A/N: okay so uh,,,, sorry it took so long
Basically, I started writing this chapter right after I finished the last one, but then it was the end of the school year and I had a lot to do, then season seven came out and I had to take a step back for a little bit from Voltron, then I started to work on it some more and then school started up and then NaNoWriMo (which I won again), and then season eight which just...
Anyway, it was a bit of a journey getting here, but I by no means have dropped this fic; I love it and I continue to work on it all the time. In fact, I have a little extra something cooking, as well, for it (see end notes for more deets). Thanks so much for your continued reading and support! Feel free to share this with friends! (please)
And a huge shoutout to Ao3 user hobbit_hedgehog for the beta (and for letting me scream about all this as always)
Twelve: Trapped
Dana Scully: I feel like I've lost sight of myself, Mulder. It's hard to see, let alone find, in the darkness of covert locations. I mean, I wish I could say that we were going in circles, but we're not. We're going in an endless line, two steps forwards and three steps back. While my own life is standing still.
37
"Shiro, can you give me the light?" asked Keith. He held out his hand and, after a moment of fumbling on account of an awkward placement of his flashlight in his prosthetic hand, Shiro handed the flashlight to Keith. The light fumbled around before focusing on the sand. It had been raked out and brushed so that it would seem like nothing had happened here, but Keith knew it was the spot. It was too perfect a patch of ground for it to be random.
Keith had seen this type a few years ago—he had been investigating a murder case and they had apprehended the killer but couldn't find the remaining bodies. And the suspect—the killer, of course, because he had confessed at this point—had admitted to three more bodies than they had actually found. So he had found himself out in the woods around the killer's house for the next week, combing for discarded corpses or shallow graves.
It had taken him longer to find them than he'd liked, but this was exactly what had tipped him off—the forest floor had been too perfect, and he had known that it couldn't be that way naturally. It had been specifically arranged to be undisturbed, unlike the rest of the forest floor, with imperfections from animals, weather, and other wear and tear. The bodies had been just a few feet below the surface. So he was glad, in this case, to find the place so "undisturbed."
It had been covered up, yes, but that was what Keith wanted—first, it meant that there was something worth covering up, and he was always interested in more evidence for why his theories were correct, and second, if they covered up the spot, that was one thing. But they were in the loose sand of the desert, in the middle of nowhere. They had to take their cars back to wherever they were keeping the pieces, and they weren't able to cover all of their tracks.
Luckily, it hadn't been too windy that day, and much of the sand had stayed where it had been when they'd visited the same location hours before.
"Did you find it," asked Shiro, squinting to see but not able to gather much. "I mean…"
"I think I have it," said Keith. He pointed the flashlight beam so that it highlighted the two sets of tracks leading away into the desert, stripes in the sand, small indents, left behind by the government agents' vehicles when they had left earlier that day. "Let's go."
38
"I'm having trouble with this piece of the meteorite we've recovered," said Pidge. "I mean, it's definitely metal, but…"
"What?" asked Hunk, leaning on the desk.
"Well, Keith was able to get us two pieces of debris from two separate events, right?"
"Yeah," said Lance, remembering the piece Keith had held up triumphantly to them on their first visit to the impact site and his mind flashed to Keith wrenching a corner of debris off of the most recent meteorite-hunting mission.
"Well," said Pidge, clicking something on the desktop of their computer and opening up a spreadsheet document. "I've been tracking my measurements, of course, but they haven't been matching up as they should."
"What do you mean?" asked Lance. Hunk had already moved in closer and was peeking over Pidge's shoulder to see the screen. Pidge swatted him away.
"Basically, this material doesn't stay the same all of the time." They leaned back in their chair and pointed to the pieces, both on a counter on the side of the garage. "They started off with a certain density and structure, and today—they're different."
"But they're the same actual scraps?" asked Hunk. "Those government agents didn't sneak in and swap them out during the night?"
Pidge raised an eyebrow. "Hunk, you know the level of security we've got here. You installed most of the cameras and sensors yourself. I'm not saying it would be impossible…"
"You're just saying it would be more likely that this is some sort of shapeshifting alien metal," said Lance, crossing his arms. His voice deepened in faux-seriousness. "But of course…"
Pidge rolled their eyes and swung back over to their computer. "Say what you like, but I've run the scans multiple times, and the measurements aren't wrong. Whatever we're dealing with here, it has the ability to change its molecular structure." They adjusted their glasses. "Of course, we don't know how or why, if it's controlled by something or if it's random…"
"So what do we know?" asked Hunk.
"We know it's really cool," said Pidge, grinning, their glasses flashing in the light of their desk lamp. "And I'm going to keep running tests on it until I think it's unsafe to do so. I want to see if anything else happens."
39
They came up on a low building after following the tracks for a while—long enough that Keith could tell Shiro was getting a little tired, but he didn't want to stop and Shiro didn't admit to fatigue. So when the building appeared on the horizon, Keith breathed a silent sigh of relief.
The building didn't have any windows, but that didn't mean that they were going to just try to rush in—they would need some sort of plan.
They fell back into a pretty familiar setup, with Shiro leading the way and Keith watching his back, much like when they would sneak back into the orphanage after sneaking out for a too-violent R-rated movie after their bedtime with the twenty dollars Shiro had been able to scrape together from his after-school job at the local yogurt place, the money that didn't go into getting them nicer clothes than the few that the orphanage was able to provide from donations. It was a rough life, but he was doing his best to make the most of it for the both of them. And when they'd had the little bit of extra cash, it was Keith who had suggested sneaking out, and Shiro who had suggested the movie.
They hadn't been caught then, and they didn't plan on getting caught now.
Shiro held up his prosthetic in a sign of halt, and Keith stopped just before bumping into him. There was the beam of a flashlight ahead of them, coming around the side of the building. Someone was coming.
They both scrambled backward, careful to try to make their footsteps soft against the loose sand and being much less adept at that than they thought they were. Whether it be luck or a continuation of their history of not getting caught, the two of them were able to scramble behind the far wall as a man in an all-black suit and an earpiece rounded the corner, flashlight in hand. His flashlight beam swept across where the two brothers had been only moments before, and Keith held his breath as the beam passed it, staring at the beam, as if doing that would convince it to not look down at the scuffled footprints in the sand below.
But they were lucky, or the guard was careless, because he turned around without seeing the prints or investigating further. He followed back the same way he came, trudging around the side of the base. It was starting to get chilly out, as the warmth of the desert day had almost completely left the area, but that didn't mean that it was a comfortable climate, and Keith couldn't imagine that this was the first assignment that the government agents hoped for when it came to their assignment at the Secret Base In The Desert. Guard duty had to be just the most boring part of the job.
Shiro motioned for Keith to follow him closer, and the two of them peeked back around, finding where they had been before and continuing on past the place where the footprints had stopped to peek around the other corner of the building. It was here that Keith realized it was an L-shaped building, not a square like he had thought it to be, and that the guard had already just rounded the corner into the inner section of the complex. Keith squinted at the wall. "I think this is a door." Shiro looked to where he was referring, and there is indeed a metal panel there that stands out against the concrete building. The door, however, doesn't seem to have a handle or knob or any other sort of apparatus that would allow them entry into the building.
"So…" said Keith under his breath, his head straining to both observe the apparent door and the corner of the building, around from which the guard could re-emerge at any moment.
"So," said Shiro, with a bit more finality. He leaned in closer to the door, squinting to see. He would have drawn his phone out to look with his flashlight if he didn't realize that someone could easily see the beam fumbling around in the dark and realize the two men were trespassing.
Keith went over the doors again in his head, and turned back to see Shiro prodding at the different sections of the completely smooth door. He shook his head.
"So now what?"
Shiro put his hand and prosthetic on his hips and leaned back, surveying the door again. "Can we get in…?"
"We need a good locksmith," said Keith, his voice low.
"I don't know…" began Shiro, but a moment later, Keith had already taken a step or two backward before ramming his shoulder into the door.
Keith bounced back off of the door and tumbled harmlessly to the ground. He rubbed off his shoulder and gritted his teeth, glaring up at the place from which he'd ricocheted.
"Are you okay?" asked Shiro, bending at his knees and offering Keith his hand. Keith hesitated for a moment before taking it, allowing himself to be helped up.
Shiro almost dropped Keith—almost—freezing as the door suddenly opened, revealing a group of men dressed in all black. Shiro made sure Keith was righted, but Keith immediately dropped into a fighting stance, his feet set just wider than shoulder-width apart and his hands up to protect his face.
"None of that," said one of the agents. A few more of them stepped out of the door, showing there was a clear advantage to those on the home turf.
Keith gritted his teeth, but Shiro put his arm in front of him, a signal to stand down. It was the same he'd used when they got in trouble at the orphanage and Keith tried to fight back, saying it was unfair that they never got to leave the grounds on the weekend, because there weren't enough workers to supervise those outings, all enough because budget cuts meant the facility couldn't afford to pay overtime. And why couldn't they be allowed out on their own? When they'd told him no, not with that tone especially, he'd bristled.
But Shiro had stepped in and physically put himself between Keith and conflict. And it worked, because Keith knew that even if they orphanage didn't care about him, Shiro did, enough to step in and stop him.
And so that same move worked here again, and reluctantly, Keith softened and allowed himself to yield.
40
Lance had excused himself after pacing back and forth thinking over the case—and trying to not think about Keith's newly discovered heritage—so much that he was sure he was absolutely going to drive Hunk and Pidge completely crazy.
He started off just along the side of the road, and he was surprised to find the stretch of road feel less familiar than he'd expected. He'd gotten used, he supposed, to the bright lights and noise of the big city; he felt in this realization a sort of betrayal within him, as if he'd given up or turned his back on his small-town upbringing.
He looked upward to the skies that had so often given him comfort and sighed. He had used to love looking upward—and he figured he still did—but there was a sort of cognitive dissonance going on inside his mind. He'd loved the stars because he'd known what he did and didn't known about them. He was intrigued by them and had so much curiosity about them, but he never thought there would be intelligent life—or, at least, life able to be used in the way it had been by whatever government agency they were dealing with.
Then there was Keith—Keith, who was his partner but whose face was stuck in the back of his mind in a way he couldn't quite shake. Keith, whose new lineage through Project was a key to the whole mystery, he thought, and with whom he couldn't actually share that information, because he was missing. Off investigating something, no doubt. But Lance wanted to be there for him, tell him about what happened and be there to help him through that news—but he didn't know where he was, so he couldn't. He couldn't do anything.
He felt small, but not in the comforting way that he usually felt when he looked up to the stars. Instead, he felt as if there was nothing he could do—he couldn't solve the mystery, he couldn't find out what the government agency was doing, and he couldn't even really contribute to what any of the others were doing.
He was trapped, trapped in this sport where he was of no use, trapped in this spot where he couldn't do anything; he was useless. The skies were holding him here, in the same way that some people thought horoscopes controlled their fates. They thought that the stars told them what their lives were going to be, and they held them to it. Here, Lance found himself held down by the stars, rather than his old feeling of being able to soar with them. He was oppressed by them because of his sheer inability to do anything about them. He was dead weight, and…
Someone caught him by the elbow, and he almost jumped when he turned to see the white-haired woman who had approached him a couple of days before.
"Agent McClain," she said. "There is an urgent matter…"
The woman sounded as if she meant it, and there was something in her face what showed that she wasn't in a joking mood. Judging by the last interaction they'd had, Lance wondered if she had the capacity to joke around—there was a certain sternness to her that screamed "don't mess with me."
"Listen," he said, "is this anything to do with the meteors? Because things just keep getting weirder, and…"
"No, Agent McClain," said the white-haired woman, making a quick check over her shoulder to ensure that they were still alone on the stretch of road in the desert. "It has to do with your partner. I believe Agent Kogane is in dire danger."
Lance raised his eyebrows and felt his heartbeat quickening. "What happened to Keith?"
"I don't know," said the woman. "You all are in way over your heads." She checked over her shoulder. "We should…"
"But what—does this have to do with project ?"
"What do you—?" She shook her head. "No, we don't have time for this. We need to get Agent Kogane before anything else can happen."
"What's already happened?" asked Lance, gesturing with his hands as his voice built.
"They have him," said the woman. "Him and Shirogane. They went into the desert, according to my intel, and then…"
"Where?"
"What?"
"Where?" asked Lance, his lips pursing.
"There's a facility…"
"You got me so we could go get them, yes?" asked Lance.
"Yes," she said, and her confidence had returned to her voice.
"Who are you, though?" He took a step backward from her as he said this, as if the physical space was there to also let her know about his distrust.
She seemed taken aback by this question for the briefest of moments, as if she didn't know how to respond to this question. But then she was able to compose herself to what was her normal stoic face. "I am Allura," she said. "And I have a vested interest in the information you and your partner are uncovering to stay private. I have a feeling that the two of you will come to the same conclusion, but that doesn't mean that the people who currently have that knowledge aren't abusing it."
Lance raised an eyebrow. She'd answered his question, but she had somehow done so without giving him any new information at all. He glanced to her eyes again, and they darted from him to the horizon, presumably in the direction that Keith and Shiro were being held by the agency. He sighed. This much would have to do for now.
"Let's go," he said.
41
Keith kicked the wall in frustration. He let out a hiss of breath through his teeth, and he paced back across the tiny cell again. He knew that Shiro was in the next cell over and could probably hear him making a fuss, but that didn't mean that he was going to compose himself. Who was he trying to impress? His captors? He didn't much care what they thought of him.
The room was small and concrete, definitely a part of the facility that was underground. He wasn't sure if it originally was man to be a cell, because it had the faint smell of the cleaning materials of a utility closet, and there clearly wasn't enough room to lie down. He figured that it must have been a part of their efforts to make do. They weren't expecting anyone to catch on to them, so this whole kidnapping part of the plan was something as new to them as it was to those who were kidnapped.
He could feel his blood getting hotter inside his veins, and he couldn't help but kick the wall again. "Arugh!" he shouted, his scream of frustration lost on everything but the cement walls that surrounded him.
His first thoughts, when they'd been brought in and separated, were of Shiro. He wasn't that much older than him, but his brother was basically geriatric after the things he'd gone through—between his time in space and the way he was treated once he'd come back to earth, he deserved to be left alone for the rest of his life so that he could rest and not have to be roughed up by some government thugs.
His next thoughts were of his partner.
Lance didn't know where he was; he'd snuck out to meet up with Shiro so they could investigate. He wasn't used to being paired with anyone and when he saw a lead, he wanted to chase it. Being with the others had been a little overwhelming, and Shiro knew how to just… be there for him.
But now? He felt regret. Not just because if they had Lance there as well, there'd be one more person for backup, but because he knew he' be worrying Lance, who wouldn't know where he was, who would be looking for him, who would probably never find out what happened to him because he was locked up in some stupid secret facility and would die there without ever even talking to Lance again, and for some reason that was what was more pressing to him…
He took a moment to stop pacing and kicking so that he could bury his face in his hands. He was blushing, and he didn't know why, but he did know that he wanted his partner here with him—not purely to rescue him, though that was still a concern—but just to be with him.
He kicked the wall again out of frustration with all of this, and he crossed his arms. There was nothing that he could do about his situation. He was helpless. And he hated it. And he was almost as frustrated about his inability to control his emotions as he was with his inability to control his physical confinement.
He was trapped in more ways than one, and he couldn't stand how useless that made him feel.
Alex Krycek: You can't bring these men to justice. They're protected. The laws of this country protect these men under the name of National Security. They know no law.
A/N: I have a twitter (if you don't follow) where I am most active, and sometimes I post little twitter drabbles! If you're interested, it's allihearisradio. I'm also allihearisradiogaga on tumblr! I also post more fic more often over at Archive of Our Own allihearisradiogaga as well!
So I was in the "This and Every Other Universe" Klance edition zine, and I wrote a oneshot in the universe of this fic! It features Rolo and Nyma and bigfoot and getting stuck out in the rain alone with each other... And I'm super proud of it! The zine, unfortunately, was cancelled, so I will be posting that fic on my account in the next couple of days (before the new year)! Please keep an eye out for it; it's part of the reason I took so long to post this chapter; I was working on that oneshot and obsessing over making it perfect! I can't wait to share it!
Thanks so much for reading and please know I appreciate every comment and kudos so much! Ty!
