Chapter Text
Keith slowly, carefully clicked the door to his single dorm room shut. If a single one of his floormates/best friends heard him he could say goodbye to any chance of making it to the Manor of Lions tonight. The thing was, despite his friends being pretty great, they were nosy as hell. If they caught him sneaking out of the dorm at two in the morning then he would be in deep shit. Shiro would probably do his disappointed dad routine and if he told Lance what he was up to then he would be mercilessly teased.
It was a well-known fact in their little circle of friends that Keith was into conspiracy theories, like aliens and ghosts and monsters. Although his friends were supportive of his passions (Pidge was especially fun to theorize about how the Great Pyramids of Egypt were actually built or whether the moon landing was faked), they—mostly Lance—usually poked fun at him when he would do active investigations of supernatural happenings.
Well, this was a pretty spectacular supernatural event. See, Keith was heading out to investigate the abandoned manor that lay just a few miles outside of campus. The Manor of Lions was a huge, partially burned down house that was suspected by a great deal of ghost bloggers and hunters to be one of the most haunted places in the state, and it also happened to belong to the family of his resident advisor, Allura. And despite Allura assuring that her ancestral home was not haunted and that all the rumors were just hoaxes, Keith had still decided to have a look around the manor a few weeks ago and that was when he got his proof that this was a real supernatural event. The proof was a recoding that Keith had managed to capture on his phone. On the recording you could clearly hear a voice (not Keith’s own voice, as some of his more skeptical blog followers had suggested—and yes, he did have a conspiracy theory blog and no, Lance was never, ever, allowed to find out about it). The disembodied voice could be heard whispering “Voltron” over and over. Keith wasn’t sure what this “Voltron” was but when he was standing in that manor he had known that he was over his head and needed specialized equipment.
So here he was, sneaking out of his dorm at two in the morning with all of the ghost hunting equipment stored in his backpack that he thought he needed: an EMF meter, a EVP wrist recorder, a flashlight, some purified salt, and a bit of iron piping that he had stolen years ago on another ghost investigation he’d done. As he walked quietly down the hallway he patted the pockets of his leggings to make sure he’s grabbed the keys to his red Kawasaki. Just then, he heard the door to the bathroom swing open—oh shit, he thought, please don’t be Lance.
Oh fuck, it was Lance with his stupid blue robe and dumb blue lion slippers that Hunk had gotten for him for Secret Santa last year. At least he wasn’t wearing one of his hideous face masks that made him look like Shrek. Keith froze where he was standing; hoping that Lance would be too tired to notice him but it was no use.
“Keith, buddy, what are you doing?” Lance eyed Keith’s backpack as he ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair causing Keith to resist the urge to think that Lance looked cute, which was a frankly terrifying thought, the likes of which had been happening more often than he cared to admit.
Keith tried to look as casual as possible, “I’m headed to the library to study.”
“Uh, huh.” Lance didn’t look convinced, “And you need a giant metal pipe to study? You planning on beating your textbook to death?”
Keith let out an aggravated sigh and pinched the bridge of nose—a habit he was positive he had picked up from Shiro. “Lance, can you like, not make a big deal out of this. I’m just going out so can you go back to sleep? I’ll be back in the morning, probably even before you wake up again.”
“Sorry, man. No can do.” Lance shot him one of his most irritating grins and headed towards, not his own room, but Shiro’s.
“Lance, don’t you fucking dare knock on that doo-“ It was too late, Lance was already hammering on the door. Keith grabbed his shoulder and yanked him back, “will you quiet down! Do you want to wake up Allura?” Keith snapped.
Lance’s eyes flickered to the pipe strapped to Keith’s backpack but before he could say anything in response Shiro pulled open the door. He was wearing the “#1 Space Dad” tank-top that Pidge had gotten him as a gag-gift (when questioned about the “Space Dad” part, Pidge had merely shrugged and said “Shiro likes space and acts like a dad, it seemed like the logical choice.”). The tank-top drew attention to the fact that Shiro wasn’t wearing his prostatic arm, meaning that Lance had most likely woken him up. Keith glared at the back of Lance’s head at that thought.
“Lance, what’s going on?” Shiro asked and then yawned.
“I caught Keith trying to sneak out with a metal pipe. I think he joined a gang or something? I felt like this was a dad-level emergency,” Lance said.
Shiro’s roommate, Pidge, poked their head out into the space between Shiro and the doorframe, “What? Keith decided to join a gang? I’d say I’m surprised but to be honest I’m not.” Pidge looked weirdly wide awake for how late it was but then again, they were known for not sleeping much.
“I didn’t join a gang.” Keith huffed.
“Alright but where were you going, Keith?” Shiro was using his dad voice. It made Keith want to shrink into the floor for the rest of forever.
“I was,” Keith paused. Lance had disappeared but then Keith saw him tugging a stumbling Hunk out of their shared room.
“Keith joined a gang.” Lance staged whispered to Hunk as Hunk rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“I didn’t join a gang!” Keith snapped and glared at Lance as Lance stuck his tongue out at him in retaliation. “I was going out to investigate something.”
“What were you trying to investigate in the middle of the night?” Hunk asked.
Lance squinted suspiciously at him, “Is this like the time you thought you saw Bigfoot last year and almost failed all your classes winter quarter because you kept sleeping through your alarm and not doing homework so you could tramp through the woods searching for Bigfoot shit? Oh and then we had to have that intervention—“
“Lance, shut up!” Keith growled, moving a few steps so he could get into Lance’s face, “This is nothing like that because this time I have proof! And anyway this is a haunting, not a monster sighting. There’s a difference.”
Lance leaned ever so slightly away from Keith, “uh huh. Sure.”
“Fuck off Lance.”
“How about you make me.”
“Okay, let’s not do this now,” Shiro started just as Pidge said, “Quit flirting!”
“We’re not flirting!” Lance said aghast. Keith felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment.
“Why don’t we go into Keith’s room so he can explain to us what is going on?” Shiro said, ever the reasonable dad-friend.
Shiro herded them down the hall and into Keith’s cramped single room. Keith, as room owner, took his place on the bed, Pidge perched themselves on Keith’s desk, and Shiro took his customary spot on Keith’s desk chair. Lance tried to climb onto the bed next to Keith but Keith forcefully shoved him off and Lance fell with a satisfying thud—Keith was still mad at him for tattling to Shiro. Lance, cursing and rubbing his bruised ass, took his place on the floor and Hunk, who Keith thought was far too good of a friend to Lance, sat down next to him.
“So,” Keith began, “a few weeks ago I decided to have a look around the Manor of Lions to see if there was any truth behind the rumors that it was haunted. I wandered around the burnt out parts of the building for a while before I walked into the still intact part. I think I was standing in some sort of entry room or foyer when I heard the voice. I had my phone camera running the whole time just in case I caught something—which was a good thing because you can hear the voice on the recording.” Keith paused as they all stared at him. “Do you want to hear it?” Suddenly his friends were all talking at once.
“Well, duh!” Lance said.
“Yes, I would,” said Shiro
“Of course I want to hear a recording of a ghost!” Pidge exclaimed.
“Um, I dunno…” Hunk said nervously, “I’ve never really liked ghost stories.”
Keith grabbed his backpack and rummaged through it looking for his phone but before he could pull it out his door was thrown open.
“What is going on in here? What are the five of you doing up to at almost three in the morning?” Allura took a moment to glare at each of them in turn.
“Keith was telling us about one of his ghost conspiracy theories.” Lance piped up from the floor.
Keith shot him a death glare, “it’s not a conspiracy if it’s true.”
Allura sighed and pulled the door shut behind her before leaning up against it. “Is this about the Manor of Lions? I told you that all those ghost stories were just rumors and that there weren’t any actual ghosts in the manor.”
“I know what you said but—“ Keith started to protest.
Pidge interrupted him, “Keith was just about to show us a voice recording he managed to capture in the manor.”
“You trespassed onto my family home—“ Allura began, looking vexed but Lance shushed her.
“Let him play the video already.” Lance said.
Keith finished pulling out his phone and pulled up the footage. He turned the volume as loud as it would go, everyone in the room seemed to edge closer. Pidge was practically vibrating in excitement. Keith pressed play.
There was a second of crackling static before a distinctly masculine sounding voice began to chant “Voltron” over and over—getting louder with each reputation before the footage cut out. There was a moment of silence where everyone absorbed what they had heard with varying degrees of stunned expressions.
“Well that was super creepy.” Hunk spoke up first.
“What’s ‘Voltron’?” Pidge wondered.
“I don’t know.” Keith said, his shoulders slumping. “I tried looking it up but I couldn’t find anything about it.”
“I know what Voltron is.” Allura said softly. They all turned to stare at her.
“Well?” Pidge said impatiently.
Allura sighed. “There is a story that my father told me about the Manor of Lions that his father had told him. You see, many years ago my great grandfather, the first Alfor in our family, was an accomplished business man and was extremely wealthy. However, there was another wealthy man by the name of Dominick Zarkon that thought of my great grandfather as his enemy and business rival. He apparently vowed to ruin Alfor.”
“But what does this have to do with Voltron?” Lance asked.
“Well, the story goes that Alfor had some sort of treasure that he hid inside of the Manor of Lions. This treasure was called Voltron and when Zarkon heard about this priceless treasure he, with the help of his wife who was said to be a witch, broke into the manor and tried to steal the treasure. However, he was unsuccessful and instead caught a section of the house on fire and died in the blaze—that’s where the stories of the haunting comes from, people say that Zarkon’s ghost haunts the manor. My father told me that the only way to find the treasure is by locating the lions of our family crest hidden in the house and putting them together to create a key that can be used to unlock Voltron.” Allura paused and huffed. “The story is clearly ridiculous and there is no way that it can be true.”
“Family crest?” Shiro asked, “I didn’t know you had a family crest.”
Allura pulled out her phone and flipped through some photos. She selected one and held it out so they could see. “My family crest is five different colored lions that represent our family values,”she explained. The crest showed a black lion that was in the center while the red, green, yellow, and blue lions sort of curved around it.
“The crest is pretty cool but what if that story your dad told you is true? I mean, you heard the video.” Lance said. His eyes were lighting up with excitement.
“I suppose we won’t know if it’s true unless we check it out ourselves.” Shiro said.
“We?” Keith asked.
“Of course, I’m not letting you wander around a possibly haunted house by yourself.” Shiro replied with a smile.
“I’m defiantly going, dude, and there is nothing you can do that can stop me.” Pidge said before whispering, “ghosts” excitedly under their breathe.
“I second that, if there is a chance that we’ll get to see a real life ghost then I’m in,” Lance grinned.
“And I will go as well. The Manor of Lions is my family home and as your RA I feel the need to make sure you don’t do anything too stupid.” Allura added.
Keith turned to look at Hunk who had been silent up to this point. Hunk shrugged, “I’m not really into the ghost hunting thing but you’re my friend so I’ll go for you.”
Keith felt his chest swell with gratitude. It made him happy to see all of his friends willing to go ghost hunting and share this adventure with him.
“So, when do we plan on going?” Keith asked.
“Well not tonight,” Allura said. “I can’t believe you were going ghost hunting on a school night but we can go tomorrow night because it’s a Friday. What time works best for everyone?”
“I have fencing practice until 6:30,” Keith said.
“I tutor until 6:30 too,” Shiro said.
“Hunk and I have robotics club until 7,” Pidge chimed in as Hunk nodded.
“I have volleyball practice until 7:30,” Lance said. “But it’ll probably take me a half hour to get back up here and shower afterwards.”
“That’s alright; I have an RA meeting until 8. Someone has been stealing posters.” Allura said.
“So we meet here at 8 then?” Shiro asked and everyone nodded their agreement. “Alright then, let’s go ghost hunting.”