Chapter Text
Keith’s head was already pounding by the time he set the Red Lion down at the outskirts of Rheim. It had been a long battle, the razor-edged light of lasers assailing him from all angles, the shriek of robeast claws against Red's hull still ringing in his ears. He felt every line of sweat sliding down his spine, heard an echo of Shiro’s shouts and Lance’s encouragement and Pidge’s reports. Matt’s headache twinged behind Keith’s eyes even after he'd left the cockpit.
Two steps from the end of Red’s ramp, he was swarmed with Rheimians tugging on his sleeve, shouting his name, shouting their thanks, snapping pictures with little cubes that pulsed blue-white like handheld supernovae.
Vrekt. He should have taken Matt’s offer of escape and gone back to the castle. Except Rheim was too important to the Coalition, its government a cultural and political touchstone for the entire quadrant. Shiro wanted all hands on deck for the post-battle celebration so they stood the best chance of making a good impression.
Another camera pulsed, and Keith screwed his eyes shut, his pulse pounding in his temples. Just put in an appearance, he told himself. Just smile and pose for a couple of pictures and shake a couple hands and you’re done.
But vrekking quiznak, why did there have to be so many people here?
Their voices blended together into a buzz he could barely make sense of, odd syllables resonating like laser pulses and setting his ears twitching, straining against the confines of his helmet. Keith yanked it off, but that only made the voices louder.
“Paladin!”
Keith forced his eyes open, cursing the sun for sitting so low in the sky, and glared at the Rheimian who’d jumped in his path, clutching a box that blared the same disjointed music that came from three separate stages around the plaza. For a moment, Keith contemplated grabbing the box and skewering it with his bayard, but he took a breath, released the impulse, and forced a smile that probably looked more like a grimace “That’s me.”
The Rheimian let out a high-pitched squeal that cut right through Keith’s skull. “I’m sorry,” they said, entirely too bubbly for the aftermath of a long, bloody battle that had leveled entire blocks. “I just—I watched you flying up there, and it was amazing! I want to be a pilot, too, you know. Klyl says I wouldn’t be any good at it, but I think they’re wrong. What do you think? Do you think I could be a pilot like you?”
“You’d... have to ask the lions,” Keith said, only just managing to stop short of a growl.
For some reason, the Rheimian found that funny, and they giggled, seizing Keith by the arm and dragging him over sideways for a picture.
Skin crawling, Keith pulled away, grunting what maybe could have become an excuse, if he’d had any more energy for dealing with loud, clingy strangers, and all but sprinted into the crowd. Spots danced across his vision from the flash, and he felt utterly wrung out. Whatever adrenaline rush had sustained him through the battle, it was long gone now, and all he wanted was for the day to be over.
Vrekking hell. He really should have left with Matt.
He stalked across the plaza, angling toward the northern corner, where Blue and Black had set down in the shallows of Lake Reim. The Rheimians were shorter than humans by at least a foot, but the plaza broke down into a series of terraces in this direction and colorful stalls splashed with garish paints in Voltron’s colors choked the paths. The plaza was so busy Keith couldn’t figure out how to get from Point A to Point B, let alone spot a familiar face among the crowd. The next time someone took him by the shoulders and spun him around, he had a to fight down a sudden, inexplicable urge to cry.
“What is it now?” he growled, one hand snapping up to throw off the offending arm.
Akira stepped back, shock breaking across his face, and Keith's blood turned to ice.
“Fuck,” Keith muttered. His ears pressed back against his skull, and somehow even that managed to feel like a live wire being dragged across his skin. The voices of the crowd rose higher, a hundred voices all competing to be the most obnoxious, and Akira’s silence rang louder than it all, swelling all around him. The street could have opened up and swallowed him whole, and he thought he might have preferred it. “I’m sorry, Akira, vrekt, I just--”
Akira waved his hand, a lopsided smile softening his expression. “No need to explain. I’ve been accosted three times in the last five minutes, and I’m not even a paladin.” He glanced around, then lifted a hand to his mouth and leaned just close enough for Keith to make out his whisper. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
To be perfectly frank, Keith didn’t care what it was Akira wanted to show him, but he didn’t want to lose his buffer against the crowd. So, steeling himself against the grating voices, he trudged along behind Akira. Some of the stalls had begun grilling up what Keith could only assume was meat. It smelled like scorched plastic, and Keith wrinkled his nose as he passed. How long had he been here--five minutes? Ten? He couldn't do this.
The crowd pressed in closer on all sides, every jostling elbow and firecracker burst of laughter twisting the spring in Keith’s gut until he thought he might just explode on the next person to utter the word paladin. He quickened his pace, following so close on Akira’s heels he almost stepped on them, but if Akira minded, he didn’t let on.
Then, suddenly, the crowd broke, and Keith reflexively sucked in a breath, the open air making his skin crawl.
“Here we are,” Akira said brightly.
Keith looked around, frowning. “Here…?” He saw nothing. A few houses, shutters drawn against the festivities. A single bench beneath a street light. And there, at the end of the street, a row of Guard fighters.
Akira was watching Keith, a smile playing at his lips. He laughed at the dumbfounded look Keith sent his way, then gestured for Keith to follow.
“But...” Keith’s steps dragged, his desire to get away from the crowd warring with Shiro’s instructions to mingle. It was one thing for Matt to go back to the castle to sleep off his migraine, or for Pidge to skip out on the party to analyze the data they’d collected on the robeast.
This felt like running away from his paladin duties. Keith might have said something to that effect, but he couldn’t seem to make his voice cooperate, and his feet just kept plodding along, his muscles uncoiling as the shouts of the Rheimians faded to an irritating buzz in the distance.
Akira pressed his hand to the control panel on the underside of his fighter, and the hatch over the cockpit retracted. In an instant, Akira was up and in, leaning over the side to offer Keith a hand. Keith hesitated, but only for a moment.
The cockpit sealing shut was an instant balm to Keith’s frazzled nerves. The noise from the plaza cut off, and the tinted viewscreen dimmed the cockpit to a comfortable twilight. Keith closed his eyes, sinking to the floor with his back pressed up against the wall. His stomach churned with mortification, but the darkness and silence was so much less belligerent than the festivities outside. Even his hyperawareness of Akira’s motions couldn’t goad him into returning to that hellscape.
“Sorry,” Keith whispered. “I didn’t mean to pull you away from...” He waved vaguely, blinked against another swell of aimless emotion, and buried his face in his arms.
“Eh.” Akira sat beside Keith, a soft, rhythmic clicking drawing Keith’s attention. He peeked over his elbow to see Akira fiddling with a device no longer than his thumb, a white cord plugged into the top. “You’ve seen one party, you’ve seen them all, to be honest. Music?”
Keith blinked several times, staring at Akira’s outstretched hand for a long moment before he recognized the little nub as an earpiece. He took it, carefully fitting it into his ear, and leaned his head back against the wall as a melody began to play.
“Volume controls are on the side,” Akira said, pressing the player into Keith’s palm. “You can skip anything you don’t like; I won’t care. Oh—and we have blankets and snacks if you’re interested.”
Keith glanced at the pile Akira nudged with his toe, but didn’t bother reaching for them. Not yet. The combination of post-battle nerves, shame, and pure overload had left him nervous and sweaty, and he'd rather just sit for a second. He closed his eyes and turned up the volume on the music. It was a simple song, compared to what Pidge usually had blasting in their workspace, but there was something soothing about the woman’s voice and the slow pulse of the accompaniment.
“What is this?” he asked, glancing at the screen of the player and waiting for his armor's translator to decode the text. Lullaby for You.
Akira scratched at his neck, laughing softly. “It’s from a video game—don’t laugh.”
“Why would I laugh?”
“Because I’m a nerd." Akira heaved an overdramatic sigh. "It’s okay. Takashi never lets me live it down, anyway.”
“Like he’s any better.”
Akira laughed, falling silent as the song went on. It drew Keith in, swirling through him and massaging the tension from his body. When it finished, he hesitated for a moment, then started it over, and Akira smiled without opening his eyes.
Keith hunched his shoulders, though there was no one here to see him. “I like it.”
“Me too,” Akira said.
Keith leaned forward, crossing his arms atop his knees. “Shouldn’t we get back out there?”
“When you’re ready.” Akira lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Takashi knows I wander at these things. If he actually needs us for anything, he’ll call. Don’t see why we shouldn’t hang out in here until then.”
“We were supposed to put in an appearance.”
“I don’t remember anyone saying how long an appearance it had to be. Do you?”
Keith didn’t, but he was pretty sure it was implied that they stay longer than it took to cross the plaza once.
But it was nice and calm in here, and Shiro really would call if he needed anything...
Keith started the song over once more and let himself relax, stretching his legs out in front of him as far as the cockpit would let him. He leaned back, shifting until he could lean his head against Akira’s shoulder. The tension returned for just an instant—just until Akira draped his arm across Keith’s shoulder, a comfortable, grounding weight. Steady in away the shifting crowd could never be. Familiar.
Satisfied, Keith closed his eyes and let himself get lost in the music.