Title inspired by There for You by Flyleaf.
No, I'm not dead! I've been suffering from a Voltron-writer's block of sorts. I guess you could say it's for Keithtober, but I didn't bother to go off any specific prompts. It fills several, I suppose.
Keith didn't know when or how he'd gotten bitten, or even by what. If he had to guess, he supposed it must have happened a few quintants ago on that odd planet with the gross purple plants. As if seeing that stupid color every time they battled the Galra wasn't bad enough. The last movement had been such a blur of crazy missions, they were starting to run together in his mind.
What had they been doing on Angalea in the first place, Keith wasn't sure. Even a few quintants seemed like a lifetime ago. Was it the mission to destroy an Imperial outpost, or was it that field trip to gather medicinal herbs for Coran? Keith didn't remember and didn't really care.
He did remember they were in a forest of purple plants and trees that vaguely resembled mushrooms. And not the MarioKart ones either – these were tall and spindly, dripping with gross purple ooze and emitting an eerie purple glow. Why did it have to be purple? Couldn't it have been blue or orange, or even teal for once?
There had been other plants, too. One looked like an evil version of aloe vera, with huge, fat, black leaves bigger than Pidge. The leaves had serrated edges, and vaguely resembled something he might have seen in a videogame somewhere. Whatever. Hunk had discovered the hard way that the edges were much sharper than they looked, after he took one frond in his hand to examine it closer and it cut right through the thick Kevlar-like material of his flight suit. Of course, his warning came too late. Keith had already brushed against another one of those plants and torn his suit just below his ribcage. Thankfully, it was just a glancing touch and wasn't enough to break the skin, just tear a gash in his suit. Hunk's hand hadn't been so lucky. When they returned to the castle, both boys had developed a weird purple rash where the plant had touched their skin. But Coran, after examining a bioscan Pidge had done of the plant determined it was harmless and should pass in a few days.
Keith had thought that was the end of it. He'd repaired his flight suit (Allura clucked her tongue disapprovingly at how often the paladins had to do that) and sure enough, the rash had gone down after a few quintants. It was only after it began to disappear that he noticed the wound.
It was small, not much larger than a mosquito bite, and the swelling had been masked by the rash. Once the rash had gone down and the little spot persisted with its ugly purple color (again with the purple! Why did it have to be that evil color?!), he realized he must have come into contact with something else. Now that he thought about it, the planet had been home to several annoying, buzzing insect-creatures. Perhaps one of them had gotten him. Stupid space-mosquitoes.
Keith knew he should probably tell someone, at least Coran, about it to make sure it was nothing. But looking at the little, innocuous-looking spot, he decided it wasn't worth bothering Coran or Hope about it. It wasn't like him to make such a fuss over a mosquito bite. So he just covered it with the Altean version of a band-aid (at least those weren't purple) and tried not to itch at it beneath his shirt.
"Man, I'm still sore from that mission a few quintants ago!" Lance complained loudly during a joint training session later that movement. He bent over and stretched his long arms to touch his toes, wincing a little as he did.
"Which mission?" Pidge muttered, taking off her glasses and setting them neatly in the corner on top of Hope's duffel bag, where they wouldn't get smashed. "They've all been doozies lately."
"I agree." Hunk said. "But that one to Angalea was the worst so far. We didn't even find what we were there for in the first place! At least Hope got something out of it."
Over in the corner, Hope looked up from the flash grenades she'd made from the seed pods of a plant she'd come across in that strange purple mushroom forest. She was anxious to try them out during their training session.
"Yeah, all I got were more allergies." Said Pidge. As if to demonstrate her point, she sneezed twice into the crook of her elbow. Lance edged away from her, but he was smiling.
"Ew, don't get your germs on me!"
Pidge smirked. "Next time I'll be sure to sneeze right in your face."
"Only if you can reach it." Said Lance smugly, causing Pidge to growl in frustration.
"Guys, are we going to train or not?" Keith asked. He was tired of the banter and wanted to focus.
"Yeah, enough talk!" Said Hope, twirling her bo-staff restlessly.
"Okay, let's run through some basic drills before we turn on the gladiator." Said Shiro. "I want to make sure everyone's got them down before we move on."
"Sounds good to me." Said Hunk, picking at the bandage still wrapped around his left hand. "My form needs work."
"Mine's terrible." Said Hope. "I keep overextending myself and falling over!"
"Not as bad as Lance did that one time with the gladiator!" Said Pidge, grinning evilly. "It hit him right on the butt! I even got pictures."
Lance let out an undignified squawk of disbelief while Hunk and Hope snickered.
"Ooh, I've got to see this!" Said Hope. "Show me after we're done here!"
The light conversation halted as the group focused on their training. Keith fell into his usual routine – block, parry, thrust, duck, then block again, dodge, and thrust again. His mind narrowed to just the white walls and floors of the training deck and the soulless turquoise glare of the gladiator bot. He could hear the sounds of clashing weapons as the other paladins (plus Hope) battled their own robots. At some point, at a signal from Shiro, Hope threw one of her new flash grenades into the middle of the deck and the room was plunged into blinding silver light for a brief tick. Keith squinted his eyes, trying to see his opponent through the afterimages swimming around his vision. He managed to spot a glint off the gladiator's sword a tick before it swung towards his head. He dropped to the floor and aimed a kick at where he guessed the bot was standing. The resounding clang of his boot on metal let him know his aim had been right.
"End training sequence!" Shiro shouted. Keith got to his feet, feeling a slight throb in his head as he did. Maybe he hadn't had enough water and dehydration was starting to make him dizzy. He looked around. Hope was leaning on her staff and frowning at the bomb in her hand, clearly displeased with the results. Hunk had fallen onto his back and hadn't bothered to get up. Pidge was still brandishing her bayard, but she was facing the opposite direction from where her bot had just been. Lance was rubbing his eyes and groaning.
"I think that flash did more to us than it did to the robots!" He snapped.
"That was the point." Said Shiro. "We need to practice for every situation, so we can be prepared. We never know what the Galra might spring on us."
"Well, nice to know how useless we'll all be if the Galra use one of these." Said Pidge. She sneezed again and wiped her nose with the back of her gloved hand.
"Of course Keith was able to keep his head." Said Lance with a snort of jealousy.
"Hey, it affected me just as much as you!" Keith retorted. "I've just got better reflexes, I guess."
"We'll work on it." Said Shiro. He turned to Hope. "Did it work like you wanted?"
Hope shrugged. "I've got the flash down, but it wasn't as bright as I wanted it to be. Galran eyes tend to be keener, don't they?"
"Well, at least we know they work on humans." Said Hunk from the floor. "I'm still seeing weird colorful shapes all over."
"Good work, everyone." Said Shiro, clapping Lance on the back with his left arm. "Go take a break. You deserve it."
Lance lit up at once. "Sweet, thanks!" He headed out the door without another word.
Keith strode over to the corner where he'd left his water bottle and towel. Hope and Pidge were arguing about the flash grenade as they picked up their extra gear and left the room.
"Well, maybe I could help if I was able to actually use any of your tech!" Pidge was saying. "But you just had to turn your interface into earrings and now I can't use them!"
"It's more practical than a clunky headdress." Hope said, gathering up the remainder of the prototype bombs into a bag. "It's not my fault you never got your ears pierced!"
Pidge sneezed again, which prevented her from making a disparaging reply.
Keith followed them out the door. As he rounded the corner into the hall, his head throbbed again with the sudden movement. He paused for a fraction of a second, blinking in surprise.
"You alright, Keith?" Shiro asked from behind him. Of course Shiro would notice if anything went even slightly wrong. If Keith so much as sneezed Shiro was concerned. Keith would be annoyed if he wasn't touched.
"Fine." He answered. "Still reeling from that flash bomb."
"Yeah, me too." Said Shiro. "Remember, dinner is in a few vargas. We're meeting those representatives from Lenvoth."
Keith groaned. "Great. More social interaction."
"It'll be fine. Be glad you're not Allura."
"Yeah, whatever you say."
They each headed to their separate rooms. Keith went straight to the shower, pulling off his paladin armor and peeling away his sweaty flight suit. The Altean band-aid he'd placed over the odd mosquito-bite had lost most of its stickiness, so he tugged it all the way off – and dropped it in shock.
Instead of going away, like Keith had expected it to, the bite had instead darkened to an alarming shade of deep reddish-purple, almost black. The affected area had expanded to the size of a quarter, and he could see dark veins spreading out from around it. Keith shuddered at the sight of it, wondering how it had escaped his notice for two days. It had itched like crazy the first day, then just stopped, and he'd forgotten all about it. An experimental prod found the area tender, but not throbbing with pain. Relief flooded over him as he stepped into the hot shower. Perhaps the water would help soothe it. He'd find some anti-swelling cream later and that would be the end of it. He was probably just allergic to whatever bit him, like Pidge with all the plants they'd encountered. Yeah, that must have been it.