VOLTRON ONE-SHOTS

Keith - Like Glass

Keith raised a hesitant brow at the explanation, a fuzzy image of what she was meaning materializing in his head, all of them looking like cracked porcelain dolls dressed in alien armor, but it was Shiro who spoke up to the silence, Keith only crossing his arms tighter across his chest trying not to look so freaked out by the 'new' requirement of a paladin placed in front of them- "So you'll be turning us into glass?"

"Well, I don't know what this glass of yours is, but if it's stronger than gartubulix steel and withstands the weight of nearly decphelion transufics than you're on the right track!" Coran's overly peppy voice replied.

"Does- does it hurt?"

"Yes, you paladins are in for a quite deal of pain-" the advisor's voice dropped a few octaves.

Hunk squeaked at that.

"-But, this is quite a treat! This was considered at great honor back in my day. Only wealthy Alteans could afford to undergo such a process, and to think, all five paladins undergoing the procedure at once, it will be quite exhilarating, to say the least!" He looked about as excited about the impending doom as they felt uneasy.

"How does the procedure take place actually?"

"It's quite simple number five," Coran straightened, thumbing the collar of his shirt as he turned to the green paladin. "It consists of a high technological liquid that's injected just under the skin in various places-"

If Keith didn't know Hunk had a deathly fear of needles, he knew now.

"- the fluid will harden under a cooling process, spreading into one continuous plate. The hardened product is virtually unbreakable and will only act unless there is force applied to the body."

"That-" Shiro broke off with a frown, gathering his words, "that doesn't sound all that bad actually-"

"Ah, ah, ah, number one, it's the after-effects that cause the real conundrum. Since your frail human bodies can't stand the extreme low temperatures required to complete the process quickly I'm afraid you five will have to undergo the hardening without the aid of the pods. I believe you're all in for a very painful night."

All air was sucked out of the room at that. Lance's near-silent "What?" squeaking around the room, and Keith could catch wide blue eyes out the corner of his vision while Keith's head was going about a million miles a minute.

This- this was gonna be fun.

And that was putting it lightly.

...

Fast forward a few hours and Keith was stumbling out of a pod, head still fuzzy with antiseptic skin tingling uncomfortably. He bit back a sneer as Coran's voice, once again, echoed through the room. Something about "free to go" and "lay down" shot painfully loud in his ears, but he got the just of it, no longer finding the need to pay attention to the conversation, instead moving on to getting himself to focus enough on the castle infirmary to finally wake enough to move, willing his ears to stop ringing.

Thankfully he wasn't that much out of it to land face-first onto the floor, thank God because there was no one to catch him as he stumbled out, everyone else much in the same shape, stumbling out of the pods, and rubbing tired eyes that refused to focus on the room in front of them.

A light groan escaped his lips, pale fingers rubbing again at his eyes, and he jumped as a gentle hand landed on his back, his skin lighting up with a tingling numbness that sent his skin on fire and it hurt.

Keith clenched his teeth when the hand backed off after him stiffening nearly stone still at the touch, Hunk's quickly mutter apology only making his ears ring more and dammit, how can the guy still function?