#and probably Pidge shrieking in laughter in the background

[zeraplus309]

Keith: *walks up to the microphone at a wedding, taps the microphone*

Everyone: *smiles as they get ready for the amazing speech they're gonna give*

Keith: if anyone doesn't want their cake, pass it to me please

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Coming too coughing violently, Lance was dazed and confused. Blood ran from some unknown head wound, a sea of smoke had his eyes watering as he gathered himself to his feet. He'd known he was playing with fire by throwing himself at Kre'el, he knew he and he did it anyway. Kre'el had betrayed him. Kre'el had lied to him. She'd used him and she'd hurt Keith. Lasandi wasn't even a bounty hunter and he'd dared to look down on Keith like his existence was insignificant. Just like with Nyma and Rolo, he'd been fucking played... but unlike Nyma and Rolo, hundreds of innocent people had been caught up in Kre'el's twisted games. He didn't know what she had planned, or why she'd acted like she did. He only knew that he hated her... and didn't at the same time. His anger had fast turned to hurt, then to uncertainty, before looping back to soul consuming anger. No one hurt Keith. No one got to fuck with the lives of his friends. Even one of the people he considered his closest allies as he worked to make this region of space a better and safer place. So much had happened, his mind was exhausted, and with his ringing ears he hadn't realised the droning in his ears had come to an end. Stumbling across the uneven crash sight, he clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. The cloth torn beneath his blood bandaged hand. Every step felt as if someone was knifing his hips, but he couldn't see Keith and he needed to find Keith... That was the only clear thought he had. Keith's name. Not his face. Not his smile or ridiculous mullet. No, his mind was too out of it for that. Simply Keith's and the longing to find him. Picking his way through the debris, Lance tried screaming out for his boyfriend. Unable to hear his own voice, the hold on his shoulder was accompanied by him looping his right arm around his waist. He'd never told Keith how deeply his own fear of abandonment ran... not after he'd accidentally been abandoned by the others during a Kuron incident in the training room. Kuron had knocked him unconcious, yet when he'd woken up, he'd been the only one there. Pidge and Hunk had thought he'd been joking... but with how everything had been, their laughter cut to the bone. It was one thing to be a burden in the background, and quite another to be a burden that cost someone their life. Picking his way back to the ship, he screamed as he was attacked from behind, dragged down to the dirt then half choked with the hanging piece of cuff. He hadn't realised his cuffs had broken in the impact. The left snapping clear off the chain, leaving it hanging from the right "You ungrateful little shit. All you needed to do was play your part" Lance didn't even know he was being talked to. He didn't know it was Kre'el who had attacked him, or that the half-crazed Altean had a blaster aimed at the back of his skull. No. He was still mentally chanting "Keith", though some part of his brain was slowly beginning to wake up to the idea of informing him he might just be fucked. With super human strength, Kre'el released the chain, grabbing him by the hair and tearing him up off the ground, so his feet kicked weakly into the air as they failed to find purchase. Babbling and begging formed on his lips, again deaf to the world as he spoke, begging for Klearo to release him. Or trying to beg. Like the rest of him, his mouth and tongue didn't know what to do. Setting him on his feet, Kre'el controlled his movement with her hand, pushing him along, blaster aimed between her pointer finger and thumb. Forced back into the ship, it'd hit the ground, skidded, then stopped so it was relatively upright. By some miracle it'd avoided making a nose dive, instead ripping open its belly as it beached itself. Pipes and all kinds of wires lay exposed, hissing and arcing like angry snakes as he staggered. There was absolutely nothing left in him to fight with Kre'el. She could have killed him right there, and he probably would have welcomed it. Keith was missing. His Keith. He didn't know where his Keith was and that wasn't ok... but he didn't know what to do about it. Lance didn't remember the walk. He didn't remember how he go to where he was. He didn't remember sitting down. He didn't remember being strapped to the chair in the lab, connected to so much tech that Pidge would swoon on the spot. With his head lolled towards his chest, drool ran down his chin. Even Keith's name was beginning to leave his head. He knew he loved someone. Someone who made him feel like the most treasured person ever to exist... but he couldn't name them anymore... he wasn't sure he wanted to name them anymore. Not when sleep was so close... And then sleep wasn't. A bucket of cold water thrown over him causing him to surge up floundering. Eyes wide as he gasped at the sensations and shamelessly wet himself in fear. Struggling against the restraints, the pointy feeling in his elbow drew his attention due to it being such a contrasting pain to the rest of him. A cannula sat against dirty black skin, deep red blood running through its tube. In front of his face, a pair of fingers clicked, trying to draw his attention, but too bad for the owner of the fingers that he couldn't hear. When his focus didn't shift, he was grabbed by the chin, and made to look up and into Kre'el's eyes. She might look nothing like he remembered her, yet, her eyes... Her eyes seemed pained. More pained than they should be for a criminal master mind. More pained than they should be for someone who'd committed the sins she had. Suddenly the ship shuddered, Kre'el's attention ripped away from him. Armed with a blaster, she was moving away from him. A sob bubbled up. A sob that pled not to be left to die alone... He was so fucking cold that his body was spasming uncontrollably, his head lolling back where he didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore. He'd felt death before, and it felt a hell of a lot like this. * Hacking and coughing, Keith had been thrown back behind the console he'd been crawling from. Atop of him, Lasandi's blaster had landed. The Altean shapeshifter now dead, due to the shot Keith had gotten off. Taking it squarely in the back, Lasandi had gone down like the pile of shit he was. Keith had no way of knowing what happened during those ticks or doboshes... maybe even vargas?... he'd been out, but waking up to find the blaster against his bound hands was the first bit of luck he'd had since they wound up on the ship, so he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The shot had been nothing short of amazing, but no one had been there to see it... and in all honesty if they examined the wound site, they would find it wasn't as great as Keith had built up in his head. Pushing his back up the wall, Keith grunted when his ankle wasn't able to support his full weight. Agony flaring up his shin, so fast he nearly fell from it. Sooo... he'd busted his leg. No wonder the blaster had landed in his lap, it was some kind of sick cosmic joke to lessen the pain that came with knowing his ankle was fucking busted to all hell. Watching as an orange pulse landed outside the ship, in the massive pile of debris at the bow, the explosion sent heat roaring into the open bridge. The window and half the ship front seemingly now missing, which was another thing he missed. Quiznak. Fuck. Someone was firing at them... literally the last thing he needed. Looking towards where he'd last seen Lance, Keith found the space barren of his boyfriend, a howl falling from lips as he started to limp run to the spot. At least in his mind he was limping as fast as he could, and not at a substantially hobbled pace. Lance had been there. He'd been right there. His stupid gorgeous Cuban, had been right there... and now he wasn't. Spinning in place, the bodies of kre'el's followers were there, whether they were or alive or not, Keith couldn't tell. None of them were Lance. Shrieking his boyfriend's name, all that answered him was a boom from outside the ship. This couldn't... he couldn't... Tears rushed to fill his eyes, spilling down his cheeks as he started limping towards where the front window had been. Lance had to have been thrown... he... he had to be here somewhere. Keith's heart was racing, the hammering echoing in his head as chest drew painfully tight. Each limp sent fresh pain flying up his leg, but he refused to give up on Lance. He refused to leave him laying outside the ship, more than likely unconscious and unable to protect himself. Reaching the rubble between covering the base of where the ship's window had been, he stumbled hard over the twisted metal dislodged from the floor. Falling forward he wasn't able to stop himself, bracing himself for the inevitable pain of his overly sensitive body hitting the ground, only... that didn't happen. A cold hand grabbing his arm and using his momentum to manoeuvre his body into sitting. Instinct told him to fight, but as he locked eyes with the grey pair filled with concern rather than hatred, a gasp fell from his lips "S-Shiro?" His throat felt constricted from the violent lump of emotion Shiro's presence caused. Dazed and unsure if it was a dream, he looked up to see most of the sky above the crash site was taken up by the Atlas. With the loss of Lance sending him into a meltdown, his brain forgot the whole shapeshifter thing until after he'd seen the Atlas, his whole body tensing as he shuffled backwards from Shiro "Are you real?" Shiro's soft smile turned to frown as he scrunched his brow "What do you mean? Where's Lance? And who's ship is this?" "Are you real?!" Shrieking at his adopted brother, Shiro backed off slightly. The hair, the scar and the arm all looked perfect... or as Shiro as they always did "Keith, whoa. Hang on. Yes, I'm real. I got your message. We wormholed here the second we got a lock on your location" "Second", not "tick". They used seconds on the Atlas... "Are you hurt?" Flinching away from Shiro as Shiro reached for him, Keith knew he'd hurt him. He didn't mean to, but between the ship showing them fucked up images and shapeshifters, there was only so much he could take. "Uh, guys. Not to ruin the mood, but we've got trouble here" Hunk's voice came through Shiro's comms, Keith jumping at the unexpected noise "I've got Keith. He needs urgent medical attention" "I'm fine!" That was fooling no one "I'm fine. We need to find Lance" "He's here?" Shiro cast a glance around them "I think he must have been thrown. We need to find him. He's in danger" "We'll find him. Veronica, Keith needs an evac. Have the pod on standby" "No! I don't need the pod, Lance does. Please. We have to find him... they were after him all along" Shiro huffed at out sigh, swapping from "big brother mode" to "commander mode" "You're in no condition to go anywhere" "And you have no idea what you're talking about. Either help me up, or get out on my way" It wasn't a great threat, or even a good threat. His hands still cuffed and he didn't have a wall behind him he could use as support. Bringing up his communicator, Shiro hit mute on his end "Keith, you need to talk to me. What happened to Lance?" "These are the people behind the people who tortured him! He worked with both of them! He thought they were his friends... He threw himself at Kre'el when she opened a wormhole. He's not think straight" Starting to cry all over again, Shiro placed both hands on Keith's shaking shoulders "If he's here, we'll find him. But for now, I need to get you off the battlefield. We picked up signs of life not that far from here, and if there are more enemy soldiers en ruite, it's not a safe location" "You don't understand" "We're going to get him" Taking himself off mute, Shiro confirmed their position with Veronica, before raising the blaster he was armed with "Acxa..." Shiro's sentence was cut off by Acxa and Zethrid appearing behind him "Keith!" Acxa both looked relieved and worried. Keith knew he how quiznakking awful he looked, but didn't know why they were there... "You two will be with me. Lance is currently missing and may have been taken by enemy combatants" "No!" Bursting out "No'", Keith realised he couldn't state why not, without breaking Lance's trust. Reaching a hand out towards Acxa, she did as he hoped and moved to take it "Keith?" "The ship. It makes you see things. It's Altean, and probably guarded against Galra" It was a logical reason, Shiro didn't buy it. Zethrid looked annoyed, and he Keith couldn't bring himself to look Acxa in the eye "I'll go with Shiro. You two secure the people up here. I don't know if they're still alive..." "You can't even walk!" He didn't need Acxa babying him right now. He needed his goddamn boyfriend to be found and he needed him is his arms "I'll be fine. I'm fine..." Grabbing Keith by the left arm, Keith nearly screamed as Acxa forced it up. The patch job Lance had done, had come undone during the crash "You've been stabbed?!" God, he hated Acxa's big mouth. Any minute sway he'd started building in Shiro's mind was gone now "Get him into a pod" "Shiro! Don't you dare!" One moment Zethrid was there, and the next he was over his shoulder "I'll never fucking forgive you! Never! Let me go!" His screams went unanswered, Zethrid striding away from Shiro and making easy work of navigating her way down to ground level where a pod was waiting to transport them back up to the Atlas. Screaming blue murder, Keith was laid out on the bed on the back, his stolen shirts cut open within ticks of his back hitting the bed. Struggling harder, a familiar ginger moustache appeared in his field of vision. Twisting and forcing himself through the pain, his hands grabbed for Coran "Coran, please. You have to listen to me. You have to find Lance. No one can see him. No one but you and Daehra. You have to help him. You have to. She knows what to do" Coran was replying as Keith felt something press against his shoulder, a moment passed, then his body seemed to grow heavy, all the while he continued to plead with Coran to find Lance. Coran would understand about Lance's medical history. He wasn't Galra. And he was someone Lance had once trusted. He was a good Altean and Lance knew that. As the voices above him whispered back and forth, pressure was placed against his stab wound while plans were made to get him onboard and into the Atlas's healing pod. *

[tokyoteddywolf]

A Blue CatAstrophe Ch.6

*sighs @ self* i have writers block currently, so im just gonna go bake some things and pray for death while eating cake batter and tears.....

so here, have the last chapter i managed to squeeze out.....

There will be more though! Just...not for a few days? Ehehe ^w^;;;

enjoy!

She was worried. She could feel the waves of anger and hurt through the bond with her Paladin, so she was already bending down to allow him into her cockpit as soon as he came storming into the room. His face was as dark as a thunderstorm, expressions flicking between hurt and frustration like flashes of lightning. He climbed in and begged her to leave the Castle, gunning the engines and she took off with no hesitation.

She didn't know where they were going, as all she was getting was that they had to get away. He didn't want to be there for the moment, so she complied with his wish. She let him out in a seemingly harmless looking field of flowering trees, and for a moment thought that they looked familiar. They were almost 20 feet tall each, and the flowers would have probably made her sneeze if she had a sense of smell.

Her concern increased when Lance had started asking why he wasn't good enough, and took note of the strange dust falling out of the flowers as he pounded his fist against the tree trunk. He was bleeding now, from his knuckles, and as soon as she heard him cough she was on high alert. She'd panicked when he started screaming, and used her ice cannon to freeze the offending area as she had an inkling as to what was making her precious little Paladin choke. Then came the violent seizures, and she'd screamed for him to hold on, that she'd get the air to be breathable again, and scooped him up into her muzzle and tilted him around until his back was against the dashboard.

She'd activated her barrier in a terrified attempt to filter the air out, she couldn't lose another Paladin, she refused to lose such a precious light in her life to something as stupid as dusty air! Then she'd heard his bones snapping and rearranging and felt warm blood splashing everywhere as his body mutated and forced itself into an unnatural shape, and she'd used some of her Quintessence to try and alleviate some of the agony.

It must have influenced the change somehow, because now he was a miniature version of her Earth form, a tiny baby lion cub that wasn't a lion. A cat, her database supplied, and she tentatively tested the bond between her and her little Paladin, relief flooding her body when she felt that it was still there, tinged with pain but standing strong.

She knew he was hurting, so she curled up in on herself, hoping to shield him better. How was she to explain this to the others?

Lance purred and rubbed his head against each of the Paladin's knees, as they had all sat down during the story. It was more like watching a movie, through the Lion's eyes. Blue rumbled overhead, having finished her tale. The world shifted, and soon they were back in Blue's hangar, as if they'd never left. Keith blinked clear of the vision first, and ruffled Lance's ears. “That looked painful, man...” The Red Paladin muttered, and Lance mewed sadly.

Pidge snapped out of it next, and swooped in to steal the kitten from Keith's aggressive rubbing, babbling something about mutations and DNA structures and alien plants, too fast for Lance to keep up with. Hunk joined in on Pidge's chatter, as Lance dangled from the Green Paladin's arms. Shiro hadn't moved yet, simply staring at Lance with an unreadable expression on his face. Suddenly Pidge gasped. “Oh my God I know why that plant looked so familiar!!!” She shrieked, Lance flattening his ears down from the noise.

She started laughing, almost hysterically. Keith and Hunk shared a look, and Hunk gently pulled Lance from the laughing girl's arms. “Lance! You- It's!!! Gah! You were transformed by Blue's Quintessence and alien catnip!!!” Pidge howled, tears streaming down her face as she rolled on the ground laughing.

Keith's jaw dropped, and he started laughing too. He couldn't stop, he just couldn't withstand the irony.

Shiro had gotten up at this point, and seemed to be better at holding in his laughter at the revelation. “Well, at least we know where you've been this whole time.” He chuckled, and Lance mewed in agreement before his stomach growled. “Oh! You haven't eaten for a while! Hang on, let's go get you some food, buddy!” Hunk yelped, then took off for the kitchen, Lance letting out a startled yowl as the Samoan teen moved faster than you'd think possible, leaving the others in Blue's hangar.

Lance purred as he munched on the weird space turkey bacon, tail twitching. “So, as a cat, you can still understand human language?” Oh yeah, Hunk was questioning him excitedly while Pidge was off getting supplies to run tests on him. Shiro and Keith were currently explaining the situation with Allura and Coran, so Lance was left to eat in relatively normal peace.

He nodded at Hunk, chewing on a particularly rough piece. Pidge burst into the kitchen, holding up a ball of yarn and some weird machines tucked in her arms. “I got the stuff! Hey, Lance, can you try to resist playing with this string? I wanna see how strong your instincts as a cat are.” The excitable Green Paladin chirped, holding up a piece of silver blue string and jiggling it near Lance's head.

Lance's paws twitched, and without thinking he went into a cat-crouch, wiggling his tail before lunging and biting the string, rolling around and snagging it on his claws as Pidge giggled and pulled him to and fro since his claws were caught in the alien thread. He growled and rolled onto his back, hind claws kicking at air and snatching on the string while he bit at it fiercely. Pidge was overjoyed at this. “Holy quiznak! Blue must have used more Quintessence than I first thought! You're really acting just like a cat!” She said happily as she messed with her tiny, fluffy teammate.

“Well, I think we should find a cure and soon. Who knows when Zarkon will attack next...” Hunk said as he fried up more space bacon. Pidge nodded.“The lab I set up is already running the first few scans on that pollen that changed Lance into a kitten. I plan on testing it further once I'm done here. My hypothesis is that the original shape was supposed to be similar to a feline, but because of Blue and the fact that Lance isn't from the planet Kolkar like the Kolkarians are, it merely changed him into something similar.” Pidge explained, pushing her glasses up and tugging the string from Lance's paws.

Lance pouted as best he could as a cat, and rolled back over to continue munching on his food. His ears pricked at the sound of the door opening, and decided to ignore that. He did, however, very much like Shiro's human hand running down his head and neck as he ate. “Allura says she's going to talk to the Kolkarian's about the plant that made Lance like this, so until then we're supposed to stay here and keep an eye on him. Pidge, since that pollen is what made Lance change, I want to be there when you test it, just in case you accidentally get some on you or anything. We can't have two cat Paladins, especially when you're the best shot for a cure.” The Black Paladin explained, scratching behind one of Lance's ears.

Pidge grinned, her glasses shining bright enough to obscure her eyes. “You can count on me, Boss!”

Lance purred a laugh at the sound of Hunk facepalming in the background.

//thats it! I have officially gotten writers block! I don't know when it will go away, but don't expect an update for a few days….. this was all I could finish this chapter with, pls forgive me…… so yeah. Have some cat Lance and Space Catnip and oh man I need to go lie down or something sheesh…..

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

CSUAVS prt 36 update. Despite having wanted Shiro to be there and find our two idiots for a while now... ship bonding moment cough. I hate that it feels to me like a cop out... even though Lance acknowledged that they may need Shiro's help

Coming too coughing violently, Lance was dazed and confused. Blood ran from some unknown head wound, a sea of smoke had his eyes watering as he gathered himself to his feet. He'd known he was playing with fire by throwing himself at Kre'el, he knew he and he did it anyway. Kre'el had betrayed him. Kre'el had lied to him. She'd used him and she'd hurt Keith. Lasandi wasn't even a bounty hunter and he'd dared to look down on Keith like his existence was insignificant. Just like with Nyma and Rolo, he'd been fucking played... but unlike Nyma and Rolo, hundreds of innocent people had been caught up in Kre'el's twisted games. He didn't know what she had planned, or why she'd acted like she did. He only knew that he hated her... and didn't at the same time. His anger had fast turned to hurt, then to uncertainty, before looping back to soul consuming anger. No one hurt Keith. No one got to fuck with the lives of his friends. Even one of the people he considered his closest allies as he worked to make this region of space a better and safer place. So much had happened, his mind was exhausted, and with his ringing ears he hadn't realised the droning in his ears had come to an end. Stumbling across the uneven crash sight, he clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. The cloth torn beneath his blood bandaged hand. Every step felt as if someone was knifing his hips, but he couldn't see Keith and he needed to find Keith... That was the only clear thought he had. Keith's name. Not his face. Not his smile or ridiculous mullet. No, his mind was too out of it for that. Simply Keith's and the longing to find him. Picking his way through the debris, Lance tried screaming out for his boyfriend. Unable to hear his own voice, the hold on his shoulder was accompanied by him looping his right arm around his waist. He'd never told Keith how deeply his own fear of abandonment ran... not after he'd accidentally been abandoned by the others during a Kuron incident in the training room. Kuron had knocked him unconcious, yet when he'd woken up, he'd been the only one there. Pidge and Hunk had thought he'd been joking... but with how everything had been, their laughter cut to the bone. It was one thing to be a burden in the background, and quite another to be a burden that cost someone their life. Picking his way back to the ship, he screamed as he was attacked from behind, dragged down to the dirt then half choked with the hanging piece of cuff. He hadn't realised his cuffs had broken in the impact. The left snapping clear off the chain, leaving it hanging from the right "You ungrateful little shit. All you needed to do was play your part" Lance didn't even know he was being talked to. He didn't know it was Kre'el who had attacked him, or that the half-crazed Altean had a blaster aimed at the back of his skull. No. He was still mentally chanting "Keith", though some part of his brain was slowly beginning to wake up to the idea of informing him he might just be fucked. With super human strength, Kre'el released the chain, grabbing him by the hair and tearing him up off the ground, so his feet kicked weakly into the air as they failed to find purchase. Babbling and begging formed on his lips, again deaf to the world as he spoke, begging for Klearo to release him. Or trying to beg. Like the rest of him, his mouth and tongue didn't know what to do. Setting him on his feet, Kre'el controlled his movement with her hand, pushing him along, blaster aimed between her pointer finger and thumb. Forced back into the ship, it'd hit the ground, skidded, then stopped so it was relatively upright. By some miracle it'd avoided making a nose dive, instead ripping open its belly as it beached itself. Pipes and all kinds of wires lay exposed, hissing and arcing like angry snakes as he staggered. There was absolutely nothing left in him to fight with Kre'el. She could have killed him right there, and he probably would have welcomed it. Keith was missing. His Keith. He didn't know where his Keith was and that wasn't ok... but he didn't know what to do about it. Lance didn't remember the walk. He didn't remember how he go to where he was. He didn't remember sitting down. He didn't remember being strapped to the chair in the lab, connected to so much tech that Pidge would swoon on the spot. With his head lolled towards his chest, drool ran down his chin. Even Keith's name was beginning to leave his head. He knew he loved someone. Someone who made him feel like the most treasured person ever to exist... but he couldn't name them anymore... he wasn't sure he wanted to name them anymore. Not when sleep was so close... And then sleep wasn't. A bucket of cold water thrown over him causing him to surge up floundering. Eyes wide as he gasped at the sensations and shamelessly wet himself in fear. Struggling against the restraints, the pointy feeling in his elbow drew his attention due to it being such a contrasting pain to the rest of him. A cannula sat against dirty black skin, deep red blood running through its tube. In front of his face, a pair of fingers clicked, trying to draw his attention, but too bad for the owner of the fingers that he couldn't hear. When his focus didn't shift, he was grabbed by the chin, and made to look up and into Kre'el's eyes. She might look nothing like he remembered her, yet, her eyes... Her eyes seemed pained. More pained than they should be for a criminal master mind. More pained than they should be for someone who'd committed the sins she had. Suddenly the ship shuddered, Kre'el's attention ripped away from him. Armed with a blaster, she was moving away from him. A sob bubbled up. A sob that pled not to be left to die alone... He was so fucking cold that his body was spasming uncontrollably, his head lolling back where he didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore. He'd felt death before, and it felt a hell of a lot like this. * Hacking and coughing, Keith had been thrown back behind the console he'd been crawling from. Atop of him, Lasandi's blaster had landed. The Altean shapeshifter now dead, due to the shot Keith had gotten off. Taking it squarely in the back, Lasandi had gone down like the pile of shit he was. Keith had no way of knowing what happened during those ticks or doboshes... maybe even vargas?... he'd been out, but waking up to find the blaster against his bound hands was the first bit of luck he'd had since they wound up on the ship, so he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The shot had been nothing short of amazing, but no one had been there to see it... and in all honesty if they examined the wound site, they would find it wasn't as great as Keith had built up in his head. Pushing his back up the wall, Keith grunted when his ankle wasn't able to support his full weight. Agony flaring up his shin, so fast he nearly fell from it. Sooo... he'd busted his leg. No wonder the blaster had landed in his lap, it was some kind of sick cosmic joke to lessen the pain that came with knowing his ankle was fucking busted to all hell. Watching as an orange pulse landed outside the ship, in the massive pile of debris at the bow, the explosion sent heat roaring into the open bridge. The window and half the ship front seemingly now missing, which was another thing he missed. Quiznak. Fuck. Someone was firing at them... literally the last thing he needed. Looking towards where he'd last seen Lance, Keith found the space barren of his boyfriend, a howl falling from lips as he started to limp run to the spot. At least in his mind he was limping as fast as he could, and not at a substantially hobbled pace. Lance had been there. He'd been right there. His stupid gorgeous Cuban, had been right there... and now he wasn't. Spinning in place, the bodies of kre'el's followers were there, whether they were or alive or not, Keith couldn't tell. None of them were Lance. Shrieking his boyfriend's name, all that answered him was a boom from outside the ship. This couldn't... he couldn't... Tears rushed to fill his eyes, spilling down his cheeks as he started limping towards where the front window had been. Lance had to have been thrown... he... he had to be here somewhere. Keith's heart was racing, the hammering echoing in his head as chest drew painfully tight. Each limp sent fresh pain flying up his leg, but he refused to give up on Lance. He refused to leave him laying outside the ship, more than likely unconscious and unable to protect himself. Reaching the rubble between covering the base of where the ship's window had been, he stumbled hard over the twisted metal dislodged from the floor. Falling forward he wasn't able to stop himself, bracing himself for the inevitable pain of his overly sensitive body hitting the ground, only... that didn't happen. A cold hand grabbing his arm and using his momentum to manoeuvre his body into sitting. Instinct told him to fight, but as he locked eyes with the grey pair filled with concern rather than hatred, a gasp fell from his lips "S-Shiro?" His throat felt constricted from the violent lump of emotion Shiro's presence caused. Dazed and unsure if it was a dream, he looked up to see most of the sky above the crash site was taken up by the Atlas. With the loss of Lance sending him into a meltdown, his brain forgot the whole shapeshifter thing until after he'd seen the Atlas, his whole body tensing as he shuffled backwards from Shiro "Are you real?" Shiro's soft smile turned to frown as he scrunched his brow "What do you mean? Where's Lance? And who's ship is this?" "Are you real?!" Shrieking at his adopted brother, Shiro backed off slightly. The hair, the scar and the arm all looked perfect... or as Shiro as they always did "Keith, whoa. Hang on. Yes, I'm real. I got your message. We wormholed here the second we got a lock on your location" "Second", not "tick". They used seconds on the Atlas... "Are you hurt?" Flinching away from Shiro as Shiro reached for him, Keith knew he'd hurt him. He didn't mean to, but between the ship showing them fucked up images and shapeshifters, there was only so much he could take. "Uh, guys. Not to ruin the mood, but we've got trouble here" Hunk's voice came through Shiro's comms, Keith jumping at the unexpected noise "I've got Keith. He needs urgent medical attention" "I'm fine!" That was fooling no one "I'm fine. We need to find Lance" "He's here?" Shiro cast a glance around them "I think he must have been thrown. We need to find him. He's in danger" "We'll find him. Veronica, Keith needs an evac. Have the pod on standby" "No! I don't need the pod, Lance does. Please. We have to find him... they were after him all along" Shiro huffed at out sigh, swapping from "big brother mode" to "commander mode" "You're in no condition to go anywhere" "And you have no idea what you're talking about. Either help me up, or get out on my way" It wasn't a great threat, or even a good threat. His hands still cuffed and he didn't have a wall behind him he could use as support. Bringing up his communicator, Shiro hit mute on his end "Keith, you need to talk to me. What happened to Lance?" "These are the people behind the people who tortured him! He worked with both of them! He thought they were his friends... He threw himself at Kre'el when she opened a wormhole. He's not think straight" Starting to cry all over again, Shiro placed both hands on Keith's shaking shoulders "If he's here, we'll find him. But for now, I need to get you off the battlefield. We picked up signs of life not that far from here, and if there are more enemy soldiers en ruite, it's not a safe location" "You don't understand" "We're going to get him" Taking himself off mute, Shiro confirmed their position with Veronica, before raising the blaster he was armed with "Acxa..." Shiro's sentence was cut off by Acxa and Zethrid appearing behind him "Keith!" Acxa both looked relieved and worried. Keith knew he how quiznakking awful he looked, but didn't know why they were there... "You two will be with me. Lance is currently missing and may have been taken by enemy combatants" "No!" Bursting out "No'", Keith realised he couldn't state why not, without breaking Lance's trust. Reaching a hand out towards Acxa, she did as he hoped and moved to take it "Keith?" "The ship. It makes you see things. It's Altean, and probably guarded against Galra" It was a logical reason, Shiro didn't buy it. Zethrid looked annoyed, and he Keith couldn't bring himself to look Acxa in the eye "I'll go with Shiro. You two secure the people up here. I don't know if they're still alive..." "You can't even walk!" He didn't need Acxa babying him right now. He needed his goddamn boyfriend to be found and he needed him is his arms "I'll be fine. I'm fine..." Grabbing Keith by the left arm, Keith nearly screamed as Acxa forced it up. The patch job Lance had done, had come undone during the crash "You've been stabbed?!" God, he hated Acxa's big mouth. Any minute sway he'd started building in Shiro's mind was gone now "Get him into a pod" "Shiro! Don't you dare!" One moment Zethrid was there, and the next he was over his shoulder "I'll never fucking forgive you! Never! Let me go!" His screams went unanswered, Zethrid striding away from Shiro and making easy work of navigating her way down to ground level where a pod was waiting to transport them back up to the Atlas. Screaming blue murder, Keith was laid out on the bed on the back, his stolen shirts cut open within ticks of his back hitting the bed. Struggling harder, a familiar ginger moustache appeared in his field of vision. Twisting and forcing himself through the pain, his hands grabbed for Coran "Coran, please. You have to listen to me. You have to find Lance. No one can see him. No one but you and Daehra. You have to help him. You have to. She knows what to do" Coran was replying as Keith felt something press against his shoulder, a moment passed, then his body seemed to grow heavy, all the while he continued to plead with Coran to find Lance. Coran would understand about Lance's medical history. He wasn't Galra. And he was someone Lance had once trusted. He was a good Altean and Lance knew that. As the voices above him whispered back and forth, pressure was placed against his stab wound while plans were made to get him onboard and into the Atlas's healing pod. *** Watching as Keith was carried to safety by Zethrid, Shiro was trying to ignore Veronica's nonstop talking. He understood where the woman was coming from, it'd been over a phoeb, since anyone had heard from Keith or Lance. The messages sent from unknown frequency had been ignored to begin with. After all, you don't leave Voltron or Command the Atlas without forming enemies. Having to deal with a furious Veronica, she'd sworn to make his life a living hell if he failed to locate her missing brother and Keith. To the outside world they were still simply good friends, only he and Curtis knowing any differently until Coran had let it slip that he'd talk to Keith. Keith's level of attachment to Lance couldn't be doubted, but there was something more to it that left Shiro uneasy. Keith had grown up before his eyes. The man he'd become one that any parent or friend could be proud of, yet when it came to Lance, Keith lost all rational thought and that was what scared him. His brother had been right before him, splattered with blood and debris, screaming for Lance instead of worrying about the numerous injuries he was sporting. There was no way Keith could have helped Lance. Not with the way he was, yet he would have kept marching right down the road to self implosion if Shiro hadn't had him forcibly removed. Taking a deep breath in, he reminded himself that "patience yields focus", permitting himself a few seconds to calm his own anxieties over Lance. He cared for him, even though they hardly talked anymore. Something that he bitterly regretted, especially being front row to one Lance's panic attacks. They'd taken such a bright and bubbly young man, and left him so deeply scarred. He'd never forgive himself, hence why he came down personally to assist in the battle. Not that Curtis was too pleased, yet his boyfriend knew better than to argue. All the fellow ex-Paladins felt like children to him. The moniker "space dad", meant more to him then he liked to let on. "Hunk, what's happening down there?" "We've managed to make a path to the side of the ship. Their numbers are dropping. Where's Keith?" "He's been taken back to the Atlas" "And Lance?" The hope in Hunk's voice hurt. It'd been hardest to tell Hunk that Lance was missing. Hunk hadn't understood at all, nor was able to understand why Lance hadn't told him anything about having a bounty on his head, or how life threatening his line of work was. Both Keith's and Lance's words rang around his mind as he tried to explain to Hunk that everything would be alright "Still unaccounted for. Keith isn't sure if he's on board, or if he was thrown during the crash" "Oh no..." Hunk went straight into internal meltdown mode "Shiro, you should get down here, the scanner's reading human blood" That was never a good thing, not Lance missing and Keith badly wounded "Heading to you" Backtracking down the slope of debris, Coran's bright orange hair cutting through the field of his people taking the group of attackers into custody. Slowing to wait for the man, Coran was spluttering as he finally reached him. Drawing a breath, he dabbed at his brow, attempting to collect himself. There was blood smeared across his hands that he hadn't seemed to notice "Is it Keith?" Clearing his throat, Coran pointed his communicator, doing something weird with his eyebrows. Coran's version of covert wasn't always... covert or conveyed what he was trying to say. Thankfully he'd pointed to his communicator. Pressing it to mute again, Coran nodded. It didn't matter how many years that had passed, Shiro wasn't sure he'd ever truly understand Coran, despite the respect he held for the man "Is Keith...?" "No, no. He's been taken aboard to the Atlas for treatment" "Then this is about Lance?" "Keith was quite agitated. Insisting about that I be there for Lance" Shiro sighed to himself. Keith needed to be worried about himself. Lance was strong, and wouldn't go down without a fight... Then again, these were the people responsible for torturing him "Coran, is there something more I should know? About Lance?" Coran hummed, looking pretty suspicious "Coran?" "No. No. It's better the boys work this out for themselves... I am quite worried for Lance. This is an Altean prison ship. I haven't seen one of those in over 10 thousand years" There was something he hadn't expected to hear. Coran never spoke of the "other side" of Altea, only the love and passion Alfor had for his people "Prison ship?" "Pop-pop Wimbledon never liked working on them... Always warned me to stay away from them. Nasty business. Best we find young Lance as soon as possible" Coran was still holding something back, but Hunk chose that particular moment to let out a cry of panic, drawing their attention to Shiro's comms. Shiro of all people knew how strong Hunk was, he was the first to decide he was heading down to help planetside, despite having chosen to drop out of action in favour of uniting the Galaxy through food "We need to get down there" Taking himself off mute, Veronica was still rambling into his ear, or rather Veronica was now filling the channel demanding from Hunk an update on her brother. The comment about blood only served to anger her more, especially since Shiro had ordered her to stay behind on the Atlas with Curtis, who just as unimpressed. Yes, there were others who could go, but when it came to Lance and Keith, things were personal. Following the glowing dot on his comms that marked Hunk's location, Shiro understood why Coran's grandfather was hesitant to work on prisoners ships. It was eerie passing pod after pod filled with prisoners, who seemed so old and brittle that opening the glass doors would kill them. Having an anxious Coran by his side didn't help matters when the man kept wringing his hands and jumping at his own shadow. There had to be hundreds of people aboard the ship... which meant hundreds of pages of paperwork. His head gave a throb, threatening him with the inevitable headache it would all lead to. Drawing closer to the dot, came the sound of battle. Blaster shots soon lighting up the corridor they were in, as Hunk yelled something garbled through the comms. Ducking to the side, Shiro looked to Coran who nodded, before shadowing the wall to the end of the hall. Turning back to tell Coran to watch his back, he found the Altean gone... Coran's ability to locationally challenge himself was only rivalled by Keith's. Great. Now he had two people to worry about. Peeking around the corner of the corridor, there was what seemed to be a purple alien firing on Hunk and his team, forcing them to take coverage behind a twisted piece of wall. Given whoever was firing at them was a conscious and sentient body, Hunk would be hesitant over pulling the trigger and hurting them. Shiro... not quite so much. Dropping to the floor, he looked through the scope of the blaster and frowning at the figure shooting. They were clearly Altean... "Shiro, what do we do?" "Take her alive. She's Altean" "If she's Altean, shouldn't she on our side?" "Coran informed this is a prison ship. She may be an escaped prisoner" "There's bad Altean's?! When did this happen?! Why did no body tell me there were bad Altean's?" "It's not the first time we've come across them" No. They'd come across them aboard the ship connecting this reality with an alternate one. Was it possible this ship was from an alternate reality? Though he couldn't rule it, neither could confirm it. Veronica's voice broke through the chain of thought "Hostiles have entered orbit, scrambling MFE pilots" "Understood" Shiro couldn't help but be slightly scared of Lance's sister. They looked so much alike, yet Veronica gave voice to things Lance never would "Shiro, man, what do we do? I don't want to just shoot her" "I'll take the shot, be ready to move in and restrain her" Hunk mumbled something about "thanking god", the man really too kind for their own good. Lining up the shot, Shiro fired, piercing the woman in her left shoulder. Clutching the wound and screaming, Hunk's team moved forward to take the stranger into custody. One down. One to go. Backtracking to where he'd last seen Coran, Shiro scanned the space. There were two corridors fairly close to the intersection, either could have been taken. Going with his gut, he turned down the corridor that ran off the side his back was too. Knowing Coran, it was possible he'd thought that was why they'd stopped... Following down the corridor, it was filled with more pods. Some occupants not so lucky as they laid at the foot of the now empty pods dead or impaled on broke glass. Moving stealthily and scoping the area as he did, he swapped his blasters scope to search for heat signatures, the only way he could think to locate Coran. He knew from personal experience how cold a long stint in a pod tended to leave a person. Picking up several fires, he found a human blob shaped figure another three corridors down. For a man well over ten thousand, he had to give it to Coran. The man could certainly move when it came to getting himself lost. Picking up his pace, he relied on his blasters scope to search for threats as he jogged through the twisted ship. Making it to the room the heat signature was coming from, the door was already wide open. Kneeling on the floor was Coran, Lance cradled in his arms as he held him close. If Keith had been bad... Lance was... "Veronica, we have Lance. He needs urgent medical attention" "Keith was just placed into our pod" One would have thought they would have added to the number of pods on board, but running very different missions than they had on Voltron, and running a ship with a full staff, they simply hadn't needed to expand. The most they dealt with were the very few wounds taken from foreign fire, and the occasional broke bone. Standing there, it seemed to him that Lance had broken every bone. His body far too limp, and the glow in his cheeks were barely there. Pulling himself together, Shiro strode over to the pair, kneeling on Lance's other side "Has he said anything?" "He asked for Keith. He passed out again straight after" Of course Lance was asking for Keith. The pair were as bad as each other "I'll take him" "No, no. I promised Keith I would" Shiro had the height and strength advantage, but Coran had the heartbreaking look in his eyes. Lance had always been like an adopted son to the man, always there to lend a hand or listen to Coran confuse himself as he spoke on and on about days long gone "Coran, I'll carry him. I know you're worried, but we need to get him urgent medical attention" Reaching for Lance's neck to reassure himself the younger man did indeed have a pulse the moment his fingers touched the soft curve, Lance jolted up in Coran's arms, screaming his head off and trying to fight against him. Though that was more like a worm wriggling than actually doing anything "Lance..." Coran interrupted him. Shiro was getting pretty fed up with being interrupted at this point "Lance, Lance. You're ok my boy. Keith sent me. Keith asked me to find you. He's ok. He's..." Keith's name calmed Lance enough for him to stop screaming and swap to babbling "He needs a pod. Keith needs a pod. He... stabbed him... he needs help... please... you have to put him in a pod... he can't die... he can't..." Hushing Lance, Coran lifted him as he stood, wobbling slightly as he did. Crying out in pain, tears rolled down the Cuban's face as he whimpered out Keith's name. As horrible as it was, Shiro could only pray that Lance would pass out again before they reached the pod that would evac him to safety.

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Caramel Skin Under a Vanilla Sky prt 37 full draft

Coming too coughing violently, Lance was dazed and confused. Blood ran from some unknown head wound, a sea of smoke had his eyes watering as he gathered himself to his feet. He'd known he was playing with fire by throwing himself at Kre'el, he knew he and he did it anyway. Kre'el had betrayed him. Kre'el had lied to him. She'd used him and she'd hurt Keith. Lasandi wasn't even a bounty hunter and he'd dared to look down on Keith like his existence was insignificant. Just like with Nyma and Rolo, he'd been fucking played... but unlike Nyma and Rolo, hundreds of innocent people had been caught up in Kre'el's twisted games. He didn't know what she had planned, or why she'd acted like she did. He only knew that he hated her... and didn't at the same time. His anger had fast turned to hurt, then to uncertainty, before looping back to soul consuming anger. No one hurt Keith. No one got to fuck with the lives of his friends. Even one of the people he considered his closest allies as he worked to make this region of space a better and safer place. So much had happened, his mind was exhausted, and with his ringing ears he hadn't realised the droning in his ears had come to an end. Stumbling across the uneven crash sight, he clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. The cloth torn beneath his blood bandaged hand. Every step felt as if someone was knifing his hips, but he couldn't see Keith and he needed to find Keith... That was the only clear thought he had. Keith's name. Not his face. Not his smile or ridiculous mullet. No, his mind was too out of it for that. Simply Keith's and the longing to find him. Picking his way through the debris, Lance tried screaming out for his boyfriend. Unable to hear his own voice, the hold on his shoulder was accompanied by him looping his right arm around his waist. He'd never told Keith how deeply his own fear of abandonment ran... not after he'd accidentally been abandoned by the others during a Kuron incident in the training room. Kuron had knocked him unconcious, yet when he'd woken up, he'd been the only one there. Pidge and Hunk had thought he'd been joking... but with how everything had been, their laughter cut to the bone. It was one thing to be a burden in the background, and quite another to be a burden that cost someone their life. Picking his way back to the ship, he screamed as he was attacked from behind, dragged down to the dirt then half choked with the hanging piece of cuff. He hadn't realised his cuffs had broken in the impact. The left snapping clear off the chain, leaving it hanging from the right "You ungrateful little shit. All you needed to do was play your part" Lance didn't even know he was being talked to. He didn't know it was Kre'el who had attacked him, or that the half-crazed Altean had a blaster aimed at the back of his skull. No. He was still mentally chanting "Keith", though some part of his brain was slowly beginning to wake up to the idea of informing him he might just be fucked. With super human strength, Kre'el released the chain, grabbing him by the hair and tearing him up off the ground, so his feet kicked weakly into the air as they failed to find purchase. Babbling and begging formed on his lips, again deaf to the world as he spoke, begging for Klearo to release him. Or trying to beg. Like the rest of him, his mouth and tongue didn't know what to do. Setting him on his feet, Kre'el controlled his movement with her hand, pushing him along, blaster aimed between her pointer finger and thumb. Forced back into the ship, it'd hit the ground, skidded, then stopped so it was relatively upright. By some miracle it'd avoided making a nose dive, instead ripping open its belly as it beached itself. Pipes and all kinds of wires lay exposed, hissing and arcing like angry snakes as he staggered. There was absolutely nothing left in him to fight with Kre'el. She could have killed him right there, and he probably would have welcomed it. Keith was missing. His Keith. He didn't know where his Keith was and that wasn't ok... but he didn't know what to do about it. Lance didn't remember the walk. He didn't remember how he go to where he was. He didn't remember sitting down. He didn't remember being strapped to the chair in the lab, connected to so much tech that Pidge would swoon on the spot. With his head lolled towards his chest, drool ran down his chin. Even Keith's name was beginning to leave his head. He knew he loved someone. Someone who made him feel like the most treasured person ever to exist... but he couldn't name them anymore... he wasn't sure he wanted to name them anymore. Not when sleep was so close... And then sleep wasn't. A bucket of cold water thrown over him causing him to surge up floundering. Eyes wide as he gasped at the sensations and shamelessly wet himself in fear. Struggling against the restraints, the pointy feeling in his elbow drew his attention due to it being such a contrasting pain to the rest of him. A cannula sat against dirty black skin, deep red blood running through its tube. In front of his face, a pair of fingers clicked, trying to draw his attention, but too bad for the owner of the fingers that he couldn't hear. When his focus didn't shift, he was grabbed by the chin, and made to look up and into Kre'el's eyes. She might look nothing like he remembered her, yet, her eyes... Her eyes seemed pained. More pained than they should be for a criminal master mind. More pained than they should be for someone who'd committed the sins she had. Suddenly the ship shuddered, Kre'el's attention ripped away from him. Armed with a blaster, she was moving away from him. A sob bubbled up. A sob that pled not to be left to die alone... He was so fucking cold that his body was spasming uncontrollably, his head lolling back where he didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore. He'd felt death before, and it felt a hell of a lot like this. * Hacking and coughing, Keith had been thrown back behind the console he'd been crawling from. Atop of him, Lasandi's blaster had landed. The Altean shapeshifter now dead, due to the shot Keith had gotten off. Taking it squarely in the back, Lasandi had gone down like the pile of shit he was. Keith had no way of knowing what happened during those ticks or doboshes... maybe even vargas?... he'd been out, but waking up to find the blaster against his bound hands was the first bit of luck he'd had since they wound up on the ship, so he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. The shot had been nothing short of amazing, but no one had been there to see it... and in all honesty if they examined the wound site, they would find it wasn't as great as Keith had built up in his head. Pushing his back up the wall, Keith grunted when his ankle wasn't able to support his full weight. Agony flaring up his shin, so fast he nearly fell from it. Sooo... he'd busted his leg. No wonder the blaster had landed in his lap, it was some kind of sick cosmic joke to lessen the pain that came with knowing his ankle was fucking busted to all hell. Watching as an orange pulse landed outside the ship, in the massive pile of debris at the bow, the explosion sent heat roaring into the open bridge. The window and half the ship front seemingly now missing, which was another thing he missed. Quiznak. Fuck. Someone was firing at them... literally the last thing he needed. Looking towards where he'd last seen Lance, Keith found the space barren of his boyfriend, a howl falling from lips as he started to limp run to the spot. At least in his mind he was limping as fast as he could, and not at a substantially hobbled pace. Lance had been there. He'd been right there. His stupid gorgeous Cuban, had been right there... and now he wasn't. Spinning in place, the bodies of kre'el's followers were there, whether they were or alive or not, Keith couldn't tell. None of them were Lance. Shrieking his boyfriend's name, all that answered him was a boom from outside the ship. This couldn't... he couldn't... Tears rushed to fill his eyes, spilling down his cheeks as he started limping towards where the front window had been. Lance had to have been thrown... he... he had to be here somewhere. Keith's heart was racing, the hammering echoing in his head as chest drew painfully tight. Each limp sent fresh pain flying up his leg, but he refused to give up on Lance. He refused to leave him laying outside the ship, more than likely unconscious and unable to protect himself. Reaching the rubble between covering the base of where the ship's window had been, he stumbled hard over the twisted metal dislodged from the floor. Falling forward he wasn't able to stop himself, bracing himself for the inevitable pain of his overly sensitive body hitting the ground, only... that didn't happen. A cold hand grabbing his arm and using his momentum to manoeuvre his body into sitting. Instinct told him to fight, but as he locked eyes with the grey pair filled with concern rather than hatred, a gasp fell from his lips "S-Shiro?" His throat felt constricted from the violent lump of emotion Shiro's presence caused. Dazed and unsure if it was a dream, he looked up to see most of the sky above the crash site was taken up by the Atlas. With the loss of Lance sending him into a meltdown, his brain forgot the whole shapeshifter thing until after he'd seen the Atlas, his whole body tensing as he shuffled backwards from Shiro "Are you real?" Shiro's soft smile turned to frown as he scrunched his brow "What do you mean? Where's Lance? And who's ship is this?" "Are you real?!" Shrieking at his adopted brother, Shiro backed off slightly. The hair, the scar and the arm all looked perfect... or as Shiro as they always did "Keith, whoa. Hang on. Yes, I'm real. I got your message. We wormholed here the second we got a lock on your location" "Second", not "tick". They used seconds on the Atlas... "Are you hurt?" Flinching away from Shiro as Shiro reached for him, Keith knew he'd hurt him. He didn't mean to, but between the ship showing them fucked up images and shapeshifters, there was only so much he could take. "Uh, guys. Not to ruin the mood, but we've got trouble here" Hunk's voice came through Shiro's comms, Keith jumping at the unexpected noise "I've got Keith. He needs urgent medical attention" "I'm fine!" That was fooling no one "I'm fine. We need to find Lance" "He's here?" Shiro cast a glance around them "I think he must have been thrown. We need to find him. He's in danger" "We'll find him. Veronica, Keith needs an evac. Have the pod on standby" "No! I don't need the pod, Lance does. Please. We have to find him... they were after him all along" Shiro huffed at out sigh, swapping from "big brother mode" to "commander mode" "You're in no condition to go anywhere" "And you have no idea what you're talking about. Either help me up, or get out on my way" It wasn't a great threat, or even a good threat. His hands still cuffed and he didn't have a wall behind him he could use as support. Bringing up his communicator, Shiro hit mute on his end "Keith, you need to talk to me. What happened to Lance?" "These are the people behind the people who tortured him! He worked with both of them! He thought they were his friends... He threw himself at Kre'el when she opened a wormhole. He's not think straight" Starting to cry all over again, Shiro placed both hands on Keith's shaking shoulders "If he's here, we'll find him. But for now, I need to get you off the battlefield. We picked up signs of life not that far from here, and if there are more enemy soldiers en ruite, it's not a safe location" "You don't understand" "We're going to get him" Taking himself off mute, Shiro confirmed their position with Veronica, before raising the blaster he was armed with "Acxa..." Shiro's sentence was cut off by Acxa and Zethrid appearing behind him "Keith!" Acxa both looked relieved and worried. Keith knew he how quiznakking awful he looked, but didn't know why they were there... "You two will be with me. Lance is currently missing and may have been taken by enemy combatants" "No!" Bursting out "No'", Keith realised he couldn't state why not, without breaking Lance's trust. Reaching a hand out towards Acxa, she did as he hoped and moved to take it "Keith?" "The ship. It makes you see things. It's Altean, and probably guarded against Galra" It was a logical reason, Shiro didn't buy it. Zethrid looked annoyed, and he Keith couldn't bring himself to look Acxa in the eye "I'll go with Shiro. You two secure the people up here. I don't know if they're still alive..." "You can't even walk!" He didn't need Acxa babying him right now. He needed his goddamn boyfriend to be found and he needed him is his arms "I'll be fine. I'm fine..." Grabbing Keith by the left arm, Keith nearly screamed as Acxa forced it up. The patch job Lance had done, had come undone during the crash "You've been stabbed?!" God, he hated Acxa's big mouth. Any minute sway he'd started building in Shiro's mind was gone now "Get him into a pod" "Shiro! Don't you dare!" One moment Zethrid was there, and the next he was over his shoulder "I'll never fucking forgive you! Never! Let me go!" His screams went unanswered, Zethrid striding away from Shiro and making easy work of navigating her way down to ground level where a pod was waiting to transport them back up to the Atlas. Screaming blue murder, Keith was laid out on the bed on the back, his stolen shirts cut open within ticks of his back hitting the bed. Struggling harder, a familiar ginger moustache appeared in his field of vision. Twisting and forcing himself through the pain, his hands grabbed for Coran "Coran, please. You have to listen to me. You have to find Lance. No one can see him. No one but you and Daehra. You have to help him. You have to. She knows what to do" Coran was replying as Keith felt something press against his shoulder, a moment passed, then his body seemed to grow heavy, all the while he continued to plead with Coran to find Lance. Coran would understand about Lance's medical history. He wasn't Galra. And he was someone Lance had once trusted. He was a good Altean and Lance knew that. As the voices above him whispered back and forth, pressure was placed against his stab wound while plans were made to get him onboard and into the Atlas's healing pod. *** Watching as Keith was carried to safety by Zethrid, Shiro was trying to ignore Veronica's nonstop talking. He understood where the woman was coming from, it'd been over a phoeb, since anyone had heard from Keith or Lance. The messages sent from unknown frequency had been ignored to begin with. After all, you don't leave Voltron or Command the Atlas without forming enemies. Having to deal with a furious Veronica, she'd sworn to make his life a living hell if he failed to locate her missing brother and Keith. To the outside world they were still simply good friends, only he and Curtis knowing any differently until Coran had let it slip that he'd talk to Keith. Keith's level of attachment to Lance couldn't be doubted, but there was something more to it that left Shiro uneasy. Keith had grown up before his eyes. The man he'd become one that any parent or friend could be proud of, yet when it came to Lance, Keith lost all rational thought and that was what scared him. His brother had been right before him, splattered with blood and debris, screaming for Lance instead of worrying about the numerous injuries he was sporting. There was no way Keith could have helped Lance. Not with the way he was, yet he would have kept marching right down the road to self implosion if Shiro hadn't had him forcibly removed. Taking a deep breath in, he reminded himself that "patience yields focus", permitting himself a few seconds to calm his own anxieties over Lance. He cared for him, even though they hardly talked anymore. Something that he bitterly regretted, especially being front row to one Lance's panic attacks. They'd taken such a bright and bubbly young man, and left him so deeply scarred. He'd never forgive himself, hence why he came down personally to assist in the battle. Not that Curtis was too pleased, yet his boyfriend knew better than to argue. All the fellow ex-Paladins felt like children to him. The moniker "space dad", meant more to him then he liked to let on. "Hunk, what's happening down there?" "We've managed to make a path to the side of the ship. Their numbers are dropping. Where's Keith?" "He's been taken back to the Atlas" "And Lance?" The hope in Hunk's voice hurt. It'd been hardest to tell Hunk that Lance was missing. Hunk hadn't understood at all, nor was able to understand why Lance hadn't told him anything about having a bounty on his head, or how life threatening his line of work was. Both Keith's and Lance's words rang around his mind as he tried to explain to Hunk that everything would be alright "Still unaccounted for. Keith isn't sure if he's on board, or if he was thrown during the crash" "Oh no..." Hunk went straight into internal meltdown mode "Shiro, you should get down here, the scanner's reading human blood" That was never a good thing, not Lance missing and Keith badly wounded "Heading to you" Backtracking down the slope of debris, Coran's bright orange hair cutting through the field of his people taking the group of attackers into custody. Slowing to wait for the man, Coran was spluttering as he finally reached him. Drawing a breath, he dabbed at his brow, attempting to collect himself. There was blood smeared across his hands that he hadn't seemed to notice "Is it Keith?" Clearing his throat, Coran pointed his communicator, doing something weird with his eyebrows. Coran's version of covert wasn't always... covert or conveyed what he was trying to say. Thankfully he'd pointed to his communicator. Pressing it to mute again, Coran nodded. It didn't matter how many years that had passed, Shiro wasn't sure he'd ever truly understand Coran, despite the respect he held for the man "Is Keith...?" "No, no. He's been taken aboard to the Atlas for treatment" "Then this is about Lance?" "Keith was quite agitated. Insisting about that I be there for Lance" Shiro sighed to himself. Keith needed to be worried about himself. Lance was strong, and wouldn't go down without a fight... Then again, these were the people responsible for torturing him "Coran, is there something more I should know? About Lance?" Coran hummed, looking pretty suspicious "Coran?" "No. No. It's better the boys work this out for themselves... I am quite worried for Lance. This is an Altean prison ship. I haven't seen one of those in over 10 thousand years" There was something he hadn't expected to hear. Coran never spoke of the "other side" of Altea, only the love and passion Alfor had for his people "Prison ship?" "Pop-pop Wimbledon never liked working on them... Always warned me to stay away from them. Nasty business. Best we find young Lance as soon as possible" Coran was still holding something back, but Hunk chose that particular moment to let out a cry of panic, drawing their attention to Shiro's comms. Shiro of all people knew how strong Hunk was, he was the first to decide he was heading down to help planetside, despite having chosen to drop out of action in favour of uniting the Galaxy through food "We need to get down there" Taking himself off mute, Veronica was still rambling into his ear, or rather Veronica was now filling the channel demanding from Hunk an update on her brother. The comment about blood only served to anger her more, especially since Shiro had ordered her to stay behind on the Atlas with Curtis, who just as unimpressed. Yes, there were others who could go, but when it came to Lance and Keith, things were personal. Following the glowing dot on his comms that marked Hunk's location, Shiro understood why Coran's grandfather was hesitant to work on prisoners ships. It was eerie passing pod after pod filled with prisoners, who seemed so old and brittle that opening the glass doors would kill them. Having an anxious Coran by his side didn't help matters when the man kept wringing his hands and jumping at his own shadow. There had to be hundreds of people aboard the ship... which meant hundreds of pages of paperwork. His head gave a throb, threatening him with the inevitable headache it would all lead to. Drawing closer to the dot, came the sound of battle. Blaster shots soon lighting up the corridor they were in, as Hunk yelled something garbled through the comms. Ducking to the side, Shiro looked to Coran who nodded, before shadowing the wall to the end of the hall. Turning back to tell Coran to watch his back, he found the Altean gone... Coran's ability to locationally challenge himself was only rivalled by Keith's. Great. Now he had two people to worry about. Peeking around the corner of the corridor, there was what seemed to be a purple alien firing on Hunk and his team, forcing them to take coverage behind a twisted piece of wall. Given whoever was firing at them was a conscious and sentient body, Hunk would be hesitant over pulling the trigger and hurting them. Shiro... not quite so much. Dropping to the floor, he looked through the scope of the blaster and frowning at the figure shooting. They were clearly Altean... "Shiro, what do we do?" "Take her alive. She's Altean" "If she's Altean, shouldn't she on our side?" "Coran informed this is a prison ship. She may be an escaped prisoner" "There's bad Altean's?! When did this happen?! Why did no body tell me there were bad Altean's?" "It's not the first time we've come across them" No. They'd come across them aboard the ship connecting this reality with an alternate one. Was it possible this ship was from an alternate reality? Though he couldn't rule it, neither could confirm it. Veronica's voice broke through the chain of thought "Hostiles have entered orbit, scrambling MFE pilots" "Understood" Shiro couldn't help but be slightly scared of Lance's sister. They looked so much alike, yet Veronica gave voice to things Lance never would "Shiro, man, what do we do? I don't want to just shoot her" "I'll take the shot, be ready to move in and restrain her" Hunk mumbled something about "thanking god", the man really too kind for their own good. Lining up the shot, Shiro fired, piercing the woman in her left shoulder. Clutching the wound and screaming, Hunk's team moved forward to take the stranger into custody. One down. One to go. Backtracking to where he'd last seen Coran, Shiro scanned the space. There were two corridors fairly close to the intersection, either could have been taken. Going with his gut, he turned down the corridor that ran off the side his back was too. Knowing Coran, it was possible he'd thought that was why they'd stopped... Following down the corridor, it was filled with more pods. Some occupants not so lucky as they laid at the foot of the now empty pods dead or impaled on broke glass. Moving stealthily and scoping the area as he did, he swapped his blasters scope to search for heat signatures, the only way he could think to locate Coran. He knew from personal experience how cold a long stint in a pod tended to leave a person. Picking up several fires, he found a human blob shaped figure another three corridors down. For a man well over ten thousand, he had to give it to Coran. The man could certainly move when it came to getting himself lost. Picking up his pace, he relied on his blasters scope to search for threats as he jogged through the twisted ship. Making it to the room the heat signature was coming from, the door was already wide open. Kneeling on the floor was Coran, Lance cradled in his arms as he held him close. If Keith had been bad... Lance was... "Veronica, we have Lance. He needs urgent medical attention" "Keith was just placed into our pod" One would have thought they would have added to the number of pods on board, but running very different missions than they had on Voltron, and running a ship with a full staff, they simply hadn't needed to expand. The most they dealt with were the very few wounds taken from foreign fire, and the occasional broke bone. Standing there, it seemed to him that Lance had broken every bone. His body far too limp, and the glow in his cheeks were barely there. Pulling himself together, Shiro strode over to the pair, kneeling on Lance's other side "Has he said anything?" "He asked for Keith. He passed out again straight after" Of course Lance was asking for Keith. The pair were as bad as each other "I'll take him" "No, no. I promised Keith I would" Shiro had the height and strength advantage, but Coran had the heartbreaking look in his eyes. Lance had always been like an adopted son to the man, always there to lend a hand or listen to Coran confuse himself as he spoke on and on about days long gone "Coran, I'll carry him. I know you're worried, but we need to get him urgent medical attention" Reaching for Lance's neck to reassure himself the younger man did indeed have a pulse the moment his fingers touched the soft curve, Lance jolted up in Coran's arms, screaming his head off and trying to fight against him. Though that was more like a worm wriggling than actually doing anything "Lance..." Coran interrupted him. Shiro was getting pretty fed up with being interrupted at this point "Lance, Lance. You're ok my boy. Keith sent me. Keith asked me to find you. He's ok. He's..." Keith's name calmed Lance enough for him to stop screaming and swap to babbling "He needs a pod. Keith needs a pod. He... stabbed him... he needs help... please... you have to put him in a pod... he can't die... he can't..." Hushing Lance, Coran lifted him as he stood, wobbling slightly as he did. Crying out in pain, tears rolled down the Cuban's face as he whimpered out Keith's name. As horrible as it was, Shiro could only pray that Lance would pass out again before they reached the pod that would evac him to safety.