#kwmonth

[callaeidae3]

[kwmonth]

KWmonth2019

Important update re KWmonth 2019!

This year we’ve decided not to do KWmonth as a separate event. Instead we’ll be turning this blog into a collection of reblogged Keith-centric whump fics and art created based off the prompts for Whumptober.

The decision to change the approach to KWmonth comes as both us mods are busy with college/uni and unfortunately don’t have the time or energy spare to run the event. Apologies for the late notice!

To make it easier for the fics and art to be found, please use the tag #kwmonth on your posts or else tag the blog (@kwmonth). The prompts for Whumptober can be found on the Whumptober blog here.

[felagund-fiollaigean]

sneak peek of my fic for Day 22/Krolia @kwmonth

18 Years Without You

One of the nurses came out after a few minutes to tell him the news, that his father was dead, Keith didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to feel. Because no one had thought to prepare him for this.

It doesn’t click until the social worker shows up at the hospital. And he starts asking Keith questions.

The first is, “Where's your mother?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know when she’ll be back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know how to get in touch with her?”

Keith doesn't.

“What’s her name?”

Keith doesn’t know that either. Pop had never told him. All he had said was, “She’ll be back someday, Keith, I promise. She’ll explain everything.”

But his mother isn’t here now to explain anything, and his father can’t explain either because he’s dead, and that’s when Keith realizes that he’s completely alone. He'd been cut away from everything he ever knew, the person in the world he loved the most was gone, and he never would be back. Ever.

Read the rest on AO3

[greenteafiend]

1. Naxela

This is prompt 1 for Keithtober - Whumptober. You can see all the prompts if you’d also like to participate here. :) 

“Good job, Keith.”

Good, job Keith.

Good, job Keith.

Good, job Keith.

Those three words reverberated through his skull, and stabbed his heart.

“It wasn’t me,” he replied numbly, barely feeling the words pass his lips.

It should have been him, but there he was, still alive.

He didn’t feel alive.

Even though he was entirely unhurt, it felt like his spirit had collided with that barrier and burnt away into the nothingness of space. All that was left was a shell.

He didn’t realize that he’d automatically flown to the Red Hangar of the castle until he registered Lance standing in front of his parked fighter, waving at him with both arms.  

“You looked like you were zoning out, c’mon, space cadet. They’re letting Prince Lotor into the castle,” said Lance the minute his feet hit the ground.

Lance started to walk away, clearly intending for Keith to fall into step with him, but it was as if Keith was surrounded by sticky molasses, and his body refused to move.  

“Keith?” said Lance, confusion and concern creeping into his expression.

“Keith!”

Both of them jolted in shock at the sound of a new voice. It was accompanied by the pounding footsteps of owner as they hurtled closer.

It was Matt.

“Keith,” Matt repeated, eyes wild with worry. He slowed his pace as he neared them, panting with exertion and pushing his sweaty hair out of his face impatiently.

“You tried to--” Matt cut himself off, frowning deeply.

“Keith tried to what-?” asked Lance, eyes round with confusion.

Matt ignored Lance in favor of setting a hand on Keith’s shoulder.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

His gaze was just like Pidge’s. Sharp, like he could see right through him.

Keith found himself shaking his head.

Matt and Lance blurred before him and the weight of what he’d nearly done finally hit him.

“N-no,” he whispered.  

[happy-birthday-keith]

A combo of day 5, Kerberos, and day 6, Fire, from the K-W Prompt list.

[art-by-berry]

Day 4: Bonds

Keith doesn’t want Shiro to comfort him but actually he really wants Shiro to comfort him.

Originally inspired by @kwmonth‘s “Naxella” prompt, but then it became some AU where Shiro and Keith wear cute, autumn clothes.

Also, as a side note, I really love Keith and Shiro’s bond, so that’s why I decided to feature them. I think there’s such a nice emotional closeness between the two, so I really enjoyed making this :)

Another side note: I’ve changed my username to art-by-berry to match my Instagram name (art.by.berry), so I’ll sign art using this name from now on :D

[purringkeith]

My work of the K-W event, for @kwmonth!

Prompt #1: Naxzela.

[sunflower-le-tournesol]

Chapters: 1/31 Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron) Characters: Keith, Texas Kogane Additional Tags: more tags to come, kwmonth, Keith!whump, kangst, keith!angst, Naxzela Summary:

Drabbles, snippets, and oneshots in response to koganewest and callaedae3’s Keithtober/Whumptober challenge.

[callaeidae3]

Wake up...!

[justheretobreakthings]

Whumptober Day 2: Explosion

Because I’m the only Keith Angst writer out there who hasn’t tackled Naxzela yet and that needs to be remedied.

@whumptober2019 @kwmonth

Sound moved differently in outer space.

Keith had known that long before he’d ever gone to space in the Blue Lion. It had all been explained in detail in his astrophysics class in the first semester at the Garrison. Space was a vacuum, there were no molecules to vibrate, so it couldn’t make sound.

Battles were still plenty loud, though. There were always voices on the comms shouting directions and information from one ship to another, and every time something hit his own Lion, he could hear it perfectly, because the space inside the ship was not a vacuum. And often, they were involved in battles where he could hear the sounds of battle, of gunshots and lasers and crashes and cannons and explosions, because they weren’t far enough out from whatever planet was being attacked to have truly entered the void of space. The sound moved through the atmosphere.

Naxzela didn’t have an atmosphere.

When Keith sped his cruiser toward Naxzela, it was quiet. He had turned off the comms, turned off the sound of Matt’s voice seconds after he had come to the realization of what Keith was about to do, turned off any opportunity for one of the others to try to talk him out of it or scream at him or make any sort of noise that might make him hesitate, because he couldn’t afford to hesitate, not now.

He also turned off his chance of getting to say any decent final words, but in the grand scheme of things, that was unimportant.

It was quiet when he closed his eyes and shot toward the center of Naxzela.

And it was quiet when Naxzela exploded without him.

The sound didn’t hit his ship, but the blast still sent out a wave that he could feel, throwing him back against his seat and making him lurch as he held tight, his hands white-knuckled against the yoke, a sudden change in the pressure around the little cruiser like the front was going to collapse in on himself.

It was quiet as he veered away.

In the quiet, the full force of just what the hell had almost happened hit him with a vengeance.

He shook in his seat, a ringing in his ears from the aftermath of the explosion and a screaming in his head as it started to really dawn on him how close he had just come to dying, how close he had been to killing himself, to going up in flame without a trace remaining of him, without ever having said goodbye. How long would it have taken them to notice that he had disappeared? In the millisecond between hitting the shield and dying, how much pain would he have been in? Would he ever have been able to know if it had worked?

The cockpit of the cruiser felt like ice, which was ridiculous, because surely the explosion so close to him would be heating his ship up if nothing else. But he was cold, frozen in place, shivering.

Alive, but it didn’t feel like it.

He needed sound. He needed noise to drown out the flood of questions in his head and the self-reprimanding and the pressure in his ears and the screaming.

He turned his comm back on.

The noise was an instant relief, the voices, the metallic clanks and beeps coming from the interiors of the others’ ships. He made out Shiro’s voice, distinct among the jumble of sounds, addressing him in particular.

“Good work, Keith.”

[kwmonth]

Prompt: "I'm fine."

[felagund-fiollaigean]

KW Month 2K18 - Naxzela

This is my submission for day one of Keith whump month: The Battle of Naxzela. This fic is unedited, I started it at one in the morning when I should have been sleeping and finished it during my bio lecture this morning ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Not shippy. Story under the cut!

Keith is shaking all over and he wants it to stop. There’s something rattling around inside of his gut like it’s trying to escape, and his legs feel as weak as a newborn kitten’s. His fingers tremble so hard it takes him several tries to unmask. It’s getting hard to breathe, he chest feels constricted, and every breath fragile and wrong. His stomach is churning. 

Keith isn’t unfamiliar with the sickening rush of adrenaline. He’d been in enough scary situations to know how badly the post-battle hormones flooding his bloodstream could fuck with his body, his emotions, everything really. He knew he would be fine, but it hadn’t felt this strong, this crippling in years. He had almost died about a million times before, what was wrong with him?

Well, he’d never almost died like this before.

Oh god, what had he done?

“Keith!”

 Keith jumps so hard his feet must have cleared the ground. The sudden shout so close behind him makes his heart rate skyrocket and fresh sweat break out on his palms, and the tentative control he has on his body begins to slip.

“Sorry,” Matt says, “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

 “It’s okay,” Keith replies, trying to keep his voice steady.

“Okay, look. We need to talk.”

Dread creeps over Keith’s bones like early frost. “About what?”

“About that fucking Kamikaze stunt you pulled back there!” Matt is yelling now. “What the hell was that about, huh?” 

Keith frantically whips his head around, looking for eavesdroppers. He doesn’t see anyone; the hallway they were in was abandoned. Still. “Keep your voice down,” he begs.

“Fine,” Matt whispers. “But answer the question. What did you think you were doing?”

“We needed to get that shield down. If we hadn’t stopped it -”

“Yeah? And what kind of damage do you think your pod would have done? What were the chances if that even making a scratch in that shield?”

Keith stops to think about it, surprised to find he doesn’t actually know. He runs some quick guesswork. “About..  1 in 5?”

Matt scoffs. 1 in 5. You were about to sacrifice your life on the 1 in 5 chance that you would actually make a difference. Unbelievable.”

“The mission -” 

“Is more important than the individual. I’ve heard that spiel before. It’s bullshit. You would have died!”

Keith sighs helplessly; the words leave bloody gouges in his heart. You almost died. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Really? That’s it? I would have had to tell the rest of them, including my sister by the way, that their friend and teammate was dead. That you had killed yourself and I couldn’t stop it. And all I get is a fucking 'I guess so?’ Do you think I could have lived with that? You think they could have lived with that? Did you even think about what you were doing, what that would have done to us?” 

“I, I -”

“Keith.” Matt’s tone is soft, sad, almost afraid. “Do you want to die?”

“N-no,” Keith stammers. That feverish feeling is stronger than ever, worrying his insides in a vice-like grip and making his legs tremble underneath him. “I don’t -”

And suddenly he can’t speak because his chest is being ripped apart by sobs, can’t do anything but hide his face in his trembling hands and cry harder than he has in years.

 Matt steps closer, pulling Keith into a hug and letting the smaller man cling to him. 

“I’m s-sorry, Matt,” Keith cries. “I didn’t think, I d-didn’t know what to do and I -” 

“Shhhh, it’s okay. You’re okay. You made it.”

 “What’s wrong with me?” 

Matt pulled away from him to look into his face. “Nothing, Keith. Nothing at all. I promise. We love you. We need you. Alive.” 

Keith can only nod in reply. 

“And don’t let the shit you hear from Kolivan and the Blades get to your head. You are more important to us than any mission, okay?”

Those words bring a fresh wave of tears to Keith’s eyes and he can feel his bottom lip start to tremble again. 

“Oh, come here.” Matt pulls him into another hug and let’s Keith ride out the tremors and the tears, anchoring him to the present.

 “The adrenaline’s got you fucked up, huh.” 

Keith nods against Matt’s shoulder.“That’s okay. You need a minute?”

Keith nods again, and this time he pulls out of Matt’s hug to plunk himself down on the floor, scooching over to lean his back against the wall and tug his knees into him. Matt sits next to him, letting their shoulders brush together.

 They sit in silence for a few minutes, Keith hiccuping faintly, before Matt speaks again.

“Do you want to talk to the others about it?”

By “the others”, Keith knows Matt means team Voltron, and he also knows he doesn’t want to do that. He doesn’t want to see Lance’s horror-stricken expression, or Hunk’s tears, Pidge’s righteous anger, or Allura’s cold look of disappointment. He can’t look Shiro - the man he loved like family - in the eyes and tell him he had almost killed himself for a mission. 

He shakes his head. “No.”

“You know you might have to eventually, right?”

“I know.” 

“Well when you’re ready, we can do it together if you want.”

Keith leans his head onto Matt’s shoulder. “I would like that, I think.”

Matt presses a kiss to Keith’s hair and sighs. “Whenever you want. I’ll be there.”

 Keith knows they need to rondezvous with the others. They need to debrief with Voltron, Kolivan, the rebels, they need to regroup and reorganize so they can move forward. 

But not right now. The war can wait a minute longer. 

[greenteafiend]

5 - Kerberos

This is prompt 5 for Keithtober/whumptober - Kerberos. You can see all the prompts if you’d also like to participate here. :)

The banging was loud and insistent; whoever was at Adam’s door was determined to see him.

Adam turned his head to look at the time on his alarm clock. As he expected, it was late enough that the announcement would have been made already, the world knew what had happened to the Kerberos Mission… to Takashi.

Iverson had informed him personally the day before as a professional courtesy, and it had taken every shred of self control he possessed to nod stiffly, and excuse himself so he could stumble back to his quarters and fall apart in private. He’d been lost in a fog of disbelief and regret since then.

He couldn’t stop thinking about the last argument they’d had before Takashi left.

He was a fool, and he wished he could take back every harsh, unforgiving thing he’d said. He wished that the last words he’d said to Takashi had been something, anything, other than ‘don’t expect me to be here when you get back,’ but he couldn’t change it now.

It was too late.

He’d never get to say anything to Takashi ever again because Takashi was dead, frozen in the outer reaches of the solar system, where he would remain forever.  

The person at the door stopped knocking.

Good. Adam didn’t want to see anyone, whoever they were they should have known better than to approach him now. He wasn’t fit for company.

It turned out that they’d only stopped knocking because they decided they were going to yell.

“Adam! Adam!” the voice was young and broken.

Oh god. Keith.

It hadn’t even occurred to Adam to consider how Keith might take the news, the poor boy adored Takashi. He adored him so fiercely that Adam had jokingly likened Keith to a loyal stray on more than one occasion. Keith shouldn’t have had to find out what happened from the fucking news broadcast.

Adam lurched to his feet so quickly he gave himself mild vertigo as the blood rushed away from his head and down into his extremities. He shook himself, before rushing out of his room, and towards the Keith’s voice.

He pressed the button to let the door slide open, revealing Keith on the other side.

Keith looked exactly how Adam felt. Anguished.

His eyes were red, and there were tears flowing freely down his cheeks. His chest was heaving with emotion, his bottom lip looked like he’d tried to chew a hole through it, and Adam could see his fist shaking where it was raised, poised as if to continue knocking.

“They’re wrong,” Keith blurted.

Adam’s eyes closed of their own volition, and he felt the beginnings of a headache building behind his temples. He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Adam, they’re wrong. They must be. Shiro is the best pilot at the Garrison, he wouldn’t make a mistake--” Keith’s voice shook with conviction.

He was so terribly young and naive; even the best pilots could make life-ending mistakes. Adam opened his eyes.

“Keith, he was the best pilot,” he said, as gently as he was able to. Keith’s face fell, and fresh tears filled his eyes.  

“You… you believe them?” Keith whispered, incredulous the betrayed. “But-but you love him.”

His love wasn’t enough to keep Takashi here with him, safe and alive.

“I love him,” Adam echoed, he’d probably always love him. “But he’s gone.”

Keith shook his head, and his expression turned mulish.

“You’re wrong,” he spat, and then he turned on his heel and marched away, every line of his body stiff and angry.  

Adam sighed, surreptitiously wiping his own eyes with his sleeve.

Keith really was like a loyal stray.

[happy-birthday-keith]

Watch me finally post some of my own shit to this blog, only to go for the angst. Here's a very abstract bit for day 1 from the K-W prompt list, Naxela.

[art-by-berry]

Day 4: Bonds

This is a repost of part of a little comic (kinda?) I drew because my tags were broken and not showing up when I first posted this. 

Anyways, Keith doesn’t want Shiro to comfort him, but he also definitely wants Shiro to comfort him <3

Full comic/picture dialog thing is posted on my page :)

Originally inspired by KWMonth’s “Naxella” prompt, but then it became this fluffy AU where Keith and Shiro are totally in the fall spirit and wearing cute ass autumn clothes.

Side note: I’ve changed my username to art-by-berry to match my Instagram name (art.by.berry), so I’ll sign art using this name from now on :D

[purringkeith]

The second prompt for @kwmonth.

Prompt #2: Blade of Marmora.