For Voltron,

and those as dedicated as myself

Iverson's office had become a thing of familiarity to Keith. Much like his dorm room, he had grown terribly used to the four surrounding walls; the tall desk riddled with important documents, and the intimidating man that glared at him from behind it. In the past, he had suffered a guilt that followed Iverson's backlash to many of the stunts he'd pulled. Not for his General's sake, but for the man that had originally brought him here. Keith was always insisting, with the bit of selflessness he could muster up, that Shiro abandon him and cease this waste of time. Shiro responded the way Keith had become begrudgingly accustomed to; ruffling his dark mess of hair and assuring him he would never consider the option. Although he scowled, Keith had let himself grow an odd sort of warmth towards the man.

Perhaps that was why his reaction to Shiro's disappearance had been so drastic.

It hadn't taken very long, Shiro's crashing had been the main talk of the Garrison. Keith supposed his pain should've been temporary, that it should've been nothing short of mild irritation. Here he was again at step one, on his own like he had been for so long before. Instead, he had grieved Shiro's absence. The instructor had already been sick, an incurable disease had taken up rest within his body and, as a result, he was slowly nearing his death. Keith had imagined he'd be there with him. Grip his hand tight as the final light in his eyes gave out, listen to his last goodbye and hold it close to his heart for years to come. This had been so unfairly sudden. He'd awoken that morning with Shiro still in his life, just to have it be so abruptly snatched from him by words the other kids whispered when they thought he wasn't listening.

Keith's mood had turned from annoying and unresponsive to something darker than his classmates intended to bother with. Everyone steered themselves from the constant anger alive in his eyes, nobody teased or picked on him behind his back again. He quit existing, they ignored him as though it was the safest bet they could manage. Even that boy, McClain, had dismissed him from being his apparent rival. Keith was truly alone after Shiro's tragic death, and it put him in constant bitterness. The only one who still acknowledged him had been Griffin, a boy he'd pertained more than just a few fights with. Much like McClain, this boy had a curious supply of hatred for Keith. They'd both come from the same orphanage together, both had been utterly seduced by the stars and stared wonderingly out their window during the night. Keith and Griffin knew one another better than either one of them cared to admit, but there was one very damaging problem to cause this conflict between them. Keith was so much better a pilot than Griffin could have ever dreamed to be. What was more insulting, Keith's passion for the cosmos did not compare to Griffin's. He didn't have the same desperate, hungry light in his gaze, didn't toss and turn from an unquenchable thirst to explore. Griffin was true to the mysteries of space, Keith was trying his damnedest to flee this planet.

Iverson's office was swiftly turning into a second home for Keith. Today, that home had been intruded upon by another. Iverson had left both himself and Griffin alone to sit on the ground and glare at each other, nothing but silence had ensued since then. It didn't take much for Keith to snap anymore, any little thing would so. And it appeared, luckily enough, Griffin was the one willing to deliver his fix. Keith looked for anything out of him, from the slight disrespect in his voice to the brush of his shoulder when they passed each other in the hallways. Today in the cafeteria, Griffin had pinned him with a look Keith decided he didn't like very much and, in return, had punched him square in his left eye. A fight had broken out between them, children had gathered and cheered them on; creating around them a massive circle that made it particularly hard for the teachers to push through. Inevitably, they had been reached. But not before they managed a few hard earned blows against one another.

Griffin's eye was beginning to swell with time and Keith's lip was crusted with blood. Griffin had hit him directly in his mouth and Keith had torn into the flesh with his own teeth as he was sent backwards. The very first time he and Griffin had brawled had been an unnecessary accident. Careless words had fallen like acid from a soulless smirk and burned Keith to his core: "Did you show off for the police too? Did you put on a little skit about how you'd killed your own parents?" Keith had lost sight after that, an explosion erupted inside of him and he'd reacted with uncontrolled violence. Then, he'd drowned in the misery of his guilt. Even more so when Shiro did everything within his power to keep Iverson from dismissing Keith as a student at the Garrison.

Things had drastically changed from those times. After Shiro's abrupt disappearance, Keith had sought out a fight in Griffin every chance he could find. From the slightest hint of disrespect in his tone to the mildest bump of shoulders when they bypassed in the hallways. There was no guilt to be had each time he and Griffin were pried away from one another. Just the relief that, for a little while now, he could breathe easy again. Shiro would be so disappointed in you. Although the voice was small, it still lived inside him. Sooner or later, Keith knew it would ultimately die along with the only father figure he'd ever known.

"You must be so frustrated," Griffin's bitter tone shattered the deafening silence between them, breaking Keith from his rapid train of thought. "That's why you've been acting out lately, right? Because Shiro died before you could get your hands on him. Shame he never got the chance to see what a mistake it was to pick you over me."

The static noise in Keith's head made it throb and he wondered what might happen if he attacked Griffin for the second time in a single day. Iverson leaving them alone in this office for a brief amount of time had not been poor thought on his behalf. He expected them to sit still, like good cadets who's wishes were to remain in the Garrison. In all honesty, Keith's interest to remain in the Garrison was nearly nonexistent. His willingness to stay lived in the amount of effort Shiro had put into keeping him here. The door opened and in walked Iverson, his posture stiff and his expression as stern as it always was. Surprisingly, he wasn't alone. Following his entrance was a woman wearing a long white lab coat, her mousy brown hair pulled back into an agonizingly tight bun. In her hands she cradled a heavy tan box with two wires protruding from both the left and the right side of it. She didn't smile, but she still managed to appear so mysteriously gentle.

"Look alive cadets," Iverson demanded in his raspy voice, both Keith and Griffin exchanged a look of concern. "This woman here is Angelica Odis, she's the head of our technical department. As Iverson gestured towards her, Keith took immediately to observing her. She was tall, taller than Iverson, and her face exposed the weathered lines of familiar exhaustion. Her hair was streaked with tendrils of gray and her eyes, blue, looked as though they had paled overtime. Even still it wasn't hard to tell that, during her youth, she had been strikingly beautiful. "You should thank her with every inch of your sorry asses," Iverson suggested as he turned his stormy gaze back towards the students. "My original plan was to come in and expel you both and send you back to the orphanage. Miss Odis convinced me to give you another chance."

"Wait," Griffin dared to speak without permission and turned his gaze towards the General in surprise and fear. "You're going to expel both of us?"

Iverson focused an intense glare towards the other boy and responded in a low voice, one that suggested no further argument on his behalf. "Did I stutter cadet?"

Griffin turned his eyes shamefully towards the ground and didn't speak out of turn a second time. Keith felt an odd stab of sympathy in his chest and worked to keep it from his face. Griffin often antagonized, but Keith had been letting him do it. Although he might've lost his passion for the unknown vastness of space, it didn't necessarily mean Griffin did. Odis remained indifferent to the nature of the two as she made her way fully inside of the room. It was odd that she wore a mask of such carelessness, yet she had reached out and halted Iverson in his resolve to be rid of the troublesome pilots. In Keith's minimum experiences, he was used to kindness wearing a smile. Odis knelt on the floor and set the device between them, Keith was even more surprised with her gesture to join them. He and Griffin were down here, after all, because they had lost the privilege of occupying a chair. "This has never failed me," she explained lightly, two connected wires between her hands. Keith noted they had what appeared to be little white suctions at the ends of them. "It's used to read through a person's thoughts and emotions. It will show you both what's going on through your minds, help you get a much better understanding of one another."

Keith felt his eyes stretch. Although she claimed one hundred percent success, he felt perhaps he and Griffin had a particularly special case between them. One that suggested they shouldn't cross over the boundaries of one another's minds. Griffin clearly agreed; as Odis turned to him and reached towards him, he resisted timidly. Iverson looked like he wanted to berate him for daring to defy her, but Odis lifted a hand to silence him without even looking to him. Keith was astonished by this woman.

"Now listen," she told Griffin in a voice more gentle than either of them had heard in a long time. "I can't force you to do this, it's your own privacy and I understand your hesitance. But it's all I can do for you at this point."

Griffin appeared terribly perplexed as he stared in mayhem towards the box and the trailing wires connected to it. Keith waited eagerly for his decision. What he didn't realize was that whatever Griffin chose in that instant, he'd be deciding on Keith's behalf as well. As suspected, Griffin stiffened his upper lip and held steady as Odis leaned forward once more and connected the wires to his temple. Once that was accomplished, she turned to Keith next and did the same. She moved slowly, giving him the same, silent option as Griffin to decide against this. Obediently, Keith held still and shut his eyes until the wires were connected and he felt Odis move away from him. "Now then," she began, still in that airy whisper of a voice. "I'm going to turn on the machine, you'll be hit with one another's emotions very instantly. Just take a deep breath. You will get used to it." She flipped a switch at the corner of the device and, as promised, Keith was hit with a torrent of foreign emotions. Oh, he thought and sat up a little straighter, exactly at the same moment Griffin did. Although these feelings rising up inside of him - the hate, the anger, the confusion - were all things he'd associated with in the past, they came in a sense that almost felt like an invasion. These feeling did not belong to him, and he was heavily aware of how attached to Griffin they were.

Deep breaths. Keith closed his eyes and did as instructed, focusing on inhalation through his mouth and letting it out through his nose. Just as Odis had said, he and Griffin's feeling went from intermingled panic to semi relaxed. Although it still felt quite intrusive to be so connected with a boy he'd never so much as considered his friend, he supposed he'd endured worse things. Thoughts came to mind. Flustered, frustrated ones. Why was he still so pretty even when his face was covered in bruises?

Wait, hold on.

Keith realized these thoughts were not his own, and that he hadn't even opened his eyes yet to make such an observation. Instantly, he was insulted by the delicate title Griffin attempted to thrust upon him. Parting his lids, he threw a furious glare at the other cadet and felt the thought was retracted as instantly as it had come. Replaced by both outrage and embarrassment. 'Let's see what you're hiding Kogane,' Keith flinched, startled when he heard Griffin's echo through his mind. Much like a thought, it sounded almost distant and private. He wasn't able to remark on it very long, for a second later he felt the thread of his memories being tugged apart as easily as untying a shoelace.

A random one came to the forefront of his thoughts so suddenly, randomly picked from a selection, and played before Keith could stop it. This was an event that had happened a long while ago, before Shiro's disappearance.

Keith had stared wonderingly towards Sawyer many times before when he decided that, perhaps, he was simply bored with the thought of girls. It could've been that he wasn't interested in the prospect of flitting his days away, romanticizing something that could be defined bluntly as lust. It could've been that it just wasn't girls that did it for him. Although, he'd had a lingering distaste for people since before he could remember so perhaps it didn't have anything to do with sexuality. Whatever the cause, he was annoyingly confused as to what about this girl it was that drew in all his fellow cadets like a moth to a flame.

She was pretty, he gave her that much, but in the most traditional way. She had bright yellow hair almost stick straight and pulled back from her eyes in a high ponytail. She had a pouty mouth and a bit of an overbite, her two front teeth poked out just beneath her upper lip. Her skin was so clear, it was almost unnatural, and she carried with her a soothing scent of vanilla.

It was today during lunch that McClain's most loyal companion (from what Keith could tell at least) had encouraged him to approach her and ask her out on a date. The kindness on his part influenced around the table and turned to excited goading from the rest of the table. McClain, flushing wildly from embarrassment from all the attention, murmured excuses under his breath regarding why it was so unintelligent to approach at a time like this. Keith frowned at the plentiful goods sitting patiently on his tray and decided he wouldn't eat much again today. Being so surrounded by all these people usually made his hunger decrease, he was much too distracted by the way his skin itched from the noise of incoherent babbling.

Keith rose with his tray in hand with the intent of disposing his food. Unfortunately, he had dismissed the conversation of his table from his attention and had missed McClain's sudden resolve to speak with Sawyer. The table had broken into applaud, startling Keith and causing him to whirl around in surprise, and the instinctive decision followed in disaster. McClain was right behind him, Keith's abrupt change in course caused him to barrel directly into him and, sadly enough, the barely touched tray of food in his hand. His small carton of milk splashed against the other boy's uniform and a dollop of ketchup smeared into the fabric.

Keith gracelessly lost his balance. As McClain complained "Hey!" he lost his grip entirely and his tray fell to the floor with an obnoxious clatter. The cafeteria quieted , and all the eyes that turned his way pierced him like a thousand arrows all at once. After briefly observing the scene, a ripple of laughter broke out among the students, the table they had originally sat at included. McClain leaned forward and practically hissed at Keith, blissfully pulling him away from the terror of being the center of everyone's interest.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded in an angry whisper. "Why are you always screwing up?"

Keith didn't really want to fight, not in front of everyone like this. He reacted without thought, his only goal being to fix everything. Contrary to popular belief and rumor among his classmates - aside from the main one that really set a title for him - Keith wasn't mean. But social interaction was a concept that often escaped him. So he reached out and tried to desperately to brush off McClain's uniform, as though his hands had the magical ability to undo the messes he made. It was short lived, however, because his wrists were restrained and Keith found himself blinking up with worry towards a blushing McClain.

He fumbled with his words for a minute, Keith could hear the gentle 'ooos' of his classmates as the situation worsened. Finally, McClain released him with a forceful shove back and brushed by him, keeping his head down as he rushed to the exit. Keith looked after him but resisted following. He wanted to escape as well, but intuition suggested it unwise to go the same way McClain had gone. Turning, he felt the eyes of his peers as he rushed to the exit on the other side of the cafeteria.

'That was...interesting.' Keith saw Griffin's toying smirk but was conflicted by the strange rush of resentment he suddenly had towards McClain. Or, more accurately, Griffin's sudden resentment. Griffin continued to pick through his brain, Keith realized he hadn't worked up the courage to actually do something about it. He could talk to Griffin in here without fear of anyone else overhearing, perhaps even apologize for his behaviors. 'You're hiding something here,' Griffin poked at something deep within his memories and the delicacy they were made of was enough to wake Keith from his hesitance. He coaxed Griffin backwards when he trifled instead through his memories and thoughts.

There were pictures here, images of a man that smiled like it made him sore. Each one he touched was splintered with hate and outrage, Keith veered away from them and chose not to ask questions.

There was another set of images here. Each one was occupied by a doe eyed little girl, her short brown hair looked like it had been trimmed down with safety scissors. Touching these brought a torrent of different emotions. There was despair and agony, but the gentle fabrics were also lined with warmth and an unwavering amount of undivided love. 'Is this your sister?' Keith wondered.

'Yes,' was Griffin's somber reply. All sense of challenge between them was slowly melting away the longer they remained connected like this. He didn't appear to mind very much as Keith sorted through the soft images he had of his sibling. Because each one hurt him whenever he made contact, he imagined something very terrible must have happened to her. However, out of respect for Griffin, he resisted the curiosity. Keith felt Griffin's appreciation pour through him like warm honey and thought, for an excited moment, that this might actually work.

But then he stumbled across something not meant for his eyes.

More images, but this time? He found they were of himself. They were diverse, some of them dark and filled with the frustrated anger he expected to find there. The other ones surprised him, painted him gently in soft colors, and these made him feel like his chest was going to collapse. He caught on fast and understood all too well what these meant, his face heated with color as he tried to scramble backwards before he dug himself too much deeper into a hole.

Too late. Griffin's face went from lukewarm to pinched with humiliated outrage. Unfortunately, there was no rewinding time to just seconds before. Seconds before Keith knew what lied behind all the anger and hatred Griffin often tossed his way. 'Shut up,' Griffin ordered. Although Keith had not breathed a word, his panicked confusion practically screamed at them both. He couldn't turn it off. Griffin's feelings for him were not the problem here. Keith realizing them was, and he was terrified of the outcome. 'Just shut the Hell up Kogane. Who are you to judge me?! At least I never fucking killed my parents!'

The harmful words brought an unbidden memory rushing to the surface in rapid flashes. Griffin tore into them before Keith could work up the strength to swallow them dry:

A bathtub filled with icy water. Her hands tearing into his hair as she cried and held him underneath, ignoring him as he thrashed and fought like a rabid animal. "Drown you little rat! Just die already- !"

Keith shoved Griffin back from his head so hard it sent his physical form tumbling backwards. Odis and Iverson moved to separate them before they could even reach one another, but Keith wasn't aiming anywhere for Griffin. He tore the wires away and stumbled up on clumsy feet. He refused to meet Griffin's eyes, to meet any of their gazes, as he shoved forward and ignored Iverson's scratchy voice calling for his return. There was nothing left for him here. Shiro was dead. Griffin had witnessed something to his story he'd never wanted anyone to know of. He renounced his honorable position as a Garrison cadet.

Keith fled through the hallways with abandon, didn't stop to excuse himself from the blurry faces he ran into in his clumsy attempt of escape. There was only one thing he needed now. One thing, and he would leave the Garrison without ever looking back. He'd been on the verge of expulsion as it was. He was alone in this world and Keith was going to embrace it this time. It was either he did that or perished, and he would be damned if he let this godforsaken universe get the better of him.

Keith burst through the front doors of the Garrison, shutting his eyes against the wind as it lashed his cheeks. Now that he was alone, he broke apart. Tears slid past tightly sealed lids, but his fists clenched at his sides with a new sort of resolve. "I was unwilling to listen before," he called to the hot, dry land that stretched for miles ahead of him. "I was unwilling, but I'm listening now. Please."

There was nothing. A harsh wind and a merciless beating sun, but the setting remained disappointingly serene. Keith didn't move, didn't open his eyes, didn't unfurl his fingers. With the most patience he'd ever shown in such a long while, he sat perfectly still and waited for it to come to him.

And when it did, he had to swallow his sob.

A roar shook the very ground beneath his feet, threatening to break it apart with it's force. It was the demanding cry of a beast more ferocious than anything he'd ever known. It reached him as it had the first time. And like before, he was the only one that had heard it. Roughly, without forgiveness, he wiped his eye with the sleeve of his uniform and took off. He didn't know exactly where he was going, or what his plan was. He didn't know if this thing he was looking for - wherever it's destination - was something good or something never to be discovered. Whatever the case, he would dedicate every last bit of himself to it and nothing else.

I will find you. If it's the last thing I do.

A few things I'd like to clarify before we get into this. I do not, in any way, own Voltron. Next! I don't want this to be seen in any way as a "fix it fic." This is a different version of the story but everything I produce was birthed from the television series and I respect that as a whole. I don't view my style of the show better than the original. (Admittedly, there were things I disagreed with that were featured in the show and might very well be altered here but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm right).

Finally, thanks for taking this ride with me. It's gonna be a long one so you better hang on tight! Let's call this The Legendary Defenders trilogy yea? I like it, I'm going with it whateves.