Work Text:
The hit lands.
Shiro can feel it in the very way that his bones begin to snap and his skin begins to burn. Feels it in the liquid heat of his blood as it begins to pour and the ache of his breath as he tries to breathe around fire. Mostly, he feels it in the way his energy begins to seep from his limbs as his fingers lose grip of Black’s controls.
This, is death.
His mouth opens and closes around silent words as he tries to reach out to his team. Tries to console them through their own pained moans and cries for help that they all know won’t come because they are the help. But all he can manage is a small huff of breath as his body falls in on itself, dropping his head down towards his middle as his vision blurs.
Blurs with tears, and the darkness of his consciousness as he feels it slipping away from him. He has so much he still wanted to do.
He had wanted to get back home.
He had wanted to see the desert sunset again as the dusty reds and oranges turned to deep purples and blues.
He had wanted to apologize.
To the world he’d let down. To the team he had lost. To him.
To Keith.
He’d always thought he would have time. Something about having the universe’s defender at his fingertips had made him feel invincible. Together with his team and with Voltron, he had been so sure he would have all the time in the world to make up for his disappearance. Shiro had been certain he had enough time to right his wrongs. To apologize for leaving Keith when he’d promised him he never would.
And now he was doing it again, only this time, there was no more time.
His breath rasped as he saw Black’s lights begin to flicker and dance with a purple glow that smeared the other colors across his watery vision.
Just a little more time, he thought as his sight became a barely there pinprick of bright amethyst.
It wasn’t until everything began to fall away entirely that Shiro was able to finally push any sound across his lips. It was nothing more than a quiet, broken syllable, but it felt like enough.
“Keith.”
***
When he wakes up the first time, everything is cast in purples and blacks and an ethereal glow sends a shiver coursing through him. With its stretch of unending stars reflected beneath him in an inky black pool and its eclipsed sun, the astral plane is just as beautiful as it is chilling. Standing in the middle of the infinite space, the weight of its loneliness pressed down upon his shoulders and brought him to his knees.
In the reflective surface beneath him, he sees his own wide-eyed stare looking up at him. What’s more, he sees his own body touched by that very same purple glow that marked him as something other.
Not alive.
Not dead.
Not truly there at all.
“Why?” The word is harsh, echoing around him and coated in bitterness. It sounds alien, even to his own ears. So much, in fact, that it takes far too long for him to realize that the voice it was shrouded in belonged to him. A familiar sense falls along his shoulders in the form of a gaze he’d grown to know well.
It had followed him since that fateful day he and the Black Lion were paired. Once, he’d reveled in its weight, as it had meant that no matter where he was she was always watching.
Now, it was suffocating as it forced him down further until all he could see of the lion before him was the reflection of her gleaming metal claws.
Would you rather have died? The voice was soft, inquisitive in nature as it licked along his mind and tickled the back of his neck.
“I would rather be alive!” He bites out, each syllable a fragmented piece of the anguish that was collapsing the bones of his chest. I would rather be with them, he meant.
Would rather be with him, he meant.
This wasn’t an option, dear paladin, Black soothes, her tall frame unmoving as she speaks. Something about her calm tone only makes things worse as he feels the final crack along his sternum as his chest caves in, leaving nothing but a jagged broken hole in its place.
In that moment, Shiro knows he should be thinking of any way to possibly get out. He’s always been able to find a way out.
But right now, all he can think about is how much it hurts.
“Why?” Panic turns the word sour as he slams a fist into the reflective ground, barely noting the way it doesn’t give and break beneath his hand. And that’s it. The finality of his situation summed up within the unbroken mirrored ground beneath him.
Because if he was truly there, it would have shifted. Would have cracked. Would have done something beside stand firm and cool pressed against his skin.
It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.
He had survived the Galra. Had survived their gladiator ring and their experiments. He had survived again and again. But this? This, he couldn’t survive.
Because if he was here, he had already lost.
Tears burn his eyes and filled his throat, making his reflection warp and twist before him as his face becomes something else. Something inhuman.
Fate gives. Fate takes. I have saved that of you what I could. Sorrow seeps through their connection, turning his own thoughts heavy. Looking up, he barely makes out the smooth metal edges of his lion as the tears roll lingering wet tracks down his face.
“Why?” Now, the word is broken. Just like he is. It’s all he can manage as he tries to plead with Black, appealing to the softened nature he knew her to bear.
After all, if she didn’t, she wouldn’t have brought him here in the first place.
I could not let you die, paladin. Not yet. They still need you.
Darkness licks at the edges of Shiro’s vision, robbing him of what little sight he still has. Something heavy presses at the base of his skull, intrusive, and unwanted.
He still needs you.
Nails bite into his skin where his fingers dig into his scalp, grounding him against the probing sensation that is making him feel all too big for his skin. It’s the same kind of splintering feeling he remembers from before.
When it all ended.
And god, does it hurt.
“What are you doing?” Shiro cries, filling the question with his anguish as he looks up at the metallic guardian. Standing stoically before him, he wonders momentarily if she’s more of a gatekeeper. Though, whether to keep him in or out, he isn’t quite sure.
Look. With the single word his vision twists, going completely dark before lighting up once more with the brightness of Black’s cockpit and a shock of bright red that makes his stomach twist.
He would know that shade of crimson anywhere, because there was only one person that it truly belonged to.
Keith.
“I know you wanted this for me, Shiro.” Keith’s voice is smoke as it wraps around him, its tendrils gently folding out across his skin as if he’s speaking directly to him. He could be. Standing just at his right shoulder, Shiro wants nothing more than to reach out and touch him. Anything to reassure man before him as his darkened eyes roam across Black’s unlit control panel.
He watches as he takes a breath, his shoulders heaving around it before he reaches out to grab her controls.
“Why are you showing me this?” Shiro asks, voice barely a whisper as Keith continues to speak beneath his breath, closing his eyes as if readying himself.
“I can’t lead them like you,” he hears him say as Black remains silent for them both.
“Why!” Shiro demands, turning on his heel as if he can catch her presence behind him. He knows she’s here.
He can feel her tickling at his very edges as she watched them both.
Is he worthy? She asks suddenly, her voice booming with urgency as she demanded an answer as if she didn’t already know it.
Of course he was. Keith was worthy of being the leader. Was even worthy of so much more. No, not just worthy. Deserving. It was selfish, he knew, for him to pick up the pieces that he himself had scattered and left behind.
But he couldn’t deny her an answer.
Turning back to look over Keith as he leant forward against the controls, his head bowed and his back heaving with breath as if he were in silent prayer, Shiro nodded.
“Yes.” He breathes, reaching a shaking hand forward but stopping just before it could make contact with the young man’s shoulder. The pain of being unable to actually touch him would be all too much to bear.
“Yes,” he repeated quietly.
Good.
Light filled Black’s cabin as her controls came alive. And then, it all fell away into darkness.
***
When Shiro awakens the second time, he isn’t sure how much time has passed. He isn’t even sure where he has been, but he knows that something is wrong.
He can feel it in the way his connection with Black fizzles and cracks with electricity. Can feel it in the rumble of her growl as she glows with a black aura before him in the plane.
Mostly, he can feel it in the shaking rage of her voice.
Who is he, she demands, her eyes shining an angry yellow as she stared down at where he knelt on his knees before her.
“Who?” He chokes on the word as his unused lungs relearn how to expand and contract around his wracking breathes. The suddenness of his return left his mind reeling as it tried to catch up, not only to where he currently was but to Black’s thoughts that were bombarding him with images of himself.
Only, it wasn’t him. It was someone else entirely. An imposter that wore his face and was slowly tearing his team apart.
Who is he? She repeats as her frame shakes with her fury. Pushing himself upward, Shiro moves closer to her, making a soft sound under his breath as he places a palm softly against the cold metal of her paw.
“I don’t know,” he says earnestly as he looks up at her, ignoring the burn of her ignited stare as it charred his skin. It with a bright sting of understanding that he realizes what is going on. For all her strength, and for all Black had ever faced, he had never thought she could ever feel this kind of fear.
“Show me.”
Much like before, his sight blackened, dumping him into the depths of darkness before blinding him as it returned, leaving him standing beside the imposter that dared to call himself by his name.
He could see where the team had thought this man was him. Even he would have been fooled at first glance by the man who was a near mirror image of him. But up close, he could see the difference in the steel of his eyes, that looked hardened and sharp.
Could see it in the deep lines that tracked the edges of his mouth and left him with a permanent scowl.
Worst yet, he could see it in everything that was the worst of himself.
Watching carefully, the clone took a steadying breath as he reached for Black’s controls, clutching them like a lifeline as he let his eyes close. Around them both he heard the scared voices of their team as they called for help for themselves and the supply ship they were defending. It furrowed the imposter’s brow as he grit his teeth against the noise and tightened his grip on the controls.
Who is he, Black asks again, quieter this time as if she also observed him. Her presence is strong as it leans against Shiro’s shoulders for support.
“I don’t know,” he breathes as the unknown man leans down in a mirror of Keith not so long ago.
“Please,” he growls, voice mired in a burr that is just a shade darker than his own. “People’s lives are at stake. You trusted me once.”
Black’s presence bristled at the words as she growled lowly in his head, her weight pressing harder into the bones of his shoulders at the lie.
“Trust me again.”
Who is he?
There was no way to know who the imposter was, though Shiro could make a calculated guess. The Galra had his DNA, and he knew enough to know that Haggar could, and would, experiment with it. If that was the case, they were all in danger. This man wouldn’t just be an imposter, but a spy that could turn the entire team against themselves.
Worst of all, he could turn against him.
Silence fell over the cockpit as the clone waited, his breathing becoming heavy as he tried to contain the waves of anger that were rolling off of him.
If he is there to destroy Voltron, they would need to know.
“Accept him,” Shiro says finally, snapping the silence. Confusion turns their connection soft for just a moment before its bearing down on him again and knocking him to his knees.
Why? Black demands, the word dancing along the back of his neck as he feels the phantom bite of her claws on his back. Turning his gaze back to the false paladin, he pushes back against her hold as his mouth twitches around his own somber expression.
“You want to know who he is?” The sound of her controls coming to life start to buzz around him as light begins to speck the edges of his sight.
“This is how we find out.”
***
When Shiro awakens the third time, it’s to Keith crying out his name and telling him it’ll be okay.
Only, it won’t be okay, because the person he is truly calling out to isn’t him.
“Don’t you see that this is a trap?” Shiro growls under his breath as he leans into Keith’s shoulder, watching everything unfold before him as Voltron hurtles toward a dark void that would inevitably lead them to their doom.
Worst yet, to Keith’s doom.
Because he knows Keith and he knows he won’t give up on him. For better or for worse, he’s always been stubborn but now wasn’t the time and the feeling of his ribs snapping and cracking beneath his guilt had him clutching at Keith’s seat.
“Please,” he tries futilely, pleading with Keith. Pleading with Black. Pleading with anyone who would listen to him, even though he knew there was no one else. He was nothing but a shadow caught in a dark place, able to see all, but seen by none. Up until this point, he thought he had come to terms with his fate. The darkness was filled with a kind of solace for him as it wrapped itself along his shoulders and hugged him close.
Now, though, it felt as if his very existence was picking him apart slowly as he watched Keith give the order that sent him hurtling after his clone alone.
“You have to stop him,” he said, searching for Black’s presence in the astral plane, only to be met by the heavy weight of her silence. She was busy, he knew, but she had to know.
She had to keep him safe.
“Stop this!” He cried out again toward the permanent night sky. His voice twisted and echoed around him as he fought to steady his breathing around the throb of his lungs in his chest.
“You have to save him!”
The quiet was unlike anything he’d ever experienced as, for the first time since his new existence, he realized he was well and truly alone. Warm moisture rolled down his cheek as he kept his eyes focused on a batch of stars above him.
If he tries hard enough, he knows he can see Scorpius. It always was his favorite constellation.
“Please,” his voice cracks at the end as his lips form his words like prayers that are keeping him afloat. “Save him.”
How do you expect me to save him, paladin? Her voice comes slowly and faint, growing into a near deafening growl as she comes into focus before him, looming into his vision above as her eyes glow yellow.
He has already gone after him, and now all I can do is wait, she continues as her tone roughens with something that sounds a lot like disapproval. From what he feels of her presence, she wanted to stop him too, but there hadn’t been a way for her to do it.
Keith always had been so headstrong.
“That’s a lie,” Shiro says, staring up at her with false conviction. “I know you can save him, because you saved me.”
Black’s eyes brightened at the statement, cutting further into his skin and leaving him broken and raw as he pressed forward.
“You did it once.” Closing the distance between them, Shiro presses his palm against her paw as he keeps his gaze focused on her. “You can do it again.”
Beneath his fingers, he feels her come alive as she thrums with life at the suggestion.
I can do it again, paladin, she states, rolling the words around slowly in Shiro’s mind. But I only have the energy to keep one consciousness within the astral plane.
You must die, for him to live, she means. That very fact was inevitable, Shiro thinks as he looks up her and feels the despair coloring the edges of his consciousness with something dark. Saving Keith meant letting him go, and he suspects he’d always known that fact. He was meant to be dead, and Black stepping in had just given him borrowed time.
Whatever energy it took to keep him alive was just siphoning off hers, and now it was time to let go. Shiro had been given enough time and enough chances at life.
He was happy to give it all if it meant Keith would survive.
Keith had to survive.
Nodding slowly, he pressed more weight into his palm as he dropped his gaze down to his hand and where it was but a small mark against her metallic paw.
“I’ll go. Please,” he paused, swallowing down the lump that had started to burn and widen his throat before he looked back up. “Please save him.”
The sadness is a slow thing that washes over him like a tide as he experiences the emotion that isn’t his own. It’s Black’s, and it’s her way of apology. Her way of letting go.
This, was her way of giving him his end.
Yes, paladin. I will, she said lowly, dipping her head in a half formed bow before her edges started to fade with the same purple light that had encapsulated his edges for far too long.
Then, she was gone, leaving nothing more than the lingering cool of her metal against the warm skin of his palm. It’s the only goodbye he could wish to have in a place like this, yet he still feels the sting of regret that rolls across his chest.
“Do you think I’ll be able to see him one last time,” he muses to no one in particular as he waits. Though for what, he isn’t certain. The first time he had died had been filled with nothing but pain as he’d felt his very being be torn apart.
He allows himself the vain hope that this time, it would be something much more peaceful.
Mostly, he allows himself the vain hope that he will actually get to finally say goodbye.
A faint tickle dusts his skin at the thought as he hears Black’s gentle purr.
I will give you as much time as I can.
And then he’s there. Standing just before him in the astral plane with his eyes screwed shut as if waiting for an end that wasn’t going to come. It is Keith.
And he’s alive. He has been scraped up, and he looks worn. There’s a burnt mark along his cheek and he looks harder than he once did.
But he is there.
“Keith,” he hears himself breath as he takes a timid step forward, scared that even that slight movement will be too much.
“Keith,” he manages again as he watches his eyes snap open and his mouth move around a pained gasp. God, even now he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen.
“Keith.” It’s a barely there breath, but it seems to be enough as Keith starts to look around, wide eyed.
“Where are you, Shiro?” Keith demands, his voice rough with fear as he readies himself for another blow. “Show yourself!”
Shiro doesn’t miss the way his voice sounds tired and broken and it makes his chest ache.
“I know this must be confusing for you,” he continues, trying to ignore the bitter hurt that has put the younger man on edge.
“What is this place? Where are we?” Keith cried as his bayard exploded into its sword form. His answer comes in the form of silence as Shiro opens and closes his mouth around silent words. He can feel his time coming to an end, but he has to tell him.
He has to tell him everything.
“You were trying to kill me,” Keith yells into the nothingness around him as he turns again, looking through Shiro as he did. “The others, you said—”
There’s a strange tug at his skin as purple glows around him. He can feel the weight of life as it makes his limbs heavy, but mostly, he can feel the heft of Keith’s stare as he turns to face him.
He can finally see him.
Shiro can tell by the way his eyes widen in wander, as if seeing him for the first time. Can tell by the way his expression softens just at its edges as he lowers his sword at his side.
Mostly, he can see it in the shaky step he takes toward him.
This is it, paladin. My final gift, Black purrs in the distance, a barely there sound at the back of his mind as her presence is already fading from his consciousness. Panic that feels like static licks along the inside of his ribs as he feels the inevitability of his time.
He has so much he till needs to tell Keith. He has to assure him of everything. That that wasn’t him that attacked him.
But mostly, he has to say goodbye.
“I’m not here to harm you. Everyone is fine, just let me explain. The thing that attacked you wasn’t me,” he says hastily, tripping over his words as he tells Keith his truth. His truth about the fight with Zarkon, his disappearance, and most of all, his death. Shiro only allows himself a moment to pause as he sees the way Keith’s eyes widen with shock at the revelation.
“But the Black Lion somehow retained my essence,” Shiro continues, doing his best to explain as he feels the tethers that kept him tied to Black slowly snapping one by one. He didn’t have enough time.
There would never be enough time.
“Is that where we are? In the Black Lion’s consciousness?” Keith asks, taking another step toward him as his hand shakes, the motion jiggling his sword’s tip against the reflective surface they both stand on.
Opening his mouth to answer, Shiro feels a sudden snap against his sternum.
Time is up.
His mouth forms quickly around the rest of what he has to say as he tries to push on. He just needs to tell him about what happened. If he can just tell Keith that he tried to tell the others, then he can tell him the most important thing.
Then he can finally say goodbye.
The edges of his very being begin to shimmer and fade as he continues to speak, unable to stop himself until there’s nothing left of him but his echoed voice and purple flecks of starlight.
“Shiro?” He hears in the distance as light and darkness begin to twist his vision into something blinding. “Shiro!”
Goodbye, Keith.
It’s his last thought. He doesn’t get to say it, but he thinks maybe it is better off this way. If his goodbye was what he needed to exchange for Keith’s life, he would gladly do it again.
A calm presses into him, leaving him feeling nothing but warmth as everything else falls away.
And then, there is nothing at all.
***
When Shiro awakens the fourth time, it’s a very slow thing that ebbs over him in times to the cry of his name.
“Shiro.”
He hears in the distance as a light pricks the smothering darkness. It’s a barely there sound, but he hears it, and he reaches out to it.
Shiro knows that voice, and he needs to get to it.
“Shiro.” There it is again, pulling him into the light by way of force as he groggily comes to consciousness. That voice.
It’s his voice.
“Shiro!” The final cry is filled with fire and need as the light explodes around him, leaving points of white blinding him of vision, though he doesn’t even think he needs it. He knows where he’s at.
He can feel it in the soft welcoming presence that settles into his skin. Can feel it in the warmth that ground him.
Mostly, he can feel it in the burning heat of Keith’s shoulder beneath his palm.
A smile turns his lips upwards as his vision clears and leaves his focus on the man beside him. It almost feels like an apology for all he had taken from him. He wasn’t deserving of the extra time, and he didn’t know how to explain it, but he was going to take it.
He needs your help. He needs to get to the the rest of Voltron, Black’s voice was a whisper at his ear. Her presence was barely there, but it was more than enough as he felt her fighting to keep him tied to the astral plane for as long as she could.
“Keith,” he says softly as Keith looks up at him, his amethyst eyes capturing the stars that stretched above them. If he had more time, he knows he’d tell him just how much his very existence dulled those very stars. Nothing ever could compete with everything that Keith was.
But he didn’t have more time, and this, this was his existence now.
He’d lost any chance to tell him everything he needed to say.
“You can get to them,” Shiro says as he tightens his hold on Keith’s shoulder, reveling in the warmth radiating off him. “But you must see them first.”
“But how?” He asks, not once looking away from Shiro’s face. It’s almost as he’s trying to commit it to memory.
As memories weren’t all he already had left.
Turning his own gaze to look out into the distance, Shiro sees the the bright golden light of Black’s vision cresting over the horizon. It’s a rift that’s disrupting the unending eclipse, and its everything that Keith needs to get to their team.
To get to his team.
“Patience yield focus,” he murmurs, knowing that the words will lead Keith to the answers that he needs. Before them, the light begins to twist and expand, swallowing them both within its brightness and stealing his vision, leaving nothing but the impression of Keith’s soft look. Shiro’s smile widens as he feels his edges begin to fade once more back into the warm darkness.
Thank you, Shiro, Black says quietly before he’s alone once more.
This, is his existence now.
And before everything else falls away, he thinks that maybe, that’s okay.
***
When Shiro awakens the final time, it’s to a voice. But it isn’t Keith’s, and it isn’t Black’s.
It’s Allura’s, and she calling out to him.
No, she’s reaching out to him. Even in the darkness he can tell that much.
He can feel it in the way the shadows start to twist and curl around him, tickling his existence with their tendrils as they writhe.
He can feel it in the sudden awareness that has him alert to everything around him.
Mostly, he can feel it in the way his consciousness is being leeched from him as he feels his very being as it’s pulled away from him.
Fear as sharp as a knife twists itself within him as he fights against it, clutching at the darkness desperately. Then he hears it.
It’s soft, and it’s low, but it’s there.
Black.
It is time for you to go, paladin. They’re waiting for you.
Her voice is kind and filled with a lightness that is something a lot like relief.
He is waiting for you.
Her words are a final push as Shiro finally lets go and gives into the pull that drags him back into the light. Only this light is different than that in which he’s become accustomed.
It isn’t artificial, or ethereal, or that of the astral plane. It’s sunlight.
And it’s warm.
Shiro feels the heat of a palm cradling the back of his head and the weight of another against his chest, and its the first real sense of touch he’s had in so long. It burns within him until he’s certain he’s going to burn alive with it.
Moments passed as he reveled in the feeling, letting it blanket him with the thick presence of being alive until he couldn’t wait any longer.
With one final breath, Shiro opens his eyes.
***