Chapter Text
Another day, another fight against the Galra. Just the average life of your average paladin of Voltron. Lance chuckled to himself slightly as he continued to narrate in his head what happened as he snuck down through the vents. Stealth missions were great. A little over a month after they’d “captured” Lotor, the prisoner had begun to earn their trust. Lotor had knowledge they desperately needed to bring Zarkon down, and since they both had the same goals there, they had a truce. For now, anyway. So on the mission Lance went, trusting that things would go well. They’d done well so far.
In his head, he hummed the Mission: Impossible theme like a total loser boss as he crawled silently, rifle at the ready for him. He felt ready for anything.
Naturally, everything went and got quiznaked.
Lance fell through a shoddy part of ventilation and found himself immediately wrapped up in a fight, shooting at sentries. He heard the panicked yells of his teammates and only snapped his location at them, trying to focus on shooting the sentries down.
He didn’t notice the real Galra soldier behind him until it was too late.
Crack! Something struck his head, and it was lights out.
---
“Keith, we need you back with Voltron,” Shiro said, voice strained as he stared up at the viewer to his best friend.
Keith frowned back. “Shiro, you guys have the right amount of people already. I’d just be extra,” he protested.
Shiro frowned in return. “Keith. Something happened, and we need you back home. Please,” he said, voice softer. “We really need you.”
Home. Keith really would have loved to focus on that part, but the “something happened” part caught his attention more. “What happened?” he asked, tensing up as if expecting a fight to occur right there.
The older man sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not something I should say over this. You need to be here in person. It’s… It’s Lance,” he admitted.
Keith stiffened, eyes narrowing. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said curtly, cutting the communication. The hard eyes and scowling face were just a front for his pounding heart and worry. No. Not Lance. Please don’t Lance be dead, he begged, unsure to just whom he was begging.
He spoke quickly with Kolivan and took a pod, heading straight for the Castleship. Home. As Shiro called it, anyway. His hands tightened on the minor controls. It had felt more like home than anything else had his whole life, up until he left with the BoM. Now it felt foreign to him. He knew it was only because he was distancing himself and doing it to his own damn self, but still.
They still need you, a voice piped up in the back of his head. Hope, Keith decided to call it. They need you, Keith. Stop being such a dense motherfucker.
Okay, maybe not Hope. That voice was definitely Asshole. In fact, it did sound like that asshole Lance.
… He was going crazy.
Arriving at the castle a few vargas later, he jetted in and left the pod in Black’s hangar. He felt her purr a greeting in his mind and he almost teared up, greeting her back and patting one of her giant paws as he walked by. He missed piloting one of the lions.
Red had noticed his presence as well and purred at him, flashing him a sense of worry over Lance. She didn’t know what happened, only that he was badly injured. He jolted and broke out into a dead sprint for the healing chambers. At least he’s not dead and It could be very very worse were thoughts that floated through his mind as he skidded to a stop outside the doors and composed himself before he walked in.
“Keith!” Pidge was the first to notice, darting over and slamming her tiny body into Keith with enough force to knock him back a little. “Lance is - Lance is - oh, quiznak, Keith, you need to know what happened.”
“Well, someone tell me then,” he said a bit angrily, even as he hugged Pidge back and moved into the room again. “Red’s worrying herself sick over him.”
“Blue is as well,” Allura said from her spot in a chair, gazing at Keith sadly. “His condition is - well, perhaps it’d be better coming from Coran.”
Eyebrows lifting, he turned to Coran, accepting a bone-crushing hug from a quietly crying Hunk. Hunk cried easily, but if it was quiet crying, Keith was worried. Hunk wasn’t the type to quiet cry unless the situation was extremely bad.
“Tell me what’s wrong with Lance,” he said sharply.
Coran winced. “Well, I’m not going to lie, it looks pretty bad,” he said, “A Galra soldier took him by surprise and, well… smashed his skull in. Not exactly, but he was struck extremely hard. I wouldn’t be surprised if he suffered some sort of brain damage.”
Keith’s eyes narrowed. “Sure, sure. But he’s in a healing pod. Shouldn’t that help?”
Cora twisted his mustache, sighing. “My dear boy, I just don’t know. He’s not Altean. I’ve done what I could to update the healing pods for you Humans. But I’m afraid even our advanced technology can’t do as much as we would all wish to repair brain circuits. I can know where the damage was centered,” he explained, “And it appears that… Hopefully not, but Lance might be blind. He suffered a blow that seems to have knocked his occipital lobe out of function. The soldier struck him hard right on the back of the head. Lucky he didn’t sever Lance’s spine, really.”
Keith stopped breathing.
“That soldier is now dead,” Allura said firmly, “I killed him.” And she’d cried about it. Taking a life was never easy. But she didn’t feel as bad as she thought she should have, especially considering she’d thought Lance dead at the time.
Shiro slipped an arm around her and hugged her close. “While Lance is recovering…” He paused. “We need you, Keith. For Voltron.”
Keith just nodded.
Pidge punched him in the arm and he yelped, startled. “What Shiro the Idiot’s not saying is that we miss you, too. We just need you here cause we need you, not cause the universe needs Voltron,” she said, glaring at Shiro, who blushed lightly.
Hunk wiped at his eyes. “Yeah, Keith. Lance talks about you every day, you know?” he said, trying to smile, “We miss you. A lot. It sucks that the family’s coming back together over this, though.”
Keith blushed, feeling touched and warm. Home. His family.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Keith,” Shiro said gently, “I guess I’m still in Leader Mode. I miss you, too. You’re still like my little brother.” He smiled fondly, carding a comforting hand through Allura’s hair.
“I… Thanks,” he said quietly, going to sit down. He stared at Lance’s pod. “When will you decide the pod isn’t doing anything?”
“In a movement or so,” Coran answered. “It’ll only take a quintent to heal most of the damage. The rest is just… waiting to see if the pod can do the job we hope it does.”
Keith nodded, staring at Lance. He didn’t quite understand why his heart was ripping itself to shreds. Red’s soft whine at the back of his mind changed his focus to her.
{Miss you. Miss Lance. Lance okay?}
The red paladin sighed softly. Might not be. Miss Lance too.
She whined at him again and he decided to go visit her instead of sit here, doing nothing but worrying over Lance.
He made his way down to the hangars again, this time heading for Red. She laid down at his approach and opened her maw, allowing him inside. Once he settled in the cockpit, she started crying.
Keith was definitely not prepared for that and almost fell out of the chair. “Whoa, girl, whoa. Lance’ll be okay,” he said, awkwardly patting the console. “He’ll, well, he’ll live anyway.”
Red whined at him, projecting an image of a red lioness crying. {Lance hurt!}
Keith wobbled a little and let himself sink into Red’s mind, “petting” the lion in the mindscape. Her emotions mixed with his and he found himself crying too.
“This fucking sucks,” he choked out as he buried his face in the lion’s fur, “I miss you guys so much, and this is what brings me back. Hah. Lance… I guess I could admit it to you, Red. You don’t tell secrets, right?”
Red whined and licked his face. {No. Tell me.}
“I love that idiot,” he said, projecting to her one of the more tame fantasties he’d had. Just him and Lance, cuddling and watching the stars as the Castleship moved through space, occasionally kissing. It was so domestic and sweet and he craved it. Lance pissed him the fuck off a lot, but he ignited feelings in Keith that he never thought he’d get to have. And the fucker was straight so far as he knew, anyway.
Red nuzzled him, wishing she could tell Keith that wasn’t true and Lance loved him too (not that he knew it), but she kept her paladins’ secrets. Of course, she’d be pushing them together at some point. Maybe she could work out something with her pridemate, Black. She liked Keith, too.
{Want Lance to be safe.}
“He is safe, just… Hurt. And he might not fully recover. I don’t know what that means for Voltron yet,” Keith sighed. If Lance was going to be blind, then… Keith would probably be taking Red back. Suddenly he was very very glad he hadn’t been able to go through with his stupid plan to break the force field. Speaking of that… Were the others still holding Lotor prisoner? And he hadn’t seen Matt at the gathering, which Keith considered a bit of a good thing. He didn’t want to get yelled at for his near-suicide again.
Red growled. {Gonna yell at you anyway!} she huffed, fur puffing up as she headbutted his chest harshly.
Keith fell over and groaned. “I already go this from Matt,” he said with exasperation.
Wrong thing to say. Red’s tail lashed in anger and she growled again, flashing him worry and anger and she watched his pod as it streaked towards the barrier and she knew it wouldn’t work, tried to warn them, but they weren’t listening, no no no, not her cub -
Keith choked as the scene and feelings assaulted him. Oh, shit, it was different from being yelled at by Matt. Actually feeling what they felt was so different. He had to accept that they cared about him then.
Black roared in his mind and Red stepped off Keith’s chest as the leader stalked over. {Me too!} she yelled, growling. {Worry worry worry! Miss you! Our cub! Don’t ever do it again!}
“Okay, okay,” Keith said, breathing shakily and sitting up. (Seriously, the mindscapes were always a weird place to be, and he hadn’t even realized that both lions could join him, though it made sense).
Black headbutted him gently and purred. {Good. Stay.}
“I’m staying,” he promised, kissing Black’s forehead. Red whined and he chuckled, turning to give her some affection too. “I just hope Lance pulls through okay.”
Black nodded at him and left, since it was still Red’s mindscape they lurked in. Red purred at Keith and sighed. {Check on Lance,} she told him.
“He won’t be… I mean, he can’t leave the pod until a whole week - I mean movement - has passed,” he said.
She whined at him again. {Check anyway or I’ll tell Black to sit on your pod.}
Keith gave her a funny look. “Okay. I don’t really care about the pod, Red,” he said, amused. “But I’ll go check on him.”
Rising from the mindscape, he blinked when he found himself back in his physical body. That was always weird. He sighed and stood, stretching. “Damn, feels like my body’s just been sitting here for vargas,” he muttered, checking his watch. “Oh, that’ll be because it has. Time is weird.” Everything had gone weird the moment Shiro had disappeared from Kerberos, honestly.
He exited Red and made his way down to the healing chamber again. The Castleship was on reserve power for the night, but Keith was surefooted as he found his way.
Initially surprised that everyone had actually gone to bed, but grateful, Keith turned to Lance’s pod and rested his head against it, staring into it. “Get better, asshole,” he murmured. Then he noticed something and stared harder, trying to figure out what he was seeing. Was that…One of the mice?