Keith won't ever admit it to the team, but… he gives up hope of a rescue on what he thinks is day twenty-five in captivity.
As far as he's aware, the Galra didn't bother with any tricks to hide his location. At the very least, he hadn't been awake and alert for any offloading or transportation, so he figured he must still be on the ship that originally captured him during a data-retrieval mission. They'd known it would be a risk to break into one of the larger fleets they'd come across, but it had also been Pidge's best chance so far to find information, both on the Galra themselves and on her brother's whereabouts. They'd all known the risks…
…but it's been twenty-six days since Keith was caught while watching Pidge's back, and he's starting to realize the team may be doing the very thing he'd suggested when it was Allura in his current place. He'd regretted it soon after he'd said it, but maybe this was karma's way of telling him he never should've even dared to think it no matter how pragmatic he was being.
At first, a part of him was grateful, seeing that he wasn't being treated the way he'd gathered Shiro had been from the few stories he'd felt comfortable enough to share… but that only lasted so long. It was a control period, they'd told him as they'd pulled him from his cell on the eighth day, and then they'd introduced the variable.
Quintessence.
His previous run-in with it helped dull some of the fear. He knew what this stuff did, sort of. Before, it had healed his serious wounds fast enough that he'd barely had time to realize they'd been serious injuries before they were completely gone, so it stood to reason that the stuff probably wouldn't hurt him.
The opposite, in fact—every dose brought with it a sense of power and intense focus, a reassurance that his body was ready to handle anything thrown his way in the next twenty minutes. Chained to a table as he usually was, it was impossible to test the limits, but he just knew he would be unstoppable if only the shackles were released.
He'd made the mistake of attempting to fruitlessly lash out at the researchers a few sessions after the dosing first began, and they'd proceeded to effortlessly deflect him and discuss him as though he weren't in the room with them, noting aloud that all procedures were to include subject restraints going forward.
They'd punished him afterward by skipping the next day's dose, and if reason hadn't already told him not to risk behavior leading to potential further restraints between him and any possible escape, the withdrawal symptoms finished the job. Simultaneously sweating buckets and violently shaking from the cold while wrestling against his own stomach and not even able to force his body to relax enough to sleep for a single uninterrupted hour taught him better than logic ever could.
He's in the same position now on day… is it still twenty-six? Twenty-seven? He stopped being sure after the first withdrawal, and now he's on round four of it, not even by his own misbehavior this time. The experimental dose timing never keeps pace with what his body has come to expect, particularly after the sessions where they have him ingest it rather than applying it topically, and he's left here in his cell to pay for it, clutching the alien toilet as he vomits what little remains in his stomach and finds himself begging an empty hallway for more quintessence, sobbing in a way he'd never imagined even in his most pessimistic hypothetical scenarios of being captured by the Galra.
There's video surveillance, he thinks, judging by some of the conversation he's heard between the researchers. So not only does he have to suffer through everything, he has to keep re-realizing his suffering is probably being backed up somewhere in 4K for later Galran viewing pleasure.
At least he feels done with the puking for now. Finally able to shove himself away from the toilet, the only thing he wants nearly as much as another dose is a nap so he can maybe stop actively feeling the shifting of his bones for a little while.
The nap never comes.
Instead, a shudder resonates through the walls a few minutes into his attempted rest, hard enough that he's a solid eighty percent sure the ship was actually hit—and hit by something sizable at that—and he's not simply going through another quick bout of hallucinations.
His head aches a little more as he peels it away from the pillow, but that's fine. The pain helps keep him awake, and he needs to be awake, ready and waiting if this is the rescue he hopes it is. Not wanting to waste what strength he has or risk alerting anyone monitoring him to his suspicions, there's nothing he can do but sit in the makeshift bed and wait to see how things play out.
He loses track of time, but it must not take too long since his symptoms haven't morphed again as they seem wont to do every half hour or so.
"Stop! That's him!"
Keith lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding at the sound of Shiro's voice. The door of his cell melts away after a few seconds, and then Shiro has his hands all over Keith as he checks for injuries and shoots out questions faster than Keith can answer. Seemingly realizing they're still on a timeline, Shiro cuts the interrogation short and passes him his previously confiscated armor in a bundle, holding out the bayard separately.
Keith really does not want to put on fifty pounds of armor in this state, but the alternative is having to carry it himself so that Shiro and Lance can free up their hands to hold off any sentries they encounter, and that sounds even worse than wearing it. Regardless, they don't have time for this, so he reverts to ol' reliable, sucking it up and doing as he's ordered, albeit nonverbally ordered this time.
It's slow going from his cell, and he can tell Shiro and Lance are antsy about his pace even if neither will say anything about it, but it had been difficult enough moving in just the thin layer of Galran prison garb. The armor is only further pushing the bounds of his remaining strength, and he doesn't love the way he's measuring up today.
All too soon, they're running across the first sentries, and Shiro pushes Keith to the back of their little group as he and Lance take them out. Keith takes it as it comes—better a bruised ego than getting himself injured with his delayed reaction time and slowing them down even more than he already is.
But the crowds of sentries grow bigger and bigger as they push their way toward the hanger, and the others are starting to tire.
So there's no real choice when Keith spots one of the containers of quintessence left unguarded in the midst of another scuffle between the paladins and the sentries. Taking advantage of the distraction provided by the other two and gathering the energy he has left, he throws himself toward the quintessence.
There's no time to think about it. He cups his hand and brings a handful to his mouth, trying to swallow about as much as he thinks he's been taking in the lab, conscious of the very real possibility that there must be an amount that could lead to an overdose.
The effect is immediate, even faster than he remembers. His eyes and nose stop watering, the room's temperature fades to a pleasantly unnoticeable level, and his upset stomach settles nearly instantly. Better, equipped with his paladin armor and bayard, he feels like he could take on an army on his own, let alone the relatively paltry number of sentries facing the three of them. They've seen much worse than this before and lived to tell the tale.
It takes no thought to leap into the fray, and the world shrinks down to just him and his current target as he runs through sentry after sentry effortlessly.
He doesn't notice he's dripping with sweat and heaving for oxygen until the line of enemies stops flowing forward to replace the fallen soldiers and he has nothing else left to draw his focus. Glancing around, he finds that Shiro is deactivating his arm and Lance is holstering his bayard, and he moves to join them as they finish their journey to the hanger, faster now that Keith is able to jog to keep up with the pace the others could handle all along.
Lance wordlessly breaks off toward his own lion as Keith follows Shiro into his, and it seems like a blink passes and they're landing in the castleship. Pidge and Hunk's lions touch down as Keith and Shiro are disembarking.
The castle's announcement system rumbles to life and they're instructed to meet in the common room, where they find Coran and Allura waiting for them already.
"Paladins, I think it's best that we delay our full debriefing until tomorrow. For tonight, you shall rest and recover," Allura orders before turning to him and clasping a hand over his shoulder. "Keith, it is good to have you back with us. Please relax and let us know if you need anything at all."
Shiro holds Keith back as the others break off in different directions, waiting until they're alone before grabbing him by the shoulders and manhandling him onto one of the couches.
"Rest," he repeats. "And that's an order. I don't want to catch you training today."
Keith feels like he could take on the gladiator for a few hours or at least get a solid workout in to start making up for lost time, but he knows the look on Shiro's face well, and he does not want to deal with the consequences of ignoring that particular expression later, so he listens. Shiro suggests trying to watch one of the nonsensical Altean movies, and it really doesn't sound like such a bad idea after the day they've had.
He won't say it aloud, but the true appeal is getting to spend those hours with direct access to Shiro, free to look over at any moment to confirm for himself that he really has escaped and isn't alone anymore and it wasn't all some hyper realistic hallucination.
They shuck the clunkiest bits of their armor right there in the common room, Shiro waving his flesh hand and claiming they'd spent enough effort on the earlier battle to justify a little laziness now.
As usual, the movie doesn't match up with anything Keith expects from Earth movie formulas, and this is one of the gems where he can't even figure out which of the characters he's meant to be rooting for. The couch presses comfortably against his back and neck where he lounges against it, though, and he thinks he could probably be satisfied watching anything at this point.
The first movie ends, and Shiro makes it his mission to choose a better one, one that he insists must make more sense than whatever it was they just sat through.
Hunk wanders in while Shiro is deliberating over the options he's unearthed and is quick to point out one he and Lance had supposedly enjoyed before flopping onto a free section of sofa.
True to Hunk's word, the second movie is a much better experience, still alien to what Keith is used to, but not so completely detached from his reality.
In hindsight, maybe he should have been paying better attention to his own body after what had happened… but he doesn't have the benefit of hindsight while he's agreeing with Hunk's suggestion for them to get up at the end of the movie and keep him company in the kitchen while he whips up some snacks for the team, standing up without thinking about it at all.
One second, he thinks he still feels great, like he could jog down to Red, fly back to the ship, and take on another squadron singlehandedly. The next, he can feel the effects of the quintessence slipping away faster than he can follow. What little remains of his armor is so unbelievably heavy and he's suddenly nearly blind, only nonsensical scattered splotches of white and bright blue cut out of the near blackness in his field of view. He feels his knees colliding with the floor as he tries to orient himself without his vision, and his hands belatedly scramble to catch the rest of his weight without him consciously commanding them to do so.
"Keith? Keith. What's going on?"
He hears someone, maybe Shiro, but it sounds like he's speaking through a layer of Jello, and Keith can't make sense of any of the words beyond what he thinks may be his own name. His heartbeat is amplified and apparently on a mission to drown out all other noise.
There's something on the side of his face—a hand, maybe—and more words that he can't comprehend. The ache is easing its way back into his muscles, and he knows this song and dance by now. His bones will get their turn soon enough, and then the sweat will appear while he tries to figure out whether he's hot or cold. His body is being rearranged, his hands no longer straining to support his weight and something pressing against his back, though he doesn't know what's keeping him upright anymore. At least he's pretty sure he's not laid flat out on the ground. This feels uprightish.
"There we go. You're going to be okay, alright? But I need you to tell me what we're dealing with so we can help you. What did they do to you?"
He shakes his head and possibly groans, trying to bring back his vision, trying to will the words to click into some sort of meaning. He only succeeds in reawakening the nausea from this morning, and he's disgusted as his mind jumps back to the snacks he's supposed to be eating momentarily. Maybe they won't make him join for that. Maybe he can just nap right here until the world makes more sense.
The voice comes back, but the volume is dulled now, and another voice answers. They go back and forth until a third voice joins, and suddenly, Keith is being hauled to his feet and each of his arms is being dragged around something before he's moving forward without any recognizable warning, stumbling to keep up with the forced movement.
He still can't see or hear properly when he feels his stomach clench and tastes the sour liquid spurting out of his mouth, and whatever is forcing him into this terrible march jerks him to the left as more comes up.
When his vision ebbs back in, he's not in the common room anymore. He's propped against a wall with Shiro holding him loosely in place and Hunk determinedly looking away as he holds a trash bin over Keith's lap.
"Uh…" is all he can get out before he's gagging into the trash can, the quintessence coming up still with its distinct otherworldly glow. Sweat drips off his forehead into the mixture before he's shoving himself away, overwhelmed by the smell.
Shiro catches his head and turns it to face him. Keith's neck aches at the intrusion.
"Hey. You with us now?" Shiro asks.
He groans as the nod he gives reminds him that his stomach's not in the clear yet.
"Okay, good. I know everything sucks right now, but we need to know what's happening to you. Is this something the Galra did?"
"Quintessence," he's able to gasp out before he's jerking toward the bin again to heave up more of the offending substance.
"I've got him," he hears Shiro say when the heaving doesn't die down immediately. "Go let Coran know and see what he can figure out, and I'll get him over to the med bay when he's ready."
It doesn't take long for Keith to run through all that's left in his stomach considering they haven't had the chance to eat since returning to the castleship.
"You done?"
"Mmm. Think so."
"You want to try walking again or are you going to let me carry you?"
Keith weighs his options, but in the end the prospect of subjecting himself to slightly less physical agony wins and he clambers onto Shiro's back, looping his arms around his neck before Shiro straightens up to his full height again. He doesn't even whimper at the resulting jolt to his aching bones.
A win is a win.
A/N: This is a prompt fill for Whumperless Whump Event day 3! I'm expecting to write one more chapter as a fill for day 19 before this fic is over. Expect it on 7/19!