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actress4him · 4 years ago

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Whumptober 2020 - Day 31

This is it! The very last post of Whumptober, and the long-awaited sequel to Day 8! If you're brand new to this whump party and haven't read it yet, you'll want to go back and do so before diving into this monstrosity. And when I say monstrosity I mean, it's looooooong. I wanted to do it justice and give you guys the ending you deserve, which...I'm hoping I pulled off. I'm not used to posting stuff so soon after writing it, without re-reading and editing over a period of time! Anyway, it wasn't one that I could easily just say, oh and they rescued him and put him in a pod and they lived happily ever after, because there was a whole bunch of emotional stuff everyone had to deal with, too. Thus the length, and the postponing of this post so I could actually finish it.

That said, this is actually more angst than it is whump, but hopefully there's enough whump to satisfy and hopefully it's a satisfying way to end the month. Enjoy!

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Day 31 (No. 29 and Alt. 7) - Reluctant Bedrest/Found Family

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: fantastic racism, self-hatred, death mention, blood, referenced animal attack, fever, infection, hallucinations, needles, panic attacks, suicide ideation

It had been nearly a week since they abandoned Keith. Discarded him, like garbage. Dropped him off on some deserted planet like some people back on Earth used to drop off animals that they didn’t want to have to take care of.

Shiro had always hated those people. Now he was one of them.

Except worse, because this wasn’t a puppy they had dumped on the side of the road, this was a hu-...okay, well only partly a human being, but a person, nonetheless. The person that he had seen as the little brother he never had for the past several years that he had known him. The person that he had sworn, even if only internally, to look after, always.

And sure, it wasn’t like it was his idea, but he had still let it happen. Yeah, if he had tried to fight it, Allura probably would have locked him in his room and done it without him. But he should have fought anyway. He should have let them drag him away like they had Keith that day they found out he was part Galra. Maybe they would have thrown him in a cell, too. Maybe then he’d actually be able to look at himself in the mirror now.

They wouldn’t have, though. He was human. He was trustworthy.

So trustworthy that he had turned his back on his brother, all for the sake of Voltron and the universe.

That was the lie he had been telling himself, the one thing that had kept him from jumping in his Lion and going after Keith for days. The universe needed Voltron. Therefore, the universe needed him. He was the leader of Voltron, he couldn’t just abandon the rest of the team and disobey the Princess’ orders for the sake of one man. Being a defender of the universe meant having to make sacrifices and hard choices.

And maybe all of that was actually true, but it was only half the story. Keith needed him. As the leader of Voltron, he should be setting an example for the rest of the team to follow, and should be able to make decisions for the good of every team member without being threatened and overruled by the Princess. Being a decent person who could live with his own choices meant not going against his own promises and ideals.

He knew all of that. But both sides seemed true, and which side seemed more important changed by the second.

To top it all off, the team had practically fallen apart since leaving Borulmyte. Not only were they down a Paladin, unable to form Voltron, but hardly anyone was speaking to each other unless forced. Allura was sulking because her father’s Lion wouldn’t accept her. Hunk, who had never seemed all that happy with the idea of kicking Keith out, seemed depressed. Pidge had pretty much locked herself in her room, he assumed furiously searching for any sign of her family. Lance was, as always, hard to get a read on, but he was noticeably quiet and stoic whenever he happened to appear. Coran had barely spoken a word the whole week.

And Shiro? He couldn’t stand to be around any of them. They were the ones who had done this to Keith. Sure, a couple had made weak arguments on his behalf at the beginning, but in the end they had all caved to Allura’s wishes and turned on him. He blamed them just as much as he blamed himself for sitting here in the comfort of the Castle while Keith...who even knew? At the very least he was alone and probably scared, even though he’d never admit that. At the worst, he could be struggling to survive, dying at that very moment, and none of them would ever know.

Whichever it was, he didn’t deserve it.

Coran had called a meeting on the bridge for something he said was urgent. It was probably another distress call, though the last one - the only mission they had attempted that week - had gone so terribly that Shiro wasn’t sure if they should even bother trying again. Running a smooth, successful mission is awfully difficult when no one wants to speak to each other, much less work in sync.

Usually he was the first one to arrive for meetings like this. Well, except for maybe Keith, but that wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on right then. This time, when he finally dragged himself to the bridge, the others were all already there, though none of them looked happy about it. Unlike in the past, when he always tried to keep up everyone’s morale by being focused and enthusiastic himself, no matter how he actually felt, now he didn’t bother. Crossing his arms, he let his face rest in exactly the scowl he was feeling.

“What is this about, Coran?”

“Yes, I would like to know as well.” Allura’s brow was furrowed, clearly not happy at being left out of the loop.

The orange-haired adviser wrung his hands, staring down at the floor. “Well, it’s...this is difficult to say. But…” Drawing in a deep breath that puffed out his chest, he finally looked up, catching each of their gazes. “I’ve been keeping something from you. It’s about Number F-...Keith. It’s about Keith.”

Keith’s name had practically become forbidden, so of course it automatically caught everyone’s attention. Shiro unfolded his arms and stepped forward. “What about Keith?” he demanded.

Coran’s eyes darted back to the floor. “He gave us messages to pass on to each of you. Before we left Borulmyte.”

“Coran!” Allura hissed.

“No, Princess.” The response took everyone in the room by surprise, including Allura if the expression on her face was any indication. None of them had ever heard Coran speak that way to her, especially not to tell her no. He took another breath and seemed to steel himself. “You know that I have always served the royal family willingly, and that I see you like a daughter. I would follow you anywhere. However...you are still young. A great burden has been placed on your shoulders, and you have done extraordinarily well with it. But sometimes you make mistakes, and this, my dear...this has been a grave mistake.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we never should have left the boy behind. Galra or not, he has never proven himself anything but the most loyal of paladins, and yet we have punished him for a crime he did not commit.”

Shiro was torn between feeling relief that someone besides him was saying it, and anger that it hadn’t been said sooner. “Why didn’t you speak up when I was trying to convince them all of this same thing days ago?”

Coran flashed him a guilty expression. “Because I was too much of a coward. I didn’t want to speak against my Princess, even though I knew what she was doing was wrong.” Squaring his shoulders, he looked around at the other paladins again. “But regardless of what anyone else thinks or decides, I can do this. I can fulfill the boys’ last request before he was left behind.”

Something in Shiro’s gut twisted at that statement, and he could see some shuffling of feet and shifting of positions around him that pointed to the others feeling the same way. No one liked to be reminded of what they had done.

“Fine,” Allura finally spat. “Do what you must to clear your conscience.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the console with a huff.

“First to Number Two...Hunk.” Coran gave the Yellow Paladin a gentle smile. “He wanted you to know that he would miss your cooking, especially the brownies you made for him.”

That was all it took for Hunk to start crying, though he said nothing in reply.

“Lance, he said to tell you that he never hated you, that you annoyed him sometimes but were a good friend, too.”

If Shiro hadn’t been intently watching, he might have missed the way Lance’s eyes widened before he ducked his head and scuffed his sneaker into the floor.

“Pidge, your message was that he really, really hopes you find your family. And that he kept meaning to tell you he thinks you’re doing great with your bayard.”

Her eyebrows pulled in tight at the first part, but at the second she blinked as if surprised and looked away.

“And besides his message to the Red Lion that he would miss her, and to us, thanking us for the opportunity to fly her…” He turned to stare at Allura for that, and she couldn’t hold his gaze, either… “That leaves you, Shiro.”

The other messages had already left him ripped open, so he wasn’t really sure how he was supposed to handle one meant just for him.

Coran lips pursed into a sad smile. “‘Just tell him I love him.’”

He felt as if all the walls came crashing down on him all at once. He loved him. Of course he did, he knew he did, they had always treated each other like brothers. But he had never said it. And now he had, and it was after Shiro had allowed him to be kicked out of the place they had all come to see as a home.

Spinning on his heel, he marched toward the door without a word.

“Shiro, wait, where are you going?”

If it had been any of the others, he might have just ignored them. But it was Hunk, so he at least threw the answer over his shoulder. “I’m going to get Keith.”

“Shiro -!”

“No!” This time he whirled around, sending all of his fury in a glare toward Allura. “I’m done letting you tell me how I should treat my little brother! I am going to get Keith, not the Galra, but our friend, the Red Paladin, the strongest and bravest and most loyal person I know, and no one is going to stop me! If you don’t want us back here, fine. I don’t care. Find yourself new Red and Black Paladins. But I won’t leave him down there a second longer.”

It was unclear whether Allura even knew what to say to that, but before she had the chance Hunk piped up again. “I’m coming with you! Erm, if...that’s okay.”

Shiro spared him a small smile. “Of course it is.”

No one said anything as they left the room. Hunk jogged a little to catch up to Shiro’s long, quick strides before matching his pace.

“I was a coward, too, like Coran said. Which, you know, isn’t really anything new, just...me being a coward isn’t usually at the expense of one of my friends. I was scared, to start with. Of him being, you know. Galra. But that’s stupid, really. Galra Keith is still Keith.”

“Yeah. He is.” He just hoped he was still Keith, still whole and well and not irrevocably changed, when they got to him. “I was just as much of a coward as anyone else, or more. I let the duty I felt to Voltron and the universe get in the way of the way I actually wanted to act. I should have gone after him right away.”

Hunk hummed in understanding. “Well, at least you actually stood up for him.”

They stopped off in their rooms to change into armor, then headed for Black and Yellow’s hangars. The long way, since they didn’t want to risk going back to the bridge and running into everyone else. Shiro had debated whether or not he should take Black, or just a pod, but decided that even if Allura wouldn’t let them stay, returning Black would give everyone a good chance to see Keith again and really make sure they wouldn’t change their minds.

“Since we don’t have a wormhole, it’s gonna take us a while to get there,” he told Hunk over the comms once they were situated in their Lions and starting to take off.

“I don’t mind. Just...how are we gonna find him once we’re there? I mean, he could have traveled a ways from where we...you know, left him.”

“I can track his quintessence.” The new voice took him by surprise, but not nearly as much as spinning around to find Green and Blue hovering over the Castle. “But I’ll have to be pretty close to him first. So we’ll still have to fly around for a while to try to catch a signal, then we’ll be able to narrow it down to a smaller area.”

Shiro was too shocked by their appearance to come up with a reasonable response, so he just ended up echoing, “We?”

Lance’s solemn face popped up on a video screen in front of him, followed by another with Pidge’s. “Yeah, we,” he said, mouth set in a firm line. “We’ve been stupid, and we wanna fix it. If...if we can.”

Clenching his jaw, Shiro sighed. “That’ll be up to Keith, I suppose. What kind of shape he’s in, and...whether he’ll forgive us.”

“We don’t really deserve it,” Pidge mumbled.

“No, we don’t. But let’s go ask for it anyway.”

They talked a little as they flew. It was quiet, and a bit awkward, but it was more than they had talked all week. Lance admitted that he had been having doubts ever since they left, memories of time spent with Keith haunting his thoughts. The message had just sealed the deal.

Pidge shrugged when asked about her change of heart, and quietly conceded that she didn’t think she had ever really believed he was a bad guy. She was just hurting, and he had been the perfect target to take it out on. Her desperation to find her family had blinded her.

They were several hours into a trip that Hunk calculated would take a few days when a wormhole appeared in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere. Every Lion pulled up short, exclamations of surprise echoing across the comms.

Shiro jerked his Lion around to find the Castle looming behind them. His immediate thought was that Coran had somehow taken over and caught up with them, but Coran couldn’t make wormholes.

“...Allura?”

Her voice over the comms was more tentative than he thought he had ever heard it. “I have not yet decided to trust him. But I...I have seen how passionate all of you are about this, and I am...willing to reconsider my original stance.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was more than he had expected. He’d take it.

“Alright guys. Let’s go bring our boy home.”

The sight of the planet Borulmyte made Shiro’s stomach turn a flip. This was it. This was the place where Keith had been living for the past week. He couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for him. Allura and Pidge had done extensive research on multiple planets before deciding that this was the best one, and they had had plenty of “reassuring” things to say about it. He had always wondered, though, what they weren’t saying. Or what their research hadn’t turned up. There was no way that they could have known everything there was to know about a planet just from reading about it. “Livable conditions” didn’t mean enjoyable conditions.

“Coran and I will stay here with the Castle. Keep us updated.”

Shiro gave a nod. “Pidge, how close do you need to be to pick up Keith’s quintessence?”

“Within a few miles.”

“Alright. We’ll start at the drop off point. I’m gonna guess he would have headed east, into the forest, to find shelter.” That was the one reassurance he had about the whole situation, knowing that Keith was trained in survival skills. “We’ll head there first, and take it mile by mile.”

It took them the rest of the day. Only a fraction of that time had passed when Shiro started to run every possible horrible scenario through his mind of why they weren’t finding it, even though he knew that they probably just hadn’t hit the right spot yet.

“There!” Pidge shouted. “I’ve got it!”

Relief flooded Shiro down to his toes. “Alright. Mark this location. We’ll have to go land in the desert and fly back in the Green Lion. She’s the only one small enough to fit in that little clearing over there.

The little clearing, as it turned out, was around a creek that seemed to be clear and safe. His relief grew just a little more. If Keith had managed to end up this close to a water source, then maybe he was doing okay.

“Okay, Pidge. Lead the way.”

Hiking through the woods took almost another full day. A day in which the sun never actually rose. He hadn’t paid attention to start with, when they were still flying, because constant darkness outside had become the new norm, but now that they were on solid ground it was painfully obvious that they had yet to see light this entire time. And the temperature gauge on his helmet display was much lower than he wanted it to be. Livable? Yes. Comfortable without armor? No. He wanted to interrogate Allura and Pidge on whether they knew about this when they had chosen to send Keith to this planet, but it wasn’t the time. He had to focus on finding Keith, nothing else.

After hours and hours of walking by only the flashlights built into their helmets, during which time no one, not even Lance, dared to complain, there was finally a spike on Pidge’s quintessence tracker.

“Over here!” she shouted, taking off at a sprint through the underbrush.

The others followed, swatting branches and bushes out of their way. Any second, Shiro expected to run into Keith. Maybe sitting in whatever hideout he had found, or out hunting for food in the never-ending darkness, his eyebrows flying up in surprise when he saw them all rushing in.

Instead, when he stumbled to a halt beside Pidge, she was staring at the ground, and there was no Keith in sight.

“Pidge? What is it?”

Lifting a shaky finger, she pointed. Even before he looked, Shiro could feel his chest tightening with anxiety. And for good reason, too. The stain that was illuminated on the dirt and leaves was dried, at least a couple of days old, but it was undeniably blood. It was also concerningly large, and with the quintessence tracker crackling louder than they had heard it so far, there was no getting around the fact that it belonged to Keith.

Hunk immediately began babbling his worries, but Shiro’s heart was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to comprehend what he was actually saying. For a long moment he just stared at the bloodstain. It wasn’t until Lance stepped in closer to speak that he was broken out of his trance.

“Shiro? Do you think he’s…”

“No.” Yes. He didn’t know. It was a lot of blood. But he wouldn’t allow himself to believe that Keith was anything but okay until he saw him with his own eyes. “Pidge, is there a trail?”

She tore her eyes away to look at the screen, pacing back and forth a bit before nodding wordlessly and taking off through the bush. If her steps were a bit quicker now, no one blamed her. They just picked up their pace, too, solemn and silent other than Lance quietly updating Allura and Coran on what they had found.

Every once in a while, a small patch of dark red on a leaf or tree trunk would catch Shiro’s eye. He tried to take it as a good sign. If Keith had been able to pick himself up from whatever had happened and trek through the woods, then maybe he wasn’t too bad off. At the time. Two or more days later? It was impossible to say.

The walk from there only took a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, finally, he spotted a small cave over the top of Pidge’s head, just as the tracker grew in volume and Pidge broke into a run.

“Keith? Keith!”

He was right on her heels, barreling through the opening, terrified of what he would find. And what he did see was almost exactly what he had feared - Keith, his skin far too pale under their flashlights, lying completely still on the ground next to the cold, charred remains of a campfire. There were rough slashes in his t-shirt, through which bloody scabs could be seen, and his right leg was almost entirely wrapped in large blue leaves tied off with what looked like dried grass. It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out that the sporadic dark stains on the leaves were blood.

“Keith.” Shiro was by his side without really knowing how he got there, sliding down onto his knees next to the unmoving figure. “No, no, no, no, Keith, come on, don’t do this to me.” He carded his hand through the messy black hair. “Keith, please.”

Pale lips parted, and a groan spilled out. Shiro nearly fell over with relief. Somewhere behind him, Lance was exclaiming his own relief in Spanish, while Hunk hovered just over his shoulder. Keith’s forehead, which he now noticed was coated in a sheen of sweat, furrowed, and he turned his head slightly to face Shiro before squinting his eyes open.

“Go ‘way,” he rasped, taking all of them by surprise. “‘re not real.”

“Yeah, yeah we are, buddy.” He stroked his hair again, then yanked off his glove so he could lay his flesh hand against his cheek, trying not to wince at the heat that met his touch. A fever. Whatever that wound was on his leg, it had probably gotten infected. No wonder he didn’t think they were real. “Doesn’t this feel real?”

Keith seemed to consider this, his brain probably having to work twice as hard as usual to process anything. Finally there was what seemed to be acceptance in those glazed eyes, but instead of seeming happy or confused or surprised or any of the emotions that they might have expected, he simply let his head roll back to the side and closed his eyes. “Come to...finish me off?”

“What? Keith, no, why would you think that?” Hunk exclaimed, dropping down right next to Shiro. “We came to take you home.”

“We’ve, uh...we were really terrible to you. It was really, really wrong,” Lance joined in.

Pidge shuffled her feet awkwardly. “Yeah. We, um. We want you to come back.”

“Even Allura is willing to reconsider, but whatever she decides, we're getting you out of here.” Shiro took one of Keith’s hands in his own and squeezed. “I never should have let her dictate how you were treated to start with.”

Silence fell for a moment. Keith cut his eyes up toward Shiro, not moving his head. “Knew you weren’t real.”

Pidge gave an exasperated grunt. “Keith -”

“Don’t worry about it right now.” Sliding his glove back on, Shiro straightened and got ready to pick Keith up bridal style. “He’s burning up with an infection. We’ll have to talk to him later, once he can actually comprehend what’s going on. For now let’s just get him back to the Castle and into a pod.”

Shiro scooped Keith up gently into his arms, causing him to cry out when his leg was jostled. “I’m sorry, bud,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be okay.” He didn’t at all like how light he felt, nor how gaunt his face looked. It had only been a week, but it didn’t seem like he had eaten much in that time.

Now that they knew where they were going, the walk back to the Green Lion went by quickly. Pidge flew them back to their own Lions, with Hunk and Lance towing Black to the Castle so that Shiro could stay in Green’s cargo hold with Keith. He didn’t want to let him go, couldn’t even keep his eyes off of him. He was too afraid that if he looked away, he would be gone, would succumb to his infection or perhaps just vanish into thin air. In the better lighting of the Lion, Keith looked all the more pale and feverish, his breaths coming shallow as he mumbled unintelligible words and occasionally whimpered with pain.

“What kind of injuries are we dealing with here, Number One?”

Shiro barely remembered arriving at the Castle and exiting the Green Lion, but there he was, standing next to Coran and a stretcher. Tenderly, he settled Keith down onto the padded surface. “Not sure. Maybe an animal attack of some kind? I haven’t been able to get a look at his wounds yet. He’s got a fever for sure, though, so they’re probably infected.”

Coran’s face turned grim. “That’s unfortunate. We won’t be able to put him into cryosleep until his temperature is back to normal.”

Gritting his teeth, Shiro found Keith’s hand and held it as they walked toward the infirmary. Poor kid just couldn’t catch a break. He didn’t deserve any of this. And now it sounded like when he was back to himself, they were going to have to go back through a whole three years’ worth of self-esteem boosting...maybe even more. He let out a long sigh. It seemed like he had just finally convinced Keith that he was worth loving, that he was important, that not everyone in his life was going to abandon him.

Then he sat back and let everyone in his life abandon him.

Coran sucked in a loud breath through his teeth as he peeled back the crude leaf bandages. “Yes, this is most certainly infected. And I would say that your animal attack hypothesis is correct. These look mostly like tooth marks. Quite deep.”

It looked mostly like a mangled, bloody mess to Shiro. His stomach turned, not just from the smell of the infection, and he was glad that Hunk wasn’t there at the moment. “What do we need to do?”

“Well, I’ll need to clean these. You might want to hold him down for that part.”

Keith bucked and writhed under Shiro’s hands as Coran poured antiseptic over his leg, screaming in agony. Shiro was pretty sure his heart was permanently residing in his throat now. He whispered reassurances, hardly knowing what he was saying, well aware that Keith probably couldn’t hear or comprehend any of it.

After a thorough cleaning, Coran wrapped the leg in clean bandages and pulled a thin sheet up over his waist. Shiro sank into the bedside chair, relieved beyond words that the worst part was over. They spoke very little as they went about the rest of the work that needed to be done, Coran handing Shiro the antiseptic and a clean cloth so that he could work on the claw marks across Keith’s chest, then focusing himself on preparing an IV bag of antibiotics and nutrients. Shiro gently smoothed adhesive bandages over the cuts when he was done. When he looked up, Coran was sliding the IV into place in the back of Keith’s hand.

“That should do it for now. I’m going to get a cool, wet cloth to help bring his fever down, but he should recover just fine.”

It was only then that Shiro finally allowed himself to dissolve into tears, like he had been wanting to ever since finding Keith in that cave. Burying his face in his hands, he let the tears soak his cheeks and the sobs wrack his body, uncaring for once that someone was there to see him fall apart.

A sturdy hand landed on his back, rubbing soothing circles. “There, there, lad. I know it’s been a rough few quintants, but it’ll be alright.”

“Will it?” Shiro scrubbed at his face with his flesh hand. “You should have seen him, Coran. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to trust any of us again.”

The adviser heaved a sigh. “I don’t know, either. I’m not sure if I would be able to trust us, if the roles were reversed. But perhaps, with time, we’ll be able to prove to him that we do, indeed, care for him.”

Once Shiro had cried himself out, Coran convinced him to go change out of his armor and possibly get something to eat. He was surprised to find all three of the other paladins sprawled out on the floor just outside the infirmary, remnants of snacks scattered around them and expectant looks on their faces.

“Well? Is he...okay?” Pidge asked tentatively.

Shiro sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Physically, it seems so. He’s stable for now, at least, and Coran thinks he’ll be fine. We just have to make sure his fever doesn’t get too high.”

They all nodded slowly, seeming lost in thought. He imagined they were all thinking about the “other than physically” part that he had failed to comment on.

Hunk cleared his throat. “Is he awake?”

He shook his head. “He’s been in and out, but he’s resting pretty peacefully for now.”

“We didn’t want to, you know, be in the way,” Lance supplied. “But you can let us know when it’s okay for us to see him. Or we can take turns watching out for him.”

“Alright. I’ll let you know.” Right now he couldn’t imagine leaving his side, not for longer than he was doing right now. As he started down the hall again toward his quarters, he met another unexpected presence - Allura, lurking just around the corner from where the paladins sat, looking abnormally anxious. He stopped abruptly, not sure he was ready to see her again yet.

“I heard your update,” she stated after a moment of awkward silence. When Shiro said nothing in return, she pursed her lips. “I suppose we have some more discussions ahead of us now.”

“No. We don’t.” Allura’s eyebrows flew up in surprise, but he didn’t give her time to respond. “There’s nothing to discuss. Either you accept Keith back as the Red Paladin...and treat him just as well as the other paladins, or he and I leave. Whether or not the others stay is up to them.”

Allura’s brow furrowed, and she dropped her gaze to the floor with nothing else to say. Pushing past her, Shiro continued to his room, hurrying through changing so he could be back with Keith.

.o.0.O.0.o.

They would tell Keith later that he had been out of it for around two days before the fever broke. All he knew was that he woke up in the infirmary of the Castle with no memory of how he had gotten there, and assumed he must have been hallucinating again. He was actually a bit surprised that the wounds from that death beast hadn’t killed him yet...or maybe they had. Maybe this was some sort of purgatory or something, though the infirmary seemed like a strange choice.

It made a bit more sense when he turned his head to the right and saw Coran sitting there studying him. Seemed maybe he was going to have to face people he had failed in life before he could move on to whatever came next.

“Are you with us this time, my boy?”

Wrinkling his eyebrows at the strange question, Keith licked his dry lips with an equally dry tongue and tried to come up with something to say, but all that came out was a raspy, “What?”

Immediately Coran went into action, producing a hydration pack from somewhere nearby and holding the straw up to Keith’s lips. The cool liquid hit his throat like a slice of heaven, and he gulped greedily.

“Not too fast, now. Don’t want you making yourself sick.”

Keith nearly whined when the straw was pulled away, but he could already feel the liquid sloshing around inside of him, so it was probably for the best. Clearing his throat, he decided he could try talking again. “What am I doing here?”

“You were in pretty bad shape when the others found you. Something had torn your leg all up, and it had gotten infected. We couldn’t put you in a cryopod until your fever went down, which it seems it now has.”

His eyes darted around the cavernous white room. “So...this is real?”

The corner of Coran’s mouth tilted up. “Yes. It’s real.”

He had kinda suspected after the water. But that left one major question…“Why?”

Before Coran could respond, the door slid open, and Keith turned his head to see Shiro enter the room. The sight of his surrogate brother had him torn between happiness and a strange sense of dread, leaving him to clench the sheets in his fists and wait for some kind of reaction to come. Half of him expected it to be disgust, or anger, or maybe just an apathetic announcement of what his new punishment for existing was to be.

Instead, Shiro’s face lit up with a happy, almost hopeful expression. “Keith?”

“Wait, is Keith awake?” another voice called from the hallway behind him. Lance’s head poked through the doorway, making Keith’s stomach clench, before he turned and yelled back down the hall. “Hey guys, Keith’s awake!”

All at once the infirmary was filled with almost all the people who hated him, all crowding around his bed and staring down at him with faces he couldn’t read. They were going to hurt him. He knew they would, why else would they have brought him back here? Obviously they had changed their minds and decided they had been too lenient. What were they going to do to him? How much pain would he be in now?

He couldn’t breathe. Suddenly it felt like that beast was sitting on top of him again, crushing his chest, and he struggled to draw in air through an open mouth while tears stung his eyes. His hands shook where they were still gripping the sheets. People were talking, but it sounded as if his ears were stuffed full of cotton and he couldn’t make out any of the words.

He almost didn’t notice when the crowd above him dispersed, but it did help his breaths start to come a little easier. Only there was still Shiro, and he still didn’t know where Shiro stood on any of this. The Black Paladin sat down next to the bed and tried to grasp his hand. Keith yanked it away.

“Don’t...don’t.”

“Okay. I won’t touch you. Do you know where you are?”

Of course he knew, that was the whole problem. “Yes.”

“Okay. You’re safe now, Keith.”

Safe. Yeah, right. There was no such thing as safe, not anymore. He had thought the Castle was safe, that these people were safe, but he had been wrong. “Why?”

Shiro looked at him in mild confusion before choosing what to say. “We made a mistake, leaving you there. We -”

Keith rolled away, tucking his hands up next to his chest, cringing at the pain that still radiated through his leg. He didn’t want to hear it explained, how they wanted to punish him further. Yet at the same time, he needed to know what was coming.

“Keith…”

“Now?”

It had been a long time since Shiro had needed to interpret his one word sentences, but luckily it seemed he was still good at it. “Now you keep resting and getting better until we can put you in a pod for your leg.”

“Why?”

That one seemed to give him pause. “So...you’ll be well.”

Were they really going to prolong the torture like this? Make him get well before they did away with him? He curled up tighter. “Just...kill. Now.”

“Kill? Keith -”

“Please.”

The chair scraped across the floor, and Keith flinched. Footsteps came around the bed. He tensed, waiting for the blow. The air in front of his face stirred, and Shiro’s voice came from very close.

“Keith, can you look at me, please?” When he didn’t comply, Shiro put a hand on his fists and pulled them down so that they were face to face. “No one is going to kill you. No one is going to hurt you. You’re back on the Castle because we were wrong. They were wrong about you being untrustworthy, and I was wrong about my duty to Voltron being more important than my duty to you. I’m so, so sorry that I let them kick you out, and that I didn’t come after you sooner. You will always be more important to me than the rest of the universe. You’re my brother. I love you.”

Tears welled up in Keith’s eyes despite his reluctance to believe any of it. Tugging his hands out from under Shiro’s, he covered his face again, unable to respond.

Shiro let out a long, quiet sigh. “The others want to apologize, too, at some point. But for now you should try to get some more rest. You’re still recovering from the infection.”

He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be messed with while he was asleep. But his body decided for him that it was ready, drifting off without his permission.

.o.0.O.0.o.

Keith hadn’t really improved by the next couple of days. He slept some, he ate some, and his color and temperature seemed to be returning to normal. But he regarded everyone who came into the room with the wary stare of a cornered wild animal, and he still wasn’t speaking more than one or two words at a time, if that. Just as Shiro had feared, he had reverted back to the year that they had met, except worse.

He tried to spend as much time in the infirmary with him as he could, hoping that the company would eventually coax him into relaxing. The other paladins still hadn’t gotten their chance to talk to him. Everyone, including Shiro, was afraid their presence would trigger another panic attack. He had already nearly gone into one when Hunk had delivered his breakfast that morning, and had been extra jumpy around Coran, too.

Shiro was eating his own breakfast, trying not to focus too much on the fact that Keith’s was just sitting there untouched, when he heard a telltale sniffle. Keith was sitting up, propped on some pillows against the wall, but his head was turned away from Shiro, as was pretty common. Even so, he could see the shimmer of a tear as it streaked down his face. Setting aside his bowl, he rounded the bed and settled down on the edge, expecting the flinch that followed but still hating it.

“Talk to me, Keith.”

He didn’t expect a response at all, and especially not a long one. But Keith angrily dashed the tears away, forever hating himself for ever crying, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Why didn’t you just leave me there?”

Shiro’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“I was almost dead. It would have all been over. You should have just left me there.”

Heart aching, he scooted in closer, though Keith leaned even further back away from him. “Keith, no. We don’t want you dead. We want you here, alive and well, with us. If you died, I...I thought you were dead, when I first saw you. And it was like...it was like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I don’t know if I could survive it.”

Keith’s face, passive up until then, creased with a look of emotional pain that Shiro could hardly stand. “But why should I live? I’m...I’m Galra, Shiro. I’m one of them. But not even really Galra, just some cross-breed freak of nature. I never should have existed. Maybe that’s why my mother walked out on me, she knew I was a freak and she couldn’t stand to -”

“Stop it. Keith, stop.” He grabbed his shoulder and shook it, not caring at the moment whether it startled him. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You are not defined by who your parents or grandparents or anyone else were. You are you. You are Keith Kogane, Red Paladin of Voltron, best pilot at the Galaxy Garrison. You’re a survivor. You’re a fighter. Not because you have Galra blood, but because the universe has thrown every hard thing that it could think of at you and you’re still standing strong.”

“I’m not standing strong, don’t you see me?” Keith met his eyes finally, a tiny bit of his old spark of anger visible. “I’m pathetic. Maybe I was the Red Paladin, maybe I was a survivor and a fighter, but right now I don’t think I can be any of those things. I don’t want to fight anymore, Shiro. I’m tired of surviving. I just want…” He broke down into tears again, covering his face with his hands.

Moving over closer, Shiro wrapped his arms around his brother and pulled him in tight. “You want what?”

Keith’s shoulders shuddered beneath him. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t trust any of them. I can’t trust any of them.”

“I know.”

For a long time, they sat together like that, Keith’s face buried in Shiro’s chest while he cried out all his tears. Shiro ran his fingers through his hair, trying desperately to come with anything he could say to comfort him.

“Do you think you could listen to them, if they come and talk to you? Just one at a time, not everyone at once. I know they’re really anxious to speak to you, and I think it might do you some good, too.” Or at least he hoped.

It took him a minute to answer. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well, it doesn’t have to be now. But I’d like you to consider it.”

Keith just nodded.

.o.0.O.0.o.

He had been in bed for days. The infection was all but gone, there was no longer any danger in putting him in a pod, and doing so had been brought up a couple of times. But Shiro and Coran must have noticed how he shrank into himself every time it was mentioned, because they dropped the subject and just continued to let him stay there.

He didn’t want to go in a pod. Being forced unconscious for who knew how many hours or days was just too vulnerable, and he already felt that way far too much, anyway. After all, he was stuck in bed in the middle of a ship full of people who hated him. He was pretty confident that Shiro would try his best to protect him, and Coran might, too. The Altean had taken the time to sit down and apologize to him for his role in the whole mess, and based on the way he had been treating him Keith was fairly sure he could be trusted.

But that left four others, all who had weapons, one of whom had some kind of weird magic and was literally connected to the Castle. He didn’t feel safe, and he hated it. There hadn’t been many places in his life that he had been able to truly let down his guard and feel safe. A foster home or two, though later on he had become so jaded that even the good ones didn’t feel like they would last. The Garrison to some extent, at least as long as Shiro was there.

And the Castle. Yeah, there was always the chance of an attack, and there had been the couple of times that someone had snuck on board without them knowing. But in all of those situations he had known that there were people around who had his back, people that he could count on. It was the most at home he had felt since Shiro had left for Kerberos.

Now it was those very same people that he was afraid of, as stupid and weak as that made him. The thought was almost laughable. Him? Afraid of Lance, Hunk, and Pidge? But he couldn’t get the hatred he had seen in some of their eyes out of his head. Couldn’t forget the venom in their voices. Couldn’t erase all the times he had watched them, hallucinations or not, show up in that cave with insults on their lips and weapons in their hands, ready to make him pay for the crime of being part Galra.

He didn’t want to talk to them. But he knew that Shiro really wanted him to, and that meant he would have to do it sooner or later. Maybe if he went ahead and got it over with, they’d leave him alone more, and then when his leg was healed enough that he could actually walk it’d be easier to leave. He hadn’t figured out where he was going - definitely not back to Borulmyte - or how he’d get there, but leaving was the best option for everybody.

“Will you...stay? If I let them…”

Once again, Shiro knew exactly what he was talking about, despite the question being out of the blue. “Of course. I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

Sinking back into the pillows, Keith hugged himself. “Okay.”

Shiro smiled softly. “Okay. I’ll send them a message and let them know you’re ready.”

Hunk was the first to come in. He burst into tears pretty much as soon as he walked through the door and saw Keith, and cried so much the whole time that his many, many apologies could barely be understood. It made Keith uncomfortable, if he was honest. He had never known how to deal with tears, his own or anyone else’s. But Hunk was so obviously genuine and straightforward, and he had always had a hard time believing that there was any part of such a loving person that could have held such malice.

“I get it.” It took everything in him to force multiple words out, but he knew he had to this time. “It’s hard to...stand up. When...everyone else...disagrees. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay, it’s so not okay!” Hunk blubbered. “I don’t know if it would have done any good for me to say anything or not, but I still should have done it.”

Keith nodded. “Okay. You’re right. It wasn’t okay. But…” He took a deep breath. “I forgive you.”

The way Hunk’s face lit up was totally worth the difficulty of saying the words. “Really, man? Thank you. Like, really, thank you, you don’t know how happy that makes me. I know we’ve never been, like, the best of friends, but I’ve always really wanted to get to know you better, I mean if you’d be okay with that, it’s totally up to you, but maybe sometime when you’re feeling better we can like, hang out? Also I know you haven’t been eating much right now but I am definitely making you brownies when you feel up to eating them. Like, a ton of brownies. All the brownies I can possibly make. Hey, maybe you could help me make the brownies! Cooking is such a good way to bond, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before! What do you think, does that sound okay? Or I mean, if you really don’t want to hang out with me at all, I totally understand that, too, I just -”

“Hunk.” Keith’s lips twitched upward slightly as the breathless Yellow Paladin finally screeched to a halt. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Hunk beamed. “Great! Okay, I’m gonna like, go, and let somebody else come in here, ‘cause, yeah. Feel better, Keith!”

When the room was empty again, Shiro leaned over and squeezed his hand. “How do you feel?”

“Good.” He was surprised to find it was actually pretty true. A small burden had been lifted from his chest.

“Good. You ready for Lance or Pidge?”

Keith’s heart started beating double time again. “Lance.” Even though he had been more active in the process of his condemnation, Pidge’s response had hurt the worst.

The boy that came into the infirmary wasn’t the Lance that Keith knew. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off the floor, or his hands, or anything but Keith and Shiro, and when he spoke his voice was so soft it was barely audible.

“I don’t know why I did it.” He picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “I just get...so emotional, so caught up in the moment sometimes...I’m really just as much of a hothead as you are.”

If his demeanor and apology hadn’t caught Keith’s attention, that statement did. Lance, admitting he was as bad as Keith at something? “Thought that was because...I’m Galra.”

Lance’s face pinched. “Yeah. I said some pretty stupid things. I mean…” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe it is because you’re Galra. But still, it’s...you’re just you. And that’s okay. Maybe we don’t always get along, but I don’t really think you’re evil. I mean, I guess I kinda thought you could be. It was stupid, though. I’m an idiot, that’s what I’m getting at. There’s no real explanation, just...I’m sorry, like I said.”

Part of Keith wanted to accept that. Part of him didn’t think he could. “I...thanks. For apologizing. I think...maybe I can forgive you...soon? Maybe not yet. But, yeah. Soon.”

Lance nodded. “That’s fair. I didn’t really expect you to, like, at all, so…” He finally flicked his eyes up to meet Keith’s. “I think you and I could use to work on some things, anyway. Like, you know, not acting like we hate each other. Because I don’t. Hate you, that is. And I’m...pretty sure based on what Coran said that you don’t hate me, either.”

“No. I don’t. And yeah, that...that sounds good.”

“Okay. Good.” A brief smile flashed over his face, then he nodded again and excused himself.

“You still doing okay?”

Keith pressed his lips together. “Think so. I’m nervous, though. About Pidge.”

Shiro smiled sympathetically. “I know. Just give her a chance, ‘kay?”

Pidge shuffled into the room in a very similar fashion to Lance, eyes on the floor. She perched on the very edge of the chair that each paladin had occupied, kicking her feet back and forth since they didn’t quite touch the floor. In a low voice, she said her apology and explained that she had let her hurt over her family get the best of her, but insisted that it didn’t excuse her blaming him.

It took a moment longer than the others for him to find his words. “I remember what it was like...missing somebody. Believing that they were still out there, but not knowing for sure. I mean, it wasn’t my actual family...unless you count my mom, which...at least I knew she chose to leave. So, she’s...probably fine.” Just didn’t want him. “But Shiro is the closest thing I’ve had to family since...since my Pops. And it’s hard. I mean, I kinda went ballistic, broke into a commanding officer’s office, punched a bunch of other officers, and got kicked out of the Garrison.”

“You what?” Shiro broke in, sitting forward, then realized his interruption and sat back, waving a hand. “Never mind. Sorry. We’ll talk later.”

Pidge snickered a little, and Keith took that as encouragement to continue. “But, yeah. I know how hard it is, and I would never, never wish that on someone else.”

Her head popped up, eyes wide and wet behind her glasses. “I know you wouldn’t. I know...I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, I never should have said something like that. You...you’re right, you understand probably more than anyone else, and I…” She trailed off, ducking her head as tears spilled down her cheeks.

Once again, there was someone crying in front of him, and he didn’t know what to do. But he was pretty sure what any of the other paladins would have offered in this situation, so… “Do you, um...need a...hug?”

The next thing he knew he had an armful of Pidge, curled up on the bed next to him and leaving tears and snot all over his shirt. He patted her back awkwardly. “You’ll find them. I know you will.”

“Why are you comforting me? I’m supposed to be in here helping you to feel better, this is not how this is supposed to work!”

Keith frowned. “Um...sorry?”

Pidge glared at him, not at all intimidating with her sopping wet face. “No, don’t apologize, that’s my job, too!”

“Sorry!”

She punched him in the ribs. “You’re a good hugger. Why are you such a good hugger.”

Keith was just getting more confused the longer this conversation went on. “I...don’t know? It certainly isn’t from practice.”

Tilting her head back, she narrowed her eyes at him as if she could see into his mind. “Do you not like hugs?”

“No, I...do.”

“Then I’m gonna hug you. Every day. From now on.”

“Aw, can I get Keith hugs every day, too?”

Keith startled a little bit when he realized that Hunk and Lance had returned to the room, but forced himself to relax. This was okay. They weren’t going to hurt him. They had all been very open with him, and even though it was going to take some time, he thought he could learn to trust them again.

“I...guess?”

“Yay!” Hunk settled onto the end of the bed, and Lance took the now empty chair, folding his long legs up into it. Shiro scooted forward again to be in Keith’s line of vision.

“How are you feeling now? Think maybe you can keep surviving a little longer?”

He felt Pidge tense in his arms, and Hunk’s face froze while Lance’s went carefully blank. Keith swallowed. “Yeah. I think...maybe I’m ready for that pod now. So I can finally get out of this bed and...I don’t know, kinda figure this out all over again.”

Shiro ruffled his hair fondly. “I’m glad. We’ll all be there with you for every step, okay?”

There was one more question, though. “What about Allura?”

Shiro’s face darkened slightly. “I’ve already told her she can either treat you the same as everyone else, or we’re leaving.”

“Nah, we won’t leave,” Pidge piped up. “There’s more of us than there are of her now. We’ll just stage a mutiny.”

Keith laughed awkwardly. “Somehow I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“I don’t think so, either, because I think she’ll come around,” Lance said. “But the point is, Mullet...we’re gonna support you.”

“You’re part of the Space Family now, dude!” Hunk cheered.

“Exactly,” Shiro smiled. “And Space Family has to stick together.”

The others kept chattering quietly, someone throwing in something about “ohana” in a weird voice, which triggered a whole conversation about some movie that he didn’t care about keeping up with. Closing his eyes, Keith let his body truly relax for the first time since before going to the Blade.

And he felt safe.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks so much to everyone who joined me this month!!! This was my first ever Tumblr writing challenge, and it was a blast. You guys are what made it so much fun, with all the comments and likes and reblogs! Thank you!

If you want more Keith whump from me sometime in the future, you can follow me on here, on FFN, or follow the series "In which I whump Keith" on AO3...and if you haven't read Abyss yet (my first Keith whump fic!), you should check it out!

Happy Halloween and Happy Whumping!

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fangirlauthor · 4 years ago

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vld season 8 [SPOILERS]

Okay, so these are my thoughts on voltron season eight and a little bit on voltron in general. I’m not here to hate on canon, or the voice actors, or the writers, or hate on anyone, really; they’re just my opinions. If you haven’t seen season 8 or don’t want spoilers or don’t want to read my opinions, stop here.

I’m going to split my thoughts into sections, so here goes. Sorry this isn’t lok themed, I promise I’m still writing things for lok, but I guess I’ll be writing things for other fandoms now as well; my brain can be kind of erratic, so what I’m writing depends on what I’ve been doing recently.

Also, if you have different opinions or thoughts or anything you want to ask about my opinions on Voltron, feel free to send me an ask.

Characters

Hunk - Honestly, I thought he was pretty cool. I liked his ending mostly, and how he got to continue to do the things he loves while spreading peace and promoting cooperation between people and using his cooking to accent that. I also don’t have any particular headcanons or anything for him as of right now, but maybe in the future.

Pidge/Katie Holt - I didn’t have any problems with Pidge’s ending either, I actually kinda liked it, and headcanons... she definitely pursues a career in a STEM field, and I think she goes on to do super cool science things I wouldn’t understand.

Shiro - I didn’t hate his ending as well, I do wish they hadn’t killed Adam though, so maybe I’ll pretend he’s alive somewhere. I dunno. I’m really glad they made him happy, and let him finally find peace. I kinda have a headcanon that he’ll run a space orphanage or something that works with the Blade of Marmora humanitarian relief thing or whatever they are now. I hope he gets to take all the naps he needs.

Keith - I also liked his ending a fair amount, I think it’s cool that he’ll get to help people and I think that it’s in alignment with his character arc from what I can tell. He went from suffering to helping make sure no one else does, and that can a difficult jump to make, from what I understand.

Lance - Okay, so this is a hot topic. Honestly, I don’t agree with him being a farmer forever; I think at some point he’s going to start to heal and grow again and that he’ll start travelling the galaxy. Maybe he’ll continue to teach about Allura, but in different places and in different ways, all across the galaxy, like I said. Maybe, at some point, he’ll discover that happiness doesn’t have to be something to remember, but that it can be something to discover once again, even if it’s different then before. At some point, he’s going to continue to grow and spread light and love and maybe even find his own.

He could have definitely had more character development in the show, instead of them spending the last season focusing on changes due to romance rather than other forces (or even the effects those romantic feelings had on him after could have been handled better). That’s why, in case this wasn’t clear the first time I said it, I think that he’s going to go around the galaxy, maybe even with Keith and the Blades, to teach not only about Allura but about other heroes, about missions he’s been on and the things he’s learned from war. I don’t think he’s going to be a farmer forever, but I think that some time to rest before he gathers the courage to start growing as a person again will help him/is necessary.

Allura - Okay, I’m going to say right off the bat that I don’t think she should have died. I do like that she was designed as a strong, brave character who makes her own decisions. Yeah, I really don’t like that she died and I don’t think she should have, but she did, so yeah. I think that she was smart enough to find another solution and that her death was unnecessary, like I’ve said, but I respect that her sacrifice was on par with her character/character traits/personal values. I’ve got some other things to say in a minute, but we’ll get to that.

As a group, after the show ended - I definitely think they saw each other more than once a year, and that they all still treated each other like the family they claimed to be during battles. Bonds made in war are hard to break, and theirs is most certainly unbreakable. They’ll be a team for their lifetime, even if their jobs take them to different places for a time.

Ships

Okay, so this is also a hot topic from what I can tell. I’ve gotta say I don’t a) ship Pidge with anyone and b) I’m not here to hate on any ships unless they’re legitimately abusive or wrong in the manner of, y’know, pedophilia and such.

Allurance - I don’t hate this ship, and I don’t hate it being canon. I don’t actively ship it and I don’t think that, even if Allura had lived, they would have been endgame anyway. I do disagree with people who say that they don’t have any chemistry at all, because I think they have at least some. I definitely don’t ship it as an endgame ship, but I think they were/could’ve been great friends. I do feel like it was a little forced in the beginning, and I feel like it sends a slightly negative message about men being overly persistent after a woman says no and negates Allura’s individual strength a little bit. I do think that if it had been done slightly different, it would have seemed less like Allura was guilt-tripped or practically coerced into the relationship and could have shown that people don’t need a significant other to make them whole because people are their own, whole person; it could have shown that bonds between people make two whole people stronger, in a sense, with both people respecting that the other person is their own person and makes their own choices/has their own opinions. (As long as those opinions aren’t harmful to the other person or to other people.)

Klance - Okay, so if you couldn’t tell, I ship klance. I personally think they have a lot of chemistry, especially in some scenes, and I think that (in accordance with my Lance headcanon) that they’ll eventually start working together in humanitarian relief efforts/teaching trips and either end up together or even just be friends. I think they have a great relationship either way, and that they support each other really well; Lance being Keith’s impulse control guy and Keith being Lance’s confidence. Like I said, they definitely have great chemistry but as long as they end up working together some way and benefit each other, I’m good if they stay friends.

Shay and Hunk - Is there a ship name for this? I haven’t seen one, but I might’ve missed it. Anyway, I think their relationship is pretty sweet and I don’t ship it aggressively but I really do think they’re cute.

Shiro and Curtis - I think they’re cute as well, I’m glad Shiro’s happy and hopefully he gets lots of time to rest while still helping others. I do miss Adam and I’m sad he’s dead; I’m also cool with a ship with Shiro in a relationship with both of them or all three of them in a relationship with each other. I’m sad we didn’t get to see Curtis and Shiro interact with each other before the wedding, but again I’m trying not to be salty even though I don’t like that we never got to see a dynamic between the two.

The Ending

Okay, I’m a little confused on what happened at the end. I’m pretty sure that the lions are circling the planet, minus the blue lion which is not, but I can’t tell. It is a little bittersweet to me that they don’t still pilot the lions, but I understand that things have to come to an end for other things to take place. Still bittersweet though.

Overall

Overall, I’ve gotta say I didn’t hate it. There were a few things I would have preferred to be canon (like klance or better character development for some characters) or preferred not to be canon (Allura dying) but I came in with low expectations so it kept me fairly entertained. Like I said, not here to hate on anything just my opinions.

So that’s all I can think of right now, I might talk about my thoughts on Lotor later, maybe on lotor x allura as well, but I’m running out of time so that’s all for today. Also, sorry for the long post.

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years ago

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Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 105 prt 1

105

Lance felt as if he’d died all over again. He and Keith had spent the night under the stars after the opera, feeling like he’d died of happiness with Keith, before his boyfriend suggested they head home for the night as the first rays of morning started to creep across the sky. This was not the same kind of happy pleasant death thanks to Keith’s love. The Blades had had a successful mission, according to his boyfriend, but Lance felt too sick to care. This was the “Death warmed up” kind of death that really, really sucked balls. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, only able to reason it was a batch of bad blood, because it was definitely not the nice new slow release birth control capsule that sat in his arm. Keith had held his hand as he’d had it done, Coran springing it on the pair of them the day after the opera. Flushing the toilet, he was in the process of pushing himself off the floor when Matt came to his aid. Pulling him up on his feet, Lance nearly fainted at the change in sudden position

“You need to see Coran. It’s been a week, Lance. Keith is worried”

A whole week without Keith. After spending the night he’d spent the day with his Mami, then headed home. Keith was off desk duty, onto helping in the labs, between surveillance missions . His boyfriend could do anything he put his mind to... apart from be there with him.

“Mmm... I’m fine. Coran said there were side effects”

He was lying poorly. He wasn’t fine. Matt knew it. He’d been on his case about his scent being wrong when he’d come back home

“There’s side effects and then there’s this!”

“Just back off! Go fuck something or... something! Just get off my back!”

Starting to cry, he felt awful for what he’d said to Matt. He didn’t like his moodiness being directed so outward-sly when Matt only wanted to help

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that... I’m sorry...”

“Lance, you’re being stupid. You need to talk to Coran”

“I’ll... I... this was supposed to work...”

“And it’s not. You’re miserable. You’re barely eating and barely leaving your room”

“I’m sorry... I... I need to lay down for a bit... Can I call him once I’ve taken a nap?”

“Can I talk to him when you call him?”

Lance nodded, regretting doing so. He felt faint, but worse still was fact he threw up in his mouth as he nodded. His stomach was so fucking sore from all the vomiting he’d been doing

“Alright. Two hours. If you’re not up in two hours, I’m calling Coran”

“Okay... I’m sorry... This was supposed to work!”

Matt tried to hug him, Lance feeling sicker at the touch, forcing himself back from him. It wasn’t just with Matt. Anyone, other than Keith, made him feel physically revolted

“Coran might need to adjust the dose. It might be something as simple as that”

“I can’t think... I’m really... I need to lay down”

“Do you need me to get you anything? A bucket? You look pale as fuck, man”

“No... I need my bed... and my soil”

“That’s already on your bed, isn’t it?”

“Yeah... I’ll be okay... just give me a bit”

Lance left Matt for the safety of his bed. Blue had been by his side almost nonstop, as if she knew he really needed her and her toe beans. Crawling under the covers, he was buried under his blankets. Barely able to function, he’d been limited to messaging Keith, or falling asleep with Keith on the other end of the phone. His boyfriend was stressed over the side effects, that Lance was hoping would kindly go away before Keith’s birthday weekend. Keith’s present had finally arrived, the blade looked incredible, and well worth it’s price tag. He was super excited about giving it to Keith, knowing his boyfriend would love it.

Sleeping fitfully, Lance woke in a sweat. His clothes clinging to him as his stomach rolled and cramped. Downstairs he could hear Rieva scolding Matt, Curtis laughing at the pair of them. He must have come back from seeing Shiro in Platt. Curtis had been keeping a record of Lance’s condition, and reaction to the medication in his system. As far as they knew this was the kind of reaction to be expected initially. When his body got its shit together, they’d know more. He simply had to hang on until then.

Climbing out of bed, Lance held his stomach as he shuffled from his room. He’d promised Matt two hours, but now he was feeling even worse. The world was spinning. Everything stank like mould and dust. The light in the house was too bright... and his skin was itchy. Making it to the stairs, the room swayed heavily to the right, Lance going to the left to correct the feeling, foot missing the top stair...

“Keith, it’s Lance. Matt’s just rushed him in from Garrison. Something’s happens”

Whipping around to where Allura stood in the doorway of the lab, Keith was signing off on the trace reports from their clothes. The Blades had no use for them now that all trace had been collected. They were set for disposal, unless he wanted them, which he did. Not Lotor’s pet get up, no. These were clothes he’d worn as Lance’s pet. Letting the datapad slip through his fingers, his body started moving without thinking, until he was grabbing Allura by the shoulders

“What do you mean something happened to him? Where is he?”

“I don’t know. Coran’s rushed him through for emergency treatment. You’d been come”

Jogging through the halls, VOLTRON’s main infirmary was on the same level as the labs. What was only a few minutes walking felt somehow longer as Keith panicked hard. Lance had only just started on the contraceptive Coran designed for him, and somehow he couldn’t help but feel it was related to that. Reaching Matt, the werewolf was sitting on the floor crying. He’d never seen Matt cry like this... his alarm at the blood over Matt’s hands sent goosebumps across his skin. Whipping his head around, he found blood on the doorframe a little past Matt, feet carrying him towards it, before he was bursting into the medical room.

Laying limp on the bed, Coran and two others worked around Lance. The inside of Lance’s sweats dyed a deep red, blood smeared across his feet

“Allura, get him out of here!”

Keith flinched, pulled backwards from Lance at Coran’s command. His legs giving out in the hall, as the door between him and Lance was snapped closed. What was happening?! He could smell Lance’s blood. His stomach rolled. His lover was far sicker than he’d let on. Anger flaring, he wanted to move to Matt. To grab him by the shoulders and shake the truth out of him. He couldn’t. Allura draping herself around him, softly asking as she sniffled

“Matt, what happened?”

“I don’t know. He’s been sick for days. Throwing up nonstop. Barely eating. I... he wanted to take a nap. He promised we’d call Coran when he woke up... He... This is all my fault. I... I left him to nap... because he needed rest, and I... I heard him get up and then... then he fell down the stairs... There was so much blood. He wasn’t bleeding before. He was just feeling sick. I knew that... he... he smelt different lately... and I... I should have made him come sooner... this is my fault”

Matt started crying harder again, his hands in his hair as he curled in on himself. Keith shaking. He knew there were side effects. He knew it. Lance had been so happy, that he’d agreed. So happy that finally Coran had good news for them. He felt like he was finally going to be in control of his body, despite Keith not minding how he was already... unless there were vampires close to him.

It was a sickening long wait in the hallway. He and Allura curled up waiting with Matt, and Allura had taken Matt to clean the blood off him. There’d been so much... too fucking much. Bringing back watching Lance dive across to save them when Matt wolfed out. Finally the door opened, the three of them looking to Coran who stepped out with a weary sigh

“He’s going to be okay”

Coran was haggard, as if years had been stripped off of him, or his long life had finally caught up with him. Relief flooded through his body, as Keith used the wall to push himself up

“Can I see him?”

“He’s groggy, but awake, yes he’s stable. I’ve removed the capsule from his arm, and I have to warn you, he is extremely weak. I’ll analyse the capsule. I was sure the dosage was correct... Keith, can I speak with you for a moment?”

That didn’t sound good. Looking to Allura and Matt, they both nodded, Matt smiling through his tears

“We’ll wait here, man. Go see him, he’s been missing you”

Heading into medical room, the nurses finished up with Lance, before excusing themselves and closing the door behind them. The bed moved from the middle of the room, to jut out from the right side, Lance hooked up to too many machines. Rushing to his boyfriend side, Keith buried his face in Lance’s hair, wrapping his arm around his chest as he did

“Hey... mullet”

Slurring the words out, Lance was conscious enough to know it was him. Keith couldn’t help but hug him tighter

“You scared the fuck out of me you, dick”

Laughing weakly, Lance’s laughter broke off with a hiss of pain.

“I’m afraid he’s going to be staying with us for the next week. I have something very important to talk to you about”

Keith didn’t particularly care, as long as Lance was alright

“You said he was going to be okay”

“He is. But... I still need to monitor him closely. You see... how should I put this...”

Keith forced himself off Lance, hand sliding down to grip his boyfriend’s hand

“Just spit it out”

“I suppose I should say, I have to monitor them carefully”

What now? He didn’t get it. There was one Lance, not two... He could barely handle one Lance...

“You said you needed to monitor him...”

“Yes, well, you see...”

Lance got there first, slurring again, Keith jumping at his voice. His boyfriend really should be sleeping things off, he was a stubborn little bastard

“I’m pregnant?”

“At this stage. You and Keith are generally quite careful with the use of contraception, though that isn’t always effective. I look the liberty of running the test while the nurses made Lance comfortable”

Keith went wobbly at the knees. Air knocked out of him. Coran sadly continuing

“I can’t say how far along you are, and for today you need rest. I’ll organise an ultrasound for the first thing tomorrow morning so we can get a better view of the situation. I was stupid to accept that you’d been careful and not administer the test before implanting the capsule. For that, I cannot apologise enough”

Hold up. Just. Wait. What? He knew he sounded dumb, but... What?

“How?”

Coran sighed at him tiredly

“I know you know how sex works by now. Pulling out and use of condoms doesn’t guarantee that conception will not occur. In fact, I’d advise against the pull out method entirely, though... I expect you two need a moment to adjust to the news. For now we will keep this amongst ourselves. Lance lost a lot of blood, the pregnancy may no longer be viable. Keith, I’ll leave him in your hands. I want you to monitor him for any bleeding, or unusual behaviour. I need to run tests on the capsule and his blood, but he absolutely needs to stay in bed, no matter what he may say, or how he may act. Matt saved his life today. Had the bleed been sustained, he may have lost control of himself entirely”

Coran was talking a lot at him. The words lodging in brain without processing. They liked them. As them. Babies weren’t a thing they were ready for. That he was ready for. They didn’t even live together and they might as well be on different planets given how much they missed each other when they were apart. Coran moved to fetch over the examination stool, Keith sank heavily on to it. He literally no longer had the strength to remain standing. A baby... They’d been careful. He didn’t know how... He didn’t know what to say.

“I’ll leave you two for now. If anything happens, press the red buzzer above the bed. It’ll alert the staff. Don’t worry, my sweet boys. We’ll work this out together”

What about the fall? What about all the blood? There’d been so much blood? Keith felt numb. Someone had once said that humans only have three main emotions; happiness, anger, and sadness. Every other emotion was like a colour on the spectrum, made from those three emotions. What a load of crap. He didn’t know where his emotions apparently fell, but he did know he wasn’t any of them, and all of them at the same time.

Left alone with his boyfriend, Lance watched him. Keith holding his hand tightly as he had been when he’d first taken it in his

“Babe... dun... worry... ‘m okay”

“How is any of this okay?!”

Lance was hooked up to monitors, two IV’s running into his left arm. His face was bruised, and there was a light weight casting around his left wrist. He looked how Keith had expected him to look after he’d fought Lotor. Not fallen down a set of stairs. Fucking stupid stairs. What was Matt thinking leaving Lance like this?! He’d been so ill. Did Matt not care about Lance?! Was all of this some fucking joke? He should have brought him in sooner. Lance... was having a baby... their baby...

Wearily, Lance squeezed his hand with all the strength of a human, proving how weak he was

“I’m... sorry... I thought... It’d pass... in a few... days”

The words were taking so much effort on Lance’s part. Chest heaving as a machine beeped at them, Keith softly scolding his boyfriend

“You should have told me sooner. You never tell me”

“Got worse today... Keith... I... don’t know what to do... a... baby... I...”

Tears rolled down Lance’s tilted face. His boyfriend sniffling, he didn’t have the strength to wipe them away. Keith knew he probably shouldn’t climb up next to him, but Lance really needed him right now and needed to hold his boyfriend... despite the part of him that wanted to run until his head had cleared and the whole thing had sunk in. It felt so surreal. It wasn’t a near miss. It was the real thing. Letting go of Lance’s hand, his boyfriend whimpered softly at the loss. When he moved the blankets, Lance scrunched his eyes closed, as if he expected Keith to turn on him, or throw him out the bed.

Settling carefully beside Lance, Keith laid on his side, forehead against his boyfriend’s. He knew Lance was trying to work up the strength to apologise again, his hand coming up to cup Lance’s cheek as he rubbed at the tear mark with the pad of his thumb

“You need to rest. Then we can talk about this”

“I’m...”

“You’re exhausted”

And Keith needed to think. He’d been planning on surprising Lance dressed in the same clothes he’d worn as a pet for a laugh. Not having Lance rushed here by Matt, and having to be made to feel useless at the sight of all that blood

“Baby...”

“We’ll work it out”

“I... sorry...”

“Shhh, enough apologising. You can apologise when you’re awake enough to know you don’t need to”

Lance fell asleep next to him, Keith unable to sleep. Somehow his hand had found its way to Lance’s belly, his boyfriend whining softly in his sleep when he caught himself and went to move it. A baby was not part of their plans. Not in the middle of all this shit. He wasn’t father material. He didn’t know how that worked. He’d enjoyed having what he had with Lance. He couldn’t be like Krolia. He couldn’t leave Lance with the responsibility of raising a child alone, but he couldn’t turn his back on what was happening.

When Shiro finally arrived, his brother had brought flowers. Keith wondering if Coran hadn’t been able to keep the secret over their news. Matt had probably heard everything. What was he doing now? Telling everyone? Laughing at them for getting themselves into the situation? He couldn’t work out when it would have happened. He prided himself on his ability to take care of Lance through his heats. Carrying the flowers over, Shiro placed them at the end of Lance’s bed near his feet

“Hey, kiddo. Is he going to be okay?”

How was Keith supposed to know? Lance was male, turned breeder because of him. Surely there was bound to be all kinds of complications

“I don’t know”

“Matt told me he drove Lance here. Something about having a bad reaction?”

His brother was probing for information. Keith had the answers but not the desire to disclose them

“Something like that”

Shiro sat on the opposite side of Lance’s bed. Keith nearly slapping his hand away as his brother felt for signs of a fever

“Coran mentioned he’d be here for a few days. Did you know he was sick?”

“A little... Coran said there’d be side effects and Lance just thought it was normal...”

“Krolia’s worried. She got the call before me and left the mission ahead of time. She’s sitting in the hall, no ones allowed in without going past her”

What right did his mother have to be there?

“The flowers are actually from her. She didn’t want to upset you by coming in. She offered to pick up Miriam if Lance was up for visitors”

“Not today. Maybe tomorrow”

Tomorrow when they’d have a clear idea what was going on... hang on

“You saw Matt?”

“Yeah. He said Lance wanted to lay down, then got up again and fell down the stairs. He was burning up, crying for you”

Keith wished Shiro hadn’t told him that. He wasn’t there when Lance needed him... It felt fucking awful. No wonder Lance had made a huge fuss over his accident

“Did he say anything else?”

“Lance was bleeding, and pretty out of it... I know you’re probably angry at him, but right now no one is angrier about it all than Matt. Coran’s got Allura staying with him until Rieva can come up from her shift. Did Coran say anything else?”

More than Shiro could imagine. His brother’s hand had gone from Lance’s forehead to resting on his hair

“We won’t know more until tomorrow”

“Alright. Would you like me to stay?”

“Yeah... just... I don’t think I can leave him..”

“You don’t have to. As Lance would say, “I’ll punch anyone in the dick if they try to make you leave””

Keith snorted wetly, appreciative of Shiro’s attempt at humour

“He’s strong, right?”

“Yeah. He’s strong, and he’s going to be okay. The blood bag is a little low, I might let the staff know”

Keith hadn’t noticed. He was supposed to be monitoring Lance’s condition. How could he be a dad if he couldn’t do this one simple thing?!

“Hey, I don’t know what’s going on in your head right now, but this isn’t your fault. Not everyone has extreme reactions to things. Lance is different and he’s special. This won’t keep him down, you know that”

“I’m not so sure”

“I’ll have to be sure for all of then”

Over the night, Keith had too many visitors. Matt came with Allura. Coran popped in like clockwork, insisting he rest or eat. Keith moving off the bed to sit on the stool, falling asleep with his right hand on Lance’s belly and his left holding Lance’s hand, his cheek laying against it. Waking to fingers playing with his hair, he yawned as he blinked, back protesting the awkwardness of his sleeping position. Staring across the room, Lance was the one playing with his hair. Shiro was snoring where he sat against the wall with a blanket up to his shoulders. His brother staying as he said he would

“Babe?”

Shifting his gaze down to him, Lance’s blue eyes hurt to see. He seemed so utterly defeated. Rising from the chair, Keith climbed back into bed beside him, pulling him close. Any other time he’d be making a joke about his coordination without coffee. Yet somehow, he was more awake than he should be. That look in Lance‘s driving away his fatigue

“I’m sorry...”

“Shhh...”

“I didn’t know. I didn’t even suspect. I’ve gone and ruined everything”

“No. No, you haven’t”

“Did... did I lose it?”

How long had Lance been awake wondering that?

“Coran won’t know until he does an ultrasound”

“I’m so fucking scared. I don’t know how... we... were careful”

“I know we were... I know, babe”

“You must hate me... but I didn’t know... I didn’t”

Lance started to weep, drawing his knees up as Keith kissed his hair

“I know. I believe you”

“How could I not know?!”

“Shhh... Stress isn’t good for you...”

Keith swallowed hard, forcing out the words that felt weird in his mouth

“... or the baby”

“I don’t know how to do this”

“You think I do? Fuck. When Allura came to get me... I get how you felt now... not being there. I should have come when you first started feeling sick”

“It... wasn’t... that bad until yesterday...”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I thought it was just the side effects... then I woke up feeling wrong... I went to get Matt...”

So Lance had tried to do the right thing? He’d recognised, all be it late, that something more was going on

“Shhh... okay. I get it”

“I’m sorry...”

“You don’t need to be sorry. Coran’s going to come check on in on you. Allura and Matt visited. Shiro slept here. None of them think you did anything wrong”

“But I still made everyone worry”

“Idiot. We love you. Of course we’re going to worry”

Lance sniffled

“I’m being so selfish. I haven’t even asked if you’re okay”

Keith could lie. He could lie and comfort Lance by pretending to be strong... yet he couldn’t do that. He had to be honest with the man he loved

“I don’t know what I am... other than confused and scared”

“What do we do?”

“We wait. We see what the ultrasound says... and we figure it out”

“And what... if they’re...”

“Either way, we’ll work it out”

Lance clutched up at him, Keith relieved his lover’s strength had started to return

“I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think... I want to lose them”

Keith swallowed down the emotions choking his throat. He didn’t know if Lance meant it or not, and Lance wasn’t in the right frame of mind to question him

“Okay... okay... I’m here. I’m staying. We’ll figure this out”

“I love you... so much... I wanted this in the future... I feel so guilty for it happening now”

“You’re getting worked up again. Coran wants to you stay as calm as you can. We can’t do anything for now”

“I’m still really tired”

“You nap. I’ll be here holding you”

“You really are the best boyfriend ever...”

#once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid

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vldkeith · 4 years ago

Note

give me klance thoughts and give me them now

this is rough. anywhere here they are

- keith really likes it when lance says his last name (even when theyre fighting) bc lance actually says it right unlike most non-asian ppl he meets (he says it in one breath with the rhythm tipping downward and without emphasizing any one syllable--not “ko-GAH-neigh” but just kogane)

this develops into a bit of an obsession wherein keith will purposefully egg lance on until he says his last name, bc he generally only says it when hes frustrated

- lance likes to exaggeratedly roll his r’s when he’s teasing and playing with keith and keith will never admit it but he finds it really endearing and a little attractive that lance is able to do it (sound familiar kenzie lol)

- we all know keith sits weird and gayly. i think he would also do the same around lance. he’s constantly curling around lance in weird ways, dropping into his lap, jumping onto backs of couches where lance is sitting and getting into his space, all of that stuff. lance acts annoyed but he’s not really

- keith blushes easily. lance will do anything to draw a blush out of him

- lance was always touchy and tended to disregard personal space before, but once they start dating, it’s unlikely that he’ll ever be seen not touching keith at all--he’s always got an arm flung around him, a hand on his thigh, legs stretched on his lap. maybe he’s a little possessive

- they’d make out in their lions a lot at first bc nobody tended to bother a paladin trying to bond w their lion, so they were less likely to be disturbed

red and blue eventually formed a union and would not let them enter one lion together unless they made EXPRESSLY CLEAR that they were going to be professional

keith disregarded this rule once and nearly died during a flight test afterward when red took his every command to mean she was supposed to swoop downward

- lance and keith do face masks together one night and keith decides he absolutely hates the like, smear-on-ur-face type, so the next time he receives a hello kitty paper mask thing and it’s the scariest and cutest thing lance has ever seen

- they wear each other’s clothes a lot, but they make sure to switch back from time to time so the other’s clothes will keep smelling like them and not the other person

- keith and lance’s sister veronica have a surprising amount in common--they’re both homosexual, they both had an emo phase, and they both LOVE making fun of lance. lance is simultaneously annoyed and happy that keith and veronica get on so well, though every time keith comes back from one of their hang out sessions he’s filled with new material to tease lance about (no i never watched s7 or s8 so idc if this is accurate or not ❤️)

- keith has pale skin. lance likes seeing (his own) marks on it. keith eventually buys and learns how to use concealer, bc what is he gonna do, tell his boyfriend to stop? hell no

(shiro takes pity on keith when he buys a brand that, while cheap, does NOT cover anything and he slips a better brand into keith’s bag when they meet up one time and he can clearly see the vaguely sweat-off, smudged remains of the concealer failing spectacularly to cover the dark purple lovebites covering his neck)

- lance gets his ears pierced and keith uhhh goes a little crazy...fortunately lance knows what brand of concealer to get for best coverage from the start :^)

- lance and allura have biweekly hang out sessions where they get their nails done and have brunch, and keith tags along one time and spends two hours in a state of supreme discomfort while both allura and lance snap pictures of him and laugh and laugh

lance makes it up to him in full later

- lance...is pretty possessive. i mentioned this a bit earlier but i want to elaborate. he’s not possessive with EVERY relationship, and it’s obvs not in a bad creepy way, but there’s something about dating a guy you had a crush on for years and who is the best pilot of our generation! that makes him want to snake his arm around keith’s waist whenever they’re somewhere together and glare at ppl who try to flirt with him instead of just intercepting and laughing it off. that’s his keith! leave him alone!

keith knows this and finds it hot

- keith doesn’t compliment much, so whenever he does it’s out of the blue and unexpected and UTTERLY embarrassing, but he always delivers such sweet compliments that lance can’t help but preen even if he’s blushing hard

- lance’s mom loves keith to bits, she is smitten with him, and keith is afraid to go near her without lance’s help bc he’ll be overwhelmed with affection most likely

- they are in love. they always will be! in every universe! KLANCE!

#PHEW!#klance #voltron #asks🌟#potionrose

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godestof3worlds · 4 years ago

Text

I Won’t Leave You Behind

It was supposed to be an easy mission. Apparently, the universe loves making things very complicated because through all my time defending the universe, there was never an ‘easy mission’. We were just getting some material when Lotor, who I thought we left at the quintessence field, came out of nowhere and started to attack us.

It was only the princess and I on this mission, the others completing other tasks. The blue and black lions, other than yellow, were the biggest of the lions, meaning they could hold more items, which is exactly what we needed for the mission. Sadly, we parked them farther away from us since they wouldn’t be able to fit, and now we’re paying the price, by running through the canyons of planet Suphater .

“Keith! How much farther from the lions are we?” Allura asked as we continue to run, and dodge the lasers that Lotor were firing at us.

I looked down at the holo map on my right arm, “4.6 miles left,” I shouted as I veer to the left to dodge an incoming laser.

“You can run!” Lotor shouts, “But you won’t survive,” and then I hear his steps slow to a stop.

I look behind just as Allura did and see him take out an explosive.

“Allura look out!” I shout as Lotor throws it, the explosive aiming clearly for Allura. I throw myself at her, covering her as we roll away from the explosive itself, but when it hits the ground, the power of the explosive makes us fly into the canyon wall, I took the brunt of the impact, my back hitting the rock wall while Allura was pressed against my front.

We slumped down, falling on our sides that resulted in our twin groans of pain. I took in a deep breath, hearing something what sounded like steps coming closer to us. I opened my eyes, squinting through the light that seemed to be beaming down on us, and raised my head that felt like it was filled with led. I looked around until my eyes landed on a silhouette.

I squinted, trying to make my vision clearer, but all I saw was a purple blob that seemed to be coming closer. Purple blob. The only thing purple could have been...

Lotor.

I raise my head again, and this time, I see Lotor coming closer with a wicked smirk. I looked to my left and saw that Allura was trying to get up, but she was failing. The explosive must have taken a lot out us, because my body feels like it’s been filled with led. My head falls back to the ground.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, before I start to push up from the ground. Everything burns. Not like a fire is erupting throughout my body, but instead the burn that you feel when you work out too much and you’re about to collapse. The problem is that I can’t collapse, I can’t give up because our lives on the line. So, with all my might, I push up until I'm in a squat like position.

I summon my paladin blade, and I grab my Marmora blade and extend it to all its glory. I take a quick glance over to Allura who’s only an arm’s length away from me and see that she is laying on the ground on her stomach, but she still seems aware, and she’s staring right at me.

“ Ke’th ?” she croaks.

“Yeah Allura?” I quickly look over to Lotor before I return my gaze back to the princess.

“I th’nk there was po’son ‘n the gas,” she concludes, and I nod my head. It will make the most sense.

“yeah, but I'm pretty sure it’s affects doesn’t last too long or it’s weak, I'm already up, kind of,” I murmur the last two words to myself before I push myself onto the balls of feet and stand. I bend my knees a little, lean a little to the canyon wall, and glare at Lotor who evilly smirks at me.

“Well, the half breed paladin, the one who left his team, then comes back to become a hero,” Lotor then claps as he snickers. I just glare harder at him.

“How did you come back?” I growl out my question, making sure I watch his every move.

“ Oh you know, I was there, then I was someplace else, and now I'm here to kill you ,” Lotor then grabbed a sword from his side and turned it on, making it look like a laser sword, “If you would have stayed away, stayed with your mother and that Altean , I could have been able to stay with Allura, stayed with Voltron and still be the emperor of the Galran Empire,” the white haired man just shook his head before he looked up at me with pure hatred glaring at me, “Now, I must kill you and take back what you stolen,” and he lunged.

I pushed myself away from the canyon wall, away from Allura, and into a roll before I jumped up and got into a fighting stance. Lotor hit the spot where my head was before there was a low growl and the prince looked at me. His yellow eyes were glaring at me, his eyes glowing into a harsh orange color that seemed to have quintessence dancing from the corner of his eyes.

“You heal fast from the poison,” Lotor smirks as he turns around and gets in position again, “It must be your Galran blood,”

“What does the poison attack?” I ask as we start circling each other.

“ Altean blood mostly, but it does effect humans a little as well,” he shrugs.

“Why isn’t it effecting you?” I quirk an eyebrow at the prince. We stopped moving, just staring at each other across the six feet difference between us.

“Because I am already corrupted with the strongest substance in the universe, that poison is nothing compared to what I am filled with already,” and he lunges and starts to attack, immediately putting me on defense.

My body is still feeling a little heavy, but it does seem that the poison is leaving my body. The prince raises his sword above his head and tries to force it down where my neck is, but I put my swords in an ‘X’ shape and grunt under the force of it. I hear a grunt from Lotor, and when I look at his face, his eyes are bright orange now and more quintessence seems to be sparking from his eyes. That's when I start to feel more pressure, almost too much for my weakening body to handle.

“You are strong,” Lotor comments, “it will be fun killing you and seeing your strength leave your body slowly,” Lotor sneers as I feel more weight above me.

I can feel my arms shaking. I know I won’t be able to handle much more of this, I know I can’t unless I do something. So, I grunt a little before I find the right positioning of my feet, feeling the heat from the sword only a little way away from my head, making me think of the cloning facility...

And I spring up and throw back the stumbling prince away from me. I see my sight narrow onto the white haired Galran before I start to take the offensive. I run up to him and slash down with my paladin sword, using the momentum to allow me to spin and do a reverse jump round kick, hitting him in the head. I stand straight as I take a quick breath before I attack down as the prince still seemed a little shocked.

This time I swing with my Marmora blade, not doing it so drastic that it spins me, but enough to attempt to slice Lotor. I only grazed his hand before he stepped back. With the way my Marmora sword was positioned, I threw a little bit up before catching it with the blade almost touching my forearm, and try to stab the prince in the neck, using my paladin sword to try and make Lotor duck.

The prince did duck, but he used his sword to block the Marmora blade, and with his free hand, grabbed my wrist and twisted. I yelped at the pain, the attack surprising me that I drop the blade, making it turn back to the dagger form. I leaned a little back and side kicked him in the stomach, making him stumbling back and grasping for air.

“Well...” the prince gasped, “you’re not so bad of a fighter, I must have misjudged you a little,” he smirked before he took a deep breath and stood up straight, wiping a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth, “I guess I'm going to have to power up,” and with that statement he glowed an orange color.

I stepped back, feeling the heat from the raging prince from where I was standing. I hear a low growl before a booming laughter that echoed among the canyon walls erupted from the Halfbreed prince only a few feet away. I looked around, almost having to turn my body, to find the princess who was on her hands and knees with wide eyes. I look over to Lotor when I hear a snarl.

The heat has died down now, the orange glow that the prince had emitted is now vanished, and ahead of me I see the prince. He seems more vicious, something in his eyes that just scream ‘rabid animal’ bore into mine. He's heaving, like he just ran a marathon, but he’s smiling, like he won something, and that makes a shiver run down my spine. I sense something from him too. Almost like when I sense the druids, but this one is uglier, more menacing as it seems that the energy comes from him in wave.

“When you left me in the quintessence field, it felt like everything was burning, flames licking my skin and insides slowly, until I felt like I was in an inferno, then, there was nothing,” he sneered as he raised his sword to look at his hand, almost like he was in a trance, “I felt numb, like I was swimming in nothingness,” he shook his head as he looked up at me.

“How did you get out?” I growl, “I want an actual answer this time,”

He smirked, “Once I was numb, my thoughts wandered, and I got to connect to my machine, and then, I came out, feeling more powerful, like something inside was trying to get out,” he shrugs his shoulders as he crouched, “And now I'm here, ready to end you, and take the princess,” he launched with such speed that I almost couldn’t see him.

But I saw, and I sidestepped as I brought my sword to stop the prince for trying to cut me. He just grinned as I snarled back. He attacked, and I dodged and blocked. It was going like this for a while it felt like, until he kicked at my head and I brought my guard toward my head...

And left myself vulnerable for him to slash me. From my right shoulder, to a couple of inches above my left hip. It burned.

I staggered back as I hit my back to the canyon wall, not knowing how close I was to it to begin with while I was gasping for breath. My blood was rushing, but I heard two distinctive noises. A raspy laugh that seemed to echo, and a war cry. I looked up in time to see the princess throw her rope at the prince and throw him a good several feet from us.

She then ran up to me as I feel forward. I was able to catch myself on my hands and feet, but once she was near, I felt all my energy leave my body and I fell to the side. Luckily the princess was there and caught me, but it hurt like a bitch. I groaned in pain as I clenched both my eyes and teeth, not having the energy nor the breath to scream. The wound was burning. I was lied down on my back as my head was pillowed by the princess’ lap. I felt a hand run through my hair and her voice, but everything seemed so far away.

I fought to stay awake. I did truly try, but everything was turning into darkness. I felt pressure on my chest, but I couldn’t fight it, couldn’t get it off of me despite the pain that sparked through my whole body.

Then, all of a sudden, I felt energy run through me. I gasped, clenched my eyes shut as I took a shuddering deep breath, but it hurt and I started to cough.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have enough energy to heal your wound...” but I heard something in the background, my galra senses must have momentarily gotten better because I hear rocks being shifted from the area Lotor was at.

I turn my head away from Allura, ignoring the pain I felt throughout my body as I strained my neck to look. There, I see him standing up, and he looks pissed. I look back at Allura as she stares at me with concern in her eyes.

“Allura, you need to go, Lotor is coming back and he looks pissed,” I exclaim as I try to get up but I just feel fire burn across my torso.

She looks over to where Lotor is and her eyes widen as I feel her tighten her hold around me. There’s a flash and I turn my head to look, and I see Lotor doing that powering up thing he did early.

“Allura,” I wait until I get her attention before I continue, “You need to leave, he was more powerful when he did that the first time. He’s going to be more powerful now, and you need to leave and warn the team and Atlas,” I plead with her.

“ I won’t leave you behind ,” she tightens her hold around me as if to prove her point.

I just shake my head, mostly to say no without actually speaking, but also to try and clear my head. It was getting a little fuzzy.

“Allura he wants you-”

“And he wants to kill you,” she cuts me off, “I cannot leave you behind for him to only kill you.”

“Well, well, well,” there was clap close to us, making both of us jump at the closeness of the noise, “isn’t this just lovely. Are you trying to play the hero again paladin,” Lotor sneered.

I look above toward the voice and see Lotor only a few feet away. I feel Allura shift me off her lap, making me groan in discomfort. I try to stop her from standing, but my body just felt heavy. The princess stood as she let out her Bayard and made it extend into a staff as she got in position.

“Well princess, it seems that the poison has run it’s course, and I must now finish you before I take care of the black paladin,” I could just hear the disdain in his voice.

Allura steps in front of me, blocking me from Lotor’s vision as she raised her staff. There was silence for a split second before they attacked. They were moving fast, almost graceful like. The princess would strike down with her staff, and Lotor would slide under the attack, and try to hit her with his sword, but then she would duck out of the way and they would continue trading hits back and forth.

Then, Allura was able to hit Lotor’s hand that was holding onto the sword, resulting in Lotor letting let it go and dropping it. Allura took advantage of the prince’s surprise and brought an onslaught of attacks, but Lotor would dodge every attack she threw at him. Until, Lotor caught the staff with his left hand, and used his right hand to punch her in the face, making her lose her grip on the staff.

Lotor took the staff from her, making the weapon turn back to it’s bayard form, and threw it far from her. Allura still had a hand on her temple from where she got hit at when Lotor got into a fighting position. Allura shook her head a little, and got into position. Now Allura is an amazing fighter, but hand-to-hand is not her strongest way of fighting. Sure, she’s good, but from what I saw of Lotor fighting, he had the upperhand , and I'm not surprised. He's been alive for at least 10,000 years and it showed in his skills.

I had to get up. I had to go against every demand from body that wanted me to keep still, ignore the protest that my body gave when I sat up. By the time I was just sitting up, my back on against the canyon, I felt dizzy, out of breath, and everything burned. I growled through clenched teeth, not wanting to distract the princess from the fight if she heard me yell in pain. I took a few deep breaths before I started to stand. I leaned against the canyon wall the entire time I tried to get up. Everything just hurt, but I had to push up. When I was finally standing, I was shaking, and leaning heavily on the large rock wall.

I looked up in time to see Allura get thrown the same way she thrown him when she learned of what he did. She didn’t bounce as much, only once before she skidded across the ground, but it still looked like it hurt.

I heard Lotor’s laugh from here as it seemed to echo, “How do you like it princess,” and he charged toward her while she was still on the ground.

“Allura!” I shout out, feeling my chest expand stretch the gash across my torso, but I didn’t care because he was coming.

She looked up in time to see him kick her, first in the gut, and then the head, knocking her out. I growled, feeling the vibration throughout my body. I summoned my black Bayard, wherever it fell during our fight as it materialized in my hand. I need something that has range, knowing I won’t be able to get to where Lotor was at, let alone fight to protect her. I then saw Lotor grab something from his boot.

I squinted, trying to find out what it was until the sun, that has been setting throughout the chase and fight, glinted off of the weapon, and my eyes widen in fear.

It was a small dagger. Smaller than my own, being able to barely be concealed in his boot. I have to do something, anything. I growl as I try to summon a ranged weapon, anything. I know you can get different weapons, lance did it, and so did Allura. Now I really need a new weapon upgrade. I growl as I close my eyes and try to summon something other than a sword.

Patience yields focus. I haven't needed to say those words a long time, but I need them now. Then, I felt the Bayard transform, but I know it didn’t transform into a sword. It was heavier. I snap my eyes open and look down and found a black canon that seemed to engulf my entire arm. I look up in time to see Lotor have the dagger above his head, and I shout his name.

“Lotor!” he looks over to me, and glares at me until he catches notice of my weapon.

I don’t say anything else; I'm already breathing hard as it is, and raise the canon so it aims for the Garlan prince. I just smirk as I push a button, and a large ball of Atlean blue comes shooting out of the weapon, and hits him square in the chest, making him fly through the canyon walls, leaving a hole that fits his size like a cartoon. I breathe a sigh of relief as I slump down to the ground and let my canon disappear back to its normal form. I lean my head back and squeeze my eyes shut as I feel the adrenaline finally leave my body, and start to feel the toll my body has taken through this fight. I just clench my fist and groan in my pain.

I open my eyes, and slowly look down at my wound and grimace at it. It looks horrible. It looks like a regular sword slashed through me, then someone else part way burned the outer edges of the skin, but it didn’t help stop the blood flow. Might be the reason why I'm starting to feel a little dizzy. I squeeze my eyes close as what feels like another wave of pain engrosses me, as I feel every wound, and bruise. My back is killing me, my whole torso is burning, and my arms feel heavy. Everything just burns.

I lean back my head and try to get comfortable while we wait for help. Then my eyes snap back open as I left my head away from the wall and look over to the other body hear in this canyon.

Allura.

I try to stand. I push all my weight on my two feet and try to get up, but all that happens is that I just fall back, and aggravate my wounds, making me whine pitifully in pain. I take a deep breath, ignoring how just simply breathing hurts more than anything else. I look back over to Allura. She's still down.

I don’t know how hard she was hit, and she might have a concussion, though if she didn’t have one earlier from that bomb then she most likely will have one now. I deeply exhale, before I shout her name, hoping that she at least twitches her head so I know she isn’t dead.

“Allura!” there’s nothing to the yell that seems to echo and disturb some bird like things, “Allura!”

This time there is a groan that I have to strain to hear, but it’s there and I sigh in relief knowing that she is still alive. It doesn’t take it long before I see her lift her head. And that’s all I need to know that she’s fine, maybe a little roughed, but other than that fine. I start seeing blackness at the edges of my vision start to spread, and I don’t fight it. I slip into darkness as all my pain disappears with it.

#voltron #Voltron legendary defender #voltron defender of the universe #VLD #keith kogane #princess allura #vld lotor #hurt keith #hurt allura #mission gone wrong #voltron fanfic #voltron fandom

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moonguilt · 5 years ago

Text

molten gold

(written for a zine application, but I decided I would post it here and on ao3. it’s short but i had fun with it :) happy holidays, enjoy!)

Pairing: Keith/Lance

Wordcount: 1852

Read on my AO3 here!

--------------

“God, I’m so boooored.” Lance’s aggravated face popped up on the Black Lion’s main cockpit window, casting a faint red glow over Keith’s dashboard. Keith couldn’t exactly blame him; this so-called “space road trip” to Earth was taking much longer than they’d hoped, and inhabitable planets where they could take pit stops were few and far between.

A yellow glow appeared soon thereafter. “It feels like we’ve been flying for quintants,” Hunk groaned in agreement, his body half-way sunken into his chair. “Have we been flying for quintants? I definitely think we have. I pee approximately every five vargas, and since we left Iyethos, I think I’ve peed like...” He lifted a hand and started counting on his fingers, then sprung up in his seat, eyes wide. “Ohh, my God, I’m measuring time in intervals of pee. My sanity has reached a critical low.”

“Good Groggery, do humans really urinate so frequently?” Blue light entered the mix as Coran’s excited face materialized far too close to the screen, his body gracelessly crammed into the space between the control panel and the chair. Allura was leaning as far away as she could, her expression torn between annoyance and exhaustion.

Keith heard footsteps behind him, and a moment later Shiro’s robotic hand settled on the chair’s backrest. “Well, it depends on the—”

“Alright, no, we’re not having this conversation,” Keith interrupted immediately, already feeling the first pricks of a headache. “I know we’re all bored out of our minds, but I’m not gonna sit through you guys having some kind of pseudo-scientific discussion about the human bladder.” He dragged a gloved hand down his face. “There has got to be something better for you guys to entertain yourselves with.”

Finally, a green-tinted video feed flickered to life on his screen. “Say no more,” Pidge declared, smirking and cockily kicking her legs up onto the dashboard, only to find that she was a bit too short to maintain the position comfortably. She struggled for a moment before admitting defeat and sitting upright again. “Guess who just finished installing the latest Monsters and Mana data into our Lions’ shared network? As well as…” She adjusted her glasses. “... a dice bot?”

Lance was the first to react. “For real?!” he exclaimed, perking up in a way that Keith, at this point, could admit to himself was cute. “I mean—if you guys wanna play it, you know, I’ll tag along I guess.” He schooled his expression back into one of neutrality, pretending to examine his fingernails before realizing that he was, in fact, wearing gloves.

Pidge raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Oh, you mean you’ll lower yourself to play a nerd game with us humble nerds, huh?”

“I am feeling charitable today, Pidgey.”

Coran was leaping in too close to the screen again before anyone else could get a word out. “Well what are we waiting for? I’ve been wanting to try out my newest campaign for longer than a Yarupian Velrod’s first—”

“Hey, hang on, Coran.” Lance held his hands together in a T shape. “Keith doesn’t have a character yet.” He paused, then jolted in his seat a bit. “Or, uh, Krolia, or Romelle, or Shiro technically since, uh, you know, the last one wasn’t really his…” The faintest color started to rise to his cheeks, barely visible in the red glow of his lion’s cockpit.

Pretty, Keith’s mind informed him helpfully.

“... Anyway, plus they probably don’t even know how to play—”

“Of course I know how to play!” Romelle interjected, looking affronted as she squeezed past Coran and into the frame. “I used to play this all the time!”

“It is a highly popular Altean pastime,” Allura admitted. Only the top of her head was visible over her fellow Alteans. It seemed she had managed to squeeze far enough away in her seat to give their unpredictable limb movements a wide berth.

“And I do have my… ah… the clone’s memories,” Shiro added, his words coming out somewhat choppy and uncomfortable, “so… I know how it works. I think.”

“I will admit I am familiar with the game as well.” Keith nearly jumped out of his skin as his mother’s voice spoke over his shoulder. When did she get there? Wasn’t she sleeping? God, she was silent as the grave. “It is an excellent way during free time for Blade members to train their strategic skills and team working abilities through intricate problem-solving simulations.”

“... Yeah that sounds fun,” Lance commented in a flat tone, then waved emphatically at Keith. “Well still, Keith’s got no idea—”

Keith could hear the obnoxious grin on Shiro’s face as he inhaled. “Well, actually—”

“Shiro, no.”

“Keith’s not really as inexperienced as you might think—”

“Do not.”

“See, the thing about him and Matt and Adam is—”

Keith didn’t even allow himself a moment of pity over the slight hesitation in Shiro’s voice when mentioning Adam. He was too busy jumping up and clambering over his seat to tackle his adoptive brother. Try as he might, though, he wasn’t strong enough to get a hand over Shiro’s laughing mouth before—

“—they were total Dungeons and Dragons dorks.”

Keith let out a garbled noise, somewhere between a growl and a wail, and slumped back into his seat, letting his messy hair fall into his face. He could have sworn he heard a hum of amusement from Krolia’s direction.

He was allowed a moment of silent wallowing, and then:

“WHAT? Are you serious?!”

“Incredible! Why, Keith, if you were already fighting dragons at that age—”

“Shiro, my dude, I love and trust you, but you are definitely lying right now—”

“He’s not.”

All attention turned to Pidge, who was now fixing Keith with a knowing look that he did not like one bit.

“Pidge…” he grumbled in warning. She merely winked in his direction.

“It’s all true. Matt would come home and ramble about all the wacky quests he would send you guys on. He always took it easy on you, though, because you were a wittle baby,” she crooned, sticking out her lower lip. “Keith was like… thirteen, max, when they started. And he always played an edgy self-insert barbarian named—”

Keith’s irritation turned to absolute dread; a veritable wave of ice rushed down his spine. He didn’t even have time to protest.

“—Thunderstorm Darkness.”

You could hear a pin drop in the split second silence that followed.

“... No way,” Lance whispered, and like that, the dam broke.

Howling laughter from all around met Keith’s ears. He hunched down in his chair and shot both Pidge and Shiro absolute death glares as his teammates laughed so hard they cried. Shiro had the decency to look at least a little apologetic, but Pidge only fell into even louder hysterics.

“What?” Keith demanded hotly, his burning shame urging him to defend himself. Kosmo wandered over and began snuffling at Keith’s legs, as if sensing his distress. “I was a kid! And it’s not even that bad, you guys are overreacting—”

“THUNDERSTORM DARK—PFFFFTTT—” Lance’s laughing face was beautiful, even when he was laughing at Keith’s expense. Stupid beautiful Lance.

Keith couldn’t even find it in himself to stay mad when Lance’s bright laughter echoed around the cockpit. He was really starting to regret this whole “falling in love” thing. It definitely gave Lance way too much power over him.

Ah, did he say love? He meant crush. Stupid little crush. Keith was just very gay, and Lance was just very handsome. And nice. And smart. And funny. And heroic. And—

“Alright, everybody, that’s enough,” Shiro’s voice cut through his spiralling thoughts. “Why don’t we give everyone a minute to figure out their characters’ attributes and statistics? I’d like to make a new one too, personally.”

Everyone calmed down a bit after that; it was valid for Shiro to want to create a new character, after all. It was his own way of moving forward, in a sense. Starting fresh.

The team rambled about their past Monsters and Mana adventures while Keith, Shiro, Krolia, and Romelle listened quietly and designed their characters. Krolia’s choice of a basic fighter class was no surprise; neither was Romelle’s choice of druid, given her love of cute little animals.

When Shiro was finished, he cleared his throat and announced with great gusto:

“My character will be named Kiro. I want him to be a paladin.”

Hunk let out a defeated sigh, but everyone smartly kept their mouths shut.

Lance leaned forward then, his pretty blue eyes on full display. It took a moment for Keith to realize that his lips were moving too. Huh, that’s nice. Keith liked it when Lance’s lips moved. Oh, but they were frowning now. Wait, why were they frowning?

“Uh—what?” Keith stammered belatedly, willing his face to remain neutral. “I… zoned out.” He could feel his ears burning and quickly adjusted his hair to cover them.

Lance rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Dude, you were looking right at me while I was speaking to you, I don’t know how you managed to ‘zone out.’ Unless...” Something else must have occurred to him then, because his brows furrowed, and concern washed over his expression.

Oh no. No no no—

“Are you alright, man? You been getting enough sleep?” Lance’s gaze swept over Keith’s body, which nearly shivered under the attention. Keith thanked whatever deity out there that he still had some semblance of self control. “We don’t have to do this right now if you’re not up for it. You gotta take care of yourself, Keith,” he concluded, his tone far gentler than it had been just moments earlier.

Oh.

Something twisted in Keith’s chest at the way his name sounded coming from Lance’s lips, soft with worry. It churned and coiled around his sternum for a moment before melting into his very core, creating a hot gooey feeling that climbed to his shoulders and pooled in his stomach simultaneously. Lance may as well have poured molten gold into his veins, for all the warmth and all the worth with which it filled him.

“... I’m okay,” Keith managed eventually, dragging himself out of his reverie, only to find the rest of the team dead silent and watching him with amused expressions. “So. Um. What were we talking about?” He was so ready for this conversation to move on to safer territory.

Lance did not seem to catch Keith’s little moment of weakness, if his cheerful demeanor was any indication. “I was asking what your character is,” he clarified, leaning forward with another one of those devilish grins that drove Keith crazy in the best way. “Come on, mullet, lay it on us.”

That was enough to draw a hefty sigh from Keith, but he cleared his throat and answered anyway:

“He’s a barbarian, and his name is Thunderstorm Darkness.”

And, sure, Keith knew his teammates’ teasing would be endless. But it was a necessary sacrifice. One that paid off, he thought to himself, reveling in the fresh bout of laughter that shook Lance’s form, and the knowledge that he was responsible for it.

#its getting close to dinner time over in the states i think ish #so merry christmas eve to those of u who celebrate #and to everybody else happy holidays #this is probably a bad night to post this tbh but im impatient so here it is #here you can read this if ur antisocial and u dont wanna interact with ur family tonight #bc. mood #klance #monsters and mana #fanfic #lavender letters #i need to learn how to format fanfics nicely so they look good on my tumblr. hm #... some day

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parkkrys · 5 years ago

Text

Kidge #11: Partners in Crime Au

This was requested by @ask-cryle-anytime hopefully you like it! I am also going to tag @danspector Sorry for the long wait! I was inspired from a movie I watched a long time ago, I can't remember the name though.....

They have been working together for five years. Been in a relationship for two of those five years. And now they are about to pull off their biggest heist yet, all because a certain female wants a two million dollar necklace that is going to be wrapped around Empress Allura’s neck. The only problem? It was going to be at a high class party with people wearing to much perfume and expensive dresses and suffocating suits. Or what Keith would like to call it, the snobs get together.

“I’ve got an idea.” Pidge exclaims suddenly causing him to jump. “Jesus Pidge, don’t scare me like that!” He yelps and she blushes. “Sorry.” She says sheepishly. Keith shook his head with a fond smile before he tilts his head, crossing his arms together across his chest. “So what’s your great idea?” He asks, hinting her to get to the point.

“Oh right, anyway so my brother can get me a vial of stuff, that I’m not going to say because it’s Matt’s invention and I promise I wouldn’t tell anyone the brand name not even you. Anyway getting to the point if we can get it into Allura’s drink, it will take about ten minutes before she feels nauseous. I will be great buddies with her while you, my handsome boyfriend, will be dressed up as a waiter and make sure to get that stuff into her drink. Then when she runs to the bathroom to throw up and all that jazz, I will go with her to ‘help’ her and take it off and replace it with a fake while she’s busy puking her guts out.”

Keith blinks in surprise because that was actually a good idea. “Alright then let’s get started.”

Pidge beamed as she picked up her phone to contact her brother and Keith sighed as he walked towards her, bending down quickly to place a gentle but quick kiss on her temple. She looked up smiling wide at him and he couldn’t stop the smile that danced along his lips. She may like this plan until she has to wear a dress, then the dread will show up.

He will admit that she always looked beautiful in a simple gown or even a pretty sundress whenever she was in the mood to wear one.

“Alright! Ready to dress like a waiter!?” Pidge beamed as she wrapped her arms around his waist and he couldn’t help but to roll his eyes.

“I have never been so excited.” He replied, his voice dry and clearly screamed that he didn’t really exactly care because honestly he didn’t care. This isn’t the first time and probably won’t be the last time. He laughed when he heard her groan at his tone. “Let’s just get this done alright?”

He felt her nod against his chest before they pulled apart. It was time to get straight to work and make sure this plan won’t go to shit, and if it does a back up just in case.

~*~

Keith will admit that he hates wearing tux’s of any kind. He hated the multiple layers, the stuffiness is brings and the feeling that you are going to choke and not breath because of the tie or even a bowtie that was wrapped tightly around your neck. He also knew that Pidge was stuck in the same situation he was in so he didn’t feel as miserable as he thought he was going to be.

He has already been at this ridiculous party for three hours, being the waiter that everyone ignored unless they were mad that he didn’t have any champagne on his tray. He still has yet to see Allura and he was starting to get annoyed. He sighed as he paced around with the tray full of o’dourves, watching as grabby hands took each one before he slipped back into the kitchen.

He had just placed the tray onto the table to let the others place more shrimp onto it when his phone buzzed, which was his signal to get to a champagne glass at some point and pour the odd cocktail her brother made into it. It didn’t smell pleasant was all he was going to say about the clear liquid.

“Hey Frank! You want to switch for a bit again!?” Keith decided to call out as he pocketed his phone, turning around as his new friend Frank huffed as he placed the tray onto the table beside him.

“Man yes. These maniacs are freaking stupid crazy about their champagne, no wonder you were about to deck that one guy. He’s had six glasses since we switched an hour ago.” Frank complained as he leaned back against the table, arms crossed his chest as his brown eyes rolled. “You think he will take a hint when I turn and go the other way when I see him coming my way.”

Keith huffed out a small laugh as he handed Frank his tray before he grabbed Franks. “Whatever, not our problem if he makes a fool of himself.”

“Damn right kid.”

Keith couldn’t help but shake his head in amusement as he opened the doors that lead him straight back to the party, spotting Allura making small talk with his girlfriend. Really they both looked beautiful, Pidge with her signature green dress, this time an emerald green that helped her golden eyes pop as Allura was wearing your typical pink dress that hugged every curve of her body. The diamonds sparkled as the light hit them and Keith had to wonder why the hell would she come to a gathering wearing such a stupid necklace.

Pidge always did tell him that he was dumb when it came to female things when he asked her about it earlier. Which still didn’t give him an answer.

The next part of the plan was the easiest to him as he uncapped the viral and dumped the remains inside the drink before he walked over towards them, watching as Allura took the glass with a smile before she went back to her conversation and he was done. Now time for him to slip out and to wait at the safe zone that Pidge deemed safe, which was an old Korean food shop. He didn’t know if she picked it because he was part Korean or if she loved Korean food.

So he sat there and waited, and waited and waited. He frowned once he met the two hour mark of waiting before he saw Pidge come running inside the shop with a huge smile on her lips. “Let’s go home.”

“Wait? I have been waiting here for hours and you don’t want food?”

Pidge shook her head as she leaned up to place a quick kiss on his lips before she grabbed her hand. “We can order something later but come on. I can’t wait to tell Matt that it worked!”

Keith slowed to a stop, watching as Pidge looked up at him with her wide eyes. “You’re beautiful tonight which means I won’t get upset but why are you making it look like we have someone on our tail?”

He watched as Pidge turned a light shade of red before she slapped him lightly on the chest. “We don’t, I just want to get home so we can celebrate.”

Keith blinked as he stared at her as her hand started to fiddle with his tie before it suddenly hit him. Oh, so that’s why she was in such a rush. “Right, let’s get home then.” He choked out as she cackled, he supposed they should do more big hits like this if it put her in such a good mood. He just couldn’t wait to get home.

#kidge #vld keith #vld pidge #voltron #VLD #parkkrys writes #Kidge Au #fancy parties

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sparklebitch · 6 years ago

Note

Shance angst they had a big argument. Length is all up to you my dude.

A/N: I tried a little something different with this one!

Trigger warnings: homophobia, bullying

~ ~ ~

"Why can't we just tell them we're together?" Lance asked as he watched Shiro tug on his t-shirt, covering the scars that littered his back. Shiro stared at the ground as he tugged on the sleeve. He always left well before morning. He was afraid that someone would wake up and see him walking out of Lance's room in the morning.

"Lance..." Lance sat up in his bed, the blanket pooling around his waist. "Can we not talk about this? Not tonight" Shiro asked pleadingly. Lance balled up his fists as he let out a defeated sigh.

"Are you ashamed of me?" his question hung heavy in the air. Shiro paused.

He waited too long to answer.

"I-" Shiro began. Lance shook his head sharply, trying to keep the tears at bay.

"Don't" He snapped. He looked pointedly at the ceiling. He wasn't going to cry in front of him. He wasn't.

"Lance, of course I'm not-" Shiro backtracked frantically. He moved toward the bed but Lance laughed tearfully and shot him an emotion filled look.

"Just go" he said flatly. Shiro deflated. He hadn't meant to pause. Of course he wasn't ashamed of Lance, how could he be? He never knew it was possible to love someone so much until he met Lance. But now here he was, hurting the person he loved most in the world, all because he was too afraid to tell him about his past.

Shiro felt like a coward.

Without another word, he left the room, leaving Lance alone sobbing into his pillow.

~ ~

It had been nearly two week since Lance had really talked to Shiro. Shiro didn't come to his room at night anymore. He stopped looking to Lance when they were training with that secret smile. He stopped subtly brushing his hand against Lance when they passed each other in the hallways alone. Lance was heartbroken.

The others knew something was wrong, but they didn't know what. Shiro was reserved and withdrawn, which he claimed was from tiredness, but no one believed it. Lance was scarily quiet, and it wasn't hard to see the red rim around his eyes each morning. He had obviously been crying, but he wouldn't say why.

Keith cornered Lance immediately after dinner one day. The minute the door to the dining room closed behind him he was there in front of Lance.

"Spill" he said without preamble. Lance blinked in surprise and leaned away from Keith.

"What?" he asked, nervously shifting his weight back and forth. He just wanted to be alone. He had spent the better part of the morning crying. "I'm- I need to go to the bathroom. Can this wait?" Lance asked as he pushed past Keith.

"I know about you and Shiro" Keith said, his voice barely more than a whisper. But Lance heard it. Ice ran through his veins as he came to a sudden halt, nearly toppling himself over.

"Wh- What?" he stuttered, spinning around. Keith had no expression on his face. "I- I don't- We don't- I mean... we're not- We never- What?" Keith rolled his eyes.

"You're not as subtle as you think" he responded. "And besides, I've known Shiro for a long time. I can read him like the back of my hand. I know when he really cares about someone" Lance felt himself flush and the telltale sign of tears was building up behind his eyes. He cleared his throat and kicked his foot against the ground. "Come on. We can talk in my room"

~ ~

"What are you doing?" Pidge asked, pushing her glasses up. Shiro jumped back and put his hand over his pounding heart.

"Jesus! You scared me" Pidge didn't respond to that. Shiro glanced at the broken machine he had been working on and then back at Pidge. "Uh, I was just trying to fix this" he tapped the hunk of metal with the pliers in his hands. "I work on it when I need to- When I need to destress" Pidge hopped onto the table that Shiro was working on and swung her legs.

"What are you 'destressing' from?" Shiro turned and went back to tinkering with the machine in silence. Pidge watched him for a few minutes until Shiro became frustrated and began hammering a cog that wouldn't fit in right with the pliers.

"I cannot even begin to describe how horrified I am right now" Shiro sighed at Pidge's words and tossed the pliers aside, bracing his hands on the table. Pidge lifted the metal box onto her lap and began to work on it while Shiro tried to calm himself. "You can talk" she said absently. "I mean, I can't help you with anything, and I can't promise that I'll listen, but you can talk" Shiro pinched his lips and shook his head before straightening up.

"He thinks I'm ashamed" he said as he leaned up against the table next to Pidge. "He thinks I don't want anyone to know about... about us being together because... because I'm ashamed to be with him. But that's not true! It's not, but I can't even tell him that. Because... because I'm scared. I'm- I'm scared, and I'm coward, and now I'm going to lose him" His voice broke as he said the words. He was terrified of losing Lance.

"So... why don't you tell him?" Pidge asked quietly. Shiro tensed. "You- you don't have to answer that" Pidge pushed the cog into the machine with ease and began fiddling with another piece.

"I-" Shiro crossed his arms tightly over his chest and stared at his feet. "I can't tell him because I want to protect him from all- from everything that I've been through. I can't tell him because... because I love him." Pidge stalled her hands but continued to stare at the device in her hands.

"Who?" she asked softly. Shiro's next word shocked Pidge.

"Lance"

~ ~

"How did you know?" Lance asked as he curled in on himself on Keith's bed. Keith was sitting at the other end with his arms folded in his lap. "About... about us, I mean"

"Like I said, I know Shiro" Keith started gently. "He acts differently when he's in- when he likes someone" Keith shrugged. Lance chewed on his lip and tried not to make a face.

"Yeah, well. I'm not even sure if he likes me" he said bitterly. He felt the telltale signs of tears building up behind his eyes, but he pushed them back. He wasn't going to cry. Not about Shiro, and certainly not in front of Keith.

"He does" Keith said without hesitation. Lance dug his fingernails into the palms of his hands as he hiccuped. Trying to keep the tears at bay was a losing battle.

"But- but-" Lance stammered. Keith sighed.

"Lance, listen. Shiro is a hard person to understand. He's reserved, he doesn't talk about his feelings, he keeps everything bottled up. But once you get to know him you see how he expresses his emotions. And when he's with you? He's the Shiro-equivalent of a goddamn golden retriever. He's so happy when he talks to you, even when we're just at dinner discussing the training we did in the past day. He's so totally enamored by you" Lance raked his nails down his arm. He was feeling so many things at once, it was overwhelming.

"He doesn't show it" Lance said bleakly. "He- He comes into my room late at night and leaves early in the morning so no one sees him. He doesn't touch me unless we're in one of our rooms because he doesn't want to get caught, not even for a high-five after a mission" Keith listened intently as Lance babbled on, tears streaming down his cheeks.

"Keith... I don't know what to do" Lance said quietly. "I- I care about him. I care about him so, freaking much and I just- I don't know what to do" An involuntary laugh spilled over his lips. Lance laughed and clutched his chest. It felt like his heart was breaking. "If he cares about me then why is he doing this? Why won't he tell people about us?" A breath caught in Keith's throat. He swiftly moved across the bed and pulled Lance into a hug. Lance dissolved into a puddle of tears at the contact.

"Why, Keith?" Lance wailed. "Tell me why" Keith petted Lance's hair to try and calm him. He'd never seen him this upset before.

"I- It's not my story to tell"

~ ~

"You could've just told us" Pidge said casually. Shiro had spewed out the whole story, despite his reluctance. Keeping it to himself was killing him. He needed someone to understand. "No one was going to judge you"

"I know, I know..." Shiro rested his head against the wall behind him. He had sat down on the floor after talking for a few minutes. Pidge was still perched on the table. "It's just- It's complicated"

"So uncomplicate it" Pidge shrugged.

"It's... not that easy" Shiro sighed. Pidge threw her hands up.

"Why not?" Shiro made a sound of annoyance but didn't reply. "Clearly all he's worried about is the fact that you won't tell people so either give him the reason you won't tell people or... just tell them. Boom. Uncomplicated" Shiro dropped his head into his hands.

"Okay, yeah. It sounds easy when you say it like that but... It's not so simple" Pidge shrugged as she lazily connected the wires to the machine that was still gripped in her hands.

"I dunno. Sounds pretty simple to me"

"It's not so much the telling you guys... I know that it won't bother anyone. You clearly don't care, Hunk will just care that we're happy, Allura and Coran probably already assume we're together, and I'm ninety percent sure that Keith has known since, like, the minute we got together" Shiro said with a huff.

"So what's the problem?" Pidge asked as she leaned over the table to see Shiro's face.

"I- I don't--" Shiro stuttered, shrinking in on himself. "I just- I don't want him to have to go through what I went through back on Earth"

~ ~

Lance went back to his room later that night after he had finished crying on Keith's shoulder. Keith was adamant that he was not going to tell Lance what he knew, just that he should let Shiro tell him in his own time.

The room felt empty without Shiro. It felt colder. Lance tiredly cleaned himself up and changed into his pajamas. He felt like he had been awake for days. His eyelids drooped and his feet dragged as he threw himself onto his bed. His head had barely hit the pillow when there was a knock at his door.

"Lance?" Lance groaned, his face half smushed on the cold fabric of his sheets.

"Go away" Lance grumbled.

The door slid open.

"Can we not talk about this? Not tonight" Lance asked sharply, mimicking what Shiro had said to him that night. Shiro winced.

"Please, Lance. Just let me say something, then I'll- I'll leave you alone" Lance rolled over so he was facing away from Shiro and fell silent. Shiro took that for his signal to say something.

"Lance, I'm not ashamed of you. Not at all. I don't mind if we tell the others, and I'm sorry that I didn't say that before. I was just scared. Not scared of their reactions, I know that they'll all be very supportive and happy for us. Just... I'm scared for what comes after... after this" he gestured to the room, even though Lance couldn't see him.

Lance kept his eyes trained on the wall, trying to keep his face neutral as Shiro spoke. He still didn't understand why he couldn't have said all this to begin with. Why had he gone radio silent for nearly two weeks?

"When I was a student at the garrison I met a boy, Adam" Shiro's voice shook as he spoke. Lance held his breath. "He was my first crush and when I asked him out, he said yes. I was so... I was so excited" he said hollowly. Lance's chest ached at the pain in Shiro's voice. "I was so excited that I ran to tell my roommate, Avery, about it. He- He didn't react well to- to having a 'homo' as his roommate. He pushed me into the wall and then went and asked to change rooms. They let him" His voice cracked. Lance squeezed his eyes shut and pinched his lips.

"I tried not to let his reaction get to me" Shiro continued. "Me and Adam dated for a while. We walked each other to class and ate meals together. One day- one day when we were walking home from dinner a couple of kids from the grade above ours saw us holding hands. They started shouting things, so we started to run. They chased us down and--" Shiro stifled a sob. Lance instantly rolled off the bed and grabbed the back of Shiro's neck, pulling him down to a hug.

"It's okay- It's okay. You don't have to say it" he said softly. Shiro shook his head as he cried into Lance's chest.

"I do" he stated. "I have to tell you. You have to understand why- why I was scared to tell them" Lance nodded and began to run his fingers through Shiro's hair.

"Okay" Shiro took a deep breath and continued.

"They chased us down the street until I tripped. They- knocked Adam down and kicked him. I tried to- to stop them but one of them started punching me. When they finally left I scooped Adam up and ran to the hospital. He had two cracked ribs and I had a concussion. We got suspended for getting back to our rooms after curfew. Those boys didn't even get reprimanded" Lance gently rubbed circles in the nape of Shiro's neck. It had always worked to calm him down before.

"I had no idea" he breathed.

"I- I didn't want anyone to know" he straightened up and sniffed. "Lance, I'm not ashamed of you. I'm not scared of telling the others that we're together. What I'm afraid of is... is what happens when we get back to Earth" he explained. "I don't want what happened to me happen to you. I could never forgive myself for causing you that pain" he said sincerely.

"With all do respect, that's kind of bullshit" Lance said abruptly. Shiro blinked in surprise. "You don't get to decide that for me. And news flash, you didn't make me gay. No one made me gay. That's just... who I am. And I think on some level I've always known that. You can't protect me from the 'horrors of this world' by not being with me. If we didn't get together... I would've realized I was gay sooner or later and it would all still happen to me. The only thing that would be different, is I wouldn't have my knight in shining armor to protect me" Lance said with a charming smile. Shiro laughed softly and looped his arms around Lance, pulling him in close. There were still tears in his eyes, threatening to spill over, but he was relieved that Lance was talking to him.

"I'm sorry, baby" Shiro said, kissing Lance's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. It was wrong for me to--" Lance shook his head lightly.

"We both said stupid things" Lance reassured him. He yawned quietly and smiled when Shiro pressed a kiss to his temple. He had missed this so much. "I know we're still kind of fighting, and I'm definitely not done talking about this yet, but can we do this later for real? I'm exhausted" Shiro chuckled and nodded.

"Yeah, we can talk about it later"

~ ~ ~

| Other fics | Ko-fi |

#voltron #langst #angst #shangst #shlangst #is that even a thing #shance #lance #shiro #vld lance #vld shiro #prompts #shanceandlancelotaremydrugs

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olivewritessometimes · 5 years ago

Text

Okay, so, I had to start my blog at some point...

and after procrastinating for around a month, I decided to release my first fic on Lance’s birthday. (Probably not the best idea since it’s filled with angst and is from Keith’s point of view.) Also, why not a bit of Klance to start us off, right?

Enjoy!

---------------------------------

2.7K Words

Warning: Mentions of Self-Harm, Swearing

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As a member of the Blade of Marmora, Keith was able to visit many places, even if he couldn't call any of them home.

His favourite places included Arus, where his adventure with Voltron and the Lions began.

It also included Olkaria, the new planet inhabited by the Olkari, after Olkarion was destroyed.

There was also the new Daibazaal and the new Altea, which had been recreated after the entire ‘Honerva’s realities’ ordeal a few years ago.

But his favourite place to visit, by far, had to be Earth.

He enjoyed visiting his old shack in the desert, the only place he knew for a very long time.

He liked to visit the Garrison, to see how the Holts and the rest of the staff were doing.

He would also drop in to see Shiro. He was like a brother to him, so he insisted that Keith should come over every time he came back to Earth.

And, although he would never admit it, he particularly liked going to see the McClain family farm, for reasons you can guess.

A knock on the door announced his arrival.

“Oh, good afternoon, Keith,” answered Mrs. McClain. “Lance is in his room. Please, come inside.”

Keith nodded, and stepped through the door.

This wasn’t any different from what normally happened when he came to visit, so he knew what to expect.

“Keith! Keith!” yelled the child stampede from down the hall.

As expected, they came roaring down the hall, jumping up and down, demanding to know what super-cool alien adventures he had been on since the last time he’d seen them.

“Not really anything exciting, unless you count the giant Weblum that tried to swallow us whole!” Keith said, in an attempt to tell a story to impress them.

“A Weblum?” “How’d you get away?” “Did he eat you?” came some questions from the kids.

Keith had gotten better at socializing with children since he started visiting the McClains more often.

There were only a few simple rules to it. One, don’t make them upset. Two, keep them happy and they’ll love you. Three, don’t reject that love.

“Yeah, it was no big deal. It only crushed about half the Marmoran fleets,” he continued, knowing that the cliffhanger would make them want to hear the whole story.

Obviously, there was no Weblum that tried to swallow them whole, or crushed half their fleets, but kids love a good story, so Keith sat down at the kitchen table and began his tale.

“So there I was, leaving a planet suffering from a drought after supplying them with enough water for a year, when all of a sudden, Wham! A Weblum comes out of nowhere, catches two ships in its mouth, and not three seconds later, they’re gone into the Weblum’s stomach.

“I yell at the other ships to get away as fast as possible, but it's already right in front of us, grabbing every one who came too close. I swerve left, then right, and then left again, to try to get away, but then it catches around five ships in its mouth, eats them, then bites down on the wing of my ship.

"I jiggle the controls to try to get away, but it's too late! The Weblum has me in its jaws, and it looks to be the end! I'm about to give up hope, when suddenly, the wing of my ship snaps off, so now at least I'm free from the Weblum, but I'm running out of oxygen in my ship."

As he continued to tell the story, making it as dramatic as possible, he was so caught up in the adventure that he didn't even notice when Lance emerged from his room, saw Keith, and leaned against the wall to listen in as well.

He was reaching the end of the story, where he ended up hitching a ride with another ship for transport back to Earth, when Lance finally spoke up.

"You know, I don't think Weblums are that vicious."

Lance stood up from the wall and walked into the kitchen, as he continued. "From what I remember, they would only do that if they didn't even know you were there."

"How do you know?" challenged Keith. "Did you ever have to collect scaultrite from its third stomach?"

“Well how do you know that it was attacking you when you went to collect it?” Lance retorted. “It could’ve just thought you were a piece of rubble or something.”

“Well how do you know that it didn’t know that I was a Paladin of Voltron, and that it wasn’t trying to kill me?”

This banter went on for a while, until Lance’s niece, Nadia, started a little game.

“Raaah! I’m a Weblum, and I’m going to eat you!” she yelled, chasing the other kids around.

As Mrs. McClain shooed them out of the house, in fear they would break something, Lance mentioned something about feeding the chickens and walked outside.

Keith let out a sigh of relief once Lance was out of earshot.

He had refused to let anyone know that his admiration for Lance was more than simply being proud of him for helping him save all of the possible realities.

Not even Lance himself.

Shiro has known that he had a crush on one of the Paladins, and encouraged him to try to talk to them about it, but Keith assumes that he guessed it was Allura, since he stopped after she'd gotten with Lance.

After that happened, Keith continued pining, but he'd started to lose hope, since Lance had been in love with Allura since they first met, and wouldn't be quick to break up with her.

Not that they would ever have broken up, Lance was a nice guy, and Allura would never have wanted to leave him.

After she died, part of Keith realized that Lance was now single, and for the taking, but he didn't act on it. That would be too cruel.

Instead, he chose to comfort him, and try not to let his feelings for him get in the way.

Which he was succeeding at, for the most part.

He was snapped from his thoughts when Mrs. McClain walked back inside.

“Would you like to stay the night? We live a while away from any hotels, and it’s getting late,” she offered.

Keith looked at the clock on the wall, and noticed that it was too late for him to start heading back.

He accepted, and she showed him the guest room, and let him know that dinner would be ready soon.

He walked outside, since it was still light out, and sat down by the roots of a large oak, enjoying the view.

He'd be lying if he said that he was looking at the rolling hills, and the flowers that cover them.

He also wouldn't really like to admit that the view he was enjoying involved Lance, the chickens, and the difference between him here and him on the battlefield.

The Lance he knew as a Paladin of Voltron was a ruthless, self-sacrificing, adrenaline-loving sharpshooter, a warrior in his own respects.

The Lance he saw here was a simple, kind man, who would maybe hurt a fly, but only if it was bothering him.

Lance's sister, Veronica, just so happened to notice the exact direction Keith's eyes were looking, and sat next to him.

"Lance, huh?"

Keith looked up, startled, then a confused look made its way onto his face.

“What do you mean, ‘Lance, huh?’” Keith asked.

“Well, I knew you weren’t coming just to say hi, you come over way too often for that. So I assumed you maybe like liked someone who lives here. I also guessed Lance, but it’s nice to have something to confirm it,” explained Veronica.

“So, you were just making sure that you were right about guessing which McClain I like.”

“Yep!” She exclaimed, popping the P.

He rolled his eyes, before realizing that Veronica was the exact person he did not want knowing about it.

“Oh my god, please don’t tell him. Quiznak, that’ll be awkward,” he pleaded, before realizing what he said.

“Christ, I’ve got to get out of the habit of saying that!” He laughed, and Veronica gave a small giggle as well.

She was about to continue when they heard Mrs. McClain yelling to anyone outside that dinner was ready, and to get it while it was hot.

Veronica stood up, and as she helped Keith up, said, “Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”

They walked inside, and headed to the dining room, where Mrs. McClain offered Keith a chair almost at the end of the table, seated between Lance and Veronica.

Needless to say, it was a very awkward night for Keith.

Later that night, Keith woke up with a dry throat, so he got up to get a glass of water from the kitchen.

As he walked down the hallway of bedroom doors, he heard an odd noise coming from behind one.

Not wanting to wake whoever was inside, he put his ear to the door to see if he could hear it better.

It might have been the door muffling the sound, but Keith could have sworn that it sounded like someone crying.

He didn’t know who it was, because he’d never slept over before, and didn’t know whose bedroom was whose.

Keith then heard footsteps, accompanying the sobs, heading towards the door.

He hid behind the door as it opened, not wanting to be seen.

As the door closed, he could see that the one crying was Lance, but Keith didn’t stop him. He wanted to know why Lance was so upset at this time of night.

Lance shuffled into the kitchen, still sniffling, and opened a drawer.

Keith then knew that he had to do something when he realized that the object that Lance was pulling out was a knife.

As Lance set the blade to his wrist, Keith put his hand on his shoulder.

Lance gasped, dropped the knife onto the counter, and turned around, shocked.

“Oh, i-it’s only you,” he said between sniffles.

“You shouldn’t have seen that.”

He went to wipe away his tears, when Keith grabbed his wrist.

For the first time, he noticed the scars.

“Lance, it’s one in the morning. What’s wrong?” He asked.

Lance’s eyes welled up, and before he could stop himself, he burst into tears and collapsed in Keith’s arms.

Keith wasn’t expecting the added weight Lance was pushing onto him, so he ended up falling to the floor, not even minding the pain when he hit. Only taking caution that Lance didn’t hurt himself.

“I miss her. There was so much more she could’ve done for the universe,” he said through choked sobs.

It didn’t take much effort to tell he was talking about Allura.

“I just can’t help but think that there was another way,” he continued.

“So that she might be here today, and that we might have started a life together, and that we might even have had kids, who would have grown up safe and happy, with everything they’d ever need, but she’s not. She’s-” he cut himself off, and buried his face in Keith’s shirt, weeping.

Keith wasn’t really the kind of person who was best at this, but he was going to try his best for Lance.

He didn’t really know what to say, so he started by trying to calm him down by running his hand through his hair.

After a few minutes, Lance did start to calm down, and eventually started to lean into the touch.

“I know Allura’s not here now, but I think that what she did was very noble. She sacrificed her own life so all of humanity could live. So you could live,” he tried.

“She gave her Quintessence to bring the dead realities back to life, so if you think about it, her life force is inside every living creature in the universe, and even those in other realities. Including you.”

Lance looked up, and it was all Keith could do to focus on calming Lance and not lose himself in those adorable eyes of his.

“So when someone says that she’ll always be with you, they’re not wrong. Her life energy is what’s keeping us here today, so she’s technically still with us. Just not in the form of a body.”

Lance was considerably less upset now, and other than how his eyes were still red, you could hardly tell he was crying at all.

“Thanks, man.”

He got up and put the knife away, which reminded Keith of something else he was wondering.

“How long have you been doing that?” He asked as he stood. “Cutting yourself.”

Lance rubbed the back of his neck and shyly answered.

“I started doing it while I was in the Garrison. Sometimes, the shouting from Iverson, the teasing from the other kids, it was too much. Hunk was the one who helped me quit, after it became a habit.”

Keith was in awe at how young he must have been when he started.

Lance continued. “On the Castle of Lions, there were loads of missions that went wrong, and like half the time I thought it was because of me. Whenever I was yelled at because of it, add that to some self-esteem issues, and you get the urge to slice your skin open because that pain will distract you from the mental pain.”

He was about to go on when Keith interrupted.

“Woah, woah, woah, self-esteem issues? What else have you been going through?”

“Ah, well, there was the One Paladin Too Many issue, and it got me wondering, am I really needed on the team?” Lance explained.

“Just about anyone with good aim can use a gun, but you could probably find a more serious, sensible person to do it, rather than someone who’s just a goofball.

“I knew you could replace me just like that, so I thought it was only a matter of time until the title of Sharpshooter went to someone else.”

“Lance, no one ever thought that about you,” Keith reassured. “Your jokes were exactly what we needed to keep our spirits lifted, and we would be lost without you.”

“But was that all I was good for? Comedic relief?” Lance retorted, tears starting to fall down his cheeks again. “Did you only keep me on the team for my jokes? For someone to laugh at? It's kind of the only thing I'm good at, might as well have been useful for something."

"Lance-"

"I'm a shitty pilot, the only weapon I can use is the easiest one to use, and I only ended up dating Allura for a few months before she died, because my stupid ass couldn't make a fucking move! If I can't even ask a girl out over the span of a few fucking years, then what-"

He was cut off by Keith's lips on his own.

Lance didn't register what was happening at first, but once he did, he relaxed, and seemed to melt under him.

Keith pulled away with a soft smile, thinking of how long he'd been waiting to do that.

Keith knew his mind must be racing with anger, sadness, confusion, and everything in between, so he took Lance’s hand in his own.

“You need to stop. You’re hurting yourself, and you think that you’re fine on your own. Well, you’re not. You’re keeping this a secret from your family, your friends, everyone, when really, you should have come to us in the first place,” he explained.

“We’ll always be here for you. I’ll be here for you. Just talk to us, we’ll-”

He was cut off by Lance launching himself onto Keith, pressing their lips together.

Keith didn’t even realize what was happening until he felt Lance’s hand holding his, fingers intertwining like magic.

Instinctively, he wrapped his arm around him, finding a position in the small of his back.

They stood there for a few seconds, then Lance slowly pulled away.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

He rested his head on Keith's shoulder, and he started stroking his hair again.

At that moment, Keith finally knew where his home was.

#first fic #AAAAAA #klance #laith #vld #voltron #langst #fluff #first kiss #tbh i just LOVE me some keith and children bc its always so sweet #also LANGST

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avidbeader · 4 years ago

Text

New Sheith Fic

Probably rated T, but we’ll see.

VLD post-S8, but Allura lives and the endcards are thrown on a trash heap where they belong

This is the fic thread I’ve been posting to Twitter for the last few days. Thought I’d share here as well. It’s between 1/3 and 1/2 done at this point. It will get to AO3 eventually once it’s finished and beta’ed.

I just got this idea of something that the Atlas might do in a given situation and ran with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first couple of requests were reasonable. A real-time updated roster of the Atlas crew made sense for both organizational and security purposes. A record of the ship’s known offensive and defensive capabilities was necessary as the admirals and generals developed strategies for any potential threats, minimal though they might be after Voltron’s defeat of Honerva.

The order to have a Garrison official installed as their liaison made Shiro pause, but only for a moment. On the one hand, there were already several crew members on board who performed that role: Sam, Mitch, Veronica, himself. On the other hand, it was not unwarranted for the Garrison to have a point person for communication purposes so as not to add an extra burden to the duties of any one crew member. If Shiro had tried to keep up with every Garrison inquiry or notification on top of his own duties as captain, he probably would have gone to the Black Lion and begged to be taken back to the astral plane. This would take one thing off his plate without pushing more responsibility on any member of the command staff.

But when a General Stone reported to him, demanding both quarters in the same section as the senior bridge crew and an office next to Shiro’s ready room, his hackles rose instinctively. Atlas’ presence in the back of his head, usually a quiet and cheerful sensation, grew wary like a wild animal sensing a predator.

“Given that this was only communicated to us today, you’ll have to make do in guest quarters until we are able to make arrangements, General. I didn’t expect anyone to be appointed, much less arrive so soon.”

Which meant that someone in the Garrison hadn’t wanted to give them time to ask questions or protest the decision. And the fact that a general was assigned to a position that should have gone to a lieutenant at most was unsettling.

Stone growled at him. “This lack of preparedness is the kind of thing that I’m here for. As one of the Garrison’s most valuable assets, the Atlas must be primed and ready for action at any given time.”

It took Atlas a moment to identify what the general meant, but Shiro knew immediately when she understood. There was now an angry cat hissing and spitting in his mind and it was taking everything Shiro had to maintain a polite expression.

“It’s not a lack of preparedness when information is not provided in a timely manner,” he retorted. The general reared back slightly, taken aback that Shiro had not immediately accepted the criticism.

Shiro pressed a button on a small console in his desk for show, but Atlas had already found the ship’s senior steward and asked him through his datapad to report to Shiro’s ready room. Before the general could form a response, he continued. “I’m sure you remember this from your protocol training, General, but bear in mind that aboard a ship, the captain is the ranking officer. You are welcome to observe and advise, but you are not part of the chain of command.”

Stone’s eyes narrowed and he entered something on the datapad in his hand. It beeped and he frowned. “What’s the matter with the connectivity here? My message didn’t go through!”

The malicious giggle that only he could hear was answer enough for Shiro. “I expect your device will need to go through a security clearance. Mention it to—” Shiro paused as his door opened before the steward could signal his presence “—the steward. Lieutenant Rasal, this is General Stone. He’s been assigned to us by the Garrison and will need quarters and an office when you are able to arrange it. In the meantime, could you escort him to an available space in the guest accommodations?”

The lieutenant nodded, the flash of a dimple in his cheek the only sign that he understood what Shiro was not saying. As the officer in charge of organizing lodging, supplies, and maintenance aboard the ship, he knew better than most what the Atlas was capable of. If she cared to, she could have produced everything Stone was demanding within minutes. Shiro was honoring her choice not to, and Rasal followed his captain’s lead. He saluted and held out a guiding hand.

“If you’ll come with me, sir.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stone’s presence had an immediate and negative impact. He began by insisting on a full tour of the ship with Shiro. He complained constantly about the randomness of his datapad connection, too focused to pick up on the fact that Atlas was only letting neutral and positive reports get through. When Shiro convinced her that yes, she had to make him an office and a set of quarters, Atlas’ response was to make an office, not much bigger than a broom closet on the opposite side of the bridge from Shiro’s ready room, and a minimal set of quarters, as far away from Shiro as possible while still in the section for the command staff.

Stone’s next step was to observe, watching the normal routines of the crew. It made everyone nervous and more prone to mistakes. Even the oldest, most seasoned officers like Sam and Mitch were side-eying Stone when he was on the bridge. Shiro made time to circulate through the ship so he could reassure his crew that they had done nothing wrong. He noticed a sharp drop in the number of people hanging out in the common areas or lounges as any socializing shifted to rooms behind closed doors, out of Stone’s sight.

The Taujeerians made a formal request for the Atlas to map a nearby star system for potential relocation sites when their planet next went through its renewal cycle. Keith took advantage of the deep-space mission to run training drills with the lions and the MFEs, improving their teamwork and response times. Stone seemed especially interested in the paladins, having noticed how their quarters were all on the same hall as Shiro’s.

Shiro was in one of the conference rooms, talking with Baujal and his council, when Atlas nudged him, then sounded an alert on his datapad. He quickly excused himself and headed down to the Black Lion’s hangar.

He walked in on a shouting match between Stone, the paladins, and the MFE pilots. As he crossed to where they were gathered, he scanned their faces. Stone and Lance were nose-to-nose, yelling at one another, with Nadia backing up Lance. Keith, Allura, and James were clustered together. The others were watching closely, all in various stages of anger or irritation.

“...and I’ll see all of you court-martialed for this insubordination!”

“As their captain, I would appreciate knowing what your complaint is against Commander Griffin and his squad.” Shiro’s voice cut through the quarrel like a knife.

“These squads are refusing my direct order! I need to observe them in action and Kogane says he won’t permit me to board his ship!”

Shiro glanced at Keith, who cocked an eyebrow at him. He had held onto his temper and let Lance as his second lead the outburst against the general. Shiro’s pride in his best friend surged, knowing that just a few years ago Keith would have been the one shouting first.

“General, it is absolutely within Commander Kogane’s rights to refuse you access to the Black Lion. The Voltron team is not part of the Garrison—”

Stone interrupted him with a squawk of disbelief. “Since when?”

“Since always,” Allura interjected, her voice full of ice. “Voltron represents the Coalition and agreed to use the Atlas as one of our bases for ease of coordinating our efforts to build on the peace we have created. You may not simply demand access to any lion and expect to be obeyed without question.” Shiro noticed that Allura had used her shape-shifting abilities to make herself several inches taller than usual and she used that height advantage to glare down at the general.

“And as today’s drills are a joint exercise with the MFEs, you are not permitted to ride along with Commander Griffin. If he and Captain Shirogane give permission, you can observe the MFEs another time,” Keith added.

“I don’t need permission! I am—”

“Here to facilitate communication between the Atlas and the Garrison, or so I was told,” Shiro interrupted. “Unless there is a secondary agenda that has been kept from me, your remit doesn’t include breathing down the necks of my crew or our allies. You’ve been overstepping your role for days and it ends now.”

Stone drew himself to his full height, which meant he was eye level to Shiro’s collarbones, and snarled, “We’ll just see about this, Captain.”

His attempt at stalking out of the hangar was ruined when Black let out a menacing growl and Stone jumped in alarm.

Once he was gone, everyone began to relax. Shiro noticed that Keith’s stance was still rigid and went over to him, laying a soothing hand on one shoulder. “You okay?”

“We will be. Didn’t expect we’d have a battle before we even got in our ships.” Keith turned to Lance and Nadia. “Thank you both for stepping up.”

“No problem,” Nadia chirped. “He’s a puffed-up toad.”

“And now that he’s gone, we need to get back to work. These joint exercises will continue until further notice since we need to take advantage of our current situation.” Evil grins broke out as everyone understood what Keith was doing. “Do we need to go over today’s plan again?”

“Nah, we got this,” Pidge replied before throwing a glance Shiro’s way. “Thanks for coming, Captain.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took four days for Stone’s message to the Garrison to get through, and another two days of Shiro showing the general his message inbox as proof that he had no instructions to discipline any of the MFEs. Stone’s temper was running high, as he had received a reprimand of his own from the Coalition over his attempt to assert jurisdiction over an ally’s representatives. The fact that that message had been received within hours only added to Stone’s fury.

Once Shiro finally got the orders that he was to punish all four MFE pilots for their insubordination, he met them before their usual workout routine and instructed them to run twenty extra laps around the track in the Atlas’ enormous gym. The squad’s groans turned to glee when they turned around and saw that the length of the track had been shrunk to a fifth of its usual size.

That evening, Keith tapped on the door that connected his quarters to Shiro’s.

Shiro looked up from the reports he was reading and frowned. “You knocked. What’s wrong?”

“Got a message from Kolivan. They found a ship of former Galra soldiers turned mercenary, and they’ve been hired by one side on a planet dealing with a pair of feuding lords. He wants to stop the conflict now before it spreads.”

“Should I—”

“No.” Keith shook his head. “If the Blades go in with stealth and take out the mercs, that puts the two sides at stalemate again and the planetary government might finally contact the Coalition for help. Then we can officially come in to negotiate a settlement.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Shiro reached out a hand and Keith took it, letting Shiro draw him into a tight hug as usual. And as usual, Shiro resisted doing or saying anything more. “Be careful.”

“You, too. I don’t like leaving you with that Garrison watchdog.”

“He’s here as a liaison.”

“He’s here to find a reason to ground Atlas.”

Even as Shiro shook his head at Keith’s statement, he could feel Atlas’ alarm. “No, that would be just about the worst move the Garrison could make. The Coalition planets recognize two major factors right now that ended the Galra Empire: Voltron and the Atlas. Taking one away would make the Garrison the new intergalactic villain.”

“Not forever, but long enough to figure out how to put someone else in command of her. They need you and Coran and Sam—hell, probably Iverson and Veronica, too—off her bridge so they can have complete control of her, including all her battle capability.”

“I mean...we do need to figure that out, if for no other reason because I will have to retire someday, but there’s no rush.” Shiro struggled to keep his expression mild as he dealt with twin reactions. He ran his hands along Keith’s arms to allay the sudden tension there and

mentally tried to soothe Atlas, who was almost screeching in fury as she surrounded him possessively.

Ironically, the strength of her reaction made Shiro stop and wonder if maybe the Garrison didn’t have a point. After all, he couldn’t lead Atlas forever. He might have done the impossible once thanks to Black and Allura, but humans still had limited lifespans. But surely the Garrison brass, if they were considering the options already, would talk to him about possibilities?

“Just keep an eye on your six while I’m gone, okay?” Keith squeezed his shoulder.

“I will.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He swung the sword as wide as he could, trying to hit as many opponents as possible as he forced them back.The roar of the spectators droned like machinery, a persistent buzz in the back of his head as he tried to reduce the impossible odds. Who had decided to punish him this way, with a dozen opponents? Was this the match where he finally died?

He shifted tactics, the sword in his hand shrinking back into a dagger. He took advantage of his smaller stature and dove between the legs of the nearest adversary, using him as a temporary shield against the others and slicing one quick stroke through the thigh above the cuisse. He spared a lightning-quick thought to thank the universe for giving the majority of bipedal beings a femoral artery.

He continued to dodge, eluding their attacks and striking at any weak point he saw. Suddenly there was only one enemy between him and an open path to the door and he dealt a vicious cut across the throat as he made his bid to escape.

Something struck and wrapped around him from behind, dragging him to the floor. He had just enough time to press the communicator at his wrist and signal the others to leave before the cord electrified, ripping screams from him before he blacked out—

Shiro shot upright, gasping for breath and fighting the covers that were tangled around him. There were sounds, the ordinary hum of the dim nightlights, his datapad beeping an alert, a furious pounding coming from somewhere in the next room...and an engine’s roar.

The Atlas was moving at top speed.

Shiro freed himself from the bedclothes and staggered to his feet. He grabbed the datapad and looked at the message, a priority one from the night comms officer—Cullen, Cuddy, something that began with C—stating that the Atlas had changed course about fifteen minutes before and was at full throttle. The bridge crew was locked out of all of the controls.

Shiro reached across the room with his prosthesis and snatched his robe from its hanger before moving into the sitting area. Once there, he identified the pounding as someone knocking furiously on the door to his quarters. Voices were coming from the hallway and they all sounded angry.

He pressed the control and the door slid open. General Stone staggered when his obstacle vanished, wrenching himself back upright from the momentum.

“Shirogane! What’s the meaning of the course change? You weren’t scheduled to be done with the Taujeerians for another forty-eight hours!”

The paladins were behind him, shouting at him for waking them all up. Shiro looked back down at his datapad and noticed a second new message below the one from the bridge. He opened it and felt the blood drain from his face.

It was two brief sentences from Kolivan: Mission a trap. Keith has been taken.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What do you mean, you can’t stop the ship? It’s a SHIP! You’ve got two Holts right here that can supposedly hack anything that beeps! Break the security codes and set a new course for Earth!”

Shiro had been walking briskly down a hallway, Atlas subtly cutting the distance to the bridge, and trading messages with Kolivan to coordinate a rendezvous point with the remaining Blades on the mission team, Krolia, and a squad of Coalition fighters led by Matt. He stopped short, so abruptly that Hunk ran into him, and stared at the general.

“Earth? What makes you think we’d go to Earth at a time like this? We’re going to rescue Commander Kogane!”

“You said it yourself, Voltron isn’t part of the Garrison!” Stone flapped a hand at the other paladins who had been trailing them. “So let them go take care of the situation! We’ve got to fix this malfunction immediately and since the ship was built by the Garrison, that’s the best place to go to do the repairs!”

Shiro couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt such a wave of derision. The mental image of Atlas in robot form and rolling her eyes brought him to the edge of hysterical giggles. It was verging on too much for him to handle.

Allura must have seen something in his face. She grabbed Stone by the collar and yanked him back before he could crowd into Shiro and continue his tirade. “If you are going to be so ridiculously focused on procedure in a situation this urgent, then consider this the formal request from the Coalition to the Atlas for support in a rescue operation!”

Stone tried to twist out of her grip and she hoisted him up until his toes barely touched the deck. His face grew red as he snarled, “Captain, I am ordering you to dismiss this group except for Katie Holt and turn all your efforts to retaking control of your ship!”

Pidge’s expression grew dangerous. Shior shifted and put one hand on her shoulder, willing her to hold her temper.

“As I told you the day you arrived, General, you are not part of the chain of command here. Your role is to keep both us and the Garrison informed of what the other needs to share. And you have not performed that role faithfully.

“The Coalition has every right to call on the Atlas. It was built from plans given to us by the Alteans and is powered by the crystal that houses the remains of their flagship. They have just as much claim to it as the Garrison does. We will lead the operation to recover Commander Kogane and you can inform the Garrison of our status. After that, you have two choices; you can stay in your quarters or be escorted to the brig until this operation is concluded. Which will it be?”

Stone stared at him, open-mouthed. Allura shook him, rattling his teeth with her strength. “You heard the captain. Which will it be? We have more important issues to deal with.”

“I am your superior officer and—”

Before Shiro could even bring up his datapad, much less start a message requesting assistance from security, a faint shimmer formed around Stone and Allura released her hold, skipping back nimbly. The general surged forward and bounced off the force field Atlas had brought up.

The paladins laughed as Stone began pounding his fists against the barrier. Allura smothered her giggles into her hand and looked at Shiro. “Shall we leave him here for the moment?”

Shiro was busy silently arguing with Atlas that, no, she could not open a portal in the floor and jettison the man into space. He gave one more psychic push, adding aloud, “Leave him here for now. We’ll take care of him later.”

They moved quickly to the bridge to find Sam and Coran with their heads together over one of the nav panels and the rest of the bridge crew huddled uneasily in the center. Sam brightened as he saw them enter. “Shiro! The Atlas has locked everyone out—”

Shiro stepped up to his position and laid both hands on the panels. He focused, trying to form a request to let the bridge crew access their stations in as clear and simple of terms as possible. He heard shouts of surprise in the background as the connection solidified and Atlas drew him in.

His hands were cuffed behind him. Two of the “mercenaries” dragged him from a pod into a hangar of a battleship, pausing in front of a Galra commander. The commander seized him by the throat and growled, “You’re almost certainly the right one, judging from your size, but let’s be sure. Drop your mask, Blade.”

He paused, just long enough to spark a reaction. The commander’s grip tightened. “Drop the mask or I tear it off. The druids want you alive, but they didn’t say that you had to be uninjured.”

He let the mask disappear and glared at his captor, who pulled his head up by his hair to study his face carefully.

“It’s him. Put him in a cell and double the guard on it.” The commander raised his wrist comm and opened a channel. “Set course for the Alvega system.”

The scene dissolved around Shiro, melding into the blue circuits that would surround him when the ship morphed into its robot form. Already he could sense Atlas changing course, plotting an intercept of the Galra battle cruiser.

We need to meet with the others. We need the Blades’ intel. We need Krolia and Kosmo. We need the backup from the Coalition.

You need him. Why do you waste time?

We need a plan. We need support. We can’t get him back safely if we just charge in.

Not fast enough.

The ship shuddered around him and Shiro grabbed the console to stay on his feet, his awareness of the bridge and its occupants returning. He rubbed at his temples with his left hand, trying to ground himself in reality once more.

“Shiro, how did you do that?” Coran shouted above the others’ reactions.

“Do what?”

“A wormhole...you took us through a wormhole, Shiro.” Allura spoke slowly, in shock.

The main viewscreen lit up, showing Kolivan and Krolia in two panels. Kolivan nodded, hiding any surprise he might be feeling. “Good, you’re early. Permission to dock our ships, captain?”

Shiro nodded, before remembering he had a voice. “Of course. Then we’ll get the Coalition ships and head for the Alvega system. That’s where they’re taking Keith.”

He closed his eyes and planted his hands on the control panel once more. Atlas, what are you doing?

You need him.

Yes, we need him. He’s the leader of Voltron. He’s a commander in the Blades.

YOU need him.

He...he’s my best friend.

More than need.

Image after image flooded past Shiro, showing him all the stages of his life that included Keith. The Garrison and Keith becoming his best friend there. The long nights as a prisoner, sustained by memories of Keith and the hope to escape and return to him. Reuniting, only to be dragged into the middle of an interstellar war and then killed. Brought back against impossible odds, with faint memories of what it had cost Keith to accomplish that.

He needs you. You need him.

Yes.

Then we get him back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To be continued...

#voltron #sheith #sheith fic #avid writes #vld shiro #vld atlas #yes it's another save Keith situation #I do have a brand

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calligraphist-artemisia · 6 years ago

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I’m Not Calling it a Date

Kidgeweek 2019 - Day 1: High School or College AU .

Summary: Pidge really needed to learn how to say ‘no’ to Allura’s plans, especially when it’s something she doesn’t fully feel comfortable with. But maybe, just that once, it could lead to something good.

Also posted on AO3 and fanfiction.net (under the username kishirokitsune)

I'm Not Calling it a Date

“I had the most brilliant idea,” Allura gushed as she sat down at a table across from Pidge.

Pidge lifted her eyes from her notes without moving her head, raising an eyebrow as Lance plopped down as well, looking much less pleased than Allura. “Am I going to like this idea?”

“No, because it's an awful idea,” Lance grumbled, glaring at Allura.

Allura rolled her eyes. “You're the only one who feels that way. Even Hunk thinks it's a good idea and he never thinks things like this are a good idea!”

Pidge marked where she was in her notes and then set her notebook aside, more interested in finding out what her friends were plotting than continuing to study. The fact that Hunk thought something was a good idea, but Lance didn't was bound to be entertaining.

“Pidge,” Allura began, taking her friend's hands with both of her own. “How would you feel about going on a double date with me and Shiro?”

Scratch that.

Not entertaining.

Pidge was with Lance, for once. It sounded like an awful idea.

“Don't say 'no' yet!” Allura begged.

“Maybe you've forgotten, but I'm not dating anyone and there isn't anyone I'm interested in either. I don't know if either of you remember the last time you tried to set me up on a blind date at Nadia's suggestion, but it didn't end well,” Pidge reminded them. “I'm sorry, Allura, but-”

“Shiro approves of him!” Allura blurted out in a desperate last attempt.

Pidge snapped her mouth shut and narrowed her eyes. “Shiro knows about this plan and approves of it?”

“Well... I wouldn't say he approves exactly, but he did say that he thought it would be nice if you two could meet and be friends,” Allura said. “You don't have to think of this as a date, if you don't want to. Just four friends seeing a movie and getting dinner.”

Curse Allura for being so difficult to say no to.

Pidge swallowed her inclination to agree to Allura's plan and looked to Lance instead, hoping that he would be able to offer her the perfect excuse to stay home. “So why are you against this, Lance?”

“Because Keith's a jerk!”

Allura rolled her eyes. “Honestly, I don't understand what your problem is with him. You just up and decided that he is your rival and haven't bothered to give him a chance beyond that!”

“Wait, rival? You mean the mullet guy he's always ranting about?” Pidge asked, her gaze drifting back to Allura.

That was interesting. She'd always been a little curious about the person Lance ranted on about from time to time. Hearing that Allura wanted to set her up with the mystery rival only increased that curiosity and it was for that reason that she found herself agreeing to a movie and dinner on Friday night.

“But it's not a date! Like you said, it'll just be four friends having fun.”

Allura squealed in delight. “You won't regret it, Pidge! This is going to be great!”

Lance quietly moaned in defeat, disappointed that no one else wanted to listen to him.

Pidge doubted she'd really have as much fun as Allura seemed to think, but it made her friend happy and she could hardly back out a minute after agreeing. She changed the subject before Allura could continue on, and they all sat around and talked for a while longer before Allura had to head off to class, and Lance to meet Nadia for a late lunch. Pidge stuck around to try and get a little more studying done, but found it hard to concentrate and packed up to head home to the apartment she shared with her brother, Matt.

He was friends with Shiro; maybe he could tell her more about Keith.

Sadly, Matt was nowhere to be found when she got home. After poking around in search of him, Pidge settled in at the desk in her room, leaving her bedroom door open so she could hear when he returned.

She lost herself to several rounds of solitaire on her computer, giving her brain an extended break from her studies. It wasn't like she could focus anyway.

At around four o'clock, as if guided by some unseen force, Pidge looked out her window to the park below. She could see children running around, screaming in glee. There was the old man who fed birdseed to the pigeons every Tuesday. A number of couples strolling along, hand-in-hand. An attractive man with dark hair, running with his massive wolf-like dog.

Pidge took a moment to admire him, as she always did. She wasn't sure what it was that drew her to him; if it was his carefully maintained schedule or just the way his dog stood out from all of the others.

“You know, I'm starting to think you have a crush.”

Pidge jumped and flailed her arms before spectacularly falling out of her chair. She glared up at her brother as he laughed. “It's not funny! And I do not!”

“Uh huh,” Matt responded, holding out a hand to help her up. “I brought pizza home, unless you'd rather sit in here and keep watching him.”

Pidge grumbled at him as she accepted his help, but didn't take the bait he dangled in front of her. Instead, she resisted the urge to take one last look and marched out of her room to their tiny kitchen. “Did you bring me any bread sticks?”

“Of course,” Matt said, still sounded amused.

Pidge happily gathered her food, elbowing Matt when she tried to steal a bread stick, and tried to cast aside all thoughts of double dates and attractive joggers. It didn't work very well when Matt kept casting her amused glances.

She finished off the crust of her first slice of pizza and contemplated the best way to distract him. Unfortunately, the only answer she could come up with was one that would lead to another unwanted conversation.

Although, she didn't have to tell him why she was asking about Keith. She could get her answers without revealing that Allura was trying to set her up on a date.

Pidge chomped down on a bread stick as she debated the best way to begin. “You know most of Shiro's friends, right?”

“Some of them,” Matt said as he stopped to take a drink before his next slice. “Why?”

“Allura invited me to hang out with her and Shiro on Friday and apparently Shiro's bringing a friend too. Keith, I think,” Pidge said.

Matt took too deep of a gulp and sputtered as he tried to collect himself. He covered his mouth and cleared his throat a few times, but that wasn't enough to hide the massive grin he was sporting.

Pidge groaned. “You're in on it too!”

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Matt said, and while he sounded sincere, his grin said otherwise. “I'm just surprised Keith agreed is all. He's more of a social recluse than you are, if you can believe that.”

She didn't fully trust that was the reason for his amusement, but as long as he didn't tease her for her potential date, she'd ignore his shifty behavior. And though she didn't find out anything about Keith, she didn't try to ask about him any more. She was tired and frustrated with herself, and more than a little nervous about Friday night, and didn't want to deal with whatever Matt was keeping secret.

Noticing that she was done with that particular topic, Matt redirected the conversation to classes and the insanity that was trying to follow Professor Slav's lessons, which was always a hot topic in their apartment.

Over the next few days, Pidge tried to find out more about Keith from Lance (which was a Bad Choice), Hunk (who twittered on a bit about how cute they'd be), and Nadia (who didn't personally know Keith, but was fully on board with it). She found nothing but frustration from them, and Allura was especially unhelpful, as she insisted that Pidge find out first hand.

She arrived at the theater with every intention to grill Shiro for information, only to stop short when she saw who was standing with him and Allura. It took her a moment to recognize him without his dog, but he was unmistakably the man she'd spent the past year admiring from her bedroom window.

Suddenly, Matt's amusement made perfect sense.

Allura spotted her through the crowd and waved her over. Pidge lifted a hand to weakly wave back and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Praying that her cheeks weren't turning bright red, she slowly made her way over to them.

It was certainly an interesting turn of events.

But she still wasn't calling it a date.

#voltron #kidgeweek 2019 #kidge #kidgemas #kidgeweek day 1

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shastelly · 6 years ago

Text

Late Night - March Klance Prompts from MonthlyKlance

It was late, so very late, Lance worked his shoulders back and forth to ease the tension and headed for the kitchen. As he suspected Hunk was busy puttering about.

"Hunk, my man, what is the late-night kitchen serving tonight." Lance asked sliding into a stool.

"Oh, hey Lance," Hunk nodded to muffins he was pulling out of a pan and putting into a container. "I just made these ahead for in the morning."

"Oh." Lance tried not to look disappointed.

"Hey, but there's extra, want one?" Hunk passed one to him.

"Well, if it's extra." Lance snatched the muffin and took a big bite. "Oh wow, now I will not have trouble waking up in the morning, these will be so worth it."

Hunk smiled proudly as Lance made obscene noises while he finished the muffin.

"Speaking of getting up, dude, you better head that way, hadn't you? It's like 1:00 castle time." Lance added.

"Oh, oh wow, I didn't realize. I guess I just got to thinking about today's mission and needed to do something to not think about it." Hunk muttered looking a little embarrassed.

"Nah, don't think about that anymore, think about how much we are all going to love these muffins and how you are going to have to make sure you have the ingredients around to keep making them, because they are going to be in demand!" Lance exclaimed dramatically while slipping an arm around Hunk and steering him toward his room.

"Oh, I can add the ingredients that are new to the stock list for Coran. He does a really good job keeping the pantry full when he knows what I want. I'll add the recipe to my file." Hunk yawned. "I bet I could modify the flavor as well, use it as a base recipe." Hunk crawled into bed and Lance pulled the cover up over his friend. He could tell how tired the big man already was, because he hardly noticed when Lance yanked his shoes off and turned the light out.

"Sleep tight." He murmured and headed off for his next victim.

"Piiidddggggge?" Lance called sticking his head into Green's hanger. The person in question looked up from her laptop, eyes bloodshot and hair sticking out every which way.

"Go away." She snarled.

"Pidge, you need sleep. Come on. You just got out of the cryopod and I know how tired that makes you."

Pidge's eyes softened a little, reminding herself that Lance had been in the pods too many times already.

"Sleep, Pidge, you are a genius, but even geniuses work better on sleep. You'll probably go twice as fast." He grinned elbowing her.

"Not unless the computer gets faster." She laughed.

"Come on, piggy back ride?" He offered and she jumped at his back.

"Giddyup!" She laughed the way she only did when she was really tired and out of it. Almost like for a moment she forgot everything going on around her and was just a young kid playing.

By the time Lance got her back to her room she was pretty much drooling on his back. He flopped her onto the bed and tossed the covers over her. He tried not to think of her floating in the cryopod or the tears she cursed at when she was sitting on the table in the med bay while Coran set her broken leg. He huffed a sigh and pressed a kiss to her forehead, the thought of something happening to her filled him with icy dread. He shivered and made his way out of her room. She was too much like one of his sisters, just like Hunk was his brother and they were both as precious to him as his biological family.

Speaking of family, he saw Shiro wondering the hall, headed toward the bridge.

"Shiro?" Lance ran up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. The older man swung back with an elbow and yelled before falling forward onto the ground.

"Shit." Lance flinched at the pain in his cheek where the elbow connected and kneeled in front of Shiro. His eyes were open, but he really didn't seem to be seeing him. Must be sleepwalking again, or a flashback, or both somehow, what did he know he wasn't a shrink. "Hey, Shiro. Hey man, you're in the castle. It's just me, Lance. Hey, it's okay. I think I'm not supposed to wake you up, but I don't know how else to get you back to bed. So…" Lance reached out and touched Shiro's hand softly speaking quietly and rhythmically until Shiro's eyes seemed to focus on him.

"Lance?"

"Oh, hey Shiro, I think you must have been sleepwalking, ‘cause I just found you out here. You okay?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I was dreaming." Shiro blushed. "Sorry, thanks for waking me. Guess I should lock the door huh?" Shiro tried to joke, but he sounded sad and tired.

"What were you dreaming about?" Lance asked carefully.

"I was looking for someone, but I couldn't find them." Shiro answered eyes averting down and to the left, obviously not something he wanted to give details about.

"Oh, I can see why you were wondering around then, huh?"

"Why are you up?" Shiro asked making note of how late it was.

"Oh, just getting some water, going to bed now. Want to walk with me?"

"Sure, I'll walk you back." Shiro stood and helped Lance up from the floor.

Lance smiled, he'd never get Shiro to just go back to his room, but he would never turn down walking Lance back if he asked. Of course, Shiro's room was just one down, so it worked out great. Lance waited at his door until Shiro slipped into his. He then sat on his bed for a few dobashes to be sure Shiro wouldn't hear him when he went back out.

He did this almost every night. It wasn't the same people every night. Pidge was pretty common and actually was usually a lot harder to get to bed. Hunk could be found after anything stressful. Shiro was random. Allura was rare, but he'd found her twice just walking the halls complaining she couldn't sleep. Coran he'd only found once, after the whole haunting thing, going over code in the pods crying. There was only one that was there almost every night, the one he still had to go get.

He took a deep breath and stood, his own weariness weighing him down, but he'd need to shake that off to move this one, especially tonight. Pidge had gotten hurt when she and Keith had infiltrated a computer hub on a Galra ship. Keith would be blaming himself, though it was not his fault in any way. It had been a trap and they'd been caught in a crossfire. Keith was contrary at the best of times, he'd be downright hateful tonight or this morning or whatever it was in the middle of late-night hell.

He got up from the bed and made his way to the training room. Sure enough, there was the sound of metal crashing into metal coming from the room. He slipped in and watched for a few dobashes as Keith destroyed the training bots in front of him. Lance had no idea what level this was, but he was almost sure Shiro would not approve of Keith doing it on his own. He'd once made the mistake of stopping him mid simulation and Keith had not spoken to him for three days. Lance shuddered, how he found out the silent treatment was the best way to torture Lance he had no idea, but it had sucked.

When the last bot cleared and before the next set could drop Lance called out, "End simulation!"

Keith whirled on him dark eyes flashing and sword still held in his grip, "I wasn't done."

"Dude, it's 2:30 castle time, we have to be up at 6:00. Even you need sleep, Mullet brain." Lance snarked.

"I'm not tired. Why don't you just leave me alone?!" He snarled.

"Just go to bed Keith." Lance sighed yawning.

"Sounds like you're the one that needs to go to bed. Just go and leave me alone." Keith turned back like he was going to have another go.

"Keith, I can always just go get Shiro." Lance pulled out the big guns.

"Why can't you just mind your own business? Why can't you leave me alone? I swear, mabye if you did a little more training yourself you wouldn't have to go get Shiro to make me leave." Keith jabbed.

"Look, you want to fight fine." Lance grabbed a staff from the rack behind him and threw one to Keith. "Bring it on, Samurai."

"Oh you think you can take me?" Keith growled.

"I think my little sister could take you right now, you're exhausted and completely unfocused." Lance snapped back.

"Like you'd know!" Keith drove at him and brought the staff down, Lance parried, but the hit jarred his arms.

"Does that even make sense?" Lance swung the staff around and blocked Keith's attempt to hit his knee.

"You are never focused, you never pay attention. It's like you don't even care!" Keith spat.

"I care, just because I don't have a meltdown and smash things doesn't mean I don't care!" Lance backed up a bit as Keith drove forward hard and his words stung.

"Whatever! You care about yourself! Why are you even here?" Keith snapped bringing the staff around and connecting with Lance's side.

Lance hissed and wrapped an arm around his side, dropping his staff. "Well unless you have another paladin up your sleeve, I guess you’re stuck with me." Lance choked out the words, “Just go the fuck to bed."

"That's not what I…are you okay?" Keith realized maybe he'd pushed a little too far. He was angry at himself and he shouldn't have taken it out on Lance. He'd meant why was Lance trying to get him to go to bed, not why was he here on the team.

Lance laughed hollowly, "Whatever. Just go to bed, Mullet. I'm tired." Lance left the training room and Keith stared after him for several ticks before heading off to his own room.

***

The next morning, he was sitting at the table enjoying the new muffins Hunk had made when he realized Lance wasn't up yet and it was almost time for training. The boy in question came tearing around the corner into the kitchen out of breath, hair a mess and marks from his pillow still on his face.

"Shit, sorry Shiro, I slept through the alarm." Lance announced looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Get something quick, Lance then meet us in the training room when you've had a chance to change." Shiro patted him on the shoulder as he went out. "I know you were up late."

Keith narrowed his eyes. Usually Shiro would be mad at someone for being late. Pidge gave Lance a quick hug on the way past and hurried off to change. She seemed more rested than usual.

Hunk dropped a muffin in Lance's hand, "I know you like them."

Keith frowned. Hunk had said they were a new recipe.

Lance fell into his chair at the table, Keith looked a little closer and startled.

"Do you have a black eye?" Keith walked over next to him and got in his face.

"Oh, you noticed that,” Lance gave a nervous laugh, "totally hit myself in the face with a staff yesterday. Kind of embarrassing, if you don't mind not mentioning it. I thought I got it covered up."

"Oh, okay, well I guess it's pretty hard to see." Keith wondered how bad it looked without the makeup. "You sure you don't need Coran to look at it."

"Nope, fine." Lance shoved a muffin in his mouth, "Shouldn't you be getting to training?"

Keith narrowed his eyes and stared at Lance for a good ten ticks before he walked out the door. He wondered if Lance had even gone to sleep after he'd left the training area. He cringed remembering some of the stuff he'd said. He didn't really mean it. He was just upset about the mission gone wrong and had wanted to take it out on the bots, then Lance had gotten in the way and he'd taken it out on him instead.

He sighed as he slipped into the training room remembering the hit, he'd given Lance to his side. He wondered if that had left a bruise, probably. He felt guilt worm its way around his gut. Lance'd just been trying to help.

"Hey Hunk?" Keith asked.

"Hmm?" Hunk turned his head, he was already going through the warm up stretches Shiro usually had them doing.

"How did you know Lance liked the muffins? I thought they were new?"

"Oh, he was up last night when I finished them. I stress bake and I was a little upset about the mission." Hunk admitted.

"Yeah, me too." Keith nodded a suspicion forming in his mind.

"Pidge?" He called her over to where he and Hunk were sitting. "Did you see Lance last night?"

"Yep, he literally carried me to bed." She smiled sadly. "Matt used to do that." Then gruffly swatted Hunk, "Get moving I want to spare."

"Great, Keith, now she's going to pretend she's not upset by beating me up." Hunk huffed good naturedly and headed over to Pidge quite willing to take a beating to make her feel better.

Before Lance slipped in to join the training, Keith had come up with a plan.

***

Later that night, Keith snuck out from his room to the training area as usual. He wondered why he hadn't noticed before, but almost every time he trained overly late, Lance had showed up to kick him to bed. There were a few exceptions, nights when Lance had been in a pod, nights when Shiro came and got him, nights when he only trained for about an hour and crawled into bed around 1:00.

And to be honest, he wasn't usually very gracious about it. Sure, some nights Lance would say "lights out" or something and Keith would be tired enough to put his bayard down and tromp off to bed, but a lot of nights ended with complaining, arguing or fighting with Lance about him training too much or not sleeping enough.

Keith sighed and apparently Lance was following up on the others as well. He'd managed to wheedle out of Shiro that he'd seen Lance up at night too. Keith knew Shiro had night terrors and had caught him sleep walking a few times himself, so it wasn't hard to imagine the circumstances where Lance might find him and the reasons Shiro really didn't want to discuss it. It also explained why he knew Lance was tired sometimes, he'd seen him up in the middle of the night and was well aware he hadn't gotten enough sleep.

Sure enough, around 2:00 the Blue Paladin slipped through the door to the training area.

"Keith, Samurai hour is over, go to bed." Lance whined.

"Okay." Keith smirked a little at the shocked look on Lance's face when he just agreed. "I was getting ready to quit anyway. You're up late?"

"Oh, I um, yeah." Lance shrugged. "I guess the clashing of sword on bot woke me up."

"Can't hear that from our rooms." Keith pointed out as he walked out of the training area.

"Well maybe I could." Lance blustered.

"Nope." Keith stared at him and waited.

"Okay, fine I was up anyway. I was dragging a little gremlin to bed and heard you training." Lance huffed.

"You do that a lot?" Keith asked quietly.

"Not too much, just sometimes, I mean she'd never sleep if she could get away with it." Lance smiled fondly.

"And me, you come here a lot and get me, don't you get tired? I usually take like a nap and then get up and train, you're just staying up?" Keith frowned.

"What? No. I nap." Lance waved him off but refused to meet his eyes.

"Okay." Keith realized they had walked all the way back to their rooms. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." Lance ducked into his door and Keith slipped into his.

***

Even after a shower and dressing in his comfortable sleep pants and a t-shirt, Keith still couldn't relax. It was like there was something off, missing, he'd missed something. Lance had been lying about napping, but then how much was he sleeping, and why wasn't he sleeping. Huffing in annoyance Keith barged out of his door and headed to Lance's. He paused just outside hearing muffled sounds from inside, groans and muttered words, it sounded like a nightmare. He knocked at the door, but when no one came he let himself in.

Lance was thrashing in his bed, yelling words he couldn't make out, his face contorted and angry or fearful looking in turn. The worst were the tears streaming down his face from his closed eyes.

"Lance?" Keith rushed to the bed. He'd learned from Shiro not to startle someone in a night terror. He tried calling out to him again louder. "Lance!"

Lance stilled and blinked. His arms shook and the tears were still falling. His eyes flashed away, and he scooted away from Keith when he saw him there.

"Hey, sorry, you were having a nightmare." Keith offered quietly.

"Oh." Lance wiped his face, like maybe Keith hadn't seen the tears. "Huh."

Keith reached out a hand and laid it over Lance's hand on the bed, "You okay?"

"Yeah, totally, fine." Lance lied really bad.

Keith bit his lip, he was horrible at comforting people, it's just not a skill he'd really developed as a child. He wondered what would Hunk do.

"Um…you want a hug?" Keith held his arms awkwardly open.

Lance stared at him for a moment, like he was trying to decide if this was some kind of trap, but something in Keith's face must have reassured him because the next thing he knew he had his arms full of Blue Paladin. Keith wrapped his arms down around Lance and squeezed gently. Lance was still crying against his shoulder. Keith scooted up and onto the bed so that it was easier to hold him.

"You want to talk about it?" Keith asked calmly. He'd tried to get Shiro to talk after his nightmares, but he did not want hugs and he did not want to talk. Mabye though, maybe Lance would.

"I just miss my family and home and I keep having these dreams that the Galra are there on Earth and they are taking my family. Sometimes they hurt or kill them, sometimes they take them as slaves, sometimes I'm there and sometimes I get there and just find their graves." Lance sobbed.

"Oh," Keith tightened his hug and began rubbing what he hoped were calming circles on Lance's back. "I get it."

"It's just, I mean, I want to be out here saving people and the universe and I feel like I'm doing good, but part of me really wants to know they are okay and that Galra ship was there and so close to Earth. What if they go back and we're out here? Earth wouldn't have anything to stop them or anyway to contact us." Lance shook in Keith's arms.

"Hey, you know Allura and Coran are monitoring movements in that area. If the Galra even get close, we'll know, and we'll stop them before they even get there." Keith whispered fiercely. "We won't let them hurt Earth as long as we're here."

Lance's tears had slowed and some of the tension had drained away. "Thanks." He sat up then, pulling away from Keith. "I'm sorry I went all blubbery on you."

"You don't have to say sorry. Lance, you've been taking care of us, of me, for weeks. I'm the one that should be saying thanks to you." Keith managed to catch Lance's eyes to be sure he understood he meant what he was saying.

"Oh, I mean, it's not the big of a deal. I was up anyway, and I just noticed you guys weren't taking care of your selves and you particularly are crap at it." Lance elbowed Keith with a little smile.

"Hmm…am I? And I'm going to say you're not that hot at it either. Already up? How long have you been having these nightmares?" Keith frowned.

Lance muttered something.

"What?"

"Um…since we got here?" Lance blushed and looked down.

Keith cringed. How had he not noticed that, that many weeks without sleeping properly, chasing after everyone else.

"That how you got the shiner? Fall asleep and fall or something?" Keith asked trying to lighten the tone.

"Oh, no, but I don't recommend touching Shiro when he's sleep walking." Lance frowned.

"Oh, oh shit, does he know?" Keith asked concerned.

"No." Lance glared, "What am I a jerk? It's not his fault."

"Yeah, well, don't startle him awake if he's having a bad dream either. Other side of the room and call his name is best." Keith warned.

"Duly noted." Lance nodded.

"Now, back to your issue. You need to get some sleep."

Lance sighed, "It's not like I wasn't trying."

"Would it, um, would it help if I stayed?" Keith offered. He figured he was already there and comfy and Lance hadn't exactly let go of him yet, just sat up.

"You don't have to do that." Lance blushed.

"But it would help?" Keith was pleased, what he was doing was working.

"Yes, probably." Lance admitted.

"Good." Keith snuggled down into Lance's bed and looked up to where the other boy was still sitting staring at him. "I mean, if that's okay?" Suddenly Keith was a little concerned he'd gone too far with the whole what would Hunk do thing.

"No, yes, I mean, it's fine." Lance was still staring at him a little as he eased himself into the bed and laid his head on the pillow. "I…thank you."

"Someone has to take care of the guy that's taking care of everyone else." Keith whispered eyes falling shut already.

Lance smiled softly watching Keith's breathing even out as he drifted off to sleep.

#monthlyklance #monthlyklance march 2019 #klance #voltron fanfic

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