Chapter Text
There had been numerous strange events in Keith’s life.
Up until now, the strangest had probably been that time a knife exploded in his hand. Keith was pretty disorientated, but he was fairly sure that that was only a few days ago, at most.
The universe really was against him. At least he’d bettered his understanding of perspective, Keith reasoned; he’d rather have that happen eternally than face his current situation.
How could he possibly be this unlucky?
Bad eyesight he could cope with. Parents dying? Harder. His brother’s accident, having to move out into the desert, and living in practical poverty (apart from what he had managed to steal from the Garrison) had all been difficult. This, however, was on another level.
The man in front of him had purple skin, hair.
Red armour, now wholly red, the white segments having been stained with the blood that Keith could still taste in his mouth. Blood he had watched, in his final moments, seep from his body.
As Keith stared at his reflection in the pod he had exited only an hour ago, he began to taste salt. And no, he hadn’t eaten a packet of Walker’s Salt and Vinegar Crisps.
This was SO shit. How did something like this even happen?
Maybe he was dead. Keith pinched himself with his good hand. Nope. Coma? Hopefully.
“How did it get to the point where my life is so horrific that I’d rather be in a coma,” he asked the alien in the image before him, who only repeated the question. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.
To top it all off, he was, once again, in captivity. He’d tried the doors- electrified. The room had only the bare essentials. A bed, a floor, the healing pod. And, for some reason, a screen.
Hmm.
It wasn’t like Keith knew too much about alien technology, but he’d definitely read up on human computers before his break into the Garrison. How different could it be? The screen had to be connected to something.
First, he pressed what looked like the ‘on’ button.
Nothing. There must be another one somewhere, for the whole system.
Keith looked around for cameras. The coast looked clear.
Grabbing the screen with both hairy, purple hands, he pulled it away from the wall. Behind it, there was some wiring. Aaaaaaand no more buttons.
“Think, Keith. What would Lance do in this situation?”
Beautiful, brave, passionate Lance. Lance would shout, talk to the aliens, see what he was dealing with. He’d enchant them through the sheer power of speech, just like he did with everyone. Keith, personally, did not think he had the same powers of persuasion.
Okay, go through the list. Old Shiro would fight his way out. Useless if he couldn’t leave the room. New Shiro would have a panic attack. Useless in any situation. Hunk would know exactly what these wires were for and use them to engineer a way out. Keith wasn’t even sure how basic circuits worked (what the hell was ground?). Pidge would have five hundred death disks on her person, which she would use to slip under the door and-
Death disks.
Keith had one, if it hadn’t been confiscated. Eyes shut in hope, he reached into the pocket of his suit. Yum, congealed blood. But also…
Yes!
So, how did these things work again? At first, Keith had assumed they were a bit like boomerangs, in that you threw them at somebody, that individual was decapitated, and it flew back for you to catch it.
“That would be a ridiculous idea. Do you want to lose even more fingers? You know- I did a speech on this! Do you listen to a single word I say? The way they work is…”
Keith, in an act of forest pining he was now regretting, had not listened to the rest of Pidge’s words.
Her speech, though. What had she said?
Her Grandma was German. That’s all he could remember. And they’d let up to that by discussing the languages the machine could understand. So it was operated through speech, right?
“Hello? Death disk? It’s Keith. I’m Pidge’s friend.”
The machine did nothing. Keith supposed it had specific commands.
“Hunt. Kill all Galra on ship. Except me! I’m human inside, I promise.”
Still nothing.
“Come on!”
Suddenly, there was a beeping sound.
“Television on.”
Keith glared at a television screen, but it was okay, because nobody saw, and so they couldn’t accuse him of slowly going insane.
Wait. Shouldn’t a Galran ship have Galran television channels? The people staring back at him were decidedly human.
Staring back at him.
“Mayday, mayday! Can you help us? We’re stuck, surrounded by Galran ships. We promise we’re not a threat!”
“Oh, it’s just a broadcast,” said Keith, releasing his breath. What an idiot.
It was a girl, twelve at most, with blue hair. To one side of her was a boy around the same age, currently occupied with typing frantically, apparently. To the other, there was a man with ginger hair and a metal eye, split down the middle. He looked angry. Disappointed.
“Lili, that’s a Galran. He can’t help you. We need to get onto a channel my sister is using!”
“How am I meant to know what a Galran looks like?”
The kid sat next to her briefly paused his typing and said something in sign language.
“My memory isn’t perfect, okay? We were in a car crash!”
“Try a different channel. This guy is Galra, and an idiot. Look, his mouth’s wide open.”
“Okay, I’m doing it!”
“Wait!” At the last moment, Keith put two and two together. They were talking to him. But what incentive did they have to stay? They needed help, and he needed help, which meant they couldn’t help each other. Unless.
“I’m not Galra. I don’t know what happened. One minute, I was dead, and the next I was here, looking like this. They’ve done some kind of experimental procedure, I think. I’m like you. I’m human.”
The man on the screen scoffed, moving his hand toward the controls the blue haired girl- Lili? - hovered her hands over.
“All they do is lie. All they’ve ever done-“
Then it clicked.
“Your sister! Katie Holt? Is that who you’re looking for? I know where she is! We’re friends. If you help me get out of here, I can take you to her!”
There was an instant reaction, the man standing up and racing toward the camera. Frankly, he was terrifying. There was something in the way his face creased in anger, as though it was used to being that way. Matt Holt was used to hurting people. Pidge was going to murder the entire Galran race.
“So your people do have her? You sick, filthy-“
“No! I’m human, and she’s safe! I promise. Have you heard of Voltron?” Matt Holt’s eye widened.
“That’s a myth.”
“No, it’s not. It’s real, and we’re well on our way to forming it and saving Earth.”
“Saving Earth from what,” said the girl.
Oh. So they didn’t know. Keith supposed he’d probably just decreased his chances of being saved by a factor of one thousand. Now instead of saving a human experiment, they’d be saving a bearer of bad news. Joy.
On the screen, the mute kid was pointing frantically at his computer.
“What have you done this time? Don’t tell me you’re planning to destroy the entire pla-“
“Oh my God,” said the girl, with maybe the most emotion she’d used ever in her life. She was looking at the computer. “It’s not just Earth. They’ve got rockets pointed at every habitable planet. Moronisis, Fartasia, Skettropolis…”
Keith supposed she’d discovered and named all these planets herself.
“They’re set to launch in twenty-four hours, Matt.”
“We have a plan. Please trust me. I can help you escape the fleet if you promise you’ll help me. I’m a Paladin, they need me to operate Voltron.” Keith was pleading, now. It was his only option. Maybe even humanities only option.
Matt looked torn, and Keith, not for the first time, wondered the extent of what the Galra had put him through. Two days in that ship, and Keith had two fewer fingers and looked like an alien. Matt had spent years there.
“Okay,” he finally said. “But only because I have no other option. I still don’t trust you. So, how are you planning on getting us out?”
“Well.”
Well. Keith had realised that the television was cordless, which meant the wires were for something different. He had no idea what their purpose was, but he was willing to bet it was something important. Hopefully, this would achieve something. It was the only plan he had.
Against all advice, Keith threw the death disk, like a boomerang, straight at the wall, and hoped for the best.
-*-
Lance was numb.
When Pidge had arrived back at the base, crying and holding Keith’s helmet, he’d refused to believe anything had happened. It was Keith. Keith the fighter, who had never respected any kind of authority, and would continue to evade and distract the enemy to the very last breath.
Pidge said when he was surrounded, Keith had knelt. When Zarkon dealt the killing blow, he hadn’t moved a muscle.
None of this was right. Surely, there was a plan. Keith was faking, playing dead.
Then he’d heard the message. Keith’s final words.
“I love you, Lance.”
He did remember. Keith had remembered everything, and now it was too late for Lance to tell him how he felt, because the only man he had ever truly loved was gone. He’d died in agony and alone.
“Lance. I’m making more goo. Do you want some?”
It was midnight, but none of them were asleep. Hunk wouldn’t stop cooking, Allura wouldn’t stop pacing, Coran wasn’t making any jokes and Pidge blamed herself. Shiro was nowhere to be seen.
Lance shook his head.
“One of the ships has gone,” said Allura, breathing far too quickly. “Shiro is putting himself in danger. He cannot possibly think he is capable of fighting Zarkon!”
Lance knew he should feel the same anger, the same longing for vengeance as Shiro felt.
Yet, however many purple people they killed Keith was still going to be dead. Senseless violence wasn’t the answer.
There was no answer.
He remembered Keith’s every word.
“We have enough people on our side that it won’t matter.”
Surely, Keith had known that he mattered? Lance didn’t kiss him because he was the red paladin. It was Keith’s personality that had attracted him. Mysterious men had always had a hold on Lance, but Keith was caring, too. The one thing he put before anything else was his family and his friends.
To even insinuate that he was just another cog, just a pilot…
If Keith had died feeling hopeless and useless, then nothing Lance could ever do would ever rectify that. So why do anything?
“Lance? You sure, buddy? You haven’t eaten in hours.”
“I’m sure,” he mumbled, eyes used, now, to watching Allura as she paced. Right now, she was scrolling wildly through her alien IPad, mouth open.
“This has to be him. A whole Galran fleet, centred around a single ship. He’s going to get himself killed! We need to help.”
“There’s no way we can form Volton,” said Pidge sadly. “There’s nothing we can do.”
“No,” said Allura. “We could use the ship and intervene.”
“We’d all be killed, Allura,” said Coran. “Pidge is right. All we can do is hope.”
“Well, I hope you are hoping very hard, because- what? Wait, I… I can’t believe it. Look at this!” Hope in her eyes, she turned the tablet toward them. The Galran fleets were either being destroyed, or slowly retreating.
“Is he… winning?”
“That’s impossible,” said Hunk.
“He must have help,” said Pidge. “But we don’t know anyone else in space. Unless…”
“Your brother,” said Hunk, eyes wide. “He’s alive! He must be.”
“This is amazing. We finally know where Matt is. Shiro led us right to him! We need to go there and investigate.”
“Maybe Matt can help us form Voltron! Especially if he’s not alone. If he escaped, there must be some kind of alliance! We can save Earth!”
Lance stood up, and everyone looked over at him.
“Where are you going?”
“You’re really going to replace Keith so quickly?! He wasn’t just part of Voltron. He was our friend! I’m not having any part in this. I’m glad you found your brother Pidge, but I quit. I’m going home.”
“Home? Your room, home?” Allura seemed on the verge of anger. “We can’t do this without you. You’ve already bonded with your lion, we don’t have time to-“
“If you can replace Keith, you can replace me. I’m out of here.”
With that, Lance walked toward the departure bay of the ship. Nobody followed.