Chapter Fourteen

The Other Shoe

Their stay at Arus stretched into days and then into weeks. Keith's wounds slowly closed until they were reduced to thin pink lines of scar tissue. He begrudgingly agreed to stay even after that, but only because the others seemed genuinely relaxed and he didn't have the heart to make them leave. So they stayed and gradually began to volunteer for operations around the base. Allura never forced them, but she was grateful for the help and never ran out of jobs to give them.

Hunk spent a lot of time in the kitchens and the garages, alternately helping with meals and with fixing up vehicles that had been scavenged from the city. Matt and Pidge basically lived in Allura's lab while they tried to help with the vaccine. Neither of them were medically trained like Allura, but they did have naturally sharp intellect that helped them grasp abstract concepts in record time.

Lance was given his own little sniper nest on the roof of the two story building where he could keep watch over the surrounding desert. He complained about the lack of things to actually shoot, but anyone could tell his heart wasn't really in it. Secretly he was grateful he didn't have to kill anymore people.

Shiro was the camp's jack of all trades. He could do pretty much anything Allura set him to with decent skill, so he usually found himself dashing to and fro from various projects.

Keith was placed on patrol duty and occasionally a scouting mission beyond the fences. He didn't enjoy those as much as he could have since usually Rolo was sent out with him, but it wasn't the worst thing ever.

Allura never pushed him to do anything, very conscious of how he expected her to turn on them. He still went on the patrols anyway, just because it was less boring than sitting around doing nothing all day.

The group managed to settle into a kind of steady peace. For awhile, that was alright. But with peace came quiet, and with quiet came time to think. Which didn't have good effects on any of them, not even Hunk.

Keith and Shiro's nightmares still hadn't abated since the battle with the Galra. It took barely a week of them stumbling around like Z's with bruises under their eyes before Shay decided enough was enough and began giving them sleeping pills. Obviously she had to ration them, but once a week or so she would give some to the two of them and let them get a good night's sleep. Shiro's flashbacks seemed to be held at bay if he kept himself busy, so there was always a pile of projects for him to work on.

The other's issues weren't as obvious, but even Lance's expert deflection techniques couldn't keep them locked up for long. It was about a month and a half into their stay at Arus when Hunk went back to their house for a few moments and found him curled up on his cot, sniffling and trying his damn best not to cry.

Once they had decided to stay, Allura had moved them to a more permanent residence. It was thrown together with scrap metal and was four rooms in total: a bathroom, a small side room, a kitchen, and a main room. The side room is where Lance and Hunk slept and where they stored the other cots during the day. Pidge and Matt slept in the main room while Shiro and Keith took the kitchen. There weren't any doors in the house and only the barest slip of a curtain covered the bathroom from view, so Hunk immediately noticed Lance's huddled form and red rimmed eyes when he came in.

"Lance? Buddy? You ok?"

Lance jumped at his voice and dragged an arm across his eyes, trying to conceal his distress with a fake smile.

"Yeah, I'm all good, just allergies."

If he'd been Pidge, he would've snapped something along the lines of 'Bullshit' and forced Lance to tell him what was really wrong. But he wasn't Pidge, so instead he just made his way over to the cot and sat beside his friend, a comforting arm around his shoulders. He felt his shoulders tremble as he held in a sob.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"I-I just…" he sniffed again, tucking his face against his pulled up knees. "I just miss my family, is all."

"I miss mine too." Hunk said, soothingly rubbing Lance's arm. "I think everybody does."

"It would be Angie's birthday around now, I think. She'd be turning 15. She was so excited about starting high school, she was gonna try out for the cheer team."

Hunk listened quietly, trying to remember what Lance's sister looked like. The image he called up was blurry.

"And Tess would be home for Christmas. Mom would be pestering her about school and asking her if she's found herself a boyfriend yet." An actual smile found a way onto his lips, although it was small and sad and broken. "And she would smile and wink at me because she hadn't told mom she was gay yet. A-and M-mom-" his voice thickened, the tears finally forcing their way free.

"Fuck, Hunk, I miss my mom. She was always so stressed and she yelled at us sometimes but I loved her. I miss her hugs and her smile and- and sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night and I can't stop thinking I just wish she was here to tell me everything will be ok."

This was surprising. Even with his own sleep being fitful of late he hadn't known Lance was struggling too. He'd have to pay more attention.

Hunk gently rubbed his back as Lance finally gave in and sobbed into his knees. He still didn't stop talking. He'd clearly been holding this in for a long while, and Hunk wasn't about to stop him from finally letting it out.

"I miss Cuba. I miss the ocean. I hate this stupid desert and all the dust and how everything's so brown all the time. It's so cold and I hate it when the wind howls. I hate the muertos, always stumbling around and rotting and making those disgusting fucking sounds.

"I wish none of this had happened. I wish I was still at home, with my dad, where I didn't have to eat expired crackers out of the box and live with the fact that I have blood on my hands."

This is when Lance's words finally failed him, and he curled into a miserable little ball and cried. Hunk pulled him into his side, gently rocking and stroking his hair while he crumbled. They sat there together for quite some time, until Lance's sobs faded away into heaving breaths, and then eventually stilled.

"Sorry." he croaked, but he didn't try to pull away.

"It's alright. I understand how you feel."

Hunk did understand how Lance felt. He felt the same way. During the daytime, at least.

He'd suffered from night terrors his entire childhood. His moms had been patient with him, helping him through it and taking him to see a sleep specialist. By the time he was twelve they were mostly gone.

They returned after the outbreak, after they were gone. For the first few months there was no sleeping well. But after awhile the exhaustion and the constant burning need to survive wore him down and made sleep easier. Now that he was safe, he was right back where he started.

During the day he missed his moms. One slim and graceful, beautiful red hair flowing down her back. The other soft and comforting, black hair and eyes like Shiro's that always smiled at him. They'd been a happy family. An unconventional one, maybe, but a happy one. Those were the memories that nagged him when the sun was in the sky. As soon as it set, an entirely different set of memories arose.

These were the ones that coated him in cold sweat, jolting him awake in the night with a scream caught in his throat. Memories of pallid skin and slack jaws tinged with orange. Blank, glassy eyes that no longer smiled. Jerky, graceless motions born from stiff joints.

The terrors always started with the door. The bedroom door he'd locked himself behind, trembling on its hinges as the corpses of his parents slammed and clawed at it, trying to get through it, trying to get to him.

In the real world, Lance had arrived at his home, distracting the two of them long enough for Hunk to get out of dodge. But in the terrors he never came. The door would shake and creak, the moaning and pounding of fists against wood echoing in his ears until he thought he might go mad. Then the door would break, shatter, splinter apart and in a second they would be on him; cold and unfeeling as their blunt teeth tore painfully into his flesh-

And then he'd wake up. He never yelled or screamed like Keith or Shiro did sometimes, he'd just wake up breathless and shaky. Usually he'd quietly leave the house and walk a couple of laps around the camp to calm himself down before returning. He never told anyone, until one night when he walked into the living room just in time to catch Pidge slipping on her boots.

They both froze like deer in headlights, just staring for a long moment. Then Pidge pressed a finger to her lips and motioned her head towards what passed for a front door. Hunk nodded in understanding.

A few minutes later they were both outside under the moonlight, walking in silence and trying to ignore the cold wind that cut through their clothing. Eventually Pidge sighed, breaking the spell.

"What was yours about?"

Hunk didn't need to ask what she meant.

"My moms. You?"

Pidge paused for a moment at the question before saying, "Yeah, same."

There was a slight tension in her voice that said she was lying, but Hunk left it alone. She'd talk about it when she was ready.

"You could ask Shay for some of those pills."

"Nah." Hunk said with a shrug. "I can usually get back to sleep. I'll leave those for Keith and Shiro."

"It'd give you an excuse to talk to Shay." Hunk looked down in astonishment, and Pidge wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"What do you mean?" Hunk sputtered, feeling the heat rush to his face. Had he really been that obvious?

"Come on, you two have been making puppy eyes at each other for weeks. Just go for it, bro."

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

Pidge chuckled. "Whatever you say, lover boy."

They lapsed back into silence, completing their laps and returning to the house with red ears and noses. They went back to their respective beds without another word, but despite that, Hunk felt much less alone than he had just a few hours previous.

Pidge hadn't been lying; at least, not completely. She had been dreaming about her parents, it just wasn't the only thing she dreamt about.

She'd told Matt what their parents did a few weeks ago. He was obviously upset, but he seemed more angry than anything else. Angry at them and their decision to leave her all alone. Since then she'd dreamt about them less, but the other ones hadn't gone away.

She'd spent a lot of time in the desert running on pure adrenaline and single minded focus. Find Matt, rescue him, get out of Galra Territory, get away from Lotor. Now it was starting to sink in, the things she had done to accomplish those goals. The scent of blood in her dreams was overwhelming.

It soaked her hands, dripping from her palms and pooling around her ankles. It kept going, flowing from her like a fountain until it reached her face and then she was choking on it, drowning in her own wrongdoings.

She told herself it was ridiculous. She'd only killed two men. Lance had killed five. Keith and Shiro had killed god only knows how many. But still they tormented her. Maybe it was the way she'd done it. She'd chosen the ice pick in the beginning for its size, speed, and precision. Killing muertos with it was easy. Humans, actually live, breathing humans, was a completely different matter. Their screams were right in her ears, their blood on her skin.

On the other hand, the words she'd given to Lance came back to haunt her. She'd told him not to feel bad about not getting over it, that it was natural, that it was ok. She still believed that, she just couldn't seem to apply it to herself.

The others wanted to help her. Even if she hadn't been as overt about her discomfort, they'd all picked up on it. Matt wanted to help. Hunk wanted to help. Keith wanted to help. But she just couldn't accept it. She did this on her own, she would work through it on her own.

She took a lot of walks. She threw herself into the vaccine. She laughed and talked with her brother and her friends. That late night walk with Hunk had helped and they soon made it a habit. They never talked about anything serious, either bantering or just letting the silence consume them. It was nice.

Still, it wasn't enough to shake the specters that followed her. And one day she cracked.

She and Lance had been assigned to sort through recently scavenged food, tossing the stuff that wasn't safe and sorting what was. For awhile their conversation was meaningless and threatened to fall into silence, until Lance asked a more serious question.

"So, you and Matt help a lot in the lab, right?"

Pidge looked up in surprise, but Lance wasn't looking at her in turn. He was focused on a can of soup in his hands, rolling it this way and that in the search for an expiration date.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Do you think… do you think Allura's vaccine could actually work?"

Oh, so that's what this was about.

"Theoretically, yes. We have all of the components, all we need now is the component that would actually fight off the fungus. That's the hard part."

"Why is that the hard part? Wouldn't you just screw around with different chemicals until something works?"

"We have been, but it's been slow going. It would be easier if we could find something in nature that counteracts the fungus and then copy it, but nothing like that has shown up."

Lance hummed thoughtfully and set his can of soup aside, reaching back into the crate for another food item. His curiosity seemingly sated, Pidge could have let the conversation fall back into pointlessness. But the words were crawling up her throat, and she couldn't stop them.

"Do you still dream about them?"

Lance didn't seem bothered by the question.

"Yeah, I do." he said easily. "Do you?"

Damn, he'd seen right through her.

"Yes."

"I can see why. The whole rescue mission was pretty bloody."

"What do I do?"

"I don't know. Take your own advice, I guess. Talk to people about it."

"I don't like talking as much as you do."

"Then don't talk about it. Just try to cope and know you're not alone in it."

Pidge pondered that for a long moment, turning it over in her mind. Objectively, Lance was right. With the conflict between the two gangs there could hardly be that many people in the camp who hadn't had to kill someone at some point. Besides that, everyone in their group besides Matt and Hunk had killed people too, more than her. Now she knew that it wasn't just her, all of them still dreamt about it.

"Do you regret killing them?"

That gave Lance a pause, and for the first time he looked up at her. His brow was furrowed as though he was confused.

"I don't know." his voice dropped in volume a bit. "It helped us survive, helped you find Matt, so I don't regret doing it. I guess I just wish I hadn't had to."

"Yeah, that makes sense to me."

This was easier. Breaking things down into theories, rational chunks of information that she could work through and solve like math problems. It made much more sense than trying to muddle through all the messy emotional nonsense.

"Thanks Lance."

"No problem Pigeon."

His mother had taught him to always keep busy. Idle hands make the devil's work and all that. She always had some little project going on, whether it was gardening or knitting or baking, she was always busy, never still. Now he could understand why. When you were doing something just interesting enough to catch your thoughts but not enough to stress you out, you didn't have time to think about all the stuff that was bothering you. And Shiro had plenty to think about these days.

He and Matt had slipped back into their easy camaraderie from before the outbreak, but neither of them had the courage to confide in the other like they used to. Matt never spoke about the time he spent with the Galra, and neither did Shiro.

Matt never brought up his dramatic change in appearance, but Shiro knew he noticed. It was hard not to. Just one section of his hair stark white against the brown, the stretched diamond of the scar across his nose, the dozens of others scattered over the flesh. He tried to cover as many of them as possible, but some were always visible.

He hated them. They were a constant reminder to himself and everyone else that he'd been broken, and even though Lotor was dead he would never truly leave. Sometimes he thought about how his parents would react if they could see him now.

His mother would be sad. My sweet boy, she'd whisper, my sweet Takashi, what have they done to you?

His father would be angry, mixed with a strange bittersweet pride. I knew you'd make it out. I knew it. He'd say. He felt childish pining after his parents, but sometimes he missed them so much it hurt. Some cold, angry piece of him wanted to blame Keith for what happened to them, but he could never bring himself to.

If he hadn't done what he did, they would all be dead.

He knew this couldn't go on forever. Someday the memories and the trauma would be too much. For him, for Keith, for Matt, for all of them. There were no more pills or therapists that could save them from themselves anymore. They tried to talk to each other, to help each other. Eventually it wouldn't be enough.

Despite his inner pessimism, he still felt relieved when Matt finally came to him.

"I don't want to hate them." he admitted one day when they were alone, angrily fisting away tears the way Pidge did sometimes. "But I can't help it. I'm so angry. How could they just leave her like that? Dad I almost understand, but Mom…"

"I don't know." Shiro said softly. He didn't try to justify their actions or come up with a reason for them. That's not what Matt wanted. He just wanted someone to listen.

Matt ground his teeth. "What happened to your parents?" he ventured to ask, probably trying to get his mind off of his own family. To his surprise, Shiro actually wanted to tell him the story. This was Matt, he could admit everything to him, even that little part of him that wanted to hate his brother.

So he did. He spilled everything. By the end Matt's tears had dried, his attention completely wrapped up in Shiro. It wasn't very often he let himself be vulnerable like this and Shiro felt hollow afterwards.

"But you don't blame him?"

"No. They turned, they would've killed him if he hadn't done something. He blames himself enough, he doesn't need me to do it."

Matt stared down at his toes where they met Shiro's, the two of them seated and facing each other on their ratty, torn couch. This was one of the few times Shiro wasn't fiddling with one thing or another, Matt had his undivided attention.

"Do you feel guilty?" he asked quietly, picking at the worn fabric. "About Keith?"

"What do you mean?"

"I couldn't protect Pidge." Matt's toes curled when he spoke. "I wasn't there when all of this started, and I couldn't protect her or help her. I wasn't there when our parents died, and she went through so much to find me. I-"

"I do." Shiro interrupted, crossing his arms loosely over his chest. "I do. I blame myself for getting us caught by the Galra, for not protecting him from Lotor."

They both fell silent for a moment, knowing no amount of reassurance would help either of them. Then Matt spoke again.

"They were making drugs. At that camp they sent me to. Every different type they could, to keep their men in line and draw in new recruits. They wanted me to come up with a more potent formula for one of them."

"Did you?"

"I tried. But every one I came up with they said wasn't good enough."

"Did they hurt you?"

Matt's lips twitched a little at the question. "Not really. I think they were worried I'd die too easily, being so scrawny."

Shiro huffed, a short sound of amusement. "Wow, I never thought I'd see the day when your lack of muscles was actually helpful to you."

"Shut up." Matt said a smirk, bumping Shiro's leg. They shared a small smile before Matt's face slipped back into solemnity.

"But they hurt you guys, didn't they? You and Keith, before you found me. Lotor knew you two."

Shiro's fingers hovered over his scar for a moment. "Yeah, he did. Don't worry, it was before we ran into Pidge."

"For once, that's not what I'm worried about." He sat forward, resting a hand on Shiro's knee. There was a certain hesitance in the touch, but it was still familiar and comforting. "I'm worried about you."

Shiro averted his eyes. "I'm… managing it. It's not as bad as it used to be."

Matt couldn't hide his concerned expression. "But it still bothers you, doesn't it."

"Well, yeah." He picked up quickly on the tone of Shiro's voice.

"I don't mean you shouldn't be. I just wanted to tell you that you can talk to me, if you want. I know you don't like to talk to Keith or the others about it, but if you want to, I'll listen."

A smile slowly crept onto Shiro's lips. He hadn't considered it before now, but he was realizing Matt was right. He was his best friend, he wasn't his little brother or one of the others who looked to Shiro as a leader. He could tell the truth to Matt. He could be vulnerable.

"Thanks, Matt."

Keith was not a glass half full kind of person. He hadn't been before the apocalypse, and he wasn't one now. But he'd been able to find a silver lining about his capture by the Galra- just one, but it was still a good part. It was recent, and it was terrible- recent and terrible enough to drown out all of the old scars. Fear of the Galra and the need to survive had pushed out everything else. But just as with the others, the peace of Arus and the time to settle in reawakened things he'd thought were behind him.

The first thing was the talking. It hadn't bothered him since he'd moved in with Shiro, but one day he was discussing something with the others and it just came out of nowhere.

If you can't speak respectfully, you won't speak at all.

The sickly sweet voice of his foster mother suddenly floated through his head and he felt his jaw snap shut on reflex. Of course, at that precise moment Lance asked him a question. He'd just stared at Lance for a long moment, unable to stop the instinctive reaction.

Children should be seen and not heard.

He hadn't been given permission to speak. If he did, if he did so much as breathe too loudly, she'd put the muzzle back on him. He could still feel the itchiness of the scabs the damn thing had left behind around his jaw and the sting of where she struck him whenever he tried to take it off.

Everyone was staring at him. He quickly shook his head, not even sure what Lance had asked to begin with, and walked away as fast as he could. The humiliation burned hot on his cheeks, but that wouldn't be the last time that particular behavior would rear its ugly head.

The second thing was the hands. The thing that had always broken him whenever Lotor shoved him in that closet; the feeling of soft hot hands all over him, phantom touches years old that never faded completely. He fell back on an old coping mechanism- taking hours long showers and scrubbing at his skin until it stung and the hands were smothered beneath the sensation.

Arus was fairly nice by current standards and had functioning showers, but each house had a small vat to hold the water, and he invariably made it all run out by the time he could banish the feeling of fingerprints. He'd fill it back up again, but it took awhile and it was impossible for the others not to notice.

Shiro noticed the pattern. He knew what it meant, and he would have let Keith keep going if it helped him. But circumstances were different now, and he was forced to pull Keith aside.

"I'm sorry, Keith," he said, "But we live in a desert. We have to conserve water."

"I know." he answered, not meeting his brothers eyes. "I guess I can figure something else out."

For a moment he ghosted his nails over where the scars used to be, where he used to itch until he bled to get the hands off of him. He hadn't done that since he was thirteen.

He dismissed that option pretty quickly. The others would insist on bandaging him if they noticed, and then he would just be wasting their gauze.

"You could try distracting yourself." Shiro offered with a hopeful look. "You don't have to talk about it, just find somebody or do something random to get your mind off of it until it goes away."

Without any better ideas, that's what Keith did. And he found it surprisingly effective.

Usually he sought out Pidge, who was perfectly happy with having him sitting nearby to listen to her ramble as she worked. Matt was usually with her and Keith found himself laughing at their pointless banter.

Once when Pidge was buried up to her eyebrows in something Keith didn't understand, he sought out Lance. He'd been surprised to see Keith appear in his sniper nest, but he was never against having someone listen to him talk. He took the opportunity to show Keith how his rifle worked, taking it apart with practiced hands and showing him each part before putting it back together. Then, at Lance's insistence, he'd done the same with his pistol.

When he felt nonverbal he'd seek out Shiro, who never minded just sitting with him in comfortable silence until the compulsion to stay quiet had left him. And sometimes, when the empty ache in his chest told him he was missing something he'd never had, he'd go see Shay.

The infirmary felt like it's own realm set apart from the rest of the universe. The world was dirty and bloody and dark; the infirmary was bright and clean. Shay bustled about, organizing various supplies and humming to herself. He'd sit on one of the cots and listen. Sometimes he'd take a nap- nightmares never seemed to bother him there. The gentle giant of a nurse was the only member of Voltron Keith could relax around. He still stuck close to his group, despite Allura's assurances and Rolo's many attempts at friendship.

Things were beginning to settle. Despite all of their problems and the day to day frustrations of living with other people, things were settling into a nice rhythm. But it didn't last.

Nothing good ever lasted.