Adrenaline

Shiro's Leadership

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't, but at least I'm not threatening to kill someone defenseless in cold blood." Lance's cheeks were flushed in anger and his eyes sharp enough to cut diamonds.

"It's for the best-," Allura started

"For you maybe!"

"-for him. It's to give him some dignity," she ended, not acknowledging Lance had said anything.

"It's murder!"

"Guys, what are you fighting about?" Hunk said hesitantly. Shiro suspected that he was worried the sharp voices would turn to him. Shiro knew that he was and he had a good seven maybe eight years on Hunk.

"Allura," Lance said and gestured to her with exaggerated big movements, "tried to turn Keith's pod off last night!"

"What!" Pidge and Hunk said as one while Shiro was speechless. Allura surely wouldn't do such a thing. She could be harsh but she wouldn't go behind their backs and do something so horrible especially while they were sleeping.

"I tried to give him peace. You only want to keep him there because you're too selfish to let him go!" She tried to defend herself but really just convinced Shiro that she would go to such an extreme behind the backs of people who were supposed to trust her.

"And you just want him gone so you can take someone else and use then as your pawns now that Keith is out of the game for too long in your liking."

"I would never think like that and I wouldn't want to be kept as some sick, organic monument if I was him!" Her eyes were flaming.

"At least we know to turn you off then, but that doesn't mean that's what Keith wants! You're really self-centered if you think everyone thinks like you!" Lance bit at her.

"At least I understand that this is bigger than just us. Without the red paladin there's no Voltron, and without Voltron we will all die," Allura reminded everyone.

The icy silence was back and seems to stretch forever before Lance once again broke the silence.

"On Earth there is a saying," he caught the princesses' interest with how completely calm and collected he sounded. It sounded almost like he was just telling someone about the weather.

Lance took a deep breath, as he looked calculating at Allura. "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." His eyes changed from looking close to pleasant to full of disgust so clear that it created a clump of ice in Shiro from just the sight of it alone. "I can see you've chosen to live long enough for that, but I would rather die than become as disgusting as you see everyone with Galra blood."

Lance wasn't good at comebacks. It didn't matter if Keith had said something to him first or he unprovoked, verbally attacked Keith, his comebacks were always weak.

However, Shiro now saw that it was just hiding someone capable of great maliciousness. Calculating and told just enough for someone to fill in the hurtful blanks themselves.

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The ship split into three groups that day. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk were against even thinking about taking Keith out of the pod. Allura was pained about the situation but she prioritized saving the Universe and therefore thought they should stop keeping Keith artificially alive and find a new red paladin as soon as possible. Shiro was too busy switching between looking at Keith's pod for hours and going as far away as possible from it to think about what he thought was best. The selfish part of him wanted to keep Keith alive and close and the logical part agreed with Allura. Well, almost agreed. He too wanted to see how good his combat skills was when he was reminded about Allura's cold reasoning of what was best for the Universe, but he did agree with her when she told Lance that maybe Keith didn't want to be kept alive for days on end.