Under Suspicion

by EmberXMystery

Someone has been committing murders and Shiro and his team have evidence that points to Keith. Keith doesn't know what is happening and is forced to relive past trauma. More is going on than the team can tell. BAU/ Criminal Minds setting. Everyone is on the team except Keith who left a while ago and is now suspected of committing murders. -Lance is a new recruit and gets training

3. Winding Knowledge

Note: Hello to the broken Voltron fandom!

So.

Season seven happened and let me just say a couple things to start.

I am definintely going with Shatt (I'm sorry. Adam won't be in this story. Maybe I'll mention him as a past love but... it will be Shatt). I switched some of the stuff in this chapter to make Shiro 100% gay.

Though this may not fit with the other chapters, Lance knows that Shiro is gay and so does the rest of the team (Well, Allura and Coran don't). Yes I will have a bi arc part but it won't come for a while.

Next, I know this may go against some of my earlier statements in chapters, but Shiro doesn't have a thing for Allura. Allura subtly likes him but that'll be disbanded soon. Honestly, I never really shipped Shallura, I just put it in my fic because I want Shiro to be happy and having support I think would help him.

There will be no Allurance in this fic. Klance is very much a slowburn. The case they are doing now is not the end of the story.

Thanks to everyone who commented on which ship to do!

And finally, this chapter focuses pretty heavily on plot and has more of Keith/ Lance becoming friends than it does ship-ish stuff. Yes that is coming and Yes they will have to talk about the previous night.

I'm also just kind of tired of editing this chapter so I'm posting it. I'm sorry if it isn't as good. Please tell me in a comment if there are any errors or conflicting plotlines. I'll try to fix them as best as I can. This is my first mystery story so I'm kind of winging it.

Thank you for reading and enjoy! :)

(Bit of a violent trigger warning at the end. Just some blood stuff. But it's only described briefly and at the very end of the fic when Keith is talking.)

---

Lance~

It was weird being chained back to Keith.

They had stopped to get breakfast at McDonalds which Keith and Pidge had insisted on for some unknown reason. Shiro had decided that they could all pile into his van. Allura (who had gotten back just before the group had left) and Shiro took the front two seats, Pidge, the little gremlin who had decided to join them at the last moment, had claimed one of the middle two seats along with Coran who was a lot pushier than Lance had given him credit for. Finally, he and Keith and Hunk sat squashed together in the rear seats. Lance didn't know why Pidge was coming after they had said that they would stay behind, but apparently Shiro had suggested that they could hack into Matt's computer and see if they could find anything.

Lance also didn't know why he was so aware of Keith's arm touching his own. It shouldn't have mattered. No, it didn't matter.

Ugh. He hated Keith.

Yes, 'hate'.

Keith's know-it-all smugness about his, albeit impressive, detective abilities, just set Lance on edge. He wanted to one-up Keith. He wanted to be better than him. He wanted to be able to not think about being a detective and just be able to do it and everyone would trust that he would be right.

Lance had grown up hearing about the great Keith Kogane, yet the reality of it was so different than the stories. In the stories they told in class, he was a tall man (not true) who hid in the shadows like Batman and always seemed to appear with the right answers in his hands.

Instead, Lance was next to an introverted, quirky, and awkward young adult who was fumbling around with life just as much as Lance was.

UGH! Lance hated his own thoughts. It was time they went away. He was tired of hearing Shiro and Allura talk to each other in hushed tones. He couldn't hear Pidge's snide comments well enough to keep himself entertained, and Keith and Hunk weren't bothering to talk.

"So," Lance said loudly, "Anyone have any stories we could tell?"

Pidge was the first to whip their head around, "Fuck yeah! Pick a category."

Lance thought for a moment pretending that he was in great distress thinking about a category. "Let's do embarrassing teenage moments."

Suddenly, Keith was gripping his arm and it was doing weird things to his mind. He did not like it. "Do not let them tell those stories."

"Well, now I want to know even more!" Lance made no attempt to pull his arm away.

"As long as you or someone here can tell me your teenage stories." Keith was glaring at him like he really meant it.

Lance gulped, "I'm afraid of the consequences so I'm just going to cut to the chase and say yes. I will tell some stories. But I don't have anything embarrassing. I've always been this awesome."

"Hunk?" Pidge asked, almost screaming the poor man's name. "You pick who I mock first."

"Oreo dad," Hunk said without hesitation.

"Okay. Sweet. I have a billion of those stories."

"No," Shiro called from the front. "Don't you dare."

"FYI," Pidge said, turning to look at Shiro, "I wasn't going to do that story. I was going to do the other one."

"That does not make me feel any better."

"Shiro," Keith interjected, "If I have to suffer so do you. I'm sure they'll tell equally mortifying ones of me. Plus, we can retaliate with that one story that Matt told us that he said if we ever repeated, we would wind up in hell having been shredded by a furious Pidgeon."

"Keith, that literally consoles me in zero ways."

"Oh, come on," Allura said brightly, "I would like to hear Shiro teen stories."

"Me too," Coran added.

"I swear it cannot be worse than that night we got Shiro drunk," Hunk muttered.

"Oh yeah!" Pidge laughed, "That is a great story!"

"It. Did. Not. Happen." Shiro said defiantly.

"Look buddy," Keith said, the hint of a smile ghosting past his lips, "It's your word against, Pidge, Hunk, Matt, and I. I think you lose."

"I for one," Lance said, finally chiming in, "Desperately need to hear this story."

"Okay, okay," Pidge smirked. "So we were at this party at Matt and my's place after a particularly rough case. We had gotten some alcohol and we had Shiro drinking some. Well, we were called into a last-minute case and we didn't realize how poorly Shiro can hold his alcohol so we just went to the case. Shiro got slap-happy drunk. To start, Shiro was flirting like he was Lance with the police chief. Second, he found a tree and yelled, 'Stop you fiend!' and then he stared at a brick wall for a solid two minutes before we pulled him away because he was being insane. Hunk," Pidge turned addressing Hunk. "You took Shiro home. Did anything eventful happen?"

"Hmm…" Hunk thought. "I remember he kept waving at green lights and then shouting every sign without falter. It was pretty funny to hear him say 'HOSPITAL: TWO MILES TO EXIT!' like it was world breaking news."

Lance had started laughing when Pidge had mentioned Shiro being drunk but at Hunk's slightly slurred interpretation of what Shiro sounded like, had Lance guffawing with laughter. He really wanted to see Shiro drunk.

"Yes, okay," Shiro muttered grumpily, "I get it. I get drunk. Now, can we move on to a different person?"

"Oh, come on Dad!" Lance said though his laughter. "We didn't get a teenage story!"

"No," Shiro said.

"Pleeeease!" Allura whined and Lance could just tell from her voice that she was using puppy dog eyes on him.

"No," Shiro restated but there was a slight waver. Keith picked up on his hesitation and took advantage of it. "Come on Shiro, don't you want to recount that one boy you tried to ask out in ninth grade."

"YEAH! That was hilarious!" Pidge shouted.

"No," Shiro deadpanned.

"Fine," Keith said, "Then I'm telling it."

"Please, yes," Lance responded.

"Okay so Shiro had this crush on this one boy in his freshman year of high school. He wanted to ask him to a dance so he got him some flowers, right? Well first of all, this poor boy was allergic to these flowers so he kept sneezing in Shiro's face. Second, Shiro got all of his words mixed up and said something like 'me go out with' so he sounded like some kind of fucking Neanderthal. It was so funny to watch him flounder. The boy kindly turned him down but then, while Shiro was standing up, he tripped and fell into him, knocking him onto the floor. Okay, yeah, that's like a movie cliché, but this ended badly. He fell with his hair directly in fresh, wet, chewed gum. So Shiro cut a good chunk of his hair off." Keith started wiping his eyes of laughter tears. "It was one of the best days of my life and I am so happy that I had the opportunity to watch all of that. I only wish that I had recorded it."

Lance started laughing. He couldn't breathe. He could way too easily imagine a pimply young Shiro bumbling over trying to ask a person out. And he could imagine, Keith, a few years younger, watching the whole disaster and laughing.

Lance subconsciencly grabbed Keith's shoulder to lean forward to catch his breath. He kept laughing so hard he was wheezing. He didn't know why he found the idea so funny but just imagining perfect Oreo-dad Shiro bumbling over a boy made his laugh way too hard.

But he was also shocked that Keith so openly admitted that Shiro had tried to date a boy. Lance… Lance was never that open and he didn't know how anyone could be.

Suddenly, Lance had the idea of Keith, much younger, with a mullet. He could not imagine why anyone, adopted parents or not, would let a child get a mullet.

Lance was able to stop laughing for a moment in order to sit up. He noticed Keith staring at him, his shoulder tense under Lance's grip. Lance couldn't read Keith's expression but he felt unsettled by it.

Pidge broke the tension, "Okay. Keith's story time!"

"What!?" Keith said. "No, I don't want a story about me."

"Shiro!" Pidge called. "You wanna take this one in payback against Keith?"

"Sure," Shiro called, his voice was overly cheery. Lance glanced back at Keith and couldn't help but revel in the look of sheer horror on his face.

"Dear lord, Shiro, didn't you do enough damage with the BAU stories about me?" Keith tried desperately.

"Nope," Lance chimed. "I could always hear more stories."

"I volunteer Lance to go next," Keith declared.

"After you!" Lance smiled joyously.

"Fuck you," Keith whispered softly.

"Go ahead, Shiro," Pidge called.

Lance could hear Shiro sigh but it wasn't unhappy, more contented like he was savoring the moment.

"Let me see. I think one of the funniest times is when I found Keith on top of our apartment roof with pin-boards and weird tech surrounding him. He and Pidge were going through this space conspiracy phase where they kept coming up with ridiculous theories and trying to prove them. That was the time Keith was in his whole "Mothman obsession phase." At the time that I found him, Keith had shouted for me to "eff off" so that he could find his 'cool alien uncle.'"

Beside Lance, Keith huffed dramatically.

"Shiro," Keith said, "You know I was going through that weird soul-search-y phase. I wanted to know who my mom was and I wanted to know who I was. Aliens just helped because they were such an absurd and yet comforting idea that I couldn't help but be drawn to them. You can blame Pidge on the tech and conspiracy theories."

"True," Pidge said laughing as they pointed dramatically at Keith.

"WEAK!" Lance shouted. "That was a WEAK story. I need more. Hunk, Allura, you with me?"

"Sure," Hunk said supportively.

"I love gossip," Allura said.

"Okay then," Shiro said. "Since Keith told one of me making a fool out of myself, I'll return the favor."

"Shiro…" Keith said warningly.

Shiro glanced back and gave a reassuring smile to Keith. Lance couldn't help but notice the faint blush that was on Keith's face.

"I've got this, Keith. So Pidge, Matt, and I had convinced Keith to go to this pie throwing charity event. It was weird. Basically, the goal was to throw the most pies and have the least amount of pie on you. It was a lot of fun and we all got covered in pie. We had finished towards the bottom because Pidge kept covering themselves with pie and then tackling Keith, Matt, and I. Well, after the place rankings were called out, that's when things went downhill for Keith. Apparently, his crush was there as well and they had spotted Keith. Well, Keith's crush came up and started talking to Keith, despite the fact that Keith was mortified. Then, just to mess with Keith, Pidge found a pie that had been left behind and lobbed it at the back of his head so that Keith stumbled forward into his crush's arms. I have never seen Keith turn a brighter shade of red or scramble away so quickly."

"And the spluttering!" Pidge shouted. "I was on the floor laughing so hard. Keith's crush looked so confused as he tried to figure out what was going on."

"Pidge," Keith said sharply.

Lance wondered if he had misheard something or if Pidge had really said 'he' when referring to Keith's crush. Not that it mattered. It wasn't like Lance had the brief thought about being a bisexual boy himself. He didn't like having something in common with Keith. He wanted to be as different from mullet-head as he could be.

And Shiro… being potentially gay? Lance wanted to talk to him about that but he couldn't. Not with Keith chained to his wrist.

Still, the story was hilarious and Keith's blush combined with his scowl was far too funny for Lance to not tease him about.

"Aww, Mullet head failed with his crush! Do you need a hug maybe ice cream or a pony?"

"Shut up, Lance," Keith growled. "How about we hear a story about you?"

"Hunk?" Lance asked, "You want to tell this one for the group?"

Lance knew that Hunk would be one of the only people to know any stories about Lance's past and he figured that Hunk was too much of a cinnamon roll to do anything drastic.

"When Lance was fifteen, he got two strips of his hair shaved off and then the hair around it dyed blue. He called it his racing strip."

Instantly the car was quiet. Lance wasn't laughing anymore. Keith and Pidge were snickering into their hands.

"Hunnnk!" Lance put a hand to his chest in indignation. "I told you to never tell anyone about that! What the fuuuck. You betray me!"

"Of course," Hunk said. "As I said earlier, the Pidgeon terrifies me."

Pidge snorted. "Good. Then I've done my job well done."

"Do you, by chance, have photographic evidence?" Keith asked Hunk.

Lance attempted to subtly sit on his phone. Pidge noticed.

"AHA!" Pidge somehow managed to grab Lance's phone in half a second despite being far away in seating and Lance trying to hide it. In hindsight, Lance remembered that Keith had grabbed his arms so Pidge could grab the phone. It had made Lance pause for half of a second giving Pidge just enough time to win.

"Good luck with the passcode," Lance growled.

"And… There!" Pidge called out. "I hacked your passcode."

"What—What the fuck Pidge?" Lance shouted indignantly, "How? How the fuck did you figure it out so quickly?"

"I just tried your sibling's birthdays in various orders," they said nonchalantly. "And now to go to photos…"

Pidge was silent as they scrolled through Lance's camera roll, which, thankfully, was mostly of his family and random shit he hadn't bothered to delete yet.

Lance sulked dramatically throwing his arm over his head. "Oh, woe is me. Thou shall displayth my darkest secrets to the world!"

"Calm down, Lance," Keith grumbled. "We have to savor this chance to make fun of you."

"I FOUND IT!" Pidge roared triumphantly.

They turned the phone around to show a picture of Lance with his shaved and blue streaks making a finger gun to someone off camera with his right eye closed in a wink. It actually wasn't a horrible picture, he was happily surprised to find.

"Aww, you looked so adorable!" Hunk called.

"You have a pimple on your nose," Keith commented.

"Well, that was before I had my amazing skin care routine to uphold my perfect completion."

Keith looked to Hunk for confirmation. "It's true. He has like 25 skin care products he applies daily. And he usually wears a face-mask at night."

"Are you kidding me?" Keith said.

"Nope," Hunk replied. "I'm not."

"And there!" Pidge said again. "I sent the picture to the rest of us in a group chat."

"That's nice, Pidge," Shiro said from the front.

"What?!" Lance responded, "No it isn't!"

"But give Lance back his phone," Shiro continued. "We're here."

---

Keith~

Finally. A chance to prove his skill.

For one, he didn't know why he wanted to compete with and one-up Lance so badly but he did. He and Lance were not helpful together, but they were working better than they had at their first meeting which Keith was doing his best to forget. If he and Lance actually worked together, they could probably do really well; however, they spent their time arguing instead and got nothing of productive value done.

Keith also didn't know why, but it really irked him that Lance had found Matt's journal. He had wanted to be the one to find something.

At least no one was treating him like a criminal. They had this unspoken agreement that they would find Matt first, because they had to hope that the murders and his kidnapping were connected. At least, no one else had yet died.

Three murders and a kidnapping. They barely had any kind of profile to go on. They had no idea how they could find Matt. They were grasping at straws.

Lance and Keith shuffled out of the van as they arrived.

Keith still wished he could be chained to Shiro or Pidge or Hunk, but he understood that they couldn't trust him with his friends and family.

Lance dragged Keith behind him obnoxiously as he dashed over towards Shiro.

"Okay," Shiro said once they had all gathered. "So the plan is to go in as a group and we are going to talk to the manager first. I'll ask to interview some people including him, and then we'll start interviewing. I want Keith and Lance to double-team interviews. I'll be interviewing too. I want Coran and Allura to be watching the interactions of the various members. And I want Pidge to hack into Matt's computer. Hunk, I want you to probe some people in a group setting. Don't necessarily bring up Matt but see if you can either find clues or probe for information. Now, if someone asks about Keith, we are going to say that he is an officer in training and that this is a way for us to be able to analyze how productive Keith is. Everyone clear?"

Everyone nodded or saluted in affirmation.

"Alright, then let's go in."

Keith had never been to Matt's work but he had heard about it once. It was a big building where everyone sat at a desk with a computer working on programing and finding information on people. No one really talked to each other, but they had all customized their desks a little to remind them of home.

They had to take the elevator up in two groups. Lance, Keith, Shiro, in one group. The other four on the next elevator ride.

"Lance," Shiro said, "I want Keith to lead in the interview but I want you to pipe up if you think of anything relevant. Remember, trust in Keith's skills. He's really good at profiling." The shadow of a smile passed Shiro's lips, "as you found out yesterday."

"Yeah, yeah," Lance replied. "At least I'll finally get to witness these detective skills I've heard so much about and yet haven't gotten to see. Because who found the journal? I did." His tone was teasing but not condescending. Lance then added a quirky smirk and winked at Keith and Shiro.

Keith rolled his eyes, Honestly. How is he so annoying?

Keith also couldn't explain why, but he felt like he had to prove himself to Lance. Like he needed to prove that he was better, or at least good enough to assist the investigation.

"And Lance," Shiro added, "If anyone acts like they need to see FBI credentials, step up and show them because Keith won't be able to."

Lance nodded, subdued for once.

The elevator door binged as it opened onto the eleventh floor—Matt's floor.

Shiro took the lead with Keith following behind, dragging Lace behind him. Shiro went to the manager's office and stepped inside. As he used to, Keith waited outside the room, holding Lance back as well.

"Shouldn't we follow him in?" Lance asked.

Keith had leaned against the wall with his arms folded across his chest and one leg propped up on the wall behind him.

"No," Keith said dully. "It's better to let Shiro explain what we are here for before the manager gets intimidated by a large group. You can already see some of the workers getting agitated." He gestured to a girl with curly ringlets of hair who kept glancing at them.

"Point taken," Lance said, draping himself against the wall to the right of Keith.

Keith couldn't help but notice that Lance was in a mirror position of his own. He wondered if Lance had done that purposefully or if he had done it subconsciously.

After an eternity of awkward silences, the rest of the group came up and found Lance and Keith. They were all quiet, probably intimidated by the quiet of the work room with only the clicking of keyboards to fill the empty yet oppressive sound of silence.

Finally, Shiro emerged with a slight smile. "The manager, Carl, said that he would be happy to let us probe around. He kept talking about how good a worker Matt was and how he was surprised that he wasn't there the other day. I'll go ahead and interview him. He suggested that we start with that guy Rolo, over there."

Keith nodded. "Okay, we'll get on that."

He and Lance turned away and started walking towards the man Shiro had gestured towards. He had longer dyed white hair and a tan complexion like he was a surfer. His shoulders were relaxed and as Keith got closer, he took notice of his downturned puppy eyes.

"Hello," Lance said, always the social one, "Your name is Rolo right?"

"Yeah?" The man said looking them up and down. "Is everything okay?"

"Well," Lance said, "we were hoping we could give a quick interview."

"I suppose I can't turn this down?" Rolo asked.

Lance pulled out the FBI credentials and smiled apologetically.

"Is there a room we could use for a more private interview?" Keith asked.

"Yeah," Rolo said nonchalantly, standing up and pushing his chair behind him. "This way."

Keith didn't like the guy's casual attitude. No one should be that calm when faced with the FBI. Everyone had secrets that they feared getting out. This guy's attitude meant that he was good with hiding his emotions and he would be harder to read in an interview. Keith didn't like that.

He let Rolo lead the way and pulled Lance's chain as he let Rolo get a little ahead of them. "Lance," Keith hissed into the other's ear. "Don't be drawn in by his casual and friendly attitude. He's a professional and faking his emotions and not letting people onto what he's really feeling."

Lance nodded. Keith couldn't help but wonder if Lance had a little bit of respect in his eyes as he started moving after Rolo.

Rolo presented them with a room that was large with a conference table and a couple of side tables and laptops along the edge.

He walked in, still relaxed, and sat down at one side of the table, his hands laced behind his head and his feet crossed and propped on the chair to his right. Keith opted to stay standing despite Lance's desires to sit.

"Okay, Rolo," Keith started. He knew that he had to do well in this interview and that he had to prove that he should be there. "What do you do here at Garrison Tech?" He tried to keep the agitation out of his voice in order to make Rolo open up more.

"I work as the safety check person. I try to test to see how easily someone could hack our stuff and I check to see how buggy it is," he shrugged. "It's no big deal, really."

Downplays his role in society. So he's not egotistical.

"Has there been any changes to the team in the last few months?"

Rolo shook his head. "No, our teams pretty solid. We've been like this for about six months without much change."

"Is your pay steady?" A good place to start to see if there were any triggering factors recently in his life.

"Yeah!" Rolo said with an aloof smile. "I got a raise two weeks ago. That was sweet."

Keith glanced the Lance. He was happy that this interview was going well so far but there was no reason to suspect Rolo… yet. He just had to make sure Lance didn't say anything to throw him off.

"Has anything changed in your family life lately?" Lance asked, because of course he couldn't keep his damn mouth shut for a little while longer.

Rolo's smile instantly turned into a frown but he was able to shake it off and return to a casual, yet forced, smile. "No, not much has changed."

A lie. Maybe there was reason to suspect Rolo.

"Okay," Keith said, glaring daggers at Lance for a brief moment. "Have you noticed anyone acting differently or can you think of anyone, in your group, who just went through something major?"

Rolo's gaze became distant and cold. "Nyma. My friend Nyma just lost her house in a fire. I've been caring for her for the past two weeks."

Well, that's something, Keith thought.

"Could you tell us anything about your newest member?" Keith asked, hoping he was right and that Matt was the newest addition. It would be an easier way to ask about Matt than to mention him directly.

"Matt?" Rolo said. "Yeah, Matt's a little odd. He's crazy good with computers but he's pretty quiet and he generally keeps to himself. He's a really good detective though. He can find information on any website or person that you want. It's kind of scary." Suddenly, Rolo sat up, put his feet on the ground, and leaned forward with his eyes narrowed. His tone changed completely, becoming hostile and closed in. "Is there a reason that I was called in? Or are you accusing me of something?"

Before Keith could answer, Lance started talking.

"Well, you know the murders of recent? Yeah, someone in this building was killed so we were seeing if there was any connection. We don't specifically suspect you but your boss said that you knew people in your team so we thought you might be a good place to start."

Wow. Keith was actually impressed. Lance had come up with a pretty good lie that completely took the blame off of Rolo while still subtly implying that he could be the killer. It would relax most everyone and only slightly agitate a killer, especially with the part about how he was recommended to talk about other people.

"How close are you to your team members?" Keith asked, taking back over the interview.

"Eh," Rolo said, leaning back in his chair and relaxing some, "I'm close to Nyma but otherwise we don't have all that much 'bonding' and whatnot. Mostly I just know some general info about the team."

"Would anyone strike you as suspicious?" Lance asked because he just had to ruin the interview. Again. He glanced at Keith and had the audacity to smirk.

"No," Rolo said though his body language and tone implied that he was closed off and would not be answering any more questions.

He hadn't reacted to Matt really anyway. He probably had secrets, maybe drugs if Keith had to guess, but nothing regarding their murders.

"Alright," Keith said, glancing at Lance to tell him to be quiet. "Then you can go ahead and go. We'll get back to you if we need any more information but I think for now we're good."

Rolo relaxed the tension in his shoulders and brushed past Keith, almost bumping his shoulder on the way out.

Keith closed the conference room door after Rolo left and turned to Lance.

"I don't really think he's a suspect," Lance said to start.

"Good. What else?"

"I suppose that he could be some petty criminal. I don't really like his connection to that girl he mentioned, Nyma. And I think he was too kind overall."

"Alright," Keith said, "Pretty good deducing skills. Next step is to tell Allura and Coran to watch for how Rolo interacts with people, especially Nyma."

Lance nodded and they walked out of the room over to where Allura and Coran were. Allura soured as they approached but Keith gave them the rundown anyway. Allura said, "Thank you Lance." Then paused before adding, "Keith."

Whatever.

Keith and Lance started walking around the desks until they found the name plate Nyma. Before them sat a girl who had two pigtails with long twisty blond hair in them.

"You're Nyma, correct?" Keith asked.

The girl turned around and Keith noticed that she had an oddly small face with too large eyes. She was wearing a tank-top and some plain jeans. "Yes?" she said in a voice that was so coated in sugar Keith was already ready to snap at her.

"We would like to take you back for a few quick questions," Keith said.

"Don't worry, Sweetness, they will be quite painless," Lance added.

Keith looked at him questioningly. What is he doing?

"Alright, Mr. FBI," Nyma said, smiling with enough honey in her voice to make bees puke.

She stood, brushing nonexistent hairs behind her shoulder.

Keith took the lead with Lance trailing behind to guide Nyma as they walked towards the conference room.

Lance held the door open for Nyma while she gave a small smile at him.

Ugh, Keith didn't know why but he was already ready for this interview to be over.

"Alright, Nyma," Keith said and she turned her attention away from Lance to look annoyedly at him. He didn't care. "So, we heard from Rolo that you've been staying at his place, has anything in recent changed for you?"

Nyma's frown turned downward into a pensive scowl.

Lance stepped closer to Keith and hissed, "What are you doing? Last time you took your time. Why are you jumping the gun this time?"

Keith was about to reply but Nyma started speaking. "A couple weeks ago I went on a weekend vacation and—" she made this high-pitched chittering sound Keith assumed to be laughter, "Silly me! I left the stove on. My house burned down so I went to stay with Rolo until my insurance can get me set up properly." Nyma grabbed a part of her hair and started twirling it. She sat with her legs crossed at the ankles like she was trying to be proper.

Keith wanted to scream, 'LIKELY STORY,' but Lance took over, "Oh, I'm so sorry! That must have been horrible!"

"It was…" Nyma muttered. She wiped at the edges of her eyes though Keith could see no tears.

"So why did you go to stay with Rolo?" Keith asked, determined to keep this interview on track.

"He and I had been friends for a while so he offered and I accepted," Nyma said vaguely.

"Are… are you two dating?" Lance asked.

God! LANCE! Why does it matter?

When Keith thought about it logically, it was actually a good question but it could have been asked better.

And… Keith didn't know why it irked him to have Lance flirting. He hated the way Lance flirted with her. He probably flirted with every girl he saw. It probably bothered Keith because they were on the job and should be focusing. Probably.

"No," Nyma said in such a way that could either be taken as wistful or flirtatiously.

"So how well do you know the other members of your team?" Keith asked.

"Oh, I am pretty good friends with them. I like to talk to people when I'm on my break."

"What about the newest member, Matt?" Lance asked, raising one eyebrow and smiling in a playful way. Maybe… maybe Lance's flirtations would get them more answers…. Keith didn't like it but it might work really well.

"Oh," Nyma said, her tone souring. "Him. Yeah, he's quiet."

And that's all she said. Her tone was weird. It wasn't unkind or serial-killer-esque, but Keith could hear the disdain in her voice.

"So how does he fit with the group?" Lance asked.

"Not that well," Nyma said curtly. "If we ask him anything he closes up like a Venus Fly Trap."

"Have you noticed anything… different happening recently?" Keith asked.

"No," Nyma said tartly.

Lance smiled at her and leaned towards her on the table, his arms and legs crossed. Keith just raised his eyebrows questioningly.

"Have your pretty eyes noticed that anyone's changed in the last couple weeks?" Lance asked, smiling.

Keith was ready to gag.

Nyma smiled, "No, I haven't really noticed anything. Some people have been on edge because of the murders but that's about it. Wait, are you two here because of that? Didn't someone in the eighth-floor die?"

Keith glanced to Lance. Lance had said something about that too. He wondered if that was true.

"Yeah," Lance said, "We were trying to see if anyone might know something but we couldn't announce it to everyone so there wouldn't be a panic." Lance raised his eyebrows and grinned, "I'm betting you can keep a great secret for us, can't you?"

Nyma smirked in return, "Of course I could keep a great big secret for a strong handsome guy like you."

Oh. Keith was pretty sure that he could taste his McDonald's breakfast again.

Lance was grinning ear to ear.

Keith hoped his face wasn't green.

"Well!" Keith cried loudly once he had swallowed his bile. "I think that concludes our interview! Thanks."

He had to force his voice to sound even half cheerful. He knew that he was doing the investigation a disservice by being biased, but he was really tired of Nyma. And… she seemed too cunning to be killing people in a mall. That required planned scenarios, especially to not be caught, but she just didn't seem like the kind to attack… so viciously. Keith was fairly certain that their unsub was a man.

He yanked on the chain a little to make Lance stand up from his leaned over position on the table. Nyma stood and smiled as she brushed past Lance, their arms bumping together. When she got to Keith her chocolate eyes narrowed in malice and she walked right into him with her shoulder, knocking him to the side in a very rude way. She walked out the door before Keith could say anything.

Good Riddance.

---

Shiro~

"Well, that was a total bust," Pidge grumbled as they threw grapes into the air and caught them in their mouth.

The team sat in the BAU office quietly, trying to decide what to do next. It was already lunch time by the time they had finished interviewing people at Matt's office and Shiro had to agree that nothing had happened.

Shiro had started pacing.

Lance and Keith hadn't found anything of interest to the case though they did suspect that Rolo and Nyma were up to some shady activities despite Lance vouching for Nyma a couple of times.

Shiro was amazed that they were working together. They didn't seem… happy about it, but at least Keith was shutting up and not arguing every two minutes. Maybe he recognized how helping would help him stop being a suspect.

Shiro was also pretty sure that no one but maybe Allura and Coran still actually suspected Keith and Shiro had been talking to Allura so that she would trust him more, though she still claimed that Shiro was biased.

She meant well, she really did. She just didn't want Shiro to be hurt or unprepared. But he really wished that she would trust him a little bit more. Though, he supposed it was good that one person was on edge about Keith.

Pidge was grumpy because they hadn't been able to find any helpful information, or any secrets on Matt's computer.

None of them had found a thing. And it bothered Shiro more than he wanted to admit. He wanted to find Matt so badly and he wanted to clear Keith's name in the process.

Matt had been his best friend for so many years. They had worked so closely together.

Shiro gripped the journal inside of his coat pocket and sighed.

"We haven't had any murders since Matt was taken," Shiro said. "I would imagine that if Matt were dead, we would know and there would be more murders because out unsub doesn't seem like the type to just quit."

"What if we told the media?" Coran suggested. "We could make a public announcement about either the malls or Matt. Or both. It might draw our unsub out and give us a bit of an advantage."

"No," Hunk said. "We don't know that the two correlate. I think we should wait so we don't cause a panic of people not going to the malls. That results in an angry unsub and an angry unsub would result in Matt's—"

Hunk stopped talking but everyone's mind finished with death.

"Have you guys gone to the malls to investigate yet?" Keith asked.

"Yeah," Pidge responded, "We did that a little while ago. Before we brought you in. But we didn't find anything."

"Let's work on our profile, then," Shiro said. "Maybe then we could go to the families of the victims and we could go see if they know anything about the person our profile describes."

"Alright," Lance said. "What do you have so far?"

"So far we know that he is aggressive and angry, probably out for revenge based on the targets that all knew Matt. He's going to be very organized and calm but quick to a temper. He's going to have a one-sided mind because he won't want to deviate from his usual plans."

"He probably looks like an average guy. Nothing too noticeable or people would have noticed him at the mall," Pidge commented.

"And he has to be someone Matt knew or he wouldn't have been kidnapped," Allura added. "Though, that is assuming that the two are correlated. This man may also wear a safari hat when walking around because we found mention of that in Matt's journal."

"Alright," Keith said, "Shiro, have you found anything else in this notebook?"

Shiro glanced at the journal and couldn't help his face heating up slightly. "No. Mostly he talks about hanging out with the group or with you and I."

Keith nodded, "Okay. Then could someone tell me about the people who were killed?" His gaze shifted quickly to Allura, "And I don't want to hear about how I should know my own victims because aren't we favoring the idea that it was the same person? I was proved to have not kidnapped Matt because I would have had to leave my apartment, timed it so I arrived just after Pidge left, and put that note on the wall before driving back and, guess what, arriving too late to be taken in by you guys."

Allura said nothing but crossed her arms over her chest. She glanced at Shiro and once again, and Shiro wanted to tell her that it was okay, that Keith really could be trusted.

"The first death was of a woman named Te-Osh. She died in the Moon Mall five days ago," Shiro said, handing Keith the profile from his bag so that he could look over it. "The second was of a woman named Olia who died in the Olkarie Mall and her death was four days ago." Shiro handed Keith her file as well. "Finally we have Xi, a male who died in the Arus Mall three days ago. Matt was taken one day ago and that's all we learned."

Shiro watched Keith thumb hrough the files.

"I don't know that Matt had any real connection to these people," Keith said, "Maybe a little but I don't think their deaths would be enough to ruin him. I think that he would have been sad and that's it. What do you think Shiro? You knew him better."

"I agree. I think that these people were just old friends of Matt's and he wouldn't have felt that close of an attachment," Shiro said. "The most disturbing thing was that the victimology seemed to change when Xi, an older male, died instead of the early thirties women that the unsub had been killing."

"You're right," Hunk said. "That's what makes this seem more like a revenge story and less like a random serial killer."

"So, what's the endgame?" Lance asked. "What does this big bad dude want?"

Shiro could remember that one time they had been captured. He could remember it so vividly he relieved it every time he went to sleep.

"I know that we never caught the guy who captured us," Shiro said slowly. "He left us for dead and we escaped. Because of Keith and Matt of course."

"Shiro," Keith said warningly.

Shiro wanted to tell Lance, Allura, and Coran, but for all the trauma he had gone through, he didn't remember most of it. Keith did. He remembered every painstaking moment that Shiro and Hunk had been captured leaving only Pidge and Keith and Matt to find them.

Shiro nodded, deciding to let Keith tell them on their own time.

"What if the unsub was after Keith next?" Hunk postulated. "If he got Matt and some of the people Matt knew, it could have been like a warning that he was going to take all of Matt's friends and then Matt and Keith. If it is the same unsub, then he might have wanted to finish capturing all of us like he had before."

Shiro noticed how Keith had kind of gone pale and how his expression had turned to stone. Hunk had also started rubbing his forehead under the cloth around his head.

"Good think he can't get me without taking Lance as well," Keith muttered.

Shiro thought about how he was planning on leaving Keith at the BAU that night. Maybe he could stay with Keith? He didn't want Keith to be captured…

"Lance," Shiro said quietly, "I have a request for you."

---

Lance~

Of course.

Why the fuck did he think things would work out?

When Shiro had asked him if he would be willing to be chained to Keith for another few nights, Lance said yes because how could he disappoint Shiro? He looks up to Shiro. Shiro was the most collected and put together.

But… Keith.

Lance… he hates the guy. He used to admire the work he did but now he just didn't know. He was phenomenal at interrogating the people earlier but he was so hot headed and impulsive and so… human.

Shiro still seemed like his prosthetic arm gave him superhuman detective abilities and leader abilities. But Keith made mistakes. He wasn't amazing and perfect, despite being really good.. And… Lance wanted to see how far he could push him.

Like earlier when they had been interviewing and both working together and competing at the same time.

Dang. That girl Nyma was, hot. Lance had wanted to pull out all of his flirting tricks but he had also wanted to interrogate her. Keith didn't have any charm. Couldn't that guy do anything?

And now Lance felt like he couldn't even think privately because stupid fucking Keith was right there.

Chained to his wrist.

Keith and Lance were waiting in chairs watching Pidge as they typed furiously on their screen looking for safari hats and any reason Matt might have been captured.

Lance was bored watching all of the computer code but Shiro had instructed him and Keith stay with Pidge to help with analysis. As he waited, he reached over and grabbed one of the spherical techy doodads that Pidge had lying around and started balancing it in the bent line between his nose and his eyes.

It fell after thirty seconds and Keith snorted. "That's as long as you can go?"

"Is that a challenge?," Lance asked, quirking an eyebrow upwards. "I would like to see you do better. That'll be a warm up round. And then you have to prove you can do better." Lance tilted his head back and placed the ball balancing on the curve of his nose, focusing on how the ball would balance much more than he had the previous time.. Keith grabbed another of the balls and copied him.

"I bet you can't last forty-five seconds," Keith said and Lance could just hear the smirk in the guy's voice.

"I bet you can't even last thirty," Lance retorted.

"Pidge!" Keith said, "Time us."

"I'm kind of busy," they grumbled, "Sorry, but time yourselves."

"Fine," Keith muttered. "Lance take your ball off for a minute, I will too. And then we can use your phone to time us."

"Why not your phone?" Lance muttered.

"Yes. Of course," Keith said dryly, "the suspected criminal still has his phone."

"Oh," Lance said, feeling stupid. He grabbed the ball, Keith did the same. He pulled out his phone and the stopwatch in the clock and then waited for Keith to get ready again. Once they were both in position, Lance pressed start and began balancing his ball.

He focused on barely breathing and just beating Keith. If he moved, the ball would waver and fall. He didn't know how much time had passed when he heard a thump and "SHIT."

"YES!" Lance shouted triumphantly lifting his ball off of his nose. "I am the King!" He raised both of his arms is praise for himself, welcoming his own glory.

"Nope," Keith said. "I fell once, you fell once. That was my warmup round. Time to go again."

Lance opened his mouth to argue that he hadn't been trying the first time when Keith spoke up again, a lit fire dancing in his eyes. "Unless… you're too afraid that you'll lose in a rematch."

"Bring it on, mullet," Lance said, restarting the stopwatch, which was already over a minute do to their bickering, and began balancing.

He was the king.

He could win.

He just couldn't move.

Lance felt a light tug on his right arm. He lifted his hand, without looking and heard the jangling of the chain. Keith… Keith was trying to sabotage him!

Two could play at that game.

Lance yanked on the chain as hard as he could. Keith lurched out of his chair. Unfortunately, Lance dropped his ball in the process as well.

"What the fuck, Lance?!" Keith shouted.

"You, started it first."

"But I didn't cause you to drop the ball," Keith retorted.

"OKAY!" Pidge yelled. "I get it, you are both five years old and very pretty. Now, can you let me fucking work?"

"Yes, Pidge," Keith said sullenly.

"Fine," Lance muttered.

They waited for a moment in silence. "Rematch without sabotage?" Lance asked.

"You're on."

They started again balancing their spheres and waiting for the seconds to tick by. Lance glanced at Keith and noticed that his eyes were closed in concentration. His hair hung back loosely and his arms were crossed over his chest. Lance noticed how… kind of hot he looked like that. He was peaceful yet determined but not angry. His lips were twisted up in the shadow of a smirk.

Thump.

Shit. Lance had been too distracted by Keith to notice his own ball falling off.

"Ha!" Keith smirked, grabbing his sphere. "I won."

"Yes, captain obvious. You did," Lance rolled his eyes. "Let's go again. This time I'll definitely beat you."

"Nope," Keith said already getting into position.

The next round, Lance won. He celebrated and bounced around until they started again.

They kept going like that, keeping fairly tied until Pidge spun around in their chair and snatched the balls off of both of their heads.

"Thanks," they deadpanned, "I needed those."

"What are they for?" Lance asked. "We were using them."

"I know," Pidge said. "You wouldn't shut the fuck up either."

Lance scowled. He noticed Keith glaring at the back of Pidge's head.

"And these are for counting and tracking," Pidge said without any further explanation.

There was silence in the room for a little while. Lance hated silence.

"Pidge," Lance said with an edge of a whine in his voice, "Can we please put on some music?"

"If it gets you to shut up then fine," Pidge mumbled.

Lance opened his phone and tried to find a song that he enjoyed and that wouldn't be totally embarrassing. He found Imagine Dragons' On Top of the World and put that on. As the melody started Lance started to bob his head. The words started and Lance stood up and began to move. He knew that Pidge and Keith were watching him but it was such a good song to move to.

The chain jingled as Lance dropped down to the ground and slowly rose up to the beat of the song.

"What are you doing?" Keith asked, his arms crossed.

"Dancing?" Lance said, twisting around, "Don't you dance, Mullet?"

Keith scoffed, "Not really. Maybe things have changed since I was here but we didn't really dance."

"That's just Lance," Pidge told Keith.

"Hey," Lance defended, "I liven things up."

He was having fun. He knew that he needed to be focusing on poor Matt, but he needed to decompress and this was how he did it. He joked, he competed with Keith, he danced.

The song came to an end and Lance struck a pose.

"Are you done?" Keith asked but he didn't sound exactly annoyed.

Lance tilted his head. "No… I have the perfect song in mind."

He scrolled through his phone absently humming the chorus of the last one until he found the song he was looking for.

The song started and Lance bobbed his head.

Oh don't you dare look back,

Lance looked at Keith and Smirked.

"Oh, god," Pidge muttered, still typing away at their computer.

"Just keep your eyes on me," Lance sang along.

He pulled on the chain with just enough strength to get Keith out of his chair.

"Shut up and Dance?" Keith questioned. "By Walk the Moon? Are you kidding."

"No," Lance laughed. "Shut up and Dance!"

Lance was dancing in a poppy bouncy sort of way but Keith was just standing there, his arms still crossed over his chest and an eyebrow raised as he watched Lance."

"You're holding back!" Lance pulled the chain taught and used it to spin Keith around until he uncrossed his arms. Lance grabbed one and started bouncing with Keith, singing the lyrics the whole time.

"This is stupid," Keith muttered.

"This is fun!" Lance declared, forcing Keith to move. He was stiff and tough but it was more fun for Lance to have a goal to get Keith to move around.

The song came to a close. Lance was already feeling the excitement of moving coursing through him.

"Can I sit now?" Keith asked.

"No," Lance said, "not until I get you to move."

Keith sighed.

"Doesn't Matt like anime?" Lance asked.

"Yes," Pidge asserted. "Keith does too."

"Wonderful!" Lance grinned switching the song to Guren No Yumiya from Attack on Titan.

It was so wonderful to watch Keith's eyes widen in surprise and horror.

"JAEGER!" Lance shouted as the only word he knew. Already he was moving in fluidly robotic movements with the song. "If this song doesn't get you pumped up then nothing will."

Keith held out for another five second, before he started bobbing his head and moving to the beat.

Lance stepped with quick hops around the small room, dashing about in time to the song. Keith joined him, though he was admittedly, less excitable about it, It was still fun in Lance's opinion.

By the time they were at the second season's opening theme, Shiro came in to ask Pidge a question. Keith had rushed to sit in his chair, almost falling over in the process. Shiro had only smiled and shook his head. "Normally, I would request that you start working again but there's not too much you can do at the moment."

Shiro told them how they were waiting for the malls to agree to let them interview and investigate people. They also had to ask the families of the victims if they would be willing to be interviewed. Lance always hated that. He hated talking to the families of victims. He hated seeing their grief. He had joined the BAU to help prevent that.

They had apparently just gotten confirmation to be able to go to all of the malls and look around. It was just past lunch time so they would have all afternoon to be able to look at them.

"I'll tell the group all at once," Shiro told them, "But basically the plan is to all head to the mall with the most recent and sloppiest attack, and then we'll split into two groups and cover the other two malls."

"Awesome," Keith said. "Great work, Shiro."

Shiro smiled faintly. "I am just hoping we find something to help prove your innocence."

"Me too," Keith muttered sullenly.

There was a beat of silence before Pidge closed their computer in a huff. "Well I've been having the best fucking luck of my life," they said in annoyed sarcasm obviously showing that they hadn't found anything.

Shiro frowned. "Would you rather stay here and search more?"

"No," Pidge said spitefully. "I need to have some kind of victory or I'm going to go fucking nuts."

"Sounds good to me," Lance said. "I guess let's get ready to go!"

~~~…

---

Keith~

Lance was killing him.

Slowly.

He didn't know what that stupid man had done to his head, but when he had been egged into competing with Lance, he found that it had been rather fun to tease him and utterly beat him.

And then Lance had started dancing. Fucking dancing.

Keith hadn't been able to look away. The way his body moved was so fluid and yet upbeat and enthusiastic. And then he… he had made Keith dance too.

And Keith had gone along with it, albeit, quite reluctantly. He hadn't wanted to dance with someone as annoying as Lance.

And yet…. Keith couldn't help but admire his positive attitude. The way that he could stay so upbeat and keep making jokes despite everything going on around them just amazed Keith. He was desperate to get Matt back, Keith could tell, but he wasn't letting that ruin his positive attitude.

Keith admired that.

He wouldn't stop making obnoxious jokes and puns no matter what.

"I have a feeling that this investigation will go mall-vellously," Lance commented as they drove in the van towards the mall.

Everyone groaned in annoyance. Pidge was the only one who nodded calmly, "Good one but I've heard better."

Lance scowled and stuck out his tongue. "For your information, I am very punny."

"Ugh," Keith grumbled.

"Well," Shiro called, "We don't have to suffer any more because we are here. Besides, we all know that my puns are to die for."

"I thought we agreed to not use death jokes or crime puns while on the job," Hunk said as the van rolled to a stop. Everyone got out and stretched.

Because of the chain pulling his arm, Keith was forced to watch Lance stretch his arms over his head resulting in the edge of his shirt lifting up.

Keith shook his head, telling himself that it didn't matter how smooth Lance's skin was and that it didn't matter how absolutely gay Keith was because Lance was a stupid fucking idiot who didn't deserve a second thought.

"Alright gang!" Shiro jokingly said, clapping his hands together to turn back towards everyone. "Job assignments: Pidge and Hunk, you guys go to the video room and look at the camera feed to see if you can get a better angle than the videos we already have. Look for people in Safari hats too."

"Aye, Aye, Cap'n!" Pidge said with an enthusiastic salute. "Come with me, First Mate," they said waving to Hunk as they started to walk inside.

Shiro shook his head. "Next, I want Allura and Coran to scout around and talk to any employees here. See if you can scout out the escapes and the layout of the mall and whatnot."

"Of course!" Coran grinned. "No one is better at the art of sneaking than me. I can find how the smallest of worms could get into this place."

Allura smiled slightly at Shiro, "I've got him," she told Shiro.

"So what are we doing?" Lance asked hopefully.

"The three of us are looking at evidence. The mall has been closed since the incident two days prior and the scene was mostly cleared up after we did an initial inspection." Shiro sighed, running a hand through his white bangs of hair. "We just need to look for some good clues. We're running out of ideas and... we have to find Matt."

"Then let's head in there!" Lance shouted excitedly. He started to dash off towards the mall only to find that Keith was not moving as quickly. Keith's arm was yanked out in front of him and he had to stumble forward to stay on his feet.

"Keith!" Lance cried. "C'mon! We have to get going!"

"We can at least walk like descent people," Keith replied.

"But where's the fun in that?"

"This is a crime investigation, there is no fun. I don't understand how you manage to stay so upbeat all of the time."

Keith glanced up to watch Lance's eyes narrow. "I stay upbeat because I have to. If I don't, then who will?"

Before Keith could respond, they heard a "Hello!" from in front of them.

They both turned to see Shiro walking backwards with his arms spread out. "I'm about to beat both of you and you guys can't do anything about it."

Keith glanced at Lance and they nodded with matching faces of determination. They didn't have to say anything to both take off running towards Shiro. He had turned around to start jogging towards the entrance but Keith and Lance were faster.

Keith took the lead, pulling Lance behind him to catch up, though, with Lance's long legs he was able to keep a pretty fair pace.

Keith saluted Shiro as he and Lance passed him and he laughed as he saw Shiro's mouth turn downwards in a scowl.

Keith and Lance made it to the door first. "Yes!" Keith said in triumph.

"And I even beat you!" Lance added, doing a kind of happy dance where he wiggled and pumped his arms and legs up and down.

"No you didn't," Keith objected.

"Yep. I did," Lance said smugly, crossing his arms over his chest and lifting his head in a sly smile. "See? I'm closer to the door right now."

"I would have beaten you in a heartbeat if you hadn't have been so slow to getting over here," Keith complained.

"So you admit that I beat you?" Lance leaned over to Keith slyly.

"I admit nothing. I clearly won or at the very least it was a tie."

"Alright gays," Shiro said, stepping up to them and grabbing Keith's shoulder. Keith turned to glare at him. He knew full well what Shiro had said and he hoped that Lance didn't know. "It's time to head inside."

Shiro took the lead, going inside first with Keith and Lance behind him. Lance held back for a moment forcing Keith to stop and look at him.

"Did he say what I think he said?" Lance asked skeptically.

"Yes," Keith groaned.

"But..." Lance tried to say, his face having paled in dismay.

"Just don't question it," Keith advised, heading inside so he didn't have to look at Lance.

He was pretty sure that his face was red anyway.

Keith didn't know why it bothered him but he didn't want to think about Lance. He didn't want to think about how much he was noticing about the boy. He didn't want to think about the dark freckles that splattered across his nose or the mousey hair that fluttered slightly in the wind.

He hadn't even known Lance that long. Though... when he thought about it- and he tried not to— he did remember Lance. He remembered him back from school and training to be an agent in the field of capturing criminals. He did remember how he had dropped out due to Shiro's recommendation leaving Lance in that class.

It was kind of funny to think about the fact that he did remember Lance.

Lance McClain.

Ugh Keith shook his head. He didn't care to remember any more about Lance than he had to.

And besides, they had to find Matt.

They had to find Matt and help rescue him. And catch a killer.

And they would be lucky if they even had another twenty four hours to find Matt.

---

Lance~

'Alright gays'

What did that mean?

Did Shiro suspect that Lance liked Keith?

Did he suspect that he liked Shiro's adopted brother?

Was that statement a protective one? Or a warning? Or what?

And why would Shiro out Lance like that? Shiro had been the one person that Lance had opened up to and told about how he thought he was bi. After he had learned that Shiro was gay, he had just been a nice person who Lance could talk to.

He had only dated a girl once and he knew he liked girls, like that girl Nyma (and boy was she pretty!). But... at one point Lance had sat down and thought about if he were to be with another boy what that would be like.

And the idea didn't bother him.

He just thought it might bother other people. Like his family. He didn't want his friends, like Hunk, to get weird around him either.

It was just something he had never really wanted to tell other people because he didn't want their opinions of him to change. He didn't want them to act weirdly around him. It wasn't that he was ashamed to be bi. In fact, he was exceedingly proud.

But if felt like everyone would... treat him differently if he came out.

And another thing that bothered Lance was why would Shiro say 'alright gays' if he Keith was straight? Was Keith gay? Bi? Pan?

It would make sense that he would tell Shiro with Shiro being a brother to him and all. And a gay brother at that.

Before Lance could think about it further they had reached the evidence table.

The manager who Shiro had been talking to was showing them the very minimal amount of evidence they had which mostly consisted of the same pictures that the team had back at the BAU.

Lance skimmed over the pictures and notices a scarf on the table. It was a faded red color but with splashes of darker red.

Blood.

"Was this the victim's?" Lance wondered aloud, glancing at the photo of the victim on the table before leaning towards the scarf. The picture didn't show the victim wearing a scarf.

"I think so," Keith said, reaching out to pick up the scarf. He held it up, folded in half, with both of the ends dangling towards the ground.

"But why wasn't it taken away with the rest of the victim?" Lance asked.

"Because it wasn't on the victim," Shiro pointed out. He turned to the manager who had hung back, listening with a worried face. "Where did you find this?"

"Um... I... I believe it was given to lost and found and then the attendant there hadn't realized it was covered in blood until that night when we were putting the lost and found items into a larger area."

Keith nodded. "So most likely, this was taken as a prize by the unsub but was either given to the service desk by the unsub as some twisted way of freaking us out, or as a way to cause confusion. Or, as a second option, the unsub left the scarf somewhere or dropped it in an attempt to escape and a pedestrian found it and gave it to lost and found."

"Why would the unsub get rid of it if it was his trophy?" Lance wondered, picking up the picture of the victim. He was an older looking man with silvery greying hair that ran down his back. He was laying on his stomach but Lance could see the slice wounds that came from his stomach and neck. He was wearing a light grey polo shirt with some khaki pants. Both were stained red.

Lance was about to set the picture down when he noticed something. The victim was wearing a tie around his neck that was splayed upwards towards his face.

"H-hey guys?" Lance said. He lowered the picture, pointing to the tie. "Why would someone with a tie wear a scarf? Especially an older man who was wearing a polo shirt and Khaki shorts?"

Keith snatched the picture out of Lance's hand and brought it up to his face. "You're right. Why... why would an older man like this be wearing a scarf like this in this outfit."

"It could be a grandchild's..." Shiro suggested.

"No..." Lance said quickly, pacing back and forth.

"Lance is right," Keith said, speaking before Lance could, "This isn't Xi's. This is our unsub's. He must have gotten it dirty while he was killing and decided that he couldn't escape with a bloodied scarf."

"All we have to do is tell Pidge to look for someone wearing this and if it is Xi, the victim," Shiro said excitedly, already moving towards the door, "Then we will know for sure but if there is someone else wearing this scarf, then we're golden."

Shiro opened the door, Keith and Lance behind him. They marched off towards the tech room with the manager in the lead, showing them where to go.

"Great work Lance, Keith," Shiro told them. "This is a real clue. This will give us some solid information."

Lance smiled. "I wonder why the unsub would wear a scarf, though. It seems like something that would get him noticed more than it would leave him to be indiscriminate."

"A distractor!" Keith said as they walked, his pace quickening in excitement. "A scarf doesn't make you the most noticeable person but a defining birthmark or scar does! If the unsub has something on his face, he would want to either cover it up, and maybe it is on his neck so he can cover it up with a scarf, or he would use something like a hat or scarf to distract from it."

Shiro tapped his nose. "I think you're on it, Keith. That would make perfect sense and would fit the vague profile we have. Someone who is cocky, arrogant, and yet exceedingly smart. He's manipulative and cunning."

"All of those people are," Keith muttered. "But I still don't understand why they would do this."

"I don't know," Shiro sighed.

They reached the tech room and Lance was exceedingly confused. He didn't know what kind of group Keith had been in but he found himself a little more aware of the chain that linked them together. He knew that Keith was a good person. Right?

Well, Lance trusted Shiro and Shiro said that Keith was a good person. Was that enough though?

What was Keith's past?

Who was this group?

And why was Keith under such suspicion for being present at the crime scenes?

Granted, a person's presence at any of the crime scenes would make them a suspect just out of principal. But why was the conclusion instantly that Keith was a suspect? What had he done in the past to warrant that kind of jump in being a suspect?

"Pidge," Shiro announced as they entered.

Pidge had been sitting in a chair, typing furiously on a computer with images of all kinds flashing across the screen. Hunk was leaning on their chair, watching what was going on on the screen. Both of them jumped and spun around when the group entered.

Hunk stumbled and almost fell onto the ground but managed to catch himself.

"Jeez!" He cried while Pidge shouted, "What the fuck?! Can't you knock or something? We were not prepared to be intruded upon."

Keith didn't even stop at Pidge's comment and just pressed on. "We have new information. And you're gonna want to hear this."

"What?" Pidge asked, curiosity piqued.

"We found out a clue," Lance added, excitedly. "So I was looking at this bloodied scarf that was on the evidence table and then I noticed that the victim, this really old guy, was wearing a polo shirt and khakis. Well the polo shirt was a light grey color and it really didn't match with the red scarf, but anyway-"

"Does this have a point?" Pidge asked, already sounding annoyed.

Shiro stepped up, "Yes, the point is that the victim seems unlikely to have been wearing this scarf so we think it is a distractor that the unsub uses to hide a birthmark or maybe a scar on his face. we were thinking that whoever had this scarf is probably our unsub."

"Wait... how was it left in the mall?" Hunk asked.

Keith, still holding the scarf, presented it to them and Pidge turned around, ready to start searching the video feeds.

"It was found in a lost and found box at one of the service stations so we aren't really sure how it was dropped off," Shiro stepped in to add. "We were wondering if it got covered in blood so the unsub left it to cause fear and confusion or something later, or if he dropped it onto the ground and left the scarf and another pedestrian found it, didn't notice the blood, and turned it in."

"Okay," Pidge said, "I'm skimming through the video feeds to see if I can see anyone wearing that red scarf."

They all leaned on the back of their chair, also looking for the unsub on the video feeds.

There was a moment of silence and then Hunk whispered, "Doesn't this seem just... too perfect?"

"Yes," Pidge said. "This unsub is brilliant. The place where the murder was, that place was away from all of the cameras and even the most distant ones were blocked by people. Plus, these malls are very public places so only the most idiotic genius or the luckiest dumbass would be able to pull off these murders."

Keith nodded. "Yeah, I only really see public places as being the drop site or the murder place if the unsub is doing a hit and run. Usually someone sees something."

Lance shrugged, "Do you know how often people are on their phones these days? If the unsub were to muffle the victim he could easily make it look like either an accident or like just some father-son bonding or something. It's twisted but people don't generally see things that they don't expect to see."

"Yeah," Hunk added. "Most people wouldn't expect to see a murder taking place in front of them. Just like they wouldn't expect a large group of ducks to start singing opera."

"Opera?" Keith questioned. "I'm sorry but, what the fuck, Hunk?"

Hunk shrugged. "It was the first thing that came to my mind."

"So ignoring Hunk," Pidge said, "we are looking for someone who blends in while still standing out. We want someone who looks like you would notice them for a split second and then dismiss them for being another run-of-the-mill person that you pass all of the time."

"I think that's what the scarf is for," Shiro added. "It is meant to distract you from something about him, probably a scar, that he doesn't want you to see. If you see that, you remember him. If you see a random Joe wearing a scarf you don't bother with it."

"I've got something!" Pidge cried triumphantly. They clicked on a video in the upper right hand corner. The time dated it to be just after Xi's death.

Pidge clicked the video again as it started to play to make it zoom in on a particular box.

Everyone was silent as they watched the blurry video. In it, a person, someone with a long sleeved navy shirt and jeans and a dark hat on (something kind of like a beanie), covering his hair, was walking quickly away from where Lance thought the murder had been committed.

He was holding the red scarf in his hands and he passed by another pedestrian.

Then the unsub walked out of the video's range.

The pedestrian was now holding the scarf. He took a quick turn and was out of the video's view.

Everyone was silent as the video started to play again.

"So he does have accomplices," Shiro murdered.

"Just the one?" Lance wondered. "Or could there be more? Is this a group effort?"

"We were already thinking that," Keith added.

"But I was hoping that this unsub was acting on his own and we wouldn't have to go to see the whole group." Shiro sighed. Lance glanced at him. His face was pale. He looked anxious.

"Let me try to follow the unsub through the day," Pidge said. "And I'll follow that accomplice too and see if they interact with anyone else or if I can see their face."

Shiro placed his hand on Pidge's shoulder. "Good work Pidge. We're going to go and scout the evidence to see if we can't find anything else. Maybe we'll just have to check the lost and found too."

"You got it," Pidge said already typing furiously on the computer.

Shiro turned to Lance and gave him a half-smile. "And you too, Lance. You did good."

Lance shrugged, turning away to hide his smile. "Well, you know, just an average day in the life of Lance."

Keith whacked his shoulder. "Sure if you count moaning about having to wake up and racing to the mall as an average day then you are doing just fine."

"Is that supposed to be an insult?" Lance asked. "Because it sounds like awesomeness to me. You forgot to add the finding clues part though. I mean... so far I have found a book and a scarf. And you have found what?" He quirked an eyebrow up, leaning towards Keith skeptically.

"I mentioned the distraction idea about the scarf," Keith said cooly, and I managed to actually interrogate the suspects this morning unlike you who just flirted and the best question you asked was if you could get a phone number."

Lance scowled. "That isn't true. I was persuading her through my amazitude."

"Amazitude?" Keith frowned and shook his head. "I don't think that's a word Mr. Smartass."

"Aw, you think I'm smart?" Lance asked.

Keith snorted. "Definitely not."

"At least I'm not a dropout."

"At least I was taken out because I was brilliant."

"You were taken out because of Shiro," Lance countered.

"I'm staying out of this," Shiro interjected. "But I do think that it would be wise if we were to get back to work instead of bickering."

"Fine," Lance and Keith both said as they made their way back to the evidence room.

"I'll just have to find another clue to make it three for three," Lance smirked.

"Not if I beat you to it," Keith added, grinning competitively.

---

Shiro~

Not them.

They couldn't have done it.

But which would he rather? That Keith have committed the murders or the one group that he trusted to be okay?

He couldn't say.

Now, he stared at the evidence in a new light. He had suspected them before but it just hadn't seemed likely.

Knowing that they might be the culprits of these crimes made him notice the little things. The tiny drops of blood on the plant by the murder, but that had been clearly wiped away.

The shaky start to the drawing of their symbol. The rushed ending that lacked detail like in the other malls.

They were such an elite group. So skilled. There was no way that their team could stand against this group if everyone was involved. Maybe Shiro would be lucky and their unsub would be a deserter..

Like Keith.

Shiro couldn't help but glance at him. He trusted Keith with his life. But... he had thought the same about them.

Maybe he was jumping to conclusions.

Or maybe he was playing favoritism.

Keith seemed on edge too.

But... he was getting along with Lance if you could call bickering and competing as getting along. And wasn't that a good thing? Didn't that show how relaxed he was?

Shiro rubbed his eyes. His head was already hurting from thinking about the case and worrying about Matt. And now he had to try to deal with them?

The most terrifying part was that he knew they could take him and his team down in a heartbeat if they wanted to. They had just never wanted to.

Shiro paused from staring at the photographs to look at Keith and Lance. They were staring intently at their own photos, analyzing each others and looking for potential clues. They weren't even bickering. Much.

It was also nice that Keith seemed relaxed. Well, relaxed for Keith which was still a tightly wired coil of string ready to spring out at any given moment.

Still, a criminal stuck with the task force would be doubtful to feel relaxed at any point in time.

He had just gotten back to looking at the pictures when the door opened and Allura and Coran walked in.

"Hello, Chief," Coran said first. "We have come to report out findings."

"Alright," Shiro smiled, forcefully. He welcomed the change in pace. It would help to enforce their profile if they could figure out how the unsub would be likeliest to escape.

"So there are six exits that do not go through department stores," Allura said. "We think that he would take the one closest to the murder," Coran pulled out a map so Allura could point to the door in question, "But that seems to be the most suspicious. At the other malls it would make more sense if he took a department store exit but by this one, people were more likely to recognize him so it would make sense that he would try to escape as soon as possible."

"No…" Keith murmured quietly. "He wouldn't take a department store exit in another mall because those would have very guarded cameras. More likely, he would take a general exit that was surrounded by lots of people so that he could just escape no big deal."

"Yeah…" Shiro agreed. "He probably took either this exit or this one," he pointed to two exits that were a fair distance from the murder but neither was that accessible.

"But if he got blood on him he would want to take this exit before anyone spotted him," Lance added.

"We need to look at the other malls," Allura said. "Scout out what they have."

"Okay," Shiro nodded. "I'll go get Pidge and Hunk and see if they've found anything as well. Maybe they found the partner."

"Partner?" Coran asked.

"Oh, yeah," Lance said, "We found this bloody scarf. See? So then we went to Pidge to try to look on the videos and we saw a partner on there."

"Well, that's a lot to miss," Allura said.

"Yeah so the profile changed a bit." Lance said.

"We'll fill you in on our way to the next mall," Shiro said, already out the door and heading towards Pidge.

They had to hurry. They had to get out there and try to find Matt. His time was running out.

---

Keith~

The drive to the next mall was uneventful. They dropped Allura and Coran and Pidge off at the Olkarie mall and then Hunk, Shiro, Lance, and Keith drove towards the other mall.

"Okay, Hunk," Shiro said, briefing everyone in the van, "You are on tech duty. Find those videos. Watch them quickly. Upload and save them if you have to. I'm going to scout out the exits. Keith, Lance, you two work on evidence."

"Should I be afraid to be alone in a room with you?" Lance asked Keith.

"Well, after last night," Hunk said slyly.

"What happened last night?" Shiro asked. Keith could hear the strain in his voice. He could see how white his knuckles were as they drove.

"Nothing," Keith said nonchalantly. "Hunk just was hearing things. And to respond to you, Lance: No you don't have to be afraid of me. It's not like I'm going to shoot you or something."

"Keith," Shiro chastised, "you really can't joke about this. Hunk, you too. As much as we are letting you help us because of how much help you can be, you are still, technically, our prime suspect and we really can't have you just thinking everything is fine."

"You know I didn't do it, Shiro," Keith sighed. "You know I wouldn't. I can't. There would be no way I could become what I fear and fight."

"Did you know?" Lance questioned, "That in the first of the Batman: Dark Knight trilogy, Batman becomes a bat because he is terrified of them so he wants to share his fear with others."

Keith snorted, "Lance... that was so random."

"What?" Lance asked. "I was just asking if you knew a fact. I wanted to impart my movie knowledge onto you." He made a finger gun and pointed it at Keith.

Keith sighed and shook his head. Why was it that Lance's actions were almost becoming somewhat amusing and fun to be around? Lance was obnoxious. They shouldn't be growing closer together. Not in two days.

Though he supposed that anyone chained together would be forced to grow close quickly.

Keith was relieved when they reached the mall so that he didn't have to worry about thinking about the person sitting next to him and chained to his wrist.

Shiro said, "Alright team! Let's move out. try to be as quick and efficient as possible."

Keith knew that Shiro was on edge from Matt being gone and their mall search had become a fruitless excursion. Besides the scarf and the partner that is.

Keith couldn't worry about that now, though.

He and Lance headed to the evidence room after asking the manager of the mall to let them see any evidence. All that they had was a file with some pictures.

Keith looked at the body of the poor woman, Te-Osh, who had died. She was young with a nice periwinkle blue dress on and her brown hair was short and fluffy.

She looked absolutely nothing like Xi.

"So what do you think the correlation between these two is?" Keith asked Lance. "The only thing I can find would be Matt."

"That's it," Lance muttered. "I think that is the only correlation between them. Before Matt was taken, we couldn't settle on a victimology profile because we couldn't find any similarities. We looked at everything. But these three have nothing in common."

Lance continued looking at the pictures for a moment before asking, "Do you know how Matt knew Te-Osh?"

Keith pursed his lips, thinking, "I think it has to do with how they worked together back in school. I know she was never on the BAU but she might have been in another close devision. A detective-like division. Like the one Matt is in now."

Lance nodded. Everything was quiet for another minute.

It was weird having silence around Lance. Keith wondered why he was being so quiet.

Keith glanced up and noticed that his face was downturned in a look of almost nervous worry.

"Do you..." Lance started, "Do you know why Matt would be targeted?"

"I think it has to do with that one case. The one Matt and I left because of."

"Would you tell me about it?" Lance asked quietly. "I know the rough details. I know that Shiro and Hunk were taken captive and tortured. I know that you and Matt had it the hardest."

"It won't sound that bad," Keith said, "but you don't know the fear you feel when half of your team is missing and you are receiving threats that if we don't stop looking for them they will die, but that they'll die anyway soon. ."

"Threats? Shiro never mentioned any threats," Lance said softly. He had turned around and was leaning against the table with his arms crossed over his chest.

"That's because we never told him..." Keith whispered.

"What?" Lance breathed, shocked.

Keith closed his eyes. "Every day that they were gone, we would receive about four to five videos of how they were being tortured. Videos of this criminal sewing their hands... videos of them being beaten... videos of them crying out in pain..." Keith paused, taking a deep breath, trying to get the images to leave his mind so that he could think blankly. Emotionlessly. "You've never had to watch a video of your family- your friends being tortured to almost death. You haven't had to watch it over and over again looking for just one detail that might let you save their lives."

Lance was, thankfully silent, his eyes downcast and his gaze somber.

"We didn't know what to think. We were frantic. Pidge was working around the clock. We all were. I don't think Pidge, Matt, and I slept for 48 plus hours."

"Wow..." Lance breathed.

"We were told that if we didn't find them in 55 hours, they would die. And that every five hours a new video would be sent, finishing with them dying. It was horrific and made us panic."

"How... how did you find them?" Lance asked softly.

Keith was quiet for a minute, gathering his thoughts.

"We were at the 51st hour when we realized that the second to last video contained a crucial clue. We could see a specific flowering tree in the backdrop. So we matched up and found all of those trees that existed in the town. We tried our hardest to work quickly. Then, at the 53rd hour, we finally managed to find a small, quaint house that had one of these blooming trees in their backyard. Desperate, Matt and I disregarded safety and barged into the house. I searched upstairs, Matt searched down. We didn't find anything. We were emotional, ready to panic. And then we opened what looked like a laundry chute on the bottom floor and found that it was a basement. Besides the cliche, this place was terrifying."

Keith swallowed. He remembered it like it was the most terrifying horror movie he had ever seen in his life.

"At the top... it looked like a normal stairwell. dark wood, hand railing, everything was fine. But only the light from the other rooms was getting to the basement. No artificial light even. We had to turn on our flashlights to see... and as we descended the stairs... it was like a horror movie."

"What... what did it look like?" Lance asked tentatively.

Keith closed his eyes, remembering the image despite not wanting to. "Stairs were broken towards the bottom, the rail was chipped and peeling with splinters like victims had tried to claw their way up. There were bloody handprints and bursts of blood that were sometimes thick and glistening. The wood was splintered into clumps around large holes."

"What happened?" Lance breathed.

"So what we speculated was that the unsub would cut off the tendons and muscles on the back of the victim's legs and then let them crawl up the stairs, probably with the promise that they would be granted freedom if they made it up the stairs. And then the unsub would use a gun, either a pistol or a shotgun and shoot them point-blank and let them die."

There was a pause of silence. Keith glanced at Lance's face. His forehead was creased and his mouth was slightly agape. He didn't say anything but the horror was apparent on his face.

"You caught him though... right?" Lance whispered.

"No," Keith said bitterly. "He escaped while Matt and I were preoccupied with worrying about Shiro and Hunk. They were in bad shape when we found them. We didn't bother with the immediate chase because we were trying to get Shiro and Hunk to a hospital as quickly as we could. By the time Pidge, Matt, and I picked up the trail again, the unsub was long gone. And when Pidge checked out the address of that house, we found that it was under an alias of Milga Zopilm and that it was a recently created name. So we had no information and not much time to keep with the small thread we had until we had to focus on other cases."

Keith took a breath, "He got away and we never caught him. Pidge, Matt, and I still haven't shared the full story with Shiro or Hunk because we don't want their pity. Please don't tell them."

Lance was quiet. Then he looked up and took a step closer to Keith. "I- I don't know what to say..." he whispered.

"Nothing. You don't have to say anything," Keith mumbled turning back to the photos.

And then... And then Keith felt warmth. Keith gasped and froze, trying to stand as still as he could. Lance's arms were wrapped around him, his head nestled into Keith's back.

"That would have been one of the hardest things to go through," Lance said softly. "I couldn't have done it. And I couldn't have kept it a secret."

"I don't need your pity," Keith grumbled trying to shove Lance off of him.

Lance held tight, "Well that's good cause I don't pity you. I'm showing you my respect."

Keith stopped.

"I think that this is a very particular case. And I bet that Matt is suffering the same thing Shiro and Hunk went through. This is most likely the Unsub's ego telling him that he can torture all of you. I bet that after Matt, he was going to try to capture you." Lance let go of Keith and leaned up with his elbows on the table, right next to Keith. Keith felt the absence of his warmth. He generally didn't like physical contact... but this time, he felt like he was kind of missing Lance's touch. He was also painfully aware of how close Lance was to him.

"Yeah..." Keith laughed softly and without humor. "I bet if you hadn't of captured and imprisoned me, I would have been kidnapped by this guy."

Lance looked downwards. "Yeah... I bet so. I wonder if he knows that the team has changed or if he is clueless."

"Are you worried that he's going to grab you because you are the new victim and you are directly with me?" Keith asked, joking slightly.

"What?" Lance smirked, "Me? I just want to make sure that you are safe."

"What? Lance McClain being ultra vain and sarcastic?" Keith remarked. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"That's because It isn't true," Lance said slyly.

Keith rolled his eyes. "Yeah right, McClain. Just look at the photos for evidence."

Lance laughed. "Alright, Mullet," he said softly.

---

Shiro~

Shiro was worried for Matt.

He had been all morning, but the more he thought about who the suspects could be, the more it made sense.

In a twisted way, it was already why he had chosen Keith to be taken in. It was the group that he couldn't help but suspect and wonder about.

As Shiro did a perimeter check and found all of the exits, he started calculating which exit was most likely to have been taken after the murder.

Their unsub was either a genius or an idiot to commit these murders.

He should have seen the symbol and instantly assumed it to be them, but of course he had hoped for the best and that it wasn't them. It just wasn't their style.

Plus, the murders were the expert level of someone who's been killing for a long time.

The unsubs had to be agile, stealthy, intelligent, and willing to risk themselves over and over again. And though he couldn't think of a motive, the only group that fit the description, was the Marmora.

And Shiro would have to face them.

---

Notes:Please comment if there were any mistakes or weird parts!

The following chapters are probably going to get darker and more violent. More criminal ish.

Fyi, it will probably be a while before I post another chapter. This one was already 65% done when I posted the last chapter.

Thank you for reading! Comments and Kudos endorse me to write more! :)

(oh and yes, that name is coded. But good luck to anyone figuring it out! It isn't an easy one.)