Two days, he only gets two more day.
It happens during their daily spar. Keith is in fine form. Flitting in then out before Shiro can retaliate. If Shiro can just get his hands on him, he can over power Keith and this round will be over, but Keith knows that as well as he does. He has no intentions of staying in one place long enough for Shiro to grapple him to the mats.
Feedback shrieks through the Castle speakers, "In…ming," Slavs voice crackles on and off. Shiro's looks at the speakers, that's the only thing that saves his eyes. A blinding flash fills the room. Even looking away black spots dance in front of him. Shiro blinks, tries to clear his vision. Still blurry, but good enough to see Keith doing the same.
Shiro looks back to where the flash originated. The lights gone. Seven heavily armed figured stand in the midst of crackling black lightening. Six Galra guards, not drones, fully equipped for battle. Their flanking a single smaller figure. Pale skin, black hair, cruel eyes. His captor is in the Castle of the Lions.
Shiro limbs freeze can't move. His captor is here, standing in front of him in full battle armor. The kind he'd only seen when he'd come to Shiro after attending to his other duties. This has to be a dream, a nightmare, this can't be happening. He was supposed to be safe from him here.
"Takashi," His captor's voice rings in his ears. Delight, excitement, he's smiling, stepping towards him. Shiro stumbles back. His legs don't want to listen, wants to crumple to the ground and scream. He can't be here. He can't. He can't! Black cloth, Keith, no armor, bayard raised. He's standing in front of Shiro. Back to him, facing his captor, protecting him. When did he move?
"Stay where you are, come any closer and I'll gut you," Keith snarls, red energy forming his blade.
His captor attention is torn from him, assessing, but not coming any closer. The Prince frowns, annoyed, "I doubt you'd succeed," He says. He looks carefully between Shiro and Keith for a moment, then snaps his fingers, "Kill the double, capture the Champion alive." His guards jump to obey
Their guns lift taking aim at his Keith. Kill the double. Shiro moves. Capture the Champion alive. He grabs Keith, pulls him to his chest, spinning them around. He's bigger, broader. They'll have to shoot through him to hit Keith. A single shot sizzles across the top of his shoulder. A glancing hit, not even enough to incapacitate. Pain barely worth noting. The guard must have jerked at the last second, realized how close he came to killing the Prince's toy. No fate could be worse than that.
"Rifles down idiots! You risk his life, and I'll have you flayed!" His captor shouts. Unnecessary, they aren't fools, they weren't going to shoot him. Shiro lets Keith go, turning and activating his arm in one movement. Kill. He's going to kill them all. They won't stop. Never stop. Splatter their blood on the walls until he's safe again.
The guards are switching weapons, dropping rifles for shock batons. Precious time lost. Shiro lunges. His captor avoids the first strike towards his face, and the second at his gut barely glazes the armor. There isn't time for a third. The guard to his captor's right freeing his baton and aiming down at Shiro's chest. He breaks the man's arm for trying. A swift blow to the Galra's head, he will never stand back up.
The others are joining the fight now. Jumping to defend their Prince and capture his prize. One goes for Shiro's exposed back, but a blade slices across his middle. Keith is there, behind Shiro. Covering his blind spots.
Back to back, two more guards fall, but the Prince stays stubbornly out of reach. Darting in to take swipes with his own sword, but never staying long enough for Shiro to fully engage.
The side of one of the two remaining guard's heads explodes outwards, the other has a dozen holes materialize. Lance and Hunks cheer as their shots hit. The others have arrived. Pidge runs past them both, straight towards the Prince. He quick, deadly smart, but has obviously never seen a weapon like the Green Paladin's before. He tries to block her attack with his metal sword. The extended shock leaves him on the ground, not dead, but no longer conscious.
Pidge is whirling around, hugging Shiro nearly faster than he can deactivate his arm. Too fast, to much too fast, "Are you two alright?" Pidge asks, letting him go.
Pull your head together Shirogane, fights over, be the leader of Voltron, "We're fine," Shiro says.
"Mullet, since when do you have a clone?" Lance asks. He's standing over the Prince's prone form, rolling him over with his boot.
"I don't think I do," Keith says, walking over to peer down at his alternate self. He kneels to get a closer look, before glancing back up at Shiro, "Is this him. The one who kidnapped you?" Keith asks. Too much meaning in that question.
Shiro can't answer him, not with what's implied, not in front of the others, "Hunk, get something to secure him with. Lance find out if the Castle has holding cells. I'll contact Allura. Meet me on the bridge when you're done. We'll decide what to do from there." Everyone jumps to obey his orders.
.
"We should space him." Keith's suggestion is barely above a whisper, but everyone hears him all the same. Do the others think he's just being coldly pragmatic like normal, or have they seen the way he's been glaring holes into the floor, willing his alternates death into being with his mind alone.
"We don't kill unarmed prisoners!" Allura says, anger flaring to life at the mere suggestion. The ideals of Voltron, a force of pure good without grey, is the only thing that keeps her going some days. She can't react any other way.
"He's a monster!" Keith shouts, taking an aggressive step forward. The situation is escalating, "He doesn't deserve to live!" Keith turns to Shiro, he's been left alone until now. Allowed to be quiet in the debate on his captor's fate. While they rile each other up and argue in circles, "Shiro, you agree with me, right? He needs to die." Keith says, almost a plea.
Shiro looks away from him, out into the room, at the others looking to him for guidance, "I'm with Allura." Shiro says softly, "We don't murder people in cold blood, Keith." He can't let the desire for revenge win. He needs to be an example. After what he did to thir important prisoner, he can't risk setting any more bad precedent. The reprimand is mild, but Keith's mouth hangs open in shock. He recovers himself, snaps it shut and turns away, without saying more.
"Not that I'm agreeing with the cold blooded murder plan, but what do we do with the guy?" Lance pipes up, "Give him a cup of tea and ask him to please stop trying to kidnap our leader?"
"There are planets we have saved with prisons. We can ask one of them to hold him for us." Allura says, turning to her controls to pull up possibilities.
"That's all well and good, but the guy looked kind of important. Shiro you said he was a Prince right?" Hunk asks. Shiro nods. He hadn't been able to keep things a secret anymore. He had to tell them who his captor was if still withholding some details. Only Keith knew he left out more than he said, "Won't his buddies come here to try and rescue him?"
A decision needs to be made. The groups spinning their wheels, a plan needs to be chosen with and stuck with. They can come up with solutions as they go, "Pidge, when you stripped him, you said you found a device you thought might have to do with how he got here." He doesn't wait for her to confirm, "Take it down to Slav's lab and see if you can work out someway to prevent others from following him. At least onto the Castle of the Lions and wherever we end up imprisoning him."
He turns to the Princess, "Allura, you can question him when he wakes on if anybody else is coming." He should do it himself. Help preserve the secret of what happened, but the idea of being in a cell with his captor again makes his gut churn. He'll just have to hope the Prince doesn't feel like sharing.
There is more bickering. More details hashed out, but they have a plan and that is enough.
.
Keith catches him in the elevator. The shorter man slams the emergency stop as soon as they are between floors, trapping him, "You should have told me," Keith says, his shoulders are trembling. Repressed anger, fear, tears? He can't tell.
"Turn it back on Keith." A quiet order but an order none the less. An enclosed space, emotionally volatile Keith, and no escape. This didn't use to scare him on such an instinctive level.
"No!" Keith shouts, "Not until you tell me why you didn't say it was me!" Keith stalking towards him, getting in his face. Too close. Shiro's breath catches.
"Start the elevator," Shiro voice shakes, he can't stop it, "We'll talk, but not here." Keith's eyes go wide. He takes a hurried step back. Turns the lift back on and stays on the other side. Giving Shiro space. Air comes more easily with the distance.
They stop on a little used floor. Keith steps out and Shiro follows him, he said they'd talk. He won't back out. Down a few hallways, away from where anyone could accidentally stumble upon them. When Keith stops, waiting for Shiro to begin.
"Everything I told you was true." The words taste like more lies on his tongue. He folds his arms together, tries to keep from hunching in on himself.
"You just decided to leave out the most important detail." Keith says bitterly.
"You didn't need to know." That pain hadn't needed to be shared.
"Of course I needed to know." Keith tugs on his hair. His muscles tense, arresting the urge to step towards Shiro, "This whole time I thought it was that you didn't want to be around anyone, but it was me that was the problem. If I'd known I could have done something about it. Cut my hair, changed my clothes, put on fucking make up, something!" Keith shouts, throwing his hands in the air. Keith turns heel, stomps a few feet away breathing hard.
"It wouldn't have mattered. I can already tell the difference between you two," Mostly through clothes and environmental cues, but once he knew they were two separate people, there were also slight physical differences he could spot from radically different lives lived. Those clues just sometimes took a bit to process.
"If that were true, you wouldn't have asked me to restart the elevator." Keith says, eyes accusing.
Shiro can't argue that, "I didn't want to hurt you," That's the center of it. If he has to be in pain, the least he can do is make sure the others don't have to be. Keith doesn't have to be.
"Hurting you because I don't know better, hurts me," Keith says. He takes a few soft steps towards him, lifting his hand to caress Shiro's cheek. His fingers are warm, gentle. It feels nice, "We're together. I care about you, and I want to face these things with you. I don't need you to be protect me from the truth."
Shiro's vision is growing misty at the edges, "You shouldn't have to."
"I want to," Keith says. He's looking up into Shiro's eyes now, and he's so earnest. So certain that he wants to shoulder every ounce of pain Shiro carries. He doesn't deserve him. Doesn't deserve to be cared for so much, but he's greedy and hurts so deep into his soul. He's not a strong enough man to turn him away.
"Okay," Shiro whispers.
.
The movie is brainless, something stupid and easy to distract him from thoughts of his captor. Keith's warm against his side. He knows, not everything, but he knows what Shiro did to surive and he's still here. Still wants to sit with him, offer his comfort.
Footsteps, Allura walks in. She looks between them, seeing but not comprehending.
"Our prisoner has woken up." She says, almost apologetically, "He won't say if there are anymore coming after him, or how his form of dimensional travel works. He refuses to speak to anyone except you Shiro." Her eyes are sad.
He should have known this would happen. His captor has never been subtle in his obsession. He would never settle for speaking to the Princess. This demand was to be expected.
He's had his space now. Some time to breathe. If he stays in the doorway, and doesn't enter the cell proper. He can speak with him. Just long enough to make sure there will be no back up.
"Okay, I'll handle him," Shiro says. Allura nods, leaves now that her message is delivered.
"I'm coming with you," Keith says, from his side.
Shiro starts to tell him no. He doesn't need to hear whatever his captor has to say, but Keith already knows what happened. Maybe, maybe, having him there will somehow make this better, "Okay."