Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Keith, that’s cold, even for you.”

Those words completely stopped his entire thought process, grounding it to a halt. A loud, screeching, terrible halt. He immediately backtracked, mind sputtering as he tried to justify himself.

“What if it was one of us?” Hunk murmured, his voice laced with hurt that made Keith’s chest constrict. “What if it was me? You wouldn’t leave me, would you?” He glanced down at himself, then back at the red paladin. “You… Would you?” His voice rises an octave at the last moment, and Keith just looks away, grinding his teeth. Nobody ever understood.

“I just--I’m not saying I like the idea. I’m just thinking… I’m just--I’m thinking like a paladin.” His words float in the air before him, seemingly small and weak against the stares of his teammates. No matter what he thought, it seemed that he couldn’t properly put it into words.

“No, you’re just thinking of yourself!” Lance starts forward, craning his neck around Hunk to glare at Keith. “You’re too scared to do what’s right!”

“Listen, I just--That’s not what I--”

“Okay! We’re all upset because we lost Allura.” Pidge stops typing on the console, looking around at the faces. They’re all strained, and tired, and upset. “We just--”

“No!” Coran points a finger at Shiro. “Shiro lost Allura!” At this, the black paladin jerks his head up to look at the Altean, shoulders hunching forward slightly. There’s pain evident in his eyes, and he bites his bottom lip at the accusation.

“I already told you, I--There was nothing that could have been done! Allura.. She threw me across the threshold! I tried to--”

“Excuses, excuses!”

Keith turned away from the group, gripping his forearms and tuning out the arguing. He didn’t mean it like that… Of course losing Allura was a terrible thing. It’s just… if they all went in there, the universe’s only hope--Voltron, the defenders of the universe --could be wiped out before given a fighting chance. Only one mission under their belt! It was suicide to go in there. Even… Even Shiro had said so.

It’s no doubt they needed Allura, Keith knew that; she was the glue that held everyone together. He took a shaky breath. It’s just… as much as Keith cared for Allura, he also cared about everyone else. Losing 7 members, the only members they have in exchanged for only one… it was a huge risk. A painful knot formed in the pit of his stomach.

“Okay, okay already! This isn’t helping.” Hunk’s voice boomed over the banter, immediately silencing everyone. Even Shiro was impressed. “We can’t just sit here and bicker like this.”

“Alright. Let’s focus.” The black paladin ran his mechanical hand through his fringe, blowing out a sigh. He closed his eyes, then after a moment, opened them. “How are we going to get Allura?”

{--+--}

What a disaster.

They had managed to get Allura, and were able to open a wormhole; but the bay doors hadn’t closed yet and the ship began to shake. The red lion started to slide, and Keith wildly looked around. The comms were a mess, everyone buzzing at once in his ear.

“Are you all safe? Where’s Shiro?”

“What’s going on! Coran!?”

“Is Allura ok?”

“Coran, what’s happening?”

“We got away, right?”

“The integrity of the wormhole’s been compromised!”

“What does that mean!?”

“It’s breaking down! That means we have no control over where we’re headed!”

A terrible, metallic groan ran through the ship, and Keith had just a moment to know that this was going to end very, very badly--and then he was suddenly hurtling out of the ship, his lion nothing short of useless. By the screams he heard in his helmet, he assumed everyone was in the same situation.

Red rolled over and over in zero gravity, the force pushing him into his chair. He tried to grab the handles to wake his lion; but he was spinning too fast. A pit of hopelessness engulfed him entirely; he couldn’t do anything at all.

It was only a matter of seconds before his lion hit the wall of purple energy or whatever it was, Keith wasn’t sure--that kind of science shit was Pidge or Coran’s cup of tea--so he only had time to apologize in his head as his entire existence blinked out into blackness. As he was hurtling to who the fuck knows where, he wondered if everyone had heard him.

And then, suddenly, he felt like he was being pulled in ten different directions. His fingers managed to brush the tip of the controls, but then Red jerked hard, and everything stopped.