I don't own Voltron.
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"Dismissed."
The bluntness of Shiro's voice makes everybody's shoulder's droop, even Keith's. Lance watched as the older boy sighed and crouched, picking up his jacket and trying to pull it on. He ran over to help, but Shiro stopped him. He stared at Shiro in confusion, Keith was obviously struggling!
"Keith, stay behind, Lance, get out of my sight." He flinched away from Shiro, at the anger his tone carried and looked hopelessly at Keith as the korean teen sighed and lowered his head. Lance bit his lip and hurried out the training room, heading towards blue, not realising Shiro had locked the door from the inside.
After sitting with blue and letting her sooth his doubts he headed to the kitchen to help with Hunk with tea. Tonight was some alien pasta type stuff with the space goo, as the castle had limited supplies at the moment.
"Hey dude, can I help you?" He asked as he waltzed in the room. Hunk nodded as he stirred the pasta stuff and added a weird leaf thing.
"Yeah, can you, if possible, get plates out and sort the cutlery out please?" The larger boy replied, slightly distracted with his task. Lance nodded and eagerly set about with his task, leaving seven plates on the side for Hunk when he served, and separating the cutlery into knives and sporks. Once he was done, he leant against the wall as Hunk laid the pasta down on the plates and started carrying them too the food goo station.
"I'll go tell the others that you're serving up!" He chirped, and, at Hunk's nod, he danced back out, heading to the control area to tell Allura and Coran.
"Guys, Hunk's got food ready." He called, and the two alteans turned to look at him.
"Thank you, Lance." Allura said gracefully. Coran echoed her and they both walked towards the kitchen. Lance then headed towards Pidge's room. The youngest paladin answered the door before he could knock and tilted her head too the side.
"Dinner?" She guessed with a slight smirk. Lance huffed and nodded, stepping to the side so that she could get passed. She chirped out a "thanks" as she skipped towards the kitchen.
'Right, that leaves Keith and Shiro.' He thought too himself as he headed towards the training room. As he got closer he could hear Shiro shouting and then broke out into a run, worried that something was wrong. He reached the door and almost ran into Shiro, who had just finished talking too Keith.
"Hey! Dinner's ready!" He said looking up at Shiro. The older man smiled and walked past after thanking him. That left Keith, who looked dead on his feet.
"Babe? You ok?" He asked carefully, and got a nod from Keith. Lance hummed and grabbed the older boy's hand, easily interlocking their fingers and making the paler teen smile.
"Let's go get some food, yeah?" He asked, and Keith nodded. They walked in silence too the kitchen, where the others were waiting. The whole time, Keith was silent, which was quite unusual for when the two boys were alone. "Are you ok?" Lance finally asked after observing the way Keith seemed to duck his head and how he was limping ever so slightly. The korean boy jumped and nodded.
"Why wouldn't I be?" He asked, tilting his head slightly to the left. Lance hummed and kissed his forehead, quickly dismissing the thought from the front of his mind.
"No reason, you just looked deep in thought." He said. Keith looked slightly suspicious but shrugged and they carried on walking to the kitchen. Keith was still quiet though, and Lance idly wondered if it had something to do with Shiro. When they arrived at the kitchen, Keith seemed too loosen up more and started talking happily too Pidge as he got himself some food. Lance couldn't help but feel that Keith was hiding something, putting on a facade to fool the others. He wasn't buying it. Neither was Shiro from the look of it.
After getting his own plate Lance was quick to sit next to Keith, so that he had Pidge on his left and Lance on the right. Keith seemed quite happy to talk about Pidge's new robot invention, and even offered to help. Lance hastily volunteered too, making Pidge pull a face.
"I'll have to deal with both of you being all lovey-dovey? Disgusting." she joked, grinning while she spoke. Keith nodded somewhat gravely while Lance watched the interaction between his boyfriend and his sister figure. He was glad that Keith was finally coming out off his shell more, but still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about the korean boy. He shrugged and took another bite, he'd ask after tea.
After tea was finished he stood up and Keith was quick to follow him. It was Hunk's night to do dishes so they both put them next to the thing that they all used as a sink. He then headed towards the corridor with Keith on his heels.
"Keith, you still need to finish training." Shiro had too stood up, and was looking directly at Keith. Lance looked confused and Keith frowned.
"But he's already trained today!" Pidge said looking inbetween Keith and Shiro with wide hazel eyes.
"He just needs to perfect this techinque I've showed him. " Shiro said, staring at Keith still.
"But Shiro I-" Keith started but Shiro banged his hand on the table, making the indigo eyed boy flinch.
"You said whatever it takes, are you really going to just walk away?" Shiro growled and Keith hung his head, looking ashamed.
"... No..." he replied. He turned to Lance. "Can you wait for me at my room? I shouldn't be too long." He said, looking up at Lance, who nodded slowly, moving too the side to let the older boys past. He contemplated following them but decided that he didn't want to piss Shiro off, so he dejectedly trudged to his boyfriends room, ignoring the urge to follow them
If only he'd gone with his gut decision to follow them.
'Not long' turned into four hours. During that time Lance had slept and woken up, gotten a snack and a drink, and walked past the training room more times than he could count. He was drifting when the door slid open, making him jump. He jumped off Keith's bed and moved towards the doorway. He was ready to yell at the boy, not catch him as he collapsed.
"Keith!" He cried, a little too loudly because Pidge was next to him a minute later. She looked Keith over with worried eyes and then thought for a minute.
"Lance, get him inside on his bed, and try and figure out what happened, I don't think that this is exhaustion." She said, sounding serious.
"What are you going to do?" He asked, not looking up as he carefully moved the smaller boy into a better position to be picked up.
"I'm getting Hunk, Coran and Allura, but not Shiro, I have a feeling that he's part of the reason Keith is like this." She admitted, then turned and sprinted down the hall. Leaving Lance sitting in the hallway with his unconscious boyfriend cradled in his arms.
After a minute he shook himself and picked Keith up, swiftly moving him onto his bed and then starting to take his jacket off. He was halfway done when Pidge pushed the others in and locked the door. There was some confused grumbling then the light was flicked on.
Hunk was the first to realise where they were and who was lying on the bed. He gasped and hurried over to the couple on the bed.
"What happened?" He asked. Lance shrugged and carried on taking Keith's left arm out of his jacket. Hunk sighed and turned back to Pidge.
"Where is Shiro?" Allura asked, looking around. Pidge took a deep breath and started to explain what she thought happened. Lance tuned her out, instead choosing to brush Keith's hair off his forehead. Under the light, Lance could see the bruises that were starting bloom across Keith's cheek and around his eye. He sighed and grabbed his hand, holding it gently, as if he was afraid it would break or cause Keith more pain.
"Lance?" Allura's call made him blink and look up. The others seemed yo be in agreement over something but he didn't know what.
"Huh?" He said, confused.
"Coran thinks it would better to put Keith in a pod, so that he can heal quickly, and Pidge can also look through the security tapes to find out what happened." She explained and Lance nodded numbly, moving and easily picking Keith up, Coran making sure that Keith was as comfortable as he could be before they headed to the infirmary.
It was only a short trip and Keith was quickly put in a pod. Lance still remembered how badly bruised the skin had been. It made his blood boil. He sat down next to the pod as Pidge started looking through the security camera. It didn't take long to find out what had happened.
Watching Shiro force Keith to work till he couldn't stand then kick him around made Lance's anger worse. He grit his teeth and stood up, ready to demand to know what Shiro had been thinking doing that to his younger brother. He forced himself to stop and look back at the boy who was suspended in the pod. Keith probably wouldn't want him to yell at Shiro.
He stepped away from the door and put his hand on the pod, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before turning and looking at the others.
"Coran, when does he come out of the pod?" He asked, turning to look at the moustached alien.
"Half a varga, my boy." He responded. That meant half an hour, give or take. He nodded and looked at Pidge.
"When Keith gets out then we need to ask him what happened, as far as I know, Shiro would never do that to anyone, Keith especially." He said and Pidge nodded. "Can you scan the castle for anything that could of gotten in and messed with him?" Pidge nodded and cracked her knuckles. Lance turned to Allura. "Allura, can you do a magical scan, see if that has anything to do with it?" Allura nodded, and Lance turned to Hunk. "My dude, were gonna be up late, can you help with that?" He smiled slightly as Hunk nodded.
"What shall I do?" Coran asked, eager to help, Lance thought for a minute.
"Keep an eye on Keith and keep Shiro out if possible." He finally decided and Coran nodded.
"Lance, what will you be doing?" Allura asked.
"I'm going to help Hunk and Pidge." He said.
"I'll alert you all when Keith wakes up." Coran said, and everyone else nodded before hurrying off to do the job that they had been assigned.
Pidge had just finished the scan when Coran said that Keith was going to be coming out of the pod soon so Lance thanked the youngest paladin and ran back to the infirmary, just as the pod opened. Coran caught Keith and Lance was right there too pull the confused paladin into a tight hug. He felt hesitant arm wrap around him and the shaky sigh as all the tension left Keith's body.
"You're ok babe..." he muttered. Keith nodded against his shoulder and mumbled something quietly.
"What?" He asked, pulling away so he could see Keith. Watery indigo hues looked right back as Keith took a deep breath.
"I said... that wasn't Shiro..." He replied.
"What makes you say that?
"Shiro doesn't have yellow eyes..."
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Uhm... this is kind of an AU where after they got 'Shiro' back in season three the Lions went back too their original paladins, but it was actually a galra which Haggar made to look like Shiro.