The Castle, while lived in, was largely unexplored by its seven inhabitants. Only half of it remained truly used, while the other half (mainly the left-hand side and the upper floors) remained cobweb-ridden and dusty.
Keith ran for that side of the castle.
He took the stairs down two at a time and sprinted across the main hall. He could hear no footsteps pursuing him, so he made straight for the unfamiliar side of the Castle. Somewhere they couldn't reach him.
The doors to the left side of the Castle opened at his approach. It brought a cloud of dust with it that tickled Keith's nose as he shouldered his way through before the doors had fully opened. He didn't - couldn't - allow himself a moment to breathe, despite his lungs begging for air. He had to keep going before they caught up to him; before Laynek kicked down the doors and roared down the hallway at him.
Keith turned a corner and scrambled up the stairs. His chest hurt, throat tight with the tears he'd desperately been holding back. He'd cried too much these past few days. He had to be stronger now. His legs burned, the adrenaline rush finally starting to wear off. He couldn't run anymore. He had to hide.
Turning another corner, Keith ducked into the first room he saw. The door slid shut behind him and he stood there breathing heavily for a few minutes.
Still not safe.
The thought startled Keith into action and he made his way toward one of some kind of box-shaped thing in the darkness of the room. He pressed his entire weight against it,pushing until it fell with a mighty thud. Keith tried not to think about how much noise it had made until he braced his back against it and used all his strength to shove the dresser into place in front of the door.
There, he thought, still gasping for air. His shoulders were aching with the exertion. That should keep Laynek out-
Wait.
Keith stopped himself.
His teammates had told him time and time again that Laynek wasn't here. He wasn't on the Castle and there was no way he'd followed them. But that was before he found out that they'd lied to him. Before they had let him believe Laynek had died and were going to spring the truth on him like the world's worst surprise party.
Keith swallowed.
No.
If there was one thing he could still believe his teammates about, it was that Laynek was not here. Not even in the unexplored areas of the Castle. He was elsewhere within the stars. He couldn't reach Keith here.
The room was illuminated in a bright light. Keith squinted, turning around to the window he'd previously ignored. The Castle - he realized - had been caught in peaceful orbit with a nearby planet. It had just circled to the sun, bright and near imposing. It was larger than the Milky Way's sun (probably because it was reaching the end of its lifespan, Keith reasoned) but if he closed his eyes and pretended, he was home again. Standing on the balcony of his cabin in the early morning sunlight. His father's hand was on his shoulder. None of... this had ever happened.
A sob forced its way from in between clenched teeth. Keith pressed the heel of his palms into his eyes, trying to stop the tears before they escaped. He'd cried so much. Too much. It was time to stop.
As if that had ever stopped them before.
Keith sank down, pressing his back against the dresser. Another choked sob forced its way out of his mouth. His shoulders jerked with it.
There was no reason for any of this, was there? The torture, Laynek's anger, all of it. He'd suffered for the sake of information; for the sake of breaking him. And now, his relationships with the others was in danger. His relationship with Shiro was in danger. At worst, it had been fractured. An irreparable crack where the unrelenting trust between them had been.
And for what?
To keep a secret? To pretend like everything was okay?
Keith sobbed again.
They had lied to him. Let him believe his own narrative if that was what he preferred.
Even out of their clutches, the Galra continued to take everything from him. Starting with his sanity and continuing with his friendships.
The metal of his prosthetic suddenly seemed a lot colder against his skin. Keith lifted his hands from his eyes to stare at it. He hated it. He hated what it meant, what it represented. He hated how it had happened and he hated those stupid fucking colors.
Without thinking, Keith reached over and gripped the wrist of his prosthetic arm. He bared his teeth - rage flooding him like nothing he'd ever felt before - and he pulled.
The metal creaked but didn't give. Keith adjusted his grip farther up the arm and pulled harder. It yanked against his stump of a shoulder, the metal keeping the arm in place almost scraping from where it had been molded against his flesh and nerves.
Agony sparked up his entire shoulder, but Keith gritted his teeth and endured it. Pain was the only thing that was a constant in his life. The pain of losing his father, the pain of the mistreatment of his foster homes, the pain of losing Shiro not once, but twice. It was the only thing he could rely on.
Keith was now using all of his strength to get the arm off. The metal creaked but did not give way. It remained there, attached and unyielding. It hurt so badly but Keith didn't dare stop. Not until the arm was nothing more than a sparking heap on the ground.
Keith's grip on the arm slipped and faltered. Gradually, the strength began to decrease, the white-hot agony dulled into an ache. And Keith sat there, head bowed over the prosthetic arm in his lap. Still attached. Inescapable.
Tears splattered onto the cold metal surface. The fingers twitched as if they could feel them, and stilled.
Keith had never felt weaker. His whole body trembled as he wept silently.
He'd lost his friends, he'd lost Shiro, he'd lost the last semblance of safety he'd been able to get from being at the Castle.
What more could he lose today?
"Be thankful for the hardships you endured to get you here," his dad had said. But if the results of those hardships were nothing more than more pain, Keith would have rather died on that Galra cruiser.
There had to be a light somewhere. A bright side to all of the agony he'd endured thus far. Some kind of reason besides just mere information that Keith had suffered so.
He was just afraid there wasn't a reason.
Keith's shoulder ached. He wasn't sure if it was bleeding or not, but he wouldn't be surprised if it were. He'd pulled very hard after all.
The dying sun outside shone directly into his eyes. Keith tried to blink it and the remaining tears out of his eyes. He lifted his head, the room fully illuminated at last.
The floors - while in a dire need of a polish - weren't as dusty as Keith had been anticipating. There was a bed in the far corner, not unlike the ones in the Paladin's own dorms. And, discarded and broken on the ground, was a picture frame. Keith reached out to take it. His breath hitched.
The photo was clearly old. The white paper had yellowed with age and curled at the edges. But that wasn't what caught Keith's attention. It was the three people in the photo.
He suddenly realized why no one went to this side of the Castle.
Because that was unmistakably Alfor, Allura, and Melenor in the photo.
Keith had stumbled his way into Alfor's room when he was a Paladin.
The thought that he'd made his way into his predecessor's room was probably supposed to fill Keith with strength. That he'd managed to fill Alfor's enormous shoes in Voltron and fight against tyranny to the best of his ability. But honestly?
It just filled Keith with despair.
Everything was so wrong. Keith was supposed to be strong, with a will as sturdy as iron. He wasn't supposed to break, to feel so weak. He had a legacy to uphold, a universe to save.
And yet, Keith had never felt more wrong.
Shiro could taste the tension Keith had left in his wake on his tongue.
Thick and tangy, it burned Shiro's mouth and made him feel even guiltier than he already was. He had Keith's best intentions at heart. He knew that. The team knew that. But honestly, he was starting to see how wrong of a choice it was. Keith, of anyone, had a right to know that Laynek had lived. Good intentions or not.
Lance released a shaky sigh. His eyes were wet. " Lo siento," he murmured. "I am so sorry."
"Lance…" Hunk said.
"This is my fault," Lance said. "We weren't supposed to tell him yet and I blew it."
Allura pursed her lips and looked over to the door that remained open long after Keith left. "Somehow, I do not think his reaction would be all that different," she murmured.
"It was a slip of the tongue," Pidge set her hand on Lance's knee. "Could have happened to any of us. Let's just be grateful that Keith found out like... this and not when we find him again."
Shiro shivered. He hated to think of the reaction Keith would have to finding out Laynek was alive inches from said Galran's face.
"We need to talk to him," Shiro said. "Explain things. And...apologize, most of all."
Everyone nodded in agreement. Hunk leaned forward to pull Lance into a small one-armed hug. Lance's lips quirked up into a small but genuine smile.
"Where would he even be?" Hunk asked, knitting his eyebrows. "The Castle's huge. And for all we know, he could have taken Red and flown off by now."
"I don't think Keith would have run off like that," Shiro shook his head. "Out there means the possibility of running into Laynek. With how scared he probably is right now, I don't think he wants to take that risk. He probably ran off somewhere in the Castle."
"It's huge though," Lance said. "And we left a lot of it unexplored."
"We split up then," Allura said. "And search the parts of the Castle we have neglected until now."
"If you find Keith…" Shiro paused and trailed off.
"I say you don't tell anyone," Pidge said. Piccione hovered over her shoulder. Shiro mentally remarked that if trash floofs could get offended, this one looked very miffed that Keith had left it behind.
"No, no, no, nope," Lance disagreed. "We saw how well keeping things from each other went last time."
"But that'll give us all a chance to talk to Keith," Pidge countered. "No interruptions. We can all talk to him, get him to calm down. Maybe even get him to accept that Laynek's still out there, I dunno. I just...I know I need to talk to him alone."
"As do I," Allura said. "If we all are to find him, we can give each other privacy if need be."
Shiro paused. He knew that of anyone in the room, he had to talk to Keith the most. Clear the air between them and do his best to repair what had been broken. He just hoped he'd be able to do it.
"Can we bring peace offerings to him?" Hunk asked.
"Peace offerings?" Coran frowned.
"It's been long enough that Keith should be able to stomach solids," Hunk said. He looked a bit bashful, turning his head away to find the wall very interesting. "I...want to bring him the cupcakes Shiro and I made. Maybe that'll help."
Shiro's lips twitched into a smile for a split-second. "Good idea, Hunk."
"I'll bring enough for everyone if we all find him," Hunk said. "Maybe then he'll listen to us and we can apologize and...bond again over cupcakes."
Allura, who looked excited at the prospect of more cupcakes, nodded. "That sounds like a splendid idea, Hunk."
Hunk smiled. "At home, food always had a way of...bringing people together. It's the reason why my mom opened a restaurant. She likes to say that she's fixed a lot of people's relationships over a good meal. I'm just hoping I can do the same for us. For Keith."
"I know you can, Hunk," Shiro set his hand on the other boy's shoulder. "We'll fix this. We have to."
Coran nodded in agreement, setting his hand on Allura's shoulder. "We all made a promise to see Keith's recovery through to the end. We were going to put him back together, no matter how long it took and how hard it would be. I'm assuming none of us are backing out on that promise now?"
"Absolutely not," Pidge said firmly. She rubbed Piccione's back with her finger. "We're going to help him. Right guys?" Her answer was a chorus of nods from everyone. Shiro curled his hands into fists on his lap.
He'd fix this. He'd fix everything that had gone wrong between him and Keith. He'd almost lost his little brother once before. He wasn't going to let it happen again. There was a new gap in their relationship now, but Shiro wasn't going to let that happen. He'd rebuild the trust Keith had placed in him, brick by brick if he had to.
He'd made a promise to never give up on Keith, after all.
No resolution, but I'm finally addressing something I've been wanting to for a while: the reasoning behind the torture. Previously I'd stated that the torture wasn't 'just about the information anymore' and they were now focusing entirely on using him as a test subject, to break him and then take the information.
Typically, Keith thinks that's a shitty reason and hasn't accepted that sometimes there is no solid reason for one person to hurt another. It also gave me the chance to finally put in Keith trying to rip his prosthetic arm off. That's another angsty thing I've been planning for a long time.
Next chapter the Paladins try to find Keith and talk to him, all with their own individual ways of apologizing.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was super fun to write, and I've been kind of waiting for the reaction to this specific arc for a pretty long time now.
Thank you all so much for reading! I'll see you guys next Saturday!
wrenigade: I know! This poor kid just goes through so much garbage, I really feel for him :( and I actually had two different ways for Keith to find out about Laynek surviving, but I prefer this one.
Esellyn: :D
Guest: Yeah. Actually, it stemmed from a mistake I made in writing and when I went back to fix it I was like 'wait...I can work with this.' lol and no worries! You spelled it right! Poor Keith :( Thank you for reading!
sassysapphire12345: :) One day? Wow! Good job! Also I regret nothing :D
