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They fell through the wormhole together.
He saw the Red Lion fall through the sky, felt his own Lion rumble under and around him, every instinct screaming at him to stop his own freefall. His body didn’t move. He was detached. And watching Keith fall.
Keith hadn’t stopped falling when the Black Lion wrested control back from him and halted their plummet, just above the edge of the trees on whatever green lush planet whose atmosphere had claimed them and whose gravity had brought them crashing down.
Shiro lost sight of Keith and waited. The Red Lion will break the surface of the trees soon, he thought. He’ll see them both soon. It’s going to be fine.
Something exploded, far too close to where he last saw Red and Keith. His body went cold and the Black Lion shuddered and roared. He automatically began considering what the elements made up the atmosphere, what would make the explosion so much bigger than he hoped the source was. It took him a second to realize that the falling sensation he felt was because he was actually falling, his Lion stuttering and stopping, lights fighting to stay on.
Damaged, said the part of his mind that was still the man the Garrison trained him to be. Exhausted, said the part of his mind that was connected to his Lion.
“Hold on,” he begged aloud as he tried to navigate the trees into somewhere that he could land in something resembling a clearing, still too small for his Lion to fit well. Every brush of a tree sent shockwaves through his body, a response to his Lion’s reaction at the impacts. Sooner and harder than he would have liked, the Lion hit the ground and shuddered to a halt, ruts in the muck left in their wake. The Lion slumped as if all the life had left it.
“Rest up, buddy,” Shiro said, patting at the wall before he pressed the button that would allow him to exit. “Really hope the air is breathable here.” About that time, the sensors in his suit bleated at him, indicating that it was a nitrogen-heavy environment but overall breathable.
“Explains the trees,” he muttered as he stepped out of his Lion and looked up at the trees that towered above him, neon green trunks showing signs of twisting as it grew. The lowest leaf looked like it was at least the size of Voltron’s head. He tried to find either the planet’s sun or any of the moons that he passed on his way to the surface but couldn’t see through the foliage.
He set off in a direction that he hoped was towards where Keith went down. His lungs were taking issue with the nitrogen in the air and he had aches and bruises everywhere from the rough landing and the fight with the Galra. He ignored it, just as he was trained to, in order to complete his mission: find Keith. In whatever shape he might be in.
As he walked, he shoved down at worry. His brain wasn’t keen on cooperating, filling his head with images of the Red Lion trashed, of Keith broken and bloody, of Galra overrunning the universe with Voltron unable to form without its sword arm.
It was the image of Keith he kept going back to, the image of him taking his last breath alone. Shiro had to stop, had to lean on the trunk of a tree wider than his body was long to calm his own ragged, shallow breathing. His heart pounded in his ears and something uncomfortably close to despair sat like a lead weight in his stomach. But he pressed on, tried his best to ignore his emotional response and take in the foreign landscape around him.
He’d been walking a little over an hour, as best as he could tell time on a foreign planet when he couldn’t even see the sky, when he heard voices. They were raised and urgent, not quite frantic. He could soon see the dark orange light of fire flitting through the trees.
Shiro was running flat out towards the flames before he even registered it. The voices grew louder and he could make out the cadence of individuals, if not the language they spoke. He came to a stop in a clearing, significantly larger than the one that housed his Lion. He could see at least a two miles across and maybe another in the other direction. The flames were coming off a felled tower, bent metal and sparks surrounding a bulbous top that poured a deep purple liquid that glugged across the ground, spreading fire with every passing second. People with emerald green skin and small fragile-looking wings, each about as tall as him and some even taller, were yelling at each other and tossing a red dust on the flames with little effect.
Not Red. Not Keith. The fire wasn’t them.
There, just past the twisted tower, was the Red Lion, leaning precariously between two trees but still in one piece. He ran again, around the tower, around the green people who were now yelling at him in their language that was still beautiful in anger. He ran toward the Lion, towards the mass of people who hovered in between the flames and the Lion.
He pushed through the crowd, trying to get to the Lion. He couldn’t see past them, as tall as they all were to see if he could glimpse Keith or even if there was damage to the Lion that he couldn’t see from far away.
Shiro finally broke through the crowd and saw that familiar red jacket. He barreled into Keith, barely slowing his speed. The impact knocked Keith’s breath out in an audible exhale and Shiro pushed Keith back by his shoulders to really look at him, checking him for injuries.
“Shiro,” Keith said, relief evident in his voice as Shiro noted the cut by his eye, the blossoming bruise on his neck, and the way he leaned the majority of his weight on his right foot.
“Are you all right?” Shiro asked, voice low and urgent. Keith nodded.
“I lost track of you when we fell. Where’s your Lion?” he asked.
“Safe,” Shiro answered. “You… I saw the explosion.” Keith rubbed at his neck a little sheepishly.
“Yeah, I hit the tower. I guess that fight with Zarkon took more out of me than I figured. Out of both of us.” He glanced back at his Lion. “I couldn’t keep Red under control. And it was barely responding to me before that.”
“But you’re all right? You both are?” Shiro pressed. Keith nodded again.
“Yeah. I’m pretty sure it’s mad at me but neither of us are too banged up.” Shiro looked, really looked at Keith’s rueful expression, and laughed. Of course he’d be more embarrassed that he crashed and his Lion was mad at him than worried about being on a strange planet. Adapt and survive but never let your skills slip. Keith never changed. Shiro huffed a laugh, part amusement but mostly relief, as he pulled Keith into a hug. Keith tensed up at first but let Shiro hold him, cybernetic hand gently cradling Keith’s skull. Keith pressed his forehead to Shiro’s chest and sighed deeply, his shoulders drooping.
“I’m glad you found me,” Keith said, voice muffled. Shiro let go and Keith pulled his head up, glancing at their audience. “I’m pretty sure they’re pissed I wrecked their tower and crash-landed on their planet. But I haven’t been threatened yet. At least not with weapons. They could be verbally expressing all the terrible ways they mean to end me but I can’t understand a word.”
Shiro laughed again. “All right. Let’s go see if we can’t find a way to keep the peace.”