

Speaking of which, the creature was lined up and ready for another charge. It’s black eyes locked onto Lance-- his blood ran cold, but he still managed to get his bayard to his shoulder and aimed right between the thing’s two groups of eyes. It stamped it’s left front limb on the ground a couple of times, like a threat, and lowered its head, pointing the scalpel antlers right at him. 

Lance inhaled slowly and put his finger over the trigger. 

Then Keith popped up from around the other side of the shuttle. With an angry shout his bayard cleaved into the creature's side, some kind of viscous violet goop pouring from the wound as the thing threw its head back and bellowed. It was the same sound as before, but so loud it made Lance’s ears ring even through his helmet and his eyes unfocus. In that moment of confusion, the animal swung its massive head around. Lance heard the crash and Keith’s cry of pain, and his finger automatically pulled the trigger, pouring laser blasts into the beast's side. 

Violet goo spattered the ground. It roared again, this time with more pain than anger, and after a few more rounds turned away from the onslaught and ran off into the trees, crying and tossing its head as it went, impacting the trees with ringing sounds like a struck bell. 

Heart in his throat, Lance rushed around the shuttle. Keith was on his hands and knees, trying to pick himself up, and for a second Lance thought he was fine. Until he noticed the shards of yellow scattered across the ground. 

“Dude,” he blurted out, making Keith jolt. “Did that thing throw you into the rock?”

“No,” Keith answered sarcastically, “I just decided it needed a fucking hug.”

With a muttered curse, Lance dismissed his bayard and moved to Keith’s side. “Did it get you with its antlers?”

Keith, still on the ground, shook his head. “No, it just kinda-- scooped me up with them.” Then he gave an audible wince and slowly sat back on his heels. The angle wasn’t great, but Lance saw how he kept one hand pressed to his right side… and the streaks of red on the remains of the boulder behind him. 

Lance cursed again, louder, and knelt down to try and get a better look. Keith turned away from him. 

“Hold still,” Lance snapped. His heart was still beating fast, his breath still racing through his lungs, which he blamed on adrenaline. “Let me see. Is it bad?”

“Dunno. Feels bad.” Gritting his teeth, Keith reluctantly turned back towards Lance and peeled his hand away from his side. 

His breath caught. Even against the black fabric of the flight suit Lance could tell that there was a lot of blood, and Keith’s hand was shaking as he held it away from the wound. 

“Shit.”

Keith chuckled a little, sounding pained. “You can say that again.”

“Ok, ok, just hold on a sec. Let me think.” Lance forced a few deep breaths, trying to get his brain to work again. He couldn’t really see with all of the armor and the suit in the way, so he couldn’t tell if it was just a flesh wound or whether he should be freaking out and praying to God. Well, he was already kind of freaking out, so check off step one, at least. 

Keith shifted enough to lean his shoulder against the shuttle and said, “Don’t strain yourself.”

That spike of annoyance-- of course Mullet doesn’t care about his own injury he’s gotta be such a stoic badass all the time-- was enough to bring Lance’s mind back from fight-or-flight mode, and he let out a slow exhale. 

“Come on, let’s go into the shuttle. Didn’t Allura say these things all had first aid kits?”

Keith nodded, then braced his bloody hand against the side of the shuttle and tried to stand. Lance let out a little squawk of alarm when he swayed and grabbed him by the shoulder. 

“What the hell, I didn’t mean you had to do it alone--”

“I can walk,” Keith snarled, yanking out of Lance’s grip. “I’m fine.”

Lance rolled his eyes and muttered, “I can walk, he says. I’m fine, he says,” but let Keith shuffle into the cargo bay on his own, trying not to look at the streak of red he was leaving behind on the shuttle’s hull. 

Inside the cargo bay, Keith sank onto the bench against the right wall. Lance forged forward, pushing aside the crates of supplies they were supposed to be delivering, until he found the panel with the Altean first aid symbol painted on it in bright teal. When he returned Keith had removed his helmet and was leaning his head back against the wall, eyes closed, with a worrying green tint to his skin. 

“Oh, God, you’re not gonna throw up are you?”

Keith slitted his eyes open enough to glare, but didn’t say anything, and Lance’s worry-o-meter ticked up another notch. 

“First thing,” he said as he set the blue box on the bench beside Keith, “Your armor needs to come off.”

That got a disgruntled groan out of his patient, but still Keith didn’t argue. He pulled off one gauntlet, then another, then reached up for the clips on his shoulder pads and stopped with a hiss of discomfort. 

“Here, let me--”

“No,” Keith said, jerking away even though Lance hadn’t so much as lifted a hand yet. “I don’t need your help.”

Lance planted his hands on his hips. “Oh, really? Because last time I checked, you were the one being tossed around by the giant alien moose, and I was the one saving you from it.” 

Keith growled and dragged his right pauldron down his arm until it slid off and clattered to the floor. “You were the one just staring at it and waiting for it to charge you.”

“I was aiming!” 

Keith tried to twist around to take off the left shoulder, but had to stop almost immediately. With a huff of impatience, Lance stepped forward and pulled it off before Keith could beat him back. 

“Don’t be stupid, man,” he said, ignoring Keith’s glare as he started to unclip the rest of the chestplate. “We’re both stuck here together. I might hate you most of the time, but I’m not gonna make you suffer for no reason.”

Keith didn’t have an answer for that. He let Lance help, albeit reluctantly, biting his lip to keep quiet when he had to stretch his arms above his head to get the chestplate off. 

“There, was that so bad?”

That just earned him another glare, which Lance ignored, but as he turned the chestplate to set it down, he couldn’t contain his gasp. 

The entire back of the chestplate, jet pack and all, was littered with little splinters of yellow rock. He’d never seen anything dig into the Altean armor like that, and from what he could tell so far, Keith’s wound was just under where the chestplate ended, which didn’t bode well. But he tried not to let it shake him; Lance put the armor down on the floor and turned back to Keith, who was struggling his way out of the flight suit. 

Lance didn’t try to help with that part. 

Once it was down to his waist, he could finally get a proper look at the injury. It wasn’t as bad as Lance had been fearing-- it was a decent sized gash, three or four inches long, that went straight through the flesh of his side. Plenty of blood, but not life threatening. 

He relayed this to Keith, who just nodded tiredly and asked, “Pass me the first aid kit?”

Lance, who was already opening the kit, shot him a confused look. “Why? Are you planning on patching this up yourself?”

Keith faltered, and Lance’s jaw dropped. “Dude! Did you really think I would make you do that?”

Keith’s mouth twisted to the side. “I figured you wouldn’t want to get my blood all over you. You were saying that you hated me two minutes ago, so…”

“I said most of the time.” He tore open a package of antibacterial wipes and, after getting Keith to scoot, sat down at his side. “Just promise not to punch me when this hurts, ok?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Keith answered with a roll of his eyes. He was acting tough, but Lance noticed how his brow furrowed and his muscles tightened at the first touch of the cleaner. Still, he didn’t make a sound, despite Lance’s rather thorough approach. 

But once all the blood was cleaned away, Lance discovered something else to be concerned about. 

“What?” Keith asked, noticing his frown. 

“There’s some rock shards,” he said, pulling a face. “They’re all… in there.”

Keith groaned, letting his head fall back against the wall again. “Great.”

“Yeah. I can try to get them out, but--”

“No,” he said immediately. “Just leave them alone. The pods can fix it when we get back.”

“Alright, yeah, good plan.” He poked through the kit for a few seconds and pulled out the Altean equivalent of a gauze pad, large enough to wrap around Keith’s side and cover both the entry and exit wounds. “Here, hold this in place while I tape it down.” 

Keith did as he was told without a word. Lance took note of that-- he was looking more and more haggard the longer this went on, the pain wearing him down. Would Altean pain meds be safe to give to a human-Galra hybrid? 

He pondered the question as he taped the pad down. He should wrap bandages around the whole thing now, but that would require him and Keith to basically hug, and the look on Keith’s face said that he’d probably rather die than deal with that. So he just closed the kit and moved on to the next topic. 

“Do you want to try the painkillers?”

“Will they kill me?” Keith asked tiredly. 

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“I’ll pass.”

Lance stood up before the awkward silence could set in. “I’m gonna try to get the comms working. Don’t go charging off.”

Keith huffed a hollow chuckle and closed his eyes again.

Once back outside, Lance took a second to survey their little home made clearing. The boulder that Keith had been thrown against was surrounded by shrapnel, one of its jagged, crystalline points covered in blood. More was streaked across the hull of the shuttle and the ground in little droplets. It was a grisly scene, one that he elected to ignore by returning to the bow of the shuttle, where the only visible evidence of their encounter was the tracks covering the ground. 

He tried to reboot the comms three more times, but every time the signal petered out halfway through the loading bar. After the third attempt Lance gave up and decided to take a look at the engine. You know, just in case he’d miraculously become a genius in the last hour. 

The squishy ground wasn’t exactly comfortable to lay on, but Lance satisfied his disgust with a few whispered, “Ew, ew, ew,”’s as he squirmed up to where Keith had been working earlier. 

Well. It certainly was an engine… of some sort. He knew how to repair a plane in a pinch, of course, but there was a world of difference between Garrison cargo ships and fighter jets and ancient Altean shuttles. Lance was pretty sure he could see the fuel line and all the extra stuff Pidge had rigged onto it, and evidence of Keith’s tinkering in a few places, but other than that he was totally, completely lost.

Which meant they were totally, completely fucked. 

He wiggled back out from underneath the shuttle and leaned against it, dejected. He’d been joking about the divine punishment thing (mostly), but now he was sure of it-- God had heard his complaining and thought, “Let me fuck over this one guy in particular.” If God could even see them this far out in space. 

Wait, no, scary thought. Rewind. 

Right. This whole situation royally sucked. It was bad enough being stuck with Keith, but now he was stuck with a hurt Keith, which made it infinitely worse. Lance really didn’t want to have to take care of Mr. Hotshot Red Paladin. He would doubtless fight him every step of the way, not to mention the megadoses of awkward they’d both have to witness each other enduring. For a few minutes Lance entertained the idea of the others figuring out something was wrong and coming to get them before the end of the day, but as the silver forest began to darken, that hope died with the fading light. 

Damn it. 

Just as he was straightening up to go back inside, that eerie call echoed out of the woods again. For a moment he froze in place, listening as his blood ran cold; it sounded far away, but being close enough to be heard was too close in Lance’s opinion. 

He hurried back into the shuttle and sealed the door behind him. 

“You heard it too, huh?” mumbled Keith before Lance had even turned around. Lance pressed his forehead to the cool metal and let out a slow breath. He couldn’t show Keith that he was scared. He was better than that, better than him, no matter how much Shiro favored him. 

Finally he turned around, hoping the pause hadn’t roused Keith’s suspicions, and opened his mouth to make some kind of witty remark about the beast coming back for more. But for the second time that day, the words died in his mouth. 

While Lance had been outside, Keith hadn’t just been resting like a normal person, like he expected. Instead he now sat on the floor, leaning back against the bench, surrounded by the pieces of his armor and the innards of the emergency kit-- packets of food goo, juice pouches, tiny folded up thermal blankets. Next to his knee sat a small lantern that glowed Altean blue, casting strange shadows on the metal walls. 

“What the hell?” he heard himself say. “Did you dig all of this out by yourself?” 

Keith nodded, not even opening his eyes. His head lolled back against the bench, like he was tired but fighting it for some inconceivable reason. Probably trying to show off, prove how tough he was, as usual. It was easy to let the irritation of that thought coat his next sentence. 

“You should’ve just asked me,” he said. Striding over to the bench opposite Keith, Lance pulled his helmet from his head and thunked it down with a clang, making Keith jolt and wince. Lance told himself he was pleased by that and continued. “You shouldn’t be hauling yourself around with a wound like that.”

“I’m not dying,” said Keith tersely. “I shouldn’t let a little scratch get in my way.”

“‘A little scratch’,” Lance mocked with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Or you could learn to sit still for once in your life and make things easier for both of us.”

A moment of silence. Lance turned his back to Keith and started to pull his armor off-- like hell he was gonna sleep in it. 

Then Keith said, quietly, “I don’t want to fight right now.”

“Really? That’s a first.”

Keith didn’t answer at all that time. When Lance snuck a peek over his shoulder his face was painfully drawn and pale, his right hand still hovering over the bandage, and despite himself Lance felt a pang of pity. 

So he sighed out one word, “Fine,” and finished taking off his boots. Still in his flight suit, he padded across the cargo bay to the large metal crates they were supposed to be delivering. They were a big part of the reason he wasn’t worried about food, there was tons of edible stuff in there, but at the moment that wasn’t what he sought. After checking the symbols on two or three of them, he finally found the one he was looking for and pushed the lid off. Inside were a dozen huge coats, fashioned for four arms and made from the softest fur Lance had ever felt. The planet they were supposed to be delivering to was apparently a pretty cold one, and Allura had had the Castle synthesize some traditional clothing as a sign of good faith. Lance wasn’t about to let that go to waste. 

“What’re you doing?” he heard Keith mumble as he hauled one of the massive coats out of the crate. He stumbled a couple of steps under the weight before steadying himself and turning back around. 

“Making beds,” he answered. “I am so not sleeping on metal. We may be stranded, but we’re not barbarians.”

Keith hummed bemusedly and said, “You have fun with that.”

With a solid oof, Lance plopped the coat onto his bench. It took up almost the whole thing, which was perfect for his needs, and after a few seconds of straightening out the edges, he was satisfied. Then he went back for another and hauled it across the room. 

“Lance, what--”

“What? I said beds, plural.” 

“You didn’t have to--”

“Don’t be stupid, Keith.”

Once the coat was settled, Lance turned to find Keith giving him an offended look. 

“Would you quit interrupting me?”

“Nope.” He held out a hand. “Want a hand up?”

Keith scowled at it. “I can do it myself.” He sat up a little straighter and immediately cringed, but still didn’t even look at Lance, so he gave up and retreated to his own bed in exasperation. There he was, just trying to be nice, and still Keith had to be an asshole about it. Classic Mullet. 

As he unfolded the thermal blanket, Lance tried not to think about their situation too much. Hunk was always telling him he needed to be more positive, so as he settled down to bed, Lance tried to fill his head with positive thoughts. 

We’re gonna be fine. The others will find us tomorrow, we’ll go home, stick Keith in a pod for a few hours, and everything will be fine. 

Keith clicked off the lantern. Lance saw the darkness fall through his closed eyelids and turned to face the wall to disguise how tightly he curled up. 

We’re gonna be fine. We’re gonna be fine. 

The last thing he processed before sleep was that alien beast, bellowing in the distance. 

An indeterminate amount of time later, Lance was woken by rustling and dim clangs of metal. Half awake and grumpy, at first he tried to ignore it and go back to sleep, until he heard Keith hissing curses under his breath. 

Reluctantly, Lance peeled his eyes open. The lantern was on again, and in the blue light he could see the silhouette of Keith sitting on his bench, doing something with something Lance couldn’t discern, whispering swear words to himself as he went. 

“What the hell, man?” he groaned, and Keith’s shadow jumped. “What are you doing? What time is it?”

“Morning,” Keith grunted. “Go back to sleep.”

Lance very nearly did just that. But Keith still hadn’t stopped whatever it was he was doing, and Lance didn’t trust him not to do something stupid like, say, make improvised explosives to kill the alien moose. So instead he sat up and rubbed his eyes. 

“What are you doing?” he asked again. 

Keith sighed. “Bandages needed changing.”

“Huh?” With his eyes clear, Lance now saw how Keith had the first aid kit open, supplies strewn across his bench as he tried to clean the wound again, hence the swearing at the sting. Twisting around like that couldn’t have been comfortable-- so why was he trying to do it alone? “Why didn’t you ask me for help?”

“Don’t need it,” Keith said, almost a snap, and Lance couldn’t help rolling his eyes. 

Of course Mr. Lone Wolf over there didn’t need help, could you imagine? Oh the humanity. 

There was a pause, then Keith added on in a murmur, “And you were asleep anyway.”

“You could’ve woken me up,” Lance answered as he stretched his fingers towards the ceiling, a series of satisfying pops running up his spine. Keith just shook his head, putting down the bloody wipe he was using and reaching for another gauze pad. 

“The last time I woke you up you told me to go jump out an airlock.”

“That was different.” Isn’t that obvious? “That was back at the Castle, when you didn’t have a gaping wound.”

Keith’s face scrunched up. “It’s not gaping.”

“God,” Lance groaned, “that was obviously hyperbole, Keith. Jesus.” 

“Whatever.” Even from across the room and in the dim lighting, Lance could tell he was grinding his teeth. “Just go back to sleep. I’m fine.”

“Nah, I’m awake now, falling asleep again would take forever. Let me help you, then we can have breakfast.” Lance stood up, only for Keith to pin him with a burning glare. 

“I said I don’t need help!”

Lance put his hands on his hips. “Listen, either you can do it by yourself and have it take an hour and hurt like hell, or you can stop being an idiot and let me help you. What’s it gonna be?”

Keith’s jaw tightened. For a second it looked like he was going to keep going, just to spite Lance, but then he looked back down at the gaze he was still holding and let out a defeated breath. 

“Fine.”

Don’t get him wrong, it wasn’t like Lance wanted to be getting all up in Keith’s personal bubble, or dealing with his bloody bandages. But having to listen to Keith struggle to do it by himself would’ve driven him crazy. 

That’s what Lance justified it to himself with as he went about his nursing duties. The wound didn’t look as bloody or awful as it had the day before, but there was some swelling happening around the edges. Bruising, probably, but still Lance made a mental note of it before taping the new gauze pad over it. 

“There, done. Wasn’t that much faster?”

“Whatever,” Keith muttered for the second time that day. Already he looked tired again, and his voice reflected that exhaustion when he asked, “Will you pass me a juice pouch?”

Lance obliged, then went back to his bench to eat his own breakfast. Keith drank about half of it before putting the pouch on the floor and slowly, gingerly laying back down, and by the time Lance finished eating, seemed to have gone back to sleep. 

He put his armor on as quietly as he could, tossed a goo packet onto Keith’s bench as an afterthought, and went back outside. 

Lance spent most of the morning and early afternoon fiddling with the shuttle engine and trying to get his comms to connect, all in vain. On the brighter side, there were no more haunting cries from the moose-beast. Keith staggered out a couple of times to pee, but other than that stayed inside. Maybe he was actually resting for once, but Lance doubted it-- until he went back into the shuttle for a break and found Keith curled up on his bench. 

Assuming he was asleep, Lance took care not to make too much noise when he set down his helmet. But when he turned, Keith’s face didn’t look like a sleeping person’s at all. His expression was all scrunched up again in a grimace, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and one of his hands was fisted into the coat below him. 

“Keith? You doing alright there, buddy?”

Keith nodded his head, but the grimace didn’t fade, and after a moment’s pause he admitted, “Just hurts.”

“Worse than earlier?”

He nodded again. Lance frowned and went across the cargo bay to him; Keith’s breath was heavier than it should’ve been, and now he could see where Keith’s other hand was, splayed across his side above the wound like he wanted to clutch at it and was restraining himself. 

“I’m ok,” he said, even though he was clearly not. “I can handle it.”

“I’m sure you can, tough guy,” Lance answered with only a little bit of sarcasm. “I just want to see if we need to change the bandage again.”

Keith didn’t even try to argue that time, which was both surprising and concerning. He was already laying on his left side, so Lance quickly pulled up some of the medical tape and flipped the gauze over, just to take a glance, and his stomach dropped. 

The flesh around the edges of the wound was more than just swollen-- now it was inflamed to an angry red, and on the bandage Lance could see evidence of fluids other than blood. 

Shit. 

“Shit,” he repeated out loud, which got Keith to open his eyes and peer at him in confusion. “I think it’s getting infected.”

Keith blinked at him for a second, then: “Shit.”

“Yeah.” Lance ran his other hand through his hair, trying to think. If they were on Earth, Keith would still have a few days of time for the others to find them before it got bad. But this was an alien planet-- who knew what the bacteria was like here? For all they knew Keith was going to start decomposing in his sleep or something. 

But he wasn’t going to freak out. Not in front of his rival. 

“Ok, I’m gonna clean it again, just in case. Can you handle that?”

Keith let out a little hmph noise. “‘Course I can.”

“Right,” Lance said as he started to pull off his gauntlets. “I forgot. Keith Kogane, Man of Steel.”

Keith’s lip quirked. “Damn straight.”

He put his gauntlets down atop a crate and busted out another cleaning wipe from the first aid kit. He could feel Keith shuddering under his hands as he cleaned around the edges of the wound, and every so often a little hiss would escape between his clenched teeth; by the time Lance finished, he looked even more tired than he had the night before, the bags under his eyes nearly bruise purple. 

“Try to get some sleep,” Lance advised, taping down the edges of the new gauze pad. “We can always try some of the painkillers if it gets too bad.”

“I’ll be ok,” Keith said, but his voice was too thin for Lance to take him seriously. 

“Whatever you say, Mullet.” 

Night fell, and Keith’s temperature rose. When Lance came in for dinner he was shivering, coated in cold sweat, huddled desperately underneath his thermal blanket like he was lying naked in a snowstorm. 

Lance was understandably alarmed. He grabbed another coat from the crate and draped it over him, which got the shivering to lessen, but it didn’t subside entirely, and Keith looked absolutely miserable. 

“I-it’s definitel-ly inf--infected,” Keith said through chattering teeth. 

“No kidding.” Goddamnit, this situation just kept getting worse. What the hell was he supposed to do with a sick, feverish Keith? What if he started having fever dreams? What if he got delirious? What if he died?

“Hello?” Keith said with a tinge of irritation. “Anybody in there? Earth to Lance.”

Lance blinked a few times and shook his head, like it could dislodge the fear. “Technically we’re not on Earth.”

“Right,” he answered-- apparently he still had the energy to roll his eyes. “Glad we cleared that up.”

That moment of levity was enough to calm Lance down-- enough to act, at least. “I’ll, uh-- let me take my armor off and then I’ll root through the first aid kit again. There might be something in there for fevers.”

Keith didn’t even argue. He just closed his eyes and curled up underneath the coat. 

Now that he was probably alarmed, Lance got his armor off in record time and started tearing through the first aid kit. He couldn’t read Altean, so none of the labels were useful, but after a few minutes of picking up and tossing aside random pill bottles, he eventually found something vaguely familiar. A white box containing four white fabric sacks. They were about six inches long and only a few wide, and were malleable to the touch, but with just a bit of resistance. Taking a risk, he cracked one of them, and was pleased to feel cool air start to emanate from it. 

“Found some compresses,” Lance said as he took the kit back to Keith’s bed. The other boy stirred and peeled his eyes open, but only for a second before they sagged shut again. 

“Great,” he whispered. “‘S weird, my face is hot but the rest of me is cold.”

Lance gave an uneasy chuckle as he knelt beside Keith’s bench. “Yeah, that’s how fevers tend to work. Here, let me put this on you.” He set the compress he’d activated across Keith’s forehead, and he let out a sigh of relief as he turned his head into it. For a moment he paused, opening his eyes again just for a second. A bitter smile twisted his lips. 

“You must be loving this.”

“What?” Lance couldn’t be bothered to hide how taken aback he was. Here he was, practically waiting on Keith hand and foot, and the guy still found a way to pick a fight. “What does that mean?”

“You hate me,” Keith answered, simply, like it was obvious. “You have to be enjoying seeing me taken down a peg. Having the upper hand.”

Lance’s gut twisted. “What kind of person do you think I am? You think I enjoy watching people suffer?”

Without missing a beat, Keith said, “No. I think you enjoy watching me suffer.”

“What the fuck?” That was the only reaction Lance could find. “What the fuck, man?”

Keith just shrugged, his eyes still closed. Then he shivered again, hard, and reached up to hold the compress against his neck, knocking Lance out of his head, back into reality. The reality of  him stranded on an alien planet with an injured, sick teammate and no means of communication. Even he could tell which issue should take priority. 

So he grabbed a packet of food goo and set it next to Keith’s head, saying, “You should try to eat something.” 

“No promises,” Keith mumbled back. 

Lance let it be and went back to his side of the room to eat. He kept an eye on Keith, but he wasn’t going to harass him into eating-- even now, that felt like a step too far. The goo was coarse and tasteless, as usual, providing no distraction from the thoughts whirling around in his head. 

Taken at face value, the way he usually interacted with Keith could be seen as overly antagonistic. He could admit that much. But face value isn’t the full story. Sure, he picked on Keith a lot, started arguments, competed with him, but anyone could see that it wasn’t truly malicious. Anyone could see that as much as Keith irritated him, as insecure as Lance felt sometimes, he never wanted to actually see Keith in pain. Anyone could see that.

Right?

He glanced over at him. The goo packet was open, but lay abandoned on the makeshift bed, Keith having fallen into a restless doze. Lance sighed and set his empty packet down. 

He was starting to think that the others weren’t coming. If they could, they surely would have already. Something might be wrong beyond the comms system; which, if true, meant they were even more fucked than he’d previously thought, and he thought they were pretty fucked to begin with. Not to mention how quickly Keith seemed to be deteriorating. 

As he thought that Keith jerked in his sleep, dislodging the compress, which rolled off the bench and onto the floor with a gentle thump. 

With another sigh, Lance got up and put it back on Keith’s forehead. He didn’t move, but Lance could already see how the night was going to go and accepted his fate. So he sat down beside Keith’s bench, back to the wall, and put his head down on his knees. 

Lance was tired. He would’ve loved nothing more than to go back to his bed and let sleep take him away, but he was too scared for Keith. If something happened during the night, and he was too weak to get up, Lance didn’t want to be the one bearing the weight of Shiro’s grief-- or the Red Lion’s rage. 

The Red Lion; that was a thought. The Lions could locate their Paladins anywhere, right? If Keith got bad enough, Red would probably come hunt them down like a pair of foxes. 

But, and this was a big but, Red was unpredictable, much like her Paladin. She could be a Hail Mary, but he couldn’t rely solely on her to get them out of this. But what else could he rely on? He wasn’t a genius like Pidge, or an engineer like Hunk, or a pro pilot like Keith and Shiro. He couldn’t fix the shuttle, and Keith was definitely not capable of going anywhere on foot. 

So what could he do, aside from sit here and pray the Red Lion got the memo that her Paladin was dying?

No, he thought at himself, shaking his head sternly. He’s not dying. He’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna be fine. 

He wished he could believe himself. 

The night dragged by unbearably slowly. Every half an hour or so Keith would shift enough to knock the compress off, and every time Lance would put it back. Until, about two hours later, it stopped being cool to the touch when he picked it up. Lance set it aside and cracked a new one, but it made him anxious-- if Keith’s fever didn’t go down within the next ten hours, they’d be shit outta luck. 

Keith was sleeping restlessly, but thankfully he didn’t seem to be having any nightmares. Lance was able to sleep in bursts, either leaning back against the wall or forward at the edge of Keith’s bench, and when the anxiety was too much for him to sleep he would pace around the cargo bay, fiddling with the computer built into one of his gauntlets. 

His suit had been collecting data the whole time they were on the planet. None of it could go anywhere with the signal still on the fritz, but it was enough to approximate the day and night cycle, at least. That’s how he knew, even with the shuttle door still closed, that it was around dawn when Keith woke up completely. 

Lance was dozing against the wall when Keith suddenly sat up. He threw his legs over the side of the bench, their impact against the metal sending a ringing vibration right through Lance’s jaw, jolting him back to wakefulness. 

“Dude,” he groaned. “What the--”

Keith heaved, and Lance barely scrambled away in time to avoid being splashed with vomit. 

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered to himself as he stood up. “Of course, it had to get worse, it just had to get worse.”

Keith was panting in the aftermath. Not much had come up besides bile, and his expression was twisted by some emotion Lance couldn’t identify. He mumbled something to the floor. 

“What was that?” Lance asked, carefully edging around the mess. “I didn’t hear you.”

Keith swallowed hard, looking like he might throw up again, but after a moment it passed and he managed to say, “Said I--’M s-sorry. I’ll cle-clean it up, just, just gimme a second--”

Lance couldn’t help the sound of exasperation that left him then. Couldn’t he stop being weird for ten seconds so that Lance could just help him without making it so damn awkward?

“Come on, Keith. Don’t be--”

“What?”

Lance stopped short. He hadn’t been expecting an interruption, or the angry tone that it came in. Keith was still breathing heavily, still looking a little green, his arms shaking where they were braced against the sides of the bench, but all the same he managed to give Lance a nasty glare.

“Don’t be what?” he continued, the words spilling from his mouth so quickly that there was no possibility of Lance interjecting. “Don’t be stupid? Is that what you were gonna say? That I’m stupid for assuming how you’re gonna act, when you’re the one who’s hated me since before you even met me?”

Lance’s jaw was practically on the floor. He closed it, swallowed, tried to think of something to say, but Keith just bowled right over him. 

“You’re the one who makes fun of me for everything. Who always says you hate me. Who finds every single one of my buttons and slams on them until I snap, and then I’m the one in trouble, and everyone makes fun of me more for getting angry!”

“Keith, I--”

“You told me to jump out of an airlock! But now that I expect the worst from you, now I’m the stupid one?”

Lance held out his hands placatingly. Keith was clearly pissed, but it was also clear that his body wasn’t going to put up with it for much longer. The last thing they needed was for Keith to collapse. 

“Ok, ok,” he said, trying to sound soothing despite how shaken he was. “I was just going to say that you didn’t have to clean anything up. Ok?”

Keith stared at him, deepening the defensive hunch of his shoulders. Lance tried taking a step, but Keith immediately stiffened, so he abandoned that idea and went back to words. 

“Just try to take it easy. I’m not going to make you do anything.”

Keith maintained his glare for a few seconds longer, then the strain of staying upright became too much. He slumped to the side, back onto his bed, and curled into a shivering ball. 

Stepping carefully to avoid the puddle of vomit, Lance moved forward and pulled the second coat over Keith. His eyes had already closed again. 

Lance’s thoughts chased each other in desperate circles as he cleaned up the cargo bay. The outburst had been sudden, but the more he thought about it, the less out of the blue it seemed. He’d recognized the tone of his voice, that defensive posture-- it was the same way he acted when Lance teased him. 

Defensive. That was it. He’d seen Keith be aggressive, both with people and in battle, and that wasn’t how he acted with Lance. Just now, despite the anger, he’d seemed wary, like he was expecting an attack and was hoping to fend it off by striking first. But why was he expecting it to begin with? Lance had never hurt him… had he?

When he was done, Lance staggered back to his bed and collapsed, turning his eyes to the ceiling. There wasn’t a point to doing anything else-- he couldn’t fix the shuttle, he couldn’t fix the comms, he could barely take care of Keith-- what else was there to do aside from wait? Pray, probably. And think.

Keith had said a lot of weird things in the last few days. You must be loving this. I’ll clean it up. You like seeing me suffer. Having the upper hand. 

It didn’t make sense. No one was just born that paranoid or misanthropic, contrary to many of Lance’s own thoughts, he had to admit. Unless it was a Galra thing, but none of the Galra he’d encountered thus far were as high strung, as on edge at all times, as ready to run or fight, as Keith. Not even the Blades. 

I think you like seeing me suffer. 

There was something there. Some prior experience. But he really didn’t know what it could be. It was staggering, the sudden realization of how little he knew about Keith. He probably knew more about Allura at this point, and she was a ten thousand year old space princess. 

You have to enjoy seeing me taken down a peg. 

He glanced across the room. Keith was still asleep, clutching the compress and pressing it under his chin. Despite its help, his skin was still covered in a sheen of sweat, and his brow was furrowed at whatever he was dreaming about. He’d seen a lot of expressions on Keith’s face over the last few months, but Lance didn’t think he’d ever seen him as unguarded as he was now. As vulnerable. 

Having the upper hand. 

That was why he was so reluctant to let Lance help him. He saw it as a display of weakness, leaving an opening for Lance to hurt him. That’s why he always insisted he was fine, despite being blatantly the opposite, and bit back before Lance could take advantage of it. 

I’ll clean it up. 

Suddenly, it all became clear. Once upon a time, Keith had been at the mercy of someone who was supposed to take care of him… who hadn’t. 

He couldn’t comprehend it right away. Whenever someone was sick in his family, they all doted on them. Lance couldn’t remember a single time in his life when he’d been sick and not had at least one family member there with him, even if it was just a cold. The idea that someone could be neglected to the point of expecting it as a baseline barely clicked in his head, but it would explain Keith’s behavior the last few days. And during a lot of other times, too. 

The anxious nausea in his stomach solidified into resolve. Forcing his tired body to stand, he began to don his armor as quickly as he could. Maybe there wasn’t anything he could do to help the others find them, but he definitely wouldn’t figure anything out if he stayed inside and did nothing. Before he left he checked the temperature of Keith’s compress and cracked another for him. It was the last one. 

Outside, their little clearing was the same as it had been the last two days. The same spongy ground, the same leafless trees thrust into the sky like spears. The only difference was the blood stains, which had dried brown and flaky. 

Lance took in all of these details, trying to look at them like he was seeing them for the first time. What here was different than all the places they’d been before? What was it about this specific location that made their comms go haywire? He didn’t know how Altean communication systems worked, but if he assumed they operated on the same basic system as Earth ones, what could he see that could be interrupting the signal? 

It took a few minutes of thought, but then it dawned on him-- the trees. The silver trees that shone in the sunlight and made dull ringing sounds when he rapped his knuckles against them. Maybe it was ridiculous to think that could be made of something similar to Earth metal, or that Earth metal could have an effect on Altean technology, but when you’re out of ideas, even the stupidest conclusion was a step forward. 

Lance activated his comms. Static grew in his ears, as it had with every previous attempt, and when he checked his gauntlet screen it showed the same connection error message. Ok, still broken. So what would happen if he went higher, above the trees? 

Climbing one was less difficult than he expected. The surface of the tree was smooth and difficult to hang onto, but there were plenty of branches for him to use, and with the help of his jet pack it didn’t take long for him to perch himself at the top.

The view was incredible. Hills upon rolling hills, all glittering sharply, like the entire planet was made of needles. 

He didn’t give himself long to enjoy it. Checking his gauntlet screen again, his spirit soared-- the comms hadn’t quite connected, but now it was showing Pidge’s little dancing gremlin face, rather than the error message in bold red letters. Getting above the trees had helped, but not quite enough. He had to go higher. 

Lance swept his eyes across the horizon. And there, not far from him, was a tree that stood far taller than those around it, the highest point in the visible forest. If he got on top of that, maybe, just maybe… 

He took a breath, whispered, “I can do this,” and set off. 

Lance was gone when Keith woke up. 

He laid there for a few minutes, trying to connect to reality through the fever haze. There was a fresh compress next to him, which he took and eagerly pressed to his cheek, but Lance wasn’t in the cargo bay, and he had no idea how long he’d been asleep. 

The small, sensible part of his brain said that he was just trying to fix the shuttle again or looking for a way out of the forest. But the rest of him remembered his outburst, and that part knew better. Lance had gone to find his own way out, and whether he’d come back for him was anyone’s guess. If it was Keith’s, he’d guess not. 

Keith already knew that he was screwed. He was hellishly sick; too exhausted to move, feverish and shaking, the lack of anything in his system the only thing holding back more vomiting, and the pain from the wound was just… He couldn’t even think past the burn, let alone move, or walk, or find a way out of here. 

The others would probably come looking for him when they found Lance (probably, given that Lance didn’t just assume he was dead already), but whether he would still be breathing when they did was growing more unlikely by the minute. 

So he laid there, freezing and melting and in pain and barely lucid, failing to keep the tears from falling. 

He really should’ve been expecting this. He had been-- every time Lance did something for him, every time he seemed nicer than usual or genuinely worried, Keith reminded himself that it wasn’t real. That Lance hated him and would jump at the opportunity to be rid of him the moment it arose. So why was he doing this? Crying like a baby because Lance, the person who hated him most, had left him? Lance was far from the first person to abandon him, so why did it hurt so damn badly this time?

Keith blamed it on the fever. On the wound, on the shards of crystal still stuck inside him, on that damn alien that had thrown him into it in the first place. It wasn’t because he was still affected by people leaving. He wasn’t stupid enough to think people would stay, not after all of these years, no matter what Lance said about him. He was crying because he was sick and not all there and that was it. 

The door to the cargo bay was sealed, so he couldn’t even use the movement of the shadows to track the passage of time. Unable to rise, he faded in and out of consciousness, sweeping his eyes around the shuttle every time they opened again in hopes that Lance had returned, then berating himself for it when it inevitably led to nothing. He shouldn’t need Lance. He shouldn’t need anybody. He’d survived on his own, truly, entirely alone, for a year. He’d gotten sick then a couple of times, too, and he’d made it through. 

The tiny part of his brain that was still thinking straight reminded him that those illnesses hadn’t been nearly as bad as this one, but the rest of his mind tossed that reminder straight into the trash. 

“He’s not coming back,” he whispered aloud through his cracked lips. He was thirsty, desperately so, but he couldn’t muster the energy to so much as lift his head. “He’s not coming back for you. He hates you. You’re useless. Stop fucking fooling yourself.”

He closed his eyes and willed himself to go back to sleep, or at least back to dozing. It was much easier to ride the waves of unconsciousness than to acknowledge the war taking place in his mind. 

Keith laid there for what seemed like an eternity, listening to his heartbeat pounding in his ears. All of him hurt-- when was it going to end? A couple of times he tried to force himself upright, to force his way through this with the same break neck determination that had gotten him through everything else, but even his old companion anger had abandoned him. He was just a shell, slowly fading. 

Something clanged and creaked. Keith groaned and tried to roll away, the sound like nails in his skull, but there was nowhere to go. Maybe that alien had returned and was tearing its way through the hull for its revenge. If so, he wished it would hurry up. His head was killing him. 

Then, from far away, a voice came to him, saying his name. 

“Keith?”

Keith tried his best to ignore it. Honestly, he was just surprised it had taken this long for the hallucinations to set in. 

“Keith?” The voice said again. “Keith, are you awake? Shit.”

A weight came down on him, but with only the gentlest pressure, and Keith felt his body being jostled. The voice continued to talk. 

“Come on, man, I need you to wake up. I talked to the others, they’re coming for us, they’ll be here any second, you just have to hang on until they get here. Keith!” 

The jostling increased, and Keith let out a ragged little groan at the pain it caused. Yet the voice sounded relieved. 

“Ok, you’re still alive in there, that’s good. Can you open your eyes? Just for a second?”

He couldn’t, but he did think he recognized the voice. “L-Lance?”

“Yes! Yeah, it’s me, I’m here.”

Keith didn’t have the energy, but if he did he would’ve groaned again. His brain couldn’t even have the decency to let him hallucinate Shiro instead of Lance. And, just like the real Lance, fake Lance just couldn’t stop talking. 

“Listen, I fixed the comms. It was the trees, bouncing the signal all over the place, so I just climbed high enough that the signal could get through. That’s why the others couldn’t fix us sooner, but they know where we are now and they’re coming. As soon as the signal connected Red woke up, I could hear her roaring in the speakers even from her hangar. Can you feel her?”

Yes. No. Maybe. Everything was static. 

“Come on, Mullet! Talk to me!”

“Fuck off,” he managed to grumble, and Lance let out a sound of glee that Keith had never heard from him before. 

“Ok, good, awesome. The others will be here soon, just a little--” Thankfully, Lance’s babbling got cut off by a loud roaring sound that seemed to be coming from above their heads. Rocket engines. 

Huh, Keith thought to himself as the noise became deafening. These hallucinations sure are realistic. 

The shuttle shuddered with the ground as something big touched down nearby. The pressure of Lance’s hand vanished and metal clanged. Distantly Lance said, “Yeah, he’s awake,” and then a new voice reached his ears. 

“Hey, bud. Can you hear me?”

Finally, a fake Shiro to talk to. Now, at least, he wouldn’t have to die without someone who cared about him. Keith turned his head towards Shiro’s voice, and with great effort, opened his eyes just the tiniest bit. Everything was gray and blurry, but he could make out the black and white of Shiro’s armor standing over him. 

“Hey, there you are.” Shiro picked up the hand Keith held near his wound and squeezed-- it was his human hand. “We’re going to go home. But I’m going to have to pick you up, and it’ll probably hurt. Are you ready?”

Keith wasn’t sure if he answered or not, but Shiro went on as if he had. He released Keith’s hand and slid it under his shoulders, his metal arm hooking under his knees, and another set of hands tossed the thermal blanket he’d been huddling in over him. 

His wound seared when Shiro lifted him. Keith didn’t bother to muffle the wounded noise he made-- what was the point, this was all in his head-- and fake Lance spoke up again. 

“Shiro--”

“I know,” Shiro interrupted. “I’ll take him up. Get Pidge down here to analyze that crystal. It could be making it worse.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok, I’ll do that.” 

The voices buzzed and faded away behind the wave of static that had risen in Keith. He let it take him, floating away into the darkness where there was no pain.

Where there was nothing. 

“Lance!” Hunk squished him into a hug the moment he set foot in the Castle. “Oh man, we were so worried about you! I didn’t even know that Altean comms could be messed up by something like that!”

Lance hugged back. Part of him was relieved to be home, and that part wanted to go shower and get something to eat and go to sleep in a proper bed. But the other part was still worried about Keith, itching to follow Pidge back to the med bay with her analysis of the strange yellow crystal. 

Hunk caught on quickly. “Do you wanna go see Keith? Coran just put him in the pod a few minutes ago.”

Lance cleared his throat and murmured a hoarse agreement. Hunk looped an arm through his and started leading him down the hall; Lance let himself be towed and let the memories consume him. 

When he’d first walked back into the shuttle, he’d been sure Keith was dead. He was lying there so still, and he didn’t react at all when Lance tried to wake him, and for a solid few minutes Lance fell into panic. 

But it was ok. Keith was alive, being healed. They made it out alive. They were ok. They were fine. 

The infirmary was quiet when they walked inside. Keith was suspended in a pod as Hunk said, Coran and Pidge quietly discussing her findings next to its control panel. Shiro and Allura weren’t far from the pod either, and judging by the grim look on Shiro’s face, he was debriefing Allura on the situation. He looked up when he heard Lance come in, and a tired smile spread across his face. 

The Princess turned and beckoned to him. Hunk let him go, but still followed closely behind as Lance crossed the room to her. 

“Lance,” she said in a sigh of relief. “Thank the Ancestors you’re alright. We were trying everything to try and find you two, but we weren't even sure where to start looking without your signal.”

“Yeah,” said Lance, rubbing the back of his neck. “It was… not fun. I guess you want a debrief though, right?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t have to be now. You can rest first if you need to.”

He glanced over at the pod, which Shiro noticed, of course. 

“He’s going to be alright. Coran said it’ll only be a few days in the pod.”

Lance nodded, but before he could ask anything else Pidge and Coran joined the huddle. Both of their expressions were rather bemused, but neither of them looked like they were about to announce Keith’s imminent demise, so Lance made his shoulders release their tension and tried to listen when Shiro asked them if they’d found anything. 

“Kind of?” Pidge answered. She was still holding her tablet, but didn’t look down at it as she spoke. “Whatever that yellow stuff is, it really didn’t like the human body.”

Lance raised an eyebrow. “It didn’t like the human body, or it didn’t like Keith’s hybrid human body?”

Pidge threw up her hands in an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know! Do I look like a doctor to you? All we know is that it was making him sick, but the pod will be able to get it out, so Keith should be fine once the wound is healed.”

“Lance,” said Coran, “would you mind describing the animal you fought? Pidge mentioned that there had been an attack of some sort.”

Lance sighed and opened his mouth, but Hunk spoke first. “Lance will give everybody a debrief in a little bit. First he needs to eat and get cleaned up.” Hunk looked to him for approval, and Lance mustered a smile. Thank God for Hunk. 

“Ok, that’s decided. I’ll bring him back in a few vargas.” With that Hunk took hold of him again, and as before Lance let himself be led away. 

It was over. 

Or… maybe it wasn’t. Lance couldn’t have explained why he was going back down to the infirmary after everyone had gone to sleep. He was exhausted, and after giving his debrief to everyone, no one expected him to do anything besides crash for the next twelve hours. Yet here he was, creeping through the halls of the sleeping Castle, back to where Keith hung in solitary stasis. 

He wasn’t surprised to discover that it wasn’t so solitary. Shiro was still there, sitting near the pod while scrolling through something on a tablet, and he smiled when he looked up and saw Lance hovering in the doorway. 

“I figured I’d see you here tonight.”

Still embarrassed, Lance crept a few steps closer. “I was just… um…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” Shiro said, still in that gentle, calming voice. “I get it.”

That lessened the anxiety a little, so Lance walked over and sat beside Shiro, staring up at Keith’s still face. It hadn’t been like that when they were stranded-- even when he slept, Keith’s face was always scrunched up or twisted, like he was always in pain. Maybe he had been. 

“That was smart,” Shiro murmured unexpectedly. “Figuring out the comms. You did a good job.”

For a second Lance just blinked. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting from Shiro, but praise for his intelligence was certainly not on the list. “Uh, thanks? I mean, it was mostly just luck-- those trees and the Altean signal probably don’t act like Earth tech at all, I just happened to make the right guess--”

Shiro huffed a little chuckle to himself, still scrolling around on the tablet. “What do you think a scientific hypothesis is?” 

That stunned him for a moment, and Shiro’s welcoming smile turned fond as he finally met Lance’s eyes. 

“You did a good job with Keith, too.”

“Hmph,” said Lance. “He was almost dead.”

“But he wasn’t,” Shiro reminded him. “Trust me, I know from previous experience that Keith isn’t the easiest person to take care of.”

Lance drew up his knees and balanced his chin on them. “You can say that again.”

“But you managed, and he’s probably alive now because of it. So thank you.”

Lance waved the words away, hiding his heating cheeks behind the arms he wrapped around his knees, but a little spot of warmth was growing in his chest. It felt good to be thanked, even if Keith probably wouldn’t echo the sentiment when he woke up. Struck by a sudden thought, Lance groaned into his knees.

“What?” asked Shiro.

“He’s gonna make fun of me for the bonding moment,” Lance grumbled. “I just know he is.”

Despite the late hour, despite their vigil, that made Shiro laugh out loud. Another touch of warmth Lance could tuck away as the minutes passed them by. 

Now he could really believe it when he thought: It’s over.

We’re ok. 

A few days later, when Keith was finally released from the pod, neither of them immediately said anything to the other about those days in the needle forest. Keith seemed awkward (more than usual), never quite comfortable when Lance tried to steer the conversation that way. So Lance left him alone, kept to their previous pattern of challenge and snark, but everyone could tell things were different. Lance was quicker to leave Keith alone when he started getting wound up, less antagonistic with his button pressing. 

He didn’t call him dropout anymore. 

It wasn’t until almost a movement after Keith came out of the pod that they finally said anything about it. The two of them were sharing an elevator, Keith going to the training deck and Lance going to the pool. For the first thirty seconds or so of the ride there was silence, one that Lance didn’t particularly notice-- he was too busy praying that the elevator wouldn’t break again-- until Keith broke it. 

“Hey, um… about what happened before…”

Lance tried not to be too obvious about how closely he was paying attention. He could see Keith fidgeting with his fingers out of the corner of his eye, clearly anxious, so he kept his gaze forward and his face only mildly interested. 

“I’ve been meaning to say thank you. For-- for everything.”

Lance nodded and said, “No problem.”

And that was that. It didn’t have to be anything more than what it was. 

Chapter Text

Run, Keith. 

For once in his life, he did as he was told. 

He ran flat out down the street, as fast as he could without running into anyone or anything. The cold rain stung his cheeks as he flew through it, and more than one person made affronted noises or glared as he passed, but he didn’t pay them even a bit of attention. His brain was stuck on the image that had preceded the order. 

Bethany bent backwards over the sink. Jonah leaning over her, muttering something undoubtedly vile into her ear, one hand fisted in her hair to keep her in place. 

A gun in the other, pressed under her chin. 

Keith gasped for air. It could’ve also been a sob, but he couldn’t tell the difference. There was a stitch burning in his side, his lungs screaming-- he was fast, but he’d never ran this hard for this long before. For a half second he considered stopping, before he remembered how Bethany’s eyes had widened upon seeing him, right before the words left her lips. 

Run, Keith. 

He couldn’t stop. He had to keep going.

He wasn’t even supposed to be home that early. He was supposed to have gone to tutoring after school, but it got canceled at the last minute, and to his knowledge Jonah shouldn’t have been home either. It was a perfect storm of circumstances, and it would end bloody if he didn’t stop it. 

But he didn’t even know where he was running. He was just moving, his heart pounding in his ears and the rain clouding his vision. The only thing keeping him from completely wiping out on the wet concrete was the old boots Bethany had bought him a week before (old, but durable) from a secondhand shop downtown. 

His legs began to ache, and Keith knew that he couldn’t go on much longer. Soon his body would give out on him and he’d have to stop. He would have to try and think through the adrenaline and get help, somehow, like anyone would listen to a ratty looking kid like him. But he had to try. If he didn’t try, Bethany…

He tripped over something. His hands stung where he caught himself, and that moment of pause let him notice what he’d tripped on. A step. When he looked up, he found himself in front of a familiar door, and despite his urgency, froze in confusion. 

Shiro’s apartment was a ten minute drive from his foster home. How could he have gotten there? Had he run all that way? How long had it taken him?

That sent another surge of adrenaline through him, and within thirty seconds Keith had scrambled up the rest of the stairs and started pounding on the door. 

Please be home please be home please--

The door opened under his hammering fist. Keith saw a torso in a white T-shirt; he didn’t bother looking up to see who it was, he just let the words flood out of him on a wave of panic. 

“He’s gonna kill her! He’s gonna kill her, he has a gun, he’s gonna hurt Bethany--”

“Woah, woah.” Shiro put his hands on Keith’s shoulders to make him stand still, and his body vibrated under them with agitation. “Calm down for a sec, Keith. Who has a gun?”

Keith’s chest was heaving. The words itched on his tongue, but his lungs needed more air before he could voice them. 

Somehow, he managed to wheeze, “Jonah.”

Everything was still a blur, but Shiro’s face moved. “Your foster father?”

Keith nodded fast, one of his hands latching onto Shiro’s wrist without him noticing. Shiro didn’t bat him away, and his next sentence wasn’t for Keith. It was only one weird, “Adam,” but his tone said it all. 

“I’m on it,” came Adam’s voice from somewhere behind Shiro. Keith heard footsteps rushing away, further into the house, and finally let out some of the tension he still held in his muscles. Not all of it, never all of it, but a lot. Shiro and Adam were adults, the police would listen to a phone call from them before one from Keith. 

“You’re soaking wet,” Shiro said. He said it gently, not with the harsh bite of the foster mother before Bethany, but still Keith automatically tried to step back onto the porch, jerking in Shiro’s hold. “No, no, it’s ok, that’s not what I meant. You can come inside.” He pulled, and although he was unsure, Keith let him pull him into the hallway and shut the door behind him.

It wasn’t until then that Keith realized exactly how hard it had been raining. Shiro was right, he was soaked to the bone, a puddle of dripping water almost immediately forming on the floor beneath his feet. 

“Come on,” said Shiro, gently leading Keith by the shoulder. “Let’s get you some dry clothes.”

“They’ll be too big,” Keith murmured dimly. He was still hazy. The world was beginning to clear up, but the aftershocks of fear were still echoing, his skin humming from the cold and the constant pounding of rain, the stitch still aching in his side. And the knowledge lurking behind it that Bethany was still in danger.

“I have some shorts you can wear. It won’t be the end of the world if they’re a little roomy.” Shiro stopped and opened a door. There was a click, golden light pouring out into the hallway at the same moment that a fan kicked on. Keith ducked his head away from the sudden brightness, but didn’t resist as Shiro guided him into the bathroom. 

“Here, just take your hoodie off, first.” 

Keith dazedly did as he was told. He felt… distant. Like he had after his father died. Shiro took the hoodie from him and set it on the counter, then leaned down to his level to look at Keith’s face and frowned. 

“I think you’re in shock, bud.” 

Shock? Is that what this was called?

Shiro’s frown deepened. A moment later he deposited something onto Keith’s shoulders-- a towel, big enough for Shiro to wrap him in like he was a little kid. The pressure was surprisingly soothing, and when Shiro picked up a smaller one to rub at his wet hair with, he didn’t try to avoid it. Then, once again taking him by the shoulders, Shiro carefully moved him back to sit on the edge of the bathtub. 

“Wait here, I’ll go dig something up for you.”

Then he was gone, and Keith was alone. 

Slowly, he drew in a deep breath. His pulse still thudded in his temples like war drums, but it was getting quieter by the second. He could feel the rough texture of the towel under his fingertips, the hard edge of the bathtub, the press of wet jeans against his legs, the squish of his wet socks in his boots. 

He was still returning to the world when Shiro came back. He set a couple of things on the counter beside the damp hoodie-- what looked to be a pair of basketball shorts and a t-shirt that Keith probably could’ve worn as a nightgown-- before turning to him. 

“Are you alright to get dressed?”

Keith nodded. Things were coming back, albeit slowly. Shiro gave him a nod and an attempt at an encouraging smile, then left, and Keith locked the door behind him.

He had to pull the drawstring in the shorts all the way taut to keep them from falling off, and the hem of the shirt fell halfway to his knees, but the clothes were dry and not-cold, which was more than enough for him. The movements and changing textures brought Keith most of the way out of the brain-fog, enough for anxiety to start churning in his gut again. 

Bethany. He had to know what happened to Bethany. 

Shiro was waiting in the hallway when he emerged. “You can leave those on the counter,” he said, nodding to the pile of folded clothes in Keith’s arms. “Adam will toss them in the dryer in a few minutes.”

Keith put them back without a word, but still remembered to say thank you. Shiro waved the thanks away and turned back down the hall, giving Keith the chance to walk without being led, which he took. 

“Adam called the police,” Shiro murmured as they headed back to the living room. “They said they’d send someone over.”

Keith gulped. “But they-- how will we know what happened?” He paused on the edge of the room, twisting his hands in the hem of the too-large shirt as Shiro began to bustle around the room, tidying up cups and stacking pillows on the couch. 

“I called your social worker and let her know what was happening. She said she’d keep an eye on things and let me know.”

He clenched his hands into fists, wringing the hem between them like the neck of a chicken. That wasn’t enough. Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t call until the next morning. Where has he supposed to go? What was he supposed to do, just sit here all night wondering if Jonah had shot her? What if she was dead, right that second, and Keith wasn’t doing anything about it--

“Hey.” At some point Shiro had come to stand in front of him. Once again he put his hands on Keith’s shoulders, and Keith hated how easily his body calmed at the touch. “It’s going to be ok.”

Keith couldn’t help scoffing. He’d heard that before, far too many times to count, and not once had it been true. Shiro, as though reading his mind, squeezed his shoulders like a warning before pulling him in for a hug. 

At first Keith froze. The fear remaining in his body didn’t know what to do with the sudden warmth, which for a moment felt burning. But then it began to gentle and spread, and before Keith knew it he was hugging back, letting Shiro soothe him. 

Chapter Text

It was strange, how he couldn’t feel the pain. He was fairly certain that getting shot was supposed to hurt, but he didn’t feel anything-- a little out of breath, like he’d been punched, but not the eruption of agony he’d been expecting. 

Keith looked down. There was a red hole in his stomach, neat and round, the blood slowly blooming outwards through the fibers of his white hoodie. His legs went out from under him rather abruptly, dumping him to the floor. The fake linoleum tile was cool.

Footsteps rang through his head. He couldn’t see the rest of the room when he looked up, it was all shrouded in shadow, light only falling on him like he was sitting in a spotlight, but he didn’t really need to see the rest of the room. All he needed to see was Jonah’s face, sneering down at him in disgust. 

Probably from the mess. The blood was beginning to puddle, he could feel the warmth as it seeped under his side; he’d be up late tonight trying to clean it up, just so that Bethany wouldn’t have to. 

The gun was still in Jonah’s hand, hanging at his side. His finger was still over the trigger. 

A pulse of pain ran through Keith’s gut. He winced and curled tighter around the wound, but it didn’t help, and a grin of sadistic glee began to spread across Jonah’s face. 

“I could do it, you know,” the man taunted, slowly squatting down in front of Keith. Keith flicked his eyes around, trying to see through the shadows, but he couldn’t. He didn’t know where Bethany was. Where had she gone? She was right there, just a second ago, but he couldn’t see her. “I could kill you now. All it would take is one more bullet.”

Keith heard himself whimper from the pain that was steadily building, but his mind was far away. He didn’t care about himself, he just wanted to know where Bethany was. 

What if he hurt her, too? He thought, and panic spiked. He put his hand down, trying to lever himself up, but it slipped in the warm blood and made him fall with another pained sound. Jonah laughed at the pitiful attempt. 

“Problem is, I don’t think you’re worth another bullet. And this is just so much more fun, don’t you think?” He prodded Keith’s shoulder with the barrel of the gun and he tensed instinctively, but he didn’t pull the trigger again. “Yeah, this is better. Wonder how long it takes a kid to bleed out.”

With great effort, Keith rolled to get a wider view of the room. The tile matched the pattern in the kitchen of his current foster home, but he still couldn’t see anything but darkness beyond the spotlight. Bethany was still gone. 

“Awwww,” cooed Jonah, finally realizing who he was looking for. “Looking for your mommy? Don’t worry, she got what was coming to her.” The moment the sentence ended, as if on cue, another light lit up the darkness, revealing the patch of floor on Keith’s other side. 

He turned, pulled in a breath to scream, only to lose it all to the pain. 

Bethany was lying beside him. Her eyes were wide open and still, glassy. There was blood on her-- he couldn’t tell from where, but he didn’t need to. She was there, and she was clearly dead. 

“Add her to your list of dead parents,” Jonah said, almost sounding bored as Keith fell into a spiral of despair. There was so much blood. He could taste the copper in the air and feel the warmth abandoning his body as it poured out onto the floor. Bethany was dead, and he was going to die with her, and Jonah would watch and mock him all the way to the grave. One of his sentences stuck in Keith’s head. 

Wonder how long it takes a kid to bleed out. 

When Keith finally jolted awake with a gasp it was to a dark ceiling. For a moment he choked, was he dead was he dying where was Jonah where was Bethany where was she, until his eyes adjusted enough to see the outline of a ceiling fan. He looked down and around, not daring to move lest he slide in blood, and found some familiar shapes in the darkness. A couch, a standing lamp, and a grey silhouette of another person too large to be Bethany. 

His breath was coming fast and loud. The shape stirred, their foot brushing Keith’s despite how tightly he was coiled up. A quiet groan came from it. Fabric rustled. Keith held his breath until his lungs felt like they’d explode. 

“Keith?” someone murmured. The shape shifted, then the lamp clicked on. The light was sudden and blinding, but after a few seconds of blinking away spots, Keith was able to see again. He wasn’t lying on the kitchen floor. Bethany wasn’t there, or Jonah, and when he looked down he found no blood soaked hoodie, just an orange T-shirt with some kind of faded design on it. 

Shiro was watching him from the other end of the couch with concerned eyes. He must’ve fallen asleep at some point while waiting for news-- fallen asleep, and had a nightmare. 

Keeping the curse in his head rather than his mouth, Keith sat up and put his head in his hands. Once again his heart was thundering, and he could feel the echo of the stitch from hours before, still aching under his ribs. 

Shiro sat up and scooted a little bit closer. “Nightmare?” he asked, his voice at an appropriate level for the late hour. Keith nodded, keeping his face hidden behind his hair and hands. He hated being like this in front of Shiro; earlier he’d been too out of it to care much, but he’d only been going to the Garrison for half a year, he couldn’t afford to make Shiro think he couldn’t handle it, he had to be strong, had to be the best, or he’d lose everything again. 

Right now, it was hard not to feel like it was already happening. 

Shiro could see where he was balancing. He’d coaxed the story out of him earlier, and though Keith hadn’t explained a lot about how he was feeling (he barely even knew), Shiro could probably guess. He was smart like that. So he didn’t press his luck, didn’t try to come closer. He might’ve tried to say something, if his phone hadn’t started ringing at the same moment, vibrating loudly against the wooden floor where it had fallen. 

Instantly Keith sprang to attention. Shiro calmly picked the phone up and accepted the call, holding Keith’s gaze as he held it to his ear. 

“Hello?”

The pause stretched on for eternity. Keith’s stomach ached with all of the anxious knots it was tying itself into-- he couldn’t decipher Shiro’s expression, and though he could hear the voice on the other side of the phone, he couldn’t make out the words. 

Then Shiro smiled, and his heart leapt into his throat. 

“Yeah, I’ll tell him. Thanks.” He hung up, and the smile grew. “Bethany’s alright.”

All of Keith’s breath left him in a rush. He lurched forward, elbows on his knees, while Shiro gave him a few pats on the back that were probably equal parts celebratory and comforting. 

“She took a shot to her shoulder,” Shiro continued softly. “But the doctors said it wasn’t much more than a flesh wound. Jonah was arrested.”

“Thank God,” he murmured without meaning to. “Thank fucking God.”

Shiro’s hand paused in its movement. When he spoke, his voice had a note of wonder in it. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

Keith hunched his shoulders, instinctively wanting to hide his attachment, but this was Shiro. He could trust Shiro… hopefully. As it was, he was too tired and full of conflicting emotions to play that mind game. 

“She… she’s the nicest foster mom I’ve ever had.” His eyes burned, and he couldn’t even say he was surprised. Bethany was the first foster parent he’d had in years that seemed like she actually cared, but he couldn’t say that to Shiro or he definitely would start crying. 

Shiro started rubbing his back again. “You probably saved her life.”

That was it. The dam broke, and Keith finally gave into the tears. 

They were at the hospital by nine a.m. the next morning. Keith followed Shiro down the maze of white hallways, his palms sweaty around the stems of the flowers he held. They weren’t anything fancy, just a few blossoms that he didn’t know the name of; they were purple, which he thought was Bethany’s favorite color. He’d never asked or anything, but she wore it a lot. 

To say he was nervous would be an understatement. He didn’t know if she’d want to see him so soon after the incident, or that she’d even be awake so early, but Shiro seemed confident enough. All he had to do was follow his lead. 

Bethany’s room was at the end of the hall. The door was open, but Shiro still paused and rapped his knuckles against it before entering. The curtains were open, filling the room with sunlight, and there was Bethany, alive and awake, and when she saw Keith she beamed.

Taken aback by the unfamiliar expression, Keith stalled in the doorway. 

“Um…” he said, trying to think of something to say. “Hi.” It was lame, but Bethany’s smile didn’t dim. 

“Keith. I was hoping you would visit.” She held out a beckoning hand, and after a split second of hesitation, Keith obligingly shuffled across the room. She was paler up close, the bags under her eyes more evident, yet still she smiled, even when Keith could only get his eyes to focus near her face instead of on it. “Are you alright? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

Keith mutely shook his head. He’d wanted to see Bethany, but only know was he remembering how awkward he was. How even though he cared about her so much, he’d never really let Bethany get too close to him, too afraid of losing her; then he almost had and couldn’t even hold a proper conversation afterwards. 

Gently, perhaps in response to how his cheeks were warming, Bethany leaned forward and set her hand over one of Keith’s. “I wanted to say thank you. You were so brave yesterday.”

It was automatic when he shook his head again. “No, I was--” He couldn’t go so far to say it out loud, but she could fill in the gaps. He’d been scared out of his mind, fleeing blindly for his life, and only sheer dumb luck had brought him to where he needed to be to get help. But Bethany shook her head right back. 

“You were.” Her hand squeezed his. “I know that I haven’t known you for long. I don’t want to overstep, but… I think your father would be proud.”

Keith’s throat abruptly closed up. He ducked his head to hide his reaction, but Bethany was sitting too close not to see. Her other hand joined her first, wrapping around Keith’s as they strangled the stems of the flowers.

She didn’t let go for a long, long time. 

Chapter Text

“You know they aren’t coming for you.”

The captive remained unmoved. He stared straight ahead, the same way he had been for the last several quintants. When he wasn’t staring he was shouting, hurling words at Tyrxa that she didn’t understand, but from the tone she could guess they were curses. One of the most defiant subjects she’d had in quite some time, but she wasn’t concerned about it. She always did love a challenge. 

“It’s been a movement already. Surely with all of their Altean technology they should have located you by now, don’t you think? What could possibly be keeping them?”

Her prisoner’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise he didn’t react. Tyrxa continued her slow orbit around the chair where he was bound, keeping up her air of indifference-- you couldn’t have your subjects thinking that they were important. They’re much more likely to break when they’ve convinced themselves that their information isn’t of consequence, that it’s not worth suffering for. Such a tactic probably wouldn’t work on a Paladin of Voltron, but it never hurt. 

“Perhaps they crash landed,” she mused as she walked behind him. She let one hand drag over the back of his neck, smirking to herself when he gave an involuntary jolt. That was the way to go with this one: slowly and deliberately. “Perhaps they were intercepted by another cruiser.” She dragged her hand down his arm and around the elbow. “Or… perhaps they decided it would be easier to replace you.”

On the second to last word she dug her claws into his flesh, tearing through the prisoner uniform he wore and drawing blood. The prisoner let out a little grunt of pain, but still didn’t say anything. 

“So stubborn,” she purred as she drew back. The new wounds joined the collection of punctures that dotted over his arms from the last few quintants of interrogation. They were only a precursor, a warning of what was to come, and by now he knew that, exactly as Tyrxa wanted him to. “What feeds it, I wonder? Faith? Trust? A sense of security in your usefulness? Or just pure spite?”

Her claws dug in again, this time on the other arm, just above where the metal restraint clamped over his wrist. He winced again, but still refused to let anything pass his lips. 

“Maybe it’s none of those things.” Tyrxa straightened up and crossed the room to the control panel. “Maybe they are trying. Maybe your fellow Paladins are just that incompetent. That would be promising information for the Emperor, wouldn’t it?”

She had her back to the captive, but she could still feel his angry glare, boring into the back of her head. He hated it when she spoke badly of his comrades. 

“But the whys don’t really matter, do they? All that matters is that you’re stuck here with no way out. No escape, no reprieve, and I have all the time in the world to squeeze confessions out of you.” 

Tyrxa pressed a button on the control panel. The crackle of electricity filled the room, almost drowning out the noises escaping through the Paladins clenched teeth. He never knew which torture would follow the bloody precursor, and this one was new-- she’d been saving it, knowing from the Druids’ reports that the Terran species was particularly sensitive to shock treatments. 

After a few seconds she let the current cut off. In the absence of the lightning the Paladin’s heavy breaths were loud and clear, which made her smile as she turned back around. 

“Have anything you’d like to say?”

His hands were curled into fists, but he gave a slow, ponderous nod, still struggling to breathe. A flame lit inside Tyrxa’s belly-- this could be it. This could be the day she broke the Paladin. 

She took a few steps forward. Not close enough for her prisoner to spit at her or try to bite, but close enough to make her large frame as intimidating as possible. 

“Oh? What is it?”

His brow furrowed, his mouth slanted in a scowl. He clearly wasn’t happy with his decision, but it would get easier; once the dam has cracked, the floodwaters come that much more easily. Eventually he looked up, his eyes smoldering with rage. 

“You’re wasting your time,” he growled, much to Tyrxa’s annoyance. She stood up straight and turned back to the panel, ignoring him even as he continued to speak. “I’m never going to crack to you, and when the others get here, they’re going to kick your--”

Tyrxa stabbed her finger at the button again, and the Paladin’s words were cut off by a scream.

It didn’t matter. She had all the time she needed. 

The drones deposited him on the floor of his cell, and for several minutes Keith lay where he fell, too tired to move. Every muscle in his body ached. His wrists were burned to hell and back by the electrified metal restraints. Every few seconds some part of him would twitch, sending a cascade of pain responses through him like water ripples around a stone. 

He didn’t know how much longer he could do this. No amount of faith, trust, or pixie dust was going to stop his body from breaking, maybe beyond repair. 

Slowly, with much cringing and wincing, Keith managed to curl into a ball. He didn’t bother trying to reach out for Red like he had the last few days-- whatever this base had that cut him off was solid, and to keep trying to break through it would be a waste of energy that he couldn’t afford. There was nothing else he could do but conserve his strength and wait for the others. 

The others. Keith would be lying if he said he wasn’t afraid of being left behind. As much as he hated to admit it, the interrogator was right. The only thing fueling his fire was spite, fury at the Empire and Zarkon, not faith that his friends would find them or any kind of confidence that they needed him. Hell, most of them he couldn’t even call his friends without doubt. 

But he didn’t necessarily need to have faith in all of them. He trusted Shiro. He knew Shiro would do anything in his power to get Keith out of here. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t, but at least he knew that Shiro would try. 

He knew Shiro would try, and that was all the faith he needed. 

After a while, laying on the cold metal floor began to take its toll. So, despite the pain, Keith forced himself up and onto the slab that jutted out from the wall, the pitiful excuse for a bed that the Galra gave him. It wasn’t that much different from the floor, but Keith wasn’t ready to admit complete defeat yet. There would come a day when he was too hurt and tired to move from where the drones tossed him, but it wasn’t that day. 

Once settled, he fell into a doze, the closest thing to sleep that it was possible for him to get in such a place. It was restless, made choppy by short bursts of deep sleep and longer bursts of half-waking, where his dreams mixed with reality and he couldn’t keep his eyes open enough to tell the difference between the two. It wasn’t unusual for him to see shapes he thought were the other Paladins during those dreams, so he didn’t react when he thought he saw his cell door slide open. 

Tinny footsteps rang in his ears. A hand landed on his shoulder-- he almost groaned in despair, still too tired to even imagine going toe to toe with the interrogator again, but cut it off almost instantly. The drones couldn’t process his distress or mock him for it, but it was the principle of the thing. 

“Keith,” somebody hissed into his ear. “Wake up.”

Confused (none of the Galra here knew his name), Keith rolled over to face the person. All he could make out was a dim blob of white and green. 

“Pidge?” he mumbled, voice hoarse from screaming, and her hand squeezed his shoulder. 

“Yeah, it’s me. Can you walk?”

“Um, I don’t… I don’t know.” He blinked hard, trying to get his brain to think through the fog of exhaustion, but it just wasn’t working. “Probably?”

“Ok, let’s give it a shot. We don’t have a lot of time.” She moved her hand from his shoulder to his arm to help him up, only for Keith to let out a yelp when she pressed on the wounds there. “Sorry, sorry! Here, I’ll, um… are your hands ok?”

Keith nodded blearily. Pidge took both of his hands in hers and pulled him upright, then onto his feet. The room whirled around him, and he probably would’ve fallen right then if Pidge hadn’t crammed herself against his side, wrapping an arm around his torso to keep him braced. 

“Crap,” she muttered. “I’m way too small for this.”

For some reason, in his tired, wounded state, that made Keith laugh as the two of them staggered across the room towards the door. Pidge stuck her head out and looked both ways down the hall before continuing. 

“We’re gonna head to Green,” she informed him quietly. “The others will meet us outside.”

“What’re they doing?” asked Keith. 

“Checking for other prisoners. Red’s outside too-- she’ll probably want to torch this place once they’re done.”

“Me and her both.”

Pidge gave him a light squeeze. “You two can have fun with that after we’re done here.”

Keith smiled to himself. His ears were kind of ringing, making it harder to hear her, but the idea of having Red melt the whole station into a ball of slag was cheerful enough to keep him from collapsing until they made it to the hangar. 

He crumbled the second they stepped into Green’s cockpit. Pidge let out an exclamation and tried to hold him up, but all she did was soften the topple a little as they went down together. The impact made his bones ache, but Keith just leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He was safe now. Now he could truly rest.

“Oooooook,” said Pidge, sounding bemused. “You can sit there, I guess. I have to get us in the air.”

A distracted hum was Keith’s only answer. He could hear the chatter from the comms, all of the Paladins’ voices mixing, and the sound was soothing. It was possible that this was all another dream, that he’d wake up back in his cell with another day of defiance and pain ahead of him, but that was ok. Even if it wasn’t true now, the others would find him eventually. 

He had faith. 

Chapter Text

Keith didn’t notice that the sun was setting until he couldn’t see the carvings anymore. He cursed at his sketchbook as he flipped it shut; he could break out the lantern and keep transcribing the marks, but he shouldn’t. Traveling the desert was more dangerous by night, and he’d already made things harder for himself by losing track of time. He’d been doing that a lot lately. 

Shoving that particular thought from his mind, Keith quickly packed up his things. The strange energy that had drawn him out there was thickest inside the cave, and now it swarmed him, trying to pull him back, pull him further down into the system, begging him to find it. He wanted to, so badly his chest ached, but he couldn’t. He had to keep his routine, keep going home at night. That lonely little shack was all he had left of the world outside of the cave. If he stopped returning to it, who knows how far his mind would wander. 

So he ignored the pull. He was leaving the cave just as the sun dipped completely below the horizon; he clicked on the lantern and held it before him as he started the climb out of the canyon. Not much of an actual climb, but it was a hike to get back to where he left his hover, and he was tired. 

God, was he ever tired. It had been months since he left the Garrison, months since the news about Kerberos. Maybe even longer-- he’d abandoned crossing out the days on his calendar sometime in August. He hadn’t slept well a single night that entire time, even with the exhaustion of traveling to and from the cave every day, and he hadn’t exactly been eating well, either. He was out of money, so he had to be careful with it, and some days he just didn’t have the energy to devote to eating when he was putting all of it into the mysterious energy and the carvings on the cave walls. 

Twenty minutes after the sun set, Keith made it to the top of the canyon where his hover was waiting. It was coated in a thin sheet of sand, as always, which he absentmindedly brushed away with one hand as he tried to wrestle his lantern back into his pack with the other. Finally he succeeded and climbed aboard. The sky sparkled overhead with stars, but Keith did his damndest to ignore them as he revved the engine. He loved the stars, always had, but these days they reminded him too much of everything he’d lost. 

The desert was quiet at night. The hover was loud in comparison, filling up his hollow ears with sound. Loud enough to drown out the ringing. 

The shack was a dark shadow in the moonlight. From far away it was clear how small it was, how haphazard, and Keith bit his tongue to keep from remembering the house that used to stand in the same place. The old foundations could still be seen if you looked closely enough, which he never did. He was lucky that the well on the property was still functional, and that no one had ever come looking to buy the land-- then he’d really have no place to go. 

The hover kicked up dust as he pulled up to the building. Keith killed the engine, the thick blanket of silence immediately falling to smother him; he beat it back by singing, soft little scraps of songs he barely remembered as he hauled his gear back into the shack for the night, the squeaking of old floorboards and the whistle of the wind through bare rocks joining in the symphony. 

There was a larger lantern on the makeshift coffee table that Keith flicked on after setting his bag down. He was exhausted, hungry, covered in dirt, all things that he should address. But he didn’t. He just shook off as much of the dust on his jacket as he could, gulped down some water, got his sketchbook back out of his bag, and turned back to the corkboard hanging on the wall. 

It was pathetic. The red strings, half-thoughts scrawled on sticky notes, imagined energy readings, pictures of the cliffs and the cave and the carvings, and now these sketches, vague and blurry from the graphite being rubbed all over the page. He’d already photographed and catalogued every carving and mark in the cave, and now he was drawing them, in some desperate belief that in doing so he’d understand them. 

Sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the board, Keith opened the sketchbook to the page he’d begun that morning and began his painstaking comparison between sketch and photograph. The lion carving, still so strange in its geometric, almost mechanical design at the bottom of the cave wall. A lone figure above its head-- the drawings of humans (or what he assumed to be humans) weren’t nearly as detailed as the lion. Just a few lines, two arms, two legs, and a head. 

Then a smattering of dots, some larger than others, some with greater emphasis. There were several of these drawings among the carvings, all of them not quite the same. At first Keith had thought they were star maps, but when he compared the first of them to the stars among his father’s old books, they didn’t match. 

Then there was a carving of a comet, drawn with the same harsh angles and slanted lines as the lion. It crashed near the lion and its lone companion. The next was the lion again, looking down at a group of five humanoid figures. And that was it-- that was the last carving. 

Keith sighed and pushed his bangs back with one hand. The only conclusion he could possibly come to was that it was some sort of an origin myth. Visitors arriving from the stars. But that wasn’t the whole story, he could feel it. There was something else hidden here. Something to do with the lion. 

“Fuck,” he muttered aloud. “What am I doing?”

He was going crazy. That was the only explanation for why he kept doing this. Isolation wasn’t good for the human brain-- he’d been alone too long and he was starting to crack. Shiro wouldn’t want him to live like this, he’d want Keith to move on, heal, make something of himself, fulfill that potential he was always talking about. But it was too late to be a pilot, he’d ruined that already. And the thought of going back to society, of having a future… 

It just wasn’t in the cards for him. That much was clear. Maybe it was the isolation getting to him, but the only future he could see was going on as long as he could before letting the desert consume him. 

He turned back to his sketchbook and studied the carvings again. There wasn’t much left to translate, as much as this could be called translation, except those mosaics that looked like star maps. The first one hadn’t matched the modern cosmos, but maybe this latest one would? It was worth a shot. Not like he had anything better to do. 

It took him all night, comparing between star maps and the books his father had left behind and the stars he saw outside his window. But by the time the sun began to rise he was about seventy percent sure that it was a date. A date which, if he hadn’t lost it completely, was within this year. 

He had to know more. 

“Keith.”

He paused and turned to face Shiro. Coran, the strange Altean with the orange mustache, had just assigned him and Shiro their cabins and was leading the other kids down the hall towards theirs, explaining how to use the bathing and laundry facilities as they went. 

Shiro looked even more exhausted than Keith felt. His heart thumped fast despite it-- he still wasn’t sure if he believed this reality, where Shiro was alive and came back to him. Out of everything he’d seen in the last twenty four hours, that was the most unbelievable. 

“Yeah?”

“Once you’re cleaned up, would you mind if we talked?” A sad smile flickered across his face. “I get the feeling we have a lot to catch up on.”

Keith nodded eagerly, suddenly relieved that he didn’t have to be alone. “Yeah, I’ll knock on your door when I’m done.” 

Shiro smiled and nodded, and after another moment’s hesitation, they went separate ways. 

Keith rushed through his shower. He stalled for a few minutes after getting dressed, aware that he’d been quick and Shiro might need more time, but when he finally couldn’t stand it anymore and knocked on Shiro’s door he answered almost immediately. 

They sat side by side on the bunk (how convenient, that Alteans needed the same sleep needs that humans did), and for a while they didn’t say anything. Keith had effectively forgotten how social interaction worked, and Shiro seemed preoccupied by his prosthetic, bending the joints over and over and rolling his shoulder. 

“Does it hurt?” Keith blurted out, then froze. It probably wasn’t a good question to ask, maybe he was overstepping, maybe Shiro wasn’t ready to talk about it-- but Shiro smiled at him again. It was a tired smile, but a smile nonetheless. 

“Sometimes,” admitted Shiro with another roll of his shoulder. “Mostly it’s just… weird. I can move it and bend the fingers and everything but,” he demonstrated, twisting his wrist from side to side, “it doesn’t feel normal. It doesn’t feel like me.” 

“Hm.” Keith made to draw one of his knees to his chest, only to stop at the last moment. He was still wearing his boots-- out in the desert when it was just him, it hadn’t been a problem. But Shiro had always hated it when Keith put his shoes on the furniture. So he toed them off, saying, “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

Shiro shrugged and looked away. “Not specifically. It’s just been a long time, and I…” His eyes flicked up to Keith, surprisingly hesitant. He’d never known Shiro to be indecisive, but he was right: it had been a long time, and Shiro was different. They both were. 

The pause stretched out. For a minute it seemed like Shiro was going to abandon the sentence entirely, but then he let out a huff of frustration, probably at himself, and forced the words out. 

“I missed you, otouto.” 

Keith didn’t think. Something about how Shiro always said that word, like it was their secret, smashed any thoughts he had into splinters, and the next thing he knew Keith was throwing his arms around Shiro’s torso. 

Shiro inhaled sharply at the same time that Keith did. Everywhere they touched felt like fire, like all of his nerve endings were lighting up, and he could hear Shiro’s heart drumming away in his chest just as fast as Keith’s was. For a moment neither of them could speak; it was so overwhelming, Keith could barely breathe, but he would’ve flown to pieces if he tried to stop. 

Shiro drew in a long, shaky breath and let it out slowly. Keith instinctively copied the familiar pattern, trying to calm himself as his ears rang. He knew he was touch starved, how could he not be after living alone for almost a year, but it seemed that Shiro was just as bad. 

They sat there for a long time, clutching each other. It took a while, but slowly the tension began to bleed out of them both, and the heat died down to a comforting warmth. Shiro tilted sideways and sprawled out onto the bed, taking Keith down with him and letting out a blissful sigh. 

Keith closed his eyes and murmured, “I missed you too.” 

It always started with the lights. They were so bright, burning on the other side of his eyelids, the sunspots they left behind serving to disorient him as soon as the sedatives let him open his eyes. Then the sound-- sometimes the whirring of machinery, sometimes the roar of the arena crowd on the other side of the wall, sometimes the crackle of the witch’s magic-- and the sensation of cold metal against his skin. 

He didn’t want to fight again. He was so tired. He didn’t want to put on another show, pantomime blood lust for a crowd far more thirsty for it than himself, didn’t want to go back to the magicians to have his body knit back together again as slowly and painfully as possible. Maybe they’d take another chunk for themselves. Maybe they wouldn’t replace it that time. 

The rumbling of the crowd grew louder. In a few seconds he’d open his eyes, be blinded by the lights and the sand, then someone would haul him upright and shove him through the gate, and everything would descend into hell again. 

But something was different. He was… warm. Usually it was cold, unbearably so in his lonely cell. He only got warm during a fight. But now he was, somehow, and there was a gentle pressure against his sternum. Pressing, pressing, a quiet sound somehow making its way to his ears under the roar of the aliens in the arena stands. 

“Shiro. Shiro.”

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again the light was gone. It was dark and quiet, something soft against his back that took him a second to recognize. It was a bed, he was in a cabin, and that soft pressing was--

“Keith?”

He made a groggy sound of affirmation and ceased the slight shaking that had woken Shiro. They were still in Shiro’s bunk, both of them laying on their sides with their arms around each other, Keith letting his head rest against Shiro’s collarbone. 

“You’re ok,” he mumbled, still half asleep. “You’re ok.”

Shiro’s eyes abruptly filled with tears as he closed them again. 

“Yeah. I’m ok.” 

Chapter Text

War is hell.

They’d taught him that in school, of course. All three world wars, both civil wars, the revolution. The teachers drilled into their heads the mixed horror and boredom of trench warfare, just sitting in mud until your feet rotted away in between bursts of feeding yourself to a machine gun volley. The utter destruction of atomic weapons that could sear your shadow into the concrete and have it be the only thing left of you. The numbers of innocents killed by indiscriminately dropped bombs, the survivors left to scour the rubble to find their families piece by piece. After eighteen years of that, Keith thought he understood. War is hell. 

But you never understand something like that until you’ve lived it. And right then, at that moment, the only thought in Keith’s head was this is hell. 

Fighting on foot was so much worse than fighting in the Lions. Being planet side, in the midst of a full blown battle field, was so, so much worse than the skirmishes with drones and duels with Robeasts had ever been. 

Even through his helmet the noise was deafening. Rebel fighter jets screamed through the burnt orange sky overhead, chasing and being chased by Galra jets flown by drones, and every so often one would get blown out of the sky and crash with an impact that shook the earth. He was surrounded by guns and tanks, all firing ceaselessly, and somehow underneath all of that he could hear the shouts of the soldiers as they clashed. The comms were buzzing too as the Paladins called orders and responses to each other. The Castle hovered a few hundred feet above the surface to rain fire down on the invading Galra. 

Keith didn’t know exactly where he was in relation to everything else. Things were too chaotic, and he couldn’t think straight. It was punishingly hot inside his armor, the ground was slippery with blood, his arms ached from swinging his bayard, the rest of him from dodging attacks and taking impacts. So far nothing had managed to pierce the armor-- he could only pray that it would stay that way. 

Keith swung to the right and cleaved a drone in two. Motion flickered in his periphery and he drew his blade to swing the other way, and down went another. But he didn’t get his guard up fast enough, and a third combatant kicked him in the gut, knocking his breath from his lungs. They raised their blaster right as Keith yanked his knife out of the drone and pulled it up in an arc. 

The soldier got one shot off. It hit Keith’s visor, not going through it, luckily, but it did make a spider web crack spread out from the impact site, and Keith nearly retched as the air rushed in. Blood, guts, jet fumes, burned flesh and scorched metal; needless to say, it smelt bad. But he swallowed down the bile and reoriented himself, and that was when he realized his opponent was on the ground, screaming as blue Galra blood gushed from the stump of his wrist. 

It was a live soldier, a Galra, not a drone. Keith’s body acted before his brain could process the fact and drove his bayard into the man’s chest, cracking the chestplate in two like the shell of a crab. More blood gushed out around the blade, and Keith watched as his yellow eyes flickered and went gray. He felt sick again. 

“Princess!” Shiro yelled in his ear as he spun to face the next wave of drones. “We can’t keep doing this, we need to take out the cruiser!”

“I’m working on it,” Allura snapped back. “But you cannot leave the battlefield-- without you the city will be overrun before we can destroy the cruiser.”

“Let me take Green.” Pidge was breathing hard, each exhale pouring over her mic with muffled whoosh sounds. “I can cloak and try to hack the cruiser. That’ll at least keep it busy while the rest of you deal with the ground forces.”

“Fine, just do it quickly!”

Keith fought on. Soon he was shaking, and he knew that his body was on the edge of its endurance. But he had to keep going. There was no other choice. 

Wind buffeted him as a Galra jet flew over him, shockingly close to the ground. Something dropped out of it, landing about fifty feet from him, but then he had to turn his attention to another drone that was charging at him, guns blazing. He didn’t notice the white fog or the acrid smell of sulphur until he breathed in and his throat burst into flames. 

He choked and staggered a few steps. He managed to swing one of his blades and kill the drone, but the lump in his throat didn’t loosen from his coughing, and within seconds he was blinded by the tears that rose in response to the burning. 

Keith didn’t even get a chance to try and escape the gas cloud before he crumbled to his knees, both bayard and blade falling from his hands as he coughed and hacked. God, it was burning all the way down his throat, into his lungs, his eyes-- he couldn’t breathe. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t breathe. 

Through the ringing in his ears he heard a distant cry of his name. A few seconds later someone crashed into him, but instead of immediately putting a laser blast through his head, slung one of his arms over their shoulders and wrapped their other around his waist. He couldn’t see who it was, but the voice over the comms was Shiro… he thought. 

“Pidge, forget the cruiser, we need an extraction, now!”

“Shiro--” Allura tried to say, but was interrupted. 

“Not all of us, just Keith, his visor is busted and he got gassed.”

“I’m on my way,” said Pidge.

Keith wheezed and would’ve collapsed entirely if Shiro wasn’t holding him up. His ears were beginning to ring, the light darkening, but still Shiro hauled him to his feet, even as he gasped for air. 

“Come on, bud, we gotta move.”

He tried to make his legs move. Whether it actually worked, he wasn’t sure, and the next thing he knew Shiro was swinging him over Green’s lower jaw and into her mouth. The Green Lion clanged it shut and cool, untainted air rushed in. 

Keith stayed there, taking greedy gulps of it, but despite the change in air quality, he still couldn’t get the coughing to stop. His eyes still burned, as did his throat, and the longer the coughing went on the more it hurt, until he felt like he would actually cough up the lining of his esophagus. 

It felt like it went on forever. The dark tunnel returned, growing narrower, narrower. 

Suddenly Green slammed to a stop. Keith slid into her jaw with a clang that made pain shoot through his head. Some softer clangs rang through the metal before someone crashed down next to him and tore his helmet from his head. Keith instinctively tried to turn away, to put his back to them and curl into a protective ball, but the person kept a grip on his shoulder. 

There was some mumbling overhead that Keith couldn’t hear through the high pitched keening in his ears. Something was pressed to his face, around his mouth and over the bridge of his nose, and the euphoria of clean air came back ten fold. 

Keith’s whole body went lax. The burning was still there, and his body still wracked with coughs every few seconds, but he didn’t feel like he was about to choke to death any second, so he considered it a step up. 

“Lad?” someone said, their voice no longer filtered through the helmet or the comms. “Can you hear me?”

Coran. Keith managed a small nod, and the person who had him propped up against their legs squeezed his shoulder. Probably Pidge. 

“Good, excellent. Can you open your eyes?” Keith groaned, and Coran added, “Just for a moment.”

Incredibly reluctantly, Keith peeled his eyes open. The harsh lighting of the hangar immediately sent jabs of pain through his eyes, but blocking some of it was the silhouette of Coran, the ends of his mustache long enough to be their own distinctive shape on either side of his face. 

“Good,” Coran praised. “Well done.”

“Coran,” Pidge said quietly. 

“I know. Come along, Number Four, let’s get you more comfortable.” Together, he and Pidge lifted his shoulders and made Keith sit upright. The world spun and blurred as church bells of agony rang in his skull-- for a moment he whited out completely. When he came back he was breathing hard, and his left hand was closed so tightly around one of Pidge’s that it ached. 

“Sorry,” was what he tried to say. It was probably too slurred to be understandable. 

“You’re doing great, Keith,” answered Pidge. “Just a little further.” 

Somehow, with Keith fading in and out of reality, they got him out of Green’s mouth. He was lucid enough to tell when two pairs of hands became one, and he heard the roar of the Lion’s engines as Pidge took off again. By that point Coran had him outside the hangar, propped up against the hallway wall, the oxygen mask still in place. 

“There we go, that’s better, isn’t it?”

It was. The burning was starting to lessen, and a few minutes later he was finally able to blink away the last of the tears and take in his surroundings again. 

“How are you feeling?”

Keith swallowed, cleared his throat, and rasped, “That sucked.”

Coran laughed, but it sounded strained-- right, the battle was still going. He wouldn’t be able to go back down there, even he could tell his condition wasn’t good enough, but that didn’t mean he had to be a burden. 

“Go on,” he said with a wave of his hand. “I’ll stay here. Go help the others.”

Coran hesitated, just for a split second, then gave him a thin smile and a gentle pat on the shoulder. “I won’t be long. Don’t try to move around too much.” Then he was gone, running down the hall back towards the bridge, already chattering into the comms that Keith could’t hear. 

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. 

The battle lasted four more vargas. By the time they got back to the Castle Shiro felt like death warmed over, aching and covered in so many bruises he probably looked like an experimental piece of modern art. Coran herded them all into the infirmary for a look over, which Shiro was shocked to find empty-- even the pods. 

“Where’s Keith?” he asked as the Paladins began removing their armor for the Castle to repair. “Is he alright?” 

Coran bobbed his head, preoccupied with the medical scanner. “Yes, Number Four is just fine. A couple of hours with some clean oxygen got him right as rain, as you humans say. If he listened to me he’ll be in his bunk, but I assume that he didn’t listen to me, so you should probably check the lounge first.”

That didn’t quite pull a laugh out of Shiro, but it did get a tired smile. 

Coran flittered and fussed over them for about half a varga more, giving them various bandages and creams to put on their bruises, and a brace for Lance’s sprained wrist. Then Allura dropped by to inform them that she was going to be signing alliance treaties with the planet that evening. After that Shiro was finally able to shower off all of the sweat and blood and dirt and put on some comfortable clothes. 

Once all of that was done, he made his way to the lounge. 

Keith was there, as Coran predicted, curled up on the sofa with a blanket and a tablet propped against his knees. He turned when he heard the door open, and even though his face was still a bit tired and pale, a cheerful enough smile grew on his lips when he saw Shiro. 

“Hey, you’re back.”

“Yeah.” Shiro flopped down onto the couch right beside Keith, slinging his right arm over his knees. “Healthy and intact, for the most part. How are you doing?”

Keith leaned back against the arm of the sofa. “I’m ok. Throat hurts a little bit, but Coran says I should be fine.”

“Good,” Shiro said, then frowned. “How did your visor get broken to begin with?”

Keith’s eyes flickered away to a corner, his expression growing solemn. “A soldier got a lucky hit. A-- a living one, not a drone.”

Shiro cringed. He’d had to fight a few of those during the battle, too, and they were always harder than the drones. Even for someone like Shiro, so used to spilling blood on arena sand. 

“Did you have to kill him?” he asked softly, and after a moment’s hesitation, Keith nodded. 

There was a short pause. Keith’s eyes were unfocused, staring at something in the distance, so Shiro gave him time to think about what he wanted to say. But the seconds ticked by, and Keith wasn’t saying anything.

After about a minute of waiting, Shiro prodded gently, “Keith?”

“Hm?” Keith’s head snapped back up. “What?” His eyes were focused again, but Shiro wasn’t sure if he was all there. 

Well, it had been a long battle. He was probably just tired. 

“Nothing.”

“M’k.” Ignoring the tablet that was still in his lap, Keith laid his head back and closed his eyes. Shiro watched his chest rise and fall, finding a certain calm in the motion. When Shiro had found him on the battlefield, hacking up a lung and grasping at his chest, he almost panicked right on the spot. 

Sometimes it was easy to forget that they were in a war. But reality always came back around to remind them. 

Something pulled Shiro out of his reverie. At first he didn’t know what it was; there was no one else in the room, and Keith seemed to have fallen asleep, but after listening closely for a few seconds he finally caught the sound again. It was a rasp, rising and fading with the tempo of Keith’s breaths. 

His own breath catching in his throat, Shiro shook Keith awake. It took longer than it should have, and when his eyes finally opened they were glazed and confused. 

“What?” he mumbled hoarsely, followed by a few coughs. “What is it?” The coughing began again before Shiro could answer, sounding worse by the second, and Keith hunched his shoulders upward. Shiro immediately grabbed his arm and pulled him all the way upright, but the coughing didn’t subside-- Shiro felt his shoulders shaking when he pulled Keith under his arm for the second time that day. 

“Keith?” he said as the other boy doubled over his lap. “Are you ok?”

One of Keith’s hands grasped at his shirt, and Shiro mentally smacked himself. Yes, Shirogane, ask questions of the person coughing their lungs up. Genius. 

Shiro rubbed his back up and down. “Ok, just take it easy. Do you need to go to the infirmary?”

The coughing paused for a moment. Keith started to shake his head, only to choke again. There were a few wet hacks from him, and when Shiro looked down, Keith’s free hand was spattered with red. 

“Fuck,” Shiro hissed, and wrapped an arm around Keith’s middle in a mirror of the hold from the battlefield. “We’re going to the med bay, now.”

Keith didn’t argue-- or maybe he just couldn’t. Either way he let Shiro pull him to his feet, and this time was able to stay more or less upright so long as Shiro steered him. The coughing continued all the way to the infirmary, but Shiro kept his eyes forward, sternly refusing to check if they were leaving a trail of blood on the hallway floor. 

Coran popped out of the infirmary before they even got there. He must have heard them coming, which was good, because right as he reached them Keith’s legs gave out on him, almost pulling Shiro down to the floor with him when they went. 

“He’s coughing up blood,” Shiro said as Coran looped Keith’s other arm over his shoulder. He was aware that he sounded on the verge of hysteria, but he didn’t have nearly the amount of brainpower it would require to care. 

Coran though, was calm. Grim, but calm. “Get him inside,” was all he said at first, and after the two of them had bodily dragged Keith through the door, “Put him on a cot. Keep him sitting up-- I need to get the scanner.”

Shiro did his best to follow instructions. The coughing had finally stopped as Shiro sat both of them down on a cot, keeping Keith’s back pressed against his chest to keep him upright, but the rasp he could hear echoing through him with every heaving breath wasn’t better. His head was tilted downwards-- Shiro wanted to tilt it up against his shoulder, stroke his hair and tell him everything was going to be fine, but he didn’t dare risk it when he was coughing up fluids. 

Coran’s shoes tapped against the metal floor as he rushed up to the two of them. He stood there for a moment, tense, then scowled at whatever the scanner had said and tossed it onto the cot beside them. 

“Quiznack. His lungs are inflamed-- I saw some of it on the scan earlier, but I thought he would be able to heal. Instead he’s developed some kind of chemically induced pneumonia. For the sake of the Ancestors, why are your human bodies so damnably fragile?” 

It was a rhetorical question, babbled out as Coran practically flew across the room to a pod and began punching buttons. Shiro closed his eyes and tried to stay calm. 

He could still feel Keith’s breathing. In and out. Stuttery and hoarse as it was, he was still breathing. 

Coran came back to them. “Help me get him in the pod.” 

Heart in his throat, Shiro did as he asked. Keith seemed completely out of it; he didn’t move or struggle as he was lifted into the pod, and his eyes never focused. Not until the second right before the glass closed. 

Shiro tried to smile and hoped it was enough. 

When Keith came out of the pod, he half expected to immediately fall back to the floor and continue trying to eject his lungs from his body via his mouth. He didn’t-- there was no lump in his throat, no burning sensation, and as he took a few testing breaths, it didn’t feel like he was trying to breathe through gravel anymore. 

“There’s our Red Paladin,” Coran exclaimed, alerting Keith to the fact that he was surrounded on all sides by his joyful teammates half a second before they descended on him in a feeding frenzy of hugs. 

“You have to stop doing this to me,” Shiro said, resting his chin on the top of Keith’s head. “I have too much gray hair already.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” Keith protested. “Coran said I was fine, how was I supposed to know?”

“Oh, man,” said Lance with a dramatic groan. “We’re gonna have to reset the ‘number of days since last near death’ sign again.”

“Why do we even have that sign?” asked Pidge. Keith was pretty sure those were her scrawny arms locked around his stomach. 

“As a beacon of hope, Pigeon.”

Keith smiled to himself and pressed his cheek against Shiro’s chest. 

War is hell. But even hell can’t burn forever. 

Chapter Text

Keith was ten years old the first time he got heat exhaustion. His father always warned him about staying out too long, always reminded him to bring his water bottle when he went out, but he was only one man, and he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head. That day he was paying bills, trying to figure out how to pay them all with only one income, and didn’t notice Keith’s water bottle sitting forgotten on the coffee table when he left. 

Keith started sweating the moment he stepped off the porch, but he barely noticed. He’d grown up in the desert, he was used to the sun baking his skin and soaking his clothes with sweat. 

The sun was particularly harsh that day, with not a cloud in sight, and the cliffs that his dad sometimes took him climbing on cast long shadows across the landscape. Keith basked in it for a moment (the sun always felt nice after being inside, even if it was warm inside, too) before selecting one of his many footpaths and setting off at a jog. 

Dad always told him to stay within sight of the house, but in Keith’s mind “within sight” was up for negotiation. The path he picked was the one that led farthest from the house, zigging and zagging between the bushes and cacti until only the second story roof was visible, to the little clearing where Keith worked on his secret projects. 

It wasn’t much, just a patch of bare ground enclosed by thin, prickly desert bushes. A single mesquite tree grew in it, and next to it was a large granite boulder with a slight overhang at the top. Not large enough to provide Keith with any shade, but it sometimes served as refuge for smaller creatures.

That was what he found when he arrived-- barely visible in the shade, he was able to make out the outline of a lizard. It was tiny, with beady black eyes and brownish-tan scales, and instantly his previous plan of practicing his sword fighting went right out the window. 

Very carefully, as quietly as he could, Keith took a few steps in the direction of the boulder. The lizard didn’t budge, so he took another, and another, and when he was within a few feet of the reptile’s hiding place, laid down on his stomach. 

It wasn’t exactly comfortable. The ground was hot, and the sharp granite gravel dug into his belly, but it couldn’t be helped. This was his tradition-- whenever he saw a lizard, he had to watch. Watch and wait. His dad always said he was too impatient, and this was how he intended on fixing it. It didn’t usually go his way, but this was it, he could feel it. Today was the day the lizard would move first. 

Keith licked his lips and swung his feet in the air, unable to keep completely still. The lizard stared back at him with its black eyes, and its head twitched ever so slightly to the side before freezing again. 

Time ticked by excruciatingly slowly, as it always did during these practice sessions. Keith bore it as well as he could, ignoring the sweat that rolled down his spine and the ants that crawled up his arms, trying to keep purely focused on the lizard. But as the minutes passed, the lizard still didn’t move an inch. 

It’s not fair, Keith thought grumpily to himself. He’s sitting in the shade. 

He had no idea how long he laid there. Long enough to beat his old record, certainly. Long enough that his throat began to ache when he swallowed and his tongue felt sticky, and his eyelids began to sag against the bright glare of the sun. But he wouldn’t move. This time, he was going to win. 

“Keith!”

Keith jumped and looked over his shoulder; out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lizard’s tiny shadow as it took advantage of the opportunity and scurried away. 

“Dang it,” he huffed as he climbed to his feet, but as soon as he was upright the disappointment was washed away by the sudden realization of how hot he was. It swept over him like a wave, and even though he was hot and not cold, he shivered. 

“Keith!” his father called again. “Time to come in!”

Right, Dad was calling. Which way was home again? Keith rubbed his eyes with his fists to clear the blurriness. It didn’t help much, but it was enough for him to find the beginning of his path. 

He went much more slowly on the way back. His legs felt like they were made of stone, and his stomach was starting to feel upset, like it did when he threw up. He hoped he didn’t throw up. He hated that. 

“Keith! Where are you?” Dad was starting to sound worried, so Keith tried to go a little bit faster. 

When he emerged from the underbrush, all Keith could really see was the shape of their house, with a dark figure standing in front of it, one foot off of the porch. He stalled there, suddenly dizzy, and a moment later Dad saw him and shouted his name. 

He rushed over to Keith and bent down to his level, grasping him by the shoulders. It wasn’t until he had that support that Keith realized that he’d been swaying. 

“Dad,” he said in a clumsy voice. “I don’t feel good.”

“I bet you don’t,” his father answered, the words joking but the tone concerned. “You’re heat sick. You forgot your water bottle, didn’t you?”

Did he? He couldn’t remember. “Sorry.” 

Dad let out a breath and ruffled his hair. “It’s ok, bud. Let’s get you inside.” Then, even though he was always saying Keith was too big for it now, he stooped and lifted Keith off of the ground. Keith draped his arms around his neck and pressed his forehead to his father’s shoulder. His skin felt cool in comparison to Keith’s, even though the rest of his body heat was nearly unbearable. 

His father carried him back into the house. There was a moment of bliss when they first stepped inside, when the air conditioning blew cold air over his skin, only for all of the sweat on him to go cold and leave him shivering. He made a little sound of discomfort and got another hair ruffle in return. 

“I know, buddy. What do you want first, clean clothes or water?”

“Water,” Keith croaked immediately, suddenly aware of how his throat burned. “Please.” 

“Alright.” He carried Keith into the kitchen and set him down on the counter before hurrying to fill a glass of water. For once in his life Keith sat still, too dizzy to dream of moving. When he returned Keith grasped the glass with both hands and started gulping it down, not caring when some sloshed over the sides, until Dad put one hand on the back of his neck and the other on the glass, gently pulling away. Keith whined, and his father rubbed his back. 

“I know, I know, but you have to go slow or you’ll get even sicker.” 

Keith, too sick to argue, just leaned against his father’s chest, fisting his hands into his shirt. Dad set the glass aside and returned the hug, cradling him like he was a little kid again. 

“Do I have to go to the doctor?” 

“Probably not,” his father answered, running his fingers through Keith’s hair. “You’ll just have to take it easy for a few days. Which means less running around, hotshot.”

“Mmmm.” The initial heat wave was faded, leaving Keith with goosebumps crawling up his arms. His father noticed. 

“Let’s go get you changed,” he paused to drop a kiss on the top of Keith’s head, making him giggle, “little dust devil.” 

The second time he got heat exhaustion, he was eighteen and on his own, living in what he could salvage of his childhood home. It had been a few months since he left the Garrison (he’d lost track of exactly how many), and it was fair to say that the isolation was starting to get to his head a little bit. Why else would he be climbing all over the cliffs, searching for whatever was causing the strange energy that had found a home in his chest? 

He had made sure to bring water with him. He wasn’t stupid. He had, however, underestimated how easily his brain disconnected from his body when he was focused on something, which resulted in Keith not paying attention to the passage of time until he noticed how dark it was getting. That unpleasant yank back to reality started a chain reaction of realizations: he was thirsty, he was hot, he was sunburned, he was hungry, he had no water left in his bottle, it was getting dark, and he was three miles away from home.

“Shit,” he hissed, smacking himself on the forehead. “Fucking brilliant, Kogane.”

It wasn’t until he got back to his hover and the dizziness started to set in that he figured out how badly he’d fucked up. 

Well, at least there’s no buildings to crash into. 

It took him a long time to get home. He had to go slowly, being careful not to crash or to get lost, which was no easy feat when his head felt like it was full of cotton. But eventually he got back to his lonely little shack, nearly fell off the hover while dismounting, and stumbled inside without unloading any of his gear. 

There was a gallon jug of water next to the front door. Keith snatched it up and drank greedily, thinking of nothing besides soothing his dry throat, only to regret it three minutes later when he staggered back out onto the porch and heaved it all up again, wasted into the desert sand. 

When it was over he slumped against the railing, breathing hard. The desert was utterly silent around him-- not even the wind was blowing. Suddenly his eyes began to burn, and before he knew it he was crying. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d cried since coming back out here. What was the point in holding it in, when no one was around to see? So he let himself cry, and when he finally felt like he could stand without the world spinning off of its axis, went back inside. 

The next few days were difficult. His shack didn’t have AC, so the best he could do was put his fan in front of the bed/couch, dump all the blankets on the floor, and try not to drink too quickly. The loneliness was so much worse when he was sick. Especially like this, it was impossible to avoid thoughts of his dad, or of Shiro-- even when he slept he saw them in his dreams, but never all the way there. They just drifted, pale as ghosts, and always just out of reach. 

It took three days for him to recover enough to start leaving the house again. 

He was much more careful after that. 

The third time was on the space whale. 

As the name would imply, the space whale was really, really fucking weird. The biome on the back of it could only be described as such in the loosest of terms; the parts of it that weren’t bare rock were forests that were similar to a temperate forest back on Earth, but whatever plants that grew there were somehow adaptable to the crazy weather swings they got as the whale floated about in the Quantum Abyss. One day it would be freezing cold and raining ice sideways; the next would be blazing hot and dry as a bone; the one after they’d have a hurricane. 

That day was both hot and humid, much to Keith’s displeasure. Humidity was always worse than just dry heat-- in the desert you might feel like a clay pot being fired in a kiln, but at least you weren’t sticky-- and it was possibly the worst day it could’ve been for that kind of weather. He and Krolia were on their way back to the cave after an overnight hunting expedition, the two of them walking single file through the forest with pounds of meat and hides on their backs, the wolf pup trailing along at Keith’s heels. 

To a certain extent, the Blade suits were designed to adjust to temperature. Keith was much cooler walking around in this than he would’ve been in his Paladin armor, but that didn’t change how thick the air was with moisture, and how sweat gathered under his bangs and on the back of his neck, unable to evaporate. And this deep in the forest wind was practically impossible, so there was little to no relief from the smothering heat. 

Keith knew what was happening the second he started feeling nauseous. For a little while he tried to deny it, telling himself it was just something he ate or some kind of space flu, but when the ground started tilting under his feet he had to face reality. He was getting sick, and they were still a good mile or so from their cave. 

Well, that was just too bad. He wasn’t about to let himself falter or slow, not in front of Krolia. If his time in space had taught him anything it was that he was disposable, that people would gladly carry on without him if he became a liability, and no matter what she said to the contrary, Krolia had already proven she was willing to leave him if their mission demanded it. 

If he wanted to survive, he had to keep up. 

“Keith?”

He blinked and found that Krolia had stopped walking, watching him with a concerned expression-- he must’ve zoned out. 

“Yeah?” Keith shook his head, trying to clear it, but all it got him was more sickening dizziness. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

“I asked if you were alright,” she said with a frown. “You’re flushed.”

Keith shifted the load on his back, grimacing at the feeling of his suit sticking to the skin. “‘M fine. Just hot.”

She didn’t look convinced, and started to say, “Maybe we should take a break,” only for Keith to shake his head vigorously again. 

“No, it’s fine. We should get back, it’ll be cooler in the cave anyway.”

For a moment Krolia just stood there, looking at him. Keith did his best to appear unbothered, and eventually she turned back to the path, though it was obvious she wasn’t completely buying Keith’s act. 

They went on for another ten minutes or so without another word. Keith’s focus shrank to his feet: first one, then the other, a step, followed by another step, don’t trip, don’t fall, just keep going forward, forward, forward. Don’t screw it up, don’t fall behind, keep going keep going keep going. 

The forest became nothing but a green swirl, and Keith had just enough time to curse at himself before he unbalanced completely and toppled sideways to the ground. The wolf pup let out a yelp of alarm and teleported a few feet away, the furthest he could manage so far, while Krolia’s footsteps thundered through the underbrush. 

“Keith!” 

Even with everything spinning, Keith recognized her face as she leaned over him. He closed his eyes and turned his head. 

“I’m ok. I’m fine. I just need-- need a second.” He pressed his lips together, trying to ignore the nausea rising in his throat-- he was not going to throw up in front of Krolia. No fucking way. 

“Keith,” she said again, more softly this time, and put a gentle, hesitant hand on his shoulder. “What’s going on?”

He ground his teeth. “Nothing. Keep going, I can catch up.” Please please please. 

“Absolutely not. Something is obviously wrong, and I’m not going another step until we know what it is.” That was her stubborn voice, her commander voice, the “shut up and trust me” voice. He’d become rather familiar with it in the last few months, which was how he knew that any further resistance would be futile. 

Keith managed to open his eyes, but still didn’t look at Krolia’s face, too scared of what he might see there. Cool disinterest, like Kolivan? Irritation and frustration like Shiro? Or tired disappointment, like Allura? Any of them would break him. 

“It’s-- it’s just the heat. Too much of it can make humans sick.” 

“What do we need to do?” He couldn’t decipher anything from her voice. She just sounded… determined. 

“Get home,” Keith answered, desperately hoping it didn’t sound as whiny to her as it had to him. “I just need to rest. Cool down.”
“We can make that happen. Can you stand?”

Against his better judgement, he nodded. Krolia grasped his forearm and hauled him up to sitting. Static fuzzed in front of his eyes, his stomach flipped, and Keith barely managed to throw off his pack before vomiting into the bushes. 

God damn it. 

“Oh, Keith.” 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he gasped before heaving again. He felt the cool brush of her fingertips against his forehead and flinched, but all they did was smooth his sweaty hair back from where it was sticking along his brow and cheekbones. 

“It’s alright,” she said, very quietly. A low rumble began to roll out of her throat, and inexplicably Keith’s anxiety died down. It didn’t vanish, but he felt less like he was actively panicking, which made it easier for Krolia to move closer and wrap an arm around his shoulders. “Tell me when you’re ready to try again.”

He took a few bracing breaths, then, “Ok, I’m good.”

Slowly, Krolia hauled him back to his feet. It was close, but Keith didn’t vomit again, and was able to take some of his own weight. Krolia was pressed close, and for a half second he remembered what this exact thing had felt like with his father. He banished that thought as quickly as he could. 

“What about my pack?” he asked, gesturing half-heartedly at it. 

“I’ll come back for it later,” was Krolia’s answer. She started to turn away from it, but Keith stalled and held her back. 

“Other animals will smell it. They’ll come looking.”

Krolia just shrugged. “Good day for them, then.”

He had to accept defeat. He let Krolia lead him away. 

It took another half an hour of schlepping through the forest before they returned to their cave. Krolia immediately made Keith lay down on his improvised leaf bed, and the wolf pup ran over to him to lather his face with kisses. Despite how shitty he was feeling, Keith managed a laugh and scratched the animal behind his ears. 

For the next little while Keith lay there with the wolf, listening to Krolia puttering around the cave as she started the curing process for the things they had gathered, floating somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. He was beginning to slip fully towards sleep when Krolia knelt down beside him. 

“Turn over,” she said quietly, touching his shoulder, and Keith obediently rolled onto his back, which gave the wolf the opportunity to snuggle against his neck. 

Keith nearly started crying when she set a cool, wet cloth against his forehead. 

“Will this help?”

Keith bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. 

“Good.” Her other hand came up and began carding through his hair, that same rumbling beginning to fill the cave, and he lost the fight. 

Krolia didn’t say anything about the tears running over his temples. She just sat there and purred for him until he fell asleep, and for the first time in a long time, Keith felt warm, cared for, and safe. 

Chapter Text

Aboard the Castle of Lions, the line between science and magic was often blurred. The Lions were crafts of genius engineering, but their ability to get into their Paladins’ heads and bond with them was unexplainable. The Castle ran its healing pods and particle barriers on a Balmera crystal, and Allura controlled it by manipulating her own life force. Then of course there were Haggar and her druids, who regularly drained planets dry and liked to chase people around with lightning shooting from their fingertips. 

Maybe it was really all science, just complex and unknown to humanity, but in Keith’s mind, at a certain point you may as well just call it magic and move on with your life. After all, what difference was there between a Robeast and a plain old monster aside from the metal bits? What difference was there between a weblum and Godzilla? Hell, his Marmora dagger transformed into a long blade when he willed it because he’d “unlocked” its abilities after a spirit journey/hallucination/cult induction thing. 

So when they stumbled across the derelict ship and Hunk immediately declared it haunted, he didn’t argue. 

Pidge, ever the scientist, made a skeptical face. “You’ve watched too many movies. It’s just an empty ship, floating around.” She gestured towards the screens at the image of the ship-- small, compared to the Castle, but bigger than the Black Lion. It was completely dark, no light from any engines or interior lights, and various cut wires and chunks of its hull floated behind it, still trapped in its gravity. “We haven’t even looked inside yet.” 

“And we shouldn’t!” Lance declared. “I’m with Hunk on this one; don’t you remember that time the Castle tried to kill us all?”

“That wasn’t a ghost,” Pidge argued back, “just a virus from Sendak’s corrupted Balmera crystal.”

“Tomato, tomahto. But I don’t feel like getting thrown out of an airlock again.”

“Almost thrown out of an airlock,” Keith said, just to see the annoyed look on Lance’s face. 

“Enough,” said the Princess before Lance could respond. “Pidge is correct. Regardless of any threats, we should investigate. There’s a distress beacon activated somewhere on the ship-- there might be survivors.”

“Oh, man,” said Hunk. 

With a fond shake of his head, Shiro finally spoke up. “Come on, guys, let’s go get suited up. The longer we wait, the longer it takes.”

Lance groaned and Hunk made some anxious noises, but nevertheless they all followed Shiro off the bridge, leaving Allura and Coran to supervise from the Castle. The jokes about meeting a ghost flew back and forth as they changed into their armor, accompanied by snarky replies from Pidge and occasional chuckles from Shiro. 

Keith didn’t say much. He wasn’t that worried about their little job-- there was the risk of physical danger, as there always was, but ghosts and spirits weren’t high on his ‘threats to monitor for’ list. If they did run into something on the ship, defining whether or not it was supernatural or just alien wouldn’t help them deal with it, would it? 

By the time they were suited up and ready to go, Allura had maneuvered the Castle as close to the other ship as she could without squishing it. The Paladins gathered at the port side airlock, and as they waited for the chamber to depressurize, Allura’s voice came over the comms. 

“I scanned for lifeforms, and there doesn’t appear to be any. But that doesn’t mean you should let your guards down.”

“Roger that,” answered Shiro, and Keith mentally prepared himself to see some carnage. Whatever had caused the ship to become space junk, it probably wasn’t going to be pretty. 

The airlock door clicked and hissed as it slid open. One by one they kicked off from the floor and out into the star-speckled void, using short bursts from their jetpacks to keep themselves on course as they approached the derelict. 

“Man, it’s even creepier up close,” said Hunk in a despairing moan. Keith could agree on that front-- there was something eerie about the darkened portholes and the hanging open cargo bay door. The whole thing looked like a greyed out husk, utterly hollow inside like discarded insect shells. 

“At least it’s smallish,” Pidge said. “Won’t take long to look through it.”

Shiro was the first to reach the open door. He held onto the edge and waited for the rest of them to gather around before saying, “Stay sharp, guys. We don’t know what we’re going to see in there.”

“Thanks Shiro,” Lance said snarkily, “That makes me feel so much better.”

Keith rolled his eyes, and with a single push, became the first person to enter the ship. 

The cargo bay was gray and empty, save for a few metal crates, suspended in empty space due to the lack of gravity. It was a bit disorienting, not being able to tell which surface was the floor and which was the ceiling, but activating the flashlight on his suit let him see the three different exits, presumably leading to other parts of the ship. So far there was no evidence to tell them what had happened, or how long ago. 

“Looks like we’re going to have to split up,” Shiro said. Keith made a face to himself that Shiro probably couldn’t see. 

“You sound like an episode of Scooby-Doo.”

Shiro came floating over Keith’s head and stopped himself against the opposite wall. When he looked down, it was with a cheeky grin. 

“That was the idea.”

“Lance and Hunk are definitely Shaggy and Scooby.” Pidge landed on the same wall as Shiro, poised over a panel with a bunch of scribbled letters on it. Keith couldn’t read it, but Pidge didn’t even try, she just held up her gauntlet and scanned it for translation. 

Lance, somewhere behind him, made an offended sound. “Excuse you, I’m obviously Daphne.”

“But that would make Keith Shaggy,” Hunk argued. “That’s so wrong. No offense, Keith.”

Keith, who didn’t particularly care, answered, “None taken.”

Pidge’s gauntlet beeped. “Ok, the sign says that the middle hall goes to the bridge, the left goes to the engine room, and the right goes to crew quarters.”

“Hunk, why don’t you and Lance take the engine room,” Shiro said in that special way he had that made it sound more like a suggestion than an order. “Pidge can take the bridge.”

“You should come with me, Shiro. The writing isn’t Galran according to the translator, but your arm might be able to power up the controls enough for me to run a diagnostic.”

Shiro glanced down at Keith. “Will you be alright on your own?”

He waved a dismissive hand and twisted towards the right hallway. “I’ll be fine.”

“Alright, let’s get it done.”

With a brief burst from his jetpack, Keith propelled himself slowly into the hallway. It ended almost immediately in a T to the left and right, with two visible doors on each side. One was wide open, one closed, and the other two partially open. It was one of those that caught his attention-- there was a red light behind the door, flashing slowly and casting a shadow across the opposite wall. That looked like a distress signal if ever he saw one, so he pointed himself in that direction. He’d only just reached it when his visor suddenly lit up. 

The flash of light made him jolt and almost ricochet off the door, expecting to see a pop up warning of his impending death; instead it just zeroed in on the tiniest, thinnest thread that had apparently gotten snagged across his helmet, and Keith let out a half irritated, half relieved sigh. 

Of course there would be spider webs in the creepy abandoned ship. Of course there would be spiders, or at least spider like creatures, capable of surviving in the empty vacuum of space. Because why the hell not? 

Keith wiped it away with one hand and went back to his objective. 

The door was a sliding one, like the ones on the Castle, and only open a couple of inches. Not enough for Keith to see through, but enough to get his fingers in, and without power to keep it closed it gave easily, letting him push it all the way to the side to grant him entry. The whole room was filled with the red, pulsing like a heartbeat. The few pieces of furniture in the room painted black shadows. 

Keith summoned his bayard to his hand before proceeding. Just in case. 

The light seemed to be coming from a far corner, tucked behind a bed that had been bolted to the floor with all of its covers strapped down.  He went in slowly, using only a gentle push against the doorway to move him forward, and kept his bayard at the ready as he drifted around the edge of the bed. 

Keith couldn’t hold in the noise of disgust he made when he finally got a look. There was a beacon, alright, a little white box with a surprisingly bright light at the tip of the antenna. It was floating amidst a vaguely humanoid shape of red, crystalline shards, some of them stuck in large chunks that orbited around each other and the remote in their own microgravity fields. 

Purposefully looking at the beacon and not at the crystals, Keith activated his comms. 

“Hey, Allura, I think I found the distress beacon.”

“Oh, excellent!” said the Princess, making Keith cringe at her eagerness. “Are there survivors?”

“Not really. There’s a… I think it was a body, at some point.”

“Oh, God,” groaned Hunk, sounding nauseous. 

“I knew we shouldn’t have come in here,” said Lance. 

“Do bodies decompose in space?” Pidge blurted out. That question, at least, Keith could answer. 

“No. It’s just a lot of frozen stuff, kinda shaped like a person. Like a corpse slushie.”

“Keith!” Lance said immediately. “You’re gonna make Hunk hurl in his suit again!”

“I’m fine,” Hunk said, very unconvincingly, while Pidge gave a few fascinated murmurs. 

“Don’t get too close to it, Keith. It could be irradiated.” 

He was glad to obey Shiro’s order. He wasn’t generally squeamish, but there was something about the scene that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Maybe it was the loneliness of it-- a sole survivor, huddled behind a bed, clutching a distress beacon until whatever it was that killed them came along. Regardless, he would feel much better back in the cargo bay with the others. 

Allura thwarted that hope. “Keith, before you go, do you think you could retrieve the beacon? We may be able to pull some data from it.”

Keith shuddered all the way down to his toes at the idea of reaching into that vortex of frozen blood and organs, but there wasn’t anything for it. The Princess wanted the beacon, so the beacon she shall have. 

He dismissed his bayard, then with the gentlest of pulses from his jetpack, inched closer to the cloud. The beacon was slowly orbiting one of the larger chunks, and while Keith waited for it to come back around to him, he couldn’t help staring in morbid fascination. The frozen particles were so fine-- when people talked about space dust, was this what they meant? 

For a moment he thought he saw something different in the red, the slightest speck of black clinging to the ice, but when he blinked and looked again, it was gone. Probably just the light from the beacon casting weird shadows. Then the beacon came back around and Keith grabbed it, all too eager to get out of the room. 

“Got it, Allura.”

“Good, thank you, Keith.”

“Why don’t you come join me and Pidge?” Shiro said. “We’re almost into the ship’s data logs.”

Keith murmured an affirmation and boosted out of the room as quickly as he could without slamming himself into the opposite wall. He would have to thank Shiro later for saving him from checking the rest of the crew bunks, where there would doubtlessly be more bodies turned to ice. 

He floated onto the bridge just as Pidge’s translation was popping up, projected into a tiny screen in midair. Shiro was hanging onto some wires to keep himself steady while his Galra arm powered the ship’s systems, and as Keith angled himself over to join him, he heard Shiro’s voice echoing through the comms. 

“Lance, Hunk, did you guys find anything interesting?”

“Nope,” said Lance, sounding not a bit unhappy with the fact. “Just a boring old engine room. Didn’t even have any Balmera crystals, either.”

“The tools were kind of cool,” Hunk said, “but no, nothing important.”

Before Shiro could respond, they all heard the sudden catch of Pidge’s breath. Immediately Keith was at her side, bayard in hand, but despite how pale she was on the other side of her visor, she just shook her head and said, “I’m ok, I’m fine.”

“What happened?” asked Shiro. He removed his hand from the dashboard and the scant green lights that had activated faded back into darkness, making Pidge’s screen the only light source in the room-- the beacon had turned off the moment Keith touched it. 

Pidge audibly gulped. “Well, it doesn’t look like the crew used the same time measurements as Alteans, but the Castle reckons that this happened at least a century ago. From skimming most of the logs things seemed pretty normal up until…” she trailed off, mentally doing the math. “A day or so before all of this happened. The second to last log says that they found an abandoned research station on an asteroid, but all it says is that they didn’t find anything valuable and they left.”

“Do I even want to know what the last log said?” Hunk asked. Keith decided for himself, leaning forward to read over Pidge’s shoulder. The text was rocky, with blank spaces where the Castle couldn’t translate, but the words that remained were enough to get a general idea-- and it wasn’t a good one. 

Day 17 of Flight -----, entry by Jarvin Ilus.

To whatever damned soul finds this ship, I have only the following words: Run. Run and do not look back. If you’re reading this then surely my plan succeeded and I am dead. In these, my final words, I implore whoever is reading this not to disturb my remains, or the ship, or anything you find inside it. You must ----------, before it’s too late, if it’s not so already. 

We found something in that station. Something -------. We didn’t know we had found anything at the time, but we should have known better from the ------. They were everywhere, rotting into the metal, too destroyed to even tell what species they were, and all around them was evidence of incredible violence. 

We assumed it was a case of space madness. Tragic, but not extraordinary. So we got back in our ship and went on our way. I still don’t know how ----- got ----- me. That night I noticed a --------, barely visible, and dismissed it as a ------. I had the worst dreams of my life that night, every moment a violent imagining of what could’ve happened on that station. 

When I woke the next morning, I could not ------------------. I fought it, know that I fought it, but -------- was simply too strong. Even now, I only write this with it’s approval. I can feel it -------- me, waiting for the next --------. It laughs at my hopes of taking my own life, but I must try. If only so that justice may be found for my fellow sailors. 

I don’t know what it is. It won’t tell me it’s name. I call it ------- because I have nothing else that comes near to the terror I’m feeling. For your sake, reader, I hope it can die. If not, may all of your gods be with you, as mine were not. 

Pidge was halfway through reading it aloud when Keith finished, so none of them heard his quiet whisper of, “Jesus.” Lance and Hunk were making scared, despairing noises as Pidge read, and even Shiro looked unnerved. 

When she finished, Lance immediately pronounced, “Fuck this,” and through the walls they could all hear the banging and clanging as he scrambled to get out of the ship, Hunk most likely close on his heels. Pidge was clearly shaken; Keith put a hand on her shoulder, in hopes of grounding her, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Shiro cleared his throat, trying to maintain composure. 

“Princess,” Coran said, speaking for the first time on this mission. “Perhaps it would be prudent to leave well enough alone.”

“I…” Even the Princess seemed taken aback, and it took a few moments longer than usual for her to pull herself back together. “It’s entirely possible that this Jarvin person was suffering from madness himself. Perhaps whatever happened to his crew was too much for him to accept.”

“What could be worse than that?” Keith found himself asking. Even through a translation, the tone of the entry was so steeped in horror that his body was responding, making his heart beat faster and his skin prickle.

“We should leave the beacon here,” said Shiro grimly. “It’s not worth the risk.”

“I agree with Shiro,” said Lance through the comms. “Leave the spooky space junk with the other spooky space junk.”

Agreements echoed from the rest of the Paladins, and Allura let out a frustrated sound as she was outvoted. “Fine. Keith, leave the beacon. All of you will be decontaminated when you return.”

None of them argued with that. Keith left the beacon floating above the dashboard, not at all sad to see it go. 

Lance and Hunk were waiting for them outside, the former watching the ship with eyes narrowed in suspicion, and the latter wringing his hands in anxiety that didn’t stop, even when they were inside the airlock being decontaminated. 

“What if it's on us somewhere?” he babbled nervously as he scrubbed at the surface of his armor during the wash cycle. “There are so many crevices in this armor. Oh, man, what if it already got inside one of the suits? What if one of us turns into a space zombie? There aren’t supposed to be zombies in space!”

“Hunk,” Shiro said, catching one of his wrists to stop the scrubbing. “Calm down. We don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

“Which is the scariest part!” Hunk exclaimed. Shiro just shook his head. 

“Whatever happened to that other ship, I’m sure it’s long gone by now. It’s been a hundred years.”

“Give or take a decade,” Pidge added as clear water began to pour down on them, washing away the soap bubbles. Out of the corner of his eye Keith thought he saw a speck of something black on his chestplate, but it disappeared after a single swipe of his palm. 

“Yes, thank you Pidge.”

“Allura and Coran stuck around for ten millenia, though.”

Shiro remained patient as ever. “They had the cryopods. Did you see any evidence of that sort of tech on the ship?”

Hunk frowned. “Nooooooo. But--”

“No buts,” said Shiro. “Even if something is sticking to us, decontamination will kill it. That’s its job.”

“Number Two is correct,” chirped Coran from the comms. “Altea’s sanitization techniques were unparalleled.”

Lance sighed with relief. “So no space zombies?”

“No space zombies,” Coran confirmed. “Whatever a zombie is.”

“Fine,” said Hunk, admitting defeat, “but it was still freaky.” 

“Yeah, even I think it was weird,” Pidge said. 

Keith kept his thoughts to himself. He wouldn’t admit it out loud (not in front of Lance, are you kidding?) but he was a little freaked out, too. His mind kept wandering back to that haunting message, the sheer terror practically vibrating between the words-- he shook his head and tried to push the thoughts away. 

It didn’t matter. Whatever happened on the ship, it had been a long time ago. Stewing over it wouldn’t do him, or them, any good. 

A few minutes later decontamination was over, and they were released from the air lock. The Paladins immediately scattered; with training over for the day and no more missions planned, they had the evening mostly to themselves. Keith paused in the hall and pulled his helmet from his head, balancing it against his hip as he considered what to do with the rest of his time. 

He had a level waiting for him on the Altean language software, but having holographic animals threaten to eat him might not be the best way to wind down after all of that. He had a couple of books on his tablet he could read, or maybe he’d go to the training deck and work off the extra jitters he could still feel in his muscles. 

A hand came down on his shoulder and Keith jumped even worse than Pidge had back on the ship. But it was just Shiro, giving him that look of slight concern that he was so good at. 

“You ok? You seem jumpy.”

Keith nodded and idly scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m fine. That ship was creepier than I thought it would be.”

Shiro grimaced sympathetically. “I think all of us are going to be sleeping lightly tonight. You know where to find me if you want to talk.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

With a small smile and a quick shoulder squeeze, Shiro headed off down the hall towards the bridge. Keith watched him go for a moment, scratched at his neck again, and decided to go back to his quarters. Just to change, then he’d hit the training deck. 

A distraction was exactly what he needed. 

More than an hour after returning to the Castle, Lance finally stepped out of his bathroom, a cloud of steam following behind him. Technically he’d been clean after decontamination, but he hadn’t felt clean until he’d practically drowned himself in scented Altean bath water. God that place was creepy. 

But it was over now. The Castle was forging on, leaving the abandoned ship behind, and he never had to think about it ever again. 

He took his time getting dressed. His plans for the evening mostly involved lazing around, with a nice sprinkling of relaxation, and a good dose of doing absolutely nothing. Perfect.

But, of course, his plans were ruined by Keith, who for some unfathomable reason was loitering outside of Lance’s room. He expressed his displeasure with a loud, dramatic groan. 

“God, Mullet, what do you want?”

One of Keith’s eyebrows twitched upwards as he smirked in Lance’s direction. He was leaning back against the wall, arms crossed as usual, and that smug expression he was wearing was practically begging Lance to do something about it. But despite his unfriendly body language, what he said was, “I need a favor.”

Lance scoffed. “Oh, do you?”

“Yeah.” As always, Keith was entirely ignorant of Lance’s blatant social cues. “My bayard got left in the airlock earlier, I need someone to make sure it doesn’t close on me.”

“Why me?” Lance asked with another groan. Keith rolled his eyes in return. 

“Because,” he uncrossed his arms to tick the reasons off on his fingers, “Pidge is in research mode, Hunk is cooking, and Shiro would never let me live it down.”

“Bold of you to assume I will.”

“Come on, Lance,” Keith’s face turned pleading, which Lance had never seen before. It looked off, wooden, like he was just imitating what he’d seen other people do, but that wasn’t new for Keith. “It’ll take like ten minutes.”

“What about Coran or Allura?”

Keith waved a dismissive hand. “They’re still on the bridge talking about some weird quintessence stuff on that ship.” Seeing that Lance still wasn’t convinced, he huffed out a breath and added, “I’ll owe you one.”

Well. In that case….

“Fine. But I choose when to cash in that favor.”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s just go, please.” 

Lance, with a smug look of his own, shoved his hands in his pockets and followed Keith down the hall. He ran various possibilities through his head as they walked-- maybe he could get Keith to say on camera that Lance was the better pilot, or make him take Lance’s place the next time Coran wanted to clean the pods-- and before he knew it they were back at the port side airlock. Keith punched the button and the doors slid open with a hiss. Even months after the haunted Castle debacle, the sound still made a chill run down his spine. 

“Do you see it in there?”

“Nah,” answered Lance, craning his neck just for the effect. Then he frowned. “Wait, did you not have your bayard in your armor?”

There was a flash of movement in Lance’s periphery. That was all the warning he got before a hand slammed right between his shoulder blades, making him stumble forward, and the door hissed closed behind him. 

This motherfucker. 

“Oh, ha ha,” he said, voice dripping with as much derision and sarcasm as he could muster. “Very funny. Lock Lance in the airlock again and watch him freak out. Hilarious.” He made a show of brushing himself off as he spoke, trying to prepare himself for the mocking look that would undoubtedly be plastered on Keith’s face, before spinning on his heel to face the door. 

Only to immediately freeze. 

The expression Keith was wearing wasn’t the one he’d expected; in fact, it wasn’t one he’d ever seen Keith make, period. It was a sharp, predatory grin, nothing like Keith’s usual show off smirk, and there was a darkness there that was so unfamiliar that for a moment he forgot he was looking at someone he knew. 

But, through the power of sheer spite, Lance forced himself back to composure. 

“Alright, Mullet, show’s over. You got your joke, now let me out of here. And I still get that favor!”

Keith’s creepy smile didn’t budge, nor did he react to Lance’s demand. Instead his head tilted ever so slightly to the side, as though in horrible curiosity, and through the glass in the door, Lance saw his arm move. 

“Airlock opening in thirty ticks.” 

Lance’s whole body jolted at the shot of adrenaline that coursed through him. That cool Altean voice still haunted his nightmares, and of course Keith wouldn’t know that, but for all of his flaws Lance never thought he could be this much of an asshole. 

“Keith!” His voice was sharp, and in it he could detect echoes of the tone his mother always took when she caught him goofing off. “This isn’t funny! Open the door!” 

“25… 24… 23…” 

Keith still wasn’t moving. He couldn’t be serious, he couldn’t really be intending to let the airlock open on him, but still he just stood there, watching. His gaze was piercing, and in his pockets Lance’s hands shook from the chills.  

“22… 21… 20…”

He switched tactics. Making himself sound as pleading as possible, Lance said, “Come on, man, I know we don’t get along but don’t you think this is a little extreme? You couldn’t have just pushed me in the pool or something?”

Keith laughed. It wasn’t a sound Lance had ever heard before-- not his usual laugh of genuine amusement, or a huffed chuckle of disbelief, or even his laugh of delight when he was winning a fight. This was cold and empty and cruel, and Lance’s heart climbed up his throat. 

“19… 18… 17…”

At that point Lance’s survival instinct overpowered his dignity. Throwing himself at the door, he slammed his fists against the glass, right in front of Keith’s face, but he didn’t so much as blink. 

No, no, this couldn’t be happening. This can’t be happening. He had to be dreaming, or hallucinating, or having some sort of a break down; there was no way one of his fellow Paladins was actually trying to kill him.

And yet, there Keith stood with that sick grin.

“16… 15… 14...”

“Let me out!” cried Lance, pounding against the door. His breath was coming fast, fogging up the glass, and he couldn’t tell if the rushing in his ears was the adrenaline in his blood or the outer door beginning to unseal. “This isn’t funny! It’s not--” His voice cracked and failed. He hauled in more air, but before he could continue his pleading, the breath caught in horror. 

Because he was pretty sure that Keith’s eyes weren’t supposed to glow silver like that. 

“13… 12… 11…”

I am completely screwed, Lance thought with a terrible sinking feeling. Here in space, where magic seemed as common and natural as gravity, a situation like this could only mean one thing-- the person on the other side of the door was not Keith. And if that wasn’t Keith, there was nothing Lance could say to convince him to let him live. 

“10… 9… 8…”

Through the clouded glass, Lance thought he saw movement at the far end of the hall. There must’ve been some sound, because Keith turned to look as well. 

“7… 6… 5…” 

Despite everything that was happening, Lance still managed to feel surprised when Keith turned his back to the door, giving him a front seat view as he pulled his knife from its sheath. 

“Oh, God,” he said, mostly in a whimper. 

“4…”

Keith drew his arm back. 

“3…”

The dagger flew from his fingertips. Lance couldn’t see exactly what happened, but he saw the figure disappear around the corner, and the spark that resulted from the knife embedding itself in the wall. 

“2…”

Keith turned back around. The smile was still there, but now it was less gleeful, seeming instead to be almost eager. Hungry. 

“1…”

Lance squeezed his eyes shut and braced, preparing to hang on for dear life when the outer door opened. 

But the dreaded roar of suction never came. Instead the door he had pressed himself against gave another hiss before sliding open; Lance toppled forward, back into the hallway. He caught himself on his hands and knees, his stomach churning with the combination of relief, confusion, and fear that had just bloomed within him. 

Keith stood above him, eyes gleaming silver. “I’ll be back for you later,” he growled in a murderous tone. Then he spun around and took off down the hall, chasing whoever had been there a moment before, his steps creating a cacophony of clanging metal. 

Lance wasted no time. By the time Keith reached the end of the hallway he was back on his feet, turned towards the bridge, and running for his life. 

Pidge didn’t often let her lizard brain take charge. Usually she tried to keep calm, to think her way through things rather than succumbing to instinct. 

But now, having just had Keith throw his knife at her head? This seemed like an appropriate time to freak out. Especially given the footsteps ringing out behind her, indicating that he’d given chase, and the fact that he’d been standing outside an airlock with a closed door between him and Lance. 

Finally at the end of the long hallway (why was Altean architecture so ridiculously big) , Pidge slid around the corner and kept going. The metal tools she had shoved in her pockets before leaving the lab slammed against the sides of her knees with every step. She would definitely have bruises later. 

She went around another corner, then another, before finally let herself come to a stop. Pressing her back to the wall, she tried to get her breathing under control again, and as the seconds ticked on she began to notice how the only sound she could hear was her own blood rushing in her ears, with no sign of Keith’s pursuing footsteps. 

Pidge pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was still racing, but as the quiet continued, her common sense came back to her. And with it came embarrassment. 

Sure, they were all wound up from the weird horror-ship from earlier, but even that probably wouldn’t protect her from the inevitable teasing; Keith chucking his knife at her was definitely a safety hazard that she’d have to bring up with Shiro, but she’d probably just scared him-- even on good days he was almost as jumpy as Shiro. Lance in the airlock wasn’t something she could explain to herself, but she couldn’t explain most of Lance’s actions. Probably just screwing around again. 

Now here she was, having unconsciously run all the way back to the lab, without the thing she’d left to get in the first place. Absolutely brilliant, Katie. 

Despite all of this calm reasoning, she still jumped three feet in the air when Keith reappeared in the hallway to her left. He was walking, not running, yet he still exuded that aura of danger that had set Pidge running in the first place. And, she couldn’t help but notice, his dagger was still in his hand. 

“Pidge,” he called to her, still about thirty feet away. Pidge shivered and took a couple of steps back towards the lab door. She couldn’t explain it, she’d never been scared of Keith before, but there was something about the way he moved that was setting off all of the alarm bells that were left over in her body from evolution. 

In a shamefully shaky voice, she said back, “You threw your knife at me.”

“I know.” His lips stretched into a sly smirk, and the word came to her. 

He wasn’t just walking. He was prowling. 

“I came to say I’m sorry.” He came closer and Pidge backed up until she hit the lab door. His words echoed what the logical voice in her head had said, and yet she still recoiled from him. 

“You don’t need to. It’s ok.” 

As she feared, her answer didn’t deter him at all. Up this close it was even easier to pick out what was different-- the way his smile was more like an animal baring its teeth, how his hand flexed eagerly around the hilt of his knife, that dark, menacing tint to his eyes. Suddenly, she understood exactly how Little Red Riding Hood had felt going into her grandmother’s cottage. 

Pidge inched her hand towards the door controls. Keith’s eyes latched onto the movement and immediately she froze, her veins filling with ice water. 

“I think I should,” he said. It took a moment for Pidge to think through the panic and remember what he was talking about, and it took even longer for her to come up with an answer. 

“A-actually,” she said, cringing at the tremor in her voice. “I need to be getting back to work.” She reached out for the door control, and quick as a striking snake Keith’s hand whipped out, staying her hand. There was a scream in her throat, but all that escaped was a gasp at the strength of his grip. 

“Keith, you’re hurting me.” 

His smirk widened. His grip tightened even further, his nails digging painfully into her arm, and his eyes flashed silver. 

Pidge didn’t even try to think. She just reacted: her other hand grabbed a wrench from one of her many, many pockets and swung at Keith’s head. She felt the impact vibrate up her arm, saw his head snap to the side, and his grip loosened just enough for her to punch the button and twist out of his grip. 

The last thing she saw as the door closed between them was Keith’s face, dark with murderous rage. 

The door closed, hissing as it sealed, and Pidge collapsed to the floor with utter relief. In a few seconds the rest of her brain would come back online and she’d have to worry about what was happening with Keith, why he was losing it, what had happened to Lance, what she should tell the others, etc., but for now she could have a moment, just a moment, to breathe. 

So she breathed. In and out, in and out, safe now in the lab. The nice, sturdy lab with its one reinforced door. 

With its one door, and no exterior camera, she realized with growing horror; she was safe, but without being able to see if Keith was waiting outside for her, she was also trapped. 

“Absolutely fucking brilliant, Katie.”

“Princess, there’s no need to push yourself like this. Whatever happened on that ship was a long time ago, and whatever caused it to happen is likely long dead.” 

Allura shook her head, her brows furrowed in concentration as she stood at the Castles controls, still trying to puzzle something out. Judging by the look on her face, it wasn’t going well. 

“You don’t understand, Coran. There was something wrong with the quintessence field around that vessel. I could feel it.”

Shiro rested his chin in his hand and blew his bangs out of his eyes. He’d been sitting in his Paladins seat for well on an hour now, waiting for Allura to stop obsessing over the derelict ship and help him plan their next move, and it was really starting to get old. The phrase I sense a disturbance in the force ran through his head, but there was no one else in the room to appreciate the joke. 

“Quintessence fields can be irregular, you know that, especially given the unknown origin of the ship. It’s entirely possible that what you’re feeling is normal for that species, whatever it may be.”

Allura just shook her head harder. “No, it’s not, I know it’s not.”

Before Coran could answer the conversation was interrupted by the quiet swoosh of the door opening. There were some thumps, the sound of heavy breathing, then Allura exclaimed, “Lance?”

Instantly Shiro was on his feet. Just like Allura said, Lance was standing in front of the door. He was bent over, hands on his knees, and panting like he’d just run a hundred meter sprint. And, Shiro noticed as he approached, he was pale, his eyes wide with what Shiro might have thought was fear, if he didn’t know better. 

“Lance?” he asked, echoing the Princess’ question. He set a hand on Lance’s shoulder and felt him jump at the contact as he continued, “What’s wrong? You look like--” He cut himself off before he could finish. Given their history with haunted Castles, bringing up ghosts might not be the best move. 

Between labored gasps, Lance managed to say, “It’s Keith.”

Shiro’s stomach dropped. A million scenarios raced through his head-- an injury on the training deck, maybe, or an intruder on the ship, or maybe he was sick-- but as always, Shiro kept his calm captain facade up. 

“What about Keith?” he asked. “Is he hurt?”

Lance straightened up, but he still looked shaken, and he didn’t answer right away. Shiro reminded himself that patience yields focus and waited. 

“He’s gone crazy,” Lance eventually said. “Completely, absolutely nuts!” Now that he had his breath back he returned to his usual bombastic way of talking, waving his arms for emphasis, though it was clear it was only for show. “He locked me in the airlock!”

Shiro and the Alteans all sighed a little, drawing an offended look from Lance.

“I’m not talking about a prank! He was gonna let me get sucked out into space! Then someone else showed up at the end of the hallway and he threw his freaking knife at them!”

Honestly, if it had just been Lance, Shiro probably wouldn’t have believed him. But right at the end of Lance’s sentence the intercom on the bridge crackled, and Pidge’s voice filled the room. 

“Hello? Is anybody there? Please, Lord, let there be someone on the bridge.”

“We’re here, Pidge,” Allura answered as they all grouped around the podium. “What’s the problem?”

“Oh, thank God. This is gonna sound crazy, but I think Keith just tried to kill me. Like, literally.”

All four of them spoke at once.

“What?” exclaimed Shiro. 

“Where are you?” asked Allura.

“By the Ancients,” said Coran. 

“I told you so!” crowed Lance. 

Of all of those, Pidge chose Allura to answer. “I’m in the lab. I was on my way to the engine room to get a part when I turned a corner and Keith chucked his knife at my head. I ran back to the lab, but he almost caught up with me. I had to hit him to make him let go of me.”

A protest leapt up Shiro’s throat-- they had no idea what being hit by one of them would do to Keith-- but the fear in Pidge’s voice kept it from escaping. His instinct was to protect Keith, but Keith wasn’t the only one he was responsible for anymore. 

“I don’t know how to explain it, there was just something off about him. Besides the obvious, I mean. He-- he looked at me like I was prey.”

“You saw it too?” Lance asked, then dramatically grasped at his chest. “Thank God, I thought I was losing my mind.”

“Lance!” Pidge said with obvious relief. “I didn’t know if you were ok or not-- I saw you in the airlock.”

Suddenly Lance turned solemn. “I was,” he said gravely. “But he let me out when he went to chase you. He said he’d be back for me.” Lance shivered, Coran’s eyebrows jumped in alarm, and Shiro exchanged an anxious glance with Allura. 

“Pidge, are you safe where you are?” asked Shiro. 

“Yeah, but I can’t get out. I don’t know if he’s still waiting out there.”

Allura clasped her hands under her chin. “What’s going on here? Is he suffering some kind of psychotic break?” She paused, then started to say, “Perhaps his Galra lineage--”

“It’s not that,” said, surprisingly, Lance, saving Shiro from trying to decide if he should speak up or not. “At the end, right before he let me out, his eyes glowed silver.”

“Fuck,” hissed Shiro under his breath. Normally he tried not to swear, but come on. When he signed up for the Kerberos mission dealing with space magic possession was not in the job description. 

Allura gasped, one hand going over her mouth, and when she met Shiro’s eye her expression was one of horror. “Shiro, the derelict ship.”

It took a second for it to click. Then he remembered the last log entry they’d pulled from the ships remains, and at the same time he, Lance, and Pidge all said, “Fuck.”

The Princess didn’t waste time swearing. She was already a flurry of motion as she pulled up every camera the Castle had, blanketing the front wall of the bridge with a quilt of virtual camera windows. There were a lot of them, but only a few had anything moving within their view. One was the lab, where Pidge was standing before the intercom, bouncing anxiously on her toes. Another was the kitchen, with Hunk puttering around as he cooked. 

“There,” said Coran, pointing at one of the screens. “There he is.”

Sure enough there was Keith, stalking down one of the hallways. Immediately Shiro noticed the difference in his gait-- Keith wasn’t always graceful, but he was quick, dextrous, always knowing exactly where his body was in space. The way he moved now was almost stuttery, reluctant, like he had strings going through him that were being dragged along by another party. 

“He still has his knife,” Allura noted grimly. 

“Coran, where does that hallway lead?” asked Shiro. 

There was a short pause, then Coran said in a breathless voice, “That hall goes to the kitchen.”

Shiro sucked in a quick breath as Lance squealed, “He’s going after Hunk next!”

Within seconds he had his brain compartmentalizing. Right now, as much as he hated to say it, he had to operate as though Keith was an enemy. Once everyone else was out of dodge, then he could start worrying about how to get him back to normal. 

“Pidge,” he said first, “Try to get up to the bridge as quickly as you can. I’ll go down to the kitchen to get Hunk.” 

He turned towards the door, and Lance yelled at his back, “And then what?” Shiro pretended he didn’t hear. 

His blood pounded in his ears as he moved through the halls. He couldn’t deny that part of him was freaking out-- who wouldn’t?-- but he had that voice firmly under lock and key. He had to keep calm, because if he didn’t, the other Paladins wouldn’t, either. 

As he drew closer to the kitchen Shiro detected the quiet hum of voices. He slowed his steps, making sure he was being as stealthy as possible as he approached the door. 

“-- woah!” He heard Hunk say in an alarmed tone. “Keith, what happened to you?”

“Ran into a door frame.” 

Shivers went down Shiro’s spine at the sound of his voice. It was Keith’s voice, but it was also undeniably not his voice. There was a hint of malice in it that the real Keith never had, no matter how angry he was or who he was fighting. 

Hunk made a disbelieving sound. “What, a door frame with a spike on it?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

Shiro stuck his head around the edge of the door, just enough to peek into the room. Keith had his back to him. Hunk was standing at one of the counters facing the door, allowing Keith to keep his knife out of sight as he slowly circled around to an opening, and the tension he held in all of his coiled muscles made him look like a big cat hunting on the savannah-- a predator, just like Pidge said. 

“Uh… ok?” Hunk’s face twisted with uncertainty. “Are you ok? You’re acting kinda weird.”

Keith shrugged, so mechanically it made Shiro cringe. “Dunno. Maybe I hit my head worse than I thought.”

He was almost around the counters entirely. Shiro had to make his move. So he stood up straight and took a step into the room, saying loudly, “There you are, Hunk.”

Hunk jumped. Keith spun around, and yeesh, Hunk was right to be concerned. Keith had blood dripping down his face from a cut over his eyebrow, possibly from Pidge, and the gore only accentuated the violent shine in his eyes. 

“Allura wants you on the bridge,” Shiro said, not breaking eye contact with Keith. “It sounded pretty important.”

Hunk’s eyes darted between him and Keith, back and forth. As the silence grew the tension grew with it, until Shiro felt like a rubber band ready to snap, but eventually he bobbed his head in a quick nod and scurried around the counter, opposite from the way Keith had been going. 

His footsteps faded down the hall, and still neither Shiro nor Keith moved or said anything. 

Then Keith sneered and said in a sing-song voice, “Shiro,” and he couldn’t help another shiver. It sounded so wrong the way he said it, dragging out the sounds in all the wrong places, the sound of the ‘r’ grating like nails on a chalkboard. 

Shiro took a couple more wary steps into the room. “You can drop the act,” he said. He made his voice as steeled as possible-- this would only go worse if he showed fear or doubt. “I know you’re not him.”

Not-Keith’s smirk widened to a cold smile, accentuated by the blood curving around his mouth. “I was waiting for someone to notice. I’m not surprised it was you. Shiiiirrrrroooooo.” 

He cringed, and the Not-Keith flexed his fingers eagerly around the hilt of Keith’s knife. 

“You should hear him right now,” he continued, smug. “He’s so scared that I’m going to make him kill you.”

Shiro raised a challenging eyebrow. “Is he right to be?”

His shoulders shook with silent laughter. “Not yet. I’m going to save you for last.”

Shiro slid a foot back into a fighting stance and let his hand light up. Some part of him had been hoping that would be intimidating enough to make whatever was controlling Keith back down, but it was a silly, vain hope. His grin merely sharpened, right before he rushed him. 

Shiro deflected the first slash, then the second, and dodged the third. On the fourth he blocked, using the opportunity to grab Keith’s wrist with his other hand, but Keith merely swung his other fist and caught Shiro right on the temple. 

He staggered momentarily, stars bursting in front of his eyes; still he managed to duck beneath the next cut and tackle Keith at the waist, taking them both to the floor. 

It goes without saying that he didn’t want to hurt Keith. He especially didn’t want to use his Galra hand on him-- he wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on anyone he wasn’t directly opposing in this war, let alone on Keith, his little brother. 

But the Not-Keith wasn’t going to make it easier for him. Keith brought his knee up, hard, directly into Shiro’s gut, leaving him winded and gasping. He was pulling his punches, but it was becoming exceedingly clear that the Not-Keith wasn’t. With a shove he rolled them, putting Shiro on the bottom, and spared the time for a cruel laugh as his eyes began to glow silver. 

“Come on, Shiiirrrooo.” He watched in horror as the silver began to descend, flowing down his cheek in branching veins of light like Lichtenberg figures, or a spider’s web. “It’s no fun if you fight fair.”

Shiro clenched his jaw. He did the same thing Keith had a moment before, but Keith was much lighter than him, and Shiro much stronger, so when he pushed he practically threw Keith off of him. He landed on his side and rolled, giving Shiro time to scramble back to his feet. 

Not-Keith laughed again as he rose to a crouch. “Now you’re getting it,” he said in an excited growl before launching himself at Shiro, blade poised for a stab. 

In the intervening moment, Shiro thanked his lucky stars that the Not-Keith didn’t seem to be able to transform his Blade. With that longer reach he surely would’ve been a goner, but as it was he was able to catch him and hold him at arm's length before spinning around. He slammed Keith down on the counter and felt his stomach twist at the oof! That left Keith’s chest at the impact. 

The silver lines had reached his chin and were beginning to crawl down his neck, a disturbing reflection of the blood on the other side. His eyes still glowed like molten metal, a jarring reminder that this was not Keith, but Shiro made himself meet those eyes as he kept Keith pinned. 

“Keith,” he said through clenched teeth, straining to keep him down as he squirmed. “I know you’re in there. You can fight this.” 

He just laughed and said, back in that singing tone, “It’s not going to woooorrrrrrrk.”

Shiro wouldn’t be deterred. “You’re a fighter, Keith. You can do this, I know you can. I won’t give up on you.”

“You’re going to regret that decision,” the Not-Keith responded, then his arm jerked and Shiro felt that unmistakable gut-punch pressure as his dagger dug into Shiro’s side. He cried out, and the Not-Keith took advantage of the moment of surprise to shove Shiro off of him. Feet back on the floor, he braced his arm across Shiro’s chest and drove him back, back, back, into the wall beside the door. 

It wasn’t hurting yet. The shock was still there. But he could feel the warmth of blood staining his shirt, and he’d been stabbed in the arena enough times to know that the pain would start kicking in any second. 

“What now?” taunted the Not-Keith. Even with the silver covering his eyes, Shiro felt the hungry pull of his gaze. “Still think he can fight me?”

Shiro narrowed his eyes into a glare. “Yes,” he declared, unflinching. “He’s stronger than you are.”

Keith gave a little hmph of amusement and raised the dagger to Shiro’s throat. “Maybe I will kill you first. Wouldn’t that be a perfect breaking point?” 

Shiro sucked in his breath as his side began to ripple with pain, but even so he forced his gaze to gentle. “It’s going to be ok, Keith. I know you’re scared. But you’ll be ok. I promise, otouto.”

The twisted smile on Keith’s face dropped. The hand he had braced against Shiro’s shoulder curled, forming a fist in the fabric, and the silver light in his eyes flickered. 

“That’s it,” Shiro praised, even as he ground his teeth at the pain of his wound. “You can do it, Keith.”

Keith’s arm jerked sharply to press the point of the dagger against Shiro’s throat, but the expression on his face was still frustrated, and the knife trembled in his hand. 

“No,” he growled. He was no longer speaking to Shiro. “No. You… can’t… make me!” He opened his hand and the dagger fell to the floor, while simultaneously he pushed himself away from Shiro, stumbling backwards and eventually tumbling to the ground. Shiro slid down the wall, pressing one hand against his very bloody side. Keith hadn’t hit anything important… he hoped. 

Growls and snarls spilled from Keith’s throat as the silver flickered and flashed. The veins had never stopped spreading, and now Shiro could see the light flashing through his shirt where they had disappeared under his collar. 

“No!” he shouted again. Keith smacked his head back against the floor as his fingernails tried to punch through the same metal. The flashing was beginning to slow, returning to static silver, and Shiro’s stomach dropped. 

“Keith,” he called to him. His head snapped back up. For a moment his eyes were solid silver again, but then they flickered out, just for a moment, and Keith answered him-- the real Keith. 

“Shiro. Rrrrrrrrrrr-- rrrruuuuuuuun!”

The silver returned, along with the Cheshire cat grin, and Shiro didn’t give himself time to think. Using the wall for support he staggered to his feet. 

And with only one backward glance, Shiro ran. 

Keith screamed for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time, no sound came out. 

It had happened so quickly. Sharp pain on the back of his neck, like a million needles being shoved through his skull, and suddenly he was a passenger in his own body-- no, more like a prisoner. A prisoner inside a puppet, while something else pulled the strings. 

He didn’t know what exactly it was, this invading force, but it spoke to him. Mostly in taunts and mockery. He could feel it, how much it hated him, how much it hated the others, and the crew of the other ship, and hundreds more before that it had killed and betrayed. It wouldn’t tell him its name. 

The strings pulled him down the hall. Right foot forward, left foot forward, keep the fingers tight around the knife, ignore the blood dripping into one eye, ignore the searing pain of the silver light that Keith could see even without being allowed to look down. 

So far he’d been able to exert a tiny amount of control, like how he jerked his arm enough to make his knife hit the wall instead of Pidge, but resisting the threads long enough to save Shiro had taken every bit of strength he had left. 

Enjoy your victory, sneered the thin voice that seemed to boom around his skull. It will be your last. 

Keith didn’t bother answering. He’d long since given up on trying to find out what this thing wanted or why it was doing this. It never gave him an answer. 

Now, let’s see. Where would all of your doomed teammates hide? It began to sift through his memories with little bursts of pain like the pricks of needles. For a moment he tried to curl his fingers, just while it was distracted, but it caught him and the limb stiffened up, paralyzed, as the thing made a disappointed tsking sound. 

So stubborn. Will you ever learn? 

Normally, Keith hated crying and fought tears at every turn. Now he’d do anything for the ability to let his despair out. To not be trapped and silent in this tomb made of flesh. 

Ah, here we are. The bridge. The threads tightened and pulled, guiding him down an all-too-familiar hallway, and blind panic sparked in him. He resisted, just for a moment, tightening his calf muscles and bracing his feet against the floor, but a burst of pain down the back of his legs broke his concentration and forced him forward. 

Impudent little wretch. Here-- this should keep you busy. 

A torrent of images flew past his eyes. He recognized the structure of the derelict that had begun this whole nightmare, and though the life forms he was shown hardly registered as such to his human brain, that didn’t stop him being sickeningly aware of the terror oozing from them in every freeze-frame. He’d seen the same fear on the faces of the other Paladins, even Shiro. 

The thing showed him exactly what it had done to the crew of the other ship. Every moment of horror, every expression of betrayal, every drop of despair and guilt it wrung out of its last host. And their last moments, curled up behind their bunk, clutching the beacon the thing had made him trigger and wouldn’t allow him to turn off, until eventually the creature loosened its strings and allowed them to put a laser blast through their brain. 

That wasn’t even the worst part. That honor belonged to the echo of the creature in the background and the explanation it gave; it could have kept its control, had the host fly the ship somewhere more populated to continue wreaking havoc, but it didn’t. It considered that cheating. 

Half of the fun of weaving the web, it murmured as it marched Keith’s stolen body up to the bridge door, is the anticipation. 

All he could do was watch as his empty fist rose to pound on the door. The web had spread down his arm, flowing around his elbow in a silver river, and he could feel it skittering across his chest to the other arm with pinpricks like needles. Like a spider. 

“Knock knock,” it called in his voice. “Anybody home?”

“He stabbed you?!” 

With great effort, Shiro bit back a snappish response as Coran and Allura helped him to the nearest Paladin seat, which just so happened to be Lance’s. He shouldn’t fault Lance for his surprise, but give him a break. He had been stabbed, after all. 

“I assume,” he said through gritted teeth as he tried to get himself into the least painful position, “That you were all watching on the cameras?”

“Most of us,” muttered Hunk, sounding nauseous. 

“Then you saw what happened at the end.”

“You mean the part where he put a knife to your throat?” asked Lance.

“No,” said Pidge before Shiro could. “The part where he backed off.”

Shiro closed his eyes and nodded. Things were starting to look fuzzy. “Keith resisted. He’s still in there.”

“That’s all well and good,” Coran said with a frown, “but we need to stop this bleeding, or it won’t matter.” 

He heard a few dim footsteps, then Lance said, “Here.” When Shiro opened his eyes it was to Lance balling up his jacket and handing it to Coran.

“Lance, no--”

Lance cut him off. “It’s fine, Shiro. Altean laundry detergent is a hell of a thing.”

Coran pressed it to the wound and applied pressure, and any further arguments Shiro had were lost to the resulting wince. 

Allura joined Coran in front of the chair. She looked just as grim as Shiro, if not more so. 

“I sent the mice to the infirmary through the vents,” she said, laying a hand on Coran’s shoulder. “Hopefully they’ll bring back some bandages. In the meantime--”

“He’s moving,” Pidge called from across the room, apparently the only one who was still keeping an eye on the cameras. Allura vanished, and a moment later the camera feed appeared at the front of the bridge, large enough for them all to see Keith as he moved down the hall. Or, more accurately, was moved-- he still had that jerking quality to his gait, like he was being pulled along invisible strings. 

“He’s coming this way,” Hunk noted softly. 

“So… what do we do?” asked Lance. 

That was the question Shiro had been dreading. He could compartmentalize with the best of them, but the wooziness from the wound was making it difficult to think straight. 

“We could go out there,” Pidge suggested hesitantly. “There’s six of us and only one of him.”

“He’s not pulling his punches, Pidge,” Shiro said, gesturing vaguely at his side. “And we would be. Even outnumbered Keith could do a lot of damage.”

“What other options are there?” Allura asked. “We can’t just stay in here forever.”

There was a momentary silence, which probably would’ve lasted a lot longer if the mice hadn’t returned in a procession of victorious squeaking. The largest, Platt, was toddling along on his hind legs, his forepaws stretched around a roll of Altean bandages. 

Allura’s expression softened as she sank into a kneel. “Well done, Platt. Thank you.” She passed the roll to Coran, who finally stopped the pressure and shoved Shiro’s shirt out of the way. 

“What about the quintessence, Princess?” he asked as he began layering the bandages on. “You said it felt strange. Could you perhaps manipulate the creature through it?”

Allura’s frown returned with a vengeance. “I don’t know. Having strange quintessence doesn’t necessarily mean that it's weak to it. Besides, I’m not sure I’m willing to stake Keith’s life on my abilities, I’m still so new to it.”

“Yeah, that’s another problem,” Pidge chimed in. “Even if we got him subdued, we still don’t know what the hell is going on or how to fix it.”

Shiro rubbed his temple with one hand. His head was pounding, and he saw silver behind his eyes with every blink, but he had to stay with it. He had to figure this out, before that thing started hurting Keith, too. 

“Knock knock.” 

They all jumped a foot in the air when the voice rang through the door. Shiro hissed a curse between his teeth at the jolt of pain, but Coran’s hands steadied quickly and kept him still. 

“Anybody home?”

Silence. Then Allura’s heels clacked against the floor, and the camera feed that they’d all forgotten about switched to another camera, this one right above the bridge door. And there was Keith, the silver veins climbing his arm visible even on the screen. Slowly, as though he knew they were looking, he craned his head back to lock his glowing eyes on the camera, the blood on one side of his face now dry and flaking. 

“Jesus Christ,” said Pidge, breathlessly. 

“You can say that again,” Lance responded, and even though he was trying to keep up his usual joking demeanor, his voice still wobbled. 

“Come out and play, Paladins,” said the thing in Keith’s voice, sending a collective shudder through them. “I’ve been so lonely all these years.”

Coran calmly finished the bandaging and moved one hand to rest lightly on Shiro’s shoulder. “Number Two?” He knew what Coran was asking, but he still didn’t have the answer. His eyes were locked on the screen, but in his periphery he saw the Altean turn. “Princess?”

Allura didn’t answer either. The silence lasted a few seconds longer before that twisted grin reappeared on Keith’s face. 

“I see. You want to play the waiting game. That’s just fine; I’ve been waiting for the last century. How long can you wait?”

The answer to that was: not long. The mice could possibly haul a little food and water through the vents, but getting enough for all of them would exhaust them within hours. Not to mention Shiro’s wound and the threat of infection. 

“We have to do something,” hissed Pidge. 

“Like what?” Hunk asked in a frenzied whisper. “We can’t just fight him, look at what he did to Shiro!”

“But if we don’t fight him,” added Lance quietly, “he’ll just keep trying to kill us.” 

Allura stepped closer to the chair and looked down at Shiro. He reluctantly met her gaze, all steel and ice. “Shiro, I don’t think there’s a way out of this without someone getting hurt.”

He closed his eyes. The deck was spinning around him, the fog in his head making it difficult to think, and all the while he could feel that creeping silver gaze, watching them through the camera. 

He couldn’t hurt Keith. But he couldn’t let any of the others get hurt, either. It was an impossible trolley cart problem. 

“You know,” said the Not-Keith, drawing their attention back to the feed. He turned and leaned against the wall, almost casually, as he spoke. “I can wait forever, but Keith can’t. He’ll waste away, just like all of you, and by the time I’m gone he’ll be nothing but dead meat.” The smile returned to that knife blade smirk, and Shiro tasted bile. 

“Shiro?” He didn’t know who it was this time, and he didn’t bother to look. 

“I’m not giving up on him,” he said as firmly as he could manage, never taking his eyes from the screen. “Keith’s still in there. We have to figure out a way to get that thing out of him, or weaken it enough for Keith to get rid of it.”

The Not-Keith idly twirled Keith’s knife around in his hands. He paused for a moment, just staring at it, then his eyes returned to the camera, his expression somehow even more sharp and sly than it had been before. 

“Here, I’ll make it easier for you,” he said. “You can come out and face me now, or…” It held out Keith’s arm, and all of them made the same strangled sound when it touched the edge of the blade to the underside of his wrist.

“Or you can lose him.” 

The spider was bluffing. It really could wait them out, but it didn’t want to, and based on what it had seen in Keith’s memories, it assumed it could lure Shiro out this way. The terrible thing was that it was probably right. 

But Keith refused to fall into despair. There had to be a way out of this-- and he may have spotted it already. 

This whole time he’d been paying attention to how the spider was moving him, and he’d noticed that there was a slight lag time between the spider’s intent and the movement of his limbs. It took it a moment to pull the string, for the tension to travel, for the limb to respond. It was in those moments that Keith could get in the way. So far it hadn’t done much good, since the spider could adjust after a few seconds, but now things were different. 

Now it had a blade poised over one of the silver veins crawling down his arms, millimeters away from the skin. The string was already set. All Keith had to do was lean into it, like a tight curve on his hoverbike.

He didn’t know if this plan would work. It might not sever the spider’s hold on him, and it wouldn’t stop it from using his corpse to continue its reign of terror. But even if he bled out, at least that would make it easier for Shiro to kill the spider without worrying about hurting Keith, too. 

All of this flew through his mind in a matter of seconds. In a burst of impulsive energy, Keith threw everything he had into his right arm, and his hand jerked downwards. 

The luxite blade bit deep. He had no idea if the shout he made in answer actually made it out of his throat, but it didn’t matter-- the strand of silver was broken, and with it Keith felt one of the spider’s many threads snap. He sagged to the side and hit the wall with his shoulder, turning the blood splatter on the floor into an arc. 

The pain was astonishing, but his trick had worked; the spider was scrambling, fuming as it tried to reestablish the connection, and while its focus was on stopping the right arm from moving, Keith grabbed the blade with his freed hand and slashed that arm, too. 

The spider shrieked so loud his eyes unfocused. He felt the blood flow down his arm and begin to drip off of his fingertips, and the sting of the silver trying to chase it. A roar rose in the back of his mind. At first he mistook it for the blood rushing in his ears, until the heat came on its heels, a burn that seared along the threads woven through his body and melted them away. 

Red. It was Red, taking advantage of Keith’s diversion to keep the spider at bay. 

Paladin, she said in an urgent growl. An image floated before his eyes, gentle compared to when the spider had shoved flashbacks down his throat; the hangar, with all five Lions awake and glowing. 

He understood. It took almost everything he had left to straighten up from the wall, but he managed it, and slowly turned away from the bridge door. The first step was jerky-- he still expected the spider to squeeze or scratch, to punish him somehow for taking control-- but Red held true, and he was able to take another step, closely followed by a third. 

Now all he had to do was make it to the hangar before passing out from blood loss. 

Finally. Something easy. 

Allura held Shiro back for approximately three minutes before he broke away. 

“Shiro, wait!” she cried. “It could be a trick!”

He ignored her, all of his attention focused on the trail of blood that stretched down the hall. He was staggering even worse than Keith had been, and was forced to use the walls as support against the pain in his side, but he kept pushing. Something had happened between Keith and whatever parasite was in him-- the sudden mutilation and strobing silver light was evidence enough of that-- and Shiro didn’t intend to let the opportunity go to waste. 

He could hear the others following, but none of them pushed ahead of him. Maybe they were banking on him being the one most likely to break through to Keith. Maybe they trusted him to handle the situation. Maybe they just didn’t know what else to do. So long as they stayed out of the crossfire, Shiro didn’t particularly care. 

The blood led down a familiar maze of hallways. Coming around the final corner, Shiro caught a glimpse of his quarry as he disappeared through the hangar door. Shiro clenched his jaw and kept moving, stubbornly ignoring the throbbing, dizzying pain, while one of the others said, “He’s going to the hangar!”

That hall felt like it was a mile long. Every step Shiro took felt too slow, too short, too exhausting as his heartbeat pounded in his ears and every second stretched out for eternity. Finally reaching the door was both a blessing and a curse, but Shiro didn’t take the time to acknowledge the fear churning in his stomach before it slid open. 

He was just in time to see Keith fall to his knees in front of the Red Lion, whose eyes were already alight. The other Lions let out growls as they woke to join her. The feeling of Black stirring made Shiro pause for a moment, bracing himself against the doorframe as he mentally groped for their bond, trying to ask Black what was happening, but all he got was another growl that he couldn’t interpret. 

So he pressed on. He was staggering and stumbling without something to support him, but he wasn’t about to let that stop him. Keith was still just sitting there, staring up at Red, and despite the distance Shiro thought he could see the blood beginning to pool on the floor beneath his knees. 

Shiro was halfway across the hangar when Keith started glowing. Not just his eyes, but all of him, and though the silver was still present, it was flickering and failing under the onslaught of gold. For a second his heart stopped dead, until Black gave him a brush of reassurance. That was all the warning he got before all five Lions simultaneously threw their heads back and roared to the hangar ceiling. 

He stopped again, clapping his hands over his ears to block out the din that bounced and reverberated through the room, the metal only amplifying it. Shiro couldn’t tell when the roar stopped and echo began, and his ears were ringing so badly he didn’t even realize it was over until Black nudged him again. 

When he looked up the glow was gone, and Keith had fallen to the floor. 

Shiro ran the rest of the way. His wound twinged at the impact when he crashed to his knees, but the sensation barely registered through everything else he was trying to process: there was blood, and a lot of it, but when Shiro rolled him onto his back his eyes were open, without a hint of silver to be found. 

“Keith?”

His eyes struggled for a moment before almost coming into focus. “Shiro?”

He let out his breath. That sounded right, like Keith, the real Keith. Sliding one hand under his head, Shiro gently lifted it into his lap. 

“Shiro!” He turned to see the others a short distance away, all standing together in a nervous group. Coran had been the one to get his attention, but it was Allura who spoke up next.

“Is it safe?” she asked. Shiro couldn’t quite manage words, but his frantic nodding and waving was enough to bring them all in closer. Something patted against his shoulder; when he looked down he found it was Keith trying to get his attention, leaving bloody smears on his prosthetic when his hand slipped off of it. Shiro took that hand in his human one and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“It’s ok, bud. I’m right here.”

Keith was clearly fighting to stay conscious. Even so, he managed to get his eyes to focus in the vague direction of Shiro’s face as the others flocked to them. “Shiro, I’m so-- I-- I didn’t mean-- I didn’t want to--”

Shiro’s eyes burned. “I know, otouto. It’s alright, it’s gone now, you were so strong, I’m so proud of you.” His babbling was brought to an end by Coran, who leaned over to shove a wad of the bandages against Shiro’s hand. 

“Hold that on his arm,” he said, and Shiro complied without question. Taking another bunch from Lance, Coran pressed it firmly to the slash in Keith’s other wrist, focused on his task but still managing a wince at the sound Keith made in response to the pressure. “I’m sorry, Number Four. Not for much longer, I promise. Allura?”

The Princess’ skirt brushed against him as she knelt at Shiro’s side. “Excuse me, Shiro,” she said as she slid an arm under Keith’s knees, the politeness a jarring contrast to the adrenaline still coursing through his blood. “I need to carry him to the pods.”

“Right,” Shiro heard himself say. He shifted to the side, and even though he was careful to do it without letting go of Keith’s hand or leaving his head unsupported, his grip still tightened. “It’s alright. I’m not leaving you.”

“I’m going to lift him. Coran, Shiro, try to keep the pressure on his arms.” 

Coran nodded. For a second Shiro despaired-- he didn’t think he could stand on his own with his own injury, but before he had to say anything about it Hunk appeared on his other side and wrapped his big hands around Shiro’s elbow. 

“One, two, three, lift!” Allura stood, and with Hunk’s help, Shiro managed to get there without collapsing. Their positioning was awkward, especially when they started walking, but none of them seemed to care. Somehow, Shiro kept pace.  

“Keep your eyes open,” he said when he noticed Keith fading. “You need to stay awake.”

Keith made a sound of discomfort. 

“I know, I know. Just a little longer.”

“I’m sorry.” The words were slurred, his eyelids fluttering. “I’m so sorry, Shiro.”

Shiro couldn’t answer through his heart in his throat. 

Thankfully they reached the infirmary only a few moments later. Shiro was forced to let go of Keith as Allura and Coran got him loaded into a pod, not even bothering to put the suit on him first, and the other Paladins pulled Shiro to the side to wait his turn. He was shaking, jittery from adrenaline and exhaustion, and he could feel all of their concerned expressions boring into him like drills, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of Keith. Not until he knew for sure that he was going to be ok. 

The pod slid shut. Allura backed away, ruefully eyeing the blood stains on her dress, while Coran fiddled with the pods settings. 

“What does it say?” asked the Princess. Coran turned to them with a relieved expression-- tired, but relieved. 

“Aside from the blood loss, his scan is reading as normal.”

Pidge beat Shiro to the punch when she asked, “Are you sure? The Castle’s decontamination didn’t catch it last time.”

“Didn’t you see what happened in the hangar?” Lance butted in. He still looked shaky, but some color had returned to his face. “The Lions basically smote that thing. I don’t think it’s still around.” He paused, frowned, and tacked on, “Hopefully.”

“I agree,” said Hunk. “Yellow is pretty pleased with himself right now.”

As though hearing his words, Black purred in the back of Shiro’s mind. With that reassurance he finally let the tension bleed away; if the Black Lion said it was over, then he believed her. 

The rest of the group seemed to come to the same conclusion. The air lost its aura of fear, and one by one the others dropped, either sitting on the floor or one of the cots. The only exception was Coran, still tapping away on the pod controls. 

“I wonder,” Pidge murmured after a few tired minutes, “if we’ll ever know what it was.”

“I don’t want to know!” Hunk yelped, at the same moment as Lance exclaimed, “Don’t even go there, Pidge!”

Pidge laughed and held up her hands in surrender, but Lance wasn’t done. 

“This is why we keep getting into these situations! You people keep saying this shit and jinxing us to hell and back! I swear, it’s like none of you have even seen a horror movie.”

Shiro was too tired to laugh, but he did find a smile growing on his lips as Pidge chuckled and Hunk shook his head at her and Allura looked on in fond confusion. Coran finally stepped away from the pod, and Shiro sat up a little straighter as he approached.

“Come along, Number Two,” he said, offering Shiro a hand. “Your turn to go in the pod.”

Shiro took his hand, but as he was being pulled back to his feet, asked, “What about Keith? How long will it be?”

Coran gave him a soft, understanding smile. “He’ll be just fine in a couple of quintants. Don’t worry.”

Well, Shiro could never promise that, but he could at least let Coran heal him. 

With only one more glance at Keith’s pod, Shiro let Coran lead him. 

When Keith woke up, the first thing he felt was fear. He couldn’t move-- had his trick failed? Was the spider still in control? How long had it been, what had it made him do? Oh, God, what did he do?

There was a hiss, and light burned on his closed eyelids. He squeezed them shut tighter and turned his head away. He knew the spider would just make them open again, make him see the carnage it had wrought with his hands, but he couldn’t help grasping for a few more seconds of solace. Then something brushed his arm and he jerked back, not even registering the fact that the paralysis had faded in his desperation. No one could find him like this. The spider would make him hurt them, too. 

“Get away,” he heard himself say. He couldn’t be sure if his mouth actually moved, or if he was still screaming in his own head. “Get away from me, please, it’s not safe--”

“Keith.” A voice, familiar and soothing. “It’s alright. It’s gone now, you’re in control.”

Could it be true? Slowly, hesitantly, he tried to open his eyes. Lo and behold his muscles obeyed, and after a few blinks to ease the burn from the lights, the room came into focus: the infirmary, and at the edges of his vision, the inside of a pod. The touch came back, and this time he recognized the shape it was attached to. 

“Shiro?” the name left his lips in a sigh of relief, and Shiro smiled as he gently pulled Keith out of the pod. 

“Hey, otouto. Good to have you back.”

Keith rubbed his eyes with his fists. It was coming back to him now: the hangar, Red, his knife, and….

“I stabbed you!” 

Shiro’s response was to envelope him in an embrace. At first Keith stiffened, half expecting his arm to move without him and lash out, but after several excruciating seconds without motion, he gradually began to relax. Shiro was patient with him, holding him securely but not too tight, one hand resting over the back of his neck. 

“It really is good to have you back,” he murmured, and Keith gulped guiltily even as his body leaned into the contact. 

“I’m sorry. I tried, I swear I tried--”

Shiro shushed him. “You don’t have to apologize.”

“But I--”

“You,” he punctuated it with an extra squeeze, “fought back. And you won.” 

Keith had to admit defeat. Finally he thought to move and hug Shiro back, and for a few moments they just stood there together. Keith could hear Shiro’s heartbeat in his chest, thrumming away so steadily, and he let it calm him as he practiced moving his muscles, flexing one finger at a time. He hadn’t been without control for long, but it was surprising how easily you can get used to something. 

“Are you sure you’re ok?” he whispered eventually. Shiro rubbed circles on his back. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Healing pods are incredibly convenient.”

Keith let out a wet-sounding chuckle and pulled away, keeping his head turned so that Shiro (hopefully) wouldn’t see the tears rising in his eyes. “So, where are the others?”

“Outside.” Shiro rubbed the back of his neck with a rueful expression. “I asked them to give us a few minutes.”

“Right.” Who knew how he would’ve reacted if he had woken up to a room full of people. “Everybody’s ok? Lance and Pidge?”

Shiro gave him a soft smile. “They’re fine. A little shaken up, but they weren’t hurt. Do you want to see them?”

Keith nodded, but the moment Shiro started to turn away something in his gut twisted, and he grabbed for Shiro’s wrist. He didn’t miss how quickly Shiro snapped back to him, but neither of them said anything about it as Keith searched for the words he wanted. 

“Are they-- I mean, after all of that, do they still-- do you think they’re--” 

Shiro set a hand on Keith’s shoulder, bringing his anxious train of words to a halt. “They’re not angry at you, Keith. They aren’t afraid, either; they might be cautious and wary for a few days, but none of them blame you for what that thing made you do.”

He shuddered at the reminder, but nonetheless released Shiro’s arm. Because as worried as he was about it, his desire to personally make sure the others were okay outweighed it-- he had to see them to erase the images in his mind, of Lance throwing himself at the airlock door and Pidge’s terrified face, the tremble in her voice when she said he was hurting her. 

“Hey.” Keith didn’t realize he’d zoned out until Shiro shook him, ever so slightly, with the hand that was still on his shoulder. 

“S-sorry,” he stammered as his cheeks warmed. He couldn’t do that in front of the others-- they’d think he was going to lose it again. “I’m not-- I’m ok, I was just--”

Shiro stepped close again. His expression was still reassuring, but Keith could see the concern building just underneath it and cursed himself. Even so, his voice remained calm. 

“You were remembering.”

Keith ducked his head. Shiro’s other hand joined the first on his shoulders, keeping him from turning away completely with only the gentlest pressure. 

“It’s ok. It’s going to happen. And you know we’re going to have to talk this out, don’t you?”

He swallowed a groan, but made himself nod anyway. Logically he understood why-- the last thing they needed was two Paladins with PTSD from unprocessed trauma-- but that wasn’t going to make it any less excruciating. 

“Good. But that’s not right now. Right now you’re going to see your teammates. Right?”

“Yeah,” answered Keith, taking a deep breath. There was more to worry about under those words: Keith wouldn’t be the only one trying to process, it would be all of them, especially Shiro who had already been hurt by so many people, but he had to remember that now wasn’t the time for that. Now was for celebration, of another enemy vanquished. “Right. I’m ok.”

Shiro gave him a proud smile, and this time when he turned towards the door, Keith let him go unimpeded. 

Pidge was the first through the door, streaking in at light speed, and slammed into Keith with enough force to make him stagger. 

“I hate space,” she declared, voice slightly muffled into Keith’s shirt. “If I had known there would be this much magic mumbo-jumbo I would’ve stayed on Earth where things make sense.”

Keith wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but Lance saved him from it by groaning, “God, same. There should be a disclaimer above the Castle doors, ‘please check your science at the gate’.”

For a moment Keith was concerned (it was always hard for him to tell what Lance was thinking under all of the jokes and sarcasm), but it dissipated when he met Lance’s eyes and got one of those world-weary smiles he gave whenever their situation got to be just a little too much to handle. 

Hunk didn’t bother with greetings or wry commentary. He just scooped both Keith and Pidge into one of his signature bear hugs and squeezed until he felt like his ribs would break in the best way possible. “I’m so glad you’re ok, man! That was so scary!”

Keith managed a choked laugh and a murmured, “You can say that again.” Pidge gave him an extra squeeze in response, then Hunk set them both back on their feet and let them breathe again. 

Allura was next. She didn’t try to touch him, but kept her hands clasped under her chin, the way she did when she was nervous or excited. “I’m so sorry,” she began, practically oozing sincerity. “I shouldn’t have insisted you investigate that derelict. I was so caught up in the strange quintessence--”

Keith shook his head. “It’s alright, Princess. You couldn’t have known.”

She looked like she was about to ignore him and continue right on down apology lane, but Coran cut her off with his usual boundless energy. 

“Number Four! How are you feeling, my boy? Any lingering marks or pain?”

He looked down at his arms and cringed. He’d just realized he was covered in dried blood that had surely rubbed off on Pidge, but nothing hurt, and he didn’t see any remnants of the slashes he’d inflicted. 

“No, I think I’m good.”

“Excellent, excellent. When you’re ready, I’ve prepared a meal for everyone to share!”

Keith made a face, inspiring a smothered chuckle from Shiro and an offended look from Coran, before Hunk jumped in. 

“Don’t worry, I made sure it’s actually palatable.”

“Whatever would we do without you?” said Shiro. Hunk blushed, and Coran folded his arms and looked away in a dramatic pantomime of irritation.

There was still a certain tension in the air, in the way everyone held themselves, the way they watched from the corners of their eyes. But that would fade with time.

You could get used to things so easily, after all.  

Chapter Text

Keith was different. 

Shiro didn’t know why he was surprised. He was different, too, and surviving on his own in the desert for a year couldn’t have been easy. Some of the changes were obvious-- the paranoia, the protectiveness, the way he never seemed to notice when he’d gone a long time between meals or not gotten enough sleep, how he melted under Shiro’s slightest touch far more easily than he ever had before. 

Others were far less blatant, and it took months of little occurrences for Shiro to notice. Like how if you called his name, he wouldn’t react until the second or third repetition. Like how no matter how loud you made your footsteps, he would still jump when you got close. He’d always been jumpy, always had quick reflexes, but sometimes during training he either wouldn’t see or wouldn’t process the flash of the Gladiator in his periphery and take a hit he could’ve easily dodged. 

That last one was what finally made him put the pieces together, and Shiro couldn’t claim the credit even for that. It was Allura who brought it up after training one day as the other Paladins, Keith included, filed out towards the locker rooms. 

“Does Keith have some sort of eye damage?” she asked with a hint of frustration. Shiro paused halfway through fixing his helmet hair and frowned. 

“Not that I’m aware of. Why, has he said something about it?”

Allura shook her head. Her brow was creased, and Shiro couldn’t help feeling bad-- even he, with all of his arena experience, continued to fail at living up to Allura’s expectations. 

“No, he just… It’s just strange how he reacts. He can pilot through any debris field we throw at him and he’s the fastest to respond to his environment, but something’s different when it comes to combat with the gladiator. When it’s in his periphery, it’s like he can’t see it coming in for an attack.”

He thought back to the training session that had just ended. Now that he thought about it, there had been a moment when the robot had taken a swing off to the side of Keith. If it had been any other kind of stimuli-- like Lance throwing a clump of food goo at him, for instance-- Keith would’ve dodged it instinctively. But this time he didn’t react to the glint of the training deck lights off of the gladiator’s white armor, and had taken a solid strike to the gut as a consequence. 

“Huh. I think you’re right, Princess. I’ll talk to him about it tonight.”

Allura gave him a grateful smile and nod, and Shiro left the training deck with his thoughts racing. They kept up the pace as he showered off and got changed out of his armor, trying to remember the small details; it was difficult with the big blurry chunk in his memories, with the way his PTSD made the past and the present bleed together, but eventually he reached a conclusion: something had happened in the desert. He hadn’t noticed any physical damage on Keith that could be causing it, but trauma isn’t always as obvious as missing half of an arm. 

He went right to Keith’s bunk after leaving the locker room. That’s where he generally went after training, and as Shiro had predicted the door opened after the first knock. 

“Oh, hey Shiro.” He was wearing that little smile he got around Shiro sometimes, that one that almost looked relieved. “What’s up?”

“Just wanted to talk for a little bit. Are you busy?” Shiro did his best to appear nonchalant-- Keith could sense an emotional discussion a mile away and avoided them like the plague-- but this time he just shook his head and stood aside to let Shiro in. 

He waited until he heard the door close before turning. Keith was in the midst of shrugging his jacket back on, so his eyes didn’t completely land on Shiro’s face when he said, “Look, if this is about what I said to Lance during training, he called me something a lot worse.”

A bemused chuckle found its way out of Shiro’s throat. Leave it to those two to turn every occasion into a banter battle. “No, that’s not it.” He moved to sit on Keith’s bunk. “But it is about training.”

“Ok,” said Keith as he sat down beside him. “What is it?”

Shiro took a moment to take stock before answering. Keith seemed relaxed, with his arms loosely crossed and shoulders down, one of his boots brushing ever so slightly over the floor. He took another moment to mourn the fact that he was about to murder Keith’s good mood. Then he took the plunge. 

“Has your vision changed at all? Since the Garrison, I mean. Are you having trouble seeing certain things?”

Keith went still. Just as Shiro had feared, his shoulders were beginning to tense and rise into their defensive hunch, and Keith’s tone was subdued and wary when he responded.

“No. Why? Is my piloting worse?”

Shiro shook his head, immediately and vehemently. “No, it doesn’t have anything to do with your piloting.” Keith relaxed, just a smidge, so Shiro continued. “It’s with the gladiator. Sometimes, when it swings at you, you don’t seem to notice it. Are you having trouble with your peripheral vision?”

He was expecting a range of reactions from Keith, maybe a defensive denial or an attempt to dismiss the issue, but the tired sigh and wilted posture that he got wasn’t among them. 

“Oh,” he said, dully. “That.” 

Shiro’s eyebrows rose questioningly, but Keith wouldn’t look at him. He was just staring at the floor between his feet-- Shiro would have to push harder. Hopefully not too hard. 

“You know you can tell me, right? Nothing bad will happen if I do.”

“No-- I know,” said Keith, running a tired hand over his face. “It’s not that. My vision is fine, I can see fine. I just…” He trailed off, so Shiro picked the sentence back up. 

“You just don’t react.” Keith gave a dejected little nod. “Why not?”

He pressed his arms close to his chest. He was still looking away, unable to look even in Shiro’s general direction, but Shiro didn’t take it personally. This was just how Keith was. All Shiro had to do was give him the opportunity to talk and the time to organize his words, and Keith would do the rest. 

Eventually, after several minutes of quiet waiting, Keith did just that. 

“You already know that I was living out there for a while, after the Garrison.” He paused, allowing Shiro to nod, before continuing. “Well, I tried not to go into town very much. I didn’t have a lot of money, and technically the city owns that land now, so I didn’t want anyone to know I was there. So I didn’t-- I wasn’t around other people very much, is what I’m saying.”

Shiro felt his heart begin to sink, but for now he tried to hold it up. He couldn’t assume anything until the story was over. 

Keith shifted and rubbed the back of his neck. He kept his fingers bent, ever so slightly, to catch the short hair at the base of it. “Turns out the human brain doesn’t like complete isolation,” he said with a hollow, shaky chuckle. “I started to, uh, see things, sometimes. Nothing crazy, but sometimes I’d see a flash of light or a flare or something, right out of the corner of my eye, but when I turned there wouldn’t be anything there. It’s getting better now, I think, but I guess I just got used to ignoring it, so when I see the gladiator, sometimes I just…”

“Your brain assumes it’s a hallucination,” Shiro added. He kept his voice gentle, but Keith still winced at the word. 

“Yeah, I guess so.”

This time Shiro let his heart continue its drop towards his feet. He knew exactly how Keith felt; there were times when he wasn’t needed in the arena or the witch’s laboratory, when the Galra would store him away in some cell or another and leave him until they needed him again. He never knew how long he was locked in there, but it was always long enough for the hallucinations to set in. 

And Keith, despite being on Earth and relatively free, had endured the same thing. 

The silence that fell between them as Shiro processed was too much for Keith. He shrank away from his side, one of his hands curling into a fist to rub his thumb over his knuckles in anxious circles. 

“I know it’s a problem,” he said with an all too familiar quickness. Trying to head off the lecture or punishment or disappointment he feared was coming next. “I know it could get someone hurt in combat. I’m working on fixing it, it shouldn’t take too long-- I mean, it’s not like I was in solitary confinement or something--”

Shiro quieted him with a simple bump of their knees together and asked, “Were those the only ones?”

Keith paused and blinked. “Um… no. No, sometimes at night I’d hear footsteps on the porch, or hear someone calling my name, but no one was ever there.” His cheeks turned pink, and he looked away again. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Sure,” said Shiro with a shrug. “But it was still bad.”

He didn’t seem to know what to do with that. Shiro moved his arm a bit, testing, and when Keith didn’t cringe away, drew it gently over Keith’s shoulders. After a few seconds of tension Keith slouched and leaned into it. Shiro tucked Keith’s head under his chin; he wasn’t making a sound, but Shiro could feel his breathing, how he was holding his breath to restrain whatever emotion was welling up inside him. 

“You’re not alone anymore, Keith.”

He felt Keith’s shoulders shake. And he didn’t say anything else about it.

Chapter Text

“So?” Every expectant tap of her foot made Keith cringe a little more. “Who did it? Fess up.”

Keith kept his eyes focused on the tapping shoe. He already knew what the other kids were going to say. The same thing happened in every home, every foster family. But this time was different, because he knew what kind of punishment awaited him, and his gut was already tying itself in knots trying to escape the inevitable. 

“Keith!” piped Brandon, the youngest, with an accusing point in his direction. The other three kids were quick to follow, adding their accusations onto the pile, and Keith felt the dread descending as her angry eyes shifted to him. 

“Well?” she snapped. “Is that true?”

Keith shook his head, but it was a useless gesture. He had already been condemned, and he knew it; even so, he couldn’t find it in himself to get angry at his accusers the way he had in the past. Not here. If he had been on the other side, he would’ve done the same thing. 

The woman’s arm snapped up. Keith flinched, but no blows fell. Instead her hand held the same point as her childrens’, this one directed at the colored glass scattered over the kitchen floor. 

“Clean it up,” she said through clenched teeth. Immediately he ducked his head and scurried to do what he was told. It wasn’t fast enough to escape the smack upside the head she dealt as he passed, but that barely even registered-- far, far worse was coming. 

He picked up the shards of glass with trembling hands. He hadn’t gotten permission to use the broom, and under the weight of her eyes he barely dared to breathe any more than what was required for the task. More than once he felt the sting of sharp edges biting into his fingers, but Keith dug his teeth into his lip and held back the winces.

The other kids were still in the room when he delivered the last handful of glass to the trash. That was by design. It wouldn’t do for them to forget what happened when you did something wrong. He lingered by the trash can for a moment, warily eyeing the woman from under his bangs, until that foot began to tap again. 

“Come here.”

His gaze flickered to the silhouette of the front door over her shoulder. She was in the way, but if he was quick, he might be able to dash around her. If only he could remember if the door was locked--

The woman clapped her hands together. All of the children jumped at the sudden sound, then shrank back from the seething expression on her face.

“I said, come here.”

Balling his bleeding hands into his sleeves, Keith approached, counting the steps. When he was only one step away, with her looming over him like Mt. Vesuvius over Pompeii, he quickstepped to the right and made a break for it. 

She gave a wordless shout of fury. Keith made it two steps, three, four, before she caught him by the arm and dug in her talons. 

“Worthless little brat.” Her other hand came down in a slap so hard Keith saw the room spin. “I let you into my home, spend my money, give you my food, and this is how you repay me?” She hit him again, so that both of his cheeks were filled with the same hot pain. 

Keith choked on his rage. He clawed at her hand and dug his feet into the carpet, shouting, “Let go of me! Let go! Get off of me!” But her grip was unyielding, and before he could decide if he was going to try punching or biting next, her fingers fisted themselves into the long hair at the back of his neck. 

He cried out at the pull, but couldn’t make a sound when she slammed his head into the wall beside them. 

The pain was sharp as it bloomed on his temple. His eyes unfocused; in his daze, Keith didn’t understand a single word that the woman screamed at him. He felt his feet tripping over themselves, but didn’t realize that she was pulling him somewhere until she let go and his shoulder hit another wall. 

“You want to act like a wild animal? Fine, then I’ll treat you like one.” 

The slam of a door closing scrambled Keith’s thoughts all over again. He blinked rapidly, frantically, but the darkness wouldn’t go away, he still couldn’t see-- except for a slim line of light near his feet, and his stomach bottomed out. 

She had locked him in the closet again. His eyes grew hot, but Keith stubbornly held the tears back with his breath. He wasn’t going to cry. He wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Even so, he couldn’t swallow down the despair that thickened in his throat. Last time she left him in there all night. This time wouldn’t be a minute shorter. 

“Get moving!” she shouted outside, the door barely muffling it at all. “All of you, upstairs! Now!” 

Footsteps thundered overhead. Keith felt his way to a corner and sat down, drawing his knees to his chest in an empty facsimile of comfort. 

He hadn’t even done anything, but as he’d rapidly learned since his father died, in the real world innocence didn’t matter. Truth didn’t matter. All that mattered were appearances, false impressions, and convenience. His social worker wouldn’t believe him if he told her about this, just like she hadn’t believed when he told her about the other boys in the home. She’d rather believe them, because it was easier to just punish Keith and believe it was all his own fault than try to fix things. 

What’s the point? he thought, grinding his teeth against the ache that throbbed behind his eyes. Why try, when everyone already expected him to be the troublemaker? Every time he hoped, they inevitably failed him. No one else cared enough to listen. And if no one else cared, why should he? It wasn’t worth the energy, or the disappointment. 

Upstairs there was a bang, followed by the smack of skin hitting skin, and one of the other children wailed. Even with him as a scapegoat, they couldn’t escape their mother’s wrath. 

Keith put his head down on his knees. It was going to be a long night. 

When the security guards showed up at his door, Keith thought he was dreaming. But when he rubbed his eyes and looked again they were still there, two of them, intimidatingly impassive behind their shaded visors. 

“Kogane,” one of them said, as though in confirmation, though by now every member of security personnel knew who he was. 

“The commander wants to see you,” said the other. 

Keith frowned and turned his head to peer at the clock on his desk. It read: 6:47 A.M. 

“Why?” he tried to say around a yawn. “Is something wrong?”

“We didn’t ask,” answered one in a dry tone. “Just get moving.”

Still half asleep, Keith asked, “Can I get dressed first?”

The first guard scoffed, but the second nodded, and neither of them followed him into his bunk when he turned away from the door. Keith snatched a uniform from his closet and went into the bathroom to change, and by the time he was done getting dressed and had brushed his hair into a somewhat manageable mop, he was awake enough to start feeling nervous. He hadn’t done anything wrong in a while-- to his knowledge, at least. Maybe it was nothing, just some kind of administrative kerfuffle because of all of his various documents and files that came with years in the system, but when he stepped into the hallway and the guards immediately flanked him, that hope died a quick death. 

His stomach twisted into knots. Still he tried his best to ignore it as the guards escorted him down the hall. Since coming to the Garrison he’d been trying to work on trust, to not assume the worst of everything and everyone, so he tried the deep breathing Shiro had taught him and tried to still his racing thoughts. 

It’s probably fine. It’s probably nothing. I don’t need to freak out. But no amount of positive thinking could stop the trepidation that welled up when they reached the commander’s office door. The first thing he saw when it swished open was Commander Iverson’s stern expression. His heart rate spiked, but Keith forced it back down again. 

It’s Iverson. Iverson always looks pissed. It’s fine. 

He took a few hesitant steps into the room. One of the guards followed him in, taking up a position in the corner behind Iverson’s desk, while the other stayed outside. The presence of the figure in armor didn’t ease Keith’s nerves, but once he was in front of Iverson, Keith found it much easier to control his expression. He was good at that-- looking dead on the outside while smothering everything on the inside. 

“Is there something wrong, sir?” he asked, his tone just as flat and monotone as his face. He noticed Iverson’s jaw tick in answer; the commander hated how little of an effect he had on Keith, and Keith was all too aware of that fact. 

“Hmph,” said the commander, lacing his fingers together on top of his desk. “You tell me, Kogane.”

Keith resisted the urge to scowl. He was good at hiding his emotions, unless that emotion happened to be anger. And he couldn’t stand when people played mind games with him. 

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said, then begrudgingly tacked on, “sir.”

Iverson narrowed his one eye. “Yesterday. Last night, more specifically. Do you have anything to say?”

“I-- what?” Keith’s formally impassive frown deepened into one of confusion. “Yesterday? Did something happen yesterday?” He wracked his mind, trying to remember the day before, but nothing was sticking out. He went to class, went on a hover ride with Shiro, did homework, did laundry, and went to bed. What could he have done wrong?

“This act of yours isn’t cute, Kogane. Just admit what you did and things will go much easier for you.”

Keith shoved his fists into his pockets to disguise how they were shaking. He was baffled, pissed off, and (as much as he didn’t want to admit it) starting to get scared. 

“What are you talking about?” He was probably going to get scolded for his tone, but the thought of controlling it had been fully abandoned, replaced by the slowly gathering dread. “I don’t-- I didn’t do anything.”

Bracing his elbows on the desk, Iverson leaned forward. “Then why do we have video footage of you leaving your bunk after lights out?”

“I left to do laundry!” Surely they should’ve seen the basket in the footage. Was going to the laundry room after dark really such a dire infraction? Was he about to get kicked out of the Garrison because of some dirty socks? Seriously? 

Iverson didn’t give him time to think. “That would’ve given you plenty of time to get down to the vehicle bay.”

Keith couldn’t help the frustrated sound that left his throat. “I never went near the da--” He barely caught himself in time to rephrase. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. If something happened in the vehicle bay last night, I don’t know anything about it. I left my room with my laundry, sat in the laundry room for an hour, and went back. That’s it. Don’t you have footage of that, too?”

Iverson huffed a dramatic sigh and shook his head slowly, like he was disappointed, but Keith wasn’t fooled. He could still see the tension in the man's muscles, the pent up anger. Without him noticing one of his feet slid back into a better stance. 

“I’m giving you an opportunity here, son.” Rage flared hot in Keith’s chest at that word, and it was only with immense effort that he was able to hold his tongue. “I’m offering you the chance to resolve this internally. But if you would rather go to court--”

“Court?” Keith burst out. “What the hell?”

The commander didn’t look surprised at Keith’s language slip. He just kept going, calm as anything. 

“The Garrison has been lenient thus far with your delinquent behavior, Kogane. Perhaps too lenient. You have to learn that Captain Shirogane’s approval isn’t a pass to indulge in whatever escapades come to mind.”

Keith shook his head hard. He wanted to fidget, to move, to release all of the frustration building up inside him before he snapped, but he didn’t dare. The last thing he needed was to make himself look even more guilty. 

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t I get to know what I’m being accused of?” He fought to bring his voice back under control, but he wasn’t sure if he succeeded. In any case, the commander apparently elected to have pity on him, as he directed his gaze at his desktop computer and tapped a few keys. 

Keith waited in growing tension. Iverson clicked around for a few moments more, then twisted the monitor around to face Keith, whose breath left him in a rush. 

The image on the screen was of a Garrison all-terrain vehicle, much like the one Shiro had driven to visit Keith’s old school-- and, he remembered with a cringe, the one he’d stolen. This vehicle seemed to be sitting axle-deep in a mudflat, with one of its headlights broken, a side mirror missing, and a few profanities scrawled across its sides with red spray paint. 

“That wasn’t me,” he said immediately. Iverson raised an eyebrow, and Keith scrambled to say more before he was interrupted. “You don’t have any proof! You can’t just assume it was me based on my record, you have to have evidence!”

He expected to be berated for being disrespectful. If this had been in a class setting, he would’ve been. But Iverson just smirked a little and reached over his desk to press the intercom button. 

“Send them in.”

The door behind him slid open. Keith turned, and his heart leapt into his throat. Three people had just walked in, all dressed in Garrison orange, and one face among them was familiar: James Griffin, with that trademark smirk on his face. 

The moment Griffin came in, Keith knew he was screwed. Straight A, perfect record, do-no-wrong Griffin-- who wouldn’t believe his word over Keith’s? And he had back up, a guy and a girl who Keith vaguely remembered from some of his classes. 

The anger drained away, and despair rose to take its place. This was it. It was over. All of Shiro’s belief was for nothing, and Keith would be going back to the group home, where this same scenario would play out over and over. He wasn’t going to be a pilot. He would never know what it was like to really fly, all because a delinquent like him could never be worth any amount of trust. Or anything else, for that matter. 

“Cadet Griffin,” said Iverson with a note of satisfaction. “You saw Cadet Kogane leave the vehicle bay, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” Griffin answered. “All three of us did.” 

The boy beside him nodded, shooting a glare in Keith’s direction. He couldn’t remember his name, but he knew he was one of Griffin’s disciples. The ones who didn’t think Keith deserved all the support Shiro gave him. 

On Griffin’s other side, the girl hesitated. Her name was Amanda, he thought… or maybe Hannah. Then Griffin elbowed her not-so-subtly in the side, and she hastened to copy the other boy’s nod, though her eyes kept cutting anxiously towards Keith. 

He could’ve brought up how the three of them had to have also been out after curfew in order to see him, but Keith didn’t bother. In situations like this the truth didn’t really matter. All that mattered was finding someone to blame. Someone to punish. The illusion of authority was always more important than the truth. 

So he stayed quiet. Iverson sat triumphantly behind his desk, Griffin stood just as triumphantly before him, and all Keith could do was curl his hands into fists in his pockets and resolve not to give them the satisfaction of seeing how much it hurt. 

“Well, Kogane?” Iverson prodded after several seconds of silence. “Anything to say?”

Before he had a chance to answer-- if he was even going to-- all of them paused at the sound of harried voices from outside the office. They went back and forth for a few seconds, then the door opened again. A familiar figure stepped inside, and Keith felt the entire Earth fall out from under him. 

It was Shiro. Shiro, with that tight set to his jaw and narrowed-eyed stare that said he was angry. And why shouldn’t he be? He’d just been informed that months of work and effort and hits to his reputation had been for nothing. Of course he would be pissed, and Keith knew all too well what that kind of anger entailed. 

Every muscle in his body turned to stone. His heart beat wildly in his chest, adrenaline chilling his blood as it snaked through his system, but he couldn’t move an inch. He couldn’t run. It was always worse when he ran, and the Garrison had so many guards to chase him down, and when they caught him he didn’t even want to think about the kind of beating he would get for it. So he stood, still as a statue, not even breathing as Shiro advanced.

 As long as he stayed still, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so much this time. 

By the time Shiro reached the office he was already breath-takingly angry, and the pale, terrified expression on Keith’s face only stoked the flames higher. 

“What is going on here?” he demanded, barely able to keep his tone in the realm of civility. He took in the scene: Iverson behind his desk, his camera monitor twisted around to show an image of a trashed Garrison vehicle; James Griffin standing across from Keith, scowling at Shiro; the other two cadets, the boy stone-faced and the girl shifting nervously from foot to foot; and Keith, staring at nothing with glazed over eyes.

Iverson gave a stiff nod of acknowledgement. “Captain Shirogane. Thank you for coming, but I believe I told you in my message that your presence wasn’t required.”

Another wave of fury rolled over him. Shiro kept it in check, just barely, and gave a stiff response of his own. “It did, but as I’m sure you know, I was appointed as Keith’s guardian while he’s enrolled here. I’m required by law to attend any disciplinary meetings.” His eyes skipped to the monitor. “Is that what this is about? The vandalized rover?”

“Yes,” said Iverson. His voice was loud and accusatory, but that’s how it sounded normally. “You of all people should remember Kogane’s history with rovers.”

“That incident was over a year ago.” He stopped himself from saying anything more-- as angry as he was, he had to keep his temper in check. He couldn’t do Keith any good if he got himself in trouble for mouthing off to a superior. 

“We also have footage of him leaving his dorm after dark last night, and these three,” Iverson gestured to the other cadets, “saw him leaving the vehicle bay.” 

Shiro made himself exhale. Iverson didn’t know what he knew. He didn’t know how hard Keith had been trying to stay out of trouble, or how awful his self image was from all the years of being suspected for nothing, or how genuinely caring Keith was under all of those walls. He only knew one side of Keith, and it wasn’t the most flattering one. 

“Sir, I think we should consider a conflict of interest. You know that Keith and Cadet Griffin have a history--”

“The only conflict of interest,” Iverson interrupted, narrowing his one eye, “is involving you and Kogane. You’re his mentor, it stands to reason that you wouldn’t want him drawing any more negative attention to you than he already has.”

Movement in his periphery drew Shiro’s eye across the room. It came from the girl standing at Griffin’s right hand-- she was fidgeting, twirling her blonde hair around her finger and gnawing on her lip. Griffin noticed him looking and nudged her. She dropped her hair and clasped her hands together, but the anxious tension refused to leave her body. 

He glanced again at Keith, and a spike of concern momentarily overwhelmed the anger. He usually had a decent poker face when it came to Iverson, but that expression always managed to look both bored and irritated at the same time. The look on his face now was utterly blank and distant; he stared right through Shiro like he wasn’t even there, and he hadn’t moved as much as an inch since he entered the room. 

Iverson followed his gaze and gave an unreadable frown. “Ask him yourself,” he said with a wave of his hand. “He’s a terrible liar.”

Shiro barely kept himself from rolling his eyes, but took the opportunity to get closer to Keith. The boy didn’t react at Shiro’s approach, nor did he to Shiro’s soft murmur of his name, which was concerning in and off itself, but only grew worse when he attempted one of their customary shoulder touches. 

Keith was a jumpy kid on the best of days. He startled easily, and more often than not would flinch at first contact, even if he knew the touch was coming. But this time was different. This time he shrank away, cringing almost in slow motion away from Shiro’s hand, his head turned a full forty-five degrees away as he continued to stare into space. 

Stomach tight, Shiro glanced back at Iverson, whose frown had deepened. He knew something was off, too. 

“Sir,” Shiro began, straightening up to give Keith some space, “I don’t think that--”

“It wasn’t Keith!”

Silence. Shiro turned to find the cadet with her hands over her mouth, with the other two glaring holes into the side of her head, and the only sound was James’ angry hiss of, “Amanda!” She just shook her head wordlessly.

Iverson stood up from his desk. “Care to repeat that, Cadet Hadda?” he asked, solemn as the grave, and although Shiro saw the girl’s throat bob as she swallowed, she still lowered her hands and stood bravely at attention. 

“Sir.” Her eyes flicked to the silently fuming Griffin, then to Keith. “We… we never actually saw Keith in the vehicle bay. The three of us got up early to run some drills and found the rover, and James-- I mean, Cadet Griffin, said that if we pinned it on Keith that there might be room in fighter class for one of us.” She looked down at her feet, ashamed. “We lied. I’m sorry.”

Griffin seethed. The other boy scowled at a random corner of the room. Iverson glowered from behind his desk, but despite it all, Keith still hadn’t budged an inch. Relief and continuing worry dueled in Shiro’s chest, until Iverson’s eyes met his. 

“Shirogane, you and Cadet Kogane are dismissed.”

With a nod of acknowledgment, Shiro turned and, hopefully quietly enough that only he would hear, murmured to Keith, “Come on, bud. I’m going to put my hand on your shoulder.” He still cringed, but didn’t bolt or lash out, which Shiro counted as a win as he steered him from the room as gently as he could. 

He kept his expression stoic as they traversed the halls, but on the inside Shiro was pretty freaked out. He’d never seen Keith react like this before, and what the hell did he know about dealing with catatonic teenagers? But they made it back to Keith’s bunk without any (further) difficulties, and once the door slid shut behind them, Shiro finally let himself breathe. 

“Ok, I’m going to take my hand off of you now.” 

Keith didn’t react much to the removal. He just stood and stared, even when Shiro circled around to face him and knelt down. 

“Hey,” he said softly. “You in there, Keith? Can you hear me?”

Keith nodded jerkily, and Shiro gave another sigh of relief. “Good, good. Do you know where you are?”

Another nod. Keith’s eyes flickered to him, just for a second, before leaving again. “‘M at the-- the Garrison.” His voice was painfully quiet, but at least he was talking. 

“Yeah, that’s right. Do you remember what just happened?”

He hesitated, his fingers twitching. “I… am I… do I have to leave?”

“No, Keith,” Shiro answered with a vehement shake of his head. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I didn’t do any--anything.” His hands were shaking, his eyes beginning to slide out of focus. “I swear I didn’t--”

“I know, it’s ok. I’m going to touch your hand, alright?” Shiro took one of Keith’s hands, ever so gently, and thankfully that seemed to pull Keith back to reality-- enough to look at him, at least. “Do you remember what Amanda said? She said you didn’t do it.”

Keith’s other arm jerked, and after a moment of effort, he raised his hand to tangle in the ends of his hair. That was usually a bad sign, but Shiro was just happy he was moving again. “I heard, I just… wasn’t sure.”

Shiro nodded like he understood. He didn’t really, but that hardly mattered at the moment. 

“So… I’m not in trouble?”

“That’s right,” said Shiro with his best reassuring smile. “You’re perfectly fine.” Keith let out a long breath. Shiro let him have his moment before continuing. “What happened in there? Can you tell me?”

With a stiff shrug, Keith withdrew his hand from Shiro’s and crossed his arms. “I don’t know. I thought-- I guess I thought I was gonna get kicked out. And then you came in and I just… couldn’t move.” He shrugged again and repeated, “I don’t know.”

Well, that was concerning, but Shiro tried to keep up his calm facade. “And how are you feeling now?”

“Ok, I guess.” Keith glanced at his desk. “I have class.”

“I can get you excused.” Keith opened his mouth to protest, but Shiro didn’t let him interrupt. “At least for a few hours. You could use some rest.”

For once, Keith didn’t argue. He just nodded, his shoulders slumping, and Shiro stood up. 

“Do you want me to stay? I can make time.”

Keith shook his head immediately. “No, I want to be alone.” The words were brusque-- time for Shiro to go. 

“Alright, I’ll come check in around lunch. Message me if you need anything.” 

Keith didn’t answer. He had his head turned firmly away, not showing Shiro his face. All signs screamed that now was not the time to linger. So he took his leave, and began his grim consideration of what to do about Iverson. 

The tears kicked in the second Shiro left the room. Keith instinctively buried his face in his hands, and his chest ached in protest as he held his breath for the hundredth time that day. 

He still had no idea what had happened in Iverson’s office. He remembered Shiro coming in, he remembered a moment of panic, then his body just… froze. Nothing responded when he tried to get it to move. He remembered hearing the voices as people talked around him, he remembered paying attention, but if someone asked him what any of them had said, he wouldn’t be able to tell them. 

Needless to say, that had never happened to him before. He didn’t know what was going on or how to deal with it; hence asking Shiro to leave, so that he could figure it out without stressing about someone seeing him. 

When the urge to cry had retreated, even just slightly, Keith let out his breath in a long sigh and slumped onto his bunk. It was still unmade, and he was still wearing his shoes, but he disregarded both of those facts as he laid down and curled into a loose ball. He was still shaking, which he tried to remedy by pulling in longer, deeper breaths. 

The dreaded tears returned. Keith dug his teeth into his lip and didn’t make a sound, but he let the tears fall without stopping them. 

God, he was tired. Even breathing took more effort than it should have. 

Keith closed his eyes, forcing out even more tear drops, and tried his best to ignore the thumping of his heart in his chest, still racing. 

Turns out, Shiro didn’t have to worry about it too much. When he got back to his office there were already two people waiting for him there-- one he knew, and the other he knew only by reputation. 

The former was the school counselor, Hernandez. The tall, lean man was the first to turn towards Shiro as he approached, a thin smile plastered on his face that made him cringe on the inside. He didn’t have much of an opinion on the man, but Keith did, and it wasn’t exactly a favorable one. 

The other was woman, petite, with dark skin, darker hair, and an even darker, solemn pair of eyes. She wore a slightly different uniform than Shiro or Iverson, and for good reason, as she outranked both of them. He couldn’t determine what her presence here indicated, and her impassive face granted no assistance. 

“Captain,” said Hernandez when Shiro was close enough. He stopped a few steps away and gave a salute, which the Colonel acknowledged with a nod. She didn’t bother with any further pleasantries. 

“I’ve been informed that there was an incident in Commander Iverson’s office today.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Shiro answered. He tried his best to keep his tone even, but he was feeling the strain of the chaotic morning already. Gesturing towards his office door, he continued, “Maybe we should step inside.”

The Colonel waved the statement away. “No need to waste time, Captain. Just tell me one thing. Do you believe the Commander’s behavior in that meeting was appropriate?”

“I…” As angry as Shiro was, he still hesitated. Nearly a decade of military training had never allowed him to badmouth his superiors, but in this case… and the Colonel had asked… “No, ma’am. I don’t.”

She gave a considering nod in return, but otherwise didn’t indicate how she felt about the statement one way or the other. A moment later Hernandez cleared his throat and took charge of the conversation. 

“We were also told that Cadet Kogane displayed some concerning behavior during the meeting. Aside from his usual, I mean.” The counselor attempted another smile, but Shiro didn’t reciprocate, and after an awkward few seconds, he cleared his throat again and continued. “I’ve discussed it with the Colonel, and we agreed that it would be helpful if the Cadet was given a psychological evaluation.”

Shiro raised his eyebrows. Cadets didn’t get psychological evaluations, not until after they graduated and properly enlisted. Hernandez didn’t miss his reaction. 

“Normally we don’t, as you know, but seeing as how Kogane is technically a ward of the Garrison, we felt it was our obligation to monitor his mental health as well.” 

“Right.” He got the feeling that the decision was more motivated by damage control than anything else, but if it meant that Keith got help from someone who actually knew what they were doing, he’d go with it. “Will you be the one conducting the evaluation?” 

Hernandez shook his head immediately. “No, not me. Our primary psychiatrist will do it-- she worked with adolescents for several years before coming to the Garrison.”

Well, that was something. Shiro remembered her from his own psych eval before getting confirmed for Kerberos. She was nice, thorough, and pretty straightforward, which Keith would appreciate. 

“Don’t worry about Iverson,” the Colonel added in her stringent voice. “I’ll be having a discussion with him about proper procedure with cadets. “

Externally, Shiro nodded and did the proper salute as the pair left. Internally was another matter-- he was dubious, to say the least-- but there was nothing he could do about it now. 

It was out of his hands. 

Chapter Text

The Paladins of Voltron were the most wanted fugitives in the vast Galra Empire. Their group was made up of two exceedingly rare and exceedingly visible species, and whether it was the Castle of Lions, the shuttles, or the Lions themselves, all of their vehicles were both extremely flashy and extremely identifiable. 

So why, for the love of all that was holy, did they still go to space malls undisguised? Coran’s disguises were awful, but only because they made them stand out even more. But Keith couldn’t fathom why they still went to public places within the Empire without any other safeguards. Surely Pidge could’ve rigged up a couple of holograms for people to go on supply runs when they were necessary. 

But no. Instead they continued to visit swap moons and space malls, rocking right up in the Castle or flying in with the ancient Altean shuttles, blatantly showing off their human/Altean features and clothing. Half the time Allura didn’t even take her tiara off! 

The worst part was that he knew Shiro agreed with him, but never said anything. Probably afraid that to be too vigilant would be giving into PTSD inspired paranoia. But it wasn’t paranoia if they were really out to get you, which they very much were. 

Keith tried to bring these things up again the next time they stopped at the space mall, but got the same reactions he always did. A sympathetic cringe from Shiro. Concerned glances from Hunk and Coran. An indifferent shrug from Pidge. Careful ignoring from the Princess. And, the most annoying of all, the dramatic eye roll from Lance. 

“Not this again, dude,” he said. “How many times do we have to go somewhere without incident before you get over this?”

“I’ll get over it when Zarkon quits trying to kill us,” Keith retorted hotly. They were in the middle of loading into a shuttle; the Alteans had already claimed the piloting seats, which left all five Paladins to squeeze onto the benches in the cargo bay, a space that always felt too small when Lance was in a bickering mood. “Which, last time I checked, hasn’t happened yet.”

“You can’t keep doing this, man. Remember Klaizap?” asked Hunk with pointedly raised eyebrows. 

Keith groaned and let his head fall back against the metal wall. He was never going to live that down, was he? “What part of intergalactic war do you people not understand?”

Shiro closed the bay door with a clang. The shuttle shuddered as the engines started, and Shiro bumped Keith’s shoulder as he sat down beside him. He only realized it was intentional when he murmured something into Keith’s ear. 

“It’s gonna be fine, Keith. We haven’t had any trouble at the mall before.”

There was a snarky retort on the tip of his tongue, but he recognized that unsettled look in Shiro’s eyes-- today wasn’t a good day, and the last thing he needed was Keith exacerbating his anxiety. So for once he bit the words back and folded his arms over his chest, in hopes that the pressure would soothe the butterflies that were beginning to swarm. 

(It didn’t, really). 

The flight to the mall was uneventful. Keith and Shiro sat quietly while the other three Paladins talked amongst themselves. Pidge wanted to get another game for her console. Lance was hoping to piggyback off of that to get a friend for Kaltenecker, regardless of what Allura said about bringing yet another animal on board. Hunk wanted to teach Sal more recipes. Coran was after another obscure Altean mechanical part he was hoping the shadowy Unilu had, and Allura planned to continue her quest for something shiny. 

All Keith wanted was for them to not be chased out by the security guard again. 

The journey didn’t take long-- which didn’t help, the Castle was definitely visible from the moon the mall was built on-- and soon enough they were all climbing out of the shuttle to the sound of Coran’s voice in the background, complaining about how expensive parking was. 

The place wasn’t too busy-- which could be good or bad, fewer people to notice them, but also fewer distractions for that security guard-- so there was ample space for the group to stop in the entryway to strategize-- or just plan, he supposed. 

“I’ll be in the west wing,” Coran announced as the others gathered around. Keith stood on the edge of the group and watched the passing faces: one thin and blue, with only one eye; another with three, skin slate gray; one with no visible mouth and a thin purple scar. None seemed suspicious-- yet. “Princess, if you’ll come with me, there’s a jewelry store near the Unilu’s shop.”

Allura beamed and eagerly took his arm when it was offered. “That sounds lovely, Coran. Paladins, we’ll meet back here in a varga.” 

Hunk pouted. “Only a varga? That’s hardly enough time for the recipe I brought for Sal.”

Keith bit his tongue-- Sal was Galra, after all, Hunk shouldn’t be getting too friendly-- and Allura shook her head. At least today she’d opted for her battle suit, and left that conspicuous tiara in the Castle. 

“I’m sorry, Hunk, but we have other things to attend to. We musn’t linger.”

That, Keith could agree with. 

“Pidge and I are gonna hit the Earth store again,” said Lance, shooting Shiro a curious look. “Wanna come, Shiro? You didn’t get to see it last time.”

Shiro offered a smile. “Sure, why not?”

Keith didn’t say anything, and no one asked. They probably all assumed he’d just follow Shiro or wander off on his own, which was half right-- he didn’t want to run into that knife salesman/thief again, but he probably would stick close to Shiro. Just in case.

When the group split, he tagged along with those three, making sure to note exactly which directions Hunk and the Alteans went. 

Just in case. 

The Earth store was deserted, as usual. Lance and Pidge rushed in excitedly, Pidge making a beeline for the video game table and Lance heading for the owner to negotiate for the second Kaltenecker. Shiro stalled near the doorway, taking everything in with wide eyes, and Keith hovered a few feet behind, his attention split between the store and the hall outside. 

“Wow,” Shiro said with a slightly disturbed chuckle. “He actually looks like an alien. Like a-- an Earth alien. Roswell-esque.”

Keith hummed in acknowledgement. The hall outside was almost as empty as the store, except for a single alien who had just turned the corner across the way and paused near the wall, searching through their bag with one of their many hands. Their skin was a different color than any of the ones he’d seen at the entrance, but the angle of their face, kept just hidden from his sight, seemed a little too careful. 

“Keith?”

He snapped his head back around. Shiro studied his expression for a moment, then swept his eyes over the hall, looking for whatever had captured Keith’s attention. 

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing,” said Keith, lying instinctively. “Just keeping an eye on things.”

Shiro didn’t look entirely convinced, but gave a strained smile and turned back towards the store. 

This time Keith tried to be more surreptitious about it when he went back to watching the alien. They seemed to have found what they were looking for and were now turning some unimportant object over in their hands, studying it carefully. Their body was vaguely pear shaped, as was their head, and their face was covered with little things that could’ve been eyes or mouths or just markings. Barely visible between two of them was a little line, similar to the scar he’d seen earlier. 

“Hey, that was quick.”

Lance and Pidge were back, the latter with a smile and a package held to her chest, the former with a crestfallen expression and a distinct lack of a bovine companion. 

“They had Killbot ten!” she exclaimed, bouncing on her toes, and Shiro cocked an eyebrow. 

“They made that many?”

Pidge looked offended. “Of course! Killbot was the best selling game series of the 2050’s!”

“That was nearly two decades ago,” Shiro answered, mystified. 

“And?” said Pidge; all Shiro could manage was a baffled headshake before he took pity on himself and addressed Lance, instead. 

“No cows this time?”

“No,” Lance sighed. “Turns out Kaltenecker was the only one he had, he just didn’t expect anyone to come back again.”

Shiro gave his shoulder a sympathetic pat. To Keith the amusement was plain, but Lance accepted it, oblivious. 

“We can go to that clothing place a few stores down,” Pidge offered. “Would that make you feel better?”

Lance brightened instantly. “Yeah! Maybe they’ll have something with two arm holes this time!”

That made Shiro laugh, which in turn got a smile out of Keith. When he glanced back at where the alien had been standing, they were gone. 

He kept to the rear of the group as they moved to the next store. None of the other customers caught his eye in that brief interim; most of them seemed to be families, parents and children, some surprising in their similarities to Earth mall-goers, others surprising for the opposite reason. Keith allowed himself to relax, but only a little, knowing that an idyllic scene could become hellish in mere moments. 

The clothing store was called Empire Apparel. Galra bodies were similar to human ones as far as limbs went, but the mannequins in the windows catered to a wide variety of orientations, the clothes in a dizzying array of colors, some of which were probably not visible to the human eye. 

“Look at that jacket!” said Lance, pointing to a navy blue garment in the window. Whether the word jacket applied was up for discussion, but it at least had the appropriate number of arm holes. “That’s so cool! I gotta try it on.” 

Shiro gave an amused chuckle. Lance, as though the sound reminded him that Shiro was there, spun around and grabbed his wrist. 

“Come on, Shiro, you deserve something nice.” 

“Uh,” said Shiro, that uneasy expression crawling back onto his face, “I don’t know if--” But Lance was already dragging him forward, and he knew as well as Keith did that once Lance got going, there was no stopping him. 

Which, unfortunately, meant Keith would have to go in with them. 

Most of the space mall was well-lit, but this store had dim, moody lighting, much like some of the stores Keith remembered from Earth-- which would make it that much harder to keep watch-- and even though he was pretty sure that Lance had never been in there before, he moved like he knew exactly where he was going, taking Shiro with him. 

Pidge only followed halfway before stopping to lean against a group of tall pillars, atop which sat several more mannequins. Keith paused with her-- the position gave him a good view of the entrance and the corner of the store Lance had taken Shiro to-- and tried not to be too obvious about his skittering gaze. But he couldn’t hide it when Pidge’s arm brushed his sleeve and he jolted like she’d shocked him. 

“Chill out, Keith,” she advised, not taking her eyes from the writing on the back of the game case. “We’re in a mall, not a battlefield.”

“I know,” Keith answered. He tried not to snap, but his voice was still terse. If anything, this was worse than a battlefield: on a battlefield, at least you know you’re on a battlefield. 

With that thought in mind, he swept his eyes over the room again and listened closely. There were a few more people in this store, but not many, only enough to generate a low hum of mingled conversations. Most of the activity was at the far end of the shop, where the counter was, but across the room near the opposite wall was an alien who was seemingly browsing alone. 

They were tall and slim, of the one-eyed variety. Keith almost dismissed them entirely, until he noticed that one eye dart a few feet away, to where Lance was pointing out something to a doubtful looking Shiro. What really got his attention was the fact that the alien didn’t look away, not immediately. They held their gaze, flicking up and down, left and right, their gaze evaluating-- and that’s when he noticed the scar. 

That thin scar, purple against their aqua skin. The same scar he’d seen twice that day. The fact that it had been on two entirely different faces didn’t fully register, as the alien had finally looked away and turned in a different direction to browse, but Keith wasn’t fooled. He could see the signs on them now, the tense muscles, their stance, the way they position themself between the door and their target. 

“Hey,” he said, elbowing Pidge to get her attention. “You see that guy?”

She grudgingly looked away from her game, but only for a second. “Yeah. Why?”

“Does he look familiar to you?”

“No.”

“He was outside the Earth store. And the entrance.”

Pidge shook her head. “I saw the guy outside the Earth store, he looked completely different.”

“Well,” Keith stumbled for a moment. That hadn’t occurred to him. “Yeah, but they had the same scar.” That was the important part, but judging by the irritated slash of her mouth, Pidge wasn’t convinced. 

“How can you even tell that it’s the same scar if they’re on completely different faces?”

“They’re the same shape!”

“Most scars are the same shape, Keith.” 

He scowled to himself. To him, it didn’t matter that their appearance kept changing. Sea creatures on Earth could change color and texture at will and could mimic other animals to a T-- why shouldn’t aliens be able to do the same? 

But he didn’t bother saying so. Pidge wasn’t going to listen to him, she was too busy daydreaming about her new game. He had to try something else, and most importantly, he had to be subtle. He couldn’t let the alien know he was on to them-- it might provoke them into an attack. 

So, with great difficulty, he stayed where he was. He kept his eyes on the far wall and plastered a blank look on his face, pretending to be zoned out, but all the while watched the suspicious alien out of his periphery. They milled around in the same section of the store, browsing but never selecting anything-- another nail in the coffin. 

Keith also kept half an eye on Lance and Shiro, making sure he kept track of where they were. As usual when Lance was involved, they were taking forever, with Lance dragging Shiro from this rack to that, occasionally pulling something off to hold against his body, only to shake his head and put it back. Shiro looked bemused, but not unhappy. 

It went on for eons. Eventually God had mercy on Keith’s soul; Lance finally found something he liked and took Shiro to the dressing rooms. The alien was still in the store with them, loitering near the window displays. Keith made sure that he didn’t turn his back entirely to them as he made his way towards Lance-- he was concerned about leaving Pidge alone, but so far the alien had only shown interest in Lance and Shiro. He had to prioritize. 

“We’ll be leaving soon,” Lance said when he got close enough, before Keith even got a chance to say anything. “Patience, grasshopper.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” said Keith, even though it was exactly what he was going to say. He stepped a bit closer to Lance and spoke softly. “I think we’re being followed.”

He wasn’t expecting a great reaction from Lance. Even then, he was taken aback by the irritated snap of, “For Christ’s sake, Keith!” that he got. 

Keith shushed him. As casually as he could, he did another sweep of the room. The alien was still near the door, but even at this distance, Keith could tell they were watching. He could feel the spiders crawl of their gaze on the back of his neck. 

“Listen,” Keith whispered. “I’m serious, the same alien was at the Earth store and at the entrance with us, they look different but they have the same scar, and--”

“Stop.” Lance’s voice was dead serious, and his glare burned when it landed. “Just stop it. Shiro is finally having a good day, a day where he doesn’t have to worry about anything Galra related. He doesn’t need you digging up all of his trauma just because you can’t keep your paranoia to yourself.”

Keith recoiled. Lance was practically seething with animosity, and he could feel his cheeks warming with the shame that rose in his chest in response. 

“I-- I just--” he tried, only for Lance to cut him off with an annoyed wave of the hand that made Keith flinch. 

“No! If you want to go back to the Castle so badly just go! You don’t have the drag the rest of us down with you!”

He took a step back. Despite the heat of the words Lance had kept his voice down, probably for Shiro’s sake, and no one in the store seemed to have noticed the disagreement-- including, thankfully, the suspicious alien. So without another word he went back to where Pidge was standing and folded his arms, like he was impatient, while inside his thoughts raced. 

It was possible that they were right. That it was another situation like the one on Arus, that he was overreacting. They were in a mall, it wasn’t weird to see the same people multiple times, and he couldn’t even be sure they were the same person-- all he had to go on was a scar. 

But it was also possible that they were wrong, and Keith would far rather be paranoid and alive than carefree and dead. 

Either way, though, Lance was right about Shiro. He did deserve to have an off day, to act like a normal person for once, and Keith would never forgive himself if he triggered Shiro for something that turned out to be nothing. 

The solution? Stay alert, and keep his mouth shut. 

He waited beside Pidge for another ten minutes. He wanted to shake, to pace, but satisfied himself with rubbing his thumb over his knuckles, his hand hidden where it was tucked into his elbow, and kept his eyes-- as discreetly as possible-- on the alien, who was still milling about without ever picking up a product. If they were on Earth, they would’ve been kicked out by then for loitering.

At long last, Lance and Shiro returned to the group. Shiro was carrying a bag, a pleased look on his face, and Lance looked even more excited, despite the fact that the items they picked out weren’t for him. 

“Finally,” said Pidge with exaggerated annoyance. “You take forever.”

“It’s not my fault half the things in here are designed for Jabba the Hutt,” Lance retorted. 

Keith avoided eye contact with them both. The alien had disappeared, having slipped out the entrance in the few seconds Keith had been distracted. Doubtless they would be lingering somewhere near by, waiting for them to leave so that they could follow. 

“Alright, Mr. Razzle Dazzle.” Pidge dug her tablet out of her hoodie pocket and squinted at the screen. “Time’s almost up, we should be heading back.” 

Shiro’s face didn’t reveal much, but Keith detected a hint of relief, a feeling he shared. The sooner they were back in the Castle— safe— the better. 

Once again he brought up the rear as they left the store. He was hoping to avoid the others’ notice, so that he could watch their backs without distraction, but Shiro, ever the observant one, hung back with him. 

“Are you ok?” he asked, his voice lower than the chatter of Pidge and Lance ahead of them. “You seem distracted.”

Keith shrugged. “I’m a little overstimulated, I think.” The lie tasted sour on his tongue, but he didn’t have a choice, he had to get Shiro to stop talking to him, or he wouldn’t be able to hear if someone snuck up behind them or signaled for an ambush. 

Shiro’s eyes turned concerned. “Oh. Well, we’re almost done. Just a little longer.” 

He nodded back. Shiro didn’t know it, but his words helped. Just a little longer. Just a little longer, and they would be safe again. 

Allura and Coran were at the entrance when they got there. Unfortunately, Hunk had yet to arrive, and the prospect of standing in one place waiting for him made Keith’s skin crawl. The lobby was so open— anyone could come at them from any angle and be out the door before they could react— but he didn’t have a choice. Lance was still shooting him meaningful looks, and Shiro seemed more relaxed than he had all day as he talked to the Princess. 

So he sunk his teeth into his lower lip and chanted in his mind just a little longer, just a little longer. 

After several excruciating minutes, Keith finally caught sight of a familiar orange headband coming towards them and breathed an internal sigh of relief. Once Hunk joined them they could go home. Go home, and be safe. 

A splash of blue over Hunk’s shoulder caught his eye. Yet another alien, seeming just as distracted and absorbed in their own activities as every other person in the building, but in the split second that their eyes met across the room, Keith saw it again. That purple scar, and this time the alien knew it had been seen. He saw their eyes widen, saw their arm shift-- they knew they had to make their move.

Keith moved first. 

It all happened so fast. One minute he was standing there talking to Allura, watching Hunk get closer. The next, Keith was shoving past them both in a flash of red, and there was a burst of light like a muzzle flash. He heard Keith shout, saw him hit the floor and roll, and in seconds tracked the shot back to its origin: a blobby purple alien, who was now trying to slip into the crowd that continued to flow around them unnoticed. 

The other Paladins didn’t need to be told to give chase. They shoved their way past the few passersby who had paused to stare and disappeared from sight; when Shiro turned back to Keith, Coran and Allura had already gone to his aid, leaving him to play catch up. 

The majority of his brain hadn’t processed anything yet. He was moving on muscle memory, training, and an instinct that saw Keith curled around his left arm and started screaming bloody murder. 

But when he reached their little huddle, there was no blood that he could see. Keith was clutching his arm and grimacing like it hurt, but there wasn’t so much as a scratch, tear, or scorch mark on his jacket sleeve. Until Shiro moved a foot closer and something under that sleeve lit up, a thick band like a ribbon spiralling up Keith’s arm glowing through the cloth, and he let out a choked scream. 

“Shiro, stay back!” cried Allura, holding her hand out to stop him. “It’s quintessence based, it’s reacting to your arm. Back away!” 

He staggered back a few steps and the glow died, Keith’s voice quieting with it. Allura and Coran murmured urgently to each other. More and more aliens were stopping in the entryway to stare, and Shiro felt like he was in a tailspin. 

He usually didn’t freeze like this in the field. Especially when he knew they were going into a combat situation, he knew how to flip between his survival brain and his normal one when he needed to. But now there was no one to fight, no one to protect, and he couldn’t go near Keith. 

And underneath it all was the pulsing, terrifying knowledge that his paranoia had been right, and he never should have let his guard down. 

“Shiro!” It was Coran calling for him this time, rushing up to him. “Go get the shuttle and bring it around. We’re drawing a bit too much attention, I think.”

He nodded. Reality felt a bit more stable now that he had a task. Now he could feel the floor, at least. 

“Right. Yeah. I can do that.”

“Hold on,” Coran said, catching Shiro as he began to turn away, and put a hand on each of his shoulders. “Just a tick.”

Shiro twitched. His eyes skittered around the room, searching for any hint of that alien, or the weapon they’d had, or the other Paladins. 

“Look at me, lad. Shiro. Look at me.”

He forced his gaze to meet Coran’s. It was solemn, but not grim the way it sometimes was during a hard battle. Still Shiro’s heart pounded against his ribcage-- why was he wasting time, why was he standing still, talking to him, when Keith was--

“He’s not dying. Keith is in pain, but he won’t die from this. Are you understanding me, Shiro?”

Think. Breathe. Breathe, Takashi. 

It took a moment to force the air through his lungs, especially with all the noise around distracting him, but eventually he got there and managed a nod. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I understand.”

Coran smiled and patted his shoulder. “Good. Go on then, Number Two.”

Shiro went. 

For the record, getting shot sucked. It wasn’t like a laser blast or a bullet-- it was like a snake, twining up his arm and squeezing down on his bones, burning like water that was just this side of too hot. Bearable, but when Shiro had come close it lit up like napalm and scrambled every neuron he had. 

“Keith? Can you hear me?” Allura’s voice was dim through the keening in his ears, but clear enough for him to nod. “Good, good. How are you feeling?”

Cold. Cold and shaky. When he forced his eyes open static covered his vision, which thankfully dimmed the bright lights overhead and lessened the churning of his stomach. 

“‘M okay. Adrenaline-- got me for a second.”

Allura frowned down at him. “I don’t know what that is.”

Keith chuckled a bit and attempted to turn his head. Things spun for a moment, but eventually came back into focus, and his gut clenched. He couldn’t see the alien who’d shot him. He turned his head the other way. No sign of them-- and no sign of Shiro. 

“Where’s-- ‘llura, where’s Shiro? The alien, the alien with the scar, they were after Shiro--”

“Hush,” Allura scolded, setting a hand against his unhurt shoulder to keep him from sitting up. “Shiro’s perfectly fine, he’s getting the shuttle ready. And,” she said pointedly when he opened his mouth again, “your fellow Paladins are pursuing our attacker.” 

“Oh.” After a few deep breaths, Keith finally looked down at his arm. There were no marks on his sleeve, despite the pressure he could feel underneath it. “What did they shoot me with, anyway?”

“I’m… not entirely sure. It’s built from quintessence, that much is certain, and it reacts violently to a certain level of it. That’s all I can tell from here.”

His vision finally began to clear. The floor was an awkward angle, and all he could see was varying numbers of legs from the ring of concerned passersby that had gathered around them. 

“Allura…”

“I know.” The Princess looked around through narrowed eyes. Then her face relaxed. “There, the others are returning. Can you stand?”

Keith wasn’t sure he could-- his legs still felt like noodles-- but he nodded anyway. Allura took his other arm and pulled until he sat up; the world fuzzed on him again for a moment, but only for a moment. 

“Keith!” Pidge was panting as she rushed up, several steps ahead of the boys. “Are you ok?” The look on her face was so genuinely concerned; Keith made himself nod instead of grimace. 

“I’ll live.”

“I take it you didn’t catch the culprit?” asked Allura with a worried frown. 

Pidge shook her head regretfully as Hunk answered, “No, we lost track of him. Pidge said he was changing his appearance while he went, like an octopus or something.”

For a half second Pidge met Keith’s eye, only to immediately look away again, ashamed, but Keith couldn’t blame her. He was just happy that someone had listened. 

“We should get going,” Lance said. “Before someone calls that space mall cop. Can Keith walk?”

“I’m right here.” He noted the heaviness on Lance’s shoulders, the air of guilt, the way he couldn’t even look in Keith’s general direction, but that wasn’t high on his priority list at the moment. “And yes, I can.”

“Here,” said Hunk, offering him a hand, and Keith let him pull him back to his feet. He was a bit unsteady, clutching his arm to his chest as the pain thrummed through it, but he could manage. A moment later Coran rejoined them, ushering them towards the door with overly-frantic waves of his hands. 

“Hurry along now, Paladins, Shiro’s just outside with the shuttle. Just like that, calm as you please. You there! Enough staring! Nothing to see here!”

The shuttle was waiting for them just outside the entrance, as promised. The pilot seat wasn’t visible from their angle, which for a second pinged more anxiety-- Shiro had been out here alone, what if that alien had an accomplice, what if they doubled back-- but the others didn’t let him pause long enough to act on it. Allura’s hand was light yet insistent on his shoulder, and he could feel the others at his back, closing ranks.

It was enough to make him want to scream. He wasn’t the target, he wasn’t the one who needed protecting, but it didn’t matter. He was shuffled into the shuttle’s cargo bay with the others and sat down rather firmly by the Princess, and the shuttle took off. 

Keith cradled his injured arm against the jostling of the craft, clenching his jaw until his temples began to pound to keep a straight expression on his face. Everyone’s blatantly concerned looks weren’t helping. 

“Keith,” Allura said gently after a few minutes of awkward silence. “Would you mind taking off your jacket? I need to examine your arm.”

The thought of moving it made Keith want to groan, but he kept it trapped behind his teeth and gingerly shrugged off the left half of the jacket. The fabric left behind little strands of stinging sensation as it moved over his skin, like the drag of jellyfish tentacles, but the only reaction Keith allowed himself was closing his eyes a few seconds longer than usual. 

“Woah,” murmured Lance as the sleeve came away. Hunk nodded in stunned agreement, while Pidge stared mutely, eyes wide. 

The wound looked like nothing they had ever seen before-- a wide ribbon of magenta light, winding from his wrist to his shoulder, the same shade that peeked out in some places of Shiro’s prosthetic. 

Allura pressed her lips into a tight line. “Hold still, please.” She reached out and lightly ran her fingertips over the band, then gave him a questioning look. Keith shook his head; he didn’t feel anything. Then she lit her fingers with her own quintessence, and for the second time that day, everything went white. 

This must be what it felt like to be lit on fire, if you could burn from the inside out. 

The pain ended like it came: suddenly, and all at once. It left Keith shaking, doused in cold sweat, stomach tossing like he’d swallowed a hurricane. He couldn’t be sure, but if the way his throat ached was anything to go by, or the horrified expressions on everyone’s faces, he must’ve screamed. 

The whole shuttle jerked. Keith slammed his eyes shut, bile surging up his throat. Dimly he heard Lance blurt out, “Don’t throw up!” and blindly flipped him off, just as he heard the intercom crackle. 

“What the hell was that?” Shiro demanded through the speaker. Allura winced, but her voice didn’t waver when she responded.

“It’s under control. Focus on getting us back to the Castle.” 

“Allura--”

“I’m ok, Shiro,” Keith said, as loud as he could, despite how dangerously close it brought him to vomiting. “I’m fine.”

If Shiro made any sound in answer, it was lost in the static of the speakers before the intercom shut off. He felt the shuttle accelerate underneath him, but the movement was smoother than before, more controlled. He let his eyes close again. 

Allura didn’t try to mess with the wound again, and a few minutes later they cruised into the hangar. The shuttle touched down with a slight shudder; Hunk helped Keith stand without being asked and kept a hand on his elbow as they moved towards the door. The Princess lingered for a moment, saying something to Lance and Pidge that Keith didn’t have the energy to listen to. 

His jacket was still hanging awkwardly from one shoulder. Without a word Hunk reached around and pulled it back up. 

Keith murmured a quiet, “Thanks.”

“It’s gonna be ok,” was Hunk’s response. “Allura will fix you up.”

“I know. It’s not me I’m worried about.” Keith glanced back at the hangar and managed to catch a glimpse of Shiro, climbing out of the shuttle’s cockpit with Coran, before they rounded a corner and he vanished again. 

He’s alive, Keith told himself, trying to quell the anxiety that still clung to the bottom of his stomach. He’s fine. He’s safe. They all were. 

“Here, sit down,” Hunk said when they reached the infirmary. He led Keith to one of the cots, which he sank onto gratefully. 

God, he needed a nap. 

Moments later Allura and Coran joined them. Both looked solemn, but not worried or anxious, which Keith told himself was a good sign as Allura approached. 

Coran, hovering uncertainly in the middle of the room, asked, “Shall I start a pod, Princess?”

Allura shook her head as she perched herself on the edge of the cot. “That won’t be necessary. I believe I can extract the quintessence myself, but,” her eyes met Keith’s, “it will be painful.”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “I figured.” 

She gave him a sympathetic grimace. “Why don’t you lie back?”

Keith (with Hunk’s help) shrugged off his jacket completely and obeyed Allura’s instructions. The wound still throbbed with pain, the dim glow of the quintessence rising and falling in time with the pulses. His eyes burned at the corners with exhaustion. 

“Where are Lance and Pidge?” he heard Hunk ask as Allura’s face filled his vision. The Princess attempted a smile for him, and Keith attempted one back-- he wasn’t sure either of them succeeded. 

“The Princess asked them to keep an eye on Shiro,” Coran answered, and tired as he was, Keith’s brain still stood at attention. 

“Where is Shiro?” he asked Allura. Her brow furrowed with concern. 

“Keith, I already told you, he’s fine--”

“No, no, I mean--” For a moment the pain surged again, making him gasp for breath before he could continue. “I mean, is he outside? I don’t want him to hear.”

Her expression gentled. “Oh. I told Lance and Pidge to take him elsewhere, but I can’t promise that he’ll listen.”

“Right.” With one last deep breath, Keith balled up the sleeve of his jacket in one hand. He half expected Allura to try and stop him, but she said nothing as he shoved the cloth between his teeth. 

She merely asked if he was ready, and when he nodded and squeezed his eyes shut, laid her hands on him. 

“Shiro, trust me, you do not want to be near this room.” 

“Why not?” Pidge had a firm grip on his wrist, trying to pull him away from the infirmary door, but Shiro refused to be moved. “Coran said he was going to be fine!”

“He is,” said Lance in a soothing tone. “But it’s going to hurt, and--”

“Even more reason why I should be there!”

“Shiro, listen.” Pidge let go of his arm and put her hands on her hips. “The wound is glowing, ok? The same way yours was after you fought Haggar, and when Allura starts to heal it, it glows brightly. It’s practically blinding, and it’s the same color as Haggar’s magic.” 

The phrase just like your arm went unspoken. Shiro clenched his metal fist and shook his head. 

“I don’t care--”

“He’s going to be screaming, with that color glowing everywhere. You can’t think of a single reason why seeing that might be a bad idea?”

Unwanted anger filled Shiro’s chest. He shouldn’t get mad at Pidge, she was just a kid, but he wasn’t broken, for fuck’s sake. He wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t be there for Keith. He couldn’t be-- if he couldn’t even take care of his little brother, how could he believe he could lead Voltron? How could he do anything? 

“Hey, guys, just chill out, ok?” There was enough space in Shiro’s brain to feel bad for Lance, who looked more overwhelmed with every second that ticked by. “Shiro, I know you want to help Keith, but he wouldn’t want you to see this. He knows what it could do to you.”

Shiro looked back at the door. Approximately 92% of his brain was screaming-- Keith was hurt, someone was after them, someone had attacked them, they weren’t safe, they were never safe-- but the remaining 8% was enough to make him pause, just for a moment. 

Think, Takashi. Breathe. 

He took a deep breath, counting the seconds of the inhale and the exhale. Lance and Pidge were right, even if it wouldn’t trigger the hell out of him, what good could he do hovering around? Allura was handling it, and he trusted her… mostly. Enough to see past the fear and feel his shaking hands. He took another breath. 

“Ok. You’re right. I’ll go with you.”

“Thank God,” Pidge said, and grabbed his wrist again. “Let’s go.”

Shiro zoned out pretty much as soon as they started walking, letting Lance and Pidge decide where they were going to go while he tried to piece together exactly what had happened at the space mall. 

The alien had been after him. That was obvious-- if that weapon had hit him, being so close to his arm would’ve incapacitated him, if not just killed him outright. But Keith had taken it instead, and that wasn’t a coincidence. His memory wasn’t the best anymore, but he could remember that clearly, how Keith had gotten between him and the attacker a half second before the weapon went off. 

“Keith knew.” He said it outloud without noticing. “He knew something was going to happen.”

In his periphery, Shiro saw the guilty glance Lance and Pidge exchanged. That was enough to pull him back out of his head; they had wound up in the lounge, Lance and Pidge sitting on the sofa in front of him while he unconsciously paced back and forth. 

“What?” he asked. 

Pidge looked down at her feet. Lance squirmed, his eyes ricocheting around the room, but under the weight of Shiro’s expectant silence eventually cracked. 

“He… might’ve told me he thought we were being followed,” he mumbled. Shiro swallowed a groan and pinched the bridge of his nose. “And I may or may not have told him not to say anything. So that he wouldn’t…” Lance’s voice dipped, getting quieter and quieter with every word. “... ruin the day for you.”

“Oh, Lance.”

“It’s not my fault! He’s like this all the time, and usually nothing ever happens! I thought the mall was safe!”

Shiro couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t come out angry or upset, so he elected to say nothing, for now. He didn’t appreciate being used as a weapon against Keith, but he was the adult here. He needed to act like it, or at least pretend to. 

“He tried to tell me too,” Pidge admitted, nervously tapping her toes together. “He noticed that they kept changing their appearance. But I didn’t listen, either. I figured he was just being paranoid again.” 

He didn’t have the brain power for this, not when the majority of his mind was still stewing in anxiety over Keith’s condition. 

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Both of them shrank back, and Shiro felt, in the most exhausting way possible, like a single dad. He took a seat at the other end of the couch, and even though it might make them feel worse, put his head in his hands. 

All he wanted was for this day to be over.

A varga or so later, Coran appeared in the lounge doorway. He was smiling. 

“Number Four will be just fine,” he announced to all of their nervous expressions. “Just a bit exhausted now. Shiro, he was asking for you; he’s still in the infirmary.”

Shiro practically leapt to his feet, and on his way out of the door, barely remembered to give Coran a quick thanks. His body had somewhat calmed down why they’d been waiting, but now the anxiety was back full force, and he only managed to keep himself from running by the slimmest of margins. 

Allura was waiting for him outside the infirmary. Shiro didn’t even try to compose himself before speaking. 

“He’s ok, right? Will he need recovery time? Was--”

Allura held up a hand to stop him. “Keith is fine. There’s no lasting damage. He’ll just need to rest for a couple of quintants to overcome the fatigue.” 

The anxiety dipped, but didn’t vanish. Allura gave him a soft, understanding look and reached out to give his shoulder a squeeze. 

“It’s over now. You can breathe, Shiro.”

For some reason, that made Shiro’s eyes burn, but Allura was graceful enough not to mention it. She just smiled at him and let him go, heading back down the hallway the way Shiro had come. Leaving him alone with the infirmary door. He didn’t hesitate a single moment more before going inside. 

Keith was laying on the first cot by the door. He was paper white, sweat sticking his hair to his neck, and his jacket was half underneath him and half wrapped around him. It was a chilling image; until his eyes opened, and a smile grew on his lips. 

“Hey, Shiro,” he said hoarsely. Shiro’s stomach dropped, and he let out a sigh of shaky relief as he approached the cot. 

He knelt beside it, and after several throat clearings, managed to respond. “Hey, bud. How are you feeling?”

“Tired.” His smile turned wry. “That whole thing really sucked.”

Shiro huffed an empty chuckle. “Yeah, I bet.” He paused for a moment, trying to subtly examine Keith’s arm. It looked just as it had before, not a scratch or bruise on it, thank God. Shiro had a lot worse images running through his head. “I wanted to say thank you, for taking that hit for me.”

Keith raised a hand to shove Shiro’s shoulder. It was weaker than usual, but even that small bit of movement made him feel better, despite the way Keith’s face was scrunched up in disapproval. 

“Don’t start getting mushy on me.”

This time Shiro’s laugh was more genuine. “Right, right, sorry. Allura and Coran said you needed rest-- do you want to stay in here tonight?”

Keith shook his head vehemently, as Shiro knew he would. He hated the infirmary. “No, I wanna go back to my room.” He hesitated, cheeks tingeing ever so slightly pink, before grumbling, “I might need a little help.”

“Of course.” Shiro held up a hand, waiting for Keith to take it, and when he did drew him upright as gently as he could, keeping a sharp eye out for any indication of pain. As far as he could tell there weren’t any; Keith genuinely did just seem to be tired. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Shiro pulled him to his feet. He stumbled and staggered, and for once didn’t fight it when Shiro drew him in closer to support him. Together they left the infirmary, Shiro’s brain finally beginning to calm now that he had Keith next to him, alive, in one piece, and not hurting. 

“Lance and Pidge will probably want to talk to you,” he said as they made their way towards the bunks. “They feel pretty bad.”

Keith winced and shook his head. “It’s fine, they don’t have to-- most of the time they’re right not to listen to me.”

“But this time they weren’t. Lance also told me what he said, and I don’t want to be the reason why you feel like you can’t speak up about something.”

“I know,” Keith sighed. A bit more of his weight slumped against Shiro. “It’s just-- it gets hard to think straight, sometimes.”

“Yeah. I know that feeling.” All too well. 

There was a few more minutes of silence, neither of them speaking again until they got to Keith’s door. Then Keith said quietly, “I will talk to them about it. Tomorrow.”

Shiro smiled, and helped him through the door. 

Chapter Text

Keith had always grieved alone. 

As a child he would watch the other kids being picked up from school by their mothers and wonder why he didn’t have one. Every year when his classes made Mother’s Day cards he’d sit awkwardly in the back of the room, hoping the teacher wouldn’t notice, just so that he wouldn’t have to explain that he didn’t have a mother.

He was four years old the first time he asked his father about her. The man had gone silent for a long time, trying to figure out what to say, while Keith stared holes in his head with his big eyes. 

Eventually, the answer was given. “She loved you more than anything else. But she had to leave, to do something important. To protect us.”

At the time, the only word that had really processed in Keith’s mind was leave . 

Even at that young age, he could tell that talking about it made his father sad. He saw that same sadness when he stared at the stars at night, or sat quietly in his bedroom for hours at a time, staring down at that strange knife he kept hidden away in the dresser. So he kept his own thoughts secret, never voicing how often he wondered about the shadowy figure in their lives who was supposedly his mother. 

He had no memories of her. Not even any blurry, unclear ones. His father kept no pictures, no letters, nothing-- nothing but that knife, that he never allowed Keith to touch. He tried to imagine her, staring hard at himself in the mirror every day, trying to decipher which of his features was given to him from which parent, trying to assemble an image from half-missing jigsaw pieces. 

Sometimes, when his father was at work and he was alone in the house, he would wonder why she left. 

After the age of seven, Keith wasn’t sure he believed what his father said about her. The kids at school had plenty of theories-- maybe she died, maybe they got divorced, maybe she ran off with another man, to start another family. The crueler ones suggested that Keith himself was to blame, and what could he say against that? He had no evidence to the contrary, and one big, glaring piece of evidence to support it. 

He never did tell his father any of it. When he died it was the first time Keith had experienced real grief, and the pain of losing a parent was all tangled up with the fear of being all alone in the world, not a single relative out there to claim him. 

Despite the overwhelming scale of his mourning, Keith learned quickly to bury the pain. The adults running the foster care system were far too strung out to deal with another cry baby kid, the foster parents couldn’t be trusted to help, or even to just not hurt him, and the other children were perhaps the worst of them all, all hardened and turned to stone by their own losses. 

Keith learned to cry under the covers at night. He learned to do it silently, lest he earn the consequences of waking someone up. He memorized the route from the home to the graveyard, and on any day he could slip away, he would visit his father’s grave. 

It didn’t really help. It was just a pile of dirt and a slab of stone-- it was nothing like his father, who had been warm and kind and smelled like a campfire and had that rough voice that had been so soothing despite its gravelly quality. Still he went, and sometimes he cried, because what else could he do?

That pain never truly went away. It just scabbed over as he aged, the wound clotting with his ever growing fury that lashed out at everything and anything. No one ever told him that his anger was grief, too. 

When he met Shiro, he tried with everything he had not to get attached. Not to fall down the rabbit hole of hope, knowing from all of the foster homes that he’d ruined that it could never last. And he failed.

The night the news about Kerberos broke, Keith drove out into the desert and screamed at the stars until his voice abandoned him. 

The year that followed was a year of incessant mourning. He could distract himself for a few hours or days with that strange energy he kept feeling, but no matter what, he always circled back to the grief, to the loneliness, the utter apathy and endless cruelty of the universe; circling back like the buzzard shadows that haunted what remained of his childhood home, the ones that knew as well as Keith did that he would have to give up eventually. 

The second time Shiro disappeared he barely had time to breathe, let alone grieve. The others all wanted a new leader, wanted him to step up, and the rest of the time he spent searching for Shiro. He knew he wouldn’t find him a second time. But he searched anyway, and smothered his tears into his pillow at night, never letting anyone see. He couldn’t afford to love and lose again. It would break him.

That was what he told himself when he left the team. That it was for the best, that he would be better off without attachments anyway, that they didn’t need him and he’d be more useful elsewhere. He could never admit that he was still mourning Shiro-- the kind Shiro, the Shiro that believed in him, the Shiro who didn’t push him aside or run him into the ground. How could he mourn something that was his fault?

At the Blade, he never let anyone know that he still grieved for Regris in the dark hours of the night, made only darker by the lack of a sun. 

Keith had always grieved alone. Until the Quantum Abyss.

He couldn’t sleep. It was one of those nights when the very idea was unappealing for reasons he couldn’t entirely articulate, but part of it was probably the flashes. They were less common on the space whale than they had been in the Abyss itself, but sleep couldn’t stop the glimpses of the past and future that they brought. They just invaded his dreams, usually turning them into nightmares. 

So he stayed awake, performing mindless chores around their little cave home-- no. Not home. He couldn’t think of it like that. The second he started thinking like that, the second he started getting attached, he was doomed. 

He performed mindless chores around their camp, splitting firewood, cycling water through their rustic purifier, twisting more rough leaf fibers into twine. Krolia was busy with her own tasks, and the wolf pup, now nearly as tall as Keith’s waist, slept peacefully by their low burning fire. 

The flash hit the same way they always did-- without warning. The cave vanished, replaced by an orange sunset, the scent of hot dust, and a blurry headstone. He felt it all again, the heat of the sun, the ache in his legs from walking all the way there, the sweat dripping down his spine, the salt taste of a tear caught on his lip; the flashes were only in third person when they weren’t his own memories. That’s how Krolia would be seeing this one. From a distance, just as far away as she’d ever been. 

He was shaking when it faded. His-- their-- luxite blade shone from the floor where it had been dropped, the two halves of the log he’d been splitting fallen to either side. Slowly, as the feeling came back into his fingers, Keith curled his them into fists and pulled his arms close to his chest. That scene was one of the flashes he hated most, but it always seemed to come back. Like a bad dream. 

“... Keith?”

He curled in involuntarily, keeping his face hidden behind his arms despite already facing away from her. He wanted to run away, to withdraw into the shadows like he always did, but there was nowhere to hide. Not here. 

A single footstep echoed through the cave, making him flinch. 

“I’m fine.” 

Krolia let out a quiet breath. This is usually when she’d back off and let Keith have his space. This time, though, she didn’t. 

“No, you’re not,” she said, accompanied by the sound of more footsteps. When she was close enough for Keith to feel her presence at his back, she murmured softly, “Neither am I.”

Keith swallowed hard. He could feel that wall descending between them, the one that would lock up all of his emotions, except for anger, and make sure that no one ever saw him vulnerable again. His answer was a gruff, “It was a long time ago.”

“So?”

Keith turned away from her. He couldn’t do this, not with her, but Krolia didn’t seem to care this time. This time she was too determined. 

“Keith, I know you’re hurting. Talk to me.”

“I’ve hurt plenty of times before,” he spat at her without thinking. “I didn’t need you then.”

“No, you didn’t have me then. There’s a difference.” 

His old reliable rage kicked in. It beat back the tears and the ache in his chest and replaced them with flames and sparks, and he embraced it. 

“I’ve managed without you my whole life. You think I’ll come running to you now just because you’re here?” The message was clear: Back off, or get burned.

And Krolia, as stubborn and thick-skulled as his father had been, as he was, didn’t listen. Instead she reached for his shoulder, and the moment she touched him, the tension that had been building in the air shattered. 

Keith spun around with a shout. “Don’t touch me!”

She snatched her hand back, and with an anguished expression on her face, the most emotion Keith had ever seen from her, she cried back, “I’m sorry!”

They both froze at the same moment. Krolia had made her regret clear in other ways since they had met, with her I left you once and to protect the person I love most, but she’d never said this. Not those two words, and they left Keith reeling, like he’d been kicked in the chest. 

With glossy eyes, Krolia dared to reach out again. “I’m sorry, Keith. I’m so sorry.” 

Keith still stiffened when she touched him, but didn’t shout or pull away, and after a few more testing seconds, Krolia curled her fingers over his shoulder. That simple touch was enough to make him crack. 

The tears flowed down his cheeks, silent as they always were. Krolia’s hand squeezed. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” 

It wasn’t enough. Not after everything. But for one night, at least, he wouldn’t grieve alone.  

Chapter Text

“You’re bleeding!”

“It’s fine, it’s barely a scratch.”

“It tore right through your suit! What kind of a plant can do that? Altean suits are supposed to be stronger than that!”

“Calm down, it’s not that bad.”

“What if we can’t stop the bleeding? What if it gets infected? What if we’re stuck here for days and you die and then I die and we both die--”

“Hunk!”

The shout finally cut off his anxious babbling. Keith was glaring up at him from his position in Red’s pilot seat, where Hunk had forced him to sit down as soon as they got back to the Lion. The wound was, for the record, much more than a scratch. It was several inches long and carved deep into the muscle of Keith’s calf; the Red Paladin was unfortunate enough to have been the one standing beside the massive cactus-esque thing when the dust storm began. 

Hunk still wasn’t sure if the way the thing had whipped its limbs outward was an effect of the wind or a biological response on the plant’s part, but either way it had done its damage.

“Chill. Out.” Keith continued through clenched teeth. “You freaking out is not going to help this situation.” 

Hunk wrung his hands. Alarm bells were ringing in his head, all shrieking that death was imminent, but he tried to take a deep breath. It was shaky and difficult, which ever-observant Keith noticed. 

“It’s just like the Weblum,” he said in a significantly gentler tone. But his hands, curled into fists on the armrests, betrayed his frustration. It could have also been pain. It was hard to tell with him. “We’re going to get out of this fine, but you need to keep it together, alright?”

He closed his eyes for a moment and forced another breath. Still shaky, but better than the last. 

“Yeah. Ok. I can do this.”

“‘Atta boy.” Keith was smiling when Hunk opened his eyes again, though it too was strained. Which was very much bad news, but he couldn’t think about it. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. 

“Right. First thing’s first. What’s first?”

“Probably establishing contact with the Castle,” Keith started to say, only for Hunk to shake his head hard. Keith didn’t know this, but this was how Hunk found calm: an order of operations, a list, a procedure, order amongst chaos. If he knew where to start, he’d know where to go. Hopefully. 

“I need to look at your leg first and get the bleeding to stop.” 

Keith’s face returned to a scowl. “I told you, it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” Hunk insisted right back. “Look at how much blood there is! We don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here, and the last thing we need is you being all woozy.”

“God, fine,” said Keith with an exasperated eye roll. “Just find me the first aid kit, and I’ll--”

“What? There’s no way I’m going to let you patch up your own wound, man.”

He threw his hands in the air. “Two seconds ago you were having a panic attack about the blood, and now you wanna be the one to deal with it?”

Keith’s obvious frustration with him stung a bit, but Hunk couldn’t really blame him. It was a conundrum-- even here, from across the room, the sight of red running over the brilliant white of the Paladin armor was making his stomach turn, but his sense of compassion was stronger, and he knew himself. He’d never be able to focus on any technical task while a wounded teammate was left untreated. 

“I can handle it,” he said, setting his jaw in what he hoped was a determined expression. “I handled the Weblum, didn’t I?”

“Christ.” Keith let his head fall back against the headrest, then mumbled, “Fine. Have it your way.”

Immediately Hunk set to hunting down the first aid kit. It was difficult with the light from outside being so dimmed from the dust storm that kept them pinned to the planet’s surface, but Hunk just turned on his suit flashlight and kept going. If they had been in Yellow, the dust storm wouldn’t have been a problem. But they weren’t; they were in Red, and he had to deal with it. 

Eventually, with the help of the translator in his visor, he managed to find the first aid kit, hidden away in one of the metal panels that made up Red’s interior. He hauled it back triumphantly to Keith, who offered a wane half-smile in return. 

“I’ve already forgotten what half of those things do,” Keith admitted as Hunk opened the kit and began perusing the contents. Hunk hummed and nodded-- Allura had explained to all of them what the various items were meant to be used for, but they had so many convoluted names and terms they didn’t recognize it was mostly a losing battle. 

“I just memorized the things I knew how to use,” answered Hunk. The way he carefully separated those items from the unknown ones could’ve been seen as stalling, but he didn’t like to think of it that way. He was just being thorough, not avoiding the task he himself had insisted on doing, regardless of how the smell of copper was making him feel. 

(In case you were wondering, the answer to that was queasy.) 

He couldn’t avoid it forever. With one last steadying breath, Hunk turned resolutely to Keith and undid the straps holding his shin guard on. But even with that out of the way, it was difficult to see anything besides the black flight suit underneath, vaguely shiny in some places with blood. 

“I’m gonna have to cut this,” he said, and Keith groaned. 

“I’m sure the Princess is going to love that.”

“The Castle should be able to fix it, right?” He reached for one of the kit’s small blades as he spoke. “It’s fixed the armor before.” 

“With her it’s the principle of the thing.” Keith paused, waiting for Hunk to finish cutting, then looked down. “Who are you trying to distract more, you or me?”

Hunk swallowed hard. “All of the above.” 

It didn’t look better with the suit out of the way. If anything it looked worse, the slash wide and deep, and more blood was flowing out of it by the minute. Hunk wasn’t a medic, but they’d all gotten first aid training at the Garrison, and he knew that this would need stitches. He also knew that Keith was going to fight him every step of the way. 

“This needs stitches.”

“Shit.” Keith pulled his helmet from his head and plunked it down on the dashboard. He was paler than usual, and his mouth was a thin slash of irritation, all of which Hunk chose to focus on rather than the blood oozing onto his gloved fingers. “So I won’t be running any marathons. But the pods will be able to heal it when we get back, right?”

“Yeah, but we don’t know when that’ll be.” Hunk let go of Keith’s leg to gesture vaguely at the screens. “Who knows how long alien dust storms last? The storm on Jupiter has lasted centuries!”

Keith ran a tired hand over his face. “What, are you saying one of us should stitch it?”

“Not just one of us. Me.” Hunk turned away from Keith and started to shift through the kit, looking for what he needed, but that was mostly a pretense. He was already freaking out inside, his heart rate accelerating to where it had been before, and the scoff that Keith gave him didn’t help his confidence. 

“Do you even know how?”

“Yes! I took the same first aid classes you did.”

He heard Keith sigh and shift, and when he looked back up he found him leaning his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Immediately Hunk’s anxiety spiked. 

“Are you ok?” he asked in more than a little bit of a panicked tone. “Did you just pass out on me?”

“No,” Keith answered dryly. He ran his hands through his hair a few times, then sighed and slowly sat back up. His expression was weary, which worried Hunk, but he still sounded mostly coherent when he continued. “Fine, do whatever. Just don’t throw up on me.”

No promises, Hunk thought. But he tried not to focus on the blood, or the storm, or how much pain Keith must be in. Instead he kept his mind on his hands. First, get the topical anesthetic. Unscrew the lid. Apply. 

“Will Altean shit even work on us?” Keith asked as Hunk spread the substance around the wound. 

“I think a better question is whether they’ll work on you, specifically.”

Keith groaned in frustration. Hunk put the anesthetic away and reached for the needle. Unwind the floss, thread the needle. It took him a few minutes with how badly his hands were shaking, but that was ok-- it gave the anesthetic time to kick in. When he finally managed it, he turned back to Keith and prodded experimentally at his leg. 

“Can you still feel that?”

He shook his head and grumbled, “Just pressure.”

“Okay. Okay, here we go. Are you ready?”

“Just do it, Hunk.”

Hunk bit the inside of his cheek, glued his eyes to the tip of the needle, and made the first puncture. 

The resistance of flesh against the needle wasn’t surprising; the Garrison’s practice dummies were pretty realistic. What got the bile pressing up his throat was the follow through, the tug of skin against the thread. But he screwed his jaw shut, focused his eyes on the needle until the wound itself was nothing more than a blur of red, and kept pushing forward. 

Apparently, he distracted himself a little too well. He was halfway through the stitching when Red suddenly shifted underneath them, nearly throwing him sideways and almost making him stab Keith with the needle in the wrong place. 

“Hey!” he exclaimed, “Red, what gives?” Then he looked up, and his stomach dropped. 

Keith was significantly paler than he had been before the procedure started. He was resting his forehead in one palm, his hair over his eyes. 

“Keith?” said Hunk in a squeak, and thankfully he stirred. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“‘M fine,” was the slurred answer. “Don’t stop, ‘m just gonna… pass out for a second.” 

“Wait, no, no no no no no--”

It was too little, too late. His head lolled to the side, his arm falling out from under it, and he was out cold. 

Hunk hissed a panicked curse between his teeth. What was he supposed to do now? Keith was unconscious, a half-stitched gash in his leg, the dust storm hadn’t abated even a little bit, and even though he wasn’t her Paladin, Hunk was attuned enough to the Lions to know that Red was pissed at him. 

God, there was blood everywhere. He didn’t know how much longer he could do this. 

No. No, we’re not doing this. He wasn’t going to lose his cool, not now, Keith was counting on him. And by Jesus, he wasn’t going to let him down. Keith said to keep going, and that was probably the best idea. Get the painful stuff out of the way while he’s out. 

“Ok, ok, I can do this,” he whispered as he readied the needle again. “Don’t kill me, Red.” 

Waking up was possibly even more unpleasant than the passing out. He was still shaky, drenched in cold sweat, and when he tried to open his eyes, all he saw was gray static. So he closed them again and tried to breathe away the nausea. 

His leg still hurt. It was a strange sensation, with the tingling numbness spread across his skin and the sharp, shooting pain underneath. But he didn’t feel the pinching and pulling of the stitches anymore. 

“Hey, Keith, are you back?”

He groaned, but Hunk’s voice prompted him to try opening his eyes again. This time the static only stuck to the edges of his vision, allowing him to see the back of Hunk’s armor as he packed up the first aid kit. 

“Are we done?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t slurring too badly, and Hunk glanced back at him with a smile. It was small and strained, but the fact that he was smiling and not panicking was good enough for Keith to relax. Just a little. 

“Yup, the stitching is done. I just have to bandage it now.”

Keith rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Did you throw up?”

Hunk let out the tiniest possible chuckle. “Not yet.”

“Great,” he croaked. Red was pressing at the back of his mind, trying to check in on him, but he didn’t let her in yet. He needed a minute-- his thoughts were still spiralling. 

Something touched his leg, and Keith instinctively jerked. 

“It’s just me,” said Hunk. “Just putting the bandages on.”

“Oh.” He tried to hold still, even though his groggy brain was still ringing alarm bells. He didn’t process that Hunk was trying to talk to him until the end of his next sentence. “Wait, what?”

“I said, why didn’t you tell me it still hurt? We could’ve put more anesthetic on.”

Keith had to close his eyes again to make words work. “More wouldn’t have-- wouldn’t have done anything. It goes deeper than that. And it had to be done, you said so.”

Hunk made an upset noise back at him, but didn’t pursue the question, which Keith was grateful for. He didn’t have the brain power for a full conversation. 

“There,” Hunk said a short while later. “All done.”

Keith rubbed his eyes and sat up straighter. He felt a little better. Not much, but a little. “Ok, now we gotta call the others--”

“Nuh-uh. We aren’t doing anything. You’re going to sit right there and rest, and I’m going to try and get through to the Castle.”

“Huuuuunk,” Keith groaned, but Hunk had that mulish expression that said it would be pointless. 

“Nope, I’m not hearing it. You know better than to argue with me.”

Keith did, in fact, know better. So he leaned back against his seat and let Hunk take over. After all, he’d done a good enough job with the stitches, why not let him deal with the other issue, too?

Red purred as he finally let her back in, and in moments her warmth rose to chase out the cold that still remained in his limbs. 

They were still stuck, still stranded, but hey. It could’ve been a whole lot worse. 

Chapter Text

Did you know that PTSD can cause physical, chronic muscle pain? Neither did Keith, until the Garrison psych told him and he realized his Midnight Bone Aches, as he liked to call them, probably weren’t from growing. 

At the time, Keith hadn’t believed her. PTSD was something that war vets got, not sixteen year old foster kids. But she was firm in her diagnosis, and it wasn’t long after that Keith had to start seeing a proper therapist. An arrangement that came to an abrupt end the day he was expelled.

Two years later, lying awake in his bunk aboard the Castle of Lions, the knowledge that his brain was making him hurt for no reason didn’t make dealing with it any easier. 

Keith lay there at what must’ve been one a.m., hugging one of his knees to his chest. The pain almost always came at night, and almost always was in his legs. One or the other or both, making itself known in a hundred different ways: sometimes it felt stretched right beneath the skin, a thin tingling ache; other times like his bones were splitting open with searing pain; others like there were little stars in his joints, all radiating and pulsing and aching in time with each other. Sometimes it was barely noticeable, other times debilitating. 

Tonight was certainly one of the latter. Keith ground his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut as the pain flared again. 

It was infuriating. The aches were always worse when he was tired, but then they went and hurt too badly for him to sleep. He just couldn’t win.

With a sigh of defeat, Keith levered himself upright. Training wouldn’t be a good idea, but he could at least find something productive to do instead of laying in bed feeling sorry for himself. 

The hall outside his door was dark and quiet. There was no one around to see him, so Keith allowed himself a limp, just a tiny one, as he headed for the bridge. Both of his legs hurt tonight, but one hurt ever so slightly more. The lights in the hall glowed as he passed and dimmed again, hopefully quickly enough that it didn’t wake anyone else up. 

He was exhausted by the time he reached his destination. He shuffled over to the star map and leaned against the podium, breathing through his teeth. Almost on instinct he turned the map on, still trying to disguise his reactions despite the fact that he was completely alone, and it filled the room with gentle blue light. 

“Fuck,” Keith hissed to himself, followed by a gasp as the pain swelling again, spreading across the top of his thigh. The waves were slow, so far. They probably wouldn’t stay that way. 

Stupid fucking brain. Looking up, Keith gave the map an idle spin, not absorbing a single thing it was showing him. Nothing even happened to me. Not like what happened to Shiro. 

His therapist would have disagreed. She’d seemed horrified by some of the stories he had from school and foster care. But what did it matter now? He didn’t have time to fuss about his mental health-- there was a war on. 

As though in punishment for that thought the pain deepened, reaching past the muscle and into the bones, simultaneously in his right thigh and just above his left knee. Strung out as he was, Keith couldn’t stop the quiet whine that escaped his throat in response. 

A half second later he heard the door swish open behind him. Keith instantly straightened up, practically standing at attention despite the way his muscles throbbed in protest. 

“Keith?” asked a soft voice. “What are you doing up?”

He let out his held breath. It was Shiro-- he couldn’t relax all the way, he never could, but he didn’t have to pretend so much when it was just the two of them. Shiro already knew his tragic backstory. 

“Couldn’t sleep,” he answered gruffly, and glanced over his shoulder. Shiro looked as tired as he felt, both clothes and hair disheveled from tossing and turning. “You?”

“The same.” Shiro joined him at the star map. He looked pale in the blue light, pale and tired and worn thin, and Keith didn’t miss how he cradled his metal elbow in his other hand. 

“Your arm hurting?”

Shiro nodded. “You’d think, for a thing without nerve endings, it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

“Yeah, you’d think.”

Shiro sighed and looked down. There was a pause, and Keith was too tired to realize that he was looking at Keith’s hand, still splayed over his thigh. 

“Are your legs hurting you?” Now it was Keith’s turn to nod, and Shiro let out a little ‘huh’ sound. “That’s happening again?”

“It never stopped happening,” Keith muttered. He rubbed his eyes, and when he looked back Shiro had the oddest expression on his face-- he looked almost ashamed. 

“I’m sorry, I forgot about that. I thought therapy was helping.”

Keith sighed and rubbed his eyes again. He was too tired for emotional bullshit, even from Shiro. “It was. Kind of. But I couldn’t afford to keep seeing her after I got kicked out.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t,” he said immediately. “Don’t go blaming yourself.”

“I’m not,” said Shiro. “It’s just… it just sucks.”

From the depths of his soul, Keith summoned a teeny tiny laugh. “Yeah, it does.”

Shiro’s response was to drape his human arm around him. Keith turned into it, pressing his forehead to Shiro’s shoulder, and tried not to be too obvious about how his pain was spiking again. He could feel the same tension in Shiro. 

“Did I ever ask you,” Shiro murmured, “What it felt like?”

Keith shrugged. “Don’t remember.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Mmm.” Keith paused, searching for words to describe how the ache spiralled up through his limbs, how the ache was beginning to leech into his ribs and his shoulders, how it stained bones and muscles and joints alike, and came up with absolutely nothing. “Tonight it feels like someone beat the shit out of me with a baseball bat.” 

Shiro gave a sympathetic wince and rubbed his arm. 

“What about you?” 

He had an answer ready. “It feels like I hit my elbow on something, but cranked up to eleven, and it never fades away.” 

“Hmmm. Sounds annoying.”

Shiro gave a hollow chuckle. “That’s one word for it.” Keith slipped an arm around his middle and squeezed, hoping the gesture was as reassuring as Shiro’s had been for him. Shiro let out a quiet breath and added, “We should go sit somewhere. So you don’t have to stand.”

“Doesn’t make much of a difference,” Keith muttered, but didn’t fight when Shiro turned off the star map and started pulling him towards the door. 

They wound up in the lounge. It was different without the super-bright daytime lights, more subdued, and the cover of the dim lighting made Keith brave enough to sit sideways on the couch and drape his aching legs over Shiro’s lap. 

Shiro leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes. His index fingers tapped little rhythms over Keith’s shins. 

“Is it different?” Keith found himself asking, watching the silhouette of Shiro’s face. “Back on Earth, was the arm pain different?”

“Yeah,” Shiro began slowly. “Back then, it was more like… burning. Like how your muscles burn after a workout if you’ve pushed them too far, right before they give out on you.”

Keith made an understanding sound. He knew how that felt. 

“This is different, and I can’t decide if it’s better or worse.”

“Doesn’t have to be either. It can just be different.”

Shiro’s volume dropped as he answered. “You’re right. Just different.”

Leaning his head back against the armrest, Keith let his eyes fall closed. He was tired, maybe he’d be able to sleep, but his legs throbbed again, and with a quiet groan he gave it up. Eventually the exhaustion would overpower the pain. Eventually. 

“Do you think Coran would have something for this kinda stuff?” he asked. 

“No,” responded Shiro glumly. “I’ve asked. He just looked at me like I was crazy. Maybe Alteans’ brains don’t fuck them over as much as ours do.”

“Or they just deal with it.”

“Or that.”

Silence returned. The longer he lay there the heavier Keith felt, like the couch had its own gravitational pull, and maybe he was imagining it but the warmth and pressure of Shiro’s hands over his shins was actually helping the pain-- or perhaps just giving him another sensation to focus on. 

“We’re gonna regret it if we fall asleep out here.”

The only response he got from Shiro was a soft snore, and Keith smiled to himself. Soon he’d fall asleep too. Just a little longer. 

Just a little longer to wait, and the pain would fade. As it always did eventually. 

Chapter Text

“Hunk, take Pidge and go left. Lance, you and I are going right. Check every cell, every room, don’t skip anything.”

“Got it.”

“Ten four.”

Lance said nothing as Pidge and Hunk split from the group. He just met Shiro’s eyes and nodded, grim and determined, and followed him down the other hallway. 

Shiro kept his pace quick and efficient, as he’d been trained. He’d open the cell door with his hand, Lance would move in, Shiro would follow his lead and check the back corners. He didn’t falter, even as the part of himself he’d locked away grew more and more frenzied with every empty room. 

“Nothing on this side, Shiro,” said Pidge over the comms. 

“Do we know for sure that he’s here?” asked Hunk. “Maybe the Blade’s intel was wrong.”

“We’re not done with our side yet,” Lance answered, though paired it with a questioning look in Shiro’s direction. 

Shiro just shook his head and moved to the next door. Keith had been missing for three days already. He had to be here. He had to. 

The next cell was empty. And the next. And the next. Shiro ground his teeth until his jaw ached and kept moving. 

“Last one,” Lance muttered. 

The door slid open. At first all he could see was shadows, and Shiro’s stomach dropped. Then Lance moved forward, and the flashlight perched on his armor caught a shape, lying coiled up in a far corner of the room. 

Shiro swept in, and immediately recognized the unruly mop of black hair splayed over the metal floor. Keith’s name escaped him in a gasp as he dropped to his knees beside him. 

“We got him,” said Lance in the background. Shiro heard Pidge and Hunk’s responses but didn’t process the words-- he was focused entirely on Keith, brushing his hair away from his face and turning it towards him. 

Lance stepped closer. “Is he ok? Is he awake?”

‘Awake’ was one word for it. His eyes were open, but the pupils were blown wide, his gaze refusing to focus. He let out a quiet groan and tried to turn away when Lance’s light fell on his face, but otherwise gave no indication that he knew they were there. 

“He’s out of it,” Shiro reported to the others. “Looks like they gave him something. Lance, I’m going to need you to watch our backs.”

“You got it.”

After a steadying breath (he refused to fumble when he handled Keith), Shiro gently turned him onto his back and slid an arm under his shoulders. 

“Ok, Keith. I’m going to pick you up. We’re going to take you home, alright?”

Keith didn’t answer. He was dead weight, like a life sized rag doll, and his limbs dangled lifelessly as Shiro put him into a fireman's carry. 

“Let’s get out of here,” he said to Lance, hoping he still sounded like a calm, composed team leader. 

Lance nodded and said, “Lead the way.”

Pidge and Hunk met them back at the intersection, and together the team returned to where the Green Lion was hidden and waiting for them. One of the easier rescue missions they’d ever had, but Shiro wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth-- they had Keith back, alive, and that was all that mattered. 

Everything else could be worried about later. 

Keith was starting to come around by the time they got back to the Castle. He let out little moans and groans on their way to the infirmary. 

When Shiro finally laid him down on one of the cots, his fingers scrabbled clumsily over Shiro’s arms, like he was trying to hold on, until Shiro slid a hand into his and squeezed. 

Coran hustled over, armed with a scanner. Shiro stayed focused on Keith, whose eyes were flickering like he was trying, and failing, to make them work. 

“You in there, buddy? Can you hear me?”

Keith gave a slow, slightly lolling nod, and Shiro smiled with relief. 

“Seems like quite a simple drug,” Coran was saying in the background, presumably to the others, though the only one Shiro saw was Pidge as she took a spot on Keith’s other side. She fiddled anxiously with her glasses, but still managed a smile when Shiro met her eyes. “Muscle relaxant, some agent to keep his mind fuzzy-- hmph! Elementary.”

“Does that mean you can fix it?” Hunk asked. 

Coran waved a dismissive hand. “There’s no need. It should wear off in a few vargas.” 

Shiro finally let out the breath he’d been holding. Knowing the Druids, he’d been expecting nothing short of horrifying, but against the odds Keith seemed like he was going to be ok. 

Keith’s head rolled towards him. His face was pale, smudged with dust; he’d need a few days to recover before fighting again. Shiro felt a gentle squeeze, then Keith croaked, “Sh’ro?”

“Hey, there you are. How are you feeling?”

He blinked a few times, like he was trying to focus on Shiro’s face. “Been… better.”

Shiro didn’t quite laugh, but managed a slightly amused sounding huff. “I bet.”

“Are there any other injuries?” Allura murmured to Coran. 

“No, Princess. There’s some bruising, but nothing more-- they were quite gentle with him, it seems.”

“No.”

All eyes turned back to Keith. His face scrunched up, hating the attention, but he kept pushing for words. 

“Not gentle… they had pods.”

A collective wince went around the room. Shiro still didn’t remember much from his time as a prisoner, but he did have a few fleeting memories of what must’ve been healing pods. The Galra version wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the Altean ones-- not the ones they used for captives, at least. 

“Didn’t tell them,” Keith mumbled, pulling Shiro from his reverie. He turned his head to look at Pidge. “I didn’t. Not anything.”

Pidge smiled. “It’s ok, Keith, we know you wouldn’t.”

“Too damn stubborn,” Lance joked. It was half hearted, but it was enough to get Keith’s lips to twitch. 

Shiro finally pulled his eyes away from Keith. The other Paladins were gathered close, clearly relieved that they’d found Keith alive and mostly uninjured, but the slumped shoulders and bags under their eyes betrayed their exhaustion. None of them had slept much the last few days. 

“Alright guys, let’s give Keith some space. Go rest up.”

None of them argued, but as Pidge stood to rejoin Hunk and Lance, Keith squeezed Shiro’s hand again. He squeezed back-- he’d dismissed the others, but Shiro wasn’t leaving for anything short of an attack on the Castle. 

“I should return to the bridge,” Allura said as the Paladins filed out. She stepped forward, into Keith’s line of sight, and brushed a hand over his shoulder. “I’m glad we got you back safe.”

Keith smiled again, a little larger than before. “Thanks.”

With that the Princess took her leave. Coran got Shiro a chair to sit in, then began to bustle around the room, murmuring nonsense to himself; his routine whenever he wanted to keep an eye on someone but didn’t want to be obvious about it. 

Slowly and steadily, the drug faded out of Keith’s system. He was still drowsy, and a bit disconnected, but after a while was able to turn onto his side and face Shiro, still holding his hand with an increasingly tight grip. 

“This isn’t the first time,” he said softly. 

Shiro tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“The…” Keith trailed off for a moment, eyes going blank, before he shook his head and cleared it again. “The drug. This isn’t the first time they’ve given it to me.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “It was whenever… whenever they put me back. In the cell, I mean.”

Shiro frowned quizzically. “Why would they do that?”

“Dunno,” answered Keith with an attempt at a shrug. “I guess it’s hard to plan an escape when you’re high off your ass.”

That startled a genuine laugh out of Shiro, and something in him settled. Keith was already back to being snarky-- he was going to be ok. He should’ve known. Keith was far too stubborn to be broken by a few days with the Galra. 

All told, it could’ve been a whole lot worse. 

Keith bounced back quickly, as Shiro had predicted. The day following the rescue he already wanted to go back to training, but Shiro told him to wait at least another day, and he whined and complained but ultimately did as he was told-- possibly due to the fact that Shiro locked the door to the training deck. 

For most of the day he left Keith alone. He didn’t react well to being smothered, and he knew Keith needed solitude to process things. So it wasn’t until dinner time that Shiro started to think something was wrong. 

They were halfway through the meal. Pidge, Hunk, and Lance were trading jokes and playful jabs, as they often did, while Allura and Coran watched and exchanged amused remarks. Shiro was quiet, keeping half an eye on Keith, who seemed completely focused on his food. 

It took him a few moments to register the ringing. A soft, tinny dingdingdingding that was filling the air. The others, caught up in their conversation, didn’t seem to notice. Shiro’s eyes darted around the room, looking for whichever tablet or alarm was going off, but found nothing; it was several more seconds before he realized it was coming from Keith.

More specifically, Keith’s spoon against his bowl, ringing like a school bell due to the rapid trembling of his hand. 

“Keith?” he said softly. Keith’s head snapped up to him, the ringing finally stopping as he put his spoon down, but even then Shiro saw how his hands shook. How all of him shook, really. “Are you alright? You’re shaking.” 

“Yeah, I’m good.” He tucked his hands under his arms to hide them. “Just c-cold.” 

Shiro raised his eyebrows. The Castle could be chilly sometimes, certainly, but not cold enough to cause shivers, especially with Keith wearing his jacket. “That bad? Do you think you might be sick? A little space cold, maybe?”

He was giving him a way out, but Keith refused it with a shake of his head. His eyes fell away from Shiro’s face and onto something behind him— the door to the dining hall. 

“Yeah, I’m just n-not too hungry. Th-think I’ll go l-lay down.” 

Well, that settled it. Something was wrong here. But whatever it was, Keith clearly didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. So Shiro just nodded and let him leave without a fuss. Then he waited fifteen minutes, excused himself from the table, and went to Keith’s bunk. 

He wasn’t overly concerned. After all, Keith had spent three days in a Galra prison cell, which Shiro knew from personal experience weren’t the warmest in the universe. He wouldn’t be surprised if Keith had caught something. 

Those reasonable thoughts died a quick death when he opened the door and found Keith, shaking violently on his bed. 

At first Shiro thought he was having a seizure. But when he reached his bedside he found Keith awake and aware, his eyes focusing on Shiro’s without difficulty, and after a moment stammered out his name through chattering teeth. 

“What’s going on, buddy?” Shiro pushed his sweaty hair back to feel his forehead, then cursed, realizing he’d used the wrong hand, and switched. “You don’t feel warm.”

“N-no, I’m c-c-cold.”

“Yeah, you said,” he murmured, and absent-mindedly reached out for the blanket at the end of the bed. As he pulled it over him, he asked, “Any other symptoms?”

“I d-don’t know what’s ha-happening,” was Keith’s answer. “I c-can’t stop sh-sh-sh-shaking.”

He wasn’t kidding. He had his hands curled into tight fists and held them to his chest to try and disguise the tremors, but all it accomplished was to accentuate the shaking of his torso under the blanket. 

“I’m going to ping Coran.”

Keith didn’t even try to argue. 

“Is there anything else?” Shiro tried asking again once the message was sent. “Does anything hurt?”

“My head,” Keith murmured after a moment or two. 

“For how long?”

“Few hours.”

Shiro made an upset sound. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t think it was a big deal!” Keith’s face twisted in discomfort, his shoulders hunching in, but before Shiro could say anything else he heard the door slide open behind them. 

Coran must’ve been hurrying to get there so fast, but when Shiro turned to look, the Altean looked composed, if a little solemn, and notably wasn’t carrying his scanner. 

“Hi, Coran,” Keith said miserably. Coran met Shiro’s eye, just long enough to exchange a meaningful glance, before focusing on Keith. 

“Hello, Number Four. Shiro tells me you aren’t feeling well.”

Keith huffed and grumbled, “Isn’t that obvious?”

“He’s shaking pretty bad,” Shiro said, deciding to intercede before Keith’s snark got in the way of the matter at hand. “Headache, too, and chills, but he doesn’t have a fever.”

“I think I know what it is,” answered Coran. “I was hoping it wouldn’t be a problem, but the universe has other plans, it seems.”

Keith groaned in frustration and rolled enough to bury his face in his pillow. “God, can’t you just get on with it?”

“Keith,” said Shiro in mild reproach. He could practically hear the resulting pout, but he let Coran continue. 

“Several of the compounds in the drug the druids were giving him are known to be addictive to many species.” Shiro’s stomach sank. It must’ve shown on his face, as Coran frowned and fidgeted with his gloves. “I was hoping that wouldn’t be the case for humans or hybrids, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“So this is withdrawal?” Shiro asked. Coran paused and gave his mustache a few thoughtful strokes. 

“Hmmm, more like detoxification.” He looked over at Keith. “I don’t believe you were given it for long enough to become dependent, but your body will be throwing a temper tantrum for the next quintant or so.”

“Great,” Keith said, the words muffled by the pillow. “Because being kidnapped and tortured wasn’t fucking enough.”

With a small cringe, Shiro stood up from the bed to step closer to Coran. “Is there anything you can do to make it easier?”

Coran shook his head regretfully. “The last thing his body needs is more alien substances pumped into it. “

“Right.” Shiro pushed his hair back and tried to think. “I’ll stay with him. Would you mind bringing a few water pouches down?”

“Of course not,” Coran answered instantly. “I’ll inform the others of the situation as well.”

“Alright, just tell them not to all come rushing up here.”

Coran nodded a few times, already thinking of his next task, and gave Shiro a quick pat on the shoulder before hurrying out of the room. When he turned back around he found Keith curled up beneath the blanket, still trembling hard enough to make it shake. 

“You don’t have to stay,” Keith said softly as he tried very blatantly not to look in Shiro’s direction. “Coran said I’ll be f-fine.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Shiro sat back down on the mattress, and despite his best efforts to hide it, still noticed how Keith shifted to be closer to him. “Just try not to punch me or anything, ok?”

Even in the darkness of the room, he saw Keith roll his eyes and smiled to himself. It was going to suck, but he had to remember that it would end, that it would be alright. He had to remember so that he could remind Keith. 

Keith shifted on the bed. At first he curled in, then started to roll onto his back, only to change his mind and return to his side. One of his trembling hands rubbed the back of his neck and fisted into his hair as his uncomfortable frown deepened. 

“What is it?” 

Keith’s eyes jittered, like he’d forgotten Shiro was there. “N-nothing.”

Shiro gave him a look. He got a huff in return. 

“It’s just-- space. Behind me. It’s not-- it doesn’t feel--” He stopped with a frustrated sound. Shiro waited patiently until Keith got his thoughts in order. “That’s how they got me. Back on the cruiser. Came up from behind.”

Shiro hummed in acknowledgement. He didn’t miss how Keith was talking, shortening his sentences so that the chances of stuttering were smaller. How he avoided saying what he really meant-- that he didn’t feel safe. Not unusual, but hopefully paranoia wouldn’t be an additional symptom; that would make things much more difficult for both of them. 

“You could scoot back,” Shiro suggested. “Putting your back to a wall can help.”

Keith’s mouth twisted. “Tried that. Before you came in. The metal was worse.” 

Ah, right. Before he could say anything, they were interrupted by that familiar hiss, and a shard of light from the hallway fell over Keith’s face. He winced and turned back into his pillow as Coran’s voice returned. 

“Here you are, lads,” he said. He was carrying an armful of water pouches and ration bars, which he let tumble out onto Keith’s desk. “This should be enough for the night, but you can always ping me if you need more.”

“Thanks, Coran.” 

“No problem at all, Number Two.” Coran paused on his way back to the door to give Keith a supportive smile. “Chin up, my boy. Everything will be fine.”

Keith managed a weak smile back. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a team to distract.” With that he swept back out of the door, leaving tired silence in his wake. 

“Here,” Shiro said once his footsteps had faded down the hall. He reached down and pulled off one of his boots. “Make room.”

Keith obediently pulled his knees up, making space for Shiro to climb further onto the bed. It took some wiggling and shifting, but eventually he wound up where he wanted to be, lying on his side behind Keith, and as he got settled he saw some of the tension in Keith’s muscles ease. 

“Better?”

“Y-yeah.” 

Gently, Shiro pulled Keith’s shoulders back until they were pressed together. This close he could feel the tremors that still wracked through his body; some of them felt more like spasms, especially the ones that had his legs jerking every thirty seconds or so. Keith let out a shaky breath. The hand he still had tangled in his hair scratched at the back of his neck. 

“It’s ok. I’ve got you.” He felt Keith’s back heave as he sucked in a heavy breath. “You’re alright. They aren’t here.” Shiro kept his voice quiet, soft to match the dark. 

“I d-didn’t l-l-like it,” Keith muttered, his nails digging into his skin. The shaking intensified; Shiro tucked the blanket more closely around his body. “Wh-when they gave it to me. C-Coran said th-they were gentle, b-but it was awful, I couldn’t m-move, I couldn’t do any-anything when they came--”

“I know,” murmured Shiro. He lightly ran his fingers through Keith’s hair, hoping it would help. “I know how you feel. I remember how it feels.”

“I didn’t want it.”

“I know, Keith, it’s ok. Your body reacting like this doesn’t mean you wanted it.”

Keith exhaled and inhaled through his teeth. “It’s getting worse.”

Shiro draped one of his arms over Keith’s middle. “I’m right here.”

He made a frustrated, exhausted sound. “God, it won’t st-stop itching!” Both of his hands were bunched around his neck, still scratching, and Shiro could see where the patches of skin were starting to turn red. 

“Hey, hey.” Shiro reached up and nudged at his fingers, but they went right back to scratching, just a half inch to the side. “You gotta try and stop, bud.”

“It won’t stop.”

For a moment Shiro had that horrible feeling of helplessness. He couldn’t exactly grab him by the wrists, he couldn’t make him feel restrained, that would only spark panic. Then inspiration struck. 

“I’m going to hold your hands, ok?” Slowly, telegraphing all of his movements, he took both of Keith’s hands in his, threading their fingers together. He didn’t try to hold Keith back or pull his hands away, just let his be an obstacle. He whined in protest. “I know, I’m sorry, but you’ll scratch yourself bloody.” 

“I thought it was over.” Keith’s voice bordered on a sob-- he was losing that front he’d been trying to keep up, running out of energy to keep pretending that he was alright. All Shiro could do was press a little closer, squeeze his hands, and hope it would be enough. 

For a little while it seemed to be. Shiro could still feel Keith shaking and his fingers clenching, still trying to scratch, but his breathing slowed. Shiro doubted he’d fallen asleep, but he was calmer, at least. 

It didn’t last. After about twenty minutes of calm, Keith’s whole body jolted and went rigid. A pained sound punched out of his throat, then the tension disappeared as quickly as it had come. The muscle spasms were getting worse. And judging by the sound Keith had made, they hurt like a bitch. 

It happened again, and again, and in between he still shook like he was the epicenter of his own personal earthquake. 

“Please,” he mumbled as another wave passed. “Please, please, please.”

“I’m sorry,” Shiro said again. His human hand ached from how hard Keith’s grip became during the spasms, but he didn’t let go. He only wished he had a third hand to comfort with. 

Keith shook his head-- deliberately, not involuntarily-- and said, “I don’t m-mean that, I-- I don’t w-want it--”

“No, I know,” said Shiro, mentally cursing himself. “I know what you meant. You just want the pain to stop.”

Keith gave a miserable little, “Mhm.” Shiro squeezed his arms tighter for a moment, like a hug within a hug, and this time it definitely was a sob that Keith released. “Th-thank you, Shiro. For staying.”

Shiro shut his burning eyes. “Of course. Always.” 

It took hours for the pain to ease enough for Keith to sleep. They still lay in the same position, their fingers still entangled. It was hot between Keith and the blanket, and Shiro’s shoulder was hurting from laying on it for so long, but all he did was shift enough to change the pressure point and didn’t move away. 

It wasn’t over yet. Soon enough Keith’s body wouldn’t be exhausted enough to hold back the symptoms anymore and the pain would wake him up again. The itching would come back, and the paranoia, and there was nothing Shiro could do to stop it. All he could do was be there. 

He was tired, too. He’d been alternating between closing his eyes to hold in tears and keeping them open to watch over Keith, but now the weight dragging them down was pure exhaustion-- he ought to get some sleep too, before the next wave came. 

Shiro adjusted the position of his head so that it tilted downwards, pressing his forehead to the back of Keith’s head, and with a long, slow exhale, let the last of the tension leave his body. He flexed the fingers on his human hand a few times, just to make sure the blood was still flowing.

Keith’s hand responded. It loosened, adjusted its grip, then Keith tucked Shiro’s hand ever so slightly closer to his chest. 

Shiro smiled. 

Chapter Text

It had been a week since his Blade trials, and Keith was exhausted. 

He stirred his food goo listlessly around his bowl. The meal so far had been like every other these last few quintants: awkward. Allura was prim, sitting ramrod straight in her chair, very pointedly not looking in Keith’s direction or speaking a word to him. Coran was following her lead, with the exception of some uneasy glances. The other Paladins talked amongst themselves as usual, but even Lance’s loud jokes seemed muffled under the weight of the atmosphere. 

And poor Shiro, sitting in the middle of the table, caught in the cross-fire. 

His eyes burned. Very slowly, very quietly, Keith set his spoon down and rubbed one of them. He tried to seem nonchalant, like there was something in his eye, so that no one would know how tired he was. 

After all, hypervigilance took a lot of energy. Always watching, calculating, muscles drawn tight, holding his breath until his chest ached. But he couldn’t let anyone know. The only reason Allura hadn’t thrown him out of an airlock already was that she needed him to pilot Red. The minute he stopped being useful, the second he stepped wrong, the moment he made himself visible again, he would be out. 

So he picked up his spoon again and forced another bite of the goo down his throat. He wasn’t hungry, his stomach was full of knots and lead butterflies, but he had to finish what he was given. He didn’t want to seem ungrateful. 

“Allura, how many more missions do you think we’ll have before the big teladuv is done?” Lance asked in a distinctly whiny tone that made Keith want to cringe. 

Allura gave him an exasperated look. “I don’t know, Lance. Slav hasn’t exactly provided a components list; he’s so disorganized.”

“You can say that again,” Pidge muttered as Keith finished the last of his goo. “I thought my lab was bad, but that guy is on a whole other level.”

Shiro groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t get me started.”

Keeping his spoon in hand so no one would notice he was done, Keith weighed his options. He should leave now-- Allura didn’t want to be around him anymore than necessary, and the atmosphere would be much nicer once he was gone. On the other hand, if he was the first person to leave he would draw attention to himself, and it was possible that Allura would think he was up to no good, or that he was too antisocial to be trusted on a team, or a million other things he couldn’t predict. 

“I respect him as an intellectual,” Coran said, “but he criticizes our designs far too much for someone who has never built a teladuv before.”

In the same pattern as the last six nights, the pain began in his legs. Tonight it began in his right thigh, deep in the marrow of the bone, and soon it would start to pulse and splinter until his flesh was full of painful, fractured shards. 

That made the decision for him. He was too tired to keep a straight face through the aches; he had to make his escape. 

Hunk laughed a little. “I kinda like being around him-- I didn’t think anyone could be more anxious than me.”

You have no idea. Keith waited a few seconds more, until Lance started his next sentence, before sliding out of his chair without moving it, bowl and spoon clenched tightly in one hand. 

Everyone’s eyes darted to him for a half second before they left again. The only two gazes that lingered were Allura’s and Shiro’s, the latter concerned and the former icy. Keith bit his tongue and carefully measured his stride as he headed for the door. Not too slow, not too fast. Don’t make Allura angry. Don’t make Shiro worry. 

God knows Shiro had enough to deal with.

He didn’t let himself breathe until the door to the dining room closed behind him. Now that the threat was gone, now that no one was watching, the exhaustion fell back upon his shoulders.

Keith let out a long sigh. It took effort just to breathe in again, and for a moment he questioned whether he’d even be able to move a step. 

But the others were still behind him. As long as he was out here, he wasn’t safe. 

So he went. He dropped off his dishes in the kitchen, then proceeded to his bunk. By the time he got there his ankle was pulsing along with his thigh, and all he wanted to do was collapse into bed and sleep, but even that was tinged with dread. No matter how tired he was, he wouldn’t be able to sleep for hours. The pain wouldn’t let him. And when he did eventually manage to crash, that’s when the dreams would come. 

It didn’t feel right to call them nightmares. He didn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night, sweaty and terrified. These were almost worse-- he didn’t get to wake up. He stayed asleep the whole time, through whatever situation his brain decided on in vivid detail, his body strung tight for hours. In the morning he would wake up, his whole body sore, feeling like he hadn’t slept a wink. 

His bunk was dark inside. Usually he preferred it that way, but tonight he turned on the lights. The darkness and the white walls and the dim sound of voices from elsewhere in the ship reminded him too much of that damned closet. The flashbacks had been bad the night before, as had the dreams, and Keith really wasn’t looking forward to doing it all over again, but what choice did he have? 

As long as he wasn’t in his bunk, he ran the risk of running into Allura or one of the others. And every second of interaction was another chance for him to get himself thrown out. His only option was to endure, no matter how painful it was. No matter how tired he got. 

With that last thought, Keith climbed into bed. He kept his jacket on for the comforting weight and that texture of leather that hadn’t existed in any of his memories. Pulling the blanket up to block the light, Keith let his eyes close, hoping just to rest even if he couldn’t sleep, but even as he went through the motions he knew they wouldn’t work. 

Just because he was laying down didn’t mean he was resting. Not with the smothering pressure of Allura’s disapproval, or the growing ache in his legs, or the force of his own choking fear, or the looming threat of the dreams that waited for him on the other side of sleep. 

They had been getting worse every night. Last night he watched a man vomit up his insides until he ran out of insides, only to emerge with a fanged, malicious smile. He didn’t know how his brain would top that, but he had no doubt that it would. 

Suddenly his eyes were hot again. He squeezed them shut, grinding his teeth to stop the tears coming up his throat, and his leg pulsed. Keith hugged it to his chest with one arm, the other hand twisting into his blanket. 

God, he was so tired. He just wanted to sleep and actually felt like he had. Was that so much to ask? 

Keith laid there for a long time. It had been early for going to bed when he laid down, but that didn’t really matter-- it wasn’t like anyone would come looking for him. It would be the same as every previous night, laying there alone, fighting the pain and the tears and the fatigue, until the alarm on his tablet went off the next morning. 

And it would all start again. 

The pattern was broken by a knock on his bedroom door. At first he thought he was dreaming and didn’t move. Then it came again, and Keith sat up, rubbing his eyes blearily. He had no idea how late it was, what with the lights and all, and he still wasn’t entirely sure he was conscious, but then whoever it was knocked a third time and he reluctantly staggered to his feet. 

It was Shiro at the door. He looked just as tired as Keith felt-- dealing with the Blade had made his nightmares worse, too-- but he still managed a little smile. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t.” Keith ran his hands through his hair a few times to quell the bed head. “What’s up?”

“The others said they were setting something up in the lounge,” said Shiro, then with an affectionate eye-roll, “Lance was very insistent that we all be there.”

Instantly Keith’s blood ran cold. Lance never actually wanted him around— at best, this would be a prank. At worst, an ambush. But Shiro was still standing there, waiting, and before he knew it old instincts kicked in and he pantomimed one of his usual annoyed huffs. 

“What, another bonding activity? Like we don’t spend enough time in each other’s heads.” 

Shiro could see right through him. But he played along. “I know, but you know how he is.”

Damnit. Keith gnawed at the inside of his cheek and tried to think rationally. If the others were going to mess with him, they probably wouldn’t have invited Shiro too, would they? They knew he’d protest. 

They know it’s the only reason you’d agree to go, hissed the paranoia at the back of his mind. Maybe Shiro’s in on it. 

Ok, no. He was not going to start suspecting Shiro. Even if he did turn on him eventually, Keith wasn’t going to do him the disrespect of being suspicious first. Shiro had done too much for him to be treated like that. 

“Alright,” Keith said, folding his arms over his chest to contain the rising anxiety. “This better not be a prank.”

Shiro chuckled and stood aside to let Keith exit. The suspicious thoughts still ran on a loop through his head, but Keith pushed them back, over and over-- even if this was a prank or an ambush, Shiro wouldn’t let them actually hurt him… that badly. Whatever happened, he couldn’t freeze. If he froze again, like that day in Iverson’s office, the same thing would happen: everyone would know something was wrong with him. That would only create more doubt as to his fitness as a Paladin. 

That was the last thing he needed. 

But the moment the lounge door came into view, that entire train of thought went right off the rails. 

If the others really wanted to hurt him, what good would running do? As big as it was, the Castle didn’t have any easy exit points. He didn’t have supplies to take in a pod, if he could even bring himself to take one, and no matter where he went they would find him eventually. Would it be better to just take it? Did he have an obligation to the universe to stay and be a Paladin even if the conditions were bad? 

“Hey.” 

Keith jolted at Shiro’s voice, then flushed in embarrassment. Shiro didn’t comment on that, but he did reach out and slowly, making sure Keith saw what he was doing, put a hand on his shoulder. 

“It’s not going to be anything bad. You know that, right?”

Keith forced himself to exhale. Even tucked into his elbows he could feel his hands shaking, but Shiro’s words pulled him out of his haze. Just enough to think properly. 

This wasn’t Allura. It wasn’t Iverson, or his old foster mom. It was Lance, Pidge, and Hunk they were talking about: Hunk, the gentle giant that cried at the drop of a hat; Pidge, who stayed up until 3 a.m. every night and rambled about random scientific facts until someone stopped her; and Lance, who could be mean, but had probably never gotten into an actual fist fight before joining Voltron and missed his mom’s hugs. 

He breathed in again, and out. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

Shiro gave him a proud half smile. “Good. Let’s go.” And before Keith had time to start panicking again, Shiro opened the door. 

The lounge was… wait, what? Keith stopped and rubbed his eyes, but that didn’t change anything when he looked again. 

“Are those mattresses?” Shiro asked, mystified. Lance, who had looked up eagerly when they came in, grinned and scrambled to his feet. He was in his pajamas, robe and slippers included, and he left a tablet where he’d been laying. 

“Yup!” He spread his arms wide. “Welcome, gentlemen and lady, to sleepover central.”

Keith blinked. There were in fact mattresses covering the floor, four or five of them, buried underneath a metric ton of blankets and pillows that they obtained from God knows where. Pidge was splayed out on her stomach with her own tablet, kicking her feet in the air. By her head was a big bowl from the kitchen, filled with some kind of snack Hunk had cooked up. Hunk was fiddling with some piece of tech on the couch. Both were also in their pajamas. 

“Uh…” said Keith. “What?”

Lance groaned. “Keith, please tell me I don’t have to explain to you the concept of a sleepover.”

“I know what a sleepover is! But what does it have to do with all--” Keith waved a hand in his direction. “-- this?” 

Pidge pushed herself upright on her hands. And as usual (unless she was talking about tech), she got straight to the point. 

“You two haven’t been sleeping. According to Lance, this is supposed to help.”

“Pidge is skeptical,” Lance said, jumping back into the conversation. “But I’m the expert on self care, and I know how to get a good night’s sleep, trust me.”

“It’s fun, at least,” Hunk chimed in from the couch. “Once I get this projector working again we’re going to watch some Altean movies-- Coran found an old box of them in a storage closet last week.”

Keith snuck a glance at Shiro. His expression was soft, as was his voice when he spoke. “You guys did all of this for us?”

Pidge just nodded and picked up her tablet again, like it was an obvious answer. Hunk gave them a cheeky smile before going back to the projector. And Lance, so solemnly it was funny, said, “Of course. Sleep is a terrible thing to lose, and we can’t convince people to rally behind Voltron if two fifths of us look like zombies.”

That got Shiro to laugh. He seemed convinced by the story, but Keith wasn’t sure. He could believe them doing something like this for Shiro, but for him? It didn’t make sense. Through the acceleration of his thoughts, Keith didn’t notice Pidge looking at him until she said his name.

“Huh? What?”

“Come over here, I want to show you something. Take your boots off first.”

He frowned quizzically. “Why?”

“Why?” Lance scoffed, making Keith stiffen. “No shoes on the mattresses, Mullet! Sleepover etiquette!” 

Keith waited, but no more criticism followed. No insults on his lack of knowledge or disparaging remarks about his manners. So Keith cautiously toed his boots off and tiptoed onto the mattress in his socks. It made his heart beat faster-- it would be harder to run without the traction-- but Pidge either didn’t notice his trepidation or chose not to mention it as she sat up properly. 

He settled onto his knees beside her. In the background he could feel and hear Shiro joining the pile, but before he could tune back in to whatever Hunk and Lance were saying, Pidge reached over and plunked her tablet in his lap. 

“I found this game buried in some old files,” she said. She tapped a button on the screen and it filled with blue light; she was close, close enough for Keith to feel her body heat, but not close enough to touch. At the moment, he was grateful for that. “It’s a puzzle game, I thought you might like it. Very sensory. Look.”

He did. On the screen was what looked like a ball of twine, ridiculously realistic. On each side was a tiny bit of exposed string, just begging someone to pull on it, but instead Pidge put her finger in the middle of the ball and dragged it down. The string went with her, exposing more layers of string beneath it. 

“The idea is to untangle the knot,” she explained. “You can use two fingers to pull in two different places, and you can spin the ball to get a different angle.”

Keith tested it, and as Pidge said, the ball rotated to expose another side. 

“There are hundreds of levels. I got stuck on level fifty-- I know the solution, but getting the string to do what I want is annoyingly difficult.”

Keith gave a little huff of amusement, and absent-mindedly started unpeeling the ball on the screen. Pidge was right, it was satisfying to pull the threads and see the knot unravel, and Pidge didn’t seem to want her tablet back. She was talking to Hunk about the projector, so Keith allowed himself to devote half of his attention to the game and only use half to keep tabs on his surroundings, which was the most relaxed ratio he’d had all week. 

“I made this mask specifically for you, Shiro,” Lance was saying. “It’s super relaxing. I tried it out last night and slept for thirteen hours straight.”

Shiro laughed again, just as there was a thunk and a mechanical click, and Hunk cheered. 

“Got it! Movie night is back in business!”

“Alright!” exclaimed Lance. “Let's get this party started. Shiro, you put that on while we get the movie and the snacks and everything. And don’t be stingy! I made, like, three gallons of that stuff.”

“Ok, ok,” Shiro answered. “You’re the boss.”

When Keith glanced up, Lance had his chest puffed out and a victorious look on his face. “Damn straight I am!”

Pidge groaned. “Why’d you have to do that, Shiro? He’s never gonna shut up now.”

Keith felt his lip curl in a smile. 

For the next few minutes he kept himself busy with the game while the others bustled around. He still kept tabs as they moved, of course, but they all seemed completely absorbed in their tasks: Pidge setting up the projector, Lance rearranging pillows against the couch, and Hunk gathering up various bowls and juice pouches. 

“How do I look?” Shiro asked at one point, and when Keith looked, he burst into genuine laughter. Shiro had one of Lance’s headbands on, keeping his bangs pushed back and making them stick up in every direction, with some kind of pale green cream slathered all over his face, so thick you couldn’t see his scar underneath. 

“You look like an alien,” he said, and to his surprise, not a single person took the opportunity to remind Keith of his lineage. 

Once the projector was ready the group migrated, all leaning against the pillows on the front of the couch to watch the movie. For a moment Keith awkwardly stayed where he was, pretending to be completely focused on his game while actually watching the others out of his periphery, but after only a few seconds Pidge called to him. 

“Keith, come sit here.” She patted the space between herself and Shiro. “You won’t be able to watch over there.”

Keith eyed the spot uncertainly. Everyone was sitting pretty close together, and it wouldn’t be easy to get out of quickly if he had to, but on the other hand he would be flanked by Shiro and Pidge, the latter of which probably couldn’t hold him down if she tried. So, hoping she hadn’t noticed his reluctance, Keith shuffled over and fit himself between them, earning himself another proud look from Shiro. 

It was… nice, actually. He had one arm to pressed to Shiro’s, a reassuring, safe warmth, and Pidge maintained her previous tiny distance, so he didn’t have to worry about accidentally messing up the moment with her. 

“Do you want your tablet back?” he asked quietly as Hunk and Lance settled down on the other side of Shiro. Pidge shook her head. 

“Nah, I got my laptop stashed here.”

“Heh, I should’ve guessed.”

She smiled. 

“Alright, here we go,” said Lance. “The first human viewing of ancient Altean classics begins… now!” 

The lights clicked off. Every muscle in Keith’s body went taut, the ache in his legs that he’d been ignoring throbbing in renewed pain, but the room didn’t stay dark. The projector filled the room with light again, almost as bright as the normal lights had been. Shiro pressed his shoulder against Keith’s just a little harder. 

He sucked in a deep breath, counting the seconds, and exhaled. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and relax. After a few repetitions, he was able to start the knot game again. 

Keith didn’t pay much attention to the movie. It was just pleasant background noise, keeping his senses from going haywire trying to listen for approaching footsteps, together with Lance and Hunk’s whispered commentary and giggling. He could feel Shiro gradually relaxing at his side, and the tap of Pidge’s fingers over her keyboard was rhythmic and soothing. The ache still pulsed in his legs, but for once it and the unkillable anxiety were muted. The scene had a quiet serenity to it-- he couldn’t say he was completely relaxed, he never was, but it was the closest he’d come to it in a long, long time. 

Eventually his eyes began to sag. He kept propping them open, unsure if he’d be able to sleep knowing Pidge and maybe the other boys were still awake in the same room, but the exhaustion seemed to be catching up with him. They slipped closed, at first only for a second, then for longer and longer. At some point he didn’t have the will to force them open again. 

The next time he opened his eyes it was to the sensation of the tablet being pulled from his loose grip, and the room was dark around him. All at once Keith went rigid, coiling in preparation to launch himself out from under the shadow of a person he could see looming over him, but the figure retreated almost immediately. 

“Hey, it’s just me.” It was Hunk’s voice. Keith relaxed minutely, but not all the way. 

He’d been asleep for a while. The movie was over, he could hear Shiro and Lance snoring, and even Pidge had closed her laptop and lay down, her breathing slow and even. 

“You should probably lay down,” Hunk continued in a whisper as he set the tablet aside. “You’ll be more comfortable that way.”

Keith rubbed his thumb over his knuckles. His body screamed at him to listen, to let himself rest, but his brain wasn’t quite onboard. 

“Is it ok for us to sleep here?” he asked, flicking his eyes over to the door. “What if Allura finds us?”

He didn’t see so much as feel Hunk’s gentle smile. “Lance cleared it with her before we set up. We’re fine.”

But did you tell her I would be here? Asked the poisonous voice at the back of his mind. But for once, Keith was too tired to listen. 

“Ok,” he murmured, and after only a moment’s hesitation, Keith lay down on his side facing Shiro. He could see Shiro’s back rise and fall with every breath, and maybe it was just because he’d been asleep and he was still groggy, but his legs didn’t feel like they were hurting anymore. 

Hunk pulled the blanket out from under Pidge’s sprawled out arms and draped it over him. Keith bit his tongue, his eyes suddenly burning at the memory of another dark silhouette doing the same many, many years before. 

“Goodnight, Keith.”

Keith closed his eyes. “G’night.” 

And he slept. 

Chapter Text

Keith had no idea how long he’d been in the box this time. Long enough for his curled legs to start cramping and seizing. Long enough for the blood on his back to dry and flake against the metal wall. It stung like crazy, having the wounds pressed to the wall, but the sensation was lost in the storm of other pains. 

The ropes, too strong to break, cutting into his wrists and knees and ankles. The gag, making his jaw ache and the edges of his mouth burn. The muscle cramps, especially the ones darting sharply down his neck. The whip lashes. The ache in his lungs from waterboarding. His two broken fingers, trapped between his body and the bottom of the locker he was being held in. 

He assumed it was a locker, anyway. He’d never seen where they’d taken him-- he’d never even seen them. His captors. 

Keith could guess a few things about them. There were only two, or at least only two involved in the interrogating part. Their voices sounded male. Living or working at the Garrison, judging by how much time he spent hidden away in the metal box, but on the outskirts of the shantytown that had popped up around the base, otherwise someone would’ve heard him screaming by now. 

And, given their many questions about Sendak and the Empire, they were human. 

But that was all guessing and conjecture. He and Kosmo had been hit by the tranq darts from a distance while leaving Black’s hangar, so he had no clue who exactly was torturing him. The blindfold had never come off, not once. 

One of his calf muscles seized again. His legs jerked, and he felt the impact and the vibration, but couldn’t hear if it, or he, made a noise. When they weren’t interrogating him they kept his ears blocked too, and the ringing in his head was very close to driving Keith insane. 

But he could take it. He had to, just until the others found him. And they would-- if Pidge could find two people across the span of the universe, she could find one person in the ten square miles of the Garrison. 

Hopefully. 

A slight vibration ran through the locker. It was one Keith recognized, the one that ran through the wooden floorboards and into his box from a door closing. Which could only mean one thing, and he shuddered. 

Soon-- it was hard to tell when, it could be mere moments, or it could be hours-- the whole box would shake as it was opened. Then that first touch would come, and the pain would begin again. Fighting wouldn’t help. He’d tried, several times, and every time he got tased so hard he’d black out. 

Not for the first time, Keith wished he actually was a spy. At least then he’d have something to bargain with. As it was he had nothing; all he could do was repeat that he didn’t know, he didn’t know, he didn’t know, and pray that they’d listen. 

Yeah. He was so fucked. 

It had been five days, and the search sweep was just reaching the edges of the Garrison. They’d been scouring every inch of every building, every centimeter and speck of dust, but they were rapidly running out of all of the above. 

The desert sun was bright and hot. Allura had silver flyaways plastered all over the back of her neck, Pidge was a concerning shade of pink, and Shiro wasn’t faring much better in his black blazer, but none of them cared. The panic they’d all felt upon finding Kosmo unconscious, surrounded by empty tranquilizers, had since settled into grim determination. 

They were going to find Keith, or tear the Garrison down in the attempt. 

“This is the last house in the row,” Pidge said. 

Shiro shaded his eyes and followed her pointing finger. Calling it a house might have been generous-- it looked to be three or four rooms, tops, and built from scrap-- but a lot of the surviving buildings around the Garrison looked like that. 

“Right,” said Allura, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “Where are Lance and Hunk now?”

Pidge checked her tablet. “Looks like they just cleared the row just south of us, they’re moving to the next.”

Shiro released a long, practiced exhale. For the last five days he’d been walking a tightrope of composure. They needed to find Keith, and Shiro was prepared to go on the war path for it, but they still represented Voltron. They still had to work with the Garrison. They had to be polite, try not to be too invasive in their searching, no matter how badly he wanted to tear the place to shreds. 

Allura was the one to knock when they reached the door. They all heard the creak when someone inside moved, followed by more creaking footsteps. 

Shiro looked away for a moment, considering the vast expanse of the desert, the cloudless sky above it, and where normally the sight would soothe him with the feeling of home, now it just made his stomach flip. If Keith was out there somewhere instead of in the Garrison, and they’d wasted all of this time… 

The door opened. The man standing there was tall, about Shiro’s height. He was a bit lean, like most people on Earth these days, but still muscled, with greasy, messy brown hair-- and he did not look happy to see them. His narrowed eyes could’ve been attributed to the light, but the scowl was all him. 

“Hello,” Allura said, as pleasantly as could be expected. “I’m Allura. I’m sure you know why we’re here.”

“Yeah, I know,” the guy muttered. He braced his forearm against the doorframe, and maybe Shiro was just paranoid, but it almost seemed like he was trying to be intimidating. “You’re looking for your missing Paladin.”

Unfortunately, he’d chosen the wrong Princess to try and scare. Without missing a beat, Allura continued, “Yes, we are. Are you also aware of the Garrison’s mandate regarding the situation?”

He sighed. “Yeah. I have to let you go through my shit. Buncha bullshit if you ask me.”

“Good thing we didn’t,” Pidge said dryly. Shiro didn’t care enough to scold her. 

“May we come in?”

The man rolled his eyes, but begrudgingly stood aside. 

The inside of the house was much like they’d seen in the other two hundred houses they had searched. From the door you could see into all three rooms, and there wasn’t much in those rooms except for dust and a few key pieces of furniture: a rickety twin bed, a wooden chair, a camp stove, some boxes of supplies. 

Their group split automatically. Allura went left, into the bedroom, and Pidge went right into the makeshift kitchen. Shiro took a few more steps into the living area and looked around more closely. 

Like he said, there wasn’t much to see. The one chair was there, in the center of the room. Aside from that there was only one thing, a gray locker, tipped onto its back to lay horizontally, shoved up against the wall. 

It took a lot of effort to hold in the sigh of disappointment. Shiro wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting going through these houses-- walking in to Keith strung up from the ceiling?-- but it seemed like they’d hit another dead end. 

“Nothing here,” Pidge said as she emerged from the kitchen. Shiro turned to Allura, but she didn’t say anything. Just shook her head, a crestfallen expression on her face. 

The owner, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, gave them a glare. “You done?”

“I suppose so,” Allura answered. She paused for a moment, the weight of disappointment falling on all of their shoulders at once. But there wasn’t anything else to say, nowhere else to look, so all they could do was keep moving, keep hoping. “Thank you for your time.”

“Whatever,” the man sneered. Shiro took a moment from his nauseating mixture of fear and disappointment to feel offended. What was this guy’s problem? “Can you clear out now?”

Pidge caught his eye and gave him a ‘what the fuck’ look. All he could do was shrug. 

Very pointedly, the owner of the house kicked the door open with his heel. 

“Jesus,” Pidge snapped. “We get the hint. Asshole.”

“Pidge,” murmured Allura. The man spit at their feet. Shiro was just deciding whether he wanted to exercise the proper self control and not deck this man when from behind him came a loud, metallic clang. 

Everything stopped. The man had frozen in place, eyes wide, and before he even said anything Shiro knew. He spun on his heel and marched back towards the locker-- dimly he heard the man shout something along the lines of, “That’s my private property,” but then there was a thump, and Allura’s voice came out in a snarl. 

“I wouldn’t.”

There was a padlock on the locker door. It took less than a second to crush it with his new Altean powered arm, and Shiro almost ripped the door off the damn thing in his rush to get it open. 

And there was Keith. 

Shiro’s breath left him all at once, like he’d been punched in the chest. He barely fit inside the thing, his back pressed flush to one of the walls, his bound legs coiled up at a painful looking angle. That was the culprit behind the noise, as Shiro saw when Keith’s legs spasmed and knocked against the bottom of the locker again. He was blindfolded, a scrap of cloth forced between his teeth, his hair a tangled mess, bare chest covered in dried blood and dirt and bruises. 

“Jesus fuck,” Pidge swore. Shiro’s throat was too tight to speak. All he could manage was a soft murmur of Keith’s name as he reached down, but he didn’t react until Shiro’s fingers grazed his cheek. Then his head jerked away, a sound somewhere between a whine and a growl escaping his throat, and revealed the strips of white cloth that had been shoved into his ears. 

Goddamnit. Shiro’s stomach churned as he tugged one of the strips free-- he remembered all too well what this level of sensory deprivation felt like. They had to be careful here. 

“Keith?” he said again. This time Keith turned towards him, enough for Shiro to reach the other piece of cloth. “Hey, hey, Keith. It’s Shiro. Can you hear me?”

Slowly, seeming dazed, Keith nodded. One of the knots in Shiro’s stomach loosened. He was conscious and responsive, which was a good sign. 

“Good, good. I’m going to take the gag out next, ok?” He waited for another nod. Then he carefully tugged the cloth out from between his teeth before trying to undo the knot. The corners of Keith’s mouth were cut and inflamed, his lips dry and cracking, but still he rasped out, “Shiro?”

A hint of relief leaked in. “I’m here. I’m right here.” He kept his human hand pressed to Keith’s cheek as he tossed the cloth to the side. “Pidge, ping the others, have them bring a stretcher.” 

“You got it.” Shiro spared a glance around the room as Pidge hurried out. Allura had the man shoved face first against the wall. He was still struggling, trying to test Allura’s strength, but the Princess held him there effortlessly with one hand, not even looking at him. Her attention was on Shiro and Keith. 

Looking back at him, Shiro began to reach for the blindfold, then paused. “Do you want this off? It’s pretty bright out here.”

Keith swallowed. Shiro could see the struggle on his face, the war between two conflicting fears, but eventually he said in a hoarse whisper, “‘s ok. It can wait.”

For a moment Shiro’s vision went blurry. Here was Keith, just found after five days, and still he trusted them enough to stay in the dark, to let them take care of him, and after all of the stress and fear of the last few days, it nearly made Shiro break down right then. But he couldn’t. Keith was counting on him. 

“Ok, let’s get you sitting up. Ready?”

They took it slow. Keith was visibly grinding his teeth as Shiro helped him sit up, and it was no wonder why. His back was a mess of dried blood, dirt, and gashes that looked like whip wounds. Shiro bit his tongue to contain his rage and, after warning him, hooked his arm under Keith’s knees to lift him out of the locker. 

The moment he was out and settled back on the floor he listed to the side, falling against Shiro’s chest the same way Shiro had fallen on him after Allura pulled him out of the astral plane. Shiro smoothed his hair back with his human hand and sent the Altean one down to untie Keith’s hands. 

“Slowly,” Shiro reminded him as he guided Keith’s hands around his body to rest in his lap. “Easy on the shoulders.”

Keith let out a heavy, shuddering breath, breathing the pain through his teeth. Two of the fingers on his right hand were swollen and sitting at awkward angles-- broken, more likely than not, and they’d been trapped between the metal and his back. Christ.

Shiro was just using his floating arm to undo the rope around Keith’s knees when they all heard a voice coming from outside. 

“Hey, Jesse!” It was a male voice, and when he felt Keith cringe, Shiro knew. He made eye contact with Pidge, who immediately nodded and went out the front door. 

For one tense moment there was silence. Allura and Shiro exchanged a glance. Then they heard the man shout, “Oh, shit!” and the snap of Pidge’s bayard. Keith jolted again, and Shiro rubbed his arm in apology. 

“Do you know how many volts this thing has?” Pidge snarled. “Neither do I, so unless you wanna find out, I suggest staying still.”

The other man, Jesse, finally stopped fighting Allura. His eyes still shone with rage, with hatred, when he looked at Keith. Maybe it was a good thing the blindfold was still on. 

“They thought I was a spy,” Keith mumbled, drawing Shiro’s gaze back down to him. “For Sendak.”

“God.” Shiro spared himself a second to feel the anger-- why did Keith’s heritage always outweigh all the good he’s done-- before setting it aside. The bindings around Keith’s knees came loose. 

“Alright, let’s straighten your legs out. Go slowly, bud, there you go.” With the help of Shiro’s metal hand Keith slowly stretched his legs out, wincing all the way. “Ok, last rope, here we go.”

Keith was panting by the time his legs were straight out in front of him. With the last rope gone, Shiro devoted both hands to the task of comforting. There were red strips of rope burn around Keith’s wrists and ankles, and most likely his knees, hidden by the ragged remains of whatever pair of pants he’d been wearing. 

“Fuck,” Keith hissed, grasping at his knee with his good hand. “Fuckin’ hurts.”

Before Shiro could say anything there was a storm of crunching from outside-- footsteps, and a lot of them. 

“Hear that?” he said. “Cavalry’s here.”

Keith let out a huff that could’ve been described as amused. “How--” his voice cracked. He cleared his throat and started over. “How long has it been?”

Shiro winced. “About five days.”

Keith just hummed in acknowledgement. Shiro knew he wouldn’t be angry, knew he wouldn’t hold it against them, but that didn’t make the guilt in his throat any thinner. 

The first people through the door were uniformed Garrison guards. Pidge and Allura handed off their captives, Pidge with a look of disgust and Allura with her signature icy glare. Jesse shouted something as he was taken out of the house, but not a single person paid a scrap of attention. 

“Keith! Holy shit!” That was Lance, bombastic as usual, closely followed by Hunk, bearing a fold-up stretcher and already looking teary. 

“Oh man, it’s so good to see you, we’ve been searching for days and days, we looked through the entire Garrison, and--”

Keith ducked his head. Under the mop of black hair, Shiro could just barely make out his grimace.

“Guys,” he said to Lance and Hunk, making a reductive hand gesture, and the other two Paladins immediately hushed themselves. 

“Sorry,” Hunk stage-whispered as he knelt down to unfold the stretcher. “We’re just happy you’re ok.”

Keith managed a little smile. That got Hunk started on the crying train, first stop Sobville, and Lance didn’t look far behind. If he wasn’t careful, Shiro would become the third passenger. So instead he focused on starting to move Keith, to get him in position for the stretcher, being careful not to pull too hard. 

“Come on, bud. Let’s get you home.” 

Coran beat them to Keith’s hospital room. He was rushing around like a whirling dervish when Shiro and Hunk brought Keith in on the stretcher, closing the blinds on all of the windows, setting out basins of water with clean washcloths, assembling a small pyramid of bottled water on a bedside table. 

“Coran?” Hunk asked as he and Shiro set the stretcher down. “How did you know to come here?”

“Pidge sent a message out,” answered Coran. His voice was softer than usual-- Pidge must’ve said something. 

He put down the final bottle of water and stood back, giving Shiro the room to start helping Keith up onto the bed, and even though Keith couldn’t see him, kept his expression as cheerful as ever. 

“Ah, Number Four! Oh, excuse me, I always forget that you’re Number Three now.”

Keith mustered the tiniest laugh as Shiro helped him sit on the bed, back to the door. He was exhausted, Shiro could see it in the slope of his shoulders, but still he answered, “Four is fine, Coran.”

“Yeah, be careful with that. Lance would throw a fit if Keith took his place in the height ranking,” Hunk added. Shiro, still with one hand on Keith’s shoulder, felt how he tensed at his voice-- Hunk had the best intentions, but all of this was a bit much at the moment. 

“Hunk, why don’t you go round up the others and let them know what’s going on. The med techs will be wanting to see him soon.”

For a moment he looked surprised, but that quickly became understanding once he snuck a glance at Keith. “Alright, sure. No problem.”

“I’ll come along, if you don’t mind,” said Coran. He’d gotten the hint, too. “It’s good to see you, Number Four.”

“Thanks,” Keith murmured. Hunk left the room, Coran following close behind, until he paused in the doorway and looked back at Shiro. 

“Shiro, Pidge said she messaged Krolia as well. She should be here any minute.”

That brought a smile of genuine relief to Shiro’s lips. Krolia had been an absolute wreck since Keith disappeared, and who could blame her; getting them together again was exactly what both of them needed. 

Coran and Hunk had barely been gone thirty seconds when they both heard a distinctive pop in the hall. Keith’s head turned towards the door just as it was shoved open, and in came Krolia, Kosmo hot on her heels. 

“Keith.”

“Mom?” Keith’s voice cracked as he turned further towards the door. Krolia cleared the distance around the bed in three steps, and when she reached him, didn’t hesitate a moment before drawing him into an embrace. 

It was so special, the way they hugged. Keith always folded into her so easily, all of his walls falling away, and even with his growth spurt Krolia was still tall enough to tuck his head under her chin, which she never missed an opportunity to do. 

This time was the same, but cranked up to eleven. Keith was clinging to her, and she was clutching him back just as hard, both of her hands buried in his hair to keep him close. When Shiro met her eyes over Keith’s head he was both surprised and not to see them glossy with tears. It nearly took Shiro over that precipice too. 

Kosmo planted his front paws on the bed and shoved his nose under Krolia’s arm, desperately trying to lick Keith. His tail wagged furiously from side to side, nothing more than a blue blur that rocked the rest of his body with it, and overjoyed whimpers poured from his throat. After a moment or two Shiro heard Keith give a little choked chuckle, and he spared a hand from their hug to scratch Kosmo’s ears. 

“Hey, buddy,” he said softly, sounding overwhelmed but in the best way possible. “You’re ok, huh?” 

Kosmo barked once and jumped onto the bed. Shiro moved forward half a step, just in case he tried to jump on Keith’s back, but he should’ve known the wolf was smarter than that. He just laid down, resting his head on Keith’s lap and staring up at him with adoring eyes. 

After a few more seconds, Krolia sniffled a bit and caught Shiro’s eye again. “Shiro, will you turn the lights down, please?”

Shiro nodded and sent his arm across the room to the light controls-- bulky as it was, having a Bluetooth arm really came in handy. Heh, handy. 

God, he needed some sleep. 

Point is, he didn’t have to move away from Keith to do what Krolia asked. He could probably have torn himself away if either of them asked them to, but they didn’t. Krolia just looked down at Keith again and ran her hands through his hair. 

“Are you ready to take this off?” she asked, indicating the blindfold. Keith bobbed his head in the tiniest nod. Krolia didn’t even take the time to untie it, she just sliced the wretched thing in half with her claws and tossed it away. 

Keith cringed at first. For a few seconds he just sat there, blinking rapidly as his eyes tried to adjust to even the lowest level of light, and he was still squinting a little when he finally looked up at his mother. 

“Hi.”

Krolia did something then Shiro had never expected to see her do: she let out a quiet sob as she pulled Keith back into her arms. From his angle he also saw a few tears streaking down Keith’s face, carving tunnels through the dirt on his cheeks. 

Screw it. Shiro’s vision blurred with tears, and this time he let them flow unimpeded. 

“Alright, alright,” Krolia said after a little more time to soak in the relief. “Let’s get you cleaned up a bit before you see the doctors.”

Keith, still pressing his forehead to her shoulder, mumbled a quiet assent. Before Krolia could ask Shiro turned and slid over one of the rolling tables with a basin of water and a washcloth on it, letting it take his place at Krolia’s side. But he had no intention of leaving-- he picked up a bottle of water and went to the other side. 

“Want some water, bud?”

The look Keith gave him then almost made Shiro melt. Even with one arm still wrapped around Krolia, his eyes were full of relief, like Shiro was rescuing him all over again. 

“Yeah,” he answered, his voice still a bit of a croak. “Please.”

Shiro kept a loose grip on the bottle, but let Keith hold most of the weight himself as he took a cautious sip. Growing up in the desert, he knew not to chug it down all at once. As soon as Shiro began to pull away Krolia moved in again, armed with a damp washcloth, and gently, gently, drew it across his brow, cleaning away the grime. 

Keith closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. After a few seconds he switched the arm he had around his mother’s waist and dropped the other to the fur around Kosmo’s neck. The wolf’s tail immediately began drumming against the hospital bed, which put a smile on all three of their faces. 

“Pidge told me why they did it,” Krolia said quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not yet.” Keith paused to swallow, and Krolia stopped her cleaning long enough for Shiro to offer another sip of water before they continued. “I’m still foggy.”

She nodded in understanding. A darker expression flitted across her face when she came to the irritated edges of Keith’s mouth, but she concealed it quickly and glanced up at Shiro. 

“Why don’t you grab another towel? We shouldn’t take too long, some of these wounds need to be looked at sooner rather than later.”

Shiro nodded and sent his arm to get another towel. He started with one of Keith’s hands, pulling it just slightly away from Krolia to get at it, and made sure to be gentle around the rope burn on his wrist. 

After a few minutes of quiet preening, Keith spoke up again. “Will you… will one of you talk?”

“Sure,” Krolia answered without hesitation. “About what?” 

Keith shrugged. “Anything. It’s just the quiet. My ears are still ringing.”

“Alright. Let’s see…”

Shiro thought of something first. “Krolia, did Keith ever tell you about the time a Bellarian czelker got loose in the Castle?”

Out of the corner of his eye Shiro saw her eyebrows rise. “No. What is that?”

“It’s a little animal from Bellar, an ice planet on the outside of Olkarion’s system. They’re kind of like jackalopes, or wolpertingers-- did you hear about those while you were on Earth?”

“Not even a little bit,” said Krolia, sounding baffled, and Shiro chuckled. 

“Well, the czelker was like a rabbit, but it had antlers on its head, and wings. Which made it hard to catch. You remember how high the ceilings were in the Castle?”

And so it went. They kept their voices soft, and as the minutes ticked by Keith gradually relaxed more and more, until Shiro and Krolia were practically holding him upright as they worked. But the more they cleaned, the more dirt they removed, the more bruises and cuts they revealed, and the more Shiro’s stomach tightened with rage. Krolia looked much the same, but neither of them said anything. That wasn’t what Keith needed. 

Eventually they got most of the dirt off, or as much as they could without sticking him in the shower. Then it was time for the hard part. 

“I’m going to get on the bed behind you,” Krolia explained as she prepared a fresh washcloth. “I’m not going to press very hard. I’m just going to get the top layer of dirt off so that the doctors can get a proper look, alright?”

Keith nodded. He was bitterly exhausted, it was obvious, but it was a necessary evil and he knew it. So he didn’t try to hang on to Krolia when she backed away. Luckily he barely had to wait a second before Kosmo had fully draped his body over Keith’s lap, shoving his nose under Keith’s hand to demand pets, and Shiro was there to take Krolia’s place. 

“How are you feeling?” Shiro asked. The question was half genuine, half an attempt at distraction, but Keith either didn’t notice or didn’t care about the motives. 

He just leaned forward against Shiro’s chest and sighed. “Tired.” All Shiro could see was the top of his head, but he could imagine how his face would scrunch when he added, “Hurts.”

“I know.” Shiro ran a hand through his hair. For a moment he worried the gesture was becoming stale, but Keith still melted just like he always did. “The doctors will be here soon. They have the good stuff.”

He laughed a little. Over his head Shiro met Krolia’s eyes, right before she climbed onto the bed behind Keith. 

Instantly he tensed. Krolia let out a little growling purr, which helped, but only a little. It made Shiro’s heart ache. 

“It’s just me,” said Krolia with another purr. “It’s going to hurt in a second. Are you ready?”

“Just go,” Keith grumbled. Without further ado, Krolia got to work. 

Keith flinched at the first touch, lurching forward against Shiro. Kosmo whined and struggled a bit, trying to get impossibly closer, which managed to distract Keith right up until Krolia’s second touch. Shiro wasn’t sure which was bothering him more, the pain from the wounds or the fear of having someone behind him; he and Kosmo tried their best to comfort him as Krolia worked. 

“They look pretty infected,” she murmured after a few minutes. She reached up with one hand and ruffled Keith’s hair. “I’m almost done. Can you tough it out for a little bit longer?”

Keith’s back heaved as he took a deep breath. Shiro could feel him shaking with fatigue, but still he said, “Yeah. I’m good.”

“You’re doing great, otouto,” Shiro said. Keith was clinging to his blazer with one hand so hard his knuckles were white, and the other was curled against his chest, cradling the broken bones. 

It was going to take so long for him to heal. The Garrison had figured out some Altean tech with Allura and Coran’s help, but healing pods were not amongst the new inventions-- they would have to heal him up the old fashioned way. Which meant bandages, bed rest, and months of inactivity. 

Keith was going to hate every minute of it. 

“There, done.” 

Keith immediately went slack against him. Shiro held him up until Krolia climbed back up to sit beside him and took some of his weight. For a moment they all just sat there; Keith leaning into his mothers side, eyes closed and a few more tears dripping off his chin, Krolia gently running her claws through his hair and purring in the back of her throat, Kosmo still draped over his lap, licking his elbow with quiet determination. And Shiro, wiping his cheeks with his blazer sleeve in a last-ditch attempt to look composed when he left the room. 

Eventually, as painful as it was to take Keith from such a quiet moment after all that he went through, Shiro had to be the responsible adult. 

“We should probably let the doctors look at you now.”

Krolia let out a hum of agreement. Keith sighed, but turned his head to lay sideways on Krolia’s shoulder and looked at Shiro. His eyes were still a little jittery after so long seeing nothing. 

“You’re probably right,” he said in a thin voice. “Will you stay?”

“Damn it, Keith, I just stopped crying!”

He and Krolia laughed, but Shiro wasn’t kidding. Not too long ago Keith never would’ve asked something like that, nor sounded nearly so calm and confident asking it. He really had grown up-- too bad it was in the Quantum Abyss, where Shiro couldn’t see it happen. 

After several seconds, Shiro finally managed to get his tears under control again. 

“Of course I will, bud. Whatever you want.” 

Things were still a mess the next morning. Lance hadn’t seen Keith since he was taken into the hospital, but everywhere he could see the reverberations of the event. The night before he’d seen Pidge sobbing into her brother’s arms and saying, “They had him in a fucking box, Matt, a metal fucking box,” while he tried in vain to soothe her. It had taken him, Allura, and Coran together to pull Hunk away from his stress baking long enough to rest. Allura was upset in her own private way, and Coran was clearly anxious at not being the one in charge of their medical care as he had been before. And he hadn’t gotten a single glimpse of Krolia and Shiro, but that was to be expected. 

Honestly, Lance didn’t know what to do with himself. There was nothing for him to do. The search was over, the rescue was done, the culprits were in Garrison custody, and Keith had all of the people he needed to comfort him. So why did he still feel so guilty?

When he woke up in the morning, after being up very late helping Hunk and Allura, Lance knew that he should probably leave Keith alone. He needed rest and time to process, not Lance showing up with his emotional baggage, but still he found himself in the hospital wing after breakfast, standing uncertainly outside Keith’s door. 

He probably could’ve talked himself out of it. He was nearly there-- the last thing Keith needed after all of that was Lance getting all up in his face, God knows it takes him a lot of energy to deal with him on a good day-- when the door opened. 

The first thing Shiro did when he saw Lance was smile, which already put him a bit more at ease. Smiles hadn’t been common currency among the team the last few days. 

“Hey, Lance. Here to see Keith?”

“Uh, yeah. If he’s up to it.” 

“Sure,” said Shiro with a nod. “I was just heading to my room for a change of clothes.”

“Right.” Lance stepped back, allowing Shiro out into the hall. Shiro gave him another smile and a friendly pat on the shoulder as he passed, then it was just Lance, staring down that open door. 

With a last breath to settle the nerves, Lance went inside. 

It was dim inside the room, the blinds still drawn and the lights still turned down low. Keith lay on his side next to Krolia, the bandages visible through the open back of his hospital gown, with Kosmo snuggled between the two of them. The wolf was the first one to notice Lance’s presence, followed by Krolia when she noticed Kosmo’s pricked up ears. 

“Hey,” Lance said, more awkwardly than he’d ever said anything in his life. He half expected Krolia to go full mama-Galra and tell Lance to fuck off, with words or without, but instead she met his eye, nodded once, and levered herself up onto one elbow, murmuring something to Keith too quietly for Lance to hear. 

Kosmo hopped off the bed and popped over to Lance’s side in a shower of blue sparks. Lance allowed himself to be distracted by petting him for a few seconds, and when he looked back at the bed Keith was pushing himself into a seated position. 

Lord did he look rough. All of the dirt and dried blood had been cleaned up, but they couldn’t wipe away all of the many, many bruises, or the bags under his eyes in the same shade of exhausted purple-gray. 

But still he managed a tiny smile. 

“Hey, Lance, what’s up?”

For a second, Lance couldn’t find any words. Then Kosmo gave his hand a parting lick before popping back to the bed and landing on Keith’s lap, and Krolia climbed off the bed to head for the door, and he snapped back to reality. This was Mullet he was talking to, not the fucking Pope. Jesus. 

“I just wanted to talk for a sec. Is now ok?”

Keith nodded. Lance noticed how he wasn’t leaning back against the pillows, choosing to hold himself upright with his arms, which were already beginning to shake. He had to make this quick. As he was thinking, Krolia slid around him and left the room, closing the door behind her with nary a sound. It was now or never. 

Lance sidled forward a few steps, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s about Red, kind of.”

Keith just raised an eyebrow. Damn it, he was going to make Lance do all the work, wasn’t he?

“She was pretty upset when you were-- when you were gone. Obviously. And I just-- I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

He just tilted his head, wearing a quizzical frown. “Huh? Sorry for what?” 

Lance cleared his throat. He was starting to feel choked up, like he had after Shiro came back for real, and the last thing he wanted was a repeat of that performance. 

“If you were still her Paladin, she would’ve been able to go get you, like she used to, and you wouldn’t have…” He trailed off, and thankfully Keith didn’t wait for him to come back to the sentence. 

With an exasperated shake of his head, Keith said, “I know Red wanted to come get me, Lance. I could hear her. Black wanted to, too.”

Lance lowered his eyes, but the combination scoff/chuckle sound Keith made got him to sneak a glance back up. His expression definitely didn’t seem upset, but it could’ve been masked by the fatigue he should see creeping in along the edges. 

“And,” he continued, “I told them not to.”

All of the thoughts racing around Lance’s brain came to a screeching stop. His mouth, unfortunately, didn’t get the memo. “Wait, what? Why would you do that?” 

Keith gave him a ‘duh’ look, one Lance was extremely familiar with. “Come on. A Lion, pissed off and loose around the Garrison? People would’ve gotten hurt. You saw what Red did to the Blade base.”

Lance almost reminded him that he hadn’t, in fact, seen it, only to forget all about it when Keith’s expression changed. Now he wore a look Lance wasn’t so familiar with, the one he’d gotten so good at since returning from the Blade. Soft, almost amused, with that slightly sad little smile. 

“Besides, I knew you guys would find me eventually.”

Shit. The tears returned with a vengeance. Before any of them could escape the moment was broken by one of Keith’s elbows giving, making him wince. Kosmo immediately appeared back on the bed with his signature pop and blue sparks, and after giving Keith a cursory sniff, he settled down at his side and shot a very pointed look in Lance’s direction. 

“What?” Lance asked him in a teasing tone, and Kosmo let out a soft boof. Lance laughed and held up his hands in surrender. “Ok, ok, I get the message. I’ll leave him alone.”

Despite the obvious pain he was in, Keith managed another smile for him. 

“See you later, Lance.”

Lance paused at the door and smiled back. 

“See you later, team leader.” 

Chapter Text

“Come on, Keith! Getting tired already?”

Already? Keith thought incredulously as he wiped sweat from his brow. We’ve been going for three hours! Then again, the Princess was an Altean-- clearly they had more stamina than humans. 

Either way, he didn’t waste breath voicing any of his thoughts. He breathed in deep, exhaled slow, letting time pause for a moment to feel his racing heart and trembling arms. Then, narrowing his eyes at Allura’s smug expression, flew into his next attack. 

Allura sidestepped his rush easily. She whirled, her hair a silver curtain, and smacked her staff against his back as Keith struggled to halt his momentum. Another sting across his buzzing skin, another bruise to join the others. Keith turned and went right back at her without noticing. 

In all honesty, they were probably going a bit too hard for just a sparring session. But Allura seemed to enjoy fighting just as much as Keith did, and the adrenaline had captured both of them-- if Alteans even had adrenaline. 

This time she let him get close enough to go for an overhead strike, only to block it almost effortlessly. The Princess barely seemed winded, not a hair out of place while Keith was a shaking, sweaty mess; that exhaustion was why, when he saw the other end of her staff coming up out of his periphery, he couldn’t react in time to dodge. 

Crack! The end of her staff caught Keith right on the temple. Instantly the room vanished, replaced by a blur of color, the floor rose up to meet him, and for a second everything went black. 

When he opened his eyes again he was seeing double. There were two bayards on the floor by his head, two staffs thrown a dozen feet away, and two concerned Princess faces leaning over him. Their mouths moved, but all Keith could hear was the ringing, any other sound muffled like it was coming through cotton. 

At first there was only confusion. Then the pain pierced through his temple, through his eyes, and when he tried to turn away it only set the room to spinning again, the floor bobbing up and down beneath him like he was sitting in the center of a trampoline while a dozen others ran around him. 

Distantly, he heard himself say, “Ouch.”

After a few seconds and a lot of blinking, Keith managed to look back at Allura. She was still shifting, splitting into two and then merging back together, no matter how many times he blinked to reset. She was still talking, but he still couldn’t hear a single word through the keening.

“I can’t,” he tried to say, with an attempt to gesture at his ear. Probably unsuccessful. “I can’t hear you.”

With two worried frowns, Allura leaned in closer. He was still hazy, but he just barely felt the tickle of her hair as her ponytail fell over her shoulder. She spoke again, and this time he managed to catch, “Infir.” Assuming she meant the infirmary, Keith managed a nod, and Allura grabbed his arm to pull him upright. 

It wasn’t their best idea in the world. If the room had been spinning before, now it was nothing more than a watercolor tornado. His balance was off-- Keith felt like he was tilting violently from side to side, when in reality he probably wasn’t moving much at all, and he had completely lost track of Allura. There was another pull and he felt his stomach churn as reality tried to shake itself loose. 

It took a while before Keith found his feet again. Dragging against something, presumably the floor if it still existed, and from there he could follow the muscles up and out. Most of him was limp, except for his shoulder, aching where his arm had been drawn over something and held in place. 

He must’ve made some sort of sound, because a voice in his ear murmured, “... ‘s alright, Keith…. -king you…. Infirma…” His ears still buzzed with static, but it felt less like needles piercing through his eardrums, and hearing  a few fragmented words was better than none at all, right? He tried to answer, but had no idea if he succeeded. 

He was more successful at his attempt to get his feet under him again; he got one foot straight, then another, and even though Allura was still holding approximately 70% of his body weight, he could at least stagger along with her now. 

By the time they reached the infirmary Keith was able to look up from the floor without immediately losing his balance again, and the ringing in his ears had faded enough for him to hear his own dim footsteps. But when Coran came rushing up to them, all he saw was a blur of blue and painfully bright orange. There was another blur behind him, this time black, and he was lucid enough to cringe. Shiro was going to be pissed. 

“—happened?” Shiro sounded scared. Keith didn’t like that, but by the time that thought made it all the way across his brain Allura had already answered and Shiro had begun his next sentence. 

“You weren’t wearing helmets and you aimed for his head?!” 

“That’s not fair.” Keith’s tongue felt clumsy, and he wasn’t sure how understandable he was, but he couldn’t stop the words from falling out. All of his concentration was going into staying upright. “You used to drive off of cliffs ‘ithout a helmet.”

Shiro sounded choked when he answered, “That is so not the point, Keith!”

“I thought he would dodge,” Allura said. “He’s usually quicker than that.”

“Hey,” Keith protested. “I was tired. We’d been going for… for hours…” God, he was still tired. His eyelids sagged, suddenly unable to hold themselves up anymore, and there was a burst of chatter from everyone else as more hands joined Allura’s to support him. “S-s’rry…”

“A stint in the healing pods is in order, I think,” said Coran, and Keith couldn’t disagree. The cold and dark might actually be nice. “Come along, Number Four.”

Keith was in no position to argue. 

Once Keith was settled in his pod, Shiro went over to Allura, who had been hovering in the background while he and Coran got the pod ready. She disguised her anxiety well, but Shiro had known her long enough to recognize the white-knuckled clasp of her hands and the tension in her shoulders. 

“I’m sorry,” she said before he had a chance to speak. “We were-- I was reckless.”

“I came over to say sorry to you, actually,” Shiro answered, more than a little sheepishly. Could you blame him? He’d yelled at a princess, after all. “I was disrespectful.”

Allura shook her head with a disbelieving smile. “I deserved it.” She paused for a moment, gnawing on the inside of her lip. “I’ll admit that I was pushing him. I wanted to see how far he could go.”

Shiro cringed. He could understand, on some level-- the Princess was still unfamiliar with their species and what their limits were, of course she’d want to find out, but Keith was possibly the worst person she could’ve picked to test. 

Allura noticed his expression and gave her own little wince. “He really doesn’t quit, does he?”

“He’ll go until he drops,” Shiro agreed. “Then he’ll get back up and keep going.”

“Right.” She sighed, stood there a moment more, then shook herself and turned away from the pod. “We’ll wear armor next time.”

He managed a smile. “That’s all I ask.”

Chapter Text

Team meetings always sucked. But they sucked extra hard on days like today, when the lights were far too bright and the voices around him were far too loud. Keith stood at the back of the group, trying to be subtle about how he shaded his eyes with one hand, keeping his winces silent, hoping no one would notice his discomfort as Allura went over their next battle plan. 

“Allura,” Lance said, interrupting the Princess in the middle of her sentence. “Do we really have to go over this again? Battles always go the same way: we show up, we form Voltron, we go blam! Blam! Blam!” He accented each shot with dramatic finger guns and a sharp increase in volume that made Keith’s head throb. “Get rid of all the Galra, and done.” 

Allura didn’t look amused by Lance’s antics. “You shouldn’t treat war so flippantly, Lance. Need I remind you how many people have died at Zarkon’s hands?” 

Lance immediately wilted with a mumbled apology. With him suitably chastised, Allura swept stern, weary eyes over the rest of them, and Keith was too preoccupied with the echoes of pain from the noise to notice in time. 

“Keith.”

He jolted and looked up. The Princess was frowning at him; every time he blinked, he saw her outline hovering behind her, flashing green blue pink yellow. 

“Please pay attention.”

Digging his teeth into his lip, Keith lowered the hand he had braced over his eyes. Instantly the lights bit through them, pain beating in his temples like war drums while the floor tilted under his feet and the bottom of his stomach dropped out. 

But he must have hidden it well enough, because Allura just gave him a curt, “Thank you,” and went back to the battle plan. 

Keith tried to take even, measured breaths. The lights and white walls of Altean architecture were merciless. Every item, every person had after-image ghosts floating around them, crowding his vision with the flashing colors until he could barely see anything else, and his throat felt tight from nausea. 

Still, he tried to remain as impassive as possible. He was a Paladin. This was his job now, and a headache was not nearly a good enough excuse when compared to the war. As Allura had just pointed out. 

But it was hard to pay attention when most of his energy was going into keeping the pain off of his face. It filled his skull, pounding behind his eyes and his temples and in bright burning balls at the back of his head, and though he might’ve been able to ignore it on its own, the combination of it with the nausea and the vertigo forced him to feel it. 

The others were still talking. Mostly Allura in her even, careful tone, sometimes Shiro. Keith didn’t hear which one of them said it, but something made Coran exclaim, “That’s a terrible idea!” 

Pain pulsed through his brain. Keith fisted his hands into the sleeves of his jacket, squeezing until his knuckles ached to distract from it, but before he could completely recover, Lance had leapt back into the conversation. 

“I think it’s a great idea,” he said, loudly as ever. “Much less work for us.”

Coran harrumphed. “Less work, perhaps, but also much less precise. We shouldn’t leave so much up to chance if we can help it, we can’t risk one of you getting seriously injured.”

“Why not? We have healing pods, don’t we?”

“Well, technically,” began Pidge. Her voice was quieter, but she also happened to be standing closer to Keith, whose entire world had shrunk to the pain ricocheting through his head with every word. “We don’t know how the human body will react to long term healing pod use.”

“Just have Keith do it!” Why was Lance always so loud? “He’s not fully human, and he likes being reckless, anyway.” A few footsteps vibrated through the floor, then Keith’s entire body went taut as Lance threw an arm around his shoulders. “What do you think, Keith? Up to pull more death-defying stunts?”

Lance’s voice directly in his ear was too much. Eyes squeezed shut against the intolerable lights and a snarl to disguise the grimace, he shoved Lance away. 

“God, just let Allura finish! Do you have to talk all the freaking time?”

There was a beat of surprised silence before Lance said, “Hey!”  Keith’s stomach churned and he resisted the urge to put a hand over his mouth; he felt like crying. Thankfully, before Lance could say anything else, Allura cut back in and guided the conversation back to the task at hand. Even so, Keith could feel the crawl of eyes on him, and it only made him feel sicker. Everything swirled into a white miasma, dotted with auras and halos and after-images. 

Something brushed Keith’s elbow. He jumped again, blinking rapidly as he tried to see through the lights at who was next to him. He wasn’t surprised to find Shiro looking down at him, a blurry look of concern on his face. With a gentle tug he guided Keith back a few steps, towards the bridge door, and Keith stumbled along as best he could, hoping his steps weren’t as clumsy as they felt. 

“Are you alright?” Shiro asked in a low voice once they were far enough from the others. “You’re not looking so good.”

Keith swallowed hard and kept his eyes locked on Shiro’s vest, the darkest, most relieving thing in the room. “I’m ok. Just a headache.” He didn’t realize he’d been swaying on his feet until Shiro moved his hand up to Keith’s bicep to straighten him out. 

“Are you dizzy? Nauseous?”

Keith nodded, then immediately regretted it. “Yeah. But I’ll be fine. I can handle it.”

“Keith,” Shiro sighed. “That’s not just a headache, it’s a migraine.”

Keith blinked. “So?”

“So you shouldn’t even be here. You should be resting.”

He frowned and looked away, ignoring how his eyes burned in protest. “I’m fine. I can deal.” 

“I know you can. But you don’t have to.”

“We’re in a meeting, Shiro, the mission is--”

“The mission isn’t for another two days.” Shiro put his other hand on Keith’s shoulder, turning him so that they face each other. Keith looked back at his vest, not his face, but Shiro continued anyway, knowing he was listening. “We can go over it again beforehand. Besides, how much of the info are you actually getting right now? You can barely walk straight.”

Keith ground his teeth. His first instinct was to bristle and snap, to scare anyone away from questioning his resiliency, but he reigned it in. This was Shiro he was talking to-- not only would that approach not work, but that wasn’t even what he was trying to do. It wasn’t like Lance, accusing him of being scared to egg him on during training. It was Shiro, expressing concern for his well-being. And, unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. 

With a sigh, Keith rubbed a hand over his eyes, finally admitting defeat. “God, fine. I guess I can go to my bunk for a little while.”

“Good,” Shiro answered with an approving nod. “I’ll come check in on you later, ok?”

“Yeah, ok.”

Shiro smiled, and gave his shoulders a squeeze before releasing them. It was impossible not to notice the silence that had taken over the room; the others had noticed that something was up, but thankfully none of them said anything as Keith turned towards the door. 

Even so, his cheeks burned all the way back to his bunk. 

The quiet was nice. The dark was even nicer. Keith wasn’t keeping track of the time, but the longer he laid in his bunk the more manageable the migraine got. The after images had faded along with the queasy dizziness. The pain still remained, but it was ebbing. 

He was almost asleep when the soft knock came at his door. A moment later he heard it hiss as it opened, and though Keith couldn’t see who it was with his head buried in his pillow, he could guess based on the steady footsteps. 

“Hey, Shiro,” he murmured as he felt the mattress sink. 

“Hey. I brought you an ice pack.”

Carefully, Keith peeled his eyes open just a bit and peered over his shoulder. There was Shiro with that little smile and, as promised, an ice pack in his metal hand. 

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Shiro laid it down next to Keith’s head, letting him be the one to pick it up and put it where the pain was the worst. Keith settled it against the back of his neck and let out a quiet sigh of relief at the wave of soothing chill. “Feeling better?”

“A little.”

“Enough to talk?”

Keith shifted a little as he considered. He was still wearing his jacket and his boots, but he didn’t mind. Their weight was comforting. “Sure.”

Once again, Shiro laid a hand on his shoulder, though this time in more of a rub than a grasp. “You don’t need to hide when you’re in pain like that, you know. No one will think less of you.”

“I could’ve dealt with it,” Keith answered. He reached up and pressed the ice pack up a few inches until it cradled the back of his skull, where the pain still pounded with insistence. “I could’ve pushed through.”

“I know. But just because you can take the pain doesn’t mean you should have to.”

Keith frowned to himself. Shiro fell silent, letting him think, and the quiet persisted for several seconds until he figured out what he wanted to say. 

“Most of me knows that.” Most of him knew that, anyway. Before Kerberos. Before he was alone. “I just… forget, sometimes.” 

“That’s ok.” Judging by the softness of his tone, Shiro had guessed his thoughts. “I’m here to remind you now.”

A traitorous thought crossed Keith’s mind: For now. Keith shut it down as best he could. Now wasn’t the time to worry about that. Now was the time for rest.

Shiro moved his hand and gently, gently brushed his fingers over Keith’s hair. “Get some sleep, otouto. You’ll feel better soon.”

This time, Keith didn’t argue. 

Chapter Text

It started with a bad feeling. 

Keith swept his eyes around the grand ballroom, over the faces of the courtesans that lined the edges and gathered around the massive pillars that held up the roof of the palace, but could see no indication of malice on any of them. They were all listening intently to Pidge as she made her case for their planet to join the Coalition; she’d been going for about ten minutes, and no one had so much as coughed since she started. 

So then why was the hair on the back of his neck standing up? Why was there wariness growing in his stomach, urging him to inch closer to Pidge, when he hadn’t seen a single armed guard the entire time they’d been on this planet? 

He didn’t know, but obeyed the urges and stepped two paces closer to Pidge’s back. She noticed, her animated hand motions slowing for a moment before she recovered and went on with her speech. Keith glanced around the room again, and again, and still saw nothing, but still didn’t let his guard down. His instincts were rarely wrong. 

It was a good thing he listened. The ground beneath their feet had barely begun to tremble when Keith grabbed Pidge’s hand and dragged her to the floor. 

“Stay down!” he said, having to shout over the roar of cracking stone and panicked, screaming people as the ground shook, escalating from a tremble to a quake in mere seconds. Pidge clutched his hand back and nodded, a stunned expression on her face. 

The quake went on for three seconds, then four. All around them the aliens were shrieking in terror, some trying to run (most of those not succeeding) and some hunkering down like Pidge and Keith, covering their heads with their many arms in an attempt to protect themselves. If earthquakes were common in that area, none of them were acting like it. 

On the fifth second, deafening cracks echoed overhead. Keith looked up, and his stomach immediately dropped; those massive pillars were crumbling, the stone spiderwebbed with cracks. He barely had enough time to activate his shield and get it over his and Pidge’s heads before the stones began to fall. 

Please don’t break, he prayed fervently as he waited for the impact. Please.  

And, technically, his prayer was answered. 

Pidge would never forget the sound Keith made when the rock landed on his unprotected leg. At first she was just surprised that any noise had managed to cut through the keening in her ears. Then horror filled her up when she saw Keith’s face go pale and crumple in pain. 

Somehow, he managed to keep his shield held up. For just a moment Pidge saw the broken pieces of pillar that were raining down on them, before the air was full of gray dust that instantly made her eyes water and a cough to build in her throat. 

For once, she had no idea what to do. So she emulated Keith and went for her first instinct-- she tucked her helmeted head against Keith’s chestplate, closed her eyes, and braced herself to be squished like a bug. 

The squishing never came. It took about thirty seconds or so, but eventually Pidge realized that the awful shaking had stopped. The whine in her ears was the only sound meeting them-- the roar had ended, and as the keening died away, it was replaced with an eerie, almost shocked silence. Cautiously, Pidge opened her eyes. 

A few minutes ago, she’d been standing under the palace’s massive domed roof, made of brilliant red and green mosaic tiles. There was a similar dome above their heads now, but much lower, much grayer, and much more precarious. 

“K-keith?” she murmured with a few coughs at the dust. “Are you okay?”

Even her voice sounded like it was coming from underwater to her, but somehow she understood Keith’s tense response of, “I’ve been better.”

Pidge didn’t know how to answer. She just laid there for a few seconds, staring at the ceiling, before asking, “Did the whole building collapse?”

“Looks that way,” Keith grunted. 

“Holy shit.”

He huffed out a half-amused breath. “You can say that again.” Then, with another little sound of pain, Keith tried to move. 

“Stop!” Pidge cried, throwing her arm over him as more dust rained down from above. Pebbles clattered against her visor, and both of them froze at the sounds coming from the rubble-- stone shifting, glass breaking, and somewhere, the groan of bending metal. 

Veeeeeeeery gingerly, Pidge lifted her head and looked down at their feet. Hers were still curled up near Keith’s knees, but his right leg was buried in the rubble up to the knee. A quick scan from her visor confirmed her fear.

“Don’t move,” she said. “It’ll come down on us.”

Keith hissed a curse between his teeth. “Of course it will.” He let out a breath, pulled in another, coughed a few times, then added on, “Are you ok?”

“Yeah.” At least, she thought she was. Nothing hurt… yet. “I’m fine.”

After a few more seconds to catch her breath, Pidge cautiously eased herself into a sitting position. Their little dome was only barely tall enough, she could feel the top of her helmet brushing against the rock, and when she tried to activate her comms, she heard only static. 

“Comms are down.” 

Keith cursed again. 

“But Coran was monitoring from the Castle. He’ll know what happened and send the others to dig us out.”

“God, I hope so.” Keith didn’t say it out loud, but Pidge could tell from one glance at his face that he was in serious pain. That sparked anxious butterflies in her stomach-- they didn’t know how far the healing pods could go, what if it was injured beyond repair-- but she tried to shove the fear away. It wouldn’t help them right now. 

“Do you think it’s broken?” she asked, and Keith let out a bark of harsh laughter. 

“Yeah, it’s definitely--” his breath hitched, and a few more pebbles fell from the ceiling. “Definitely broken.” 

“Ok, ok. We’ll be alright. The others will find us.”

Keith didn’t answer that time. 

Pidge sat there for a few more minutes in the silence, still trying to process what had happened. It was an earthquake, she thought— few things could make the ground shake like that, and it wasn’t accompanied by the explosive force of a missle. She’d barely had time to realize what was happening before Keith was pulling her down. And there had been a moment just before when she had felt him step closer to her. It had made her trip up in her sentence. 

“You knew,” she blurted out, probably too loudly for the tomb-like silence that surrounded them. “You knew it was going to happen, didn’t you? Before the quake actually hit.”

“I… got a bad feeling,” said Keith. “Right before. I thought that someone was trying to sneak up on us or something.” 

“Huh.” That had a lot of implications-- could Galra detect changes in electromagnetic fields minute enough to catch an oncoming earthquake? Exactly how sensitive were Galra senses, anyway? And how much of that had Keith received from his split ancestry?

“Pidge.” Keith’s voice interrupted her train of thought. “I can hear you hypothesizing from over here.”

She cringed. “Sorry.” Pidge drew up her legs, intending to rest her arms on them, but had barely applied any pressure when a sudden jolt of pain made her recoil with a gasp. Only now that the adrenaline had faded was she noticing the shards of glass embedded in her right forearm, gouging right through her flight suit. “Crap.”

“Let me see.” 

Pidge obligingly lowered her arm. Keith gave it a cursory look over, then gently took her wrist.

“I can get them out.”

“Ok,” Pidge sighed, already not looking forward to it. She was expecting some kind of preparation, maybe a countdown like Matt had always done, but Keith didn’t pause for even a second. He just gripped one of the pieces of glass with his fingertips and tugged it free in one go. 

She sucked a breath in through her teeth, but before she could recover completely Keith pulled out another, and another. Instinctively she pulled her arm back and away when he went for the next one, and he stilled.

“Do you need me to slow down?”

Pidge took a moment to breathe before she answered. “No, I want it over with, just gimme a second.”

“Alright.” Keith shifted a bit, only for both of them to freeze again as the sound of moving stone bore down from above. Pidge’s stomach twisted into another knot. 

Keith was impatient and restless on the best of days. And now both of their lives depended on his ability to stay still while tons of weight rested on his broken leg, which besides the pain could cause them even more problems. If it was bleeding, internally or externally, they were on the clock. 

Keith breathed in, long and slow. His fingers tapped against the floor, beating out a slightly frantic rhythm, but the rest of him remained motionless. A moment later he opened his eyes again and turned an expectant look to Pidge. She let him take her arm again without a fuss. 

“Bleeding isn’t too bad,” he said as he resumed-- probably to distract her. “You should be ok until the others show up.” 

“Mm, thanks.” The many small wounds throbbed and burned with each beat of her heart, but Pidge didn’t say anything about it; it wouldn’t do either of them any good. That eerie silence returned, the air settling thick and close around them, and she had to remind herself to keep breathing. 

The others were coming for them. They just had to be patient. 

Shiro’s stomach plummeted the instant he saw what remained of the Palace. It was unrecognizable, just a pile of rubble in the setting sun, with small groups of aliens scattered around the edges as they tried to dig their people out. Voltron would aid in the rescue efforts, of course-- after they found their own. 

“Oh my God,” Lance said through the comms as the three remaining Paladins brought their Lions in for landing. “That’s… brutal.”

“Keith and Pidge are in there?” Hunk asked nervously. “Do we know if they’re…”

“Not for certain.” Coran’s voice was grim, his expression equally so as he leaned on Black’s dashboard to get closer to the mic. “Long range scans picked up many bio signatures, I couldn’t discern who was who.”

Shiro cleared his throat. “Until proven otherwise, we’re going to work on the assumption that they’re alive.”

Silence. None of them had wanted to acknowledge that possibility, Shiro least of all, but once they got a good look at the damage the earthquake had wrought, it was impossible to ignore. 

He, Lance, and Hunk brought their Lions in near Green and Red, still parked outside the palace. Shiro wasn’t surprised to see Red pacing, eyes aglow, but what was surprising was how Red wasn’t the one digging through the rubble. Instead it was Green, ever so gently and carefully picking up boulders in her jaws and setting them to the side, like she was playing a Lion-sized game of Jenga. 

“That doesn’t bode well,” murmured Allura over the comms from her position in Blue. None of them responded. 

One by one the Lions touched down. Green paused in her meticulous excavation to look over at them, and Red let out a low, rumbling growl that had all the hairs on Shiro’s body standing on end. He and Coran exchanged one last trepidatious look before Shiro turned back to the comms, Coran straightening his gloves before heading for the door. 

“Alright, let’s do this calmly and quickly. Lance, get a sonic map of the Palace-- the first thing we need to do is figure out where Keith and Pidge are and what’s between us and them.”

“Roger that.” Lance’s voice sounded a little unsteady, but he was holding it together. For now, at least. 

“Hunk, you stay in Yellow. You’re going to be our shovel.”

“Ok,” answered Hunk as Shiro got to his feet to leave Black. “But what about Red and Green?”

Shiro spared a glance out of the windscreen before he left. Green had gone back to carefully picking rocks off of the pile of stone, and Red was still sitting and staring with that intent gaze. 

“Leave them alone for now. Green knows what she’s doing.” Hopefully. 

The air outside the Lion was thick with dust and smothered fear. Shiro could feel the eyes of the natives on them as he and the Alteans approached the rubble, but did his best to appear unphased by the destruction. 

“Sonic going out in three… two… one…”

A few seconds later Coran’s tablet lit up. Shiro stepped closer, peering over Coran’s shoulder at the image-- a map of the disaster site, the outline of each piece of wreckage outlined in various shades of blue. And underneath, in bright green, were things shaped like people. 

“Those are bio signs,” Coran explained, tilting the tablet so that Allura could see. “People who are still alive.”

Allura made a questioning sound. “But how can we tell which ones are Pidge and Keith?”

From over their heads, the Blue Lion let out a rumble. Two of the shapes on the map, in the very center, pressed so closely together they might have been mistaken as one, pinged with golden circles. 

“Well, that settles that,” Shiro said. 

“We’ll have to be very careful,” Coran murmured thoughtfully to himself. “Do you see how the rubble is stacked on itself? They seem to be in a gap for now, but if we move the wrong piece at the wrong time, the whole pile could come down on top of them.”

“Oh no.” Even over the comms, Hunk sounded terrified. “Maybe I shouldn’t be the one digging. Yellow and I aren’t exactly known for our dexterity, you know?”

Allura frowned. “We can’t let the Green Lion do it by herself, it’ll take far too long. You’ll just have to be cautious.”

“Trust your Lion,” Shiro added. “He might surprise you.”

“I’ll help too,” said Lance. 

Shiro nodded to himself as he examined the map on the tablet, trying to work out which pieces they could move first. 

“Let’s get to work.”

Pidge wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Long enough for her butt to fall asleep from sitting in the same position, at least, when she saw Keith’s head move out of the corner of her eye. 

“What?”

“I can hear Red,” he said, staring straight up at the ceiling. “Blue, too.”

She could’ve smacked herself. This whole time, it had never occurred to her to try and contact her Lion. God, and she was supposed to be the genius around here. 

She had to close her eyes to concentrate, to block out the gray tomb that surrounded them, but after a few seconds of concentration she felt the familiar brush of Green’s mind up against hers, filled with quiet relief, and smiled to herself. 

Hey, girl. You digging us out?

Green gave an affirmative rumble. 

“The others are here.” Keith’s voice was thin and weary, enough so to pull Pidge’s attention back to her surroundings; he was getting paler by the minute, and his restless finger tapping was only getting worse. 

“Yeah. It won’t be long now.”

“I hope so. I can’t really feel my leg anymore.”

“Shit,” Pidge hissed through her teeth. “That’s not good.”

“Gee, you don’t say.”

He was in pain and pinned under rubble, so Pidge gave him a pass for the sarcasm this time. Thankfully, before she had to think of a response the comms crackled and popped in her ear, accompanied by a staticky voice. 

“Pidge… Keith… hear me?”

“Allura!” Pidge exclaimed. “Thank God.”

“Pidge? … that you?”

“Yes, yes, we’re here! Both of us, we’re both here.”

From above came the distant scrape of moving stone, and more dust fell down from the ceiling. The next time Allura spoke, her voice was clearer. 

“We’re finding a way down to you now. Are either of you injured?”

“I’m ok, but Keith’s leg is pinned.”

Shiro’s voice joined the conversation. “Keith? You there, bud?”

“I’m here.” Keith’s breath rasped in the silence of their dome. “You guys took your own sweet time.”

Shiro gave a slightly forced sounding laugh. “We’re working on it. Just hang tight, you two.”

“Don’t have much of a choice,” Keith grumbled. No one had anything to say to that, so Pidge just sat and stared up at the ceiling, watching the dust and pebbles fall as the others painstakingly removed the rubble above them, piece by piece. 

But it was easier now. The quiet chatter of the others over the comms was much better than the silence, and the occasional brush from Green helped keep the anxiety at bay. 

Keith wasn’t doing as well; even Pidge, who didn’t know him as well as Shiro, could tell that he was struggling. His hands were moving constantly now, one tapping against the ground and the other rubbing a thumb over his knuckles. She could see him biting his lips, and a couple of times his left leg kicked against the rubble, though he quickly reined it in under Pidge’s panicked looks.

Despite all of that, after a while it seemed like they would actually get out of this alive. The others were only a few feet above them now-- Pidge could hear the footsteps of the Lions overhead-- and the voices over the comms were nearly crystal clear. 

“Almost there,” said Shiro confidently. “Just a few more rocks to go.”

“Thank God,” Keith muttered, and Pidge gave a sigh of relief. They were really going to make it. They were really going to be ok. 

For the millionth time, the stone scraped as it shifted. Then, completely unexpectedly, there was a long, grating screeeeeeech. Pidge cringed, instinctively clapping her hands to the sides of her head, only to smack her helmet instead of her ears, and Keith let out a pained cry. Fortunately, the horrid noise only lasted a few seconds. 

Unfortunately, the sound ending was immediately followed by Allura snapping, “Quiznack.”

“That-- that doesn’t sound good,” said Pidge with just the slightest bit of concern. 

“There’s a piece of metal that we weren’t anticipating,” Coran explained in a measured tone. It was a little hard to hear through the ringing in her ears. “It’s quite large, and seems to be holding up the sides of your little enclave.”

“I can cut through it,” said Shiro. “But it’ll take a few minutes.”

“That’s alright,” Pidge began. “We can--”

“That’s it!” In a split second Keith surged upright. There was a solid crack as his helmeted head smacked against the stone roof, but he didn’t even react to the blow-- he was too focused on planting his hands on the stone that was holding him down. 

“Keith, “ said Pidge, “Wait--”

“I have to get out of here!” Bracing with his hands, Keith gave his leg a hard jerk, trying to free himself. It drew a sound of pain from his lips, but it didn’t stop him from pulling again; nor did the tremble of the rock above them, or the ominous scraping, or the alarmed voices of the others. “I can’t stay in here anymore!”

“Keith!” Pidge tried to keep her voice low, but the fear made it difficult. “Stop it, you’re going to make it cave in--”

He didn’t listen. He gave his leg another hard pull, and to her horror Pidge saw one of the stones above their heads shift. 

“Keith! Stop!”

His only response was another anguished cry of, “Get me out of here!”

Pidge threw caution to the wind and grabbed Keith by one of his pauldrons, shaking hard enough to move his entire body. “Knock it off, you freakin’ idiot! You’re going to get us both killed!”

Keith let out a ragged, gasping breath. Up this close Pidge could see his fists curling against the rock, and for a moment feared that he was still too far gone to listen, but to her relief the pause lasted long enough for Shiro to get a word in edgewise. 

“Keith, hey, listen to me. Are you listening?”

“Y-yeah.” Keith’s voice was rough and tight. Pidge felt a pang of guilt at that, but she shoved it away-- now wasn’t the time. 

“Ok, good. Listen carefully: we are almost to you. I promise, we’re going to get you out soon, but I need you to stay calm for a few more minutes, alright? Can you do that for me?”

Keith took another steadying breath. “Yeah. Yeah, I can-- I can do that.”

“Good. You’re doing great, otouto. Just remember--”

“Patience yields focus,” Keith cut in. “I remember.” He sounded calmer now, his voice steadier, but Pidge could see how he squeezed his eyes shut, how tight his fists were against the stone. And for once, she didn’t think before she acted; as the others resumed the rescue mission, she took her hand off of Keith’s shoulder and took one of his hands, instead. 

He jumped at the contact, but didn’t look up at her. Pidge would’ve been ok with that, but as the air filled with the sound of plasma melting through metal, Keith murmured something to her. 

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. Shiro’s going to get us out. Then everything will be alright.”

Keith didn’t answer. 

A minute or two later the plasma melting sound stopped. Another stone was shifted, and another, and then came the holy moment-- the last rock was moved aside, and dim light poured into their cave like the sun through parting storm clouds. It was enough to make Pidge’s eyes water and sting through her visor (or so she told herself). 

Some thirty feet above them were the shapes of their teammates, waving down at them. Pidge got to her feet-- finally-- and waved back. 

“Shiro and Hunk are going down to get Keith,” Allura said through the comms. “Pidge, can you climb out with your jetpack?”

“Should be able to.” God, she itched to be out of this godforsaken hole. Still, she waited until Shiro and Hunk were halfway down before saying, “Coming up.” 

Lance was waiting to give her a hand up at the top. He greeted her with a broad, relieved grin, one that Pidge reciprocated as he pulled her out. 

Pidge couldn’t help it. The moment she was above ground she collapsed and flopped onto her back, staring up at the sky and taking big, deep breaths. Lance laughed and knelt at her side. 

“You ok there, Pidgeon?”

“Yeah. Just… really glad to not be underground anymore.”

“Fair enough.”

Through her helmet, Pidge could still hear Shiro and Hunk as they talked to Keith in the background. 

“Ok, we’re going to use Yellow to lift this piece long enough to get your leg out, but it’s going to hurt when the pressure comes off. Are you ready?”

“Just get it off of me,” was Keith’s response. 

Lance’s eyes flickered. “Come on, Pidge, let’s head back over to Green. Coran wants to give you a once over.” 

Pidge murmured an agreement as she sat up. She knew exactly what Lance was trying to do, so she obligingly took her helmet off and followed him away from the site where the Palace had previously stood. But even that added distance didn’t stop her from hearing it when Keith screamed. 

She would never forget that sound, either. 

Shiro didn’t seem at all surprised when Pidge turned up in the infirmary later that afternoon, after all of the drama was finished, while the others were still helping out planetside. He just nodded to her and kept going about his business, cleaning up the various medical supplies that were still out of place. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a red blur that might’ve been blood, but aggressively ignored it and focused on Shiro. 

“What’s the verdict?” She tried to sound casual as she crossed the room to Keith’s pod. It was probably a useless effort, Shiro knew all of her tells, but he probably wouldn’t mention it. Probably. 

“Coran says he’ll be ok.” There was a hiss as a panel slid closed, followed by approaching footsteps. “He should be out by morning.”

Pidge kept her eyes on Keith’s face. “Good.” It was still and serene under the pod’s anesthesia, the exact opposite of how he’d been down in that pit. That had been panic, pure and simple, and she couldn’t get that expression on his face out of her head. Not that expression, and not how small he sounded when he said he was sorry. “I need to talk to him about something.”

“What about?”

Pidge bit the inside of her lip. She knew Shiro wouldn’t judge, but she still felt bad admitting that she’d done something wrong when Shiro was always so good. 

Eventually, she spit it out. 

“I want to say sorry. For yelling at him.”

Shiro let out a little amused huff. “He probably won’t even think about it.”

“I know. But I still want him to hear it.” 

For a few seconds, Shiro just looked at her. She was able to withstand it for approximately three seconds before breaking and turning her head. 

Shiro was smiling at her, and when she made eye contact, gave her a soft pat on her shoulder. 

“I’m glad,” he said, “that Keith has you as a friend.”

Pidge fidgeted with the hem of her hoodie. “Uh, I’m not sure if he thinks-- if he considers us friends.”

He just chuckled and shook his head. “He probably wonders the same about you.”

Well, that certainly gave her something to think about. 

“I should probably head back down and help out. Will you keep an eye on him?”

“Of course,” answered Pidge with a nod. Shiro gave her another smile, and as he turned to leave the infirmary, she sat down before Keith’s pod to begin her vigil. 

Friends. Hm. 

Chapter Text

The sunset was beautiful that day, clouds tinted pink underneath and the cliffs painted purple as shadows began to crawl across the desert. Keith paused to appreciate it, just for a moment, before kicking his hoverbike back into gear. The combined roar of wind and engine filled his ears again. 

He loved riding with Shiro, don’t get him wrong, especially when they raced, but there was something special about being out in the desert alone. There was a stillness to the air even at high speed, and he felt more at home out here in the sun and dust than he did at the Garrison, even after living there for months. 

Keith sped up around a familiar curve, just barely skirting the edge of the cliff. He’d taken this canyon path a hundred times since meeting Shiro, but that was the point; he wanted time to think, and nothing was better for that than repetitive, practiced movements. It was like meditation… at thirty miles per hour. 

Left curve, right curve, hop the gap, drift around the boulder, hit the gas to make it across the wider hole in the trail. Like second nature, and now that his body was busy, Keith’s brain was more willing to cooperate with him. 

It got hard to think at the Garrison sometimes. There were always so many people bustling around, hardly anywhere was truly isolated, and even when he was alone he could feel the weight of everyone’s eyes on him. He was an oddity-- a prodigy and a troublemaker, impressive and disappointing in equal measure-- and the other students either ignored him or picked on him depending on how recently he’d gotten them in trouble. Then there was the constant fear of expulsion, of retaliation from his classmates, of disappointing Shiro--

Keith shook his head and focused on landing his next jump, a distraction just long enough to break the thought spiral. Shiro was in his corner, he’d already proven that. Anything else he could take so long as that remained true. 

Besides, he probably wasn’t on the shortlist to be expelled. He was still doing well in the simulator, and his grades were decent, so as long as he didn’t seriously injure anyone in a fist fight, he should be fine… probably.  

Suddenly, Keith’s whole body jerked to the side, the bike lurching under his hands as one of the thrusters skidded out. With a hard yank of the handles he turned it sideways and planted one foot on the ground, hoping to slow himself down before he and the bike both careened off the cliff-side. 

Those few seconds seemed to stretch on for hours. It was working, he was slowing down, but he didn’t know if it would be enough. His muscles burned with the effort. Then he felt his foot hit something, a split second before the pain shot up his ankle, and he lost his grip on the bike with a cry. 

He slid several feet over the rough desert rock. It tore at his skin, even through his hoodie and his jeans, but Keith didn’t even register it. All he could hear was the horrible screeeeeeeeeech of metal over stone as the bike slid on without him. 

Then, as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped. The screech ended. For a moment all Keith could do was lay there in the silence, stunned, waiting for the inevitable crash of the bike hitting the canyon floor, until he started choking on the dust cloud. 

Automatically he pulled himself upright again, coughing. Everything hurt, his ears ringing and his skin buzzing, but as the dust cleared he was still looking for only one thing. 

And there it was-- the hoverbike, on the edge of the cliff, one thruster hanging precariously over open air. 

“Shit,” Keith hissed to himself as he struggled to his feet. That bike belonged to the Garrison; he didn’t want to think of the kind of trouble he and Shiro would get in if he totaled it. His ankle seared with pain when he put weight on it, but he just limped over as best he could and grabbed one of the handles. He had to pull with all his strength, toppling back over onto his side when his ankle protested, but luckily he was able to haul the bike back from the edge. 

Urgent task accomplished, Keith let himself breathe for a few seconds. The adrenaline was fading. He could feel the insistent throb of whatever he’d done to his ankle, the sting of the scraped skin on his arm and leg, and the all too familiar sensation of blood soaking into his clothing. 

Damn it. His head was still spinning-- he had to force himself to take some deep breaths, the way Shiro had taught him, and tried to take stock of the situation. 

At this point on the trail, he was miles from the Garrison. The sun was almost down. He couldn’t ride back with a screwed up ankle, but he couldn’t walk on it, either. He couldn’t leave the bike-- are you kidding, Iverson would kill him-- so he had two options. 1. Walk the bike back while using it as a crutch, which would be painful and take hours, or 2. Stay where he was and wait for the Garrison to realize he was gone and come after him. 

Well, the choice was obvious. Shiro was going to be busy grading papers all night. He probably wouldn’t realize Keith was gone until he didn’t show up to class tomorrow morning, and no one else at the Garrison gave a single fuck about him. He was just going to have to get back on his own, hopefully without hurting the bike anymore than it already was. 

With a long exhale to steady his nerves, Keith levered himself against the bike and made it to his feet. He ran a hand over the scrapes on the side with a grimace; they didn’t feel deep, but the hoverbike was going to need some new paint, for sure. Which Shiro would probably have to pay for. 

Nice going, Keith, he thought bitterly as he started the hover. Luckily it turned over without a problem, and it only swayed a little when he leaned his weight on it. His gait would be awkward, more like a hop than a walk, but it wasn’t like there was anyone around to see. 

The entire path was bathed in shadow as he started his journey. Pushing the hoverbike and hopping alongside it was painfully slow, and Keith let out a loud groan of frustration when he realized that he wouldn’t be able to make the jumps like this, so he’d have to take the long way out of the canyon. 

By the time he made it back out onto the open desert the sun had sunk completely, leaving only the faintest glow along the line of the horizon. The temperature was dropping with it, he could feel it on the parts of his hoodie and jeans that were still damp with blood, and the scrapes underneath burned at the touch of the cool air. 

Keith was panting and exhausted, but he kept pressing forward. He couldn’t spend the night in the desert. It wasn’t safe-- everything in the desert came out at night, like scorpions, and rattlesnakes, and even mountain lions. He just had to keep going. As long as he kept going, he would be fine. He could get back to the Garrison, slip back up to his room, get himself bandaged up, and nobody would even know what had happened. Until someone noticed the scraped off paint on the bike, but that was a problem for Future Keith, who wasn’t limping through the underbrush in the dark. 

So he trekked onwards as the moon began to rise over the cliffs. It was only a crescent, a sliver that barely lit anything up, and the bike didn’t have headlights. All he could do was pray he wouldn’t step on a snake or something. At least he could see the Garrison now, glowing yellow with all of the lights, but that also meant he could see exactly how far away it was. Which was… far. 

With a swallow to soothe his dry throat-- why hadn’t he brought his water bottle-- Keith put his head down and kept walking. 

For a while he was able to sink into it. The rhythm of walking, the hum of the hoverbike, the crunching of sand beneath his feet. Even the bursts of pain when he let his hurt foot touch the ground were predictable and, for now, tolerable. 

Eventually he reached the dry river bed that he would have to cross to reach the Garrison. More than once on the way down his feet slid in the sand, which jarred his injuries enough to leave him gasping, and when he finally made it to the bottom, the Garrison was blocked from his view. 

He was halfway across the river bed when he heard the first coyote yip. Keith’s stomach dropped, but still he pushed on, forcing sensible thoughts through his head to hold back the unwelcome fear. 

It was probably just one. They were more afraid of him than he was of them. They were small. They rarely attacked humans. He could probably scare them off just by revving the hover’s engine. He would be fine.

Another little yap came, this one from behind, on the other side of the river. Then another from his right, and another on his left, and another and another. Yips and barks were filling the air all around him, multiplying by the second. 

Keith stubbornly ignored them and kept his eyes on the other side of the river. There were a lot of them, but they were still just coyotes. Nothing to be afraid of, no matter how loud they were growing or how many of them there seemed to be. At least it wasn’t a mountain lion. 

The other side of the arroyo loomed overhead. Keith was dreading having to climb up it with a hurt ankle and a hoverbike in tow, but what else could he do? He dug his good foot into the sand to brace himself, looked up at the top of the river bank, and his breath promptly froze in his lungs. 

In the shadows of the desert brush was the shine of nocturnal eyes. Dozens and dozens of eyes. 

“Shit,” he hissed to himself as he slowly, gingerly retreated back down to the river bed. This wasn’t just a few lone coyotes-- it was a whole pack, and a big one at that. And they had him cornered. 

But they were still just coyotes. Maybe he would be able to scare them away?

“Hey!” His voice cracked on the shout, but it didn’t matter what he sounded like so long as it was loud. “Get out of here! Leave me alone!”

The words echoed across the desert. Yet the coyotes remained unmoved, all lined up on the top of the riverbank, and the crawling sensation on the back of his neck told Keith that they were behind him, too. 

Ok, plan B. Balancing his weight precariously against the hoverbike, Keith got a good hold on both handles and gave the engine a long, loud rev. There were a few startled yips in response, and he saw some of their silhouettes scatter out of the bushes, but within a few moments the animals reformed their ranks-- some of them a few feet closer. He tried the engine again, and this time not a single coyote flinched. 

Then they began to scream. 

Coyotes don’t howl like wolves do. They shriek, like banshees, or a hapless victim on a crime show. Keith had grown up hearing them screaming at night, sometimes while surrounding his father’s small desert house entirely, and even through the walls his blood would run cold. 

Now, in the middle of the dark desert, the moon giving him just enough light to see the many shadows that surrounded him, pain shooting up his leg, clothes stiff with dried blood, Keith almost panicked. He had his knife, but he wouldn’t be able to fend off multiple attackers at once with it, especially with his ankle-- he could try climbing on the hoverbike and trying to ride it out, or he could dump it and try to make a run for it, but he’d be far too slow to outrun them. 

The group of coyotes in front of him began to slide down the river bank in his direction, still taking the time to throw their heads back and scream every few seconds. Keith staggered back a step, only to turn and see the group behind him doing the same thing. There were at least ten of them, and as they advanced he could see more shapes emerging from the brush to take their place. 

Think, Keith, think! He adjusted his sweaty grip on the hover. He had to do something to get away, but he was so tired, and he couldn’t hear his own thoughts through all of the howling. 

The front line was getting closer. With another muttered curse, Keith let the hover fall over onto the sand and drew his knife from its hidden sheath. If he put up enough of a fight, he might get out of it with only a few more injuries. He just had to wait for the opportunity to strike. 

His stance wasn’t good for fighting. The sand under his feet, combined with keeping most of his weight on one foot and the exhaustion pounding in his muscles, had Keith swaying in place like a drunk as he waited for the coyotes to come closer. But he held the position as well as he could and told himself he wouldn’t back down. 

A low growl reached his ears, and the moon caught the shine of a set of fanged jaws. Keith tightened his grip on the knife until his knuckles ached. 

Then there was a dull roar from ahead of him, behind the coyotes, and a moment later a pair of dazzling lights broke over the edge of the riverbed. The coyotes scattered with almost rueful barks and cries, leaving Keith blinking stupidly into the lights, knife still hanging in one hand. 

The lights stopped, and someone called his name. Keith sheathed his knife with clumsy fingers. “Shiro?”

“Keith! Thank God, you had me worried sick--” A hand landed on his shoulder, only to recoil at the texture of blood soaked cloth underneath it. By then Keith had blinked away enough of the lights to see the concerned look on Shiro’s face. “What happened?”

“Um.” He looked over his shoulder at the hover, sitting tipped over in the sand, and any anxiety that might have been soothed by the flight of the coyotes instantly returned. “One of the thrusters skidded out, I don’t think it’s broken, I think it just got dust in it or something. It’s got some scrapes on the side cause it slid, but--”

“Keith.” Shiro put his other hand on his shoulders and leaned down to look Keith in the eye. “Are you hurt?”

He winced. “A little? It’s not that bad, I’m just scraped up. And my ankle hurts, I guess, it hit something while I was trying to stop the hover from falling.”

Shiro’s eyebrows rose. “From falling?”

Damn it. Keith rubbed a hand across his forehead, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. Every muscle he had was burning. A shadow passed in front of the lights, which he only just now realized belonged to a rover; Adam, retrieving the hover bike. 

“Yeah, I was in the canyon.”

“You walked all the way here from the canyon?”

“Uh… yeah?” Wasn’t that obvious?

For a second Shiro just looked at him, and Keith could see every moment of fear that Shiro must’ve felt while searching for him in the tired bags under his eyes and the worried wrinkle of his brow, and guilt sunk deep into his stomach. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Shiro shook his head. “Don’t be sorry, bud. I’m just glad you’re ok. Come on, I’ve got water in the rover. Adam, can you hook up the bike?”

“Yeah,” Adam called back, “I’ve got it.” 

With Shiro’s help, Keith was able to limp over to the rover, at which point Shiro just lifted him up and onto the seat. There was a burst of embarrassment, but he was too tired for it to live long. 

“Here,” said Shiro, handing him a water bottle. Keith took it eagerly, but despite how much his throat ached and how dry his mouth was, he managed to restrain himself to only a couple of sips. This whole fiasco was humiliating enough without him vomiting from drinking too fast. “We can get a better look at your injuries once we get back, but can you answer a question for me?”

“Ok.” Keith was expecting a tense ‘what were you thinking?’, or a question about the bike. 

Instead, Shiro asked, “Why did you try to walk back on your own? It would’ve been safer to stay where you were, especially at night.”

He gave a listless shrug in return. “I knew you were gonna be busy. Figured I could get back before anyone thought to look for me.”

For some reason, Shiro didn’t look pleased by that answer. But before either of them could say anything else there was a thump at the back of the rover, accompanied by Adam calling to them, “Alright, all hooked up!”

Shiro let out a relieved breath and gave Keith a small smile. “Well, we can talk about it later. For now let’s just get home, yeah?”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Really, really good. 

Keith passed out in the first two minutes of the drive back to the Garrison. Shiro sat in the back with him, his head resting on Shiro’s shoulder as they bounced and jostled over the rough desert road. Poor kid was exhausted, covered in dirt, with those two big patches of dried blood on his shoulder and leg. God, those few hours he and Adam had spent driving around in the dark looking for him were some of the worst of Shiro’s life, and when they finally found him, bloody and surrounded by coyotes, the only thing he cared about was the damn bike. 

Adam’s eyes caught his in the rear-view mirror. “He’s ok, Takashi.”

“I know.” He kept his voice low so that he didn’t wake Keith. “I just… he walked all the way down from the canyon on a hurt ankle, all because he didn’t think anyone would look for him.”

Adam’s gaze turned sad as he looked back at the road. “Yeah. But he’s back now, and that’s the important thing.”

They were both silent for the rest of the drive. When they finally pulled back into the Garrison garages it was almost ten at night, and looking at Keith’s tired, pale face, Shiro couldn’t bear to wake him. Luckily, he was still small and skinny for his age. 

Keith stirred when Shiro slid an arm under his legs. His eyes cracked open just the tiniest bit, but all Shiro had to do was murmur, “It’s just me,” and Keith let them fall shut again. For some reason that made Shiro’s throat tighten up. 

Shiro carried him as gently as he could, taking extra care not to jostle Keith’s head where it lay on his shoulder. Adam opened the apartment door for them and left the light off as Shiro set Keith down on the couch. He didn’t move or shift at all, even after Shiro stepped away-- he must’ve been completely out. 

“We’ll give him a few more minutes,” he whispered to Adam. “Then we can get the first aid kit out.”

“Alright.”

Shiro let out a long, heavy breath. Now that they were back home, safe, the stress of the hours of frantic searching was starting to take its toll. His arm ached. 

Adam put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “He’s safe now.”

Without a word, Shiro turned into him, and Adam readily gave him the embrace he was asking for. 

“Keith will be ok. He’s a tough kid.”

Shiro huffed a bit of a laugh into Adam’s neck. “Sometimes I think he’s too tough.”

“Maybe. But he’s got you to watch out for him.”

“I hope it’s enough.”

Adam ran a hand over the short hair at the back of Shiro’s head. “You’re enough, Takashi.”

That time, Shiro didn’t answer. He just breathed. 

An hour or so later Keith was all cleaned up, in some old, blood-free clothes of Shiro’s, his scrapes disinfected and bandaged, his ankle elevated and iced. Shiro thought it was a sprain, but they would be going to the infirmary first thing in the morning to make sure. 

Keith had told him he didn’t have to stay up, especially with Keith hogging the whole couch, but Shiro had merely sat down in an armchair and started flipping through something on his tablet. The message was clear: he wasn’t going anywhere until Keith fell asleep again. Which, given how much his thoughts were racing, might take awhile. 

He was tired. Of course he was tired. But he couldn’t kick the nervous buzzing under his skin. 

Shiro hadn’t said anything about the hoverbike. Not once, not a single comment or question, and it didn’t make any sense-- he had to have seen the scratches, right? Adam must’ve, at the very least. So why hadn’t he mentioned it? Why hadn’t he laid out the terms for how Keith was going to fix it or make it up to him or be punished for it? Maybe he was just trying to be nice and let him rest, but Keith wouldn’t be able to sleep a wink with his brain still frantically trying to figure out what to prepare for. 

“I’m sorry,” he said before he could talk himself out of it. “About the bike. I’ll find a way to pay you back.” He kept his eyes glued to the ceiling, but he still heard Shiro shift in his seat. 

“You don’t have to Keith, it’s fine.” 

Keith’s stomach knotted up. Nine times out of ten, when someone said something was fine, that meant it absolutely was not fine. 

As though he’d heard Keith’s thoughts, Shiro continued. “Honestly, I never thought twice about the bike. I was just worried about you, and now I’m just happy you didn’t go over the edge of the cliff.”

“Or get eaten by coyotes.”

Shiro chuckled. “Yes, or get eaten by coyotes. In the grand scheme of things, the bike isn’t that important. The Garrison can replace a wrecked hover. Nothing can replace you.”

For a moment, Keith’s entire brain went blank. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had said something like that to him-- the last time someone had implied he had worth. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d even thought it about himself. 

“Oh,” he said, too stunned to think of anything else, and Shiro laughed again. 

“You should try to get some sleep, bud. You need it.”

“You can say that again.” Keith squirmed a bit, half to try and get comfortable and half to distract himself from thinking too hard about the conversation. 

There was a smile in Shiro’s voice when he said, “Goodnight, Keith.”

“Goodnight Shiro.”

Chapter Text

It had to happen eventually. They were out in space, being exposed to thousands of new things every day. Heck, one of the first men to walk on the moon found out once he got there that he was allergic to moon dust. So, really, they should be grateful that it took this long to happen. Hunk just really wished that the inevitable space virus hadn’t taken out all the rest of the Paladins. 

It had started with Lance’s cough. At first none of them paid his complaints much attention, because, well, Lance, but then Pidge caught it, and Keith, and Shiro. Within three days all four of the other Paladins were suffering from coughs and fevers, with only Hunk and the Alteans being spared. 

Hunk really shouldn’t have been helping out as much as he had been-- he was probably next in line to fall ill-- but there wasn’t much of a choice. Coran and Allura had no idea how to deal with sick humans, no idea how to cook things that wouldn’t make them barf, and just no idea what to do in general. Which made Hunk head caretaker. 

So he dutifully prepared for his rounds, filling a tray with bowls of soup and his cargo shorts’ pockets with juice pouches, while Coran and Allura sat at the kitchen table, urgently discussing the same thing that they’d been talking about this whole time.

“Hunk,” said Allura, predictably. “When do you think the Paladins will be back on their feet? We can’t afford to be inactive for so long.”

“I don’t know, Allura,” Hunk sighed for the fiftieth time. “I’m not a doctor, and we don’t even know what they have.”

Coran nodded solemnly. “Really, Princess, with a species so unused to space travel as humans, we should be thanking the Ancients that they aren’t bleeding out of their ears or somesuch.”

That made Hunk cringe, but Allura didn’t so much as look at Coran. “But if you had to give your best estimate?”

“Lance’s fever broke this morning, so he’ll probably be ok in the next couple of days. I have no idea how long the others will be down, though.”

Allura frowned, but said, “Better than nothing, I suppose,” then turned back to Coran. “Coran, I’ll need your help charting us a course. I don’t want to stay in one place too long, but I also want to avoid any Galra presence.”

Taking the subject change as his dismissal, Hunk picked up his tray and left the kitchen.

The halls of the Castle were quieter than normal. It was a big place, too big for just the seven of them, but even then you could usually hear someone’s voice echoing. Now there was nothing but silence. 

His first stop was Lance’s room. The Blue Paladin was sitting cross-legged on his bed, the tablet in his lap keeping him entertained. He had a blanket draped loosely over his shoulders, underneath which he wore both his pajamas and his robe, his Lion slippers waiting for him beside the bed.

“Hey, Hunk,” he said with a smile when Hunk entered the room. His voice still sounded a little scratchy, and the words were followed by a few coughs, but he didn’t look so pale or so tired anymore. “Dinnertime already?”

“Yup. Soup for all of my poor, sickly patients.”

Lance laughed and set his tablet aside. “Not so poor and sickly, now.”

“You aren’t,” Hunk answered as he set the tray down on the desk and passed Lance his bowl. “The others, though, are still just as poor and just as sickly.”

“Don’t worry, when it’s your turn to be struck with plague I’ll take good care of you.”

“Aren’t you a saint?”

Lance gratefully accepted a juice pouch, then gave Hunk a cheery wave as he left the room. Yeah, he would be fine in a few days; then Hunk could finally get some help around here. 

Pidge’s room was dark when he entered, its occupant curled up in bed, fast asleep. Hunk softly set a bowl and a juice pouch on her desk where she could see it if she woke up. She was curled into a tight ball, her blanket having been kicked to the bottom of the bed, so Hunk took a moment to pull it back up and over her before picking up the tray again. 

At Shiro’s door he paused and knocked. He’d never said so, but Hunk always got the impression that he preferred it when people asked permission before going into his room-- he doubted that the Galra ever knocked on his cell door. 

A few seconds later the door slid open. “Oh, hi Hunk.” Shiro made an attempt at a smile, but he was obviously exhausted, with his messy hair and the circles under his eyes that were even heavier than usual. 

“Hi, Shiro. Feeling any better?”

Shiro shrugged and stepped back from the door to let him in. “A little, I think.” He was still in his pajamas, and the wrinkled state of his bed suggested he’d been sleeping, or trying to, at least. “I think the fever is going down.”

“Good!” As he had in the previous two rooms, Hunk set out a bowl of soup and a juice pouch for Shiro, who managed a slightly warmer smile for him. 

“Thank you. How are things with Allura and Coran?”

Hunk allowed himself an annoyed groan, which made Shiro chuckle as he sat down at his desk to eat. 

“That good, huh?”

“If Allura asks me how long you guys are going to be sick one more time I’m taking Yellow and running away. Like Keith.”

Shiro laughed again, followed by a couple of coughs. “Well, I’d say you deserve the break.”

“I’ll get one eventually, Lance is starting to get better.”

“That’s good.” Shiro glanced at Hunk’s tray. “You still have one person left to deliver to.”

“Uh-huh, Keith.”

“Alright, I won’t keep you any longer.” 

That was Shiro speak for ‘I’m tired and I don’t want to talk anymore but I’m too polite to say it’, so Hunk obligingly took up his tray once again and left the room. His rounds were almost done, but the last door on his list was the one he’d been looking forward to the least. 

They didn’t know why, but whatever bug they had hit Keith harder than the others. Maybe it had something to do with him being Galra, maybe it didn’t, but either way he was sicker than the others, with a higher fever and worse cough. And, as Hunk had unfortunately found out, feeling like shit only served to make their Red Paladin even more recalcitrant than usual. 

So when Hunk opened Keith’s bedroom door only to find the room beyond empty, he wasn’t surprised. Annoyed, but not surprised. He’d hoped he wouldn’t have to make the trek to the training deck today, but apparently God hadn’t heard his prayers. 

As expected, Keith was on the training deck, in a full-on bout with the gladiator. Hunk didn’t know how he managed it-- even from the door Hunk could see how pale he was, how his hair was sticking to his neck with sweat, and could hear the harsh coughs that were wracking his body. Yet still he went after the gladiator like it owed him money. 

“Keith!”

He startled at Hunk’s shout and spun around, another coughing fit making him loop an elbow over his mouth as he glared. 

“Go-- away--” 

The gladiator loomed up behind him. Hunk opened his mouth to warn him, but before he could say a thing Keith spun and slashed it in two with his bayard in one hand, the other still busy covering the coughs that sounded like they were carrying lung tissue with them. 

Hunk frowned and headed for one of the benches against the wall to set his tray down. Keith watched him warily, but didn’t call down the next level of gladiator. 

“Do I need to give you the lecture about rest and recuperation again?” Hunk asked as he turned to face Keith. 

Keith scowled and dismissed his bayard so that he could cross his arms. He was trying to look tough, but Hunk could see the way he was shaking. “I’m not going to just sit around in bed all day.”

Hunk didn’t try very hard to disguise his annoyed expression. Not for the first time, he was wishing that it was Shiro who wasn’t sick-- at least he knew how to deal with Keith. “What part of you’re sick are you not getting?”

Keith coughed again, shoulders shaking. “I’m not going back to that room. You-- can’t make me.”

Strictly speaking, Hunk probably could make him (he was big and Keith was skinny and weak from fever) but he didn’t want to even consider what Keith would do if he attempted it. Besides, it’s not like it would help, Keith would just leave again as soon as Hunk left him alone. They had to figure out a compromise.

“Fine, I won’t make you go back to your room, but will you at least sit down and eat?”

Keith’s eyes flickered for a moment, considering, until another coughing fit kicked in and he decided to bite the bullet. Slowly, he shuffled his way over to the bench and sat down next to Hunk. Even from several inches away Hunk could feel the heat radiating off of him, and up close the paleness and the heat flush of fever on his face dulled the irritation with concern. 

“Why do you keep doing this, man?” he asked in a voice much softer than it had been a minute before. “You look exhausted.”

For a moment Keith didn’t answer-- he was too busy chugging down the juice pouch Hunk had given him-- but after a few seconds he had to pause for more coughs, and afterward answered. 

“I hate being stuck in one room all the time. Staring at the same four walls-- drives me crazy.”

Hunk raised his eyebrows. The words weren’t that surprising for Keith, but there was an unsettled, almost nervous look in his eyes, not unlike the one Shiro got sometimes. Interesting. 

He let Keith eat for several minutes without interruption. To keep himself busy, he pulled out his Pidge Made Space Smartphone and typed out a few messages to the other Paladins, who were hopefully awake enough to read them. 

Eventually Keith finished his soup. Setting the bowl aside, he let his head fall back against the wall with a sigh. Even after eating his face looked wane. Hunk really needed to figure out a way to make him sit still, before he worked himself into an even worse illness. 

“I’m sorry,” Keith said suddenly. Hunk froze in his typing in shock as Keith continued. “I’ve been acting like an asshole when all you want to do is make sure I’m ok. I just hate feeling… locked up, I guess.”

“It’s ok,” Hunk said slowly. Interesting. “You don’t have to stay in your room if you don’t want to. You can hang out in the lounge or wherever, no one will stop you. I just don’t think fighting the gladiator is such a good idea when you have the space flu.”

Keith huffed in amusement and closed his eyes. “It’s not, but that’s me. Keith Kogane, the king of bad ideas.”

Hunk didn’t laugh along. “Look, why don’t you go shower off, then meet me in the lounge.”

“Really?” Keith opened one eye just a sliver to peek at him. “Don’t you have other stuff to do? Like taking care of the others?”

“I already checked on them. And honestly I might go crazy if I have to be around Allura and Coran anymore.”

“Hmmm… ok.” Keith sounded unsure, but didn’t seem inclined to argue anymore, thank God. “I’ll go… do that, then.”

Hunk nodded, pretending to be absorbed with his phone. “See you there, buddy.”

With only a second more of hesitation, Keith got to his feet. He swayed a little, but Hunk knew better than to offer help, and after a few bracing breaths, he trudged his way off the training deck. 

Hunk put his plan into action. 

Everyone was in place by the time Keith staggered into the lounge. Hunk in the corner table with his latest engineering project spread out in front of him. Pidge and Lance, shoving each other and slinging insults as they battled in Killbot. Shiro on the couch, watching the game with interest and a blanket cape hanging from his shoulders. 

“There you are, Mullet,” Lance called while Keith stood still with surprise. “Just in time to watch me kick Pidge’s ass!”

Pidge snorted and elbowed him. “Yeah, right! I’m the Killbot champion, no one beats me!” She still looked a little uncomfortable and out of it, but for now the video game seemed sufficient to keep her awake. 

Keith still didn’t move from the entryway. The look on his face was wide-eyed and slightly overwhelmed, which for a moment kick-started Hunk’s own anxiety, but the feeling was lessened when Shiro held out a hand for Keith, who went to him with minimal hesitation. 

“I didn’t know everyone was going to be here,” Keith murmured as he settled against Shiro’s side. His voice was so quiet that Hunk almost didn’t catch it under Lance and Pidge’s shouting. 

“Yeah,” Shiro responded casually, draping his human arm over Keith’s shoulder. Keith hadn’t brought a blanket with him, but Hunk hadn’t expected him to. That’s what the extra was for, folded over the back of the couch for when Keith wanted it. “Hunk figured we might be less miserable if we weren’t just huddled in our rooms all day.”

Keith’s eyes darted over to Hunk, who smiled back as though he hadn’t been listening. His lip twitched in response, but couldn’t quite manage a smile-- in comparison to the other Paladins, he looked like a zombie. A zombie with pneumonia. Maybe now, with other people around and distractions galore, he would actually let himself rest. 

The plan worked as intended. Within the varga Keith was dead to the world, covered in the spare blanket and snoozing with his head in Shiro’s lap. Shiro himself had faded, too, leaning his head against the back of the couch, one of his hands resting in Keith’s hair. 

Lance and Pidge were still going at it, but Pidge had begun to yawn. She’d probably crash soon, then Hunk could have a turn playing against Lance. Eventually he would have to wake them all up, get them back to bed for the night, report to Coran and Allura, all that. But for now he could relax. 

For a few hours, at least. 

Chapter Text

Keith was 95% sure that none of his ribs were broken. Well, maybe 85%. His side hurt like all hell, but that was to be expected after taking a blow from a drone that was hellbent on throwing him across the room. He just needed some rest. 

That’s what he told himself as he finally staggered into his bunk. He’d spent the last fourteen vargas sneaking through a Galra cruiser, knowing that if he screwed up again it could mean another death in the ranks, and all he wanted to do now that he was back was crash. 

First, however, he had to get out of his Blade suit, which posed challenges of its own. Wearily, Keith tossed his blade onto his desk and tapped the button on the back of his neck that would loosen how the fabric clung around his throat. Pushing it down enough to get one arm out wasn’t that hard, but his side protested loudly as he tried to pull the other free. Keith just ground his teeth and didn’t make a sound. 

The others didn’t know he was back yet, and he didn’t want them to. He’d missed another airshow the day before-- technically it wasn’t his fault, the cruiser they were on had gone into hyperspeed without warning and took them to a whole different galaxy, but he knew the other Paladins wouldn’t care. They would just be angry at him, again, and his side hurt far too much for him to take a lecture while still in that damned suit. 

Eventually he got it off. His whole right side throbbed, from shoulder to hip, but he didn’t try to do an inspection as he pulled his normal clothes back on. It was just more of the same. Bumps and bruises and scrapes that he would cover with his jacket, and later tonight when everyone was asleep he’d sneak down to the infirmary for some painkillers. 

Just like old times, he thought bitterly as he sat on the edge of his bed, finally taking the weight off his aching legs. He knew he should go talk to the others and get it over with, but he couldn’t deny how exhausted he was, not even to himself; he was so tired he was even feeling a little lightheaded. 

A few minutes of rest couldn’t hurt, right? The others hadn’t come looking for him after fourteen vargas, what was a minute or two more? 

With a sigh, Keith slumped to the side and curled into a loose ball. He would give himself five minutes to rest, then he would go face the music. 

Just a few minutes. 

Lance was a man on a mission. Kolivan had just called to inform them that the mission had ended, but none of them had seen hide nor hair of Keith, despite him vanishing for fourteen whole vargas when he knew they had a show scheduled. Shiro and Allura were too busy dealing with negotiations, so Lance took it upon himself to hunt down Mullet and find out what the hell his problem was. 

This had been going on for weeks, and he was royally sick of it. Sure, Shiro had been kind of a hard ass lately, and they all knew how self-conscious Keith was about his leading, but that didn’t give him a free pass to just abandon them whenever he felt like it to go play space ninja with the Blade. 

All of that frustration came out when he pounded on Keith’s bedroom door. “Open up, Mullet! We gotta talk!”

He waited a few seconds, but there was no response. Lance rolled his eyes and pounded on the door again, purposefully trying to be as loud as possible. “I know you’re in there, Keith!”

Nothing. With a low sound of frustration, Lance tried to open the door, but the screen on the wall merely flashed LOCKED. 

“Damn it.” 

Before he could decide whether to keep knocking or just give up, the sound of fast, determined footsteps made him look up. It was Pidge coming down the hall, looking just as pissed as Lance felt. 

“Move,” she said tersely when she reached him, elbowing Lance away from the lock. On a normal day he might’ve thought twice about breaking into someone’s room, even if that someone was Keith, but at the moment he couldn’t have cared less. Within seconds Pidge got the door open. 

Keith’s room was pitch black inside. For a second Lance thought it was empty, before he noticed the pool of purple fabric on the floor, and the dark lump lying motionless on the bed. At that, his blood ran even hotter. Keith had disappeared for a whole day, missed a diplomatic event, and now he’s taking a nap before even talking to them? 

Pidge seemed to feel the same. She stomped over to the bed, Lance on her heels, and shook Keith’s shoulder while saying his name as sternly as Lance had ever heard from her. But Keith didn’t react, didn’t stir, his face hidden in the shadow of the bunk. 

With a roll of his eyes, Lance said loudly, “Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty. Reality is calling.”

Normally, Keith was a light sleeper. More than once he’d told Lance off for talking too loudly in the hallway at night. But now he didn’t so much as twitch. 

Pidge frowned and moved her hand down to his elbow. “Keith, what are you--” She cut herself off, and in the long light that was spilling in from the hallway, Lance saw her eyes go wide behind her glasses. “Woah, he’s-- feel his skin, Lance.”

“That was a very weird sentence.”

Pidge glared at him, so Lance reluctantly complied and set his hand on Keith’s shoulder, just below the end of his t-shirt sleeve. 

“Woah.” Keith’s arm was cool to the touch, cool and clammy, and where rage had once taken up residence in his gut he now felt anxiety begin to curl. “He’s--”

“Yeah.” Pidge leaned forward, trying to get a look at Keith’s face. “Lance, will you hit the lights?”

“Y-yeah, sure.” He heard Pidge gasp as light flooded the room, and when he returned to her side, it wasn’t hard to see why; Keith’s face was paper white, deep hollows under his eyes and cheekbones, his long hair plastered to his forehead with cold sweat. “What the… what the hell is wrong with him?” There was no blood on the bed, no blood on the floor, no cuts or wounds that Lance could see, so why did Keith look like a corpse on a morgue slab?

Biting her lip, Pidge gently began poking and prodding at Keith’s torso. It took Lance a minute to realize that she was checking for broken bones. All Lance could think to do was stand there and try to keep breathing-- until Pidge tugged up Keith’s shirt enough to expose his side, and they both caught a horrified breath. 

Almost a third of Keith’s torso was one massive black bruise, darker than anything Lance had ever seen before. He wasn’t a doctor or anything, but even he could tell that this was not good. 

“I’m calling Hunk,” he squeaked, fumbling for the tablet in his pocket, and Pidge nodded. 

“Yeah, I’ll ping Coran.”

Lance tapped out his message with trembling fingers. Pidge finished hers first and tossed the tablet over Keith’s legs onto the bed, then set about trying to wake him up. She shook him over and over, calling his name mixed with various entreaties and curse words, but no matter how hard she tried, Keith wasn’t waking up.  With every passing moment Lance’s fear climbed further up his throat.

Eventually he heard more footsteps coming down the hallway, and a few seconds later Hunk and Coran rushed into the room, armed with a stretcher. Coran took one look at Keith and his expression turned grim. 

“He needs a pod. Quickly, now, quickly.” Together, he and Hunk lifted Keith off of his bed and onto the stretcher. Normally such an attempt would’ve had Keith jolting awake with one fist already cocked back for a punch, but when they set him down his head just lolled to the side, lifeless. 

Pidge grabbed his hand tight. Lance squeezed back just as hard. 

Coran set a fast pace back down the hall. Lance’s tongue burned with questions, but the look on Coran’s face said he wasn’t in an answering mood. So he put his effort into keeping up and holding on to Pidge until they reached the infirmary. 

“Lance, you help Hunk get him into the pod,” Coran instructed as he rushed over to the control panel. Lance did as he was told without argument.

Keith was complete deadweight as Lance and Hunk pulled him upright. Lance couldn’t help but shudder at the feeling of his cold skin-- he felt dead already, like a corpse-- but he shoved the feeling away as hard as he could and focused on keeping Keith’s limbs in the proper place as Hunk lifted him into the pod. For a moment, when his fingers were pressed over Keith’s wrist, he felt a faint, fast pulse. It didn’t help much. 

The pod door slid shut. Hunk and Lance retreated a few steps, both breathing hard; it was then that Lance noticed the look on Hunk’s face, as scared as the rest of them. 

“What happened?” he asked. 

“We found him like that in his room,” Lance answered, his voice feeling far away as he stared up at Keith’s still face, and Pidge chimed in.

“We couldn’t wake him up.” Her voice was shaking, too. “What’s wrong with him, Coran?”

Coran stepped back from the pod and ran a tired hand over his face. “It appears he was bleeding internally,” he said, and all three Paladins caught their breath. “He must’ve taken quite a hit during his mission.”

Lance’s stomach ached. He wrapped his arms around it and swallowed hard. “So… if we hadn’t gone in there, then he could’ve…”

“Yes,” Coran said, shoulders drooping. “The condition you found him in was caused by blood loss. If we had left him there much longer, he could’ve died.” 

“And none of us would have known,” said Hunk in a horrified tone. 

Pidge made  a choked sound. “We went in there to yell at him.”

Fuck. Lance closed his eyes and squeezed his sides. What had they been thinking? Keith had been on an active mission for fourteen vargas, probably without much rest, and all he and Pidge had been able to think about was the stupid airshow. What kind of friends are we?

“Thankfully, we caught it in time,” Coran continued. “The pod will fix him up in a few vargas. However--”

Mentally, Lance groaned. That’s just what they needed, another however. 

“The pod found evidence of older injuries. Not any as serious as this one, of course, but this isn’t the first time Keith has been injured on one of his Blade missions.”

Hunk, bless his soul, looked flabbergasted. “Why would he hide them from us?”

“Because ever since Shiro vanished, all we’ve done is be assholes to him.” Pidge’s tone was angry, but the way her face was crumpling said it was pointed inward, not outward. “All we do is yell at him and second guess him. If I got a lecture every time I came home, I wouldn’t want to tell us anything, either.”

Lance let out a breath and tried to get a hold of himself. It wasn’t until that moment that he realized-- none of them had thought to call Shiro. 

“I’m going to go tell Shiro and Allura what happened,” he said as Hunk pulled Pidge in for a hug. “Coran, you said a few vargas to fix him up, right?”

“Approximately,” Coran answered with a nod. “If the pod doesn’t find anything else that needs fixing.”

“Right.” Lance exchanged one last look at Hunk, and a rather depressed one at that, then turned towards the door. 

As he left the infirmary, Lance got the terrible feeling that something in their little space family was breaking. And he had no idea how to fix it. 

Chapter Text