#bayard presse

[iloveboysinred]

Miracle [Keith Kogane]

18+ angst|Keith Kogane x reader

synopsis; During a battle with the Galra you and Keith are cornered, you give up your life to save Keith, and leave him a gift to remember you by.

cw; fem reader, angst, character death, sad Keith, mentions of blood, violence, strangulation, stabbing, heavy grief, survivors guilt.

this will probably be the last angst request I'll write given that I'm not the best at it and i hate putting out work I'm not proud of ;/. Hope you enjoy anon!

masterlist - ask

Adrenaline pulsed through your veins as you ran down the dark halls of a Galra ship. It was an endless labyrinth of walls and turns, the darkness suffocating. You'd swear you were running in circles; every time you thought you'd found another way, you were just met with another band of sentries, shooting at you, chasing you, hunting you down. You tried to keep up with Keith, his hand wrapped tightly around your wrist, but your legs were starting to get tired, and your mind was foggy and confused. You didn't know how much longer you could endure. "Lance? Pidge? C'mon guys, where are you?" you heard Keith shout, trying to reconnect his damaged helmet to the others, but to no avail.

Your mind flashed back to Earth for a second. To when you and Keith were garrison trainees. You were close, seeing through his cold exterior and becoming friends quite quickly. From then on, you have always been there for each other. Supporting each other in training and comforting each other through the good and the bad. So of course, when he had come to you for support after he caught wind of Shiro's re-appearance, you had gone with him. Never expecting to be where you are now, fighting a galactic war and constantly putting your lives at risk.

"Fuck!" Your heart dropped to your stomach when you stopped, staring up at the wall in front of you. It was a dead end. You glanced behind you; they were gaining. Keith pulled you behind him, activating his bayard. You stared in fear when the sentries parted, a large Galra soldier advancing towards you. "It appears the universe has granted me a gift," he sneered, stopping a few feet away from you and Keith. His ugly yellow teeth peeked out from under his lip in a menacing snarl, his glowing yellow eyes pinning you with unsettling malice. You felt Keith tense, his grip on your wrist falling, raising his bayard defensively. "Lord Zarkon will be pleased when I bring him the heads of the red lion's paladin and his co-pilot." He got into his own defensive stance. He was big, standing about 5 feet above you; his body was strong and muscular. His teeth shone in the dim lighting, sharp as blades. "This will be fun. I think I'll take you first, Paladin. Your death will be just the beginning of the end for Voltron. How will your pathetic band of earthlings form Voltron if they're one paladin short? It'll make it all the easier to take you out one by one." You narrowed your eyes, reaching into the band of your boot and gripping the concealed dagger you'd made sure to bring, just in case the situation got dire.

"Cmoooon Keith. Let me drive!" You whined, leaning over Keith's back, trying to reach for the controls of his cruiser. "No way, y/n. Knowing you, you'll drive us into a cliff. "Oh,  come on! You doubt my skills that much??" Keith gave you a blank look, shrugging you off. You grumbled, sitting down and wrapping your arms around his waist. He smirked, revving the engine and taking off. You flew through the desert, sand spraying in your wake. The air whipped your hair at the speed you were going exhilarating. You grinned, blood roaring in your ears. "Oh shit!" you cheered every time Keith dodged an obstacle. You gripped his waist tightly, pressing your chest against his back. 

"Keith? Keith!" You heard Lance's voice ring through his helmet, the connection glitching. "Lance! Where are you guys!? We're kind of in a situation here. The Galra have me and you cornered." "Don't worry, we know where you are. We're coming to get you in just a tick." The connection cut off once more, the radio chatter blocking out anything else being said. The Galra soldier ran towards you, swinging a large blade right towards you and Keith.

"Y/n.. I have something important to tell you." You and Keith sat in front of his house; the night sky was clear, and the moon was shining down on you. "yeah?" You looked up at him from your bowl of noodles, your cheeks full to the brim. Keith's eyes softened in adoration. "Well, I've been picking up a lot of chatter on my radar. A space vessel is approaching Earth, and I think it might be Shiro." Your eyes widened, and you swallowed your mouth full, leaning toward him intently. "Really? that's great! But... what do you think you should do?"" "Well, I was hoping we'd find the landing sight and go see for ourselves." Keith blushed at your close proximity, looking away from you, bashful of your eagerness. "Oh my gosh, we totally should! When do you think it'll land?" "My guess is that in two days, will you come with me?" You gaped at him in disbelief. "Of course I will! Are you kidding?" Keith smiled at you. You leaned forward, pressing a warm kiss on his cheek. "We're in this together, okay?" "Okay."

You flinched as Keith's body hit the floor, quickly blocking the Galra's attack with his bayard. He had him pinned to the ground, his face a few meters away from his. "I have to admit, you do put on a good fight. I wouldn't expect anything less from a Paladin of Voltron," he snarled, bearing his teeth in a sneer. His tail slapped the bayard from Keith's hands, the weapon clattering as it hit the ground a few feet away. The sentries aimed their weapons at you, stopping you as you tried to run towards them. You stood there, helpless, as you watched Keith struggle. Then, the ground shook as the wall behind you suddenly rumbled, the blue lion appearing from a newly made gap. "Cmon guys, we don't have much time. Galra fighter jets are coming quick!" Your eyes locked on Keith, and your heart raced as the blade inched closer and closer to his throat. Grabbing the dagger, you ran at the soldier, narrowly dodging a sentry blade. Using as much weight as you could to knock him off Keith, trying to give him time to escape. You slashed as much as you could, drawing blood from any skin you reached. "y/n!" Keith shouted, running to try and come to your aid, but a sentry slashed at him, causing him to fall back, holding his side where he had been hit. "K-Keith! Go! Get out of here!" you screamed, trying to hold the Galra soldier down as best you could. "No! Not without you!" he grunted, trying to stand up. You felt your body hit the ground as the soldier flipped you off of him. The air escaping your lungs from the impact. You couldn't catch your breath; the soldier was holding you down by the neck. All you could hear between Keith's shouts and the footsteps of more sentries crowding you was the fast beating of your heart. "KEITH! WE HAVE TO GO!" Lance's voice rang in your ears, but you couldn't move; your neck was starting to ache. You kicked and scratched at the galra, but the lack of oxygen was starting to weaken you. Mustering as much strength as possible, you clumsily gripped the dagger, driving it into the soldier's side, but it did little to penetrate the armor covering his body. "Even if I can't bring him the corpse of your little boyfriend, Lord Zarkon would be just as pleased knowing it's one paladin down. Ever closer to wiping out all of Voltron," the soldier purred, putting more weight down on your neck.

"You know I love you," you murmured, pressing your lips to his in a sweet kiss. Keith turned his head, pressing his lips harder, holding you close to him. You threaded your fingers through his hair, smiling as you pulled away. "I love you more," he whispered, gazing into your eyes with so much emotion that it made your heart flutter. "Pfft, big softy." He glared at you, pulling you to his chest and laying back on his bed with you.

"y/n! We can't leave her, Lance! we can't-" "Keith. We don't have time. You'll bleed out; we have to go!" You felt your vision begin to blur, and the grip on your neck felt heavier. You glanced over the Galra soldier, watching as Lance hauled Keith into the blue lion's mouth, shooting at any sentry he could. "Lance, let me go! Let me fucking go!" Keith shouted, struggling against his hold. But he was weakening; the blood streaming out of his wound was making him dizzy, and his movements were uncertain. As his vision became more and more unclear, his panic increased. Where were you? what's happening? The last glimpse he got of you was your unmoving body and the sentries crowding around you. His eyes teared as he struggled against Lance weakly, his fists clenching when Lance pulled him into a hug, constricting his arms. His vision blurred both from his tears and the blood loss. Sobs racked his body as the blue lion's mouth closed, flying out and away from the ship.

You glanced blankly at the ceiling, refusing to look the soldier in the eye as your life slowly faded. "I love you, Keith; don't worry, I'll see you again," you thought, your body going still when your breathing ceased, your heart's beating coming to a stop.

Keith might as well have been dead himself. At least that's how he felt. His heart was hollow, his mind swirling with thoughts of you and how you had passed—to save him. He couldn't even hurt anymore; he didn't feel anything most of the time. Most days where he was stuck in his head about you, he would feel pure, unbridled rage, lashing out in training sequences, pushing himself harder than he ever did before. On nights where he suffered your absence the most, he felt cold grief grip his heart so strongly that he struggled to breathe, becoming inconsolable. Tears fell heavily from his eyes when he cried. He would scream, gripping his chest through his shirt. Shiro would rush in, enveloping Keith in his arms, and he would thrash around in his hold, slightly settling down when he started to tire. Shiro comforted him, assuring him it was going to be okay. Keith couldn't hear him, zoning out and staring blankly at the ceiling with glistening eyes. Going on missions felt like torture. His attacks were uncoordinated, and the team had to make up for his lack of focus. The arguments that ensued between him and Lance almost broke into full-blown fights, Keith's heart only building more and more resentment for everyone in the castle.

Months later, here he stood, watching as Allura pressed a final kiss to Lance's lips, tears falling from their eyes, trying to savor whatever they could before they ran out of time. "Keith, look," Shiro whispered, placing his hand on Keith's shoulder. He paused for a second, the bitterness of the situation making it hard to care about what Shiro was saying. But he glanced up anyway, tears rising along his waterline. The Paladins of old—Allura's father and Zarkon's family—stand right in front of them. He felt his heart squeeze as you appeared from behind the crowd, smiling sweetly at him. You looked so beautiful. A sight for sore eyes to Keith. He ran towards you, his eyes shining with so much love and so much pain. You welcomed him into your embrace. Holding him close as he hugged you, burying his nose in your hair. You quickly pulled him into a kiss, savoring the feel of his lips one last time. "I miss you so much, Keith," you whispered, cupping his face in your hands. Keith felt his heart stop, drinking in every feature of your face, knowing he wouldn't see it for a while. "I miss you every day of my life. I love you, Y/N. So much," you smiled, pulling away from him and keeping his arms in your hold. "I love you more." "I wish you could come back to me. I should've been there with you. I'm so sorry." you shushed him. "We'll be together again. Hopefully not any time soon though!" Keith chuckled, the weight of his grief making his voice shaky. "But I've got to go, Keith. I have a gift for you. Please, heal, and forgive. I'll always have you in my heart." Keith's chest ached as you pulled away from him, taking your warmth and scent with you. "I love you." You smiled at him sweetly, Allura following you. Slowly,  you disappeared again, dissipating into the air and leaving everyone feeling bittersweet.

Keith was taken aback when he felt something shift in his arms, looking down to see a moving bundle of cloth. He heard muffled babbling, making him hurriedly unravel the bundle in shock. A pretty baby girl stared up at him; somehow she looked like you, having his dark hair and nose but your eyes, lips, and eyebrows. He gaped down at the baby, holding it close to his chest. "What ?? Where did that baby come from??" Pidge asked, coming up to peer down at the child. "Y/N left her; she's the gift." Keith whispered, his eyes crinkling in a bright smile, pressing a kiss to the baby's forehead. "She's mine. The baby's mine," he whispered, rocking the baby in his arms. The little girl glanced up at him with wide eyes, soft babbling and cooing coming from her as she happily laid in her father's arms. "How is that even possible?" Hunk whispered, glancing down at the baby, adoration in his heart. "It's a miracle." Lance whispered, standing next to Keith. Keith glanced at him for a second, mixed emotions coursing through him. He felt resentment and hatred for the man. Grief still swelling in his chest, but your words echoed in his mind: "Heal, forgive," and he gave Lance a ghost of a smile. "Yeah, she is."

The story of both you and Allura's sacrifices became sensational, with old allies of Voltron helping construct statues of you and the Altean princess standing side by side. Every once a year, the team would unite and visit the statue, sharing updates on each other's lives and recounting old missions. At every meeting, Keith would bring his daughter, making sure she was present for every story the team would share about you. "Y/N and Allura should be here. But it's because of them that we can all continue to keep peace in the universe. I can't imagine anyone braver than them." Coran sighed, glancing up at the statues with bittersweet love in his gaze. Everyone solemnly agreed, toasting to both you and Allura's legacy. Keith glanced down at his daughter, snuggled up next to him in her own chair, staring up at the statues with shining eyes and wonder. He smiled, knowing that as long as he had his miracle, he had something to live for, and some piece of you was still with him here on earth.

[autisticlancemcclain]

“You know I love you, right?”

Keith smiles. He doesn’t stop his hands from their constant brushes through his boyfriend’s hair, doesn’t shift or move. Lance stays where he is, too, full weight on Keith’s body, head pillowed on his chest, moving slightly with every breath.

“Yes,” Keith says. “I know.”

“Good.” Keith feels the rumble of Lance’s voice in his ribcage, the puffs of his breath on his bare skin. “‘Cause I tease you, a lot, so I wasn’t sure if you knew.”

“I do. I know.” He pauses as he runs his fingers over the shell of Lance’s ear, tracing the scar on his skull, before gently tapping his finger three times. For a while Lance simply breathes, sinking into Keith’s touch, then he shifts slightly, turning brown eyes up to meet Keith’s.

“How do you know, though? Like if you had to define it.”

Keith leans down slightly to press a kiss to his freckled nose, just to watch it wrinkle. It makes him grin. “I just do, Lance. You say my name like you love me.”

The answer doesn’t seem to placate Lance completely, but enough that he sighs, putting his head back down on Keith’s chest and reaching over blindly to pull their blankets up to his chin.

“Okay.”

Keith says nothing for a long while, humming to himself, enjoying the feeling of Lance’s soft skin under his hands, the weight of his body pressing him into the mattress. It’s a relief after a long day, a balm to his exhausted muscles and tired brain.

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

Keith tugs a strand of Lance’s hair in admonishment, not enough to hurt, but he grumbles anyway.

“Try again.”

“Maybe I don’t love the man who hurts me so,” Lance pouts, sticking out his bottom lip and rubbing his scalp like it actually hurts.

Keith rolls his eyes. Lance grins, then sighs.

“Just — someone said something, at training. Kind of huffed and said something about how annoying it was that we still don’t like each other.”

Keith snorts. “Well, you did shoot me.”

“I was justified! You were being irritating!” Lance shifts, moving to his belly so he can look at Keith properly, glaring. “And I put my bayard on stun! It barely hurt!”

Love of his life or not, Keith loves getting this man so riled up.

“Yeah, the giant bruise I have says otherwise.”

There is no giant bruise.

But messing with Lance is funny.

“You are not fucking bruised!”

Before Lance can get too enraged and start stripping him down to make sure, Keith laughs, giving up the game and grabbing Lance’s wrists. He pulls him forward so he loses his balance, arms around Keith’s neck, barely managing to catch himself before their heads smack together, face inches from Keith’s.

“You worry too much,” Keith whispers, nosing his way down Lance’s cheeks, peppering kisses as he goes. “I don’t give a shit what anyone else says. The whole point of keeping them in the dark is so that I can have you —” he bites Lance’s earlobe gently, pulling it slightly, making the Cuban’s breath hitch — “all to myself.”

“Still,” Lance tries to insist, but Keith can physically feel his resolve falling away, feel him melting into Keith’s touch. “It bothers me that people think I can do anything but love you. You’re — I dunno. You’re everything to me. You make me feel like I can keep going.”

Keith can’t help his smile, and he knows Lance feels it, pressed into the junction of his neck. He kisses slightly there, and Lance turns his head to give him access, slides his hands into Keith’s hair as he works a mark into dark skin.

“That’s gay,” Keith mumbles, as fondly as he can.

It takes a second for Lance to clock Keith’s words, too focused on the besotted sound of them, but he huffs when he does, shoving Keith away and glaring at him.

Keith bursts out laughing.

“You’re the worst,” Lance says, but soon he’s smiling, too. Keith leans in and kisses that smile, because he can and because he wants to.

“I know.”

“Jerk. I’m divorcing you.”

Keith hums, tugging him back down under the covers, wrapping him back into the position he was in earlier. “You won’t even let me marry you.”

“We are twenty years old,” Lance grumbles, but every time he says it he sounds less and less like he cares. “We’re not getting married at twenty years old.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Lance settles into the silence, breathing evening again, wandering hands going still.

“I love you too, by the way,” Keith murmurs, suddenly worried that Lance doesn’t know.

He feels Lance’s lips upturn, and smiles to match it.

He knows.

[soulreapin]

fair warning, this gets kinda heavy.

tldr: keith bends and bends underneath the weight of everything, and finally, he cracks.

this was really cathartic for me to write, so even if you read it here give it a kudos on ao3 just for me.

—

Keith’s mouth tastes like rubbed-away Carmex and ash.

He’s doing okay for himself, on the castle of lions, he goes and he dons his suit and he does his job and he fights with Lance and then he comes “home” and peels his suit off piece by piece and stands underneath the shower with bad water pressure until his skin turns pink and his joints stop clicking together as he walks and then he goes to bed, just to do it all again. Keith says he is doing okay for himself to the people he saves every single day, to the people he lives with every single day, but he doesn’t say it to himself.

To himself, he’s drowning. The words to what he’s feeling warp in his throat and feel caught in a web, choking him out until he can’t breathe. He is floating on the surface of something horrid, and his palm slaps on the surface of the water but there’s nothing for his desperate fingers to cling on to, so Keith slips.

With every day he slips, back and back and back until the stitches holding him together strained against the weight. Then Keith hauls himself forwards, and forwards a little more until there is just enough lessened on the stitches for him to keep going, just a little longer.

It doesn’t feel like anything anymore. The butt of a blaster slammed into his chin three days ago, and his jaw popped out of its place for just a moment on his left side and sometimes he can’t touch those back teeth together, but that doesn’t feel like anything. He took nine space tylenol and called it a day.

Most nights after he gets three horrible hours of sleep, Keith sits on the bow of the ship. He doesn’t know why the bow is so comfortable, but he did know that if he closed his eyes and drifted out far enough, sometimes the rock of the ship felt like the simulator deck at the Galaxy Garrison. He spent hours out there, even when classes had ended. Shiro slipped him into the sim and made him promise not to cause too many problems.

He’s there right now, staring at the empty, pin-pricked abyss that the castle lingered in. The galaxy they’re floating through is close to Olkari, but not close enough to patch through a call.

Keith, at four in the morning, is completely alone out here. No one on his team likes him, his lion is working against him, his bayard wouldn’t get fucking going this morning and cost them precious seconds that could’ve been used to save lives, and his belt loop got stuck on the door.

Nothing else bothered him, he shook off the dislike and let his lion roll of his back like water, Keith made up for his bayard by racing the clock and getting a group of younglings out of a tight spot, but his belt loop yanking on the door handle and keeping him trapped in the doorway of his room was the final straw. He took dinner in his room, because if Lance even looked at him with his stupidly cute face and surprisingly thoughtful words, Keith would start to sob like a child and he cannot have that.

So he sits on the bow.

The bow is quiet, there’s nothing on the bow but him and the built in chairs and the endless, expansive stars.

Keith sighs, a whistle through his throat, and starts to absentmindedly comb his tired fingers through his hair. It sat in a ponytail lately, so he could better wedge his helmet over it, and there was a noticeable dent in his hair from how little time he had to wash it and how often he wore it like that.

Silence envelops him for just a few more minutes before he hears the soft woosh of the automated door open and close. Almost immediately, fight or flight gripping him tight and refusing to let go of him. Keith turns his head and grips his knife, the flat of the blade pressed to his forearm, and watches as Lance edges into the bridge, holding onto a pillow.

Oh.

Fight puts its knife down and flight folds in its wings. Keith lowers his blade and lets it clatter loudly onto the floor, lest Lance assume he’s alone on the bow. Lance looks around wildly for just a second until he sees Keith sitting in front of Red’s chair and relaxes, nodding almost to himself and trudging to the very front of the bow, right in front of the glass.

He watches Lance as he drops his pillow on the floor and tucks his forearms beneath it, turning his chin towards the stars and saying nothing.

But Keith can’t sit in silence like this. He feels like he’s been ripped into a storm and thrown around and around until his head is barely hanging on, so Keith delicately clears his throat and says, “You’re up late.”

“Et tu, Brute?” Lance responds groggily,

Keith laughs slightly, a short bark that comes out a little drier than he intended. “Couldn’t….couldn’t sleep.”

Lance shifts a little so his head is turned to Keith instead of the stars. “Yeah, me too. I didn’t think you came out here. Training deck finally handed you an eviction notice?”

“I like it here.” Keith says defensively; what could he possibly be defending?

“Relax, Red, not here to give you the third degree.” Lance’s eyes slide from open to closed a few times, like he’s fighting sleep.

He doesn’t respond to that, but pulls his knees into his chest and loosely wraps his arms around them, bony kneecaps digging into his collarbone. Keith watches Lance acutely like a predator as this boy, this friend who he flew alongside every day and ate next to and slept in the same hallway as buried his face into the pillow he’d brought with him and his breathing starts to even out.

It comes on like a cold.

Keith sniffs once and coughs and just like that, warm tears bead up in his lower lashline and trickle down his face, bouncing from small freckle to smaller scar and then dripping onto his hand. Slowly, Lance’s head inches upwards, peering at Keith in the low, blue light. His words rattle out of him, “Do you want to talk about it?”

No. Yes. He’d rather kill himself. He’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t. Keith forces all of this down and clears his throat, wiping the tears away from his eyes and coughs again, “I think so. I shouldn’t.”

“You can. If you want. I’ll listen, Keith.” Lance’s voice is low and careful, treating Keith like a scared lioness kept in captivity, and he didn’t mind it.

Keith. It’s always Red, or Mullet, or Rascal Flatts. Never Keith.

He swallows, and trudging every goddamn step of the godforsaken way, Keith tries to articulate what holds him down, night and day.

“I just. I don’t know. I feel like I’m struggling.” He speaks up to the ceiling. “It feels like its climbing up my throat, almost, and I am struggling to keep going with it. I do, I get up every day and do what I have to do as the red paladin, but as Keith Kogane, I am trying so fucking hard, and I cannot keep going like this. I’m going to break and I am fucking scared of it.”

Lance makes a soft, neutral noise.

“And nobody, nobody likes me, I know it, not even you and you’re like, the light of freedom and friendship in this dark fucking hellhole, and I keep failing everything and I want to give up. But if I give up,” Keith pauses very briefly to clear his throat again, because he’s going to sob if he doesn’t, “If I give up, then I’m going to doom the entire universe.”

“That’s..a lot for just one kid.” Lance sounds…worried. “How do you…do it?”

Keith knots his fingers in his hair. A nervous habit. “I just. Do. I guess. Shove it so far down I can’t even think about it and then just keep going, because if I stop, then I’m going to drown.”

“That must have been a lot for you.” Lance says reassuringly, getting up slowly and making his way towards Keith, slumping down against the chair and looking out at the stars right in front of him. “I’m sorry that we put that pressure on you.”

“We–” Keith’s head snaps over to Lance, tracing over the curve of his nose. “Shit. God, this has all happened to you and I’m the only one that’s responding like this because I can’t fucking take it. It’s not fair to you that I’m such a goddamn wreck about it when everyone else has just…figured it out. “

The laugh that spills out of Lance sounds wet. “You think we’ve…figured it out? Keith, we’re all fucking struggling through this together. We’re all hurting.”

Keith presses his lips together and swallows the hurting sob that bangs against his teeth to be let out.

“We thought you’d talk to someone. Shiro, maybe. Keith, you can’t hurt on your own forever. It’ll eat you alive and then chew on the bones until those are gone, too.” Lance’s hand rests on Keith’s elbow, and Keith doesn’t yank it away. He finds a little bit of comfort in the warmth of those fiddler’s fingers.

“You don't know that.” Keith bites out, his fingers digging into his knee.

Lance, to his credit, sighs thoughtfully. “I do. I absolutely do because I lived it. The Garrison was…misery reincarnated. No one liked me. I was almost entirely alone, even with Hunk and Pidge. But I kept moving, every single day until I snapped and started crying in Shiro’s office because he was nice.”

“I remember that day. Shiro came home all emotional because one of his students had trusted him with something so important. Figures it was you.” Keith laughs gently as he recalls the smile on Shiro’s face as he moved around the house making dinner that night.

“Yeah, that was me. I started talking to Veronica after that whenever I could. She got her doctorate in psychiatry and became a therapist, did you know that? I’m so fucking proud of her.” Lance’s voice shifts and it sounds blurry when he brings up his pride in his older sister.

It pulls at some loose string in his soul. Keith’s free hand reaches over and rests gently over the one sitting on his elbow. “She knows. I promise you, she knows that you are proud of her. Even all the way out here.”

“I’m glad you think so, Keith.” Lance looks over at him with a wet shine in his eyes and a weak, fond smile pulling at his lips.

They’re hurt together.

Keith cannot be fixed with just one conversation and a hand on his elbow.

Lance’s longing for his family cannot be mended with a glance at the stars and a hand on top of his.

But while they hurt together, they can start to heal intertwined.

—

ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53325874

[shatterinseconds]

Fire

Keithtober '23 week 2

The fire crackles in front of them. 

It took Keith two attempts for the sparks to catch on some dry twigs they collected from their rough landings. It may be a small start, but at this point, Keith is grateful that he and Lance crash landed on a forested planet and not in an arctic zone. And that the skills he learned, needing to start fires for the cold nights in the desert when the burner in his shack acted up, remained ingrained in him.

“When do you think they’ll come for us?” Lance asks as he strokes the fire. An emergency blanket is wrapped around his shoulders.

“Probably another hour,” Keith guesses, staring up at the fading twin suns. They landed not more than thirty minutes ago but he worries about the dark. Who knows what crawls in the night around here. “They still have to get here.”   

He and Lance were on patrol, scouting out this unknown planet that popped up on the castle-ship’s long range radar. No information was found in the Altean database and they had no way of knowing if it was occupied by the Galra—though the likelihood was high. Hiding behind one of the larger moons, its magnetic core throwing off their sensors, a Galra cruiser shot them down by surprise. Their comms fried instantly, their lions inactive. Hopefully by not reporting at check-in time, it spurred the rest of their team into immediate action.

Now they rest against the blue lion’s side. Keith rests his bayard on his lap, keeping watch on the trees. Lance has his gun propped beside him within immediate reach. But his manner is much more relaxed, pressed up against Keith’s side as he drapes the blanket over Keith’s shoulders too. It’s not that big so they snuggle close.

A dried patch of blood crusts on Lance’s forehead under his hair. It bled fast, being a head wound, but is a minor gash. One that won’t even need stitches. Keith is more worried about a possible concussion, but Lance has been fairing fine, still able to needle and tease him. 

Sighing, Lance throws his poker stick down, clenching his hands in his lap. “What if they don’t come?” 

Keith turns his head slightly, catching Lance’s gaze. “That’s not really a scenario I want to consider.” No matter how impossible it would be. They’ll come; he knows it.

“It might not be too bad,” Lance responds lightly, “I was thinking about how nice of a spot this would be.”

“Did you hit your head harder than I thought?”

Lance shakes his head. “I’m serious. We could build a nice little shack over there.” He gestures to the roughed-up clearing the lions’ descent created. “Tend to a garden and grow weird alien flora.” Lance moves his attention back towards Keith, a glimmer of something in his eyes. “Just the two of us. Away from everything.”

Keith is silent for a moment and finally says, a little hesitant, “Is that your dream, for after the war?”

Lance smiles at him, a soft one. “How’d you guess?”

“It sounded too nice to be thought of on the spot.”

“Sometimes,” Lance starts to explain as he leans in, like this is a secret to be shared only with Keith though no other person is around and their lions are offline. “I like to imagine what it’ll be like when we defeat the Galra Empire. Gives me something tangible to look forward to.”

Whether the hand-built shack and alien plants are a permanent fixture of Lance’s imaginative future, the underlying message, Keith understands, will forever remain unchangeable. Lance wants to build a home with him. Keith blinks back a sudden push of tears. He interlocks his hand with Lance’s, squeezing once in approval of his plan. “They’ll come for us. We’ll survive.” Survive all of it, not just today.

Lance dips his head into the crook of Keith’s neck, curling into him. “I plan to,” Lance says and it’s the easiest thing Keith has ever believed in.

[silentwillowwhisperer]

Day 2- Weapon

Whoo, almost forgot about this.

———————————-

Keith always finds it funny when others think that his skill set centers entirely around blades.

Yes, he picks up quite a few from the planets he visits with Voltron, but he likes to compare it to a trapeze artist using a net below them. It’s not strictly necessary to preform the job, but he feels a whole lot safer with something to rely on if things go wrong.

Also people tend to leave him alone as soon as they realize that he’s armed. It’s a win-win situation. He avoids social interaction, and others don’t get a taste of his temper.

He spends a lot of time on the front lines, slashing at enemies with everything in him, and it’s built him quite a lot reputation. He’s well aware that Galra soldiers are warned of his stab-happy nature.

There’s just something satisfying about being face to face with your opponent before striking them down. Something gratifying about seeing their face as they realize they’ve met defeat.

Also, again, most people have the common sense to avoid the raging teenager waving oversized weapons. The people who run are always shot down pretty fast by Lance. Or they underestimate Pidge and go down thanks to electric shock rather than a stab wound.

However, sharp sticks only get you so far. The Galra have a habit of deciding that Keith is no longer formidable without his sword.

Once, he had found himself up against a Galra man a good 3 feet taller than him. With a quick swish of his tail, the alien had knocked Keith’s weapons out of his hands.

He found out far too late that Keith has a solid punch. It was Hunk who ended up taking the soldier out with his bayard, but he looked so happy about it thatKeith couldn’t be bitter.

It was also his interest in blades that got him closer to Lance.

Keith had not noticed it at first, but the blue paladin’s love for shopping extended to gift giving as well. On their first paladin Christmas, Lance had hesitantly passed him a small black bag during the gift exchange.

Lance had shuffled his feet nervously and avoided eye contact. “I just thought it was cool.” He huffed out.

Keith reached in to the bag to find a device about the size and shape of a dime.

“The lady who sold it to me said that you have to press it to someone’s neck at it releases whatever kind of poison you put in there. I thought you might.. think it’s cool?”

Is it possible to feel attraction towards a person and a weapon at the same time? Because Keith was.

(Keith’s gift to Lance was a pretty shell with swirls of blue and purple, similar shades to both of their eyes. It glitters like sand at the beach being showered with golden sunlight, and is almost as beautiful as Lance. Be quiet, Keith is allowed to be sappy sometimes.)

Keith does stop sleeping with a knife under this pillow after Lance gifts him a stuffed animal almost like a hippo the next year though, for fear that the blade might tear into the animal’s soft fabric.

————————————-

I forgot where I was going with this. I should really start writing drafts first. Or at least writing down little notes for plot.

[was70th]

she’s sitting arm and arm against finnick in mags’ living room, a half-hearted knitting project in her lap. it’s supposed to be a hat, but her fingers are twitchy and refuse to cooperate. bayard is talking to mags in his low, creaky voice, wade’s foot tapping against the floor in an uneven manner. cora brought her husband, but her children stayed home. playing on the screen is katniss everdeen twirling in wedding dresses, the sight leaving something sour and sad in the pit of annie’s stomach. but that’s not what they’re here for - the quell announcement is today. there’s a palpable tension to the room ( there’s been tension for months ) the air hot and heavy like before a storm, and it prickles beneath annie’s skin, sweat clinging to the nape of her neck.

the familiar anthem blares, and she jumps, caught off guard even as she stares at the screen. she resists the urge to curl into finnick, to press her face into his neck and hum until it’s over. president snow’s is staring at them, staring through them, before he speaks :

ON THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY, AS A REMINDER TO THE REBELS THAT EVEN THE STRONGEST AMONG THEM CANNOT OVERCOME THE POWER OF THE CAPITOL, THE MALE AND FEMALE TRIBUTES WILL BE REAPED FROM THE EXISTING POOL OF VICTORS.

the storm breaks. there are gasps and shouts. the sound of glass shattering. a door slamming. someone’s screaming….. annie’s screaming. a high, shrill, hiccuping sound, her knitting crumpled at her feet. her hands climb into and and tear at her hair, pressing down hard over her ears. she wants to crush her skull, fragment it into tiny little pieces. there are hands pulling at her wrists, trying to dislodge her, to bring her back to shore. she can’t stop screaming.

[discordiansamba]

anyways spitballing some facts about the accidental paladin matt AU:

Matt and Keith are very much the 'why is it when something happens around here, it's always one of you two' duo.

Turns out spending several years fighting in a space war where killing is kind of a necessity fucks up your morals. just a little bit. Matt goes from "killing is wrong" to "a little murder for a good cause never hurt anyone" overnight.

People think Matt's listening to music when he's training at the Garrison but he is in fact listening to science and engineering audiobooks. It's great! He's working on all of his muscles at once!

Matt's bayard takes on the form of a staff. Because of course it does.

Matt's knowledge of the future isn't exactly flawless. A lot of what he knows about the paladins adventures before he reunites with Pidge is based off of stuff he's been told by them, so the details are off in places. For example he knows that Sendak takes over the Castleship during the party with the Arusians, he just... doesn't know how.

He also never knew that Pidge tried to ditch the paladins to find him and their dad. Which she still tries to do in this timeline, only she's looking for her dad and fully expects him to agree to come with her... which he does not do. So they fight.

Matt knows where to find their father but knows that a.) they can't do this alone, b.) they can't just leave all of those other prisoners behind and c.) he's pretty sure that like. right after this the paladins have to go save that Balmera and that's *kind of* the more pressing time concern.

Matt and Keith are sparring buddies. Matt helps Keith with his homework back at the Garrison. They watch terrible sci-fi movies together. They're best friends, though Keith will never admit that much... only to have his best friend and his brother be declared dead after Kerberos.

Pidge and Keith team up to find answers. She still ends up enrolling in the Garrison under an assumed identity.

Keith is itching to find Shiro. Matt would love to help him, but he's kind of at loss as to where Shiro would be. Even if he was rescued by the same rebels who freed him, there's no guarantee that they'd have the same job.

Matt gets the white streak and Shiro gets to keep his black hair. They keep their respective canon scars though.

Matt introduces Coran to memes. What has he done.

The weird stuff that Pidge has been noticing about her brother for years now just keeps increasing once they get to space. It's probably just due to being imprisoned by the Galra... right?

[armagnac-army]

[ @askgeraudduroc / @your-dandy-king, @bayard-de-la-garde, and the one that lives at @rapports-de-combat ]

Soult: Bon anniversaire, Messieurs Bessières, Bessières et Bessières.

Lannes: WHY ARE THERE SO FUCKING MANY OF THEM

Bessières: I... would think that the more pressing question is why you decided marrying one of us was a good idea...

Lannes: WHAT DO YOU MEAN, IT WAS A GREAT IDEA I HAVENT DUELLED HIM YET!!!

Soult: I have baked a "birthday cake" for the three of you to share, with strawberries and vanilla cream. Please, enjoy, mes amis.

Bessières: Thank you, Marshal Soult.

Lannes: WHY DIDNT YOU BAKE THREE CAKES

Bessières: I am hardly deserving of a cake all to myself, in honesty. It is better to share such things.

Soult: Exactly.

Lannes: FUCKING CHEAPSKATES

[iybms]

Into the Shadows

painting + short fic

title: Into the Shadows rating: T pairing: keith/lance words: 712 tags: pov lance, bom keith, strong language ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23520190

Lance is not unfamiliar with being pressed up against Keith.

It's happened in so many different contexts at this point now ― from being judo-style pinned during combat training to climbing up an elevator shaft back-to-back, half-naked ― that there's very little novelty in being pressed against him here, crouched in a dark corner of a Galra base.

Even if he wishes there were some novelty.  Some meaning, some comfort.  At the very least, maybe, a mutual understanding that there's some pleasantness about each other's arms, as a place to be.  That, even though they haven't addressed why it's pleasant and maybe don't want to yet, it is pleasant nonetheless.

There's a draw.  Something just a little bit magnetic between them that doesn't belong amidst Galra sentry gunfire and prowling footsteps.

The gunfire, in particular, is paused, as the sentries haven't spotted them in their small, dark corner, almost entirely hidden behind a large wall structure in their alcove.

Keith is on his knees with his blade in one hand, his back pressed to the wall, and Lance is tucked to Keith's front in a low crouch, his red bayard clutched at the ready between them in rifle form, the only dim source of light in the tiny space.

They are silent, nervous, and utterly alone.

Keith's free arm winds tighter around Lance's back, pulling him closer, more securely into the shadows as another wave of sentries passes by the hall in pursuit of their direction.  Keith blends into the darkness perfectly, with his dark hair and dark Blade of Marmora uniform.  Lance, by contrast, sticks out like a sore thumb ― bright, valiant, and shining with his paladin armor and glowing weaponry.

Once the sentries are sufficiently far away, Lance takes in a shaky breath, somewhere against Keith's neck.

"There weren't supposed to be this many, right?" He hisses out in the smallest breath he can manage.  "How the fuck are we supposed to get to the rendezvous point?  We can't even move.  We might as well just―"

Lance goes to do something, but before he can even decide what exactly, Keith's hand moves and Lance's heart stops.

And then suddenly, Lance's heart is beating frantically, because Keith's hand has moved up to Lance's hair, and it's weaved there, holding him close like a― like a lover.

"Lance."

Keith's voice is so close to his ear.  It's so soft, and so low, that Lance thinks he can feel Keith's lips.  But then, when Keith's lips actually do brush his skin, across the arch of his cheekbone, light and gentle, Lance thinks he's never felt anything ever in his life before this.  Nothing that has touched his skin until now has ever charged each nerve ending like a capacitor the way Keith's lips do.  Nothing has turned his whole body into an electrical hot wire the way Keith's trembling kiss does.

He doesn't dare move.  Doesn't breathe, doesn't blink, doesn't anything.  He's pretty sure the only thing moving in his body is his blood, which is all rushing to his face.  And he's pretty sure Keith can feel it, because his face is so hot now, he's on fire, and his face is still pressed right up against Keith's jaw.

And now that he's completely still, he can feel it at Keith's neck, pressed against the back of his hand:  Keith's heartbeat.

Wild, uneven.  Terrified.

"Please," Keith breathes, into Lance's skin.  "We have to be careful.  I don't want―" He bites off some doomed predicate that Lance will never know.  "We can wait, for the others to get to us.  If you don't have any other ideas."

Everything between them and around them is silent and still again for a long moment, while everything inside Lance pulses and flies and whirls like a hurricane.  He considers Keith's lips, Keith's arms.  He considers Keith's impulsiveness, his restraint, his desperation.  He considers Keith's arms again.  He wants, he wants, so much, to lean into them.  He does, sincerely, try to think of another plan.

Finally, after what feels like forever but before any more sentries have a chance to scout, Lance releases his bayard, and slips his gloved palm up the nape of Keith's neck.

Without the rifle between them, Keith pulls Lance further into the shadows.

[rorimoon9597]

Pt 1

---------

Keith doesn't find out for a while. It slips his mind briefly when Shiro disappears. He doesn't have the time to think about it. Not when he's trying to find his brother.

He's reminded after Black chooses him.

"I can't be the leader. I- I'm not-"

"Keith," Lance says. He puts his hand on Keith's shoulder. It's comforting, distracting him from his tears enough that he doesn't immediately start to cry.

Keith looks up at Lance and into his eyes. They were brown this time. A deep, rich brown, like the earth after rain, with flecks of gold in them. Keith thinks that he likes Lance's eyes when they're brown, not blue.

"The black lion has chosen you to be its Paladin. I respect it's choice, and you should too," Lance tells him. Keith nods, unable to say anything because he truly thinks that he'll cry.

Keith can feel Red and Black in his mind. Black is much calmer than Red, who often burned like fire did.

She was saying goodbye, that she enjoyed having him as her Paladin but that he was truly meant to be Black's Paladin instead. Red's fire slowly disappeared, leaving him with Black, who pressed comfort into his mind.

Everyone separates after they congratulate Keith on the promotion, each person going to do what they need to do. Keith goes to the training deck, needing something to keep him occupied.

He takes down bot after bot, not caring about how long it's been, loosing himself in the comfort of being able to take out his frustration and anger on something that wasn't alive, but that he could still cut down without mercy.

Shiro wasn't there to stop him, to remind him to take care of himself, so he continued to train.

"End simulation." The program obeyed the voice. Keith turned to glare at the person who had cut his training short, only to be met with Lance standing there, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

"What do you want, Lance?" He asked. Lance was silent for a few ticks.

"You need to take a break," he simply said when he did speak. Keith rolled his eyes.

"As if I need you to mother hen me," Keith snapped. Lance just sighed.

"Your movements have been getting slower, so has your reaction time," he pointed out.

"So?"

"So, knowing you, you've been training non-stop for hours without a break, and I now have to drag you out of here kicking and screaming, so that you can shower and eat." Keith scowled.

"I'm fine," he insisted. When was Lance so observant of him?

Another sigh from Lance.

"Please, Keith. You're our leader, now, you need to be well rested so that you can carry out leader duties," Lace reasoned. Keith's Bayard changed from a sword to its simplest form.

"I never asked to be the leader. I can't... I can't lead you guys like Shiro," he said. The admission had him turning away from Lance, staring at the floor. He hadn't meant to tell Lance that, but there was something about Lance that made Keith feel comfortable enough to open up to him.

"Keith," Lance said. A hand came to rest on his back, gentle and comforting. "The point isn't to be a leader like Shiro was. The point is to step up and fill your role, even if you don't want it. Black chose you. If she didn't think that you could lead us, then she would have chosen someone else, like Allura."

"I just... This is the second time, Lance. The second time I've lost my brother. I- my mom left me when I was a baby, and then my dad died and I was left alone in the fucking foster system, then I met Shiro and he decided to give me a chance, and then I lost him when he left for Kerberos and- it hurts." The last two words were quiet. Keith realised bleakly that there were tears on his face.

Lance pulled him in for a hug.

Keith held onto him like he was his lifeline, the only thing keeping him tethered in the endless expanse of space.

"Pidge knows how you feel," Lance reminded him when he'd calmed down enough. Keith just nodded.

He left the training room behind. When he showered, he just stood there, under the water, feeling numb while Black pressed comfort into his mind. He went through the motions as if he were a robot, washing his hair, his body, and then stepping out and drying himself and getting dressed.

He didn't have anything to do, so he just... Walked. He didn't have anywhere he needed to be, so he just walked.

He ended up finding Pidge sitting in Green's hangar, typing away on something.

"Hey, Pidge," he said.

"Hey, Keith," she replied. She continued to do whatever it was she was doing.

"Mind if I sit here?"

"Go ahead, as long as you're not going to annoy me like Lance does." Keith gave a small smile at that and sat on the floor near Pidge. They were silent for a while. "It sucks, doesn't it?" She asked randomly.

"What does?"

"Shiro," came the reply. Easy and simple. Keith nodded.

"Yeah. He's... He's my brother, and this is the second time I've lost him," he told her. Pidge stood up and sat on the floor with Keith, resting her head on his shoulder. Keith rested his head on hers.

"It sucks so, so much. I just- I just want to find them. Matt and Dad." Keith understood what Lance was getting at earlier.

Go talk to someone who knows your pain, who can sympathize with you.

Keith wrapped an arm around the youngest of the group and hugged her.

"We'll find them. All of them. Shiro, Matt, your dad. We'll find them, we'll bring peace to the universe, and then we can go home and just live our lives," Keith said.

"I hope you're right." Pidge curled up further into Keith's side.

He hoped so too.

----------

Pt 3

[autisticlancemcclain]

prev

———

“Keith Kogane, you magnanimous dumbass, would it kill you to ask me out like a man. Something like that.”

Hunk presses the pause button. He tucks his phone back into his pocket. He turns to Shiro, expectant, prepared.

“So,” he says.

Shiro stares at the space in front of him, fingertips pressed together and in front of his face.

“So.”

“Your brother is kind of an airhead.”

“He is indeed.”

“No offense to Keith. He has his smart moments. Probably.” Hunk’s mouth twitches. “Sorry. I said that to not be mean and then immediately thought of the whole Voltron cheer situation and laughed in my head. I promise I don’t actually think Keith is stupid.”

Shiro’s mouth twitches. He forces his face to remain neutral. It is a challenge.

“Keith refused to name his pet gecko as a child,” he shares. “He insisted the gecko would reveal its name when it was ready.”

Hunk bites his lip very hard. He looks deliberately away from Shiro.

“He was thirteen.”

The yellow paladin presses his hands to his eyes. He tries visibly hard to compose himself. He fails.

“…I see.”

“My fiancé often said he must have been born blond.”

“Boy, do I have news for you.”

Shiro raises his eyebrows. “More news than your recording of Lance processing his love?”

“There was an incident beforehand,” Hunk explains. “You know how Lance does those leg stretches sometimes? When we have agility training?”

Shiro inclines his head.

“Well, apparently last week he did them in front of Keith and Keith was so distracted he walked into a wall and broke his nose. He had to go into a healing pod.”

Truly, Shiro would love to say that he’s surprised. He’d love to say that his brother, known gay, was not so fixated on a cute boy that he walked into a whole ass wall hard enough to break his nose. He would love for that to be true.

But he knows his dumbass brother.

“Oh my God.”

“And he still isn’t picking up Lance’s hints.”

“Oh my God.”

Hunk nods, patting Shiro’s hand sympathetically. “We gotta do something, man. I can’t keep watching this.” He pauses. “Also, I really want to stop hearing about what Lance thinks about Keith’s Galra form. I really can’t hear any more talk about fangs in places fangs should not be placed. It’s not good for my mental health.”

Shiro sighs. Even he has heard Lance’s mutterings about Keith’s fangs, and Lance still gets all shy and star-struck around him. At this point it’s gotta be a human rights violation.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promises.

———

He finds his brother in the training room, because of course he does, getting absolutely demolished by the training bot.

“You’re getting your ass kicked,” Shiro observes.

Keith grunts.

Shiro makes himself comfortable at the edge of the mat, sticking a straw in a juice pouch and sipping it leaisurely as he watches the twerp get pummelled. It’s amusing, in the way watching those test-dummy car crashes are amusing. Or videos of kids crying in fear of Santa Claus.

“Level failed,” echoes the pleasant voice of Space Siri, as Lance and Pidge have dubbed the disembodied robot voice of the training room. “Try again?”

“Fuck off,” Keith mutters to it.

Shiro stretches out and pokes him with his toe. Keith only half-heartedly tries to slice him about it.

“Somebody’s brooding.”

Evidentially deciding he would rather vent in Shiro’s direction than fall for Shiro’s transparent attempts to goad him into a fight, he flops down dramatically, stealing Shiro’s juice pouch and rudely sucking back the rest of it. Fucker.

“He’s so confusing,” he says, free arm flailing. “Just — all the time.”

Shiro politely refrains from asking him to clarify. He knows who he’s talking about.

“Hm,” he says instead, supportively. “How unfortunate for you.”

“Right!” He throws his hands up in the air, sending his bayard flying in one direction and the empty juice pouch in another. Shiro watches it go with great sadness. “One second it’s — Keith, you suck so bad, ugh, you’re such a weird dweeb. And the next it’s I’m hanging out with Coran and you’re not allowed to come and also I hate you.” He looks at Shiro expectantly. “He’s so!” He gestures vaguely. Shiro assumes it’s meant to mean something.

Shiro stares at him.

“See, to me there’s no dichotomy there,” he says slowly. “You said that as if it was two different sentiments. But in fact that was the same opinion expressed twice.”

“The tone was different,” Keith insists. “The dweeb thing is affectionate. He says it in a friendship way. I’m sure of it.”

“Friendship,” Shiro echoes.

“Exactly,” Keith agrees.

Shiro hums. He’s quite sure, now, that he is not going to explain to Keith in any words of his own how much of an oblivious dumbass he is. There is no sentence or string of sentences that Shiro can use to demonstrate just how obvious Lance is being, and how obtusely Keith is responding. He’s going to have to be clearer than that.

But. For his own amusement.

“Could you maybe explain how Lance shows his friendship to you? So I can better understand, of course.”

“Well, for starters, he says we’re enemies but always wants to pair up,” Keith says. “That’s friendship, right?”

“That’s certainly one way to put it, sure.”

“And the fact that we hang out so often.”

“Of course.”

“And the clothes stealing, of course. Lance says I have gross mullet germs but he’s always stealing my jackets, so that doesn’t add up.”

Shiro purses his lips. That is — whew. Poor Lance is in the trenches.

Keith pouts. “I just don’t get why he flips around it all the time, man. I mean, one second he’s all smiles and nudging my shoulders, and the next he’s bright red and stomping away. He’s so confusing!”

Shiro can take this no longer.

“Keith, I am going to show you something,” he says, digging his phone out of his pocket and pulling up the file Hunk sent him. “Okay?”

“…Okay,” Keith says hesitantly.

Shiro stares at him for a moment longer. Then he sighs, shoves the phone into Keith’s hands, and presses play.

The video starts shaky, audio muddled, and when it clears Lance is lying sprawled on Hunk’s bed, pillow strewn dramatically to the side.

“I just wish I could get it through his fool head that he is loved by me particularly in such a way that I want to hold hands and kiss and generally be nuisances of the affectionate kind. You know, romance,” he is saying.

Keith goes still next to him. With every passing word his jaw drops lower and lower.

“You could also ask him out like a man,” Hunk is explaining.

“Choke and die,” responds video-Lance, and then the audio cuts. Shiro puts his phone away.

“So?”

“I have to go immediately,” Keith says. He’s up and halfway out the door before Shiro can blink.

“Shower first!” he calls. “You just sweated it up with the training hot for God knows how long. Wash off before you do anything romcom-y.” Keith disappears around the corner. “Keith, do you hear me? Shower first! Keith!”

———

next

[icypantherwrites]

Update: Through Fire and Smoke, Chapter Four (final)

Summary: They’re trapped. They’re trapped and the room is filling up with fire and smoke and there’s no way out and both Pidge and Lance are down and if Keith doesn’t figure something out they are all going to die.

Chapter Four Snippet:

Keith remembered his whispered apology following the second explosion, the guilt on his face. But if Pidge wasn’t at fault for triggering the failsafe then Lance couldn’t be at fault for trying to save them when he’d done the same thing Keith had done: attacking the door with his bayard.

But Keith was confined to the infirmary bed and even if he wasn’t he had no idea how to broach that topic as Lance tended to take everything the wrong way and—

“Keith?” Shiro’s voice cut into his thoughts and Keith was pretty sure his cheeks were going to light on fire at this rate as he mumbled out another sorry that Shiro just as softly refuted.

Shiro’s hand smoothed back through his bangs — the same as Lance’s had, Keith remembered — and a moment later a kiss pressed itself to his forehead. “You’re exhausted, Keith. Your body needs to recover. Please, sleep,” his thumb brushed Keith’s cheek. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

The promise he’d made every time and it comforted Keith like nothing else could. 

He fell asleep to the sounds of Shiro humming and his hand a cool welcome against his heated forehead and the crackle of flames and heated floors a fading memory.

Read it here

[aspenmissing]

𝙲𝚛𝚢𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚅𝚎𝚗𝚘𝚖 (𝙿𝚝 𝟸)

Shiro is in the detainment room interrogating Sendak, who is still asleep in his pod.

"What was the first rank you held in Zarkon's army? Where did you find the Red Lion? What is the Zarkon's greatnes weakness?" Shiro hears Sendak's voice, becoming startled.

"What makes you think you can possibly defeat him?" Sendak's mouth isn't moving and he remains alseep.

"If you were to attack Zarkon, where would you strike?"

"Why strike at all when you can join him?" Shiro sees an image of Sendak awake, but the commander is still alseep.

==

Pidge and Hunk are in the Green Lion's hanger.

"I bet if we can modulate the dynamics of this crystal, we'll be able to reverse engineer a lot of Galra tech. Don't you think" Pidge doesn't get an answer and turns to see Hunk looking somewhere else "Hunk? Hunk, are you paying attention?"

"What?" Hunk turns around "No, I'm sorry. That whole food goo ambush really set me on edge, Pidge" Pidge walks over to the Crystal "If we can't trust food, we are lost as a culture"

"Relax. I'm sure the Castle's just glitchy. It's 10,000 years old"

"Yeah, it does seem like the ship is not currently trying to kill us.

"Okay, so, all the sensors are on the crystal. Hit the switch" Hunk goes over to the switch and before he can press anything, everything begins floating, including Hunk and Pidge "Hunk, did you accidentally hit the anti-gravity switch?"

"Uh, no. There's no anti-gravity switch. Uh, is there?" Hunk asks. Pidge tries to reach for the crystal before giving up "Curse my short arms.

"Oh, I hate those little things! All right, forget it, Pidge. I'm going to swim towards you. Just hand on!" Hunk begins to 'swim' towards Hunk, but he doesn't move "That's it. I'm all out of moves" Hunk's stomach rumbles "Oh, I'm hungry again. I hope some food goo comes oozing out of these walls"

==

Lance is banging on the door to the airlock.

"Help! Help! Help!"

"....12,11,10..." Keith runs around the corner, bayard in hand as the Gladiator robot is still after him "...9,8,7..." Keith is kicked back to the door.

"Keith!" Lance shouts, as Keith stands up.

"...6..5..."

"What are you doing in there?" Keith asks. Lance points the Gladiator robot that swings at Keith, who dodges.

"I need help! Because if you don't get me out of here right now, I'm going to be sucked out into space!"

"Doors opening" The Airlock doors open and Lance holds on tight.

"I'm getting sucked out into space" Keith fights the Gladiator before turning his gaze to the button for the airlock. He pushes the Gladiator back as he pushes the button with his bayard. The door opens and the Gladiator is pulled into space "Keith! Keith, come on!" Keith grabs Lance's hand and pulls him to safety, before closing the door. They sit down, breathing heavily.

"What were you doing out there?"

"Who was that guy?"

"He was trying to kill me!"

"Well, is he the Castle? Because that's who's trying to kill me!" They then hear a noise and turns to look, getting ready to attack. As it comes around the corner they go to attack, before seeing that it's Soul.

"Huh, Soul?" Keith asks, he puts his bayard away "What are you doing here? Where's Y/N?" Soul starts acting out what's happening to Y/N, but they don't get it.

"What? Has something happened to Y/N" Soul nods "What! Where?!" Soul runs away, and the two follow.

==

Y/N is now touching the ceiling as the water is up to her neck.

"This is how I'm gonna die! In a freaking bathroom!" Y/N hears footsteps, then banging on the door.

"Y/N!"

"You in there!"

"Lance! Keith! Oh thank god! Guys I'm stuck, and the rooms about to be filled with water!"

"Okay, hang on, we'll get you out of there" Lance starts banging on the door, trying to break it down. Y/N takes a deep breath before the water fills the whole room. She looks around the room to find anything to help breath with.

"Y/N!" Lance shouts, he gets no answer "Y/N!" Y/N begins to lose consciousness. Keith gets his bayard out.

"Stand back" Keith slashes the door with his bayard and the water pours out, as well as a soaking Y/N. She lays still as they turn her onto her back. Soul goes next to her head and pushes her head to the side, which stays.

"Y/N...?" They wait a second before Y/N starts coughing up water. Lance and Keith share a look of relief, before helping her sit up. Lance takes off his coat and puts it around Y/N.

"What the hell happened" Keith asks.

"The d-door just locked and the pipes burst...God, I nearly died in a bathroom" Soul jumps into Y/N lap and Y/N pets her head "If it wasn't for her, I would have been dead" Y/N looks at Lance and Keith "This may sound stupid, but I think the Castle's haunted"

"Ya think!" Lance says. They stand up and begins to walk away.

==

Pidge and Hunk are still floating around in the Green Lion's hangar.

"Wait. Wait, wait. I have an idea" Pidge holds out her hand "Grab on!" They both reach for each others hand before they grab on.

"Yeah! We did it! Now, what?" Hunk asks.

"Now, kick me as hard as you can!"

"What? No, we're friends"

"No, no. Kick me so I can fly across the room and get to the control panel"

"Oh...oh, oh!" Hunk kicks Pidge and she goes towards the control pannel, but misses it "No, no, no!" The door then opens, making Hunk and Pidge fall to the ground. Lance, Y/N, Soul , Coran and Keith enter.

"How can you guys be taking a nap while this castle is trying to kill us?" Lance asks.

"Taking a nap! We've been floating around in Zero G? You know how scary that is?"

"That's not scary! That's fun! I was almost ejected into space!"

"I got attacked by killed food, and that's the most horrifying thing you can imagine! The stuff of nightmares! It'll haunt me to my grave!"

"Well, I had a robot trying to kill me!"

"And I nearly drowned, in a bathroom! I mean, ironic much!" Lance looks to Coran.

"I don't care what you say, Coran. This castle has gone apple and bananas!" Coran groans.

"Perhaps the infection from Sendak's Galra crystal is worse than we thought"

"Well, let's get rid of it" Hunk says.

"It's too late. When Sendak plugged it into the ship, it corrupted the entire system"

"Sendak?" Keith asks.

"Wait" Y/N says "Has anyone seen Shiro?"

==

Shiro is still staring at Sendak.

"We're connected, you and me. Both part of the Galra Empire"

"No! I'm not like you"

"You've been broken and reformed. Just look at your hand" Shiro does so.

"That's not me!"

"It's the strongest part of you. Embrace it. The others don't know what you are. They haven't seen what you've seen. Face it. You'll never beat Zarkon. He's already defeated you"

"I'm not listening to you!" Shiro covers his ears.

"Do you really think a monster like you could be a Voltron Paladin? Even your own sister is disgusted in you"

"Stop it!" Shiro punches the Pod, cracking it. Sendak's eyes open and smiles evily at Shiro, making him panic and push a buttom to send Sendak out. Alarms start blaring. Shiro bends down, breathing heavily. Later, the Paladins, Soul and Coran enter the containment room to see Shiro holding his head.

"Shiro, are you okay?" Y/N asks, touching his arm. He flinches away and she looks at him saddened.

"Where's Sendak?" Keith asks.

"I...I had to get him out of here. I was hearing his voice. He...He can't be trusted on this ship"

"It is the ship! I got stick in a cryo-pod, then, in an airock. Keith got attacked by a robot. Y/N nearly drowned, and Hunk and Pidge got attacked by food. It's been a weird morning" Computes begin beeping as a hologram of the ship appears/

"What? How is that possible?"

"What is it?" Keith asks.

"The ship is starting a wormhole jump!"

==

The Paladins, Coran and Soul enter the main deck to see Allura at the center.

"Allura, what's going on?" Shiro asks.

"We're going to Altea" Alura turns her head to face them "We're going home. My father is taking us" They rush forwards before King Alfor face appears on the screens. (Red-Bad King Alfor. Blue - Good King Alfor)

"Stay away from my daughter!"

"Uh..."

"Allura, wake up!" Y/N shouts.

"The crystal must have corrupted King Alfor's artificial intelligence. It's taking over!" King Alfor appears next to Allura. They reach their destination, staring in horror.

"We're heading straight for a star and it's about to explode!"

"Father, I can see Altea" Coran goes to the barrier, and puts his hand on it.

"Allura! Allura, wake up! What you're seeing isn't real" Allura turns her head to face Coran before seeing some creatures fly past her. She smiles before seeing a meadown filled with flowers.

"The juniberried, the most exquisite flower of all" Allura picks one up.

"Allura, please!" A hologram of Coran appears "You've got to listen to me!"

"Is this real?" Allura asks.

"Of course it is real, Daughter. That flower you're touching is real"

"But where is the fragrance of the sweet juniberries?" Coran says, making Allura sniffs the flower again before coming back to reality.

"Huh? That's not Altea"

"When that star goes supernova, it will destroy the entire system. Allura, you must reset the course and get us out of here" Pidge says and Allura goes to the controls but is electrocuted back out of the barrier, caught by Shiro. King Alfor appears.

"Father, please, I beg you to turn this ship around. If we don't do it soon, we will all perish!"

"I know. That is my intention"

"What? Why?"

Don't you see, dear daughter? Zarkon can never be defeated. He's been ruling for ten thousand years"

"But we must continue to fight!"

"Fight for what? It is all over for Altea. You don't have to live a lifetime of war. You can be with me and the rest of your people"

"Father, please! The paladins and I can still stop Zarkon! Somewhere in there, you must want that to happen"

"Allura, my A.I. has been corrupted. You must disconnect my power source" It flickers back "We can stroll across the Blossom Canyon every morning, just like we used to. Remember how much you loved that?"

"I remember. I'll see you soon, Father" Allura turns around "I've got to get into the A.I. chamber to disconnect my father's power source manually"

"But that means losing King Alfor forever!"

"Paladins, get to your Lions! I need you to slow the Castle's descent into the star"

"I can try to override the sytem to open the hangars" Allura and the Paladins leave the control room, leaving Coran and Soul. The Lions comes out of the hangars and push against the ship, using their thrusters. 

==

Allura makes it to the A.I room and goes to the center.

"Don't do this!" King Alfor says.

"You must"

"All my memories, all my knowlegde will be lost forever!"

"Do it, Allura. If you are to live, we must say goodbye"

"I'm sorry about this, Father" Allura goes to touch the container but everything blackens. "Huh?"

"Oh, my dear daughter..." Allura hears laughter and looks over at a memory of her and her father.

"Father..." She looks around to see memories of her and her father, young. Her childhood memories.

"This is not real. This is all in the past" Allura runs through the memories till she stares at the one of her father holding her when she was a baby, her baby laughter filling her ears. She begins crying. King Alfor appears.

"You don't have to fight, Allura. You don't have to make this sacrifice" Allura rushes forward and hugs her father, surprising him.

"Goodbye, Father" King Alfor smiles softly.

"Goodbye Allura" The glass container smashes, as all of King Alfor's memories fade away. Soul, who found her way to the room, goes next to Allura, placing her paw onto her leg. Allura looks to the creature and picks her up, hugging Soul while crying.

"She did it" Coran says, seeing the barrier go away. Alarms start blaring. and the Paladins are still pushing the ship back when Allura's face appears on their screens.

"Paladins, get to your hangars. We're getting out of here" They return to their hangars and they escape through the wormhole just as the star explode. Later, they are all in the control room. Allies is sat down, Coran and Shiro on either side as the Paladins are in front of her

"I'm so sorry about your father, Princess" Shiro says.

"We all are" Y/N adds.

"I'm so sorry about your father Princess"

"Thank you. But that was not my father" Allura stands up "The real King Alfor was a great man and a great father. He may not be here with is anymore, but his dream lives on through all of us, and his legacy is Voltron"

==

Hours later, when everyone has went to bed. Shiro is in the control room, looking into space. He the sound of the door opening, but doesn't turns around.

"What are you doing up so late?" A voice says. They sit next to him and he turns his head to see Y/N.

"Thinking. You?"

"Soul may be small but she's a loud snorer" Shiro chuckles "So watcha thinking about?" Shiro sighs, looking back into Space.

"Just what Sendak said" Y/N looks at him with a frown.

"What did he say?" Shiro's eyes tear up, but he refuses to cry "Shiro? Hey, it's okay-"

"He called me a monster...that I shouldn't be leader of Voltron" Shiro says "He said that even you're disgusted in me" Y/N's smiles softly.

"And you shouldn't believe that for one second" Shiro looks to her and goes to talk but Y/N stops him "I don't care what you look like Shiro, you are my brother. That piece of metal doesn't make me think of you any less" Shiro looks down at his arm.

"But I killed people..."

"You killed them so that you could survive" Y/N sighs "Do you trust me?" Shiro looks at Y/N with confusion.

"What?"

"Do you trust me?"

"Yes" Y/N takes Shiro's metal hand and places it around her neck "What, what are you doing?!"

"Squeeze" She states. Shiro looks at her in horror "Squeeze as hard as you can" Shiro pulls his hand away quickly, staring at her hard.

"Why did you do that for? I could have hurt you?"

"If you really are a monster, then you would have squeezed my neck, I gave you an easy chance and a monster would have took it, no hesitation" Shiro looks at her "Your not a monster, Shiro. Your just a man who's been broken... and needs someone to help fix him" Y/N says "You may be a pain in my butt sometimes, but your my brother. And I wouldn't change you for the universe" Y/N is suddenly hugged by a teary Shiro.

"I love you" Shiro says, hugging her tight. Y/N hugs back, smiling softly.

"I love you, too" The siblings watch the stars, knowing that as long as they are together, nothing will happen.

[fourohfourrealitynotfound]

Cornered

For @flashfictionfridayofficial #FFF236 - Fight or Flight

Voltron: Legendary Defender, established Klance. 458 words.

When Keith stormed out of the bridge, Lance followed him. He didn't speak until Keith threw open the training room door. 

"Hey, dude, maybe we should talk about this? Use some healthy communication instead of an unhealthy coping mechanism?" 

"Exercise is a coping mechanism," Keith said, his words clipped while he jabbed at the control panel, setting up a rather intense sequence.

"Sure, but getting the shit beat out you by a robot is a little less healthy. Please, just talk to me." 

"There's nothing to talk about." 

There was plenty to talk about, like what the hell Keith thought he was doing throwing himself into a dangerous six-on-one fight without calling for backup or the fact that he was determined to piss off every alien leader in the diplomatic meetings that precluded that six-on-one fight. 

Lance hissed through his teeth. "I'm just worried about you, Keith. Why don't you get that we care about you?" 

Keith whirled around. "I don't know, maybe because half the team looks at me like I'm six feet tall, purple, and sporting cat-shaped ears!" He was baring his teeth—normal, blunt, human teeth—at Lance. Keith took a step forward into a sturdy battle stance, like he did to intimidate on the battlefield before he started slashing his sword. His hand was at his bayard now, almost like he was ready to draw it on Lance. 

There was a brief moment where Lance felt a spark, the kind of gratification that he got from riling up Keith into a furious frenzy back in their 'rivalry' days. But then he got a better look at the way Keith's shoulders were hunching in: he looked like a cornered animal, covering the fear with a veneer of defensive anger. 

"Shit," Lance murmured. He took a step back and held up his hands. "Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" 

Surprise flickered across Keith's face, as if seeing for the first time that he was snapping at his boyfriend. He took a deep breath and then another, counting out the seconds as taps of fingers on his thigh. "I'm sorry," he gasped finally, combing a hand through his hair. "I—I just need to blow off some steam. Then we can talk?"  

Keith's hands flickered toward Lance and then drew back, like he was scared he would flinch away if touched. Lance stepped forward and caught his hands, pressing them up against his chest to show he wasn't afraid. 

"Okay, thank you," Lance said, "but can we maybe turn down the settings a little bit? I don't want you getting hurt." 

"I can do that," Keith nodded. 

"And . . . can I stay?"  

Keith blinked at him. "Yeah, if you want to. Just—just stay out of the way?" 

"Okay." 

[kidgetrash]

Drunk Kidge Confessions - Keith to Pidge!

Character:  Keith Kogane, Pidge Gunderson/Katie Holt

Pairings:  Keith/Pidge

Warnings!:  Drunken shenanigans. Keith's lips had a workout!

Summary: When Pidge is woken by a very drunk Keith at 3am, she gets a very confusing confession!

A/N: thank you for being patient with me waiting for this today! I don't feel much better than I did earlier but I have had a little nap so here you go!

It was almost 3am when Pidge was roused from a deep sleep.  She had only been in bed for maybe an hour, having got engrossed in some new tech they had discovered on the latest planet they had liberated.  From what she understood, or could hear from her lab, the celebrations had gone on almost as long as her research, passing several locals leaving as she returned to her room.  She had assumed, from the peace that reigned, that everyone had retired for the evening.  She realised she was wrong when a rhythmic banging started up on her door and didn’t stop no matter how much she tried to ignore it.  Throwing her pillow off her head she dragged her weary body out of bed and slouched her way to the door.  Hitting the button it slid open and she barely dodged being punched in the face.

‘Whoa, what the hell, Keith?’  She instinctively grabbed his arm and tucked it under her own and bending his elbow backwards, her other hand holding her bayard ready.  ‘I nearly electrocuted you!’

‘Why are you here?’  He demanded, the smell of Dukhivian alcohol rolling off him in waves.

‘Uh, it’s my room.’  She waved behind her as she dismissed her bayard and released his arm.  ‘It’s 3am.  Where else would I be?’

‘Part the aty.’  He waved, muddling his words comically and she pressed her lips together to hide her smile.  She had never seen him drunk before, let alone this drunk.

‘And why would I go to the party when I had so much new tech to go over?’  She asked rhetorically, not expecting an answer but getting one anyway.

‘Mith we at the Duckhaven, Dickhoovia,’

‘Dukhivian?’  She suggested and he nodded emphatically.

‘That!  You were supposed to be there.’

She was relieved he seemed to have sorted his words out for at least one sentence so far, and shrugged.  ‘You know I’m not a fan of those things, and I’d rather be off in my lab.  If you needed me you could have called over the intercom or come and got me.’

‘Nope.  No.  I needed you.  There right there.  With me.’

‘If you’d let me know I’d have come along, but I figured this was like all the other meet and greets; wall to wall boredom.’

His hands clamped down on her shoulders, making her jump, as he leaned down into her eye line.  ‘Do you know what Dukebeehives end of a toast looks like?’

‘Like a crust?’  She wrinkled her nose in confusion.

‘No!’  He shook his head vehemently.  ‘A drinky toast!  Cheers!’  He demonstrated before returning his hand to her shoulder.  ‘It.  Looks.  Like.  This.’  He ducked his head and pecked her rapidly on the lips, leaving her wide eyed stunned.  Well, that was her first kiss, from her crush no less, and she barely had time to enjoy it.

‘Um…what just happened?’

‘The Dackholes!  They kiss the person next to them before they drink!’

‘Ohhh.’  She said in realisation.  ‘Who were you sat next to?’

‘Oh, we sidn’t dit.’  He shook his head again.  ‘We were jingling!’

‘Mingling?’

‘That!’  He gave her a gentle shake as she got it.  ‘They made so much toast that my lips are sore and that’s not even the worst part!’

Pidge rested her hands on his wrists, gently moving his arms back down to his sides.  ‘This is all great, Keith, but I’m sure you can tell me the worst part tomorrow.  When you sober up.  You should get to bed.’

‘Good idea.’  He pushed past her into her room and started taking off his boots.

‘Your bed!  Not my bed!’  She hurried after him, the door sliding closed behind her.

‘So, the worst wort.’  He continued as he pulled off his jacket.  ‘I kissed Lance.’

She pulled on his arm, it wasn’t that she hadn’t ever considered Keith taking his clothes off in her room, but it certainly wasn’t in these circumstances.  ‘Stop taking your clothes…you kissed Lance?!’

‘And Hunk.  And Allura.  And Shiro.  And Coran.  His moustache is rougher than it looks.  And so many Dollhousians.  Did you know they have four lips?!’  Despite her best efforts he had managed to get his jeans down to his knees and he sat on the bed to shove them off the rest of the way.  ‘But if you’d been there it would have been fine!’  He bounced himself back into the crumpled bedcovers before flopping onto his back with his arms out.

‘I’m going to get Shiro.’  She said uncertainly, starting to back away from the bed where the beginning of her favourite dream of Keith in just his t-shirt and underwear was laying in her bed, but he moved faster than she thought he ought to be able to, given how alcoholically impaired he was.

‘No, don’t leave me again!’  He pulled her towards him until her knees hit the mattress, preventing her from going any further.  ‘You can’t leave me again.’  He said the latter quietly, as though he were truly afraid for her to go, and it made her protestations die in her throat.

‘Okay, I’ll stay.’  She sat down on the side of the bed.  ‘But you know when someone makes a toast you don’t have to drink the entire glass, right?  They’re not shots.’

‘If you had to kiss Lance you’d drink it like shots too.’  He grumbled, pulling on her arm to try and get her onto the bed.  ‘Come on, you sleeped we have to sleep.’

‘I said you have to sleep.’  She tried to resist his pull, as tempting as it was.  ‘And I still don’t get how me being there would make things any better.’

‘Because,’ he gave her serious eyes, as serious as they could get given how glassy they were, and doubled his effort to try and get her onto the bed.  ‘If you had been there,’

She allowed him to pull her to him, going onto her knees before sitting back on her feet in front of him.  ‘If I had been there?’  She prompted him as he seemed to have lost his train of thought, his eyes darting over her face as though looking for something.

‘If you had been there I could have stayed by your side.’  He said without hesitation, his voice low and reverberating in the close quarters they found themselves in.

‘That would just have given you one more person to kiss.’  She gave him a sideway smile, realising the flaw in his logic.

‘Not one more.  Just one.  Just the one I always want to kiss.’

Pidge frowned, confused as to whether what she was hearing was what she thought he was implying.  ‘You’re going to need to be clearer on that, Keith.’

He didn’t reply, not with words anyway.  He pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers, a simple kiss but Pidge’s eyebrows shot up as her eyelids lowered, a soft murmur emitting from her throat.  He pulled away just far enough to see her as clearly as he could manage.  Her cheeks had turned a glorious pink colour that reached all the way to her ears, her eyes were still closed, her lashes resting on her cheeks, and a sigh slipping through her slightly parted lips.  ‘Clear enough?’

‘Not really.’  She fluttered her eyes open.  ‘All I hear is you saying you’d rather I’d been there because you think I’m the lesser of a lot of evils.’

He closed his eyes and shook his head then thought better of it as a spell of dizziness came over him.  ‘No, that’s not it.’

‘Please, Keith.  Just sleep.’  She whispered, her voice choked with emotion.  ‘Because I can’t deal with you doing this, not when it’s just to make you feel better about what happened tonight.’

‘Not that either.’  He took a deep breath, hoping it would clear his head, but it failed miserably.  ‘It’s because you’re you that I wish you’d been there tonight.  That I wish you were with me every night.  All the time.  That I could do this any time.’  He kissed her again, still just their lips against one another but this time he lingered, his hands releasing her so he could wrap his arms around her and pull her closer.

Pidge could taste the alcohol on his lips, the fervour of his actions making her resolve melt.  She bunched his shirt up in her hands, not knowing what else to do, as so many new feelings and emotions scorched through her.  His fingers slid into her hair, tilting her head to one side and the new angle had her stomach and lower things clench.  She could never have guessed that such a simple kiss could have this affect on her.

Keith continued to kiss Pidge for some time, allowing her to catch her breath before going in again, kissing her senseless.  Eventually, even through her scrambled synapses, common sense reared its ugly head.  She tapped his chest and leaned back, staring at him in disbelief as he tried to get back to her lips.

‘You gotta hold your horses for a minute there, Keith.’  She managed, trying to ignore the way his fingers were stroking through her hair and trailing up and down her spine.  ‘I don’t know what’s going on here.’

He huffed out a huge sigh, as though he were frustrated with her confusion.  ‘What’s going on is you ruined what could have been a perfectly good evening of me kissing the girl of my dreams and now we’re making up for it.’  He leaned in but she put her hand over his mouth.

‘Just pretend I’m, like, Lance level intelligence when it comes to this kind of thing.  Spell it out.’  She removed her hand slowly, giving him raised eyebrows of encouragement.

‘I,’ he kissed her beside her lips, ‘am,’ her cheek, ‘madly,’ by her ear, ‘deeply,’ her jaw, ‘in love,’ moving back towards her lips, ‘with you.’  He fit his lips to hers as he said the last and she let him, allowing herself to enjoy this, even if it was just for the moment and through drunk ramblings.

The thing that brought Pidge back to reality with a bump was when Keith’s tongue brushed against her lips and she knew she had to stop.  She didn’t want either of them to regret this, and if he were serious they could talk once he sobered up, but this had to stop.

‘Keith?’

‘Mmm?’  He kissed at her lips again and when they didn’t respond how he wanted he moved to kiss across her jaw towards her neck.

‘Can we just leave this until morning?  If you still feel the same in the cold light of day we can work things out then?’

He stopped his path across her skin and leaned away from her, giving her a considering look.  ‘If we sleep you’ll let me kiss you all I want?’  He asked, his eyes pleading for her to say yes.

‘If that’s what you really want, then yeah.’  She nodded, certain he would change his mind.  ‘But I have to say this once.  I love you too but if you wake up and want this to just be something that happened that we both move past, then that’s fine too.  No regrets.’

‘No regrets.’  He agreed with a smile and a nod before pulling her down with him into the covers and settling her against him.  ‘And I’m going to tell you that I love you again in the morning, but you have to stay right here to sleep.’

‘Deal.’  She sighed, knowing this might be the closest she ever got to Keith being her own and that she doubted that confession would ever come.  It didn’t take long for them both to fall asleep, cosy in one another's arms.

[jalapenobee]

IT’S DONE

You are my sunshine (rewrite)

Everywhere he looked, there was red.

It dripped from gold jewelry and table edges, shattered wine glasses and soaked gloves. Leaking out from his body was red. It caked his face and blurred his vision. The room pulsed and ached with pain, mirroring the scene inside it. The ball had been turned into a bloody massacre, the shining floor littered with limp bodies; a few on their last breaths, the rest already dead.

With a groan, Keith turned on his back and blinked. His mouth felt like metal, his ears were ringing, and he felt numb and dizzy from blood loss. The ceiling multiplied and shifted, exhausting his eyes. He’d be the one casualty of Voltron, assuming the others weren’t in his state. Seeing no point in taking off his helmet, Keith closed his eyes and listened in on the celebratory cheers from over comms for a “mission well done”. He kept his head turned towards the door, listening for footsteps that signaled an approach. Pathetic, really. Even if it was an enemy, there’s a zero percent chance he’d be able to defend himself. Keith sighed. He’d much rather be doing something, something important. But it was too late for that now. He was getting weaker every passing second, the grip on life loosening bit by bit.

Every blink he made closed his eyelids longer than the last. Every few breaths brought jagged, searing streams of blood dripping down his chin. He did not wipe it off, instead focusing on matching the voices from the comms to their owners as they started to call his name.

“Wait. Guys, where did Keith go?” Allura. 

“…Keith… where are you? Are you okay?” Hunk. 

“Keith, where are you? Say something!” Lance.

Keith took a long breath and managed to speak in a cracking, broken voice. 

“Second ballroom. Don’t bother coming.”

Despite that, Lance insisted he’d come to get him and started to bolt for Keith’s location. The latter didn’t object; partly because he didn’t have the energy, and partly because his pleas would be useless. Lance was always claiming he’d do anything to keep Keith alive, as well as being there as he dies. Apparently, nothing’s going to stop him.

Half a minute later, Lance came running through the broken door with his bayard drawn, aiming it around the room in a frantic mess until he spotted Keith. Careful to avoid the pools of blood and dead weight, he hurried over and pulled off both of their cracked helmets. A careful hand slipped behind Keith’s back, raising him up slightly to Lance’s face.

“I’m gonna get you out of here, I promise.”

“No matter.”

Lance shook his head and tears were sent splattering down on Keith’s armor, blending with the blood and seeping into the cracks in the metal. The other’s voices were left unheard, as Lance desperately prayed to a god, any god, that Keith would make it. That the blood would stop gushing, oh jeez, please make the blood stop gushing. He cradled a tired Keith in his tired arms. “Please, you’re going to be okay.”

Keith turned his head to face Lance properly, his body lurching with coughs that brought more blood to the scene. Keith ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth, tasting copper and salt. His throat felt right and his lips burned with pain with every word. He swallowed, and began to sing a delicate, slurred version of a nursery rhyme he’s sung more than a few times to calm Lance. 

“You are my sunshine…”

Lance’s teary, shaking voice chimed in, as he pressed his forehead to Keith’s. “My only sunshine…”

“You make me happy…” 

“When skies are gray…” For a moment, they were perfect - voices singing together, a melody all too familiar to them both. Then more coughs brought more blood; flown towards Lance’s face, and spat on the floor, armor, hands. A terrified Lance stroked Keith’s hair, smeared and tangled in debris, telling him to save his breath, yet Keith kept going. 

“You’ll never know, dear…” his hand fell limp against Lance’s. “How much… I love you.”

His eyes fluttered closed for the last time, and Lance was the only one left to finish singing while Keith managed a small smile and a sigh.

“Please don’t take… my sunshine away.”