2019 Voltron Whumptober Collection

1 Shaky Hands

Word Count: 1,256

His fingers fumbled over the lock, breaths coming out in small clouds, fingers once again dropping the small sliver of metal that had taken a total of one hour to finally find and grasp between his fingers, the piece falling to the ground with a tinkle of noise and Keith let out another frustrated breath (the action fogged up his vision for nearly thirty whole seconds before clearing) as he fumbled to pick it back up again.

It was cold.

He couldn't even begin to describe how cold it was, and now as the temperature continued to drop even further down into the negatives, every degree Keith could feel more and more of his own willpower slowly slipping away from him.

His fingers continued to shake as he managed to grasp the pin again with frozen fingers, thrusting it back into the bare lock on the wall and going at it all over again, trying to get the stupid thing to open.

He knew somewhere in the back of his mind that this- this whole trying to make it out of this freezing room alive in time- wasn't going to work.

That same part of him screamed louder at him to just get out.

Get out so he could fight to live another day, dang it.

Because if he didn't get out of here soon, Keith was more than sure he was going to be meeting death within the next hour, and as much as he over exaggerated sometimes, this was no joke.

Far from it in fact

His fingertips were already blue from the thirty minutes of being locked in, and not the barely-even-there kind of blue either, no, they were blue, like he'd dipped his fingers in paint kind of blue, the same color blue that adorned Lance's armor was now slowly turning his fingers to ice.

But maybe he was getting a tad off-topic-

It was cold-

He didn't care he- he just didn't care-

He just wanted to get out of here, cursing at himself all the while for getting into this situation in the first place-

It was stupid really. How he'd gotten himself into this whole mess. Damn whoever thought it was a good idea to put a fully functioning freezer in a Galra battle cruiser because it sure as hell wasn't going to be used to store frozen goods in.

His brain jumped to the off-topic thought of fuzzy purple space cats eating frozen pizza and he snorted. The slight improvement in mood quickly slipping away as the pin crashed to the floor again with a light tinkle, and Keith bit his lip, almost close to tears, frustration crashing like a wave through him.

Dammit.

It was his own fault for getting into this mess. Once again, his inability to look where he was headed next getting in the way of his need to escape.

It was stupid really.

He was running down halls, his gathering intel mission complete (for once), trying to get back to the dropzone before the timed Marmoran ship took off without him, and he found himself locked in a freezer instead, the Galra general standing on the other side of the thick plated glass of the door with a smirk on his lips before strolling away, hands clasped neatly behind his back, looking as if he had very successfully won the lottery.

It was ridiculous.

Bullshit.

Whatever word of complete blasphemy you could think of, please, insert it here because he was not about to go down the list of words that said how clearly messed up this whole situation was to begin with.

His hands were shaking.

He dropped the pin again.

He was getting too cold to bother cursing about it by now.

He'd tried calling for backup, of course he had, that was the first thing he'd attempted to do, but, per usual, Kolivan only urged him to find a way off the ship before he froze to death, not bothering to offer words of encouragement or even backup for that matter, just the subtle hustle of his words that Keith needed to find a way out.

But, the more and more he sat there, slowly losing feeling in his limbs, his skin growing numb with cold, the more and more he realized that no matter how hard he fought, this was going to end with a cold, lifeless body locked in a freezer of all places, lightyears away from his family and home planet.

And to be honest, after coming to that conclusion, Keith wasn't sure if he should fight for his life anymore. After all, everyone seemed to be doing fine without him, right?

Everything all fine and dandy?

Nobody missing the former red paladin that was only ever known as a failure to life and a shit leader to his team?

He only joined the Blades in the first place because that was the only option he felt like he was truly making a difference, not suffering under the exasperated looks of his team as they came back from, yet another failed mission, or the less-than-kind looks of others when they discovered team Voltron was being led by a Galran half-breed of all beings.

He was just barely holding onto that title of leader at all as it was. Only pushing through the hard looks and disappointed gazes because the universe needed him to form Voltron, they needed Voltron.

If they needed nothing else from him, heck, if they wanted nothing else from him, they at least needed him for Voltron. He'd stay with his team because he was the black paladin-

And then- Shiro came back, reclaimed his place as the black paladin, and Keith lost what little shred of reason he had left for staying.

So, here he was instead, huddled under the door, shoving what little will he had left to live in the form of a scrap of metal he'd found on the floor, into a hole that, in all honesty, probably didn't even lead to a lock in the first place, limbs growing numb, head growing fuzzy from the cold that was seeping into his very bones.

Keith finally sat back against the wall, fingers, and lip trembling, as he drew his legs up to his chest, the action doing little to ward off the cold for just a little longer as he finally accepted his own fate. Granted, he should've accepted it a long time ago, but at least now- now, he knew.

This was hopeless.

Surprisingly he was growing warmer, but he also knew why; his frostbitten body finally had enough.

He was slowly, but surely shutting down.

Screaming wasn't going to get him anywhere.

Neither was banging against the door.

Neither was hoping and praying somehow, someway, Voltron was going to split this damn ship apart and save him at the very last second.

He might as well curl up and die already.

Get it over with.

He willingly dropped the pin this time, the metal falling to the floor for the last time as he huddled into himself, his breaths coming out in thick clouds in front of his face, the cold finally numbing the last of his senses as he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. Frost and ice surrounding him, the only company he had in his final moments.

He was done fighting it.

What was the point anymore?

His hands were shaking.

But-

Nobody was coming.

So stupid of him to think anyone was.