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Keith stirred, blinking his eyes open blearily as he wondered what had woken him. The room was quiet, there were no sounds to disturb his rest, Shiro out cold beside him. It was one of those rare times he actually slept, and when he did, it took quite a bit to wake him, besides his normal internal clock telling him to do so.
Sighing, Keith shifted, trying to find a more comfortable position. He moved closer to Shiro, seeking his natural warmth, when he encountered something cold and jerked back.
What?
It took Keith’s sleep addled mind longer than he would have liked to realize it was just Shiro’s arm, the cold metal having been left to the chill of the room when it escaped the blanket. Without either of their body heats to warm it, the unnatural metal had practically turned to ice. Keith shivered.
He reached out a hand, tracing the grooves in the metal, wondering just how much Shiro could even feel with it. It wasn’t like any machinery he’d seen before, and from when he’d seen it active, it depended on the same dark purple energy that was commonly seen in Galra ships. A mix of science and magic, the likes of which couldn’t be found on Earth… yet.
Keith gritted his teeth, remembering the importance of their mission. If they failed, if Voltron failed, Earth would be next in Zarkon’s string of conquests. Not that there’d be much to go back to anyway, after this would all be said and done. Not for him.
Anything important to him, besides perhaps the shack he’d lived in back on Earth, was currently in this very room, the most important of them all sleeping next to him. When he’d vanished, there’d been no point to… well, anything really. The Garrison was just another empty place where people who couldn’t care less about him thought they could tell him what to do. He’d drifted then, anchorless until Shiro had reappeared.
But he’d come back changed.
Signs of torment and abuse riddled his body and mind, the most apparent of which, at least to Keith, was the replacement of his arm. Scars like the one on Shiro’s face hatch-marked the skin where it met Galra tech, and while those certainly weren’t the only ones, they were the deepest, grooves sunk into flesh.
Shuddering, Keith kept his hand from wandering to them, instead running his fingertips over the black material at the inner arm that stretched to allow movement. Shiro said they didn’t hurt. Not anymore. Keith wasn’t sure if he believed him, or if he’d simply grown so used to it that he didn’t recognize it anymore.
But what could have caused this? What sort of sick—
Keith already had the answer, though. Or most of one. They’d made him a gladiator. A champion. Someone they could watch fight to the death for entertainment. But why bother fixing a toy they could have just replaced? Keith was grateful, to be sure, that Shiro was still alive and with him now… but why would the Galra Empire show any form of mercy?
Unless it hadn’t been necessary.
The realization was a punch in the gut. The arm was a weapon, and a tool. It closely mirrored the one Sendak had been sporting, and if they were considered stronger with the enhancements…
Keith shook his head, not wanting his mind to follow that thought any further. What had happened out there was enough to darken Shiro’s gaze, to haunt him at any given moment and interrupt his daily life. Keith wasn’t sure he ever wanted to know the specifics, and wondered if perhaps having forgotten everything hadn’t been some sort of blessing in disguise.
It was odd, though, the way the arm worked. It was supposed to be a weapon, and Keith had seen it slice through enemies with ease, but it didn’t hurt him. In its dormant state he could understand that. So long as force wasn’t being applied, the empty metal was like any other machine.
But when activated, Keith had expected something different.
Shiro had been so afraid to touch him with it, but the purple light had a bad habit of showing up whenever Shiro got worked up.
The first time had been an accident. Hands resting on Keith’s waist, eyes closed, lost in the frenzy of kisses, he hadn’t noticed the purple glow until Keith had gasped unexpectedly. Fear had consumed his expression, and it had taken fast talking and reassurances to get Shiro to just look where he’d touched him.
In the dim light of the room, it had been difficult to tell, but there was no burns, no pain, no mark besides the darker area of skin in the shape of Shiro’s hand. It could have easily been a bruise or mark from his not unsubstantial grip, but Keith had had to explain again and again that it hadn’t hurt.
It had felt… good.
There was a rightness to it that Keith hadn’t expected upon activation, a sample of the same comfort Shiro offered him through his presence. He couldn’t quite describe it. Come morning, the mark had gone, and that was that. Shiro’s arm wouldn’t hurt him.
But Keith still didn’t like it. Not when it represented the unneeded pain Shiro had suffered in the year of his absence. The Galra, and all they created, were a disease, and no one would truly be safe until Voltron ended them.
Keith sighed, letting his hand fall to the bed, leaving Shiro’s arm be for now. It was what it was… there was no changing it now.