Chapter Text
The air on the planet is thick with humidity and the soft hum of insects.
Above, elongated trees link to construct a canopy that shelters the jungle, allowing only a few pockets of natural skylight through its seems. A stream of fluorescent green liquid travels down a slope, various colors and contortions of fish and creatures alike jumping from the pool with ease. The dirt is a soft, brownish hue, painting the ground with a layer of thin dust.
Keith sighs, crouching down to examine a plant that’s particularly strange among the rest. Its charcoal black, the stem brisk and littered with razor-sharp thorns that stick out of its spine like the quills of a sea urchin. Its leaves outstretch nearly four or five inches from the head, reaching out wiry fingers to brush against Keith’s own armoured leg. The centerpiece itself, a glorious orange flower like the mane of a fearsome lion, gleams in the sun, memorizing, luring the boy’s gaze with a single wink.
He blinks, retracting slightly before pulling out a crumpled piece of paper. Eyes scanning down the page, pupils dilating and constricting in time with the sun’s presence, he searches for a snapshot of the plant. There’s an orange flower with petals that look wilted and dead, a pink bush with unborn buds, and a yellow, almost sphere-like creature.
At the bottom of the second page--the very last plant-- his gaze catches on a black, coiled up flower. Furrowing his brows, he sets down the paper, then, using a fallen stick from an overhead branch, pokes at the malleable plant. Sure enough, it contracts, wrapping around itself like a mother holds her frightened child.
He places a gloved hand at the plant’s stem, tugging it from the ground with one swift motion. It complies, roots and all, left dangling in his fingertips.
He shoves it into the clear bag Coran had supplied then, pressing a hand to his helmet, says into his comms, “I got it.”
There’s a huff on the other line. “Finally,” Lance snorts, a static hint of frequency brushed on his words.
Keith rolls his eyes. “It’s not my fault the plant was so fucking hard to find.”
There’s a gasp. “Keith, language!” Shiro scolds.
“Sorry.”
Lance snickers.
“Fuck off, Lance,” Keith retorts, face creasing in exasperation. At this point he’s already begun walking toward Red, sand crunching under his boots as he trudges through the jungle.
“Keith!”
“You fuck off.”
“Lance!”
“Can you guys shut up? My ears hurt,” Pidge hisses.
Shiro takes a long breath. “So, that means we’re ready to go?” he asks after a moment. “Everyone’s got their plant?”
“Yes, Shiro,” Pidge says with a voice that drips vexation. “For the last time, everyone’s got their plant.”
Lance giggles again, fractions of his voice cut out by the overhang of trees.
Shiro sighs. “Just making sure. If we don’t get all of Coran’s supplies he’s gonna make us come back.”
“No way in hell,” Hunk shudders. “We’ve been here for hours.”
Shiro lets out a chuckle. “Feels like it.”
~
“Hey, Keith?” Lance asks, breaking the silence.
They’d been walking for some time now, the sun long lost behind the clouds.
Keith narrows his eyes. “Yes, Lance,” he responds, apathetic.
“Sheesh,” Lance retorts. “I was just gonna ask how many plants you got.”
Keith frowns. “Uh… one.”
There’s a pause. “Oh,” Lance says when the red paladin doesn’t elaborate. “I got two.” A smirk’s evident in his voice.
Keith grunts. “Good for you, Lance,” he jeers.
“I, uh,” Pidge starts. “I actually got two, too.”
“Me too,” says Hunk, meekly. “Extra, y’know?”
Keith nods, regardless of the fact that they can’t see him. “Shiro?” he asks.
“I also got two, buddy. Just in case,” Shiro replies.
Keith sighs. “Should, uh, should I get another?”
“I’d just keep your eyes open,” responds Shiro. “No need to go out of your way.”
“Okay.”
Keith allows his eyes to sweep across the landscape, scanning the dirt.
Nightfall is beginning to set in, the last remnants of dawn painting the underbellies of clouds a soft orange. The hum of bugs has amplified, but the humidity has long fizzled out, leaving the air cold and stale.
He shivers, running criss-crossed arms over his biceps. The dirt under his soles sinks under his weight, tugging his ankles slightly with each step.
His gaze catches on a patch of blue flowers and he grins. “No wonder you found your plant so early, Lance. They’re everywhere.”
Lance’s breath hitches from the other line. “Plants. With an ‘s.’ Plural,” he corrects, matter-of-fact. “And whatever, Keith. At least I found more than one.”
Keith huffs, letting them fall into silence.
He takes a moment to scan his eyes across the blue flowers, pupils catching on a single, black plant among the patch. “No way,” he whispers.
“What?” Lance asks, voice urgent.
Keith doesn’t respond, instead, crouching down to further examine the outlier.
“What?!?”
In the dark of the night, Keith can’t be sure it’s the same plant Coran had requested. It is, however, the only other black flower, along with the one Keith had already collected, that he’d seen today.
“Keeeeiiiith,” Lance whines. “Whaaaaatttt?”
“I found it,” Keith replies, distracted. He wraps his fingers around the stem of the plant.
“What? No way. How’d you miss it the first time, dumbass?”
“I dunno,” Keith says. Constricting his grip around the stalk, he tugs-- at first lightly, then when it resists, a little harder. On the second heave, it tears from the dirt with a force. He stumbles back slightly, steadying himself on his own feet.
He takes a moment to examine the plant under the moonlight.
Regardless of possessing the same keen thorns and outstretched pedals, the flower in his hand seems different than the one he’d collected no more than an hour prior.
He squints, face inching closer to the center. “That’s weird,” he whispers.
“What’s weird?” Lance asks over the comms.
“The flower was orange before, not black.”
“Maybe it’s a different plant?” Hunk suggests.
Keith furrows his brows. “No, I-- I haven’t seen any other black plants.”
“Face it, Mullet,” Lance sneers. “I’m superior.”
Keith ignores him, instead opting to poke at the flower. If it coils, he figures, then it’s the same plant.
He reaches a gloved finger out, poking at the center of the plant.
It happens so fast he barely has a moment to register the bug that resembles a flying beetle on steroids extending its wings like a phoenix, screeching high pitched frequency into the night air as it charges at him.
“Fuck!” he shouts, throwing down the plant to the dirt as if it were laced with fire. He jumps back, arms flailing as the bug circles his figure.
“What? Are you okay?” someone says over the line.
His arm knocks his helmet off his head, the armor falling to the floor with a clatter. The bug takes its chance and, without the breath of space between a second, latches onto Keith’s exposed skin. It bears its teeth, fangs digging into his neck like a knife. He lets out a scream, swatting at the bug as it continues to feed on his blood. His veins ignite, pain searing through his muscles in electric shocks.
He shakes his head-- frantic-- hands still scrubbing at his neck. After a moment too long, he manages to clasps his fingers around the bug’s body and pry it from his flesh. He squeezes and it screeches, recoiling back and disappearing into the sterling air.
Keith dives for his helmet, neck throbbing in time with his heartbeat. He slips it on, allowing his starved lungs a moment of air before focusing on the voices that reverberate around his skull.
“Keith!”
“Are you okay?”
“What the fuck!”
“I’m--” he takes a breath, startled by how thick his tongue feels inside his mouth. “I’m okay. There…. there was a bug… on the flower…”
“All that for a fucking bug, Keith. Are you kidding me? I thought you were dead.”
Keith smirks. “Glad to know you care, Lance.” He frowns at how far away the words sound.
Lance huffs from the other line. “As if.”
“Are you okay?” Shiro asks.
“It bit me,” Keith replies. Blur clouds his vision and he’s quick to blink it away.
There’s a silence for a moment. “Are you okay, though?”
Keith thinks. His neck throbs like a metronome and his head feels tangled.
“Keith…?”
“I’m okay,” he says, almost automatically.
“Okay…” Shiro doesn’t sound very convinced. “Are you almost at Red?”
“Yeah,” he replies. “Almost.”
“Good. Get back to her fast, okay? We’ll meet you at the castle.”
Keith nods and, on legs that don’t feel like his own, he resumes his trek towards Red.
~
He tightens his grip around the controls, veering from the path of an oncoming asteroid. With a jolt, Red does a barrel roll, and Keith's stomach lurches.
‘Rest, my paladin,’, she says. ‘Let me fly.’
“‘t’s okay, Red. I can do it,” Keith grits; though, at this point, it’s become rather clear that the lion’s been conducting most of the pilot work anyway.
‘Paladin,” she urges, gently.
Keith nods, slumping into his seat without further question and resting his head on his shoulder. The entirety of his right arm has long gone numb, and if the tingling is any indication his leg is soon thereafter.
The other paladins are chattering into the comms-- something about Star Wars, he thinks-- but he can’t bring himself to focus.
The voices sound more like static electricity in his ears than anything, like he’s underwater, so close to the surface that he can almost breakthrough but he can’t so instead he’s just kind of floating in open ocean.
He lets his gaze fall to the galaxy ahead. Pallets of golden stars paint a black canvas, radiating glorious beams of golden hues as far as the eye can see. Planets litter the scene, various shapes, sizes, and colors decorating the atmosphere with remarkable stains of color.
With a long inhale that feels thick in his lungs but all too thin the same, he focuses on breathing, --in, out-- swallowing down the pulsating pressure in his neck--in, out.
“Keith!” she screamed, a giggle bubbling from her chest.
“Tabatha!” he mocked with a whine. He pushed back the bristles with his thumb and released, sending paint flying through the air.
She laughed again as blue splattered on her face. She wiped a hand down her forehead, smearing the substance across her skin.
‘We’re here,’ Red purrs beneath him.
He blinks.
Once.
Twice.
The world tilts as he pulls himself from the chair and he’s quick to steady against the control table. He takes a breath-- a choppy, somewhat choked inhale, before, against every will in his body, walking on legs that don’t feel like his own toward the door.
When did the world get so blurry?
Left leg forward.
Right leg forward.
Left leg forward.
Right leg forward.
Left leg forward.
He hits something. A hand steadies his shoulder.
“Keith.”
He looks up.
Is he in the hanger already?
Shiro’s concerned face meets his own and he can’t quite command his muscles to form an expression.
“You okay?” Shiro asks with a voice that sounds as far away as the stars.
Keith blinks.
Then blinks again.
“I think,” he says, though it sounds like more of a question.
His neck throbs against his flesh-- boom, boom, boom-- in his ears, over and over again like clockwork-- boom, boom, boom-- and he can’t make it go away, disappear into thin air, like the thin air in his chest, but it’s heavy too, suffocating him and--
Something cold brushes against his forehead and he sinks into it, suddenly feeling hot, too hot, like a hell hound licks against his cheek, his throbbing neck, its flame-infused saliva nestling under his skin.
“Keith? Look at me. You’re burning up. We’re gonna go to the infirmary, okay?” Shiro says.
At least, he thinks it’s Shiro. The figures around him are starting to look a lot more like blurs than coherent beings.
Black, blue, green, yellow.
Where’s red?
He shakes his head, urging it to think.
Oh, right. He’s red.
“Keith?”
Keith huffs. “‘m fine,” he slurs. It’s an automatic response, one that’s been drilled into his head since childhood, and for a moment he doesn’t even realize that it’s him saying the words. He stumbles forward, a drunken man on a tightrope, but something holds him in place.
“Come on,” Shiro says, pulling gently on his bicep.
Keith trips backward, away from the older boy’s touch. “‘m fine, Shiro.”
He doesn’t think his claim is very plausible, though, when he doubles over and vomits onto the floor of the hanger the next moment. His throat burns with acid and saliva strings from his bottom lip.
“Keith!”
The tile beneath him is starting to look a lot closer than before, melting and contorting and gunning towards him like a sports car at full speed.
“I ‘ink the floor ‘s moving,” he slurs.