#also it's a garbage draft of 0.8% of the quality I'd normally want it to be

[creatingpathstowander]

Lol "loss"?

I reblogged this ask game, and this is one of my prompts.

My friend, Anonymous Reader:

You didn’t specify a pairing for this prompt, just the word, so I took a few liberties with this prompt. It also ended up being a lot longer than a drabble, at close to 5,000 words. It’s a very rough draft, but the angst is so strong that I cried a few times while writing it. Please enjoy this painful, terrible fic.

As you’ve requested, here’s a Voltron: Legendary Defender story in which Lance is a hero, Keith is selfish, and both Paladins lose something before they even have the chance to appreciate it in the first place.

Loss Prompt: The Worth of a Life

“Hey, what’re you guys cahoots-ing about over there?” his voice is light; bright and beautiful and enchanting and gratingly obnoxious all at once, as always. It’s just a bit more… distant than usual. It’s less like Lance’s usual voice, and more like a memory of what Lance is supposed to sound like. He knows it’s not quite right, not quite conveying the cool and composed persona he wants, but he’s trying his best. It’s hard just to remember how to breathe given the circumstances, so trying is all he can do. Breathe. Speak. Breathe again. He pushes on, and Keith sucks in a breath of his own to keep from telling his boyfriend to shut up. Nobody else can hear what he’s thinking, can feel what he’s feeling, can know the thoughts lurking just below the surface of his mostly-conscious mind. Keith doesn’t want to confuse or alarm their already terrified charges any more than necessary. And besides… Lance doesn’t need to be silenced or belittled right now. He needs to be comforted and validated and understood and –

“No cahoots-ing on my deathbed!” he hits the punchline of his own sorry excuse for a joke so hard that it rattles the fragments of bone that’ve come loose inside his ribcage. He tilts his head back as far as he can manage and laughs like he’s said the funniest thing in the whole universe. He tries to make that sound normal, too, and as far as Keith is concerned he very nearly succeeds. His laugh is rapid, and breathy, and genuine, and largely uninterrupted. It’s musical and ethereal and amazing and, again, gratingly obnoxious. It just isn’t… present. It fades out around the edges, as the warmth of it is trying to sink back into his pale, sand-colored skin. As if it can reinvigorate the parts of him that Keith can’t look at, that make the Red Paladin’s stomach curl in on itself like a dying animal. As if it can halt the progression of death as it creeps across Lance’s weakened body.

Lance himself lets the last laugh fade away, the distant look in his eyes and the slight shaking of his body the only warning either Keith or their anxious audience receives before he’s doubled over with a cough that seems as if it wants to tear him apart from the inside. His mind goes blank for a long moment, unable to process the sight of fresh blood in the crook of his elbow. There’s just the shock of bright red, the muddled scents of copper and acid and the last space goo they’d had back at the castle. His eyes go dull, and words leave him – even in his own head.

Keith shudders, decides it would take too much time to stand up, and instead crawls across the dusty concrete to reach Lance. He leans his own body against the same giant, mechanical lion’s paw that’s been keeping his boyfriend in a semi-upright position all this time. With a long, stuttering sigh, he lifts Lance into his lap and holds him close against his chest. Lance wraps an arm around Keith’s neck, what’s left of the other one reaching toward him only slightly before giving up and falling back. Lance closes his eyes, face buried in Keith’s chest. He shakes again, trembling with a cold only he and Keith can feel. The Red Paladin shivers in response, and then stills.

Wait. He can’t hear Lance’s breathing. He can’t feel it, either. The other teen is pressed so close against him that he can feel their hearts beating together, but he can’t feel his breath. He isn’t breathing. He’s been focusing on the rhythm of breathing for nearly half an hour, and now he isn’t focusing on anything at all.

“Lance?” the teen giggles at the sound of his own name, and Keith has the sudden desire to know if the galra have a god – because if so, he wants to thank them for keeping Lance alive… at least until help arrives. He places a kiss on his lover’s forehead, whispering instructions on how to breathe in case Lance forgets again. The Blue Paladin nods, and the inner mantra of reminders to breathe in and out starts back up in his head again.

He speaks anyway, deciding it’s worth both the mental distraction and physical exertion, “No cahoots-ing, Keith.”

“I’m not cahoots-ing. I’m… talking. That’s all.”

“Hm? Who’re you talking to?”

“The kid…”

“Idiot,” Keith almost bristles at the insult, but he manages to catch himself before Lance can hear his thoughts and get distracted any further, “you can’t just say you’re talking to the kid. There’s, like, fifty of ‘em in here. They’re the whole reason we’re here. There’s no the kid. Dumb Keith. Silly Keith. Pretty Keith. Soft Keith.” He mumbles on, his original point lost in thoughts of his boyfriend. Keith is just one person. Better yet, he’s Lance’s favorite person. He’s easy to focus on. Sort of. As much as it’s easy to focus on anything.

He makes up a song about Keith in his head, knowing that if he sang it out loud he’d end up coughing again. He hums the song weakly against Keith’s chest instead, grip loosening on Keith’s neck and body slumping into sleep. In the back of his mind, he’s considering giving in to it.

He’s cold. Colder than he’s ever been, even on ice planets and tundras and in that one blizzard where he and Keith holed up in a cave and told stories and made out until Shiro rescued them. He liked that cave. It was warm, and filled with luminescent creatures. It was romantic, and safe. This is kind of romantic, too, right? His soul-bonded lover cradling him in his arms, heartbeat steady against his cheek as they breathe in tandem. That’s a nice, romantic way to go, right?

“Mm. Keith, can you promise me something?”

“Anything, Lance. You know that.”

“Good. You’re a good guy, y’know that?”

“What’s the promise, Lance? What do you need?”

“Oh, yeah. Right. When the others get here, I want you to tell them I died doing something really badass and important. Like, Zarkon came back to life and we had a showdown and we both shot at the same time and I hit him in his gross, zombie face and saved everyone in the whole universe. Promise you’ll do that?”

“Yeah, no.”

“Hm? Why not? I’d do it for you, y’know…”

“I know. I’m saying you don’t need me to tell them anything but what actually happened. Actually, no, screw that –”

“Keith, there are children…!”

“You don’t need me to tell the team anything, cause once you’re out of the castle cryopods you’ll tell them the whole story yourself. You jumped in front of a weird, alien weapon to protect a bunch of children you insisted we rescue from a galran labor camp. You saved, like, fifty kids from dying in those camps and a handful of them from dying when a maniacal warden threw giant, mechanical, alien ninja stars at them. You were totally badass and important all on your own, okay? You don’t have to kill zombie Zarkon to do something important, alright? You’re amazing, and what you did was the most amazing, selfless thing I’ve ever had the honor to witness. And you can tell everyone I said that when we get back to the castle, I promise.”

There’s a softness in Lance’s thoughts, then; a smile that can’t quite make it to his face. He nuzzles feebly against Keith’s armor, slumping further down into his lover’s lap. He focuses on feelings of gratitude, and overwhelming love, and reminders to keep breathing. This time, Keith can’t feel the words coming back. He’s been able to hear Lance’s thoughts since that galran marriage ceremony the Blade of Marmora insisted on having for them, and both of them have had times when words aren’t the best way to convey what they mean. They’ve even had times when they can’t think of words at all. But this… Keith takes off one of his gloves and runs a hand through Lance’s hair. It’s sticky with cold sweat and drying blood, and Keith can barely handle the sensation of bitter cold that seeps into his fingers when he makes contact with his boyfriend’s skin.

The child beside him shuffles in place, watching the two with an expression Keith can’t actually place. He’s never been good at deciphering expressions to begin with, especially with non-humans, but this particular kid has a poker face that he bets would stump even the greatest diplomats he’s ever known – Princess Allura included.

She nods, walking over and hovering her hand just above Lance’s intact leg. Her ears fold back, eyes searching Keith’s for some kind of agreement, or perhaps just understanding.

He takes in a breath, and watches the way Lance’s hair ruffles when he lets it out.

“You said you’ll die,” he wants to cringe at his own voice, the flatness of it pressing down on his chest. This is someone’s life – a child’s life, and he’s talking about its sacrifice like it’s nothing more than a… a fact in a textbook. He’s thinking about this death the same as he would any death he learned about in his history class back at the Garrison. He wants to go back, say it again, say no this time and mean it.

“I told you already, it’s okay. My papa said that when someone saves you, or someone you care about, you owe them a life debt. And my mama said that Voltron is the most important thing in the whole entire universe, and that if you lost a Paladin of Voltron you’d lose all the millions of people that the Paladin would’ve saved if they hadn’t of been lost,” she speaks with a confidence and acceptance and even grace that Keith can hardly comprehend. She mispronounces a few words, and stumbles over even more, but even her stuttering and floundering comes across like it’s just a planned part of her speech. She smiles, showing off gaps in her teeth, and Keith swears she can’t be more than five or six years old – or at least, whatever the galra equivalent of that would be.

“You’ll die,” he says it as a fact again, but he likes to think there’s a bit more reluctance behind it this time. A bit more sympathy. A bit more god damned humanity, please. “You’ll die, and that’s not fair to you.”

“Is it more fair for him to die? His life is worth more than mine, right?”

“That’s not…” he bites his lip, hand pressing against Lance’s head as if he can stop all this by himself and not have to have this conversation, “That’s not true.” He’s lying. He’s lying, and he knows it. He knows that when choosing between Lance and an innocent kid… he’ll choose Lance. Every time. She’s a child, with her whole damn life ahead of her, and he’s a Paladin of Voltron. He’s supposed to be protecting innocents like her. He’s supposed to be keeping them alive, not… not sacrificing them so he won’t have to live without his lover.

“It is true. Your soul-mate saved me, and my little sister, and all my friends. I owe him my life, like my papa said. That means his life is worth more than mine, cause mine belongs to him, now,” she smiles, hand moving closer to making contact with Lance.

“That… doesn’t even make sense,” Keith struggles to believe himself, though the steady weakening of Lance’s heartbeat makes it difficult to prioritize logic over emotion. He’s always trusted his feelings more than anything, and right now… right now all he can feel is the fear of having Lance slip through his fingers.

“If you talk me out of it, he’ll die,” her expression breaks at last, an angry pout overtaking her fluffy, purple face.

“If I talk you out of it, you’ll live,” he tries to push his words over hers, to convince himself that they can all survive this. He hates his own doubt, and for a moment indulges himself in the mental image of being able to punch his personified doubt in the face. His teeth clench, and he counts out the slowing rhythm of Lance’s pulse. If his heart can stay beating for just a little longer, if Lance can stay breathing for just a little bit longer, they’ll all survive.

“You want him to live, though,” it’s a fact. She says it the same way Keith told her she would die. Lance will live, and the little half-galra girl will die. Keith’s breath stutters, and it’s only in the silence that he realizes Lance’s breathing has stopped again. His breath is gone, and Keith can’t tell whether his heartbeat is just too soft to feel or if it’s absent altogether. For a long moment, the cold that he’s been feeling from Lance becomes his own. His body freezes, and everything – words, sights, sounds, feelings – everything suddenly… falls apart.

He pieces himself back together as quickly as he can manage, looking to the girl as if he’ll somehow find answers in those inscrutable eyes. What can he do? What should he do? Where are the others? Why aren’t they here yet? Are they even coming? Did Blue even reach the castle to deliver their distress signal? Why aren’t the Lions doing anything? Why can’t he do anything? He just wants Lance to live through this. He just wants – he needs Lance to survive this. That’s all he needs. That’s all he asks. Is that more than the universe can handle? After all he’s done for it – after all Lance has done for it – is this too much for the universe to give back in return? Is Lance’s life not worth saving? Is he meant to die here? Is Keith meant to outlive him? He never thought – he never wanted – he thought maybe Lance would go back to Earth and not take Keith with him, but this – is he meant to just sit back against his Lion’s paw and let this happen?

He can’t do that. He can’t accept that. He’s never had someone who loves him and believes in him and is there for him the way Lance is. He’s had his father, and Shiro, and that’s it. He’s never had love like Lance’s. He’s never had someone he’d die for. He’s just getting used to it. He’s just starting to get used to knowing that there’s someone he can actually love and trust on this level. He’s just starting to get used to the feeling of Lance’s arms around him at night, and the sound of Lance’s voice singing songs to him in the morning, and the looks in his eyes that make him feel like there’s nobody in the universe but him and Lance. How can he let that go? How can he let it just… disappear?

He barely registers the whimper that slinks out his throat like a wounded animal fleeing from a fight. He barely feels the added weight in his lap, and the soft, small hands that wipe the wetness from his cheeks.

“Lance…”

“Thanks for finally agreeing to let me do this, Mr. Paladin. He’s gonna live, now. I promise,” the voice pulls him back, pulls his eyes to the sight of a small half-galran girl curled up between him and Lance. She’s pushed the Blue Paladin away from Keith’s chest, and strains her arms to reach around his torso, “My druid mama taught me how to do this, and she said I’m perfect at it. He’s gonna live.”

She closes her eyes, hugging Lance tight, “You saved my sister. Now I get to save you. You’re gonna live.” She squeezes his body, and something happens. Keith isn’t entirely sure what it is. There’s a humming, almost a rumbling, that feels something like the Balmera did back when it spoke to its people during that first mission so long ago. There’s a light, and a heat, and a coldness, and Keith imagines that if he’d ever stepped out of his Lion or the castle during a wormhole jump, it would feel a lot like this. His very bones resonate with the energy that suddenly surrounds him, until the world is blurred at the edges.

The energy ripples, and again Keith gets an image associated with its motion. He imagines it as a child, fidgeting in place as they try to figure out where to go or what to do next. It moves in waves, settling itself, and then draws in past him, past the girl, towards Lance.

The humming stops, the world goes still.

Lance’s eyes snap open, glowing the same violet as the girl’s fur for just an instant. He gasps, lungs finally working on their own. He looks around like he’s just woken up from a nap, groggy and disoriented and half-terrified.

“Lance… oh my god, Lance! Lance, you’re back! You’re here! You’re –” his words fall over themselves, tripping on the tears Keith can’t seem to hold back. Lance isn’t dead. Lance is alive. Lance is here. Lance is with him. Lance is still here.

“Where’d I go?” Lance speaks slowly, voice cracked and weak. It’s gone from light to downright pale, a shimmering afterimage of itself, but it’s still his and it’s still here, and Keith has never heard anything more beautiful, “What happened?”

“I did a good thing,” the girl sighs, like a dog settling in for a nap. Lance startles and looks down at her, somehow curled up in both his lap and Keith’s at the same time. The Paladins watch as she draws herself into the fetal position. She shivers, lets out one more sigh, and stills. As if a light was switched off, she’s suddenly pale and dull and horribly still. She’s gone. Lance is here, and the girl is gone. And Keith told her she could do it. Not with his words, exactly, but… she’s the second person he’s killed today, after the warden.

“Keith,” there’s a panic in Lance’s voice now as his mind begins to wake up, “what does she mean? What happened? Keith, is she…?” he grabs his boyfriend’s wrist, searching for answers in his eyes just as Keith had looked for guidance from the girl just moments before.

“You’re alive, Lance. Focus on that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She… did a good thing. You’re here now, with me. You’re alive.”

“Because of…?”

“Yeah. Because of what she did.”

“Oh.”

There’s nothing else to say. There’s a million other things to say; to ask, to shout, to demand, to plead. Keith hears them all, and responds without words. He imagines them all surviving. Lance, being healed in the cryopod. The girl, being brought to the castle along with her sister and her friends. The kids they rescued, all being taken to a sanctuary the Blade of Marmora had told them about just a few months ago. The kids all either finding their parents (though not many were still alive) or finding good foster families – except for the girl and her sister, whose parents Keith imagined had died trying to save her because why else would she have been in a place like this with a Blade of Marmora member for a father and a druid for a mother? He imagines himself and Lance visiting to check on her, only to see her all alone and bring her back to the castle with them. He imagines teaching her to use the blade, to follow in her father’s footsteps. He imagines Lance teaching her his terrible jokes. He imagines Pidge playing video games with her. He imagines Hunk teaching her to bake. He imagines her hugging Shiro when he’s quiet, like he himself used to do when they were kids. He imagines Coran letting her pretend he’s the Altean equivalent of a horse and she’s a brave knight protecting her kingdom. He imagines Allura showing them a place in the castle where she and her sister can go to be absolutely safe during missions. He imagines both Allura and the mice playing dress up with her to help her find her own style. He imagines a whole life with her – a life where her willingness to save Lance would be rewarded.

He looks down at her again, and brushes a hand across her cheek. Lance lets his forehead fall against Keith’s, the only gesture of comfort he has the energy or dexterity to perform. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know what to think. He thinks about losing his own siblings, and his heart threatens to stop beating again. He shuts his eyes tight and kisses Keith’s forehead to tell him it’s okay. It’s not okay. There’s a dead girl in their laps, and he’s alive because of it. How could any part of that be okay?

“The part where you’re alive?” Keith isn’t sure if it’s a question or an affirmation, but Lance doesn’t respond either way. He just slides his head down to Keith’s chest and leaves it there. If he cries, Keith doesn’t mention it. He’d join him, in truth, if he had any of his own tears left.

Another hour goes by, children gathering gradually closer to one another for warmth. They give Lance and Keith and the dead girl as wide a berth as they can without straying so far that they start to feel vulnerable again. Lance starts to fall asleep a few times, his blood loss still sufficient that even a druidic cure isn’t enough to keep him alive for long. Keith wakes him each time, and each time he prays to whatever unknown galra god(s) there may be that the girl’s efforts weren’t in vain.

He isn’t sure they’ll make it until he hears static in the helmet by his hip. He fumbles with it, hands slow with disuse, but manages to get it over his head after a few tries. Shiro’s voice. God, he’s been relieved to hear Shiro’s voice before but never like this, “ – there? Keith? Lance? Pidge, are you sure these are the right coordinates?”

“Yes, these are the coordinates Blue gave me! And – wait, look! I see Red! Red’s down there! And so are… a bunch of mini-galras?” Pidge is there, too. Blue must have gone to her because she has the easiest time understanding computers. Good Lion.

“I think those are kids, Pidge. I mean, I’ve never seen a galra kid, but I’m pretty sure none of those are adults. I think,” and Hunk. Blue brought Hunk with them, too.

“Paladins, get in your Lions. Coran and I are going to land the castle as well, but if there are any threats to be dealt with –” Princess Allura. Coran. The castle. Lance could be put in a cryopod. He would live. Not just for a few more hours, but for… well, as long as he would have lived if this whole nightmare of a mission had never happened.

“There aren’t. Any threats, I mean. There’s just me, and Lance, and a bunch of really scared galra hybrids. Their parents are different species, and the galra put them in this labor camp to keep them out of the public eye and make them,” a growl slips into his voice, and Lance does his best to echo it despite the pain in his broken ribs, “‘useful to the empire,’ as the wardens put it. The wardens are… gone. Lance and I took care of them. Now we just need to get the kids to a Marmoran sanctuary, and get Lance into a healing pod… quickly, please.”

The team does move quickly, and before he knows it Keith is sitting alone on the vast concrete work floor. Lance’s been taken to the castle to be healed, the kids have been given temporary rooms in the labyrinthine halls where castle servants used to live in the old days, and the lions have gone to their hangar. All that’s left is Keith, and the girl still curled up in his lap.

“Um… Keith? You guys were here for a couple days before Blue came and got us, so Coran says you should go in a healing pod, too,” Hunk speaks softly, sitting down with his legs crossed and searching Keith’s face for signs of recognition, “I know you didn’t wanna talk about it – or, I assume you didn’t wanna talk about, cause you didn’t say anything when we asked – but, um, you’re gonna have to let go of… of her, sooner or later. We can… uh… give her a funeral? If you want?” He claps a hand on Keith’s shoulder, though even without the telepathic bond he shares with Lance, he can tell the Yellow Paladin is afraid to put any part of himself too close to the dead girl’s body.

Keith nods, scooping the girl into his arms. He never even got to learn her name. Lance gave her a few, while they were living through their imagined life together, but none of them stuck. None of them were hers. Maybe Keith will find her real parents one day, and ask them who she was. He rises to his feet at last, surprised when he stumbles and has to lean on Hunk for support. He’d only been sitting there for the second half of the four hour wait between when Lance got hurt and the team arrived to help them. Were his legs really that weak after just a few hours of sitting? Well… he had been holding Lance in his lap the whole time. And… the girl, too. He walks over to Red, the only Lion who hasn’t yet retreated to the hangar, and lays the girl gently between her paws. He steps back, and Red puts up her particle barrier. She understands. She’ll protect her body, until they can figure out what to do – where to bury her, most likely.

They stand together for a moment, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking up at Red’s face as she determinedly stands guard over the small body.

“Lance is missing an arm and a leg, those kids will barely talk, the wardens are in pieces, and this girl…” Hunk looks at him again, confusion and concern so clear on his face, “what happened to you guys?”

“Lance saved her, so she saved him back. She…” Keith pats Hunk’s shoulder and turns to walk back to the castle, already mapping out the path to the healing pods in his head, “she did a good thing.”