Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Here.

The promise resides in Keith’s chest for as long as it takes him to wake up.

I’m here.

It rises and sets as the sun does as he battles foggy waves of consciousness. It warms like a hearth, and sometimes burns like the coals residing in the pit of that fire, as he defies the pull to oblivion and remains stubbornly in his body.

I’m here. It’s for them. It’s always been for them. The five of them.

Here.

When at last he wakes—really wakes—reality isn’t half as pleasant as the tender embrace of the storm that occupied his dreams. There is no calming rain at his back, no stars to settle his mind. He is stiff and groggy, hungry yet nauseous, and his eyes feel welded by a crusty glue. When he manages to pry them open, the light that strikes them makes his head hurt, and his head hurting makes him groan, and that makes him realise how horribly dry his throat is. Fuck waking up.

Slowly, unhappily, Keith blinks his eyes open in short intervals to adjust to the light. It’s natural—skylight, as far as he can tell. All the blinking alerts him to the bruising about his eyes. The surrounding flesh is tender and swollen, and stings a little as he squints. He fights to swallow, and grimaces as a spasm passes down his dry throat. He inhales—his nostrils burn—and clears his throat to chase what little mucus has balled itself up back there.

At the sound, there’s a screech from somewhere nearby, like a chair being shoved back across a floor. Footsteps, fast. Keith’s eyes fly open. He tries to turn his head, to sit up, to react, but they’re on him before he gets the chance. He’s got the best scream he can muster locked and loaded in his throat, but it dies there as a familiar head of white hair pops into view.

“Easy,” Shiro says. “Easy, you’re alright.”

Though he knows it’s all in his head, Keith swears he can hear the snap in his chest as his heart jumps and throws itself against his ribs. He’s sobbing before he remembers how to sob, so really he’s coughing, and whining, and can his jaw please unlock?

“There’s no rush, there’s no rush, Keith.” Shiro speaks steadily, though his lip visibly wobbles. His thumb presses to the edge of Keith’s jaw to remind him where it hinges, how to speak, how to breathe. Keith manages to part his lips and a pathetic cry comes tumbling out. “Just breathe,” Shiro assures him. “Just breathe.”

And for a minute, he does. He lies on a soft mattress and breathes until he has the oxygen to cry, then cries until he exhausts himself. And at the end, Shiro is still there.

Keith settles down with a broken exhale. He sags, and though his body aches, he finds it cushioned by a soft mattress. He’s warm, and it isn’t the scalding heat that coursed through his veins when he’d stabbed Bob—this is pleasant. He feels like a steaming pile of shit, but that shit has been wrapped in cotton and doted on. His eyes don’t want to focus when he looks further than Shiro, but vaguely he thinks he spies a window and a bright blue sky beyond it. Everything is a gentle, cream-coloured blur. He swears he hears rain.

“You’re alright,” Shiro says.

Hot tears well, and sting as they overflow onto the small, dried puncture wounds that surround Keith’s eyes.

“Sh–” His voice is a wheeze. He blinks, and a heavy sensation floods his head. He’s so, so tired. A thin whine escapes his clenched teeth. “Shiro.”

“I’m here.” Shiro’s voice cracks, losing its cool at last. He holds gently to Keith’s shoulder, below which a thick bandage encases his forearm. “You did it,” he trembles. “Everyone’s alright, Keith.”

“Tired,” Keith slurs. Already, he’s losing control of his body. His eyes threaten to slide shut, and that drugged, heavy feeling fills his veins. “I can’t– Can’t– Don’t go back,” he insists hoarsely. “Don’t sleep–”

“You’re okay, you’re resting,” Shiro breathes, but his brow pinches tight as Keith fights the pull of sleep. “You need to rest.”

Keith shakes his head, or tries to. It sends him spinning, and he exhales shakily as his vision cartwheels. “Don’t want sleep– Don’t want to– I– Shiro–”

It’s dragging him down, and there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He’s spiraling, he’s losing control, he’s losing, where is he and where are they and where is Lance–

The mattress caves as another person lowers themself onto the cramped bed beside him.

“I am right here,” Shiro says reassuringly.

Keith can’t see; his vision goes blotchy, then white, then black, and he breathes sharply through his teeth. But Shiro’s arm encases him. Shiro’s here. And here becomes something less important. Here is anywhere; here is the rooftop at the Garrison where he and Shiro sat naming constellations; here is his bed in their shared apartment, where Shiro fell asleep in the middle of telling Keith a story about his parents, all cause Keith had a nightmare. Here is Shiro’s heartbeat, and the stupid tickle of his stubble when he tucks Keith beneath his chin.

He doesn’t know where the hell he is, but he knows Shiro’s there. He falls back asleep as the panic and the fear release him at last.

—

The next time Keith wakes, it’s to the sound of Shiro snoring. It’s so familiar; Keith fights the urge to kick him before remembering where he is and why he can’t.

Waking is easier this time around. Groggy and stiff, Keith pries apart his eyes and carefully flexes his fingers. His vision has improved. He can actually focus on the ceiling, which is indeed cream coloured, and he cranes his head slightly to spy the window. It’s huge—floor to ceiling—but the blue sky has given way to night. Abruptly, his eyes snap to the colourful smudge in his peripheral.

Arms propped on his bed and chin propped on her arms, Pidge smiles at him. Keith’s heart skips a beat. He inhales sharply, and Pidge presses a finger to her lips to call for silence. Smirking, she motions to the dozing figure beside Keith. Shiro’s arm is wormed beneath Keith’s head, cushioning it, while he practically hangs off the edge of the small bed, dead to the world as he snores loudly.

Pidge scoffs quietly. She reaches out and twines her fingers with Keith’s. Hers are warm, and until now, Keith hadn’t thought much about his own. His forearms are both encased in a thick bandage, but aside from being cold, his fingers feel fine.

“Hey,” Pidge says.

Keith blinks. He kinda feels like crying, but doesn’t want to go through the ordeal of having tears sting the puncture wounds again. Speaking of, the ring of punctures surrounding Pidge’s right eye look better—they’re cleaned of crusty blood and smudged dirt, and have developed glossy red scabs.

“Hey,” he croaks.

Shiro twitches beside him, but continues to doze. Pidge smiles tightly, holding back tears of her own. Keith exhales slowly. Safe. He senses it in Pidge’s demeanour, and in the way Shiro sleeps. They’re safe.

“Where…” he pauses, and clears his throat. “Where are we?” he whispers.

“Yyargnor,” Pidge says, wrinkling her nose. She frowns, tilting her head. “I think that’s how you say it.”

Keith raises a brow, and winces. Punctures still hurt.

“It’s nice,” Pidge sighs. “Nice planet.”

Keith exhales slowly. Idly, Pidge plays with his finger, as if fascinated to find him alive.

“And where…” Keith swallows again. Speaking is hard. “Is everyone–”

“Everyone is fine,” Pidge says. She stills, and looks to him earnestly. “Everyone is doing better than you.”

Keith scoffs weakly. Pidge smiles. She straightens, and glances at Shiro’s sleeping form.

“He said not to overload you with everything,” she murmurs. “All the deets.”

“But you’re going to,” Keith says with a huff.

“Duh.”

Keith snorts. His nostrils still kinda sting, like someone’s scraped down the walls of them with alcoholic disinfectant. “Let’s hear it,” he says.

“You offed Bob,” Pidge whispers. She folds her arms and sighs. “That was dramatic. Whole studio started falling apart. Lance woke up, you were dying.” She gnaws on her lip, and hovers her finger over Keith’s bandaged wrist, too light to feel. “And Allura, she looked at you while you were, you know, dying on the ground and said… Well, she thought Bob might actually be a parasite. So, she ripped him out of you.”

Keith blinks. His wrists are numb, but a little tingle passes through him at the description.

“I mean literally,” Pidge says, and crudely mimics the action. “Ripped.”

“Wow,” Keith says dryly.

“Yeah, dude,” she says, brows raised. “Wow.”

They freeze as Shiro twitches. He mumbles something indistinguishable, but remains sleeping. Gradually, Keith’s eyes creep back to Pidge.

“So,” he rasps. “Yagnor?”

“Yyargnor,” Pidge corrects. “Gave us refuge. Well, after Shiro found us. Bob dead, Black wakes the other lions, beams out our location,” she explains. “We kept you alive long enough, obviously,” she says, shrugging a shoulder at him. “Then Shiro and Coran came swooping in, grabbed us off the planet. Brought us here. To Yyargnor.”

“You like the name.”

“I like how it rolls off the tongue.”

Keith’s lip twitches as he manages a weak smile. It fades as he clears his throat to ask, “How long?”

“How long have we been on Yyargnor or how long were we in there?” Pidge asks. Keith’s eyes widen. “So, not to overload you,” she says in a rush, “but a little over three months. T-that’s how much time passed out here, while we were in Bob’s reality.”

Keith exhales shakily. He turns minutely toward Shiro, thankful for the arm cushioning his head. Three months. He doesn’t know if he’s horrified or relieved that it wasn’t longer.

“Been on Yyargnor three days,” Pidge says. “You were out cold, for a while. But they’re like, super happy with us, the Yyargnorians,” she says with an approving nod. “Turns out Bob really is some parasite that got implanted in this solar system a century or so back. He’s been pulling in spacecraft, mining vessels, satellites, you name it. And nothing and no-one that went in ever came out. Until we did.”

Keith wets his lips, trying to disguise how his breathing becomes shaky at the mention of Bob. He’s dead, he reminds himself. Bob is dead dead. Keith just about died ensuring it.

“So you better heal up fast,” Pidge says, then whistles, “Cause it is party city out there.”

Keith fakes a small smile. Pidge sees through it, however, and squeezes his hand.

“Where is everyone?” he asks.

“Itching to see you,” she assures. “Shiro promised they could bring you breakfast, but that you had to rest first.”

“How come you’re here?”

“Cause I’m not scared of him,” she grins. Keith snorts. “And cause everyone else is on crutches and in slings,” Pidge sighs. “I crawled in through the vent.”

“What the fuck,” Keith splutters. A genuine chuckle punches from his chest, one he can’t suppress even as Shiro shifts in his sleep.

Pidge smiles fully. “You should rest, though,” she says.

Keith quirks a brow. “Where are you going to do? Climb back through the vent?”

“Nah,” Pidge sighs. She crosses her arms on the bed and lays her head on them. “I’m staying right here.”

–

Come morning, Keith finally sees his room in full.

He wakes to find Shiro moving hastily about the space—which resembles a hospital room—as he speaks to the first Yyargorian Keith’s seen, presumably his doctor. Yyargorian’s are regal looking yet frighteningly pale, reminding Keith somewhat of an elf, and somewhat of a cave creature.

Light pours in through the window, which reveals nothing but bright blue sky, a few shades paler than Earth’s. They must be high up, Keith notes, as he watches clouds cruise by as Shiro and the doctor run through his charts and yap on about blood pressure. Stranger still, despite the sky’s sunny blue disposition, crystal clear droplets of rain splatter continuously against the glass.

Shiro sits with him as the doctor talks Keith through his injuries. The punctures around his eyes are healing well on their own, as is the puncture at his ankle. He has a number of bruised and broken ribs, and traces of internal bleeding, but strangely, his scars tell of wounds that should have killed him months ago, but didn’t.

Keith knows why. Bob is why.

The doctor takes notes as Keith numbly recounts what he remembers of their crash landing. He inspects the site of Keith’s bruising again, and comments that although it seems like the broken ribs pierced his lungs and chest cavity, everything has since healed in strange but not unwelcome ways.

Bob didn’t lie, Keith realises sickly; his injuries from that crash should have killed him. Bob did save him.

He doesn’t say that aloud, of course, but knows from the look Shiro gives him that his mentor already has an idea of what they went through.

Then there’s the matter of Keith’s wrists. The doctor brushes over the nitty gritty of the injury in favour of boasting to Keith about the healing tech they’ve swathed him in. Beneath the bandages lie a protective sleeve, stocked with anaesthetic that is automatically administered every twelve hours. It keeps the injury numb, he explains. It ensures Keith can’t feel whatever carnage lies beneath the bandage and sleeve.

Once the doctor leaves, Shiro turns to him and says, in earnest, “Is there anything you… Is there anything you want to talk about, Keith?”

Keith blinks. Shiro seated in the chair beside his bed, rain pattering against the window… It all feels so calm. He thought he’d feel gutted, afraid, unsure of reality. Instead, it’s hard to believe he was anywhere but here.

“I want to see the others,” he answers evenly.

Shiro smiles tight. “You will. I just… I want you to know, that if you want to talk to me, about anything, really, then I’m here.”

Keith bites into his cheek until he tastes blood. He smiles. “Thanks, Shiro. I just wanna see the others.”

After that, Shiro finally permits visitors. Allura and Hunk are first though the door, and Keith swallows the lump that forms in his throat as soon as he spies their ecstatic faces.

Hunk pushes Allura in on a wheelchair, and Keith’s gaze immediately falls to her leg, which is in a cast. In spite of that, and the bandages that show from beneath Hunk’s shirt, they’re all smiles as they gather at Keith’s bedside.

“Oh, skies,” Allura breathes. She pats Keith’s cheek for the third time that minute, and he fears she might squeeze it. “I am so glad to see you awake.”

“Not as glad as me,” he mumbles stupidly.

“How are the arms?” Hunk asks.

Keith raises his pair of bandaged wrists. They’re shockingly numb, but it’s better than being in pain. “Feels like nothing,” he says.

“They told me you’ll regain feeling soon,” Allura says, worrying her lower lip. “But I–I am so sorry–”

“Allura,” Keith interrupts. “It’s good. Good numb. Like, tingly.”

“That’ll be the anaesthetic,” Shiro says. He props a shoulder against the wall, watching their interaction like he’s facilitating a playdate.

“Shiro’s a general practitioner now,” Keith tells the others with a scoff. “He sat there trying to tell me what blood plasma does.”

“Only cause I gave you so much of mine,” Shiro says with a rueful smile.

“And that makes you an expert.”

“Of course.”

Their playful bickering is cut short as the door to Keith’s room opens again, and Pidge comes strolling in. Trailing her, dragging his feet as his eyes dart anxiously from face to face, is Lance.

Heat rushes to Keith’s head and neck. He tries to mask the race of emotions that fight for a place on his face as the pair approach his bed.

“Good morning, sleepy head,” Pidge drawls, patronising.

Keith scoffs, but it’s a facade. His eyes flicker to Lance. Thus far the red paladin has dodged his gaze, but stood right before the bed, he can no longer avoid Keith.

Dark bruising stains the swollen skin around Lance’s right eye. His arm sits in a cast and sling. But the worst wound, one which perhaps only Keith can see, is the look in his eyes. It steals the breath from Keith’s lungs. It cuts him right to the core.

“Hey,” says Lance.

Keith blinks. He remembers where they are. He forces himself to smile, and murmurs, “Hey, Lance.”

“Coran’s going to be here any moment, now,” Allura warns, lightening the mood.

“We tried to hold him off,” Hunk says with a sigh. “But you know what he’s like.”

“Like a dog on its way to a B-E-A-C-H,” Pidge says with a shake of her head. “Hey, check these out though,” she says, and wriggles her fingers in front of Keith. Her index finger, once a bloody stump, is now sealed up beneath a metal cap. “And we’re matching,” she sings, and nudges Lance.

Haltingly, Lance unfurls his fist, which is nestled within the sling. There, a matching cap seals his own amputation.

“Hunk’s gonna make us prosthetics,” Pidge boasts. “And mine’s gonna shoot lasers.”

“No it is not,” Hunk assures them.

“It’s gonna have a smaller prosthetic finger that can pop out of it and flip people off,” Pidge continues.

“Nope.”

“It’s also going to function as a multi-tool.”

“N– Well,” Hunk shrugs.

Keith’s eyes flicker to Lance. He’s desperate to see Lance smile like the others—properly smile. “Is yours gonna double as a water gun?” he asks.

Slow to realise Keith is talking to him, Lance quirks a brow. “Hm?”

“I will permit Lance a water gun finger,” Hunk says.

Lance smiles, small, as Hunk jostles him with a shoulder. “Yeah,” he huffs. “Sounds good.”

A piece of Keith dies. The conversation surges forth, but he remains stuck on Lance. His smile is so…so nothing. He’s distracted. He lags, yet is jumpy all the same, and he swallows thickly after he flinches at the distant slam of a door. A million questions bud on Keith’s tongue, but he can’t ask with the others all gathered around.

So, half-hearted, he listens as the team detail the past three days to him. They tell him of the strange dreams that plagued Shiro while the team was missing, attributed to the black lion trying, in her paralysed state, to signal where they were. They tell him of the few survivors they found clinging to life within the cocoons in Bob’s studio, and of the many they didn’t.

The conversation turns to Voltron, and to missing paladins, and to plans for public appearances, but to Keith it all turns to mush. The words bleed into a sluggish river that flows away underfoot. He cares only for the vacant expression Lance wears, for his averted gaze, his clenched fist.

“But all that matters,” Shiro says loudly, snatching his attention back. “Is that you’re all okay.” He sets a hand on Pidge’s shoulder and smiles down at Keith. “Doctor’s orders are to rest. Ask for help if you need it. Consider yourselves on sick leave.”

“Should be long service leave by now,” Hunk jokes.

Lance’s lip twitches performatively.

“That too,” Shiro follows up with a smile. He clasps his hands together as a bang sounds from down the hall. “That’ll be Coran,” he says calmly, as the bang turns into a stampede of feet. “Is everyone fine if I unlock the door?”

On cue, someone thumps into the door, which Keith didn’t realise was locked.

“I mean, we survived his reunion with Allura,” Hunk sighs. “How bad could Keith’s be?”

“Sure, let him in,” Pidge shrugs. “I kinda like watching him go loopy.”

Shiro raises a brow at Keith. He stifles a genuine chuckle as he listens to Coran curse over the locked door, trying to work out what may have happened to it.

“Of course you should let him in,” he says.

With a chuckle, Shiro moves to unlock the door, which bursts open to reveal their advisor. Red in the face, Coran stops throttling the door handle as his eyes land on Keith.

“Number Four!” he cries in delight.

Keith’s lip twitches into a smile, but the nickname trips something in his chest. He is suddenly very, very glad that despite Bob’s obsession with numbers, he never numbered them one to five.

He banishes the thought to the back of his mind as Coran squeezes him into a hug that Hunk and Shiro eventually have to pry him out of. The conversation grows easy again, but Keith, like Lance, is distracted.

Although Coran’s nicknames mean nothing in that game, the mention of numbers has Keith’s eyes flitting over his teammates. Hunk, Allura, Pidge, Lance, him. Round and around his eyes go, subtly tracking them as they settle in around his bed, as their laughter chases the gentle patter of rain. One, two, three, four, five.

—

Keith spends another week in the infirmary before announcing to Shiro that he is actually going out of his mind. There are only so many hours a day he can play chess with Pidge, or learn Yyargnorian letters with Hunk, or watch Allura go through leg motions with her physical therapist.

Worst of all, the entire time he’s in there, Lance refuses to speak to him. Well, not refuses, but he makes it impossible for Keith to catch him alone. He only ever enters Keith’s room if he’s trailing after Pidge, or helping Allura get around, or shadowing Hunk. It’s never just him. He refuses to let it be just him. If it seems whoever he’s with is leaving, he’ll find an excuse to leave too.

By the end of the week, Keith is ready to start throwing things.

It’s not like he has some grand speech lined up for Lance. He ponders it, in the long hours he spends confined to the bed, but nothing concretes. He figures he’ll wing it. He just needs the opportunity to actually talk to Lance.

“You take this one daily, just once, preferably before a meal. And that means eating consistently, Keith. To schedule. And this one’s in powdered form, so you can tip that into your water–”

“Shiro,” Keith whines. “Enough. I have it written down.”

“But have you read it?”

“And you think talking is a more effective way of getting me to listen? Listen to you? Talking?”

Shiro rolls his eyes. They stand before the doors to Keith’s assigned room—not a hospital room, this is an actual bedroom. They intend to stay on Yyargnor until Allura’s leg has healed, and until the lions are cleared to fly, and until everyone’s recovered the use of their atrophied muscles, and until Keith can wield a sword again—all of which could take weeks, Shiro explains as they walk from the infirmary.

He collected Keith bright and early this morning, but delayed them for thirty minutes as he sat perusing the discharge papers with the doctor, and now delays even more as they stand before Keith’s door. He refuses to hand over the small pack of personal items until Keith Yes Shiro's everything he’s got to say about dosage times and sleep schedules.

“Just. Take them. Please,” Shiro says tersely, handing over Keith’s bag of prescribed medications.

“What. Ever. You. Say. You. Over. Controlling. Ass– Ow!” he laughs as Shiro punches his shoulder.

Another eyeroll, and Shiro hands over the rest of Keith’s belongings. He sighs, inspecting the door to Keith’s room.

“Are you sure you don’t want to room with me?” he asks for the third time. “I get being alone after something like that can…”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Keith assures him. “I kinda need the space. I need…time alone.”

Shiro nods, but ripples of doubt unsettle his expression.

“But I’ll come to you if I need,” Keith adds.

He raises a teasing brow and Shiro shakes his head with a scoff. “You’re just trying to get me to leave you alone,” he says.

“Woah,” Keith drawls. “How’d you know?”

“I’m an empath,” Shiro mocks. His smile softens as Keith looks toward the door. “I mean it, though,” he says. “You can come to me anytime.”

“And I will,” Keith promises. “I’ll come weep into your pillow and we can talk about feelings and aspirations and boys–”

“Alright, alright,” Shiro chuckles, shoving Keith toward his door. “Go revel in isolation.”

Keith snorts, and waves goodbye as he steps through the door. Shiro retracts with a wave of his own, and Keith shuts the door soon after.

Then he really is alone. He turns to confront his room, which is actually pretty damn nice. Like the rest of Yyargnor’s buildings, it’s situated high above the planet’s surface to escape the noxious gases and rain water that mar the lower regions. The city is pretty high-tech, and Keith draws up to the large window to cast his eyes upon it. Hundreds of pod-shaped skyscrapers dot the horizon, while rain constantly pelts down from the sky, despite it being clear and blue.

Don’t ask me about the weather cause I don’t know how to explain it yet, Pidge warned when Keith first enquired.

Each gigantic skyscraper on Yyargnor is like a city within itself. The floor they occupy in this building is clearly intended for visitors such as themselves, but the hospital is just a short two floors up, and as far as Keith knows, there are another two hundred or so floors in the building.

With a sigh, he sets his belongings down on the edge of the bed. He totally lied to Shiro. He doesn’t know how the fuck to be alone right now. He figures that has to change eventually, though. Rip off the bandaid.

He spends the next hour pacing anxiously. Thick bandages remain around his forearms, and Keith runs his fingers along them as he paces. He itches to rip the fabric off, see for himself the state of his wrists. See if the veins are still there.

He catches himself as he imagines them pulsing under-skin. Placebo, he reasons, cause once he thinks it, a dull throbbing emanates from beneath the bandages. No. No no no. There’s nothing in him. It’s fine, he’s fine; there are no veins and no Bob, cause Bob is dead, dead dead, cause Keith killed him, Keith ran that sword straight through him and felt it split his own ribs and–

He hits the floor and gags until he tastes blood. Nothing comes up, but his stomach is unsatisfied, and he whines as an involuntary spasm races up his throat. Fuck fuck fuck. He flushes, hot, and bites his knuckles in search of release. He doesn’t want to be alone, but he doesn’t want to be anything. Why did it happen? Why the fuck did it have to happen?

Minutes tick by as Keith stays curled on the floor. He lays his head against the cool stone and listens to people pass by his doorway. At least alone, he can lower the shields. That bedroom door is the most privacy he’s had since… Well, since Bob. It feels impossible that there isn’t someone prying into his head.

Every awful image, and failure, and injury, they aren’t gone. They simply settled to the bottom of him like sediment. But now he’s been inverted. The sediment rises, polluting the waterways as it lingers within him, thick and irremovable.

Keith stays there, breathing thinly to prevent his throat from spasming again. He hopes (though hope is in little supply, by now), that if he stays still, the sediment will settle. It will solidify into mud within the soles of his feet, then harden into rock. And he will never have to feel it again.

—

Dinner is an awkward affair. At least to Keith it is, but he’s the one who can’t stop staring at Lance; everyone else looks quite content, actually.

Allura has befriended a Yyargorian—a young woman around her age—who she talks to in length as they pass around that night’s meal. The food on this planet is simple, but to Keith it is warm and therefore perfect. Shiro hasn’t stopped talking to every Yyargorian diplomat he encounters, and Pidge explains that he’s asked a new politician to join them for dinner each night. He never slows down, and has hashed out another three plans as to how Voltron should proceed from here before he’s gotten past the first bite.

Their group has been relegated to a wing within one of the city’s more upscale buildings. All two hundred of its floors sport everything from parks to infirmaries to hotel rooms. Pidge happily informs Keith over dinner that her and Hunk have located an arcade somewhere lowdown on the twenty-sixth floor, and they’re desperate for Keith to join a game of Cosmic Colliders III: Rings of Meteoron. He politely declines. He asks if Lance is going. Lance tells them of course he’ll join.

The second the red paladin turns to speak to Allura, Pidge leans over Keith and whispers, “He keeps saying that but he hasn’t showed up to anything.”

The moment Keith finishes his meal, Lance stands and offers to collect plates. He’s only got one usable arm, but stubbornly manages to stack plates on a trolley without meeting Keith’s eye, and procures another of those empty smiles when the others thank him.

“You don’t have to,” Keith says quietly, as Lance takes his plate.

“It’s fine, I offered.”

“Lance,” he says. Pidge and Hunk are talking to Allura and her new Yyargorian friend, and Shiro is plotting a course on a star chart with the diplomat and Coran. Keith swallows his pride and looks pleadingly to Lance and utters, “Lance, can I talk to y–”

“I’ll be right back,” Lance interjects. He smiles; nothing. He taps a finger to the trolley laden with plates. “In a minute.”

But he doesn’t return.

The night, Keith peels off his shirt with gritted teeth and confronts the bruises that encase his torso. In the bathroom mirror, he pulls at his skin to view the extent of the bruising, to view the depths of the punctures, to push and prod and see what hurts. The only thing he can’t see are his wrists.

He’s been ordered to leave the bandage on even when he showers. Numb, he watches water slide from the unusual fabric like rain off a duck’s back. He begins to shiver madly, even as he pushes the temperature to scalding, and he scratches at the edges of the bandage. When he pushes hard, he feels the outline of the protective sleeve, the thing supposedly keeping his exposed flesh safe and sound. It and the anaesthetic ensure he doesn’t feel anything, even when he pushes.

What secrets do those bandages hold? What do his wrists look like now? He hears Bob’s voice: You’ll have to wait for the big reveal! and scrubs his flesh until it’s red and raw.

It’s not that his wrists prevent him from doing things. Whatever the Yyargorian doctors pumped him with, it’s strong. He can still change his clothes, towel off, pick at his nails until the edges bleed. He attempts a push-up—and quickly abandons it as his forearms fold like putty—and struggles slightly at the task of tugging his blanket free from where it’s tucked firmly under the mattress. He tests the limits and realises that if he pushes too hard he’ll simply strike a hard boundary. His wrists don’t hurt. They’re just weak. Weak enough that even if he tries, he cannot damage them.

So he’s fine. He’s survived. He takes his meds and rubs ointment into the puncture scabs around his eyes, but he is not going to die and he is just so…okay.

He sleeps like a baby, if that baby were aboard a sailboat in a storm, with a wailing ambulance on board, and whose parents left it in the care of a sailor with fish-breath and knives for hands.

In the daytime, he tries to keep busy.

He can’t work out or train like he usually would—his wrists are barely strong enough to hold a book, let alone sling a sword—but Shiro, probably anticipating his frustration, invites him for a run first thing in the morning.

He shows Keith to the lush green park that grows on the forty-third floor, helps lace up his runners, and proceeds to tease Keith as he struggles to keep pace on their jog around the track.

“An Arusian could outpace you right now.”

At present, Shiro is jogging backwards while Keith heaves and splutters and drags himself around the track.

“That Arusian,” he gasps, “didn’t break five ribs.”

“Pfft,” Shiro scoffs. “Excuses.”

Keith knows why he’s playing this game; Shiro knows pity is the last thing in the world Keith wants. He wants normalcy.

His chest throbs and his lungs demand air long before they usually do, but Keith pushes on; if Shiro thinks he can do it, then do it he can. Bob sustained them in strange, mostly inexplicable ways during the three months they were captive in that studio. Some muscle atrophy—yet they can all still walk, albeit awkwardly. Old, fatal wounds from the crash were scrappily healed, all so new, fresher wounds could be carved out. They were being fed on, Pidge explained crudely. And don’t you like your food fresh, Keith?

Keith pushes thoughts of Bob to the back of his mind as he struggles around the track. Instead, he marvels at the park. It occupies four stories, with bushy green trees that tickle the rafters of the floor above them, and sculpted gardens where large, native insects buzz about. Half of it is open-air, and rain pelts down and soaks into the fields of grass and manmade streams that cart that water straight back into the gutters. Yyargnorian children play ball and old men fish from the pond, and all of them wave as Shiro and Keith jog past.

About halfway around the track, Keith spies a set of pull-up bars. He beelines for them before Shiro notices. He doesn’t need Shiro’s discouragement, though; the moment he attempts to pull himself up, his weak wrists fail him, and he ends up flat on the ground.

Keith groans, the back of his shirt now soaked by the damp grass.

“Hah.” A grinning face with white hair peers down at him. “I told you so.”

“You didn’t tell me shit,” Keith mutters. He pushes to his feet and tries to rip a handful of soggy grass up with him to flick at Shiro, but his wrists fail there as well. They are so numb, so painless, that it drives Keith wild. He doesn’t mention it to Shiro, though. If he mentions one thing to Shiro, he’ll start mentioning it all, and he just isn’t ready.

“Give it time,” Shiro says. “You’ll get your strength back.”

“I am,” Keith grits out. “I’m just seeing what I can do. Which is fuck all.”

Shiro sighs, crossing his arms. Stopped by the pull-up bars, they take a moment to catch their breath, watching kids kick a ball across the field.

“We haven’t talked about anything,” Shiro says.

Keith’s eyes snap to him. “We’ve been talking all week.”

“Yeah, about the weather,” Shiro shrugs.

“And my blood type. Which, I didn’t realise was so weird.”

“It was weird,” Shiro mutters. “Not the point. Keith, I… If you want to talk about the game, or anything. I’m all ears.”

“You’re always all ears. Too much ears,” Keith mutters.

“I was scared,” Shiro shrugs. He’s trying to play it casual, convince Keith to speak like this isn’t a huge deal. “When I was looking for you, I was really worried about you. And then when I found you, seeing what had happened to you… I was scared. So, were you…” He clears his throat, looking anywhere but at Keith. “Some days I just wonder what you went through.”

Keith toys with his tongue. The sound of children playing is so sweet, almost bitterly sweet, and paired with the gentle babble of the nearby stream, it feels like he’s entered some heaven-like dimension.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he says honestly. And then, less honestly, “I’ve kinda dealt with it, you know? Like, it’s calm. Talking about it is going to unsettle it. And I don’t need to do that, cause I’ve already dealt with it.”

Shiro brows rise. He’s unconvinced. “Wow,” he says. “That was fast.”

“It was,” Keith says defensively. “But I’m good at that, you know? Besides I… I had a lot of time in the infirmary. Did a lot of thinking.”

Shiro nods slowly. “Uh huh. Well, if you decide you want to stir it up, then, you should know there’s a really good therapist. They’re just two floors up and I–”

Keith’s already running as he shouts, “No thanks!”

“Keith!” Shiro scoffs, and takes off after him. He catches up embarrassingly fast. “You can’t outrun your problems, cause you’re too shit at running,” he points out, jogging easily at Keith’s side.

“I’ll get better,” Keith grits out.

Shiro smiles wryly. “You don’t have to run away, Keith. I’m not gonna force you to talk.”

“Good,” Keith pants. “Cause good luck with that.”

“I mean I could force you by making you smell my armpits.”

“What?” Keith snaps. His eyes fly to Shiro, who grins crudely.

“Yep,” he says happily. “Good luck outrunning that.”

In a flash, he lunges for Keith, throwing one sweaty arm around his shoulders and squeezing him tight.

“Hey– Ew!” Keith shouts, trying to wriggle from Shiro’s grip. Shiro laughs, shoving Keith deeper into his armpit. He splutters, curses, and shoves Shiro with an elbow. “Fucking dickhead!”

Keith squirms from his grip and breaks into a sprint as Shiro laughs himself stupid. The rest of their jog is a constant game of cat and mouse, which ends in Keith swearing he’ll never come running with Shiro again—at least until the next day, when Shiro is back at his door, and he agrees because, well, what else is he gonna do?

As he regains strength over the following days, Keith begins to wander further from their wing. He visits the lions in their designated bay, where they too are recovering from Bob’s psychic effects, and undergoing extensive repairs after the crash. He attends a lecture given by a Yyargorian professor (or Shiro makes him attend the lecture), who has used the samples of black vein they scraped from the lions and the skin of their paladins to try and diagnose what exactly Bob was. The presentation feels more like a debrief, and Keith fails to learn anything. He attends Allura’s physical therapy appointment, since they got into the habit in the infirmary, and encourages her as she runs through the exercises to ease stiffness in her fractured leg.

He feels vaguely disconnected from it all. He is always distracted, because he is always looking for Lance. The red paladin does appear from time to time, but he’s always busy and never alone. First it’s coincidental; Keith tries to catch him at meal times but finds he is always the one talking to the cook or helping clean dishes, despite the fact his arm’s still in a cast and sling. Then, his intentions begin to bare themselves.

Lance begins to duck from rooms whenever Keith arrives. He injects endless questions and anecdotes into conversations with acquaintances, just so they never break focus, and he never has to talk to Keith. He is caught cleaning windows on the sixty-fourth story after telling Hunk and Pidge he’s ‘too busy’ for an outing with them and Keith to the fabled swimming pool.

He makes himself helpful to avoid conversation, and it’s so unlike him and so impossible to break through to him that Keith’s ready to tear his hair out. It appears so innocent but to Keith is sheer malicious intent. Lance offers his labour to anyone who will listen; he helps the librarian stack books, accompanies the resident meteorologist to collect water samples from the roof, and charms a gaggle of Yyargorian office ladies into allowing him to join their midmorning tea time.

Keith sees it for what it is: Lance is caught in an ice melt. As his range shrinks, he attaches himself to the next iceberg, building an intricate system of bridges over which he can escape. He navigates this system seamlessly, using people as handholds to swing from one to the next, ensuring he never loses his footing. And Keith watches from below, not an ounce of agility in him. If Lance isn’t careful, he thinks, Keith is going to start bringing down those bridges in the only way he knows how.

“You can’t throw him out a window,” Pidge sighs.

He confides in her a few days into this little dance with Lance. It’s past dinnertime, and he and Pidge sit in a small, secluded lounge that overlooks the glowing city. Rain buckets down, but stars appear as twilight draws in.

“I didn’t say that,” Keith snaps. “I said I want to cut him down. Like, cut down the bridges.”

“Wow,” Pidge drawls. “So metaphorical.”

“I don’t actually want him to fall,” Keith argues.

“No, no, I gathered that. You want him to fall in the emotional sense.”

“Yes?” Keith answers uncertainly.

“If it means anything,” Pidge shrugs, “He’s already at rock bottom.”

“What?” Keith snaps. “How do you know that?”

“Cause he’s acting weird,” she says. “And usually he masks when he’s feeling weird. So, if he can’t mask it, it’s cause it’s really bad.”

Keith’s frown deepens. “So… He’s upset?”

“I don’t know,” Pidge says. Lying on the carpet, she toys with the tassels. “I think everyone is.”

“Hunk seems alright,” Keith says. “So does Allura.”

“Yeah,” Pidge sighs. “I got this kind of…high, from being alive. Wears off, though.”

“I didn’t get…high.”

“But you didn’t get low yet, either.”

“What?” he asks, snappish. “What does that mean?”

“I mean, ugh,” Pidge trails off. She glowers at the hefty raindrops as they strike glass. “Hunk and Allura look really happy but I think they’re going to crash. And I think Lance already crashed. But everyone else is still happy, so… He’s waiting for us.”

Keith blinks. “What?”

“Stop saying that,” Pidge snaps.

“Sorry,” Keith mutters.

They’re like this lately—short with one another.

“Sorry,” Pidge sighs. “Just… I’m scared.”

“Of what?” Keith asks, frowning.

“Crashing.”

Rain splatters against the window. Keith gnaws at the inside of his cheek, and Pidge wraps the carpet tassel tight around her finger until the tip begins to redden.

“I’ll be here if you do, though,” Keith says. “If you crash.”

The corner of Pidge’s lip twitches upward. With a sigh, she twists onto her side. “Yeah,” she mumbles. “Same.”

That night, Keith thinks about what she said. How is he supposed to know what the crash feels like? He didn’t feel high; does that mean he won’t feel low? He’s felt a lot of nothing, lately. Like the numbing anaesthetic applied to his wrists, he feels vague and fine and a little empty.

He got used to the game, he realises. He got used to hurting. Every minute, subconsciously, he is waiting for the next game to begin. He’s awaiting the next wound. And when it doesn’t come, when he doesn’t feel pain, he begins to worry he’s lost the ability to feel.

It’s a feeling Keith cannot shake. Gradually, over the next few days, he begins to seek out ways to chase the feeling. He’ll pinch himself just to ensure it hurts. He’ll bite his tongue til it bleeds. He throws his fist at the shower wall, once, and cringes as pain shoots up his hand. When no one’s looking, he quickly presses the pad of his finger to the surface off the kitchen stove.

He isn’t trying to hurt himself. He doesn’t want to get hurt at all. He simply wants to know if he can still feel. Whether it’s possible to still feel if he isn’t feeling pain.

This isn’t crashing, he tells himself. This is controlled. Sensible, even. He tells himself that even if the others found out, they’d admire him for his logic. But they cannot find out.

Then he dreams. He dreams something so vile his chest hurts.

He wakes screaming. He doesn’t stop until he’s turned on every light and doused himself beneath the shower. Even then he chokes and cries as he scoops water into his mouth, trying to drink away the taste of smoke, and he sits huddled beside the toilet for the next half hour as his throat twitches and his stomach clenches at the vision of his teammate’s blistered flesh detaching from bone as he tries to pull their bodies from a burning room.

On their morning jog, Shiro asks him about the side effects of their ordeal. Keith says he’s never felt better. Shiro knows he’s lying, but Keith knows he won’t push.

That same day, Shiro breaks the news that they’re going to begin slowly reintroducing Voltron to the public eye. The universe has been itching to know where Voltron is, and Shiro has only been able to hold the press at bay for so long.

He outlines their schedule, which includes dozens of interviews, facility visits, and public galas. He assures them all the attention is a good thing. The universe views them as saviours—Yyargnor vouches for them, as do the rest of the survivors they pulled from the remains of Bob’s studio. Voltron has slain a monster. They are stronger than ever, indivisible, a force to be reckoned with.

Behind closed doors, the cracks begin to show.

It’s been three weeks since they escaped Bob’s studio. Allura’s able to move about on crutches. Hunk’s shoulder and back have begun to heal well, but he grimaces each time he goes to stretch. Lance’s arm is out the sling, but remains in a cast. As for Keith, things remain unchanged. He frowns when, during his latest visit to the doctor, they scan his wrists and happily announce that he’s healing. If he’s healing, shouldn’t they remove the bandages? What about the sleeve? And the anaesthetic? He asks, and is told they need more time, despite the positive prognosis.

In private, he fears he’s being lied to.

He requests, and is subsequently denied access to the full debrief that exists on file. Coran controls access to the file, while Shiro breathes down his neck to ensure no one gains access, especially not the paladins it pertains to. Keith doesn’t try argue the matter with Shiro—he goes straight to Pidge.

She’s able to procure it for him, because of course she can, and he spends an evening obsessively reading over the records of their time in the studio. It all very…detached. Most of the information has been supplied by Hunk or Allura, but it’s been written, likely by Shiro, to read very clinically.

The Victims state that the Game was divided into Rounds– Shiro has written. –and were encouraged to play under the guise that they’d receive a ‘reward’ for completing five Rounds. The general assumption was that this ‘reward’ would provide an opportunity for them to complete and leave the Game.

A lot of the report discusses their injuries. It describes how Bob was able to inflict actual pain on their unconscious bodies via the veiny cocoons, mimicking the injuries they sustained in the virtual reality of the Game. It’s stuff Keith already knows, but when he gets to the pictures, he finds himself transfixed.

There are photographs of both he, Lance’s, and Pidge’s eyes, and the punctures that surround them.

Standard injury, is the description below Pidge’s. Agitated injury accompanies Lance’s. Standard injury in the right eye, Self-inflicted injury in the left eye is the description of his own wounds. Visuals of the studio were transmitted via an eyepiece, typically affixed to the Victim’s right eye. Attempts to remove this eyepiece resulted in swelling and deeper bruising (see Agitated injury). One Victim was able to return to the Game by forcibly reinserting the eyepiece of another Victim (see Self-inflicted injury). The same Victim was able to escape initially by firing a bullet pointblank at the right eye. When the cocoon attempted to recreate this injury, it incidentally shattered the Victim’s eyepiece, waking them from the Game instead of killing them.

Keith shudders as he reads it. He pushes on, skirting over images of Allura’s fractured leg, the scalded puncture in Hunk’s shoulder and the deep claw wounds in his back, to Lance’s broken arm with its deep lacerations. There are notes regarding the cut on Lance’s stomach, the one Pidge was able to inflict, as well as their joint missing fingers. Keith keeps reading, seeking something specific.

When he turns the page to view his own injuries, his stomach drops. The pictures have been taken of him in the infirmary. An image of his exposed chest and back reveal horrific bruises that still heal across his body. They’ve even included an X-ray of his ribs.

Then, two side by side images show the state of his wrists.

Keith gut twists. These images have been taken hastily, likely in the middle of a procedure, cause blood is smudged all up the visible flesh. His wrists are absolutely torn apart. He sees bone, tendon, muscle. The blood makes it hard to determine what he’s seeing. There are no signs of the black veins, until he turns the page and is confronted by another image.

In this picture, a small, finger sized segment of those black veins sits alone on a metal tray. It sweats blood, and Keith’s eyes nervously flicker to the description.

A portion of the Parasite that was pulled from the Victim’s own veins. By the time the Parasite was removed, it was deceased, but was in a process of self-destruction intended to eliminate its host post-mortem. By forcibly removing the remains of the Parasite from the Victim’s veins, the process was halted, and the Victim survived but with life-threatening injuries.

Even after he sets the report aside, Keith can’t erase the contents from his mind. Maybe Shiro was right; maybe he wasn’t ready to read it. He sees the segment of black vein, dead on a tray, and pictures it crawling back up into his wrists. How sure are the doctors that they removed it all? What if a piece is still in there, clinging to life within Keith’s body, feeding off the blood that pumps through his veins, waiting for the moment it will strike?

Restless, he spends hours that night clutching a pair of scissors he finds in the bathroom, while he runs the pointed tip down, down, down his arm until he loses sensation. He’s careful not to cut, but each time as the blade slips below his elbow and the skin grows abruptly numb, he pushes harder, desperate to feel something. Desperate, in a sense, to open his arms back up himself. To peer at his veins, to pick through his tendons; to ensure not a piece of that monster was left behind.

—

Their first ‘outing’, as Shiro puts it, is a tour of one of Yyargnor’s retirement villages.

Keith didn’t sleep well, plagued by the images within the report, and the thought of having to don a smile and make small talk turns his stomach. But, as Shiro reminds them, it is still their job to instill peace and hope in the universe. Very whimsical, Pidge says dryly in response to the statement. Hunk questions how peaceful and hopeful his blaster canon is.

Shiro tells them to cut the sarcasm.

The retirement village is way down on the fourth floor, and Keith spends the entire awkward elevator ride stood rigidly beside Lance. If he leans back even an inch, he’ll be pressed to Lance’s chest. He won’t do it, especially not here in front of the others, but the hairs on his neck stand tall as he listens to Lance clear his throat.

Within the retirement village, life is sweet and simple; they’re introduced to doting old Yyargnorian ladies, they play space-checkers with a pair of bickering old men, and receive praise from the grandmother whose missing son was finally located within one of Bob’s cocoons. He’s dead, Keith realises. But she has closure.

Even her kind words put a bad taste in his mouth and a tremble in his hands. He can manage, though. Everyone’s managing. The paladins sit amid the retirees in a large rec room, listening to stories and sharing their condolences. Until Hunk, quite out of nowhere, storms toward the television set in the corner, slams his hands down on the coffee table, and demands the women watching turn it off immediately.

Keith is stunned. Everyone is. It’s so unlike Hunk, and the yellow seems to know it. But it’s a game show, Keith realises, as the pair of old women hastily turn off the tv. His stomach sinks. He hadn’t noticed, nor had he noticed Hunk growing more and more agitated.

The yellow paladin leaves a mess, more distressed at the way he’d blown up on the pair of old women than anything else.

I think they’re going to crash. Pidge’s words plague Keith; he knows it was never her intention to upset him, but she ripped down the curtain that this was all hiding behind. How can they ever go back to the way things were?

That night, Keith considers removing the bandages himself. He stares at himself in the mirror until he’s convinced he’s looking at a stranger. He even collects the scissors and positions them at the lip of the bandage, imagines cutting through it, imagines his blood staining the pale fabric as it wells to the surface in torrents.

He doesn’t cut the bandage, but he falls asleep with the scissors clutched in his hand.

Their flawed visit to the retirement village doesn’t kill the momentum; the population is still eager to connect with Voltron in anyway they can. Merely a day later, their first press conference arrives.

Only Keith and Allura are scheduled to appear, but Hunk strong-arms Shiro into letting him go too, reasoning he can help support them. Keith’s glad he does; the room is abuzz as they’re escorted in by their Yyargorian caretakers, threatening to overwhelm Keith before he even takes his seat. In addition to the numerous Yyargorian reporters and diplomats that have flocked to the conference, journalists have travelled from many nearby star systems to view the paladins once more.

Shiro takes the lead during the interview that follows, but defers to Keith or Allura when he sees fit. The questions aren’t malicious like Keith, for some reason, believed they would be; they talk a little on Bob, put to rest fears of his resurgence in this portion of the galaxy, assure reporters that the lion’s are healthy, and share their plans to reactivate Voltron.

In fairness, Keith doesn’t have to talk a lot. It’s mostly Shiro, then Allura, who seems to light up as she speaks earnestly to the reporters. This is her domain, after all. Hunk sits to her right, nodding along to what the princess says, and occasionally offering words of his own.

“As for the Blade,” Allura is saying. “They–”

Her words vanish under the sudden crisp sound of glass shattering. Keith flinches, then rapidly blinks bright light from his eyes. It’s only a lightbulb, he realises; a bulb in one of the table lamps has short circuited and blown with a flash. He checks over Hunk, who’s surprised but is otherwise fine, and Allura, who…has frozen?

Lips parted, she blinks rapidly, but her gaze is a million miles away. The audience waits in awkward silence, the soft click click click of cameras and murmurs of reporters whispered through the room. A handful of seconds pass. Allura still hasn’t spoken.

“You were saying,” a reporter prompts. “About the Blade?”

Her head slowly swivels to them. She’s paled a shade, and her skin looks oddly clammy. “I– I was?” she stammers. Her voice has lost the power it held not a minute ago.

“Would you like me to take this question?” Shiro leans over the table, trying to catch Allura’s eye.

She tries turning to him, but her eyes catch on the table lamp that blew its bulb, and she hesitates. “I don’t want to be here,” she says in a small voice.

Silence washes over the room. Keith frowns, looking to Shiro and Hunk for answers. Allura’s hands tighten into fists and she insists, “I don’t want to be here. I–I don’t.”

“Allura?” Keith asks.

She stands swiftly, but sways a little on her feet. Dozens of confused faces stares back at her from the crowd of reporters, and a couple of the cameras click rapidly. “I don’t want to be here,” she stammers, fearful now. “I don’t– I don’t want to be here, I–”

Hunk’s up within a second. He thrusts out an arm to block Allura from the crowd, turns her around and says, “Alright, let’s go.”

Reeling, Allura can’t seem to determine which way the exit is. Hunk wraps an arm around her shoulders and steers them toward the edge of the stage. Confused and alarmed, Keith locks eyes with Shiro.

“Go with them,” Shiro says immediately. “And get Coran.”

Keith’s out his chair but he’s clumsy, too concerned for Allura to focus much on what he’s doing as he messily tucks in his chair and darts across the stage in pursuit of the others. He overhears Shiro launch into an explanation to placate the reporters, and leaps from the stage.

Hunk’s on a mission to get them the hell out of there. By the time Keith catches up to them, he and Allura are halfway down the hall. Remembering Shiro’s instructions, Keith fumbles with his comm as he stumbles after them, informing Coran where they are.

He makes it onto the elevator with the yellow and blue paladin. Allura is curled forwards and breathing heavily, leaving Hunk to support most of her weight.

“Is she okay?” Keith blurts.

The elevator doors slide shut and they begin their ascent.

“Allura?” Hunk asks, frowning. “It’s alright, we’re leaving. We aren’t there.”

Keith startles as a tear escapes Allura’s eye.

“I think it was the light,” Hunk explains to him sidelong. “Did you let Coran know?”

Keith nods frantically. He watches the floor numbers zip by, and positions himself by the doors before they open, fearing there might be another crowd on the other side. Instead, the doors open to reveal Coran.

“Oh, my dear girl!” he exclaims at the sight of Allura.

With Hunk’s help they manoeuvre her from the elevator and onto a bench in the hallway. Coran’s got a bottle of water in one hand and a damp cloth in the other, which he pastes to the back of Allura’s neck.

She continues to breathe too rapidly, and groans and she presses her face into her hands.

“Panic attack,” Hunk supplies, noticing Keith’s expression.

Coran kneels before her and speaks gently in Altean. Seeing him there, Hunk suggests, “Maybe we should give her some space. Coran, let us know if she–” He cuts off as Allura’s hand darts out and grabs his. Her fingers dig in, keeping him there. Hunk swallows, eyes jumping between Keith and Coran, both of whom stare at him in surprise.

“I think… I’ll go,” Keith suggests. “You stay. I… I’m gonna check on Shiro.”

Hunk nods shakily. Unwilling to pry his hand from Allura’s, he cautiously takes a seat on the bench beside her, and raises his free hand to rub her back.

“You’ll be okay?” Keith asks.

Hunk’s expression shifts into one of determination. He nods again, surely this time, and motions to the elevator. “We will be. You’re good, Keith. You should go.”

Keith presses his lips tight, but nods. Within the elevator, he turns to spy on the others before the doors slide shut. Allura clings tight to Hunk’s hand, and in turn, he cracks a small joke with Coran. Allura draws a heaving sigh, settling a fraction. The doors shut, stealing them from view.

—

Keith spends the remainder of the evening sitting awkwardly beside Shiro in the conference room. He isn’t good at answering questions the way Allura is, and her unexpected absence makes it all the more obvious.

It’s late by the time he finally returns to their wing of the building. Shiro offers him dinner but he refuses, more interested in getting back to his own bed. Silence rules the halls as he walks for his bedroom. He eyes Lance’s door like it might bite if he gets too close.

At the end of the hall, Keith hesitates before his own door. Hunk’s room is just down from his. He doesn’t want to bother Allura, but he does want to know whether she’s okay, and Hunk might be just the man for that.

Fighting nerves, he draws up to Hunk’s door. He hesitates—Hunk’s probably asleep by now—but he never gets the chance to turn back. Hunk’s door must’ve been left unlocked, because when Keith raises his fist to knock, the door automatically swishes open.

Keith’s got an apology arranged and ready to go, but he bites down on it as he immediately locks eyes with Hunk. He isn’t sleeping, but is seated uncomfortably on the floor beside his bed. Keith’s first thought is that he’s stumbled upon Hunk having a breakdown not so dissimilar to the ones that Keith’s been having in the privacy of his own room; but aside from surprise, there’s nothing on Hunk’s face to indicate he’s upset.

Keith parts his lips, still debating an apology, when his eyes finally adjust to the dark room. Oh. Hunk’s on the floor cause there’s someone else crashed out on his bed.

Her cheek shoved to a pillow and a soft frown stitched into her brow, Allura remains soundly asleep. Her arm dangles off the mattress, her hand curled around Hunk’s.

“I’m sorry–” The apology finally makes it out, albeit whispered, and Keith backtracks like he’s stumbled into a trap.

“Wait!” Hunk’s whispered reply is desperate enough for Keith to pause.

Cringing, Hunk carefully unfurls Allura’s fingers from his hand. His eyes keep darting between her face and Keith’s, willing her to stay sleeping, as he gently lays her hand down on the mattress. He freezes as she exhales, and her fingers curl around the comforter. Breathing a sigh of relief, Hunk extracts himself from the floor and tiptoes toward Keith, who waits wide-eyed by the door.

Hunk ushers them silently into the hall, and tenses as the door quietly slides shut. It closes with an audible click, and Hunk deflates.

“I, uh, I’m sorry–” Keith begins, searching for an out.

“You’re good,” Hunk assures him awkwardly. He smiles stiffly, and pats Keith’s shoulder. “Let’s, um, let’s walk.”

Keith nods shakily. What else is he meant to do? They shuffle down the hall until they reach one of the small nooks overlooking the city. Wordlessly, they collapse into the pair of armchairs pushed up to the window. Hunk has frown lines a mile deep. Keith bites his cheek to chase the unease.

“I’m sorry–”

“It’s okay,” Hunk says with a lopsided smile. “Seriously, Keith. It’s okay.”

Keith frowns, nails biting into his palms. “Is she alright?”

“She’s fine,” Hunk says hastily. “Okay, well, um, fine enough. She didn’t want to be alone.”

Keith nods quickly. “That’s… Yeah, understandable.”

They relapse into silence. Rain splatters against the window pane, reminding Keith of the conversation he’d had with Pidge in this exact spot just a few days ago. His eyes flicker to Hunk; like Keith, the yellow paladin looks stuck on what to say next, though the unspoken something bubbles hotly beneath the surface.

“Do you…” Keith grimaces. This is going to sound dumb no matter how he says it. “Do you feel like we’re crashing?”

“Crashing?” Hunk asks, frowning. “Like, when the lion’s came down?”

“No. I mean, was there an up, but now there’s a down?”

“After Bob?” Hunk asks softly. Keith nods furiously. “Yeah,” Hunk breathes. “That’s…one way of looking at it.”

Nails digging crescents into his palms, Keith asks, “Are you okay?”

Hunk smiles wryly. Smiles like Keith should know. And he does, but he doesn’t like that he does.

Cringing, Keith admits, “I’m not. I don’t think I am.”

Hunk’s smile remains unchanged, but his brow softens as he says, “I know.”

The gentle pat pat pat of rain fills the lapse in conversation. Hunk yawns, and slouches back in his chair.

“Every night,” he says, “I dream about you pointing that gun at your head, Keith, and taking the shot.”

Keith frowns. “You know I wasn’t actually going to kill myself.”

“I– I know that,” Hunk hastily amends. “I just…saw that, happen to you. And even though you’re here now, I still saw it happen to you.”

Keith hangs his head. His heart beats sluggishly and uncomfortably in his chest. “Do you think…” He hesitates. “You think everyone dreams about that? I didn’t mean to hurt you, I–”

“I’m not angry with you,” Hunk cuts in, frowning. “Just tryna… I don’t know. Explain what it’s like.”

Keith nods, but his heart stays hammering. Gnawing on his tongue, his fingers test the malleability of his bones as he tries to twist them in knots. “Do you think,” he asks slowly, “that Lance dreams about it?”

Hunk’s brow unfurls in surprise. Reigning in his expression, he answers, “He’s not angry with you, either.” Keith grimaces. Hunk’s gaze softens into something like pity. “Keith,” he says. “He’s just scared, man.”

“Of what?” Keith scoffs.

Hunk raises a brow to enquire really? “Have you spoken to him?”

“I keep trying,” Keith mutters. “He’s the one avoiding me.”

Hunk nods seriously, worrying his lower lip. “Yeah, he’s good at that. When he wants to be. But…keep trying? It’s worth it,” he says with a sigh. “Even if it’s difficult. Talking to someone you care about is really… It’s worth it.”

Keith cracks a small smile. “Allura?” he asks.

Hunk laughs softly on his next exhale. “Yeah.”

The silence is comfortable now as they listen for the rain’s chatter.

“I hope you stop dreaming about it,” Keith says.

“I will,” Hunk shrugs. “Eventually. I should, cause… You did come back to us, right? You did come back.”

Keith nods, a small lump growing in his throat. “Everything,” he admits softly, “I mean everything, I did in there, was because I couldn’t leave you guys.”

“I think you should tell that to Lance,” Hunk says. “I think he’d like to hear it put that way.”

Keith blinks to clear his eyes, and nods again. With a sigh, Hunk stands and stretches, revealing a strip of the bandages beneath his shirt.

“Hey,” Keith says suddenly. “How’s all…that,” he gestures.

“Oh?” Hunks swivels, trying to glimpse his back. He scoffs. “Weird,” he states. “Sore.” He hesitates, and wryly offers, “Can’t be as bad as yours, though.”

Keith gnaws on his lip. “Nah,” he says. “Mine are just numb.”

“What? Your wrists?”

“Yeah. It’s the anaesthetic, or whatever. It just makes them weak and numb.”

“Like pool noodles,” Hunk says seriously.

Keith snorts. Hunk smiles. His eyes dart down the hall and he adds, “I should get back. Don’t want Allura to wake up alone. But there’s, uh, I bet there’s space on the bed, if you want to crash there. You don’t have to be alone either, Keith.”

“Thanks,” Keith says. “But I’m fine alone.”

Hunk nods, but his eyes show his disbelief. “Well, door’s always open.”

“Just make sure she’s okay,” Keith says.

“That’s funny,” Hunk hums.

Keith frowns. “Uh, why?”

“Before she fell asleep, she said the same thing about you.”

Keith watches Hunk wander back down the hall with a fist squeezing his chest. Some of it is relief, and some is…something less pleasant. He’s fine alone, he tells himself. He has always been fine alone. On top of that, this is the least alone he’s ever been. He has the whole team right there. He has Lance just a few doors down.

And yet, the closed door between them feels like it spans miles.