Archive of Our Own

It was the middle of the night. The castle had been quiet and with dim lights for a while now, making the corridors only visible enough, giving them a peaceful and comfortable atmosphere. Quieter feet walked down one of these corridors, bare skin touching the cold floor cautiously, stopping just one door away from where it initially came from.

“Shiro”, Keith's voice was a barely audible whisper in order to don't wake the corridor up, but it didn't have any success.

“Shiro”, he tried again, a little tiny bit louder, a little closer to the door, carefully hitting his shoulder on it as a knock. A couple seconds and the door opened.

“Keith? Are you okay?” Shiro rubbed the sleepiness off his eyes, taking a proper look at Keith with one eye, and making way for him to enter the room. Keith had his shoulders a little up with both his hands tucked below his arms and a scared look in his eyes. It was not news that whenever one of them would get a nightmare, they would proceed to the other’s room for late night talks and comfort.

“Lock it.”

“Uh?”

“Lock the door.”

“Keith, are you okay?” Shiro asked while still doing what he was told anyway and pressing the door’s panel to shut it close.

“I… Something happened.”

“Something?”

“...” Keith's worried eyes were lost wandering around the room aimlessly as if he still was processing whatever thing had happened. Shiro waited.

Keith looked up at him and immediately turned his gaze away, and Shiro could hear his mind engines working, debating whether going for Shiro had been a good decision or not. Shiro shifted his weight and tilted his head a little to the side.

“Keith..?”

The other boy closed his eyes slowly and took a deep breath, before looking back at him and slowly unfolding his hands.

“Something happened…”. He stretched his hands and Shiro's eyes went wide. They had turned purple, and his nails were now long and thick. The purple reached only about his wrists though, with the rest of his arms still looking normal. Shiro walked up to him and carefully took his hands into his own, gently stroking his now purple skin.

“How exactly did this happen?”

“I was sleeping, and woke up with pain..And when I looked at them, they…”

“We should talk to Kolivan, maybe he--”

“No! Shiro…”, his voice rose, and then died into a whisper, “they can't know..”

“But, Keith, we don't know what is this and it could be serious”

“They can't know… None of them, they can't know.” Keith lowered his eyes and Shiro knew why he was so afraid of the idea. Discovering about his galra heritage already had been a great shock to all of them, what would they think with him turning purple now. It was a question Keith knew he didn't want the answer for. Shiro knew it. All of it. He placed a hand on Keith's shoulder, catching his attention again.

“Fine, but you and I will try- I don't know how-, but we'll try to find out what's going on with your body and why it's doing this, okay?”

A nod was given.

“Okay. Now, we need to go back to sleep”

“Shiro”

“Um?”

“Do you have any gloves…”

“Oh? I thought you'd have them”

“No, I.. only have my fingerless pair” Keith looked away, a little embarrassed and Shiro chuckled.

“Hold on, I might have a normal pair somewhere” Keith grunted.

“Okay, got it. They might be a little big for you but it'll hide this thing for now.” Shiro raised a pair of black gloves from his bag, to which Keith reached out to and grabbed them.

“Thank you, Shiro”

“You got it” he smiled gently to the smaller boy, who was busy playing with the fingers of his new pair of normal gloves.

“Now, sleep-”

“Um, Shiro”

“Yes?”

“My nails… they're…”

“Oh”, Shiro turned his attention back to the tiny hands, purple fingers mindlessly playing with the gloves. Those things sure looked sharp and would cut through the cloth if he was not careful.

“Do you want me to cut them?” Keith looked up at him, and back at his hands, and at him again.

“Is this gonna...hurt? They look....weird.”

“How can I know, I don't have purple nails”, Shiro chuckled and Keith stuck his tongue out to him.

They both sat on Shiro's bed. Shiro took Keith's hands back on his and slowly placed the cutter in place, looking up at him for the confirmation. Keith nodded and looked back at their hands, while Shiro slowly pressed the metallic thing and with a click, one nail fell off. They both blinked.

“Good, it doesn't hurt.” Keith let out a relieved sigh and his shoulders dropped. Shiro smiled feeling the tension leaving Keith's body and gently kept cutting all the other nails until the last one.

“Thank you, Shiro..”

Keith retrieved his hands and took the gloves that were resting beside him, immediately slipping them on, placing his hands between his thighs, his gaze distant down on the floor.

“Hey, do you wanna stay here tonight?” The invitation pulled purple eyes right up to meet his grey irises, shyly shining.

“Can I?”

“Of course you can” Shiro smiled, pulling the sheets up and sliding inside them.

“But I didn't have a nightmare”, Keith teased, following him into getting into the sheets.

“If having your hands turn purple out of a sudden doesn't sound like a nightmare to you, I don't know what does” Shiro teased back with a serious tone, and Keith shrugged beside him.

“Hey, don't worry, we'll find out what's going on, okay?” Shiro leaned in and touched their foreheads together. Keith's reply was just a silent nod, closing his eyes and moving a little forward so his forehead touched the curve of Shiro's neck, which was the signal to get arms wrapped around him as they both drift off into sleep.

The next morning they all gathered around the big dining table for breakfast, as per routine. At some point during their time together in the castle ship, Hunk had claimed the meals cooking as his personal duty, much to Coran's offense, but the older man would still hang around in the kitchen to help and, unadmittedly, learn from him. Now, with the addition of the leader of the Blades to the team, they were three in the kitchen preparing their food. While they were at it this morning, the other four paladins took their seats at one side of the table, leaving the edge for the princess. Pidge was lying her head dead on the table, probably another night spent with the computers, and the mice played in her hair while Lance amusedly watched the scene. Keith was beside him, his hands tucked between his thighs, and Shiro was on his other side, just yawning normally like nothing weird had ever happened. Allura walked into the room radiant like she always did.

“Good morning, paladins!”

“Not so good for someone here” Lance replied while poking Pidge’s head, and she groaned something that most likely could be translated into 'shut up, Lance’.

Coran, Hunk and Kolivan came to join them from the kitchen, carrying bowls of different types of food goo, sliding them in the table along with smaller bowls for each one of them.

“Paladin Breakfast! Healthy and balanced! Or, at some extent at least haha! Anyway! Dig in, everyone!!” Coran announced and proceed to slide to a seat beside the princess, with Kolivan joining him to his other side.

“Thank you, guys-- what the heck happened to your gloves” Lance had a spoon on the way to dig into one of the food goo big bowls, the same one Keith was taking his food from. Keith froze up.

“Nothing, they're just my gloves?”

“No, your gloves are those lame fingerless ones, these are normal gloves!”

“Well, I don't have just one pair of gloves!?”

Shiro choked at the statement, making his best effort to swallow down his laughter as he turned his back to the boys to face the princess. He still could feel Keith shooting him dead with his eyes for this.

“So, I was thinking, does the castle have a library?”

“Actually it does!” Allura answered eagerly.

“Where” Pidge slammed a hand on the table and rose immediately.

“Wow congrats, Shiro, you just brought someone back from the dead!” The statement costed Lance an elbow on his ribs.

“It's located on the twenty seventh floor. Why, what are you wanting to read about?” she asked happily with curious eyes.

“Nothing in particular. Maybe there's some useful information in there that we could use.” Shiro answered with a deadpan face and normal tone that made Keith mentally thank the heavens he was the one asking about it. Shiro was an unexpectedly damn good liar. Unlike himself.

“Yes, I'm so excited to see this!” Pidge jumped from her seat with a spoon on her mouth and her small bowl on her hands.

“No food allowed in there, Number Five!” Coran stopped her in the track and she fell back to her seat, groaning. Everybody laughed.

Shiro and Keith exchanged that one telepathic glance, knowing exactly where to head to after breakfast and what to do, and no one noticed anything.

“Ah, there's nothing in here!” Keith grunted as he closed another book abruptly and put it on top of a big pile of Useless Books that was sitting right beside him.

“Keep looking, we've been here just for a couple hours” Shiro replied from the other side of the room, eyes scanning through a page of a big and heavy book.

“Stupid Altean libraries” Keith groaned under his breath while standing up, proceeding to climb a tall ladder to pick up another batch of books to examine.

“I swear, everything about the Galra in here is about their diplomatic relations with Altea. How boring is that?” he sighed while stretching his arm to pick a couple more books before coming back down to the floor.

“Imagine how horrible history classes would be in Altea. I couldn't take that.”

“OH MY GOSH! This place is huge!!” Keith's complaining got interrupted by Pidge's energetic shout when she stepped into the library. Keith got startled by it and lost his balance a little, grabbing firmly at the ladder and pressing his little collection of books-to-check against his chest in an attempt to hide them from Pidge, who was actually so far from him (and so distracted by the enormous shelves that went from the floor to the ceiling and covered the entire room and looked endless, having more of them spread across the entire room all lined up beautifully) to be able to see, or care for, whatever he was carrying.

“This. Is. Amazing. Why no one told me about this place before!?” Her big bright eyes zoomed through the entire room as trying to see every single detail of it at once, while she walked around enthusiastically.

“Probably because they knew that you would move in here in the moment you knew about its existence, Pidge” Shiro teased.

“You're right, I'm living here now, I can bring my laptop with me and settle it around that corner, and also some other stuff from the lab and- oh my gosh--” she went walking through the lined up shelves, too far from them so they couldn't properly listen to her anymore, but they still could hear her talking to herself in pure amusement now and then.

“Do you think she..”

“Nah, don't worry. She's not getting out of there anytime soon, keep looking” Shiro chuckled, and closed the heavy book he was scanning through.

Keith sighed and got back down on the floor, dragging himself and the books to sit behind a sofa, located near the opposite wall from the room’s entrance. The perfect hiding spot to peacefully sit and scan for Galra in those old pages. Shiro found him there at some point throughout the next hours, making himself comfortable by his side with his own pile of books, checking each page cautiously.

No one noticed how the three of them spent the entire day in the library. Neither the pattern in the subject of the books Shiro and Keith were picking up. And none of the three of them noticed how, in fact, a whole day had passed. And as for the boys, no progress was made in their search. But they did notice that.

It was the middle of the night. The castle had been quiet for a while now, if it wasn't for a muffled scream coming from the first door of the paladins’ bedrooms corridor. A walking burrito rushed down his way through it, soft socks touching the cold floor not so cautiously, stopping just one door away from where he originally came from, door which immediately opened for him in the moment he reached it.

“Come” Shiro got out of the way, and Keith rushed inside, hearing the door being locked behind him.

“It happened again…” Keith started, pulling on the blanket harder.

“Yeah, I heard you this time..” Shiro looked at him, concerned. Keith's eyes jolted up to him.

“Do you think the others heard me..”

“I don't think so. It was not loud enough to wake them up. Besides, you know how I have a light sleep” he dismissed, and the smaller boy nodded in agreement. Shiro though could hear Keith repeating his words on his mind as convincing himself that all was fine.

“Where was it this time?”

“My arms...and my legs” Keith let the blanket wrapping him fall to the floor, revealing purple skin that went about until his elbows.

“It reaches about my knees, too, and now my feet are also purple” he let out exasperated.

“I see you got socks.”

“I hate sleeping with socks on”

“...”

“I hate you, Shiro.” the taller boy laughed, grabbing his wrist gently.

“Come on, let's get some sleep for now. Tomorrow we wake up earlier and go straight to the library.” He climbed into the bed, dragging Keith along, but the other stopped on his tracks.

“Shiro... I'm worried”

“Everything's gonna be fine, I promise you.” he looked up to the smaller boy, searching for his wandering eyes.

“But what if it's something contagious. What if I infect you” he met Shiro's gaze, worry filling his own.

“Then we'll be two purple men around the castle. Do you think my prosthetic would turn purple too?” Keith snorted, and Shiro pulled him down to the bed, embracing him strongly.

“You're the worst, Takashi” he laughed.

“But I made you laugh”

“Seems I'm just as bad as you”

“Let's be bad and purple together, then”

“What-” he squeaked and let out another loud laugh, placing a hand on Shiro's face and letting it drop to his chest. “Good night, Shiro”

“Good night, Keith” Shiro smiled, tightening his embrace around Keith and pulling him closer.

The next day was, as announced by Coran in the moment they all arrived in the dining room for breakfast, cleaning day! They had been in a calm state those past few days, so taking one day off to take care of the Castle of Lions seemed the right thing to do. Coran started reading a long list of chores and activities needing to be done around the castle and distributing them to each of them. Hunk and Pidge were in charge of cleaning the kitchen, dining room, and the lab (to which Pidge had forbidden anyone else to touch her equipment installed in there). Lance and Coran would do everybody's laundry and the cleaning of the cryopods as per usual, while Allura and Kolivan were assigned to do some checks in the engines systems and controls of the castle. Shiro and Keith were paired up to clean the bedrooms and the hangar, while everybody was responsible for cleaning the lions.

Which meant, no early morning library session for the boys.

Or, no library session until evening, when was the time they all finished their duties and sat together on the dining room to share their meal, made, of course, by yours truly the kitchen trio, Hunk, Coran and Kolivan. Although exhausted, Shiro and Keith rushed their way to the library as soon as they finished eating their meal.

They spent a couple of hours in there before Shiro found Keith asleep sitting on the floor, with a book lying open on his lap, on a page that, again, described something about when the Galra and Altea alliance started. Shiro chuckled, knowing why he had fallen asleep. He took the book from his lap, closed it and rested it on the floor, moving his hand to gently brush messy locks of black hair off of Keith's face.

“Keith, wake up” his voice sounded just a little louder than a soft whisper.

“Mmngh” Keith just groaned.

“Keith, come on” he smiled and rested his hand on his shoulder, getting one eye open in response.

“Let's sleep on bed, okay” he offered his hand and Keith stretched a little before grabbing it, pulling them both up. He placed his hand on Keith's back, guiding them out of the library to their bedrooms corridor.

“Stupid Altean history books” Keith groaned, as his bedroom door slid open.

“Good night, Keith” Shiro laughed, and he just lazily waved him back.

After delivering Keith safely to his room, Shiro turned to the side and walked one door away from it, entering his own room.

It was the middle of the night and the whole castle got shaken awake by terrifying screams filled with pain coming from the Paladins’ bedrooms corridor. Coran and Kolivan rushed their way down to it from the bridge of the ship, the latter having his now full length sword on his hand, meeting the princess along the way. As the Paladins’ bedrooms corridor was in their sight, they saw Shiro yelling at an unresponsive door to open, clearly had been since the first scream was heard, with Lance by his side. Pidge and Hunk came to join them almost immediately, watching Shiro lose his temper and slash the door's control panel with his prosthetic hand. The door opened.

“Keith, are you okay!?” Shiro was the first one to rush inside the room, his hand still glowing purple, being followed by the rest of them, slightly pushing each other to make their way in.

Keith was completely wrapped around on his blanket, only his head sticking out of it, sitting in the middle of his bed. He was curled up on himself, making it look like he was a lot smaller than he actually was. His hair was damp and glueded to his forehead, his eyes frozen to a random point in front of him, and just a little more and everyone in the room would be able to hear his heart racing desperately, hurting his ribcage.

“I'm fine” he replied on a dead tone.

“What you mean, you're fine, you were screaming like you were catching fire!” Lance threw back at him exasperated.

“Keith, is everything okay?” Allura stepped in, concerned.

“You did sound like you were under so much distress…” Coran complemented.

“I’m fine, I just... I had a bad dream. I'm sorry I woke everyone up” he replied, his eyes still not facing any of them.

“A bad dream? Are you sure?” Hunk asked, suspicious.

“That was a little too much for a bad dream, wasn't it?” Pidge showed up from behind Hunk, trying to look at him.

“I just…” Keith bit his lower lip and closed his eyes, inhaling sharply.

“If everything's okay I think it's best we all go back to sleep.” Kolivan interfered. Keith exhaled, thankful.

“And tomorrow I guess I should do a check on the doors’ lock system, haha” Coran said, gently pushing the three Paladins next to him out of the room with them.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Shiro offered, his voice low and gentle. Keith's eyes jolted up to him, and his gaze alone was enough to Shiro know the answer.

“Good night, Keith. I hope you sleep well, now” Allura said kindly, and left the room alongside the others.

Shiro walked up to the door's control panel on the inside of the room, touching it and locking the door once again, proceeding to go to Keith immediately.

“It happened again” Keith whispered, unwrapping himself from the blanket, pulling his shirt off along with it, revealing a now purple colour on his torso that went about until the base of his neck.

Shiro scanned through his body, seeing how now the only not-purple part of it was his head.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not now. It did feel like I was catching fire, though.”

“.... I'm a monster” Keith whispered.

“Keith, no” Shiro sat down on the bed beside him, while he curled up on himself again.

“Shiro, look at me, I'm…”

“You're Galra. They're purple, not monsters.” Shiro ran a hand in circles on his back gently, feeling his skin burning and damp with sweat at the same time.

“Why is this happening though, why am I turning purple now, I don't understand” he let out a gruntled sigh.

“Well, you're growing up, your body is changing. Maybe something is making your Galra genes bloom now, I don't know. But we're going to find out, okay?” Shiro searched for his eyes, brushing damp hair out of his forehead.

“But right now, we need to get you a shower, clean clothes, and you're going to sleep in my room tonight, your bed is completely soaked in sweat” Shiro stood up, going for Keith's bag lying in the floor near the door.

“What if I stay like that… what if this is permanent and I'll be purple for the rest of my life”

“I don't think you have to worry about that, you look great in purple” Shiro joked and turned back to Keith, only to find lost purple eyes filled with tears ready to spill out.

“Hey, hey, don't” Shiro went to sit again on the bed, wrapping a burning and sweaty Keith tightly in his arms.

“We're going to find a solution for this, okay. I'm sorry. I promise you we will. So please, don't cry, okay” Shiro caressed the back of his neck, fingers tangled in damp black hair.

“I'm so scared” Keith whispered against Shiro's neck, and the embrace around him was tightened.

“I know, but I'm here with you. I'll always be. Purple or not purple, I'm right here with you.” Shiro deposited a long kiss on his forehead, feeling him relaxing on his arms.

The bath, clean clothes and new room waited for them for another hour. They were completely immersed in each other, feeling every breath, every rise and fall of their tangled bodies, forgetting every purple, every scream, and every burning alive sensation. They stayed like that for a long time, but they didn't notice.

The next morning wasn't exactly a morning. Not for Keith, at least. After the events that took place in the previous night, the team had apparently let him sleep in. And now he was being woken up by Shiro, who had brought him dinner and updates of what had happened throughout the day. Started with how Lance complained the entire day at how he had to wash Keith's bed sheets again, just after having done it earlier in that same day, and Coran threatened to make him wash everybody's bed sheets again if he didn't stop complaining. They all laughed. In more serious news, the castle had locked on a distress signal coming from a planet located on a somewhat distant galaxy at some point during the day, and they were headed to it right now. Having no idea of what they were going to find, the five Paladins needed to be present and ready to battle and face whatever was coming. So here Shiro was, waking up the fifth Paladin.

“And no one asked anything?” Keith stretched his body like a cat in the bed and sat up, getting a hand slapped to his forehead.

“No, nothing. I told them you've been having a rough time lately and that it was disturbing your sleep. Which, technically, is not a lie” Shiro retrieved his hand and slapped his own forehead.

“Okay, no fever.” He muttered to himself.

“Takashi Shirogane, the golden boy, blatantly lying like this, who would have imagined” Keith laughed.

“Hey, it's not a lie. It's just the truth told on another light”

“Oh my god” Keith laughed harder, falling to his side.

“Now, come on. We need to get ready and meet the others in the hangar, we might have to face some battles tonight” Shiro chuckled shyly, trying to hide the embarrassment from his very well known lame lies, pulling on Keith's shirt, who in response, just rolled over and draped himself over Shiro's knees.

“Do I really need to get out of bed, do we really need Voltron” he asked lazily.

“Yes, we need you, so you better hurry” Shiro smiled, fingers tangled in black locks of hair, gently caressing them.

“I'm purple, I can not fight” Keith buried his face on Shiro's knees completely.

“What” Shiro laughed, “get up, now, sleeping beauty. We're gonna get late” he retrieved his hands from playing with his hair and rubbed his back gently. Keith groaned, pushing his weight off Shiro and finally getting up, walking around the room messily after his boots and crashing back on the bed to put them on.

“You know what, there's a good thing in all this turning-purple mess” Shiro started.

“Really. Mind telling me what is it” Keith looked up to him while zipping one of the boots.

“I get to see you wearing my clothes.”

“I!” Keith squeaked, “it's not my fault I don't like turtlenecks, okay!” he zipped his other boot and quickly stood up, turning his back to Shiro, clearly embarrassed.

“Or, normal gloves” the other teased.

“Shut up, Shiro” he reached for his jacket and proceeded to the door, followed by the taller boy.

“I was actually surprised you got socks.”

“I said, quiet” he slid into his jacket, his eyes on the opposite direction of Shiro, a faint red tainting his cheeks, just to the other’s amusement, who quietly chuckled to himself as they walked down for the hangar.

It was the middle of the night and the five lions were flying around that planet where the distress signal came from, fighting off a bunch of sentries who were left behind there by some Galra soldiers. The latter had been in the planet for a long time, taking everything they could from it, and when the planet was in the verge of completely dying, they went away. Classic. But for some reason they left a fleet worth of sentries in the place, and now they were wrecking havoc against the natives, who were trying to fight them and take control over their planet back. Everything was going smoothly, until groans started coming in their coms.

“What is that” Lance pointed.

“Keith-” Shiro started.

“I'm fine” Keith interrupted.

“Guys, I think we should try hitting that other side” Pidge dragged them back to the fight.

“Copy that, I'm going” Hunk pulled his lion up, flying into the pointed side, destroying three sentry ships in the way.

The groans in the coms became louder.

“Keith-”

“I'm- I'm fine” he replied between gritted teeth.

But he was not fine. And everybody noticed that.

Specially when the groans evolved to screams, and the red lion lost balance in the air, clearly having her pilot in complete despair and not piloting at all.

“Woah, Keith!”

“Is everything okay?”

“Keith, what's happening”

The screams continued until the red helmet was taken off and thrown to floor with a thud, and no one heard anything anymore. The red lion seemed to have taken control of herself, regaining balance and retiring from the battlefield, carefully landing somewhere distant from it.

“I'm going to check on Keith. Lance, you're in charge here” Shiro pulled Black up, turning to the direction where Red landed.

“Wait, what. What!? Are you serious!?” Lance asked exasperated.

“Yes, I am. Something's wrong with Keith and I trust you”

“Copy that.” The blue Paladin took a deep breath and replied serious and confident at the leader’s words.

The black lion flew off, quickly reaching the spot where Red was sitting, her guards up and ready to fight whoever else approached. At the sight of Black and Shiro, though, she lowered her head to the floor and opened her mouth, welcoming the trusted black Paladin to come in. Shiro rushed his way inside, mentally throwing a “thank you, Red”, who mentally replied to him with a gentle growl.

As soon as the command center door slid open, Shiro could hear muffled sobs coming from it. He reached for the pilot chair, finding Keith messily curled up on himself on a corner of the chair, legs pressed tightly against his chest, head buried on his arms resting on top of his knees, and the edge of a purple and somewhat fluffy ear popping out of damp black hair. Shiro bent over a little, placing himself in eye level with him, touching his shoulder gently.

“Keith, are you okay”

Keith moved his head up slightly, revealing a now bright yellow eye, and purple skin soaked in sweat and tears.

“I want to go home” his voice broke into a low, cracked whisper, between sobs.

“I can't take you home right now, but I can take you to your room. Does that sound good enough?” Shiro moved his hand up, reaching for his hair, gently caressing it. A nod was given in reply.

“Princess, I'm taking Keith back to the castle. Kolivan, I need you to meet me in Keith's room, now” Shiro announced through the coms.

“Copy that.” Kolivan replied.

“What!? Are you both leaving the battle now?” Allura asked.

“Princess, I'm sorry, but we need to go back in”

“Is everything okay, are you guys hurt?” Coran asked, worried.

“We're fine. We'll be fine” Shiro looked back at Keith, who leaned in his touch and closed his eyes.

Listening to their conversation, Red stood up instantly, growling just loud enough to make Black stand up as well, both flying back to the castle to their respective hangars. Red sat down on her spot, carefully bending down to the floor, letting both of them out, raising back into position, watching over them kindly as they walked out of the hangar.

Shiro helped Keith take off his soaked armour and change into his casual clothes, actually his casual clothes for the most part. Shiro wrapped his hand around Keith's waist, and they both walked down to the bedrooms’ corridor, seeing Kolivan standing in the front of the first door, waiting for them as he was requested. He turned to them in the moment they appeared in the hallway, eyes going a little wide at the sight.

“Oh my.”

“Yeah.” Shiro replied, pressing the door's control panel, opening it up and getting the three of them inside the room.

“I suspected something was wrong, but wouldn't have thought of this. How exactly did this happen?” Kolivan asked curiously, carefully scanning Keith from head to toe.

“It started with my hands. I was sleeping and woke up to this.” Keith took his gloves off, showing his tiny purple hands. Kolivan gently took them on his own.

“Did you. Cut your claws.” Kolivan blinked.

“Yeah”

“Don't. They're extremely useful.”

“Okay. So, do you have any idea of what caused this?” Shiro interrupted.

“I actually do. But first, tell me how did it happen exactly, how did you turn purple”

“My skin started burning, like I was really catching fire, and then it kinda just, dissolved? And the purple showed up beneath it” Keith gestured with his hands.

“I see. Well, this actually changes everything.” Kolivan said, thoughtful.

“What do you mean”

“I think now that you've been like that for your whole life without noticing.”

“What” Keith squeaked.

“But, how?” Shiro asked.

“Magic.” Kolivan said blatantly.

“The Galra are able to use magic, as you've seen with the druids, but we didn't use it for the bad as they do currently. There were Galrans who could do wonders with our magic in the past. And if I may, I believe you were under some kind of spell that was making you look human. Like a layer, covering your Galra appearance.”

“But, what happened? Why did the spell just stop working?”

“It's magic. Do you know any magic that lasts forever?”

“Okay, but why now of all times…” Keith thrilled off.

“Time.” Shiro repeated. He walked up to the door's control panel, pressing some buttons.

“Coran, what day is today?” He asked through the just opened communication channel.

“It's the fourth day of the Spicolian movement!” Coran replied.

“No, I mean, on Earth, what day is today on Earth”

“Oh, hold on a tick.” “Okay, so for you earthlings, today is--”

And eyes went wide.

“Today is-”

“My birthday.” Keith completed.

“It's your twentieth birthday.”

“Oh, there it is. A spell to last 20 years.” Kolivan concluded.

“It's possible that, once you're here in space and not on Earth, it messed with the spell a little and it caused it to start vanishing sooner than what it was supposed to. Also, congratulations on your twentieth birthday.” he straightened his back and gently smiled at Keith, politely saluting him.

“Okay, wait, this is… this… wait” Keith let his weight fall to bed, elbows on knees, head on his hands, breathing heavily.

“Keith, everything's fine” Shiro approached him.

“No, Shiro, I… I can't do this”

“There's nothing wrong in looking like that”

“That's not the problem!” Keith raised his voice, gesturing around with his hands.

“Do you think they'll want that? A Galra Paladin among them, me, among them like that!?”

“Actually, there had been other Galra Paladins in the past. Aside from Zarkon, I mean” Kolivan interfered.

“Keith, it's you. They know you. You're their friend, you're part of this team.” Shiro touched his shoulder gently and looked for his eyes.

“You know how Allura reacted before, do you think she'll like this” he met Shiro's eyes, sadly.

“She'll get to it, just like before, I'm sure of it.” He tightened his grip on his shoulder slightly.

“You don't need to do this alone. I'll be right beside you the whole time, just like before, okay?” He moved his hand to brush off some messy locks of hair that were falling to Keith's face.

“And if things don't go too well, you'll always have a spot in the Blade of Marmora.” Kolivan said, and they both looked up to him, surprise stamped on their faces.

“You're a Blade. You're part of this team, too.”

Keith looked back at Shiro, a weak smile forming on his face, exhaling sharply.

“Guess we just wait for the others to come back from the battle, now...”

Shiro smiled back at him, his hand grabbing Keith's, resting on his lap. He then stood up, and opened the communication channel again.

“Everyone gather at the bridge of the ship when you're finished over there. We need to talk.”

It actually didn't take long until the three Paladins were back in the castle. One explosion here and there and they were able to get rid of all the sentries that were still active. They were enthusiastically telling how amazingly their literal bombastic plan worked when the door for the command center room slid open, and Shiro, Keith, and Kolivan came through it. Eyes went wide, jaws dropped, and before anyone could say anything, Shiro spoke up.

“Let us explain first, questions later.” Shiro looked at Keith, who had his gaze frozen on the floor since the moment they entered the room, and he squeezed harder their hands together.

Kolivan stepped up and started explaining all the technical details of the situation, about the possible spell, about Galra magic, about how all of it worked, and how the spell that was on Keith had been losing power in the past few days, vanished completely by now, given his birthday, aka the expiration date, leaving Keith in which he believed to be his natural form. Shiro then linked all that strange occurrences from the other night and from today's battle to it, and how painful this process had been.

“I knew it wasn't just a bad dream!” Hunk let out. “I mean, turning purple while your skin burns do sound like a nightmare, but”

“Why didn't you tell us” Lance asked.

“Yeah, I would love to have seen how all this worked. No offense, of course” Pidge scanned Keith's skin very closely. “I mean, alien magic!? How cool is that. And it seemed so real!”

“And it's crazy, man! Just like a fairytale, the spell breaks at midnight, and everything returns to its original state. Oh man!” Lance dramatically gestured with his hands.

“Dude, this is Cinderella” Pidge pointed.

“Cinderkeith? Keitherella?” Hunk suggested.

“Oh my god”

“Dude!”

All earthlings bursted into laughter. Alteans and Galrans didn't get the reference so they were just confusedly blinking at each other, and Keith was having too much trouble processing what was happening to understand a joke in the moment.

“So… you guys don't hate me?” he shyly asked.

“Of course no, man!” Hunk replied as almost offended by it.

“You look like a cat now, how can one possibly hate a cat!?” Lance joked, and got hit on the ribs by Pidge.

“We're a team.” Pidge smiled.

“We're family. A very, very, very diverse one, but that's what we've become. A family.” Allura kindly added.

“And this is, to say, something good to our mission as well. The universe can now clearly see that not all Galra are bad, that some have kind hearts and are fighting on the side of justice.” Coran complemented, proudly, gently smiling at him.

“Hey, do you guys think we should have some kind of warning for our missions now? 'Attention people, this is Voltron. The Red’s Keith, Keith's purple and we love him very much.’ “ Hunk said as rushing to Keith, squeezing him into a bear hug, lifting him from the floor.

“H-Hunk, I can't breath!” Keith laughed, frozen in place by surprise, realisation slowly getting on him of what was happening was not the rejection he expected, but pretty much the complete opposite.

“Group hug!” Shiro yelled and threw himself over the two of them, with the rest of the crew following to join them on it. Even Kolivan.

It was the middle of the night and the whole castle was up, draped over each other in a big pile of aliens, humans, and everything in between. No one noticed thick tears rolling down a smiling purple face. The only thing they all noticed that night was that despite the cold war they were facing every day, they all had now something a lot bigger than it. And this, would never again go unnoticed by any of them.