Title: Brother, let me be your fortress

Chapter: 3

Rating: K+

Summary: SongFic for Hunk - Brother, let me be your shelter

Brother let me be your shelter

Never leave you all alone

I can be the one you call

When you're low

Keith - Season 3

"Hunk, go! That's an order!" Keith yelled at the stubborn pigheaded yellow paladin.

"No offense, Keith, but unless you come over here and make me I'm not going anywhere!" Hunk yelled back firing his cannon over the edge of the crater they were hiding in. It was just deep enough to provide the minimum amount of cover on the battlefield.

Keith glared ineffectively from where he lay on his back. Hunk laughed at him. It was a little hysterical granted, but the glare was just so over the top he couldn't help it. Hunk fired off another blast, bits of droids flew up in the air. He fired two more, then scooped Keith back up over his shoulder, pointedly ignoring his cry of pain and subsequent whimpers as they ran. He couldn't think about that if he was going to get them out of here. He couldn't run and think that each jolt of every footstep must be agony to Keith.

"Hunk, run faster."

Right, Keith is also a real jerk when he's hurting. Hunk picked up the pace. There was a cliff up ahead with what looked like cave openings. It had been their goal for the last half varga. Run until the shots got too close, stop and blow up some bad guys, and then run some more. Speaking of that last shot was a little close for comfort. He spotted a large rock in the landscape ahead and dropped Keith behind it, turning to fire his cannon again.

"Fuck." Keith muttered as he landed. Hunk cringed. He couldn't care right now. He had to do what he had to do to save Keith. "Just leave me here already. You could have been out of here and back with help already."

"And you would be dead and in no need of help, so it's not really an argument you are going to win. Just because I'm not as big a genius as Pidge doesn't mean I'm not a genius. Stop arguing with me, you won't win." Hunk wasn't focused on his argument so much as taking out as many droids as possible, caching his breath and getting ready to run some more.

Keith growled. Hunk was a little worried he might bite him when he picked him up next. He fired the cannon twice more and decided to risk it. He grabbed Keith again, mindful of his injuries, but there was no stopping the cry and whimpers. One should not be carried over someone's shoulder with two unset broken legs. It was a bad plan and just not good for a person. Of course, getting killed by Galra was worse, so here they went.

Hunk made it to the cliffs. They were gray like the rest of this whole planet. A whole planet in grayscale. He dove into the dark gray of the first opening he found. He stopped when he was far enough inside for his eyes to adjust and the lights on their armor to kick on. The tunnel went on for as far as he could see. Hunk looked back and made a decision. He blasted the entrance. Rocks crumbled down completely blocking the way they had come.

"What the hell?" Keith stared at Hunk, they were trapped.

"I need time and I don't need them on our heels. I need to get you patched up. If we have to go back that way, I'll just have to figure out a way to blast the rocks."

"Please don't blast anything else." Hunk was surprised by the shake of fear in Keith's voice and the wide panicked look in his eyes. Maybe he should have let him on the blast the entrance plan before he'd executed it.

"Hey, genius, remember? I knew where to hit it to just bring down the entrance." Hunk sat down next to Keith. He needed to check his injuries. "Okay, just lie back. What hurts the worst?"

"My legs." Keith answered through clenched teeth. He was paler than usual and a sheen of sweat stood out on his face.

"Too bad being Galra Keith doesn't make you have like super healing powers." Hunk checked the legs, no broken skin, obvious deformities in both shins, about two inches, swollen, purple and horribly painful looking. The gate had fallen hard on him as he tried to slide through. They'd been lucky Hunk had been able to catch it before it had chopped both legs off. Unlucky that he hadn't caught it fast enough to avoid the breaks. Other than that he had bruises and cuts from the fight on their way to the gate.

This simple data retrieval mission had gone very sour. They knew going in that communications on this rock were going to be a problem. It had a crazy high magnetic interference, anything more than fifty feet away and nothing but static. They'd planned their route in taking that into consideration, begin so careful to stick together. And then the best laid plans had gone where they usually go. They'd been separated from the others and forced to find a secondary exit.

The secondary exit went through an entire platoon of droids. Keith tried to cut them all down with his sword. Hunk was frustrated more than once by his leader being in the way of him using his very powerful, highly effective cannon weapon. Then they'd gone for the gate. Keith told Hunk to go ahead that he was right behind him. Keith was a liar. Hunk had figured that out in time to turn and jam his bayard under the gate, it transformed into a long staff and he was able to use it to pry it up high enough for Keith to slide out.

He'd thrown Keith over his shoulder and they had run from the base. They'd gotten a head start out across the battlefield as Hunk called it. Taking occasional artillery fire, but nothing heavy while the droids worked to get through the gate, then it was the shoot and run tactic across the field that was easily five football fields in length.

"Can you feel your feet?" Hunk asked. He thought he should check for a pulse in Keith's foot on each leg, but honestly he didn't know if there was anything he could do if there wasn't and taking his boots off would be crazy painful.

"No." Keith frowned. "I can't feel anything past the breaks."

Hunk nodded and frowned, he'd been afraid of that. So possibly no circulation to his feet, nerve damage, bleeding internally at the crush site - Hunk swallowed back the vomit threatening to come up his throat.

"Okay, so we need to get you back to a healing pod and sooner is better than later." Hunk tried to be positive and honest. It was a little hard right now, but it wasn't like Keith didn't know. His purple eyes glistened briefly and he let out a deep breath. "Hey, it's going to be okay. I'm going to find something to splint up your legs so it doesn't hurt so bad when I carry you."

"Hunk, why didn't you leave me. I told you to go, like three times, I even made it an order once." Keith's stare was a little unnerving.

"Keith, we are a team and just because you are the leader doesn't mean you aren't part of our team. Teammates do not leave each other behind." Hunk turned away and began digging through the debris for a suitable splint. There had been some timbers shoring up the tunnel, a piece of those might work.

"I ordered you to leave so that you'd be safe, now you're stuck here in this cave with me." It seemed Keith was still trying to win him over to his side of the argument.

"And where would you be? Dead? Being interrogated by Galra soldiers? Nope, not going to happen." Hunk had found two pieces that looked suitable. He pulled off the armor on his sleeve and ripped the sleeve off of the under armor. "Alright got enough for one. Let's do this one and see how it goes and then I'll try to find stuff for the next one."

Keith watched warily as Hunk approached. Hunk tried to be gentle, but there was no way around it hurting. Keith groaned and clamped his mouth shut. Hunk figured he would have been screaming and crying if it had been him, but Keith was big on his tough guy image. He sat back when he was done and checked the binding. It was tight, the pieces of timber where long enough to brace the break and keep his foot still. It was as good as it was going to get. Keith was laying flat, his eyes closed, taking slow controlled breaths. Hunk wished they had some water or something.

He went back to digging for braces. Keith's breathing evened out and he sat back up to watch Hunk.

"Do you think they'll try to dig their way in here?" Keith wondered.

"I haven't heard anything yet, but yeah I kind of thought they would. There is about five feet of collapse, so it should take awhile. Or…" Hunk paused and then went back to digging hoping Keith hadn't noticed.

"Or?" Yeah, Keith noticed.

"Well, I've been thinking this place looks a lot like a mine and they probably have equipment or explosives to open tunnels and they might have gone to get that so, yeah, we should probably hurry." Hunk came back with two pieces of timber. One was two short and one was a little crooked, but his sudden insight made him think it might be better to get a move on and these would have to do.

"Oh." Keith nodded looking around their cave. It didn't look natural.

"Alright lets get this done." Hunk made quick work of his other sleeve and set to binding. It was harder with the mismatched pieces. He put the crooked one on the outside, binding the straight portion and letting part of it stick out. He was worried it would get bumped as they ran, but there wasn't anything to be done for it.

Keith was really pale now and his skin felt kind of clammy when Hunk reached a hand up to wipe his hair out of his eyes. He had his eyes closed and was breathing slowly.

"I'm sorry. I know that hurts." Hunk wiped a tear from his own eye. "Let's just give you a few minutes to recover."

"No, we can go." Keith spoke through gritted teeth.

"You are very stubborn my friend." Hunk spoke quietly laying his hand on Keith's shoulder. "But I'm not picking you up until you are less white than your armor."

"Hunk, I'm your leader, you are supposed to do what I say." Keith blurted out frustrated.

"Right, like you always did what Shiro said?" Keith flinched at Shiro's name and Hunk regretted bringing it up. "Nope, we were friends before you were my leader. That officially gives me the right to veto your self-sacrificing leader orders on the basis of friendship." Hunk nodded to himself pleased with his logic.

He waited about five dobashes and Keith was breathing easier and his color was improved, though not exactly great.

"You ready?" Hunk asked.

Keith hadn't said anything while they waited. He looked over and met Hunk's warm brown eyes. "Thank you."

"For what?" Hunk asked as he stood.

"Not leaving me. It's…um…I…" He looked away and Hunk could see tears threatening. Keith would not usually be so open, the pain and situation seemed to be breaking through a little, or maybe it was just Hunk. He had a way of letting people talk to him without worry of judgement. "A lot of people in my life have left me, you know, I…it…well it means a lot that you wouldn't and that you're my friend."

Hunk gave him a huge smile, "You are very welcome." He patted Keith's shoulder and as gently as possible lifted him up over his. "Now, let's get you home."

"Home." Keith mumbled from behind him. "Yeah, let's get home."

Hunk made his way into the winding tunnel. It was a straight shot so far, no turns or anything. He was getting worried it was just going to end at a dig site and a dead end. He had been walking for nearly twenty dobashes.

"Keith?"

"I'm okay." His answer was breathy and weak. He was not okay.

"Yeah, not that believable." He stopped and sat Keith down. "You need to catch your breath."

"We gotta keep going." Keith breathed, "they could be coming any moment."

"Keith, I'm thinking they won't be. I mean, we've been walking in a straight line for awhile, I'm worried it's not like a mine complex and more like just a straight tunnel to no where. It would explain why they haven't started trying to get us - no hurry." Hunk was getting discouraged.

"Maybe it's the others. Maybe they are why they haven't started trying to get to us yet." Keith offered. "Lance and Allura and Pidge aren't going to leave us right? We're teammates." Keith smiled giving Hunk back his own words.

Hunk nodded, laughing lightly, "You're right."

They sat for maybe five dobashes and then Hunk picked him back up. He was getting weaker. Hunk could tell, his body was less tense and his skin was getting colder. They had walked for another ten dobashes when they finally came to what looked like a t in the tunnel. Hunk gave a whoop of joy when they turned the corner and found what looked like a lift, similar to the one he'd used when he got Yellow. He loaded Keith into the corner and used the controls to lift them up.

"Good work, Hunk." Keith spoke quietly. His head rolled awkwardly on his shoulders, like he didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore.

"Almost there Keith, hold on." Hunk could see light above them and then he heard the crackle of static on his helmet.

"Lance? Allura? Pidge?" He asked.

"Hunk! Where are you?" Pidge answered.

"Coming up from the mines in a lift. Should be about a mile or a little less from the edge of that cliff to the west of the base." Hunk answered. "Keith's with me, but he's hurt we need to get him to a pod."

"I'm okay." Keith answered completely unconvincing.

"Yeah, you sound like it." Pidge's sarcasm dripped through the coms.

"He has two badly broken legs." He smiled as the body of the green lion flew over the opening. "I saw you!"

"I saw you too. Green and I are at the top of the shaft, we're ready to get you back to the castle. The rest of the base has been taken out." Pidge answered.

"Time to go home, Keith." Hunk reached down to pick him up.

"Time to go home," Keith gave him a tired smile.