Work Text:
Nobody was talking about the Galra in the room.
It was driving Keith nuts. Sure, he’d been surprised, but it made sense, and maybe he’d known this for a long time, somewhere deep in his mind. But now it was known, was out, and yet nobody seemed to say anything at all. Allura was in shock, but considering she was still reeling from the recent-to-her pain of having an ally turn on her and her family, her entire species, he was willing to give her a break. Shiro too had every right to hate him or be angry at him or afraid of him or anything, but apparently nothing could surprise Shiro. Shiro was Shiro and Keith was secretly glad that he wasn’t acting any different.
But everyone else – they had just learned that their teammate was Galra, was of the enemy, and yet they didn’t say a thing. Hell, Pidge had lost most of their family to the Galra, but they had barely even commented during the Big Reveal. Lance and Hunk too – they’d hardly responded.
Keith didn’t understand. This should have been the greatest betrayal since Zarkon stabbed the last Red Paladin in the back with his bayard, but instead it was almost mundane. Anticlimactic was too soft a word.
He was taking out his confusion and frustration on a hapless training bot when Lance showed up. “Hey Hotshot, what did that robot ever do to you?” he drawled, wandering right up without any attention for the fully-armed piece of machinery currently trying to hack Keith in half.
“Nothing,” Keith growled. He didn’t want Lance to be here. He was too frustrated, too emotional, to trust himself around anyone right now, but Lance always did have a way of ruining the best-laid plans. “It sure didn’t turn out to be a traitor to its species, at least!”
With that, Keith got an opening and cut the training bot in half with his bayard blade.
The pieces fell to the ground in silence, as Lance for once in his life shut up, instead staring at Keith with confusion on his face.
When Keith didn’t volunteer to explain himself, instead just standing there panting, staring hard at the ground and not looking anywhere near Lance, the Blue Paladin spoke. “Okay,” he said, voice quiet in the large space, “let’s review. Nobody’s betraying anybody, unless that bot has worse plans than the Sendak one.” Both shuddered slightly at the memory. “You’re not doing anything, I’m not doing anything, there is no betrayal going on here. So what’s actually got you so fired up that you’re chopping up hapless training dummies instead of doing something useful like handing Hunk tools or letting Pidge talk Altean linguistics at your blank and uncomprehending face?”
Keith was so lost and confused and irritated why was this not a bigger deal? And Lance had caught him at a weird time, so he just said it. “Why would I do those things? Why would anyone trust me to be around them? I’m Galra, Lance, just in case you forgot over the last few days. I’m the enemy. I –”
“– Are obnoxious and too good at flying and I still can’t believe you don’t remember our legendary rivalry,” Lance interrupted. “You’re Keith. That’s it. We aren’t acting different because you aren’t different. You’re still the same Keith. Honestly, I think Pidge is excited to have a real live alien on the team. It’s not like we’re going to throw you out or anything.”
Keith was baffled. He gaped at Lance for a moment, finally getting himself back together enough to think again. “But – I’m Galra. How can you trust me?”
“Because you’re you.” Lance rolled his eyes as if it was incredible that Keith wasn’t getting it. “We didn’t know you when we started this whole space adventure. Most of us didn’t actually know each other that much, really. So you’re an alien. Fine. You’re a weird guy, we aren’t all going to flip just because you might be purple sometimes.”
Keith sputtered. “I – I’m not – quiznak Lance I’m not going to just turn purple!”
“Cool,” Lance said calmly. “Because your armor might look kind of funky if you were all purple and fuzzy. Do Galra have mullets? Because I think –”
“Oh my god Lance shut up,” Keith growled, but there was no heat in it. Can they really just do that? Just… trust me?
It seemed they could. Sure, it was a thing that had happened and would need just as much adapting to as any of the other weird things that had happened since they had all gone to space, but… that was it.
So Keith was half-Galra. That was a fact, nothing more, nothing less. The team didn’t seem to think he was a danger. They were all a little weird, they all had things they were learning about themselves. Maybe it really didn’t matter as much as Keith thought it did.
He would trust them. Keith was Galra, but he would trust his team’s trust in him. He’d learned that much.