Chapter Text
“Come on, come on, come on…” Lance whispered, his hands splayed on the rubble of the building that had just collapsed across the road. Shiro had been right – he’d made damn sure that no one would follow the paladins while they escaped from the ravaged city.
Lance wasn’t sure Shiro had counted on the building falling on top of him afterwards, though.
“Maybe we imagined that noise,” Pidge said. Her face was a carefully constructed neutral mask, but Lance could see through the cracks. A muscle above her lip kept twitching spasmodically, betraying the turmoil she had to be feeling. It was the same nervous churning sensation that made Lance feel like he was about to vomit.
He reached out and grabbed Pidge’s small shoulder. His anxious fingers clamped down much harder than he had intended. “Hey. Me and Keith both heard it, so since we’re agreeing for once, that has to count for something, right?” The sick feeling crawling up Lance’s throat made his voice shake.
“I think we’re almost there!” Keith’s voice echoed out from somewhere inside the collapsed remains of the building.
Lance twisted his fingers together, making the fabric of his gloves tighten around his knuckles. He hated to admit it, but if there was anyone that could find Shiro in this mess, it was Keith. He wished, not for the first time, that Hunk hadn’t gone in there with Keith so that he could bury his face in his friend’s big, comforting arms. Of course, if – when they found Shiro, Hunk was the only one big enough to carry him out safely, so it made sense that he and Keith had to go together.
That didn’t mean Lance couldn’t want a hug from the outside, though.
“How’s it going in there?” he called out after another minute of nerve-wracking silence. When there wasn’t an immediate answer, Lance had to force himself not to leap into the wreckage after his friends. And then –
“Keith, I think I see him! Look, it’s that glowing blue light over there!”
“...Okay, okay, I’ll climb up on these struts to get a better look, you stay there in case I have to pass him down to you.”
“What’s happening? Did you find him?” Lance wrapped his hands around two metal pipes and pressed his face into the space between them. The interior of the collapse was almost completely pitch black, and the glowing lights on his armor barely lit up the few feet in front of him.
Pidge was instantly by his side, kneeling on the ground so she could look inside as well. “Keith? Hunk? Answer us, damn it!”
For a heart-stopping minute, there was silence. Then Keith’s voice filtered out of the wreckage. “Hunk, Lance, Pidge, you’d better get in here. Now.”
Pidge and Lance didn’t hesitate for a second before squeezing themselves into the small entrance they had found. Inside, the darkness seemed to swallow them whole. It felt like they were crawling down the throat of an enormous monster with thousands of sharp metal teeth. The surroundings were incredibly unstable, and when Lance brushed against one of the collapsed metal struts, it made the entire structure groan alarmingly.
“Come on! Hurry!”
Lance followed the sound of Keith’s unnaturally high-pitched voice to a slightly more open area in the wreckage where his head didn’t scrape the ceiling when he stood up. What he saw when he finally found them all nearly made the bile that had been creeping up from his stomach spew out all over everyone.
They had found Shiro, all right. He was laying on his back, with Keith and Hunk kneeling on either side of his head. A thick metal pipe had pierced through Shiro’s left shoulder and pinned him to the ground, while his right leg bent at an impossible angle that must have been excruciating. His white armor was completely stained red from the strong, steady stream of blood pouring out of his shoulder and a hole in his side, and Lance could barely make out a puddle beneath him beginning to lap at Keith’s knees.
“No, no, no…” Pidge breathed from behind him. She elbowed him aside and scrambled to put her hands on Shiro’s head. The way she tilted him to shove her fingers against his neck gave Lance his first good look at his face. It was a ghastly white color, almost the same shade as the shock of hair that fell over his forehead. For a terrible second, Lance’s breath stopped and he was completely certain that Shiro was dead. There was no way that a living person could look so pale and drained.
Pidge gasped. “I’ve got something! He’s still here!”
The wave of relief almost sent Lance tumbling to his knees, followed quickly by another burst of nausea. Shiro was alive, but not for much longer if they didn’t do something right now.
Hunk’s hand were fluttering all over Shiro’s body anxiously, while Keith had his hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. Everyone seemed to be in shock, including Shiro, who was definitely in shock.
The incredibly inappropriate pun amazingly seemed to jolt something back to life in Lance’s brain. “Okay, who knows anything about first aid? Come on guys, we’re on a timer here!” His voice cracked on the last word, but there wasn’t any room left in his brain to feel embarrassed around the barely restrained hysteria.
Pidge shook her head like she was clearing it. “A timer, right…” She pressed her tiny hands into the hole in Shiro’s side, trying to stem the persistent blood flow.
A choked noise spilled out from Shiro’s mouth at the pressure. It was the first sign of life he had shown since they’d found him. Pidge bit her lip and pressed down harder, even as Shiro’s body jerked in an effort to get away from the pain she was causing him.
“What about this pipe? We have to get this out of him,” Lance said, placing his hand gently on the pole and trying to ignore the way Shiro was beginning to tremble in pain against Pidge’s hands.
“Wait! Don’t pull it out!” Hunk said, throwing his hands out to stop Lance from moving. “Look at the pipe – it’s holding up some of the wreckage up there. If you move it, the whole ceiling could come down on all of us.”
He gestured upwards. Lance frowned when he realized that while Hunk was right; moving the pipe could kill them all in an instant.
Shiro’s barely audible breathing hitched, and a painful looking shudder ran through him. Lance cringed in sympathy and tried to keep his own breathing steady.
“I have an idea.”
Keith’s unexpected voice made Lance jump. He tore his eyes away from the splatter of blood on Shiro’s cheek and stared at Keith. “What is it?”
“Whatever it is, do it quickly! We’re running out of time here!” Pidge ran a calming hand through Shiro’s hair before redoubling her efforts in pressing into his side.
Keith pulled out his bayard and activated it. The area was suddenly filled with the hum of his sword. “Hunk, hold on to the pipe and keep it as steady as possible. Lance, when I say go, grab Shiro and pull him out of the way. Got it?”
“Huh? How can I pull him if he’s pinned to the ground?” Lance asked, worry pitching his voice higher than normal.
“Fuck, Lance, just do it!” Keith yelled. “Ready, set, go!”
He swung his sword through the air and sliced the pipe clean in half. Lance grabbed Shiro underneath the shoulders and yanked him backwards while Hunk braced the pipe in his arms and kept it and the ceiling steady. In a flash, Keith pushed a mangled hunk of broken concrete underneath the half of the pipe where Shiro had just been lying.
“Can you wedge the pipe in here Hunk?” Keith asked quickly.
“Almost… got it…” Hunk panted. He struggled down to his knees while holding the pipe, and barely managed to guide the pipe into a crevice in the concrete. “I think that’s gonna hold.”
Being dragged out of the way had jostled Shiro’s shoulder and his leg, making him groan in pain. His eyelids fluttered open, and for a second his eyes rolled around like he was trying to make out where he was.
“Shiro? Oh my god, Shiro, are you awake?” Pidge asked, pushing her face right up into his.
Shiro opened his mouth, but instead of saying words, a half-strangled gasp forced its way out of his throat and his eyelids slid shut again. His head fell backwards and he would have smashed it into the ground if Lance hadn’t caught him in time. The sensation of Shiro going completely limp against him made Lance’s heart wrench in his chest.
“Come on, we have to get him out of here,” Keith said, grabbing Lance by the arm and hauling him to his feet.
“I don’t know if we can carry him out like this,” Hunk said. “The ceiling gets pretty low back there.”
“Plus, dragging him while he’s in shock might kill him,” Pidge added.
The impossibility of their situation made Lance want to curl up in a ball on the floor and hope that someone else would take care of it. He looked down at Shiro, who was still lying in his arms. His ghost-like face seemed almost translucent in the blue glow of their armor. A spray of blood that must have come from his shoulder coated his cheek in red. Lance fought the urge to scrub it away.
If they moved Shiro, he could bleed out on the journey, or the pain could kill him. If they didn’t move him, he would die right there in the rubble.
Well, when he put it that way, the choice became much simpler in Lance’s mind.
“We either might kill him, or we let him die. I say we move him out and hope for the best.”
“The best being that he only mostly bleeds out?” Pidge asked, alarm coloring her voice.
“Lance is right,” Hunk said. “There’s no way we’re going to just leave him here, so the only logical next step is to take him with us, even if it might get a bit… tricky.”
Keith seemed surprised that Lance agreed with him, but the brief expression quickly left his face and he replaced it with determination. “Hunk, take his arms, and I’ll get his legs. Pidge, stay with us to keep pressure on his side and Lance, go ahead to direct us.”
“I – wait, what about the, um…” Lance gestured helplessly at the pipe still buried in Shiro’s shoulder.
“I’d rather take care of that when I can see where what I’m doing.”
Lance had to stop himself from grinding his teeth anxiously. “Okay, okay, that’s fair.” He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Let’s, uh, let’s get going then.”
The hoarse distressed noise Shiro made when Keith put his hand on his broken leg made Lance want to vomit and he almost turned around to make them put Shiro back down on the ground. If you do that, he’ll die, he reminded himself. He wrenched his eyes forward and made himself focus on navigating through the maze of rubble.
“It gets kind of narrow up ahead, and the ceiling is lower!” Lance called back over his shoulder.
He heard a bang, and a muffled curse from Keith.
“What’s going on back there?”
“Keith just let Shiro’s bad leg hit the wall!” That was Pidge’s voice, somewhat breathy as she tried to squeeze down the hallway alongside Shiro so she could keep putting pressure on everything that was bleeding.
“… Is that light? I think I can see a light up ahead!” Lance tried not to worry too much more as he scrambled ahead. Sure enough, he could see sunlight filtering down through the dust that still hung in the air. “You guys might have to drag him. The hole we entered through is only like four feet tall.”
Lance burst out from underneath the wreckage and spun around so he could finally see what was going on behind him. Shiro was on the ground, with Hunk dragging his shoulders and Keith trying to guide his legs away from the walls. Even from a distance, Lance could hear how labored Shiro’s breathing was becoming.
Pidge jumped in front of Hunk and wiggled out of the entrance to crouch by Lance. Hunk was right behind her, but there was no way he was going to be able to carry Shiro out.
“Here Lance, help me with his shoulders…”
Lance reached out with Hunk to grab the collar of Shiro’s uniform and helped guide him through the exit hole. Out in the sunlight, Shiro looked positively ashen, and the blood soaking his suit seemed even more stark against the grey background. His raspy breathing hitched on every intake and the exhales gargled in his throat. Lance could now see that his eyelids were cracked open slightly. The white strip he could make out was somehow even more discomforting than if they had been shut all the way.
Keith clammered out of the hole to kneel beside Shiro as well. He motioned towards the pipe that had miraculously remained mostly undisturbed as they had dragged Shiro out of the ruins. “We have to get that out of him before the metal gives him an infection.”
Lance agreed wholeheartedly with Keith. He could have screamed in frustration when Pidge held up a hand to stop him. “That thing is blocking all the blood flow though! If you take it out, he’ll only have a couple of minutes before he’s drained.”
“I know!” Hunk sprang to his feet. “We’re out of the wreckage, so Allura should be able to hear us now. I’ll go comm her!”
“No, not you,” Keith said quickly. “It’s probably going to be, uh, hard to get that pipe out of him. I think you might be the only one strong enough to do it. Pidge should go call for help.”
Hunk looked like he wanted to throw up at the mention of having to remove the pipe, but to his everlasting credit, he wrapped his hands around the pole anyway. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“I’ll call for help. It should only take the castle a few minutes to get here once I give Allura our coordinates, so once I make contact, take it out.” Pidge clambered up the mountain of rubble and started speaking rapidly into her comm unit.
Lance didn’t like the way his stomach churned at the feeling of helplessness swirling through his body, like a fish was flopping around inside him. He took Shiro’s limp hand in his own and threaded their fingers together. Shiro didn’t respond. Lance stroked his thumb up and down Shiro’s, as though that might provide some small sense of comfort, and tried not to stare at where the pipe made Shiro’s shoulder look like it had gone through a blender.
“ – Three minutes to arrival! That’s it guys, take it out now!” Pidge shouted from above them.
Hunk instantly tugged upwards on the pipe while Keith shoved down on Shiro’s shoulders to keep him on the ground. The pipe made a terrible sucking noise and only jerked halfway out of Shiro’s body.
The hand Lance was clutching like a lifeline suddenly squeezed back. Lance practically jumped out of his skin.
Was Shiro awake? Now, of all times? Lance stroked Shiro’s forehead in what he hoped was a calming gesture. “Shh, it’s okay, we’re taking care of you…”
A horribly agonized gasp tore out of Shiro’s mouth as Hunk tried to tug the pipe all the way out again. Shiro’s eyelids fluttered open halfway and his grey irises locked onto Lance’s. His chest heaving, he tugged weakly against the hands restraining him.
“Stop stop stop…”
Lance could barely make out the whispered moan of pain. “Sorry Shiro, we can’t stop yet.” He tightened his grip on the twitching hand he was holding. “Hurry up, Hunk!”
Hunk looked like he wanted to pass out along with Shiro and didn’t say anything. He yanked upwards one last time, jerking Shiro’s torso halfway off the ground as well, but the pipe finally slid out of his shoulder with a meaty slurp. Immediately blood gushed violently out of the open wound.
Lance let go of Shiro’s hand and pressed all his weight against where the pipe had just been inside his friend. The added pressure made Shiro let out a choked noise that might have been an aborted attempt at a scream. He forced himself not to back off or shut his eyes against the horror of what he was doing. Mercifully, the new pain seemed to drag Shiro back under and his eyes closed again.
Keith shoved two fingers against his throat. He nodded to show that there was still a pulse.
A bright spotlight shone down on all five of them. Tears immediately welled up in Lance’s eyes when he realized that Allura had found them and was sending down a pod to pick them up. He couldn’t tell if they were tears of relief or terror at the entire situation.
Allura touched down and sprang out of the pod. She seemed to grasp the entire situation without having to say a word. She shoved Keith and Lance out of the way so she could scoop Shiro up into her arms and gently settle him into the passenger’s seat of the pod.
Blood instantly spread out through the fabric of the seat behind Shiro, and Allura’s arms were caked in it after holding him for even a second. Lance felt dizzy when he looked down at his own hands, so he didn’t.
“Get to your lions and meet us aboard the castle!” Allura called over her shoulder to the stunned paladins still standing in front of the rubble.
Lance couldn’t make himself move until the pod ascended into the air and was swallowed up inside the castle ship hanging above them.
They’d done it. They’d kept Shiro alive long enough, and now Allura was going to take care of him. If anyone could make everything all right, it was her.
Lance fell to his knees and bawled.
– – –
Seven days later, Shiro tumbled out of the healing pod directly into the waiting arms of Coran, Allura, and all four of the other paladins.
“What were you thinking?” Pidge yelled at him, her eyes blazing. “Leaving us behind to draw fire on yourself? Stealing an airship? Collapsing an entire building?”
Shiro blinked his eyes. “I just wanted to make sure you were all safe,” he said hoarsely.
“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that, Shirogane?” Keith said. His eyes shone brightly with unshed tears.
“Erm, what he means to say is,” Coran started, but Shiro held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s okay, I know what they mean,” Shiro said. “Um… I’m sorry for scaring you, I guess. I’m just relieved you’re all okay.” He let his eyes wander around the group. He winced at their angry expressions, until his gaze fell on Lance.
“Well? Anything you’d like to add?”
Lance shouldered his way forward and wrapped his arms around Shiro’s bandaged torso as tightly as he could.
Shiro seemed stunned for a moment, before he hesitantly began to squeeze back. One second later, everyone else joined in. Their combined weight and momentum made them all sink to their knees on the floor, but no one let go.
Finally, finally, they believed that, at least for now, they were going to be okay.