Chapter Text
A halting silence stumbled into the room, snatching away the breath of the two paladins that stood on the cold floor. Bodies and small pools of blood flowed like syrup, racing droplets of sweat in a macabre dance. Highlighted with spatters of red, the control panel centered the room, and upturned chairs whispered of the end. An end had come. The end of an empire, of a life. Here was the death of an age, and the lingering smell of its old, hardened bones sung in Keith’s nostrils. His breath came in ragged gasps, his exhalations echoing, slamming and booming against the dark purple of the metal room. Lotor sagged against the wall, head tilted onto his shoulder, a picture of death that resounded with finality, with a job horrifyingly well done. Keith shivered and backed away, staring in terror at the body before him. It was his mission, he knew how it would end, but seas boiled inside him. He swayed back and forth; fragile, unsteady, a string stretched so taut it could play symphonies. Vision swimming, his eyes locked upon the culmination of years of war and hardship. “It’s done…” he whispered, the fate enclosed in the words screamed in his ears, making them ring and pop. “It’s-it’s over,” he panted. He shakily unclenched his hand, letting the sword drop to the floor in a sharp clatter that ripped the silence like tissue paper. Shiro stared. Although his face shone in a glaze of sweat, his breathing was steady, rhythmic. It was the only always Keith could find in a room that rang with endings and beginnings, the only constant. The simple inhale and exhale was a rock to stand upon in the center of a black, coursing river. Keith jumped on. Shiro did not speak. His mouth kept its line, a slanting angle of loss. The saddened look etched into his features did not grieve for him. Instead, it wept for Keith, wailed over his hunched shoulders, beat its fists against his pounding heart. Shiro sighed, still studying the red paladin while Keith stared back, fearing more Shiro’s stony face than the corpse of a prince slicked with blood that he himself had drawn. “Shiro?” he wavered, still swaying on the brink of exhaustion, his toes brushing the current of the dark water. The black paladin was silent a moment longer, his heart aching almost audibly. Old memories struggled viciously to rear their ugly faces, much too happy, too peaceful. He stood before the man he loved, everything changed in a single moment, a single action. The slightest arc of a sword had shattered it all, and dusty ruins now seemed more capable of standing than him. He finally spoke, his low voice stirred with grief and pain, of a bond still standing but entirely warped. “You know what Galra culture requires, don’t you?” A simple question, one that Keith already knew the answer to. Keith’s eyes widened in horror, his teeth clenched and more sweat streamed down his face and into his eyes. The rock had become slick and slimy with moss, every beat of his heart threatened a fall into the icy river. “Shiro no-” he wavered, voice breaking, slicing itself on every syllable of his plea. Shiro was unrelenting, stoic in a room that swirled and cried out in the pain of it all. Slowly, he raised a fist to his chest. “You keep what you kill.” Keith tried to stop him, tried to stop the freight train of fate from slamming into them, he frantically snatched at the unraveling strings of the future they had always planned. “Vrepit Sa, my Emperor.” It all slipped away, just as Keith slid into the coursing water, his rock sinking into a raging river of everything that could have been.
The flight home was silent. An absence of noise reminisced of conversations one could have, conversations they should have. So much had changed. A second and a first swing of sword had cleaved apart years of struggle while validating months of planning and pain. The war had changed them both. Constant battle and stress had soured their optimism. They fought because they had to, to protect those planets enslaved by the Galra, but Keith sometimes wished Shiro had never gone on the Kerberos mission. He would catch himself wondering what things could have been; happy, safe, free of the ever-growing pool of blood that ebbed and flowed and followed the oh-so-noble paladins of Voltron. Reality stung, and this truth slowly dawned on the team, mercilessly crushing them with its damp, mildewy weight. As the war raged on, it became clear that wherever Voltron went, liberation followed. And wherever liberation raised its proud head, one could be sure it stood its foot upon a mass of corpses. Keith looked over at Shiro. He was tense. Stress-white hands gripped the controls like a lifeline, though his face was as calm as the surface of a moonlit lake. Small waves and ripples in his peaceful facade were detectable with the anxious twitch of a foot, the tapping of a finger, the cocking of Shiro’s head as he listened for noises that weren’t there, couldn’t be there. “Shiro?” Keith asked, hoping to return the cockpit of the black lion to some semblance of normalcy. Shiro jumped slightly, then relaxed. He looked down at the controls, at his hands that held so tight as if in a ferocious struggle with some unseen force that wished to take the wheel from him. Sighing, he let go and sat back, looking over at Keith. “What’s up?” He responded, smiling that small grin that made everything a little more okay. Keith stood and moved over to sit in his lap, nestling himself up against Shiro’s muscular chest and putting his feet on the armrest. Shiro gently wrapped his arms around Keith, holding him to his body as tight as he had held the controls. It was going to be okay, it had to be. Looking up at his partner, in love and battle, Keith stroked his cheek, tracing the line of his chin and jaw as if to put them down on grey paper. He colored Shiro’s face with charcoal and the slightest brush of a forefinger, studying his ears and nose and painting them with splashes of graphite on the canvas of his memory. “Babe, are you okay?” He inquired, running his gloved hands through Shiro’s close-cropped hair. “Yeah, I’m fine, just a little tired from-from everything.” Liar. He stuttered, shrinking back slightly as he struggled to free the last words from his tongue. Pulling Keith even closer, he crossed his legs under Keith’s back on top of the seat. “It’ll be nice just to get home and relax for a while.” Betrayal. Keith nodded, curling up, and soon found himself asleep in Shiro’s arms, worries set to rest as Shiro carefully carried him to bed. The Black Paladin, however, continued a lone vigil in the cockpit after tucking his partner safely away. Shiro ran his own hands through his two-tone hair. Something was up. He could feel it in every fiber of his being. His stomach rolled and every nerve tingled, screamed in a hollow cry of danger. He breathed deeply, closing his eyes and sitting back in the pilot’s chair. Everything was going to be alright. MURDERER! Shiro shot up, spinning around in a terrified attempt to find whoever had spoken. The room blurred and shadows snatched at the corners of his vision. Hungry beasts pushed and pulled his lungs. They sipped away his oxygen and laughed cruelly as he gasped for more air, for more time. He checked the room surrounding the cockpit, and quickly walked to the bathroom, arm held behind him and glowing the deep purple that signalled danger just as much as the roiling whites of his eyes. Slowly, his grey irises found his reflection in the bathroom mirror. It was his own face, but scarred. His right eye was webbed in healed wounds, and glowed a bright gold like the bowels of a star. The Shiro staring back at him was beaten and battered, teeth set in a snarl that displayed his sharp canines as willing weapons seeking blood. Its eyes shone in chaos. They reveled in death, gloated in pain, tortured every second of the day until the sun ran weeping behind the horizon. Those eyes looked forward, looked at Shiro. He stepped back as the broken gaze of a soldier who fought too long stared directly into his. They were lost, deranged, whirling in frantic circles in an attempt to find an escape route that didn’t exist. The Champion growled, snarled, drool and foam forming in the corners of his mouth that flowed quickly down his chin. Blood was smeared around his face and coated his hands like syrup, flowing from his mouth and nose, dripping from his ears and dangling on his earlobes before plummeting to the floor. Licking his lips as a hungry predator, the champion leaned closer, closer...I’ll kill them all.
Keith awoke slowly. He savored every moment in the act of rising, from the first opening of the eyes to a long stretch that banished stiffness to far, dark corners of muscle. The bed and room itself held that enveloping, loving warmth of sleep and comfort; so pleasant when just awakening but normal at any other time. He yawned, sat up, and shook out his shoulders, pulling the covers into a cloak that protected his bare torso from any evil drafts of air. After laying in bed for as long as socially acceptable when one lacks major responsibilities, he hopped up and dressed himself, slipping on a pair of sweats and a navy blue and white sweater that smelled like Shiro. Shoes were not required. The absence of his partner didn’t worry him, Shiro had always been an early riser. Normally he would brew some coffee or make tea, then see to anything on the ship that required immediate attention. Or, on those rare mornings where the prodding hand of duty didn’t burst in, he might stargaze in the cockpit, or snuggle back up in bed to read a book or chat with the rest of the paladins. This daily rhythm quickly came to define their time together, and provided some continuity in a vast universe that spawned so little. Keith stepped out of the bedroom and padded down the hallway towards the cockpit, bare feet silent on the cool metal floors. Sometimes he was quieter than intended, thus making Shiro leap out of his chair with an ungodly yelp, but this morning he remained seated. Suspiciously so. “Shiro?” Keith queried, voice echoing slightly in the room. Outside lay bare space, sprinkled and spiced by the purple smears of stars and galaxies, and dotted with blazing suns that futilely demanded individual attention. Nebula’s swirled and streamed through the blackness, like great twisting snakes with ribs of stardust and meteors. Every so often an uninterrupted patch of emptiness yawned, the mouth of a hungry being so infinitely large that one could take lifetimes to tap each tooth. Shiro did not stir. He sagged against the seat, still in the protective layer of clothes that sat under his armor. Chest rising gently, he snored quietly, undisturbed by Keith’s cries. Keith sighed in relief, before noticing the large smear of blood that ran down Shiro’s left arm. Deep wounds gaped in the skin, embedded with small pieces of glass, and a small pool had formed where the blood had dripped off the armrest of the pilot’s chair and onto the floor. “Shiro? Shiro!” Keith shook him frantically. Shiro groggily opened his eyes, looking around in surprise, “Wha- What? Keith what’s wrong?” he said, staring at his partner with concern written in bold in his dark eyes. “You’re what’s wrong. Babe, what the hell happened to your arm?” “Oh, that. I think I fell or something. I guess I was more tired than I thought,” Shiro mumbled, not meeting Keith’s gaze. He scratched the back of his head and checked the wounds for himself, eyes widening as if it was the first time he’d seen the gaping cuts in his own flesh. Some recognition flashed in his eyes, remembrance of an event that Keith had no knowledge of, and a shiver ran through him. Shiro looked away from his arm in a mix of shame and fear, his mouth down turned in a finite curve that ended delicately in a well of confusion. “Oh, Keith. I’m really alright, it doesn’t hurt that bad,” he reassured his partner, seeming to come out of that dark place where he would sometimes get lost. Keith feared that he might get stuck forever down there, surrounded only by memories of his pain. “You’d better goddamn explain some things, you could’ve seriously hurt yourself!” Keith half-yelled. He wasn’t truly angry, more terror lurked in his mind than rage, fear that Shiro would get too injured, that he wouldn’t come back. Busying himself with the wounds helped pull his mind from such things. That would never happen. Eventually Keith dropped the issue. Shiro had fallen back into his own thoughts, hiking the dark jungle of experiences no one should ever have. He was obviously uncomfortable with the injury, so Keith didn’t push it. He knew that Shiro’s boundaries always had reasons for their existence, and he would just have to wait until his partner felt comfortable lowering this one. For now, though, he had to get out this stupid glass.
Much yelping and stitching later, Shiro’s arm was in some semblance of order and they’d both had a cup of coffee. They sat across from each other at the table, an uneasy silence pricking the skin and pulling teasingly at each hair on their necks. Shiro looked tired. Not the sleepiness of a busy day, no, he had the settled in appearance of bone-weariness. His shoulders sagged and the bags under his eyes painted stars just like the view outside the window. Although he took small sips of the steaming coffee, he clutched it more for warmth, his hands shaking each time he raised it to his lips. Nervousness and tension played a brutal symphony to Shiro’s exhaustion. His leg tapped and he never sat quite still, shifting position every once in a while in a futile attempt to accommodate each new ache that cried for his attention. An unsteady beat played out across his chest, it would fall slightly then expand massively, straining for something other than air. Keith looked on sadly. The war had been hard, but it was over now, they’d won. Why was Shiro so beat-down? Had he underestimated the battles’ toll on his partner? No, this was recent. Something was wrong. Electricity prickled the hair on his arms as he observed the man he had stood beside for so many years. Had one eye always been lighter than the other?