#tw animal experimentaion

[rottmnt-residuum]

Part 12 of Arc II (Part 38 - Gore)

thats the chip omg you finally see it

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[spoiledspine]

An Explination

A scene from @k-kaituhi and mine’s ExperimentAU that I posted about last night! TW: this AU deals with experimentaion being done in a young kid and all the neglect and abuse that comes with that, so please read at your own caution if that sort of stuff can be triggering!!

Keith’s heart hammered in his ears, his stomach a knot in his throat, the familiar cold of sudden panic dipping its fingers into his veins, infecting his blood with each thump of his heart.

They knew it would come up eventually, he and dad and Shiro knew it was only going to be a matter of time before his heritage became a topic of conversation. He’d hoped, apparently in vain, that he would have been given the chance to bring it up on his own terms.

But, as with most things in Keith’s life, things had been pushed forward without his consent.

Between the Blades of Marmora making contact with them, his mother’s knife making itself known during the heat of that scuffle, and the fallout that came with everyone else’s realization that Ulaz’s blade looked far, far too similar to the one Keith kept on him at all times to ignore, that choice had been taken from him.

“You knew...the three of you knew he was part Galra and said nothing of it?” Allura’s words were hushed, her stance rigid, and Keith has to swallow the bile back down his throat when he sees anger and grief flood her expression.

“Allura, don’t you think we had a good reason for it? That there might be some perso-“

“Dad, stop, let me just...let me explain.”

Keith does not miss the look of surprise that crosses his father’s features before he turns his sights to the two Alteans, Coran’s tall figure squared off just to the right of Allura’s.

He takes a steadying breath, suddenly hyper aware of the fact that the eyes of all of his teammates /more like family now, closer to what dad and Shiro are than strangers/ are bearing into him, waiting for his next words.

“We...we didn’t say anything about me being half human because-“ another deep breath and his hands clenched into painful fists, “because on earth it meant I was treated like some sort of animal.”

Before the air in the room can become more tense, Keith barrels on, those first few words like a knife lancing a boil and suddenly Keith finds he can’t stop himself from speaking.

He starts in with the 10’x10’ plexiglass walled room that had been most of his world for twelve years. Talks of the long nights with his back curled against a wall and his face buried in his arms until the lights were turned back on and a new day started /he doesn’t mention the nights he spends biting at his hands and arms and the inside of his mouth until he bleeds, trying to feel anything other than the distant ache of despair and hopelessness/.

He speaks to the experiments, to the vials of blood taken from him weekly from the port in his chest, about the fingernails pulled directly from their beds to see how fast they could grow back, to the samples of skin and hair and baby teeth that were pulled from his mouth before they were actually ready to fall out /he tries not to think about how he had assumed, until Shiro had become his handler, that blood and pain and darkness was what everyone went through at his age/.

He only just touches on the fact that they tested his bond with his mother’s blade, trying again and again to quantify how much they were one and the same /he doesn’t let himself think about the fact that the first time he saw death, at the ripe old age of nine, it was dealt out by his own hands; the death row prisoner’s blood caking under his long nails and glinting on the blade in his hands as it dried in the hot artificial light of the testing bay/.

Shaking now, he recalls how Shiro had suddenly shown up in his life one day and how, after months and months of planning and bonding and learning how to trust, they’d left that terrible place on the back of a hoverbike and drove until the dark sky had turned a bright, bright yellow and the sun burnt the back of Shiro’s neck into a terrible red /he has never mentioned to anyone how important that memory is to him; that it was the first time he had ever felt wind roar in his ears or the sun kiss his skin and how he will never forget it as long as he lives/.

He tells them these things, his arms crossing over his chest at some point, his eyes turning downcast as he finishes.

“We...we didn’t mention it to you because we weren’t sure if I would be safe here. You have to understand Allura I...I can’t go back to living like that. I won’t go back to being seen as a thing. Please, please understand why we had to wait and see if it was safe here. Please don’t be mad.”

It was as those words died in the air that Keith expected tension to fill up that space, to press in on all sides and swallow him whole.

But it doesn’t.

Instead he stiffens at the sound of soft footfalls and suddenly finds thin arms wrapped around his middle, the hard frames of glasses digging into his side.

Before he can react, before he can ask Pidge why she’s hugging him, there’s a second pair of arms, longer, not quite as thin as the first, wrapping around his shoulders, Lance’s face burying itself into the side of his head.

A beat, a second, and Hunk has all of them gathered to him, strong arms holding them firmly to his chest that suddenly feels bigger and kinder than Keith has ever thought could be possible for a single person.

Normally, Keith knows he would be overwhelmed by something like this, would feel closed in on by the pressure and heat and the limbs that aren’t his own.

But his body is still shaking, his thoughts and nerves still frayed by suddenly having to bare so much about a past he hadn’t deserved to live through and where he is suddenly feels like the safest place he could be.

Still downcast, his eyes close tightly as his fingers dig painfully into the meat of his biceps and a shudder runs through him as tears gather in his eyelashes against his will.

One of the first things Shiro and Tex had taught him about social interactions was the ins and outs of a “please” and a “thank you”.

“Please” for when asking for something. For when you wanted someone to listen to your words.

“Thank you” for when someone had done something for you. For when a kindness had been gifted.

He wants to say it, wants to express how much this quiet acceptance from the others meant to him, that want bubbling from somewhere raw and old and tired deep in his chest.

But he can’t.

Instead all that comes out is a quiet sob he hadn’t known was there to be dislodged from behind his ribs.

The arms around him tighten slightly as his family holds him closer as another sob wracked his body.

He thinks, even without saying it, that they know how thankful he is anyways

[rottmnt-residuum]

Part 12 of Arc II (Part 38 - Censored)

thats the chip omg you finally see it

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