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He thought it was hurting more than it should. Keith groaned into the deep cut in his side, his whole body feeling weak from the pain. He dared another look down to see how his injury was faring. Dark red was oozing out through his fingers where his hand had been pressed to stem the bleeding. His skin felt uncomfortable due to how his blood was sticking and beginning to dry against his fingers. He adjusted his hand slightly in an attempt to ease this feeling, but it only resulted in pain as the movement jostled the wound.
Keith gripped his teeth hard to distract himself from the unnatural pain that was spinning out from his wound, slowly spreading through his abdomen. Despite the cool metal of the wall he was leaning against, he felt hot. He just needs to hang in there a little longer. Just until Lance gets here, and then until the rest of team Voltron can extract them from this hell hole.
It only should have been a two person mission. An old Galra base on one of the planets in the coalition had started showing activity again. Lance and Keith had been sent to check the place out while the rest of the team dealt with some diplomatic meetings on another planet nearby. They suspected that there may have been some information left at the base that the Galra still found useful, and sent a soldier or two to collect it. What they didn’t expect was for the place to be swarming just below the ground levels.
They had been overwhelmed, to say the least. In a fight with a few more Galra than one should realistically be taking on at once, Keith had taken a dagger to his side. He now found himself shut in a small storage room, hiding from danger in his injured state.
His comms had been buzzing on and off the whole time, sometimes with Lance updating him on his progress, other times, Shiro or Allura doing the same. All were constantly checking in that he’s okay. And he told them the truth, except for the one thing he suspected but had no way to confirm. He hadn’t told anyone yet that he thought he might be poisoned.
There was a sound of boots on metal coming from the hallway just outside the room that Keith was in.
“Keith? Are you around here?” The voice didn’t come from over the comms. Lance was just outside.
It felt like a breath of cool air had just washed over the storage room. He opened his mouth to call back out, but he couldn’t get the breath to speak loud enough. Fuck. Keith didn’t want to think about it. Instead, he shakily raised a hand to his helmet to speak into his comm.
“Yeah, I’m here.” The pained breathiness in his voice didn’t go unnoticed. “Just give me a sec.”
Lance stopped in his tracks at Keith’s reply, holding his breath for a moment to see if he could hear anything that would indicate to Keith’s whereabouts. Some dragging feet, a deadbolt opening… There.
Lance spun around on his heels to view door that partially slid open. Keith was standing there - barely - struggling to keep himself upright at the same time he opened the door. He didn’t look too good.
Lance was at his side in an instant, moving him back into the room, locking the door once more behind them. His eyes flickered over the wound in Keith’s side for a second before he had his arms at the black paladin’s waist, helping him back down to the ground.
“Fuck…” Keith panted as he leaned back against the wall. “Getting that door open… really did a number on me huh.”
Lance kneeled in front of Keith, his eyes darting around as he thought of what to do next. “I don’t think it’s the door’s fault buddy.” Lance attempted a joking grin, but it ultimately failed. He couldn’t find it in himself to smile. Not with Keith in this condition.
“Look,” Lance began, about to state what his plan of action was.
He couldn’t say it though.
Keith suddenly curled into himself, his breath quickening. He let out a sharp grunt as if someone had just kicked him in the gut.
“Keith?” Lance leaned into the hurting boy, hoping to find some answers.
Keith just stayed there, his whole body shaking violently.
Lance reached out to awkwardly embrace Keith in his curled up position. Lance threaded his fingers into Keith’s hair, wishing he had a better way to make the pain go away. “Hey. Keith. Buddy. It’s gonna be okay.”
Keith groaned, trying to relieve himself of holding up his own body weight, slightly adjusting himself to lean into Lance. He hugged himself tighter under the embrace, trying to will the pain from his abdomen away while still applying pressure to the wound.
This was bad and he knew it. He’d sadly had his fair share of knife wounds in the past, but this felt like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He needed to find the energy to express this fear to Lance, but when he opened his mouth to speak, words weren’t what came out.
Lance didn’t know what to do when Keith started hacking, his coughs violent and wet. Keith had suddenly thrashed his body in order to find a position more comfortable, throwing his hands up to his mouth to cover the coughs. Each one sounded more painful than the last, with Keith gasping for air in between. All Lance could do was rub his back until it subsided.
He ran his fingers firmly up and down the back of the doubled over boy, muttering “it’s gonna be okay.” Keith glanced up at him shortly, making eye contact, searching for some truth in Lance’s words before returning back to another violent cough.
As the coughs made their way to their end, Lance gently grabbed Keith’s arm, placing it back at his waist to ensure the wound had pressure on it. Keith’s face was now streaked with blood. Lance hoped that it was just from his wound, and that he didn’t cough any up. But the sound of wetness in the coughing wouldn’t leave Lance’s mind.
“Keith.” Lance started again, back on track to before the coughing fit started. “I’m gonna have to remove your armour to get a better look at this cut.”
Keith weakly nodded, relaxing the muscles in his shoulders to the best of his ability so Lance could maneuver his arms around, sliding off the plates of armour. After sliding the chest piece off up and over Keith’s head, Lance cautiously reached his hand round to the back of Keith’s neck to unzip his flight suit.
Keith was almost grateful that his suit was removed down to his waist. The head he was feeling from before hadn’t gone away. Being open to the air allowed a bit of relief to the fever.
Lance gasped at the sight of the wound in full. A large bright purple bruise had formed around the incision, branching out to veins showing through the skin, red and angry.
“Keith?” Lance exclaimed, his voice hushed as if he really didn’t want to speak.
Keith hummed weakly in response. Lance didn’t need to say anything. Just from the look on his face, Keith knew that his suspicions were true. He nodded at Lance, communicating this, before closing his eyes tight with the pain.
“The others… They’ll be here soon.” Lance spoke, not really sure who he was trying to convince with his words.
Keith’s breathing grew hitched again for a moment, and Lance shuffled closer to him, afraid he’d start coughing again. Thankfully or not though, it wasn’t that this time.
Keith froze as he felt a sharp pain begin to spin throughout his entire body. He violently threw a hand out, gripping into Lance’s shoulder at an attempt to ground himself before he lost himself entirely to pain. In a moment, Keith’s body started to convulse, threatening to collapse.
Lance sprung to action, firmly wrapping his arms around Keith, moving him as quickly as he could so he could support his whole body weight. He didn’t even care anymore about the hand gripping his shoulder all too tightly.
He’d never seen Keith like this before. Keith was crying out, practically whining in pain between his haggard and shallow breaths. Lance could feel the heat radiating off of him even through his own armour.
Once Lance knew Keith was supported and wasn’t going to collapse into some dangerous position, he allowed his hands to return to rubbing circles into Keith’s back, trying to comfort him as best he could.
Keith let out a pained cry, louder than the previous, as something shocked his system unpleasantly.
“Shhh.” Lance silently hushed him. His fingers continued to massage into Keith’s back, one hand trailing up until it found his hair. He lightly began to comb through the ends of Keith’s locks.
“See if you can focus on me, okay?” Lance spoke softly. “I need you to breath and calm down.”
Lance feared that Keith might’ve had one of these attacks of pain before he arrived. He couldn’t bear to think of Keith’s panic, not alone. Especially not with whatever foreign substance was moving through his system. A fast heartbeat only made the venom spread quicker. He needed Keith to calm down.
A now restrained groan left Keith’s lips, and Lance rested his head down against his. “Hey, I got you. Just focus the best you can, okay?”
“O-okay.” Keith muttered.
With that, Lance began to gently drum his fingers onto Keith’s back, painting out a beat for him to breath along to. From his thumb to his pinky and back again, he kept and even time, lining his own breath up with it too. He hoped with all his might that Keith would pick up on one of these cues.
It was hard going. Each time Keith seemed to be matching his breath, it was replaced by a shockwave of pain tormenting his whole system. Lance just held him a little tighter, shushed his tears away, and kept drumming the beat.
Their rescue was gladly welcomed when it came. And now, Lance found himself standing strongly by Keith’s side in the Black Lion as Coran looked him over.
Shiro had been allowed to pilot once more, the Black Lion being thankful for his help while Keith was incapacitated.
Coran had set up the old healing pod that was located in Black, but he wasn’t sure how it would deal with the poison. It came in handy in emergencies, such as when Shiro’s mind nearly rejected the clone body, and especially now that the castle ship was gone, but it was old and outdated in a few ways.
Coran stared at a device in his hand that had scanned a sample of Keith’s blood. It was searching for the identity of the harmful substance in his system, so Coran would be able to select the right antidote.
It was taking longer than Lance would’ve liked.
Lance held Keith’s hand in his own, uncaring of how clammy it was. He regretted not being able to do more in this moment.
Suddenly, Coran spun around, heading to a small storage unit next to the old healing pod. A quiet exclamation of victory was exuded as he pulled a tiny glass jar out of one of the drawers. He filled up the syringe held in his other hand, and moved over to Keith.
“This should do the trick,” Coran sighed in relief, look towards Lance as he prepared the injection. “I’ll give him this, then we can put him in the pod to keep him stable while it clears out of his system.”
Keith lazily moved his head to look at Coran and Lance more directly. Lance smiled back at him, knowing that no more waves of pain would overtake him.
Lane let go of his hand and took a few steps forward, so he was close enough to brush the sweat ridden hair off of Keith’s forehead. Coran strolled to Keith’s other side to give him the antidote.
Lance couldn’t help but smile just a bit more. They made it, and Keith was going to be perfectly okay.
Keith moved as if he wanted to say something, but all that came out was a tiny murmur of pain, possibly in response to the needle entering his arm.
“It’s okay.” Lance crooned, “We made it, it’s over. You’re okay.” His last words were more of a whisper than anything else.
Lance continued to lace his fingers through Keith’s hair until the black paladin was drowsy from the drugs and it was time to put him in the healing pod.
Keith eventually woke up, although aching and tired, surrounded by the smiles of his teammates, the smiles of his family.