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Keith doesn’t really think he really belongs.
Apparently everyone else does. Shiro, gently telling Keith that yes, everybody loves him despite his faults, he belongs here with them - Allura, who insists loudly that Keith is meant to be here, he’s meant to be one of them - Lance, who argues, face red, that life certainly wouldn’t be the same without a certain angry pain in the ass yelling at him all the time - Pidge, trying to look tall and important while poking Keith hard in the chest, saying that he’s stupid for thinking that he doesn’t belong - Hunk, baking him cookies at midnight when he can’t sleep and sometimes communicating with him solely through hugs, his warm touches practically screaming We’re here for you, you’re loved .
It’s odd to him, then, the feeling of being so distant even though they’re all bunched up close in a little spaceship, or linked through Voltron, or falling asleep on each other after a hard day of training. Keith knows he’s different, they’re all different, of course - but something stands out and he can’t quite put a finger on it.
He thinks about the others sometimes - no, all the time, trying to figure out what exactly sets him apart from them, sets them apart from each other. The first one that comes to mind is always Shiro, the figure he’s worshipped since he could think for himself, the leader, solid as titanium and twice as strong. Shiro is made up of black and white, rigid lines and hard truths - he’s caring and fatherlike, the caretaker Keith never really had, the team’s pillar, his pillar, always standing strong. Keith doesn’t think he can ever be close to what Shiro is, because they’re so different - they stand on platforms galaxies apart, with Keith’s red-hot anger and Shiro’s cool black calm. But Keith admires him, has observed him closely since they started this whole escapade, and he knows Shiro has his faults too - that little string that ties them both together. He’s grateful for it, for feeling like maybe he can stand up there with Shiro, maybe he can learn to be strong and confident and come out of his shell one day.
Lance is a whole other … thing. The Blue Paladin is fluid and graceful in his awkwardness, clumsy yet balanced. Lance is practically a living paradox. He’s smart and dumb at the same time, and sometimes Keith just wants to smack him hard in the face. But the good thing about Lance is that he’s always there , even though it’s sometimes a bad thing because Keith really doesn’t need an obnoxious boy tagging along with him to the showers and yelling about how Pidge reprogrammed this or that and blah, blah, blah. Sometimes, though, his ability to find Keith is uncanny bordering on stalkerish. For example, whenever something’s wrong, Keith tends to hide out in the training rooms, covered in sweat and tears, or in the pool, where he can lose himself in seeing how long he can hold his breath before having to breathe. Problems either go away or multiply when you’re dizzy with oxygen loss, and Keith thinks that’s pretty interesting. Besides, the water is calming, even if his fingers prune afterwards and Lance yells that “ KEITH HAS RAISIN HANDS!” Mostly, though, Keith is sitting completely submerged in the calming water, contemplating life and trying not to drown, when an extremely loud scream of “ CANNONBALL!” scares the living daylights out of him and Lance spews into bubbly existence five feet below him. Keith kicks him in the head and they end up splashing each other while inhaling unhealthy amounts of water. Afterwards, they sit on the edge of the pool with wrinkled skin and wet hair, talking in hushed tones and Voltron, and Earth, and feelings, and love. Lance might be awkward and nervous but he means well, he really does, and Keith is ever so grateful for that. Even though he’d never admit it. He lets it slip once that he might not hate Lance, and Pidge would not stop teasing him about it. Honestly, what is up with Pidge and her strange red-and-blue inventions that keep popping up in their bedrooms?!
Speaking of Pidge…. Pidge may be annoying, but she’s also annoyingly smart. The kid’s fourteen and Keith can’t even imagine, much less invent half the things the Green Paladin does almost effortlessly. Keith is half convinced Pidge is a cryptid who stole the secret of intelligence from the gods and managed to get away with it because she’s so, uh, cute and fuzzy (and she probably has an army of killer robots under her command). Keith envies her, since the only thing he can do is fly a plane and that’s still not good enough. But Pidge is there, and she hits his shoulder and yells every time he says he’s not good enough. She replaces his long days of overthinking things with long days of being drilled into him that he’s good enough , and maybe you should be glad you can fly a plane like you’re a god because half the robots I design malfunction and try to kill me. Which is completely untrue, but Keith doesn’t have the heart to correct her. They often sit with a batch of Hunk’s cookies and argue with a healthy dose of sarcasm about who’s worse at what they do. In the end, they agree that they both suck but they’re both also pretty cool, and that’s that. (But Keith thinks Pidge is still smarter.)
Hunk is practically love and comfort personified. He even comes with the good food and the fluffy blankets. The Yellow Paladin is made up of soft lines and warm hugs, happiness and care radiating off him like some god accidentally put too much “good” into a human and decided to let it be. Hunk is actually too good, how does a human such as him exist? Sometimes Keith irrationally thinks that angsty angry him being around Hunk is going to dim his sunshine and taint his goodness, but Hunk always proves him wrong. Keith is slightly glad for that, and feels guilty for being relieved. He secretly hopes that Hunk will always retain his overflowing goodness, and it’s partially because he thinks that Hunk is The One who keeps him emotionally healthy and mentally sound. There are often times when Lance and the Alteans are confiding in each other about their families, Pidge is looking at photos with Shiro and talking in hushed, reverent tones about bittersweet memories, and even the mice are nestled together, chittering about God knows what - leaving Keith alone because he has no family and he has no fond memories and nothing to chitter about with his friends. And then Hunk is there and he reminds Keith with a blanket and a cookie and a hug that yes , he does have a family, right here with them, and all these memories they made together are fond ones he can remember, and he can totally chitter with them about the first time Lance tried to put on a strange alien makeup only to have it stain and leave blue marks in his face. Keith cried the first time Hunk did that, and he’s kinda embarrassed about it, but he got over it really quickly because Hunk just hugged him and patted his back and quietly told him little useless facts like how koalas spend fifteen minutes a day average on social activity and it was all okay.
Coran is the stranger one out of the two humanoid Alteans, definitely, with his ridiculous mustache and his bright orange hair and weird way of talking. He reprimands everyone more often than they can make mistakes, and boasts proudly about his intergalactic adventures, many of which Keith thinks didn’t really happen. But Coran reminds Keith in some way of someone - perhaps his own father? - so he puts up with the ceaseless talk and old-timey customs as best as he can. Keith is proud of his new record - he only got annoyed at Coran once this week, which is already two less than last week. Keith’s own impatience and his habit of silently overthinking things has cut many of Coran’s speeches short, but Coran still deems him okay and approachable so Keith thinks he’s doing okay. As much as Coran frustrates him, Keith acknowledges that he still has much to learn from the strange man - he envies Coran’s ability to stay calm and patient, his strange, out-of-place charm, his bad jokes even when situations are dire. He longs to have Coran’s pool of knowledge, to know half the things he does, to be able to do this and that and manage a castle-full of crazy people, himself included. So Keith sits down and listens to another one of Coran’s long stories, this time about a stupid little rainbow cow he bought eons ago from an antiques trader on a planet billions of light-years away from Earth, and he wonders where that rainbow cow is now. Is it floating aimlessly in space like they are? Is it searching for food - what do rainbow alien cows even eat - is it starving to death in the cold vacuum of space? Or, if it’s as stupid as Coran vividly describes, maybe it has reincarnated into Lance. Keith chuckles to himself, and Coran takes it as interest, so there’s no harm done.
Allura is practically his nonexistent mother, nonexistent elder sister, and nonexistent local nice teacher combined. She’s almost as warm as Hunk, but she’s not Hunk, because she’s blunt and sharp and never hesitates to give him a good scolding when he does something dangerous on purpose. Keith takes a while to get to trust anyone, but he warmed up to Allura quickly because he liked the way she did things - fast, efficient, elegant, charming. She’s the epitome of intelligent, royal power and that’s what drew him to her, much like how Shiro’s strength and loyalty drew Keith to him. Keith likes leaders - even though it’s weird, doesn’t make sense, since he doesn’t like to be told what to do or being commanded around. It’s more like he respects leaders, admires the sense of direction that he doesn’t possess, admires the unbending will and the iron grip they have on humanity and morality. Keith can never focus like Allura does, he doesn’t think - he watches her sometimes when she’s looking through billions of star systems, when she’s teleporting them, when she’s talking with the mice, discussing things with Coran, laughing at Lance’s crappy jokes, a soft smile on her face when she talks to Shiro and Hunk about home, eyes lighting up as she explains something about Altean tech to Pidge. Keith watches her all the time, and she never once slips up in her act. Allura looks like a princess, like a queen, whatever she’s doing - back straight, chin up, eyes bright and lips in a smile. He wants to be like her as much as he wants to be like Shiro, and wishes that by being with her, he can maintain a commanding figure, one that people like and one that people want to listen to. Keith has only saw Allura cry a few times - when she found out her home was gone, when she had to say goodbye to her father for the last time, when Keith caught her late at night pacing the hallway and murmuring “Altea, Altea” under her breath in soft, choked-off tones. In these times Keith is reminded that nobody is strong all the time, it’s okay to cry - he relays these thoughts to Allura, and she beams up at him through her tears, and in these moments Keith feels like a leader.
In the end, Keith thinks, maybe he doesn’t belong - maybe none of them belong, not in this strange stitched-together patchwork of a false family, connected by a strange galactic force of magical flying rainbow robot cats. Everyone here misses something. Keith feels sometimes that he misses something he never had. Then Hunk’s offer of food gets waylaid by Coran skidding on a pile of water that Lance brought in from the pool, Pidge’s newest invention sends a glob of goo onto his shirt that somehow ricochets off and hits Shiro square in the face, and Allura watches them with her mice on her shoulder, smiling like she had just been promised a galaxy. Keith feels like if he doesn’t belong anywhere, he might as well stay here, and that’s good enough.