Chapter Text
Index:
#1-2: A coalition meeting on an alien planet goes side ways because snake people can sense when one of the new people have galran blood - Keith feels the wrath of a magical snake queen.
#3 - Keith and Lance have the shared trauma of car accidents back on Earth, and it comes back to haunt them in the midst of battle
#4-5: Lance makes a grave mistake during battle and Keith pays the price... and it hurts.... like a lot
#6-7: Keith tries to rouse Shiro from a feverish nightmare and his tired brain isn't fast enough. Keith tries to mend himself, but regrettably needs some help after all.
#8-10 : When Lance and Keith wake up tied back to back to each other on a Galran ship, they have no idea how they got there, but the also don't really want to know why they ARE there.
#11 : The coalition needs the planet's resources desperately, but everything in Keith's body is telling him to run.
#12 : Immediate aftermath of The Blade of Marmora Trials, and Keef be in pain. Thankfully someone happens to be walking by...
#13 : After Keith gets hurt, Pidge has to woman-up (sorry ik its cheesy just go with it)
#14 : A dramatic drop in barometric pressure is hell for people with scar tissue...
#15 : Keith is a self-proclaimed expert in migraines, but a particularly bad one has him in need of some rescuing
#16 : Crash landings are never comfy.
#17: Keef take a tumble.
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The mission had been a fairly risky one from the start. The Anguis people had made their distaste for the galra very clear, so clear that they had monuments dedicated to battles they’d won against them, in all their gruesome detail. The paladins only had the displeasure of seeing two statues, though they were assured there were many more; one of a female Anguis sinking her fangs into a screaming galran solders throat, and the other, a male Anguis nobleman who had skewered a pair of galra, who’s expressions painted an all too realistic picture.
And with this being only the third diplomacy mission after Keith had discovered his maternal blood line, all of the paladins were on their toes. It wasn’t like Keith had suddenly sprouted purple fur all over him, but Allura assured them of this race’s senses, and how heightened they are. However, this was precisely why the coalition needed them and fast.
And for a good while, everything was going to plan. Allura was doing her thing, Shiro would interject helpful additions to her points and Hunk, Pidge and Lance would be doing something to keep themselves occupied but still listen to the princess’s proposal. The Anguis leader, the Queen, was fully invested in Allura’s words, nodding and asking questions that required thoughtful answers. The two women were conversing like old war buddies rather than visiting strangers. Keith couldn’t really believe it, but it was going well.
It was going well.
Keith couldn’t pinpoint exactly when the negotiations went south, but if he had to guess, it was when the Queen’s handmaiden whispered something in her ear. After that, the Queens questions had a bite to them; they had hatred behind them. Everything had been fine, great in fact, up until that moment. That one second before the air in the room got sucked out like they were in a vacuum. Keith hadn’t even been looking at the Queen, he’d actually been focused on Allura’s proposals for once, but he felt the exact moment the Queen’s eyes started barring into the back of his skull. He turned around before his other senses could realize, and he met those eyes — those five, serpentine, eyes — and felt a chill run up his spine unlike anything he’d experienced before. Her eyes absolutely read him. Uncoiled every crumbled or smothered detail of his person, of his body and mind. She bore into him, and the pressure felt like a snake was wrapping around his ankles, slowly coiling up his legs with the goal to swallow him whole. But for the life of him, he couldn’t blink.
He’d avoided staring to avoid such offending any customs or traditions, but now as he finally got to look at the leader they’d come to win over, the faster his heart seemed to beat in his ears.
Her features shared a terrifying likeness to that of a Earth cobra snake, with the flicking tongue and all, but the extra eyes and very abundant teeth were definitely not like the snakes Keith had grown to live around in the desert.
His breath had caught when he’d first met her stare, and apparently what little noise escaped him derailed Allura’s usually calculated attention. Or maybe she felt the same weight Keith was being assaulted with. As Allura’s attention went from her simulation to the back of Keith’s head, so did every paladin. One by one, Shiro, Hunk, Pidge, and finally Lance all joined in the starring contest with the back of Keith’s head, and although Keith could feel them all, none of their stares felt anything like the Queen’s.
Shiro made the first move, and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, but upon his touch, Keith’s entire arm fell numb and the few footsteps he took to close their gap echoed like they were a football field away.
Shiro had seen Keith have panic attacks before, and they were nothing like this. Usually it happened all at once, like the bottle Keith had shoved all his feelings down in finally popped its cork, but with Shiro’s help, he would get through it.
This was nothing like the dozens of times before. Even with Shiro’s helpful guidance, his words and his presence were having no affect, in fact it looked like Keith couldn’t even hear him. Keith’s eyes were bugged, and his breathing was slowly getting more and more labored. And most worryingly, he had yet to break eye contact with an increasingly angry looking Queen.
Though he could feel nothing else, Keith started to notice the coiling rising above his knees, and with nothing to prompt him but this invisible force, he felt his knees slam together with the pressure of a tightening rope. His legs buckled, and Shiro caught his arms, but Keith couldn’t break the Queen’s stare.
He vaguely heard familiar voices flair up, and other footfalls both toward and away from him.
The tightness was up to his hips now, and his joints throbbed in protest as the pressure got tighter and tighter. Every sense told him to run run run, but even as he clawed at his legs, the pressure would not loosen at all.
He slammed his forehead to the cold floor, and scratched and his torso, trying whatever he could to make the tension lessen, but it only climbed higher, and with every advance, the more his heartbeat drowned out his surroundings.
His chest was compressed with such force he felt something give way. Then more blinding pain, then no room to inhale or exhale. What little breath he could get was halved once again, leaving him with pitiful short wheezes as his only option. Even with Shiro’s stabilizing hold, Keith felt his torso fall forward, his knees slipping out from under him and his arms falling beside him like lead.
Then, in only a few seconds, his neck tightened, cutting off even the wheezes. He rolled over onto his back and thrashed and clawed at his throat, at the nothing that was choking him.
Tears welled in his eyes, but when his vision began to blur he wondered if it was blood. He couldn’t feel anything but the blinding pain as his entire body was crushed by absolutely nothing.