VOLTRON ONE-SHOTS

Keith - Ghost pt. 2

At this point, he and Allura could be twins with how out-of-it they looked. The princess had turned to the coalition as an attempt to smother the deep-rooted feeling of loss that had taken hold. She would spend entire days in the castle bridge, piloting where they needed to go and reaching out to any neighboring planets willing to join Voltron in the fight against the Galra, every inch of her going non-stop until the early hours of the morning when she'd finally collapse into Shiro's vacant chair, silent streaks of pain running down her cheeks before getting back up hours later to start all over again.

The princess pushed off any form of help from the team, including Lance, who'd often spend his time running around in an attempt to keep their crumbling team together. He'd tuck a blanked over Pidge's shoulders when she fell asleep, coax Hunk to take just a few hours off to rest, and bring food up to the castle bridge to gently remind Allura she still needed to eat.

Lance was doing everything Shiro could only try to do.

He was holding his family as tight as he could.

He did his best to keep Keith from fading.

But even the blue paladin couldn't keep the teen from striking it out on his own when no one was looking; taking the red lion again and again back to the same place Shiro had disappeared, exhausted eyes searching for the smallest shred of evidence that the black paladin was still alive.

But-

He wasn't.

Shiro himself could vouch for that.

He was right here.

Every step Keith took, every tear that ran its way down pale cheeks, Shiro was right there for it all unable to comfort, unable to do anything but watch his brother fall apart, neglecting to eat and pushing away any offer of help from the other paladins to comfort him in his loss.

It was painful enough just to watch.

Shiro couldn't imagine being in the teen's shoes.

He couldn't describe the guilt that began to bubble at the thought of betraying his promise to Keith to stick around after coming back from his Galran captivity. The teen had placed so much trust in him after coming back and it hurt Shiro in more ways than he could describe knowing he'd been the one to break him in a way no one ever could, in a way no one ever should.

He fingered the edge of the photograph again, watching his thumb travel through the frayed corner before going back and doing it again.

If he focused hard enough he could almost feel the paper under his fingertips.

It'd been a few hours since Keith came back from his latest search. Shiro could still hear the tell-tale sound of water running through the shower, along with the faintest sound of muffled sobs coming from the bathroom, a sure sign Keith was using the excuse of a shower to not be seen by the rest of the castle's inhabitants while the grief consumed him.

Shiro, meanwhile, sat on his brother's bed, attempting to come up with some genius next step in his plan to be seen.

As you can probably tell, it wasn't really going all that well.

His fist clenched at the bubbling frustration forming in the pit of his gut-

Oh, and another thing-

Despite the clear fact that he couldn't eat and didn't really have to breathe anymore, he could still feel everything he could when he'd been alive, like butterflies in his stomach, the still-felt solidness of his own skin-

It was disorienting to know that all of those physical feelings were still there, but the actual cause or source of said feelings and discomfort seemed to have vanished the moment he disappeared from the black lion-