#shiro too. but feel like the twins are more like him in personality

[minaramen]

Thanks for the 7th Anniversary - Part 7 - A song to reach Heaven

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7  

[Disclaimer: I’m NOT a professional translator. I’m using my knowledge from 4 years of university. Please, feel free to let me know if you notice  mistranslation/typo/error of any kind]    

***

Nagi: <It’s really You, Dear Brother! You came to Japan! I welcome you from my heart!>

Seth: <Nagi….>

Nagi: <I would have picked You up at the airport! Did You want to surprise me? And why were you running?>

Banri: Could you please hand me that carrying case?!

Seth: <What did he say?!>

Thorvard: <He wants the carrying case…>

Seth: <Does he know what’s inside, then?! I can’t do that!>

Nagi: <Dear Brother….?>

Mitsuki: What’s going on, Seth san? You came to Japan, and still you have a grim expression on your face…

Yamato: What about the carrying case Banri san is talking about?

Kaoru: It looks like the document regarding the Nanases’ secret is inside!

Mitsuki: Nanase….Riku?!

Yamato: You mean, the fact that Riku and Tenn are twins?! And how does Seth san happen to have that document…?

Banri: It seems that he bumped into someone and they switched carrying cases by mistake

Thorvard: That’s foolish…

Kaoru: Please! Give us back that document! The fate of our precious idols depends on it!

Yamato: In that case, please! I also beg you!

Mitsuki: Me too! Nagi, please, tell that to Seth san!

Nagi: <....Inside the carrying case Thorvard is carrying there’s an important document concerning a friend of mine.>

Seth: <What are you saying? That’s not true. Inside the carrying case there is…>

Nagi: <What?>

Seth: <….>

Thorvard: Where’s the other carrying case?

Banri: It’s been brought to a temple to be burned…

Thorvard: What….?!

Banri: Utsugi san is going up there to save it!

Nagi: <…. What was the thing you had with you?>

Seth: <….a letter Sakura Haruki wrote you>

Nagi: <….>

Seth: <No… that’s a lie. It wasn't left with me,  but with the hotel staff>

Seth: <I brought it here to deliver the letter to you…>

Nagi: Banri! You said the letter will be burned at a temple?!

Banri: Utsugi san is up there to get it back now! Was there something of note inside?

Nagi:....a letter from Haruki

Banri: What….

Yamato: And something like that is likely to be burned…?

Mitsuki: Please, please, please…make it on time!

Nagi:.........

Phone ringing

Kaoru: Ah, someone is calling…! Hello?!....

Kaoru: What are you doing, panting?! Stop joking, you pervert!!....what?

Kaoru: Utsugi san?

Shiro: anf….anf….I’m sorry…

Shiro: It was too late…

Shiro: They had already burned it in the bonfires… it’s really a shame… Did you find the document?

Kaoru:..........

Shiro: Anesagi san…?

*Kaoru ends the call*

Kaori: Nagi kun….they've already burned it…

Nagi:....oh…..

Nagi: Haruki’s letter was reduced to ashes…?

Seth:  <....Nagi….>

Tsumugi: Wait…!

Yamato: Manager!

Kaoru: Takanashi san…!

Tsumugi: I found the document..! It’s inside this carrying case!

Mitsuki: What do you mean?! So, there’s one more document that was burned…?

Tsumugi: The foreigner Tsukumo san bumped into wasn’t actually Seth san! 

Tsumugi: The person whose carrying case was accidentally picked up by Tsukumo san was…

Tsumugi:....him!

Douglas: HAHAHA!

Mitsuki: Douglas…!

Yamato: Douglas Rootbank!

Douglas: HEY! IDOLISH7! HAHAHA!

Tsumugi: Inside Douglas san’s carrying case was his invitation ticket

Tsumugi: Because of the fact he didn’t have the ticket, he couldn’t enter the festival. However, he met a homie…

Tsumugi: Kujo Takamasa san helped him 

Mitsuki: I see! Douglas did tell us he had met Zero!

Yamato: So he was close to Kujo as well

Douglas: AHAHAHA! YES! Takamasa, my homie…!

Thorvard: I knew it. I don’t remember ever dropping the carrying case at all

Nagi: That means that Haruki’s letter…

Thorvard: Is in here

Thorvard:  <Your Highness Seth, please, be the one delivering it>

Seth:  <….yes >

Seth:   <Nagi, I'm deeply sorry you had to wait…>

Student: Sorry…?

Seth:  < Mh? Me?>

Student: Can you give me the stamp? I heard that we’re supposed to ask people doing cosplay

Seth: WHAT?

Yamato: Ah! I understand why you think he’s doing some kind of cosplay, but that’s not the case. Come here…

Student: Y-yes…

Mitsuki: Okay, you can start over with your speech!

Seth: <Nagi, I'm deeply sorry you had to wait…>

Seth: <This is Sakura Haruki’s letter>

Nagi: <Thank you…Haruki’s writing…and there’s my name written on it…>

Nagi: <I would have never expected I would have the chance to read a message from Haruki again…>

Nagi: <The world is full of miracles. Thank you for delivering this important letter, Dear Brother>

Seth: <I’m glad I won over my cowardice and gave you the letter, Nagi…>

Douglas: AHAHAH! All’s well that ends well!

Banri: Even Douglas came! Nice catch, Tsumugi san!

Riku: Riku was the one who found him! Also, there’s another person…

Music journalist: Ah, hello

Kaoru: A journalist…!?

Rinto: Takanashi san, i-isn’t that dangerous?!

Mr. Shimoka: Ahah, it’s fine! I know him well enough to say he’s a reasonable man!

Music journalist: Ahah, thank you for your kind words…

Music journalist: I’ve been contacted by ŹOOĻ in the past. They wanted me to expose what Tsukumo did

Music journalist: When I got the facts, I was told by Trigger not to publish that article

Music journalist: They didn’t want me to make fans sad

Music journalist: I’m the same. I don’t want my job to hurt people who sincerely devote their lives to music

Tsumugi: That’s what he said to me as well

Kaoru: I’m sorry. I'm biased toward people like you. But you’re not all the same, after all

Music journalist: Don’t worry. I’ll do my best to write good articles, so you can trust me more

Mr. Shimoka: At any rate, all’s well that ends well! Good, good!

Yamato: Now we need to go back to Kujo’s memory…do you think Seth san would agree to help us?

Nagi: I’ll try asking! Look, look!! It’s Haruki’s letter!

Yamato: That’s a very good thing, Nagi

Mitsuki: It must be a nice letter! It will make you happy, Nagi!

Nagi: I think so too

Tsumugi:....guys, the live show will start soon!

Mitsuki: Ah, right! We need to hurry!

Banri: Leave it to us! Let’s go!

Yamato: Yes, I’m coming!

Mitsuki: How’s “Star is Born” going?!

Tamaki: Amazing! There were three people who got more than 29 points!

Iori: Now they will choose a winner between the three of them

Yamato: It’s Idolish7 turn!

Sogo: Yes! Starbi is currently hyping up the audience!

Starbi: Are you ready for Idolish7?!

Students: Yeeees!!

Ryunosuke: Yeees! It’s nice to attend a concert from the audience seats!

Gaku: You’re right!

Student: Trigger san, please, take this

Gaku: Oh, shaved ice!

Tenn: It’s strawberry flavored, I’m happy. Thank you

Student: Thank you for coming!

Student: I never thought I'd ever have the chance to see you this close!

Tenn: Let’s meet at a live concert, next time. We’ll be waiting for you

Student: Yes…

Ryunosuke: He ran away. They’re all so young and innocent, I find them very cute!

Gaku: It’s the seventh year since the founder’s festival became an anniversary festival…

Gaku: It’s been a while since people started coming here, embracing their dreams and doing their best to make them come true 

Tenn: Yes… however, I’m sure that looking back they have the impression that time just flew by

Tenn: The bustle we see today is the footprints of so many people…

Tenn: After all, there must be a link that keeps everybody’s dreams connected

Tenn: I want to live without forgetting them. In the brightest days, in the darkest nights…

Tenn: I always want to remember the people who are here today, laughing and crying 

Tenn: I want to remember that every moment, every single moment, shone with a wonderful light 

Tenn: Many stars have yet to be born in this place. I’m sure

*Cut to a street*

Takamasa: Where am I…who…?

Haruka: What….? He really forgot everything…?

Aya: Haru chan, I need your help to make Kujo san come back to normal! 

Haruka: Yes, yes, okay…

Torao: By the way, who hypnotized him? I want to be next on their list

Hypnotist student: Did you call for me?

Douglas: Homie, Takamasa! Fight!

Touma: Alright, sorry, Shizuo san… slice my scarecrow. Do it kindly, please

Shizuo: Yes. I’ll do my best not to break it. Did you make this scarecrow?

Touma: Yes…

Shizuo: You did a good job! I can see you did your best

Touma: Eheh…thank you

Minami: Well, I’m ready to shoot

Rinto: Sorry for bothering you

Minami: I don’t mind, I like taking pictures

Haruka: Okay, let’s go with the first one!

Haruka: The samurai slaying a scarecrow!

Touma: Go, scarecrow!

Smash

Shizuo: Done!

*click*

Haruka: Second one! 

Haruka: The prince riding a white horse!

Rinto: I got the carrots!

Neeeeigh

Seth: : <Hey-yo!>

clop-clop-clop-clop-clop

Thorvard: : <Amazing, Your Highness Seth! As expected, you’re riding splendidly!>

Student: Who’s that guy riding a horse at school!?

*click*

Haruka: Third one!

Haruka: The reconciling couple! 

Momo: Yuki…

Yuki: Momo…

*Coming close to each other*

*click*

Minami: I think I did a good job. Please, check the pictures

Douglas: They are perfect!

Aya: I’m so happy! We collected all the pictures! Thank you so much!

Hypnotist student: They’re just like the key pictures. The hypnosis should dissolve, now

Momo: Oh, are the pictures so similar to the original ones? Well, I don’t think you can easily find a lovely, handsome couple like us!

Yuki: I agree, Momo

Momo: I know, Yuki

Touma: They’re really getting on with the flirt. Their fight became momentum and they’re now into roaring effusions

Rinto: You’re both very charming!

Neeeeeeigh

Rinto: Ah, it’s back. Haw, haw…

Aya: Kujo san, please, look at these pictures in order

Aya: If you do, your memory will be back… but more than anything, please…please, if you can, remember who I am! Remember me!

Shizuo: He really has a heroic daughter…

Thovard: She’s crying…

Takamasa:......

Takamasa: Aah…what’s…

Aya: Kujo san!

Takamasa: Aya….! Homie Douglas…! Re:Vale, ZOOL…and some people I don’t know

Thorvard: My name is Thorvard. And he is His Highness Prince Seth

Seth: Konnichiwa

*Shouting*

Torao: Ah…has the live show started?

Touma: It’s Starbi and Idolish7!

Momo: Let’s go watch the concert!

Yuki: Yes. You come as well, Shizuo san

Shizuo: I’ll try to reconcile with Yamato… when the concert ends

Haruka: Let’s go, hurry!

*Cut to a street*

Shiro: Aah…we’re finally back. And they were able to find the document as well, that's good…

Ryo: Taxi

Shiro: Are you going back home?

Ryo: I am, yes

Shiro: Is there anything you want me to tell ŹOOĻ ?

Ryo…….

Ryo: Tell them I’m watching them

Shiro: Understood. I will 

*Cut to a stage*

Riku: Hello!!

Audience: Kyaaaaah!

Riku: Congratulations for the 7th anniversary..!!

Audience: Kyaaaaah….!!

Riku: Please, keep on building the history of this school!

Audience: Kyaaaaaah!

Riku: And now, the other members have something to say!

Iori: I’m Izumi Iori. Please, continue supporting me as a student of this school 

Students: Kyaaaaah!

Yamato: I’m Nikaido Yamato. I’m happy to be here celebrating with all of you, today

Yamato: Invite us for your 10th anniversary as well…then, if it’s possible, for the 20th! And for the 70th as well!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

Mitsuki: Heyyy! How are you doing?!

Students: Kyaaaaaaah!

Mitsuki: Give me more, give me more! It’s your festival, it’s your day!

Students: Kyaaaaaaaah!

Mitsuki: Thank you! Keep on cheering like that until the end!

Tamaki: Yaaay. I’m Yotsuba Tamaki

Students: Kyaaaaaaah!

Tamaki: It’s really fun today, isn’t it? The 7th anniversary comes only once, and it’s today!

Tamaki: Let’s enjoy it!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

Sogo: Hello, I’m Osaka Sogo. I’m sincerely grateful to have been invited to such an amazing festival

Audience: Kyaaaaaaah!

Sogo: When I look at you, I remember when it all began for me…I remember the time when I was also longing for it

Sogo: I’m sure your dream will also come true, just like mine did, and you will stand on a stage!

Students: Kyaaaaah

Sogo: Let me support you somehow

Students: Kyaaaaaaah

Nagi: Hey! I’m Rokuya Nagi

Students: Kyaaaaaah

Nagi: This is an unforgettable day for me. Make sure it’s the same for you!

Nagi: Are you happy?

Students: YES….!!

Nagi: Yeeey! Thanks!!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

Riku: Lastly, here I am! I’m Nanase Riku!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

Riku: Today was so fun! What do you think?

Students: It was fun….!

Shizuo: It was fun!

Mr Shimoka: It was fun…!

Takamasa: I don’t really remember it, actually…

Aya: It was fun….!

Douglas: AHAHAHA!

Riku: Ah, I’m happy to hear that! Never forget this day!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

Seth: Special day!

Thorvard: Special day

Riku: I feel grateful, and I want to congratulate you…it’s a mix of emotions! 

Riku: Please, sing with us!

Riku: Monster Generation!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

*Cut to a blue sky*

Tsumugi: And finally Idolish7's live started

Tsumugi: Everybody was smiling and when they started to sing, the melody was embraced by the sky

Tsumugi: Idolish7’s first melody! 

Iori: One!

Yamato: Two!

Mitsuki: Three!

Tamaki: Four!

Sogo: Five!

Nagi: Six!

Riku: Seven!

Everybody: Jump!!!

Students: Kyaaaaaah!

*Cut to an evening sky*

Tsumugi: And then

Tsumugi: The Nanahoshi school’s glorious anniversary, the seventh school festival, ended without a hitch

Tsumugi: From tomorrow, another chapter of the school’s story will start 

The end

#Idolish7 #idolish7translation #trigger #zool #revale

[somethingshieet]

Try and Heart

As long as Rin remembers, he is always trying. 

Trying to be a good brother for his cry baby little brother yet smarter than him (he proud of that), protecting Yukio from mean kids in kindergarten, kick some asses that bullies Yukio in elementary school to middle school, even look after Yukio every time Yukio upset with The invisible fairies that Rin didn't know before he can see demons and off course making the best bento in the world that makes michellin star chef insecure every single time Yukio goes to school, yet. It seems it wasn't enough.

  Rin always trying to be a good boy for Father Fujimoto doing his best to stop messed up things, to be kinder, to be softer, avoid useless fighting with some punks at least before they cross the boundary and using all his strength to help others, Rin doing his best to prove His Father that he has grown up.

Even though it's hard, SO.DAMN.HARD for Rin, but he is always trying and trying and trying. Never ever gonna give up,

But, you know? It's never enough.

Father Fujimoto died, partly because of him, because he can’t control his mouth. So that DAMN abomination, Satan, possessed Shiro’s body and as a cool person, Shiro died sacrificing himself for his demon child. Even after Rin promised to show that he has grown up, he couldn't keep that promise.

What a useless child. 

All the time Shiro lived and raised him all Rin could give was troubles, rin couldn't get good grades in school, can't control his temper to yell at shiro when he was angry, jump in to a fight more than he could count and it always ended with rin getting hurt. and you know what hurts him more than anything? Shiro was disappointed and sad to see Rin like that.

Why have you never been mad at me dad? why? Dad was never angry, never scolded him, let alone raised his hand at all the antics Rin did, except... once slap, at that time…

Well he kinda deserves it.

Rin knows that everything he tries never ends well, he shouldn't expect anything, should...not, but even so when Yukio thrust a gun muzzle into his head and asked him to die. Rin was shocked.

 They are brothers,one pair of twins! How can Yukio do that to him?

Maybe because Rin caused Shiro's death, maybe because Yukio was already fed up with Rin, maybe because Rin is stupid. Stupid enough to not know or do something to help Yukio even after all the signs, Hell, What a bad older brother Rin is to Yukio, ignorant enough he didn't know yukio tried to kill himself. So.Many.Times.

Why did Yukio not tell him anything? 

Why is Yukio not asking for his help?

Why did Yukio not trust him?

Why?

…

Wait. he did.

Once.

After Shura gives a freaking BOMB information about their Mom in Christmas(and their birthday).

Yukio asked for help. In an implicit way. Rin should have known. After all sixteen years living together, Rin Should have known.

But no he did not.

So maybe because of that, Yukio shot him.

Three times

At his head (because Rin is an idiot for unaware of the signs)

At his mouth (because Rin too much talk and not enough listening)

At his heart (because Rin can't understand Yukio heart)

It hurts so much. And because of that rin drew his sword (his heart)

And the hell breaks loose.

Rin was used to feeling pain, but this pain was beyond any pain he had ever felt. The pain that comes from breaking one more promise, the promise he said to never try to hurt his own brother

#rin okumura #yukio okumura #ao no exorcist #blue exorcist #aoex #shiro fujimoto #fanfic #i dont know what i am doing #okumura rin

[dawnrider]

For the writing prompt “don’t” - Kidge -

1) don’t listen to them

2) don’t lie to me

3) don’t walk away

❤️💚❤️💚

Hello dear! So I decided to not only use all three prompts, I decided to use all three twice in the same one shot. It's the cheesiest kind of cheesy, but here we are. Enjoy!

Family Dinner

Kidge

Rated T

It was time for another one of their “Family Dinners." The ones they did every year to try to keep the memories of their old lives, their adventures together, alive. To keep Allura’s memory alive for Lance and each other. Keith almost hadn’t made it this year. He was busy most of the time in other parts of the galaxy, using his Blades training to the benefit of the coalition. There were always pirates, bigger planets bullying smaller ones, and vestiges of the Galran empire seeking to regain their former power. They wanted him to start training new recruits this year, though. He was a bit up in the air about the idea. What did he know about teaching?

The reminder popping up on his communicator that it was time to head back to Earth for Family Dinner was a welcome distraction from the decision making process.

He arrived at Lance’s front door, expecting the cacophony that met him but still feeling overwhelmed by it. Voices called out his name, hands clapped him on the back and ushered him inside. He wasn’t even entirely sure who all was greeting him. He smelled food, so he could assume Hunk was working away in the kitchen, and there was a murmur of lively chatter coming from the back patio. He tried to look around and identify where everyone was.

As the paladins had returned to more normal lives on Earth, or elsewhere, the invitees for Family Dinner grew in number. Lance and Veronica were always present, which now meant that Veronica’s husband and two small children were there too. Hunk and Shay made the trip every year and brought Shay’s cousin who had become her planet’s foremost expert in alien cultures. Shiro and Adam only missed the event once and that was strictly because they had been in quarantine with their newly adopted twin girls. Keith was looking forward to seeing the now three-year olds, likely creating a mess somewhere with Veronica’s kids.

Keith was about to look out onto the patio in search of the last paladin, but was redirected into the kitchen where he was nearly crushed by a Hunk Hug. Lance was close behind him, asking all kinds of questions about his last mission. “C’mon man, it can’t all be top secret!” Keith shrugged with a sly smile, leaning against the island in the kitchen as Hunk went back to checking something on the stove.

“Leave him alone, Lance.” Hunk tapped a thermometer on the outside of the oven. “I’m more curious about who he’s been seeing…” A wink was tossed his way and Keith sagged in frustration.

“No one…”

“No one? No one’s jumping at the chance to date an intergalactic savior with a physique like a comic book hero?” Lance nudged him in the ribs. Keith wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a compliment or not. “You really are on the job too much.” He couldn’t really argue with that.

“Well, that might be changing…”

“Oh?” Lance leaned on the island, dramatically cradling his face in his hands and blinking at him expectantly. “Do tell!”

“They uh… They want me to take over training new recruits.”

There was a lengthy silence. Lance stood slowly and nodded. “Like taking over for Kolivan, training?”

“Uh… Sort of.”

“Isn’t he basically a hermit?” Hunk questioned over his shoulder as he stirred a large pot of what appeared to be gravy of some kind. “Not much of a social life.”

Keith threw up his hands and vaguely waved. “I’m not much of a social person, you know.” Hunk was about to respond when a small gaggle of children came stomping into the kitchen, distracting both Lance and the chef du jour to keep anyone from getting spilled on or opening the oven. The former black paladin extricated himself from the room and sighed at the fresh air hitting his face.

“Don’t listen to them. You should do what you want.” He whirled around in response to the familiar voice, an involuntary grin tugging at his lips.

“Pidge!” The auburn haired engineer grinned up at him, the lightly applied lipstick on her mouth catching his attention. It was a very rare day that Pidge “got fancied up.” He looked around. Had she brought a date?

“Hi Mullet,” she teased, opening her arms to demand a hug and tugging on his ponytail in the process. He swept her up, unable to help the urge to take advantage of the difference in their height and relative strength. She laughed but pushed to be put back on her feet. “How ya been, huh? Hearing from you once a month isn’t enough.” Keith neglected to mention that their once a month communication was far more than anyone else got. He started telling her about how he’d been all over on different missions, then paused.

“You… Did someone come with you?”

Pidge looked around in confusion. “No? Was I supposed to bring someone?” He tried to shrug as nonchalantly as possible and not show how utterly pleased he was.

Ever since they had first returned to Earth, before the war even, Keith had been finding himself drawn to Pidge in a way he couldn’t ignore. It was subtle at first, so he didn’t notice it. Finding her in the common room after lights out, the pair of them curling up to watch B-movie cryptid thrillers and often falling asleep after rousing discussions of the plausibility of the film. Sometimes he wandered into the hangar when he couldn’t sleep, finding Pidge puttering away on some invention or another and draping himself over a chair to watch her work.

After the war though… While physically they were galaxies apart, she wrote to him almost weekly at first. Commenting on the state of the planet, the clean up efforts, and the modifications to the Atlas they were making to better incorporate the Altean tech. She would sprinkle in commentary about how their friends were doing, what her family was up to. Keith appreciated the connection with home far more than he anticipated he would.

The weekly letters turned to monthly eventually as Pidge progressed in her career and had less time, he imagined, to dedicate to an intergalactic penpal. They had switched to video recordings which he preferred on her end because he got to see her face, but hated to do himself because he felt so awkward. “I miss our videos,” he blurted out.

“Don’t lie to me,” Pidge chuckled. “I could tell by your face you hated them.”

“I… didn’t.” He winced at how unconvincing that was. “I liked getting yours anyway.” The blush that lit her cheeks made him blink, watching her bite that red-clad lower lip and avert her eyes.

“Oh. You… uh… Didn’t really say.”

He rubbed the back of his neck subconsciously. “I didn’t want you to feel burdened or whatever.” Pidge turned and started walking the line dividing the two slabs of concrete making up Lance’s patio. He watched her put one foot directly in front of the other as though walking a tightrope. “I liked listening to you tell me about your projects,” he muttered sheepishly. “I had to look up half the stuff you were talking about, but it was… nice.”

She paused halfway down the patio, doing a half turn and brushing her hair away from her face. “Are you going to take the job?” she asked after a moment, watching him with a cautious look in her eye.

“I… I don’t know. It’s not just the Blades that want someone to do their training.”

“The garrison.” She already knew. Why hadn’t she said anything before?

“Yes. I just wasn’t sure if… I wasn’t sure if I was ready to come back to Earth yet. Or if there was a reason for me to.” She nodded slowly, thoughtfully, then turned away again. As she took a step toward the end of the patio, Keith felt like she was stretching away from him into the horizon and he couldn’t… “Don’t walk away,” he breathed. She stopped, head lifting as though she'd only partially heard him. “Don’t walk away, please?” he expanded on his plea.

Pidge turned immediately, her hazel eyes glittering. “I won’t if you don’t.” She took several steps in his direction. He followed suit, meeting her in the middle. “Are you sure about this?” she breathed. “Would you be happy here?”

Keith let out a sigh, the tension he hadn’t really realized he was holding onto melting out of his muscles. “I’ve missed home.” He took a fortifying breath. “I’ve missed you.” Their fingers met between them, twining together naturally. “Can you put up with someone who doesn’t have your smarts? Don’t lie to me,” he warned her. Pidge grinned in response, fingers tightening on his.

“Of course. How do you think I’ve put up with Lance all these years?” Keith couldn’t help the grin that lit his face and the chuckle that bubbled out of him. “If you’re at the garrison, you’ll have to see me almost every day. Are you ok with that?”

He let go of her hand so he could trail his knuckles against her cheek and cupped her chin. "I think I could get used to it."

"Oh my gawd, will you two just kiss already?!" Lance's voice cut through the air, jarring the two of them out of their tender moment. Keith threw a heavy scowl over his shoulder at the small crowd of former paladins lurking at the sliding door off the kitchen. "We've been waiting forever for you to figure it out!"

About to argue, Keith was startled by a pair of small hands gaining purchase of his face to turn it and pull it down. "Don't listen to them," she whispered. "The time is right, now." Her lips met his and his eyes dropped closed to savor the moment.

They managed to ignore the whooping and hollering behind them for a while before finally giving in, blushingly joining their friends inside.

"Family Dinner" soon had a very different weight for Keith Kogane.

#prompts #vld fandom #kidge #vld keith #vld pidge #Dawnrider fanfiction #family dinner

[mnemosys]

  A few days had passed since their arrival. The head of the research department was keeping close surveillance on both of them, mostly on Lios, but he still hadn’t gotten their official interviews to take place. It was almost as if they were being purposefully kept locked up as its own form of observation, to see whether or which of them would crack first. So far, neither of them were playing into their trap, especially not Shiro who was the more diplomatic of the two. He used his numbered days in confinement as a way to get closer to the twins, and so far, he had gotten used to the positive feelings and affection that he was receiving, so much so that he was starting to abandon his thoughts of leaving.

  Other than that, the building had been relatively quiet, and so had the people living and working in it. Some lights going out in the containment sector, the elevator malfunctioning, strange shadows lurking beneath the panopticon and clinging to the ceiling of the training grounds when nobody bothered to look up - those were only some of the incidents that could have been written off as coincidence, but they had been constantly happening ever since Shiro popped up.

  That was the calm before the storm.

  In the middle of the night, while the guards and agents were changing their share of shifts, those shadows congregated on the upper corridor leading from the elevator towards the panopticon’s watchtower. The camera feed would show a visual glitch where something akin to a person started to manifest out of the shroud of darkness as if they were clawing their way out of a tar pit. Over the span of a few long seconds, the figure that emerged became clearer. Aware of the gazes cornering him from all sides, he turned his head towards one of the cameras at an unnatural, painful angle while the feed on the guard’s monitors shivered and hissed. The one staring at them with a corpse-like blankness in his eyes was the same one that they had on another feed, still in his cell.

  Without waiting another moment until something else happened, they remotely sounded off the caution alarms in the other sectors. The color of the lights changed to a yellowish hue, signaling caution. That was one step below the utmost priority, but it could have escalated at any time. The few guards that still remained in the sector past their work time started to regret it, fumbling with their headsets until they reached the proper channels. They had to make a quick and rash decision: to lock that thing outside, making it everyone else’s problem, or to lock it inside, with them.

  “We are shutting down the entrance,” one of them said over the headset just as the heavy sliding door of the containment sector fell shut in front of the other Shiro’s face. They didn’t want to risk more breaches, not knowing what could happen under the circumstances. Their Shiro was still in his hamster cage, looking confused by the commotion. 

      “How did it get past the elevator without anyone seeing it?” More indecipherable chatter could be heard in the background, a chaotic bustle of disoriented people who were trying to come up with the best solution while severely underprepare for a breach-type situation. 

      “Shut down the elevator too!” another voice called out.

      Whatever solutions they were coming up with on the spot all seemed to only further narrow their own options. In the meantime, unaffected by the obstacle in front of his eyes, the intruder banged on the door, making it echo throughout the acoustic hallway. When he realized that it wouldn’t open back up, he started looking for another way around and spotted the elevator at the opposite end of the corridor.

@eeriestatic​

#verse: containment #eeriestatic

[ashxketchum]

Trying to make all the characters you want from a single picrew is hard, but I think I did a good job with this one.

Since I made an edit for my Digimon fankids, and my Pokemon fankids , I thought it's high time to give a definite visual to my Beyblade fankids as well. I have talked about the TyHil kids in detail before so I'll only give a brief description but here it goes~

Picrew Credit

Toshiro Kinomiya, the oldest of the Kinomiya kids (and all my other fankids included). Always having to play the babysitter role dulls down his personality over time, and he loses his energetic charm as he grows older and becomes more sarcastic and laidback. Tyson and Hilary call him Toshi, but his friends call him Shiro chan, meanwhile all his siblings call him Nii san. [And by all his siblings, I mean Tsubasa and Sho Yagami included cuz they're cousins ✨]

Twins, Natsu and Haru Kinomiya. Their personalities are split equally respective to their parents, with Natsu taking after Tyson and Haru taking after Hilary. Natsu is the only black sheep among his siblings when it comes to school, and prefers to spend his time doing anything that would strike a nerve with Toshiro, or Hilary. Haru can be a bit of a crybaby when arguing, and finds it difficult to spend a lot of time far apart from his brother, and although he declares every year that he won't let his brother copy his schoolwork from now on, he gives in like clockwork to Natsu's demand every single time.

The princess of the family, the youngest of the whole Kinomiya-Yagami tribe, Mirai Kinomiya. Within their house, she's very spoilt and holds the strongest veto, but with her friends she's more quiet and observant than demanding. She takes after Hilary more than Tyson, so she and Natsu don't get along at all, she never hesitates to tell anyone who would listen that Natsu is her least favourite brother.

Finally, my KaixOC fankid, the one oc/fankid of mine that I have always been too nervous to ever introduce or talk about to anyone.

Luca Hiwatari is a very sweet, happy-go-lucky kid. He is very attached to his father, and one of the few people who can easily get a laugh out of him. He makes friends very easily because of his outgoing personality and sometimes ends up tiring his parents out with his busy social schedule. Though in his teens, when he's coming to terms with his sexuality, he suddenly becomes very reclusive which leads to a very tense period in the Hiwatari household. But with patience and acceptance, Kai and Charlie are eventually able to get through to him which gives Luca the courage to be more open about his identity. He's best friends with Fuyumi (YamaMimi fankid) and they practically do everything together, he's also very close to Tsubasa (TaiSora fankid) despite of Tsubasa and Fuyumi being mortal enemies for half their lives. Luca is basically the bridge that helps them solve their issues and become friends.

So that's about it, if you have any Beyblade fankids feel free to talk to me about them anytime! Coming up with fankids is like my literal passion 🤓

#beyblade #bakuten shoot beyblade #beyblade ocs #beyblade fankids #tyhil #kaixoc #kairlie #< tag for my kaixoc lol #oc: toshiro kinomiya #oc: natsu kinomiya #oc: haru kinomiya #oc: mirai kinomiya #oc: luca hiwatari #omg can't believe i'm finally tagging luca on something #2023 is it #now the next post will be a complicated af kinomiya-yagami family tree #and a relationship chart of all the kids lmao #all you need to know is #aj ketchum x mirai kinomiya is endgame #tsubasa yagami x fuyumi ishida is also endgame

[thestarseersystem]

8, 11, 22 for the ask game!

That's right, I was gonna do that sdjklfsdjklfkljsdf

8. Do you enjoy communicating with your parts? Would you like to share about an interaction you’ve recently had?

I don't necessarily think that communicating with my alters is all that fun or enjoyable. Its really hard to differentiate alters speaking from intrusive thoughts, as well as brain fog. So, if it happens, its rather inconsistent/rare. Some of us have an easier time communicating, but it takes effort. I don't really remember this, its vague and I can't exactly remember what we said. But, so,, I have this visual in my head that me and Raven was in this blue-dark room, where it was raining. I held him in my arms as we cried. We shared a conversation that really meant something. He is a persecutor and holds a lot of violent trauma, so this was our way of talking and opening up. He is an introject of someone close to me, mixed with experiences we had of people like the person he's a factive of. Our conversation meant a lot. And, we don't have much in the way of words, and more just sharing visuals and memories. I dont really think in words, but describing things I see in my head. So, if alters do need to speak, it definitely has to be in a private space, cause its hard to hear.

11. Is there any sort of internal organization or structure for your parts? How set-in-place is it?

There is. There are many alters that have roles or know things, and there are many different sections of the innerworld that just align to that part or that role. Like, its these twinges that I feel, that its like "This is what is right and this is what is wrong". I barely go into the innerworld, but there is a whole wealth of things in the innerworld and different realms within it. In the overworld, there is the castle, abandoned town and twisted tree forest. But there's another forest behind the castle, that connects to the mansion and to the shore. There is a pier in the abandoned town. There is realms only connected to by certain alters. So there is like, gatekeepers have information and are somewhat like, the most unhuman, like immortals or deities or something. They are the most cryptic. And then like theres people in deep dark parts in the innerworld, which have information that I am not allowed to know. And then like, Im like experiencing negative lil twinges thinkin about that. It makes me angry somehow. There is a lot of implied structure and organization, like its making me switch just thinking about it. lmaooo im dissociating hghhghfhgh ok i think thats enough ig,,, it just makes me feel things. man. Im so fucked up man

22. Do you have any parts that feel almost opposite to you?

Yeah so like. Tsuki, Yuki and Shiro are triplets. Yuki and Tsuki are often on different sides of emotions, the biggest conflicting thoughts come from them. Rai is split off from Yuki and meant to be a mirror from her, they both have the same connections to innerworld stuff. Aiko is also on a different side of emotion from Yuki, often choosing revenge and anger. Jeremy and Damien are twins, so they're often on opposing viewpoints. Jeremy is a persecutor and Damien is a protector, you can see how that goes, they fight a lot. Emiline/Gwendolyn are opposing alters in the same innerworld body. Like, theyre twins but they share a single body, Emiline is pink and feisty, Gwendolyn is worried and blue. Theyre kind of like that creepy ghost child/ren from some horror movie or game. Persecutor little too. Ashley is also a sort of "male version" of the host, even though there's like 4+ male "versions", so he's opposite in that regard. Etc etc., there's a lot of alters who are "opposites" or "mirrored" or twins. a lot of pairs or trios. (like the hosts are a trio)

#ask.txt #bro im so out of it man #its weird and confusing

[yukiocumura]

Idk whats my point with this post I just feel like biting rocks

#whenever they smile my heart breaks and i feel like screaming crying throwing up #like they just. they. them. fambly #i have many thoughts and none at all abt them at the same time #shiro too. but feel like the twins are more like him in personality #i know ppl have talked abt it but it consumes me!!!!! #also hiiii hello hi aone fandom #ao no exorcist #blue exorcist #ao no exorcist manga #rin okumura #yukio okumura #yuri egin #ITS JUST THEY HAVE THEIR MOMMAS SMILE CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS. HER KIDS LOOK LIKE HER #is so dumb but it DESTROYS ME

[slothgiirl]

the medic (keith x reader)

17k. something weird’s going on with keith, like alien weird. as the team medic, you’re concerned.

“So he is avoiding me,” you muse aloud, grabbing one of the pink alien food biscuits that were Hank’s latest experiment. Though it had been hours since Voltron had taken out the Galra Empire’s presence on this Balmera, you’d only just seen the last of your patients. Altean medical equipment did wonders.

After a battle, you were hardly surprised to find Hank in the kitchen, grounding himself as he cooked. You were surprised to run into Keith.

“Yeah,” Hank nods, “Probably trying to avoid another dental exam.”

You flush bright red, “His teeth fell out! Sorry for being concerned.” Between you and Lance, you’d managed to get a look at Keith. A fist fight with some alien species that was cooperating with the Galra had not gone Keith’s way, knocking out two of his teeth.

Shiro, predictably, had waved it off and accepted Keith’s insane explanation that his teeth would grow back on their own without question: given his hand waving of the red paladin’s eyes glowing slightly in the dark, more than any human’s should (human eyes didn’t glow at all!). Hindsight was twenty twenty.

The yellow paladin shrugs as he mixes orange noodle-esque things in a bowl.

Team Voltron was full of strong personalities. Add in Lotor and his friends dropping in, there was always something going on.

Hank just wanted to unwind from spending the past few hours destroying heavy duty mining equipment without hurting the planet. “So how are the biscuits?”

You chew on one, still bothered by Keith. Maybe Hank was right and he was trying to hide something from your keen gaze. You hoped not. Knowing the red paladin, and after two years in space, you certainly did, he’d rather suffer in silence until there was no other option than get medical attention. Back on earth with needles and scalpels, you understood, but in the Castle of Lions…

“Kind of like a rice cracker,” you tell Hank helpfully. “In a good got snacks at H-Mart way, not the sad quaker oats rice snacks.”

“Oh H-Mart,” Hunk smiles, “they don’t have those in space. They do have salt though. Found that at the last market we went to.”

“As long as alien food doesn’t poison us,” you comment. It was lucky that hadn’t happened. It was alien food. But not one negative reaction which either made humans some of the most hardy species or you were just lucky.

“Yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I’ve gotten pretty good at recognizing what’s edible and not. I know Pidge said there’s some books, but my Altean is pretty bad.”

“Languages are hard.”

“Wish there was a space version of google translate.”

“Hunk-”

“Yeah.”

“That’s genius!” You look at the yellow paladin, wondering how a universe with speech translators never thought to do the same for written language.

“I know,” Hunk smiles while popping another tray into the oven.

—————

Lance finishes painting your toenails. It was a rare day when there were no space battles or rebel meetings. “Pidge,” the blue paladin whines, “let me paint your-”

“Don’t even think about it!”

“It’s supposed to be team bonding night,” Lance counters.

“Lance,” Allaura frowns from where she’s sitting with Shiro, “the castle’s night cycle has not started.”

“Well we can change it,” he counters, “there’s no up or down in space. OR day or night.”

“You can paint my nails,” Hunk offers. “Won’t last long though between the cooking and the vents I’ve been cleaning. This is a 10,000 year old castle. No offence,” he glances at Allura.

“No offence at all. The battles have taken their toll and I’m sure Coran appreciates the help. He is only one man.” She lets out a sigh. The only other remaining Altean was a bittersweet subject for her.

Hunk kicks off his shoes. “My pleasure. Literally. This Castle is so cool. The artificial gravity alone!”

You watch the paint dry on your toes. Only your big toes had actual drawings on them, strange alien creatures you’d all encountered over your time in space. The others were clear with green and blue swirls. “You’re a good artist Lance.”

The blue paladin winks, “I’m a regular old Michaelangelo.”

You laugh, “of course you are.”

“And I’m not just good with a brush,” he wiggles his eyebrows, more boyish flirting than anything serious.

You roll your eyes.

Pidge throws a cushion at Lance. “Oh please like you’ve got past the first date!”

“I have! Vivian Tran from Calculus.”

“Can you focus on my nails,” Hunk asks, but Lance is busy waving the thin brush in hand as he argues with Pidge.

“And Atticus from Cantonese.”

“Didn’t you drop that class,” Hank asks.

“Well, the hindi teacher was way nicer and didn’t hate me. I was good at drawing the characters though.”

“Can you speak hindi,” you ask, having taken French for your language fulfillment.

“Eh-” Lance shrugs.

“Can you flirt in Hindi is the real question,” you ask with a grin.

“He can’t even flirt in English,” Pidge points out scathingly.

“Hey!”

“My nails Lance,” Hunk grumbles.

“Right. Right,” Lance focuses back on his task, going with a yellow that matches Shay. “What language did you take Shiro?”

“English.”

“How many dialects does Earth have,” Allura asks.

“A lot,” Shiro tells the alien princess. “The Garrison pushes being multilingual in its program. Most cadets were already bilingual to start with, generally covering major languages.”

“Ah.”

“Got bored of the training room,” Pidge asks Keith as he walks in, flopping down on an empty sofa.

“It timed out.”

“Sure,” Lance immediately starts, a dog with a bone, “not like you couldn’t beat it or anything.”  

“You can’t even get past level 9!” Keith growls back, sitting up with a jolt, skin still slick from sweat and his cheeks were flushed with exertion.

Lance gets up, puffing out his chest. Oh boy, here they go again. The rivalry thing they had going on got old fast to everyone around them. While it did push them to be better paladins, it was annoying to hear. “Oh like you’re any better.”

Hunk takes the brush from Lance, finishing off his last toe on his own.

“I am,” Keith bites back, a growl still audible from his chest.

“Only because you cheat!”

“It’s not cheating!”

“How is it not-” Lance stops, furrows his brow, then grins. “You got a little something there.” And like a thirteen year old, Lance points and laughs.

Keith frowns, his hand coming up to his cheek.

Sure enough, Lance was right. Keith had a couple of angry red blemishes on his cheek.

“You have adult acne,” Lance giggles, immature as ever. He was always able to find an angle to everything. It was what made him such an excellent strategist.

“It’s not adult acne!” Keith scowls, scratching at the blemishes.

“Its been three years,” Lance retorts smugly.

You frown. “No. It’s been like two.” You look over at Pidge to confirm, “Right?” You were like ninety percent sure you were twenty.

“Two and a half,” Pidge answers.

“Ha! You’re twenty! Adult-”

“I don’t have adult acne!”

They’d fought over more meaningless things before.

If it was two and a half years, maybe you were twenty one? You frown. How old would you be before you ever saw your family again?

Stashing that depressing thought away, you focus on Keith and the red marks on his cheek like a line coming down to his jaw. “It could be a rash,” you utter thoughtfully. Pidge and you had already encountered a very itchy plant before. “Or space ringworm-ring line?”

For the first time in days, Keith looks at you, meeting your gaze. “It’s not a rash!”

You lift your hands up, “okay. Okay. Geez.” When it came to Keith, you didn’t push too hard. He was too stubborn for it to work.

Lance, however, “hey, it’s okay Keith-buddy, just use toothpaste.”

“Toothpaste makes it worse,” Hunk counters. “Not great for your skin either.”

“It always worked for me,” Lance counters. “Or a clay skin mask.”

“Clay? You mean that green mud,” Keith clarifies.

“It’s clay!”

“Clay would work,” you agree with Lance. “Hey it could be like a spa day!”

“I could go for a spa,” Hunk nods.

Pidge shakes her head, “right. I’m going to try and see if I can get a signal back home.”

Shiro looks over at you, “do you really think it could be something serious?”

You shrug. “No clue.”

Keith huffs, “Just drop it,” he states dramatically, headed for the door. He was over being the center of attention.

“So face masks?”

You nod, “want to try it Allura?”

“I would love to try the clay mask,” she smiles brightly.

——————

Te-Osh’s rebels had sent for Voltron, less fighting than rebuilding.

While you were no paladin, you had spent the majority of the day helping Allura take stock and synthesizing medicine, everything from serums to numbing gels. Just your luck the machine had overheated and given out on the last batch. It was a pretty large machine.

You stick your head inside, waving off the smoke. With your nails, you pry open the hutch and take stock. You were no Pidge or Hunk, still unsure how the thing even worked, but it was clear it needed a new regulator and starter. “Plenty of those lying around,” you utter, scrunching your face at the awful burnt hair smell. Your finger finds the ventilator button on your wrist controls, and there-the smell gets sucked out of the room.

“Is this a bad time,” Keith asks behind you.

Startled, you bang your head on the mental. “Keith,” flushing hotly when you look back and realize you were ass up in front of him.

He doesn’t even notice, grimacing, hand rubbing his nose bridge.

“What’s wrong?” You hurry to wash your hands.

Keith sits down at one of the medbay tables. “My skull feels like it’s being cracked open,” he explains flatly.

You look him over closely, standing right in front of him. “Where exactly,” you ask, frowning when you notice the blemishes had grown to a full blown rash, hot angry skin peeling and cracking like twin marks down his cheeks. You should have pressed. What if it was a parasite? Keith was half galra.

It was easily forgotten given how human he looked. Sure, the signs were there: his unhuman night vision, more strength than he should have, good ears and nose, nails that had torn through metal, but it all faded into the background.

“Does it itch,” you ask, raising your hand, fingertips hovering over the marks on his cheeks.

“Yes,” Keith nods, averting his eyes from your gaze, “mostly it’s hot. And my sinuses…all the way down to my neck. Hurt.”

“Hm,” you turn, reaching for the medical scanner. There was no way you could ever go back to being a medical officer at the galaxy garrison. Earth’s technology was ancient in comparison. “Hold still.”

“Alright,” he says seriously. Keith holds his breath.

You look up at him, in his violet eyes, and smile before laughing. “Keith!”

“You said to hold still,” he points out sincerely, before the corners of his lips turn up. Keith was an expressive guy, his smile lit up his entire being, a lightness in his eyes that made you smile wider.

“Let’s try this again,” you giggle, clicking the scanner and aiming right at his rash first. “Pew.”

He rolls his eyes, snorting. “You too?”

“Mine’s the only right one,” you wink, then look over the reading.

“Not even close.” He scratches at his cheek listlessly.

Whatever reason he had for avoiding you had worked itself out. You’d missed his company.

“Oh yeah,” you challenge, “then what’s the sound?” The readings came up clear. Keith was in perfect health. So not a parasite…space allergies? Those wouldn’t come up on the scanner.

“What is it,” Keith asks, noticing your pensive expression.

“How’s your sense of smell? Stuffy nose?”

He looks up, then takes a deep breath, “now that you mention it…I can’t smell your soap anymore.”

“What?” This was news to you. “You can smell my soap?”

“And whatever planet we’ve been on,” Keith fidgets, blushing as he ducks his head, bangs falling over his eyes, “the soil. It’s all different. But I can’t right now.”

That was worrying. But if the scanner said nothing was wrong…you had to wait and see. It might clear up on its own. You’d give it a day or two.

“Nothing came up on the scanner,” you tell him, “so it should go away on its own. It might just be allergic to something out here.”  

He nods, accepting your diagnosis.

“Let me get the medicine.”

“Mhm.”

You pass him a tube of gel and add that to the list of medication you need to synthesize once you fix the machine. Then grab a weekly supply of pain tabs. “Here.”

Keith pops one in immediately.

“Let me know if it doesn’t clear up in two days,” you tell him.

“Worried?”

“Eh, I can always set Lance on you again,” you snort. Shiro was a pushover when it came to Keith. He was no help.

Keith laughs, looking a little more himself. “I could take him.”

“You could,” you agree, “but don’t tell him I said that.”

He tilts his head, smiling. “Coming? Shay got food for us.”

“I’ve got to fix this machine first.”

“Need help?”

“Might ask Hunk or Coran,” you admit.

“I could-”

“No,” you cut him off, placing your hand on his shoulder, “go eat and rest. That’s an order.”

Keith leans into you. “Are you going to write me a doctor’s note too,” he asks, his delivery always so earnest you had to do a double take to figure out if he was joking or not.

“If I have too,” you stick your nose in the air. “I’ll even send one to Zarkon.”

Keith laughs easily. “Why didn’t Lotor think of that.”

You snort. “I’m going to check your lymph nodes,” you tell him, taking a step towards him again. “That okay?”

Keith tilts his head back, “Go for it.”

“Wow,” you chuckle, “who are you and what did you do with Keith Kogane.” You brush his hair out of his face.

“What?”

“Remember when you broke your arm,” you point out, gently pressing your fingers over the side of his throat, feeling the swelled bean shaped lymph nodes under his ears, behind his jaw. “And said nothing for like a week?” It had been your first year at the Galaxy Garrison.

“It was only a sprain,” Keith grumbles.

“Still!” You laugh, “I’m glad you asked for help.” Because this was still Keith and you didn’t want him to think you were laughing at him.

“Mm,” he closes his eyes as you trail your fingers lower, making sure it wasn’t too bad.

The fact they were inflamed at all worried you. You had no clue what was the space equivalent of antihistamines.

Keith’s breath tickles your shoulder, deepening and evening out like he’d finally relaxed. That was most of your patients once you gave them answers and they knew they’d be getting care and treatment. You liked helping people.

You pull your fingers back, ever the consummate professional. It was like the ghost of your garrison advisor was hovering over your shoulder. “They’re not too swollen if you can still eat. Can you still chew?”

“Hm?”

Keith opens his eyes. His expression is glazed and feverish.

“Keith,” you utter, worried.

“Yeah?” His gaze is heavy as it meets yours.

Your skin warms up because he wouldn’t stop looking at you like that.

“Any jaw pain,” you ask, focusing on the task at hand. You bring your hand up to his forehead. He was warm.

Keith leans into your touch, “no.”

“Good.” You bite your lip. Could it be some weird galra thing? Wouldn’t it have come up? You feel your own forehead. He was for sure warmer.

You were going to have to corner Coran about it.

Keith lets his eyes fall shut again and honest to god purrs, leaning into you.

Add cornering Lotor to your list.

You don’t pull away, figuring it was harmless. Lance, Hunk, and Allura were more prone to random hugs. You were more than happy to indulge Keith as well. He already wasn’t feeling well.

You wrap your arms around the red paladin’s shoulders, hugging him, “I’m looking forward to a break from Coran’s post mission food goo once I get done with the machine.”

“Mm.”

He was completely out of it.

His breath tickles your cheek.

“Though I’m not sure there’ll be any left if I don’t go there? Maybe I should grab a plate and then come back here,” you ramble. Keith had never sought you out for comfort. It was touching that he trusted you now. You’d been friends with the others before, with Keith and Shiro and the Alteans, you had skipped right over friendship and gone right to family.

“Oh.”

You look behind you.

Te-Osh takes a step back, “forgive my intrusion. I was unaware-”

Keith snaps out of whatever was going on with him. Bolting off the exam table. “It’s fine. We’re done here.” He hunches his shoulders and beelines for the door.

You frown, still processing.

“I can come back,” Te-Osh tells you, glancing between you and the door Keith had just escaped through.

You shrug. “No. I’ve got time. What do you need?”

“If you’re sure?”

Nodding, you smile, “yeah, what can I help you with?”

———————

“Here is where we will focus the blunt of the attack on. Keith, Lance, engage the fighters. Hunk,” Shiro explains, “you’ll be with me taking out the communications towers. We want to keep the damage to the minimum. The resistance leaders want the factory intact. Pidge-”

Pidge waves the Black Paladin off, “I’ve got the code written.”

“It really does come in handy,” Lance observes, “all those vents are Pidge size.”

The green paladin grumbles, “easy for you to say when you’re not the one crawling around in there. It’s not your knees getting banging up.”

“Well the galra are all like nine feet tall,” Hunk points out, “the vents probably aren’t that small from their perspective.”

Lance unsubtly glances over at Keith.

His rash had cleared up, but not before spreading. In its place were two purple slash marks running from his cheek to jaw, galra markings. No one had pressed…yet.

You were just glad it wasn’t some weird space parasite.

Her brother ruffles her hair, “Pidge sized! A micro pidge,” Matt jokes to himself.

She smacks his hand away, “five feet is a perfectly reasonable size.’

“She could still have a growth spurt,” you add, though it was highly unlikely.

“No,” Matt’s eyes go comically wide as he hugs his sister, “not my hobbit,” relishing in her embarrassment.

“Matt!”

“In summation,” Allura calls you all back to attention, “the paladins will take out Galra forces and Pidge will open the weapons factory up to Vexuin rebels to take over. I will be manning the Castle to ensure no fighters target the work camps and coordinating communications with the rebels.” She turns to look at you, “Matt and you will take down the sentries, freeing the people from the work camps.”

“No!”

Everyone looks over at Keith. The horror on his face is easy to read.

What had brought this on?

Shiro clears his throat.

Keith ducks his head, letting his bangs obscure his features.

“Why not,” Pidge asks grumpily, time was running out. You were all just ironing out the details, “your plans suck.”

“Pidge,” Shiro chastises.

The green paladin was right.

Keith fought the same way you played video games, caring about nothing but reducing the enemies stats to zero. He’d gotten great at teamwork, but he was hardly a strategist.

“Keith,” Allura asks, “do you have any legitimate reasons why Matt should go on his own?” And when she phrased it like that…

The red paladin crosses his arms over his shoulders.

Pidge taps her foot on the floor.

“Okay then,” Shiro takes over, “let’s get to our lions.”

“Coms. Come in earthlings!,” Coran chimes in over the system, “remember this planet’s atmosphere is toxic to breath, too much sulfur in the air, not to mention the heat will give you all a taste of the slipperies. And worse! So keep those space suits on Vol-”

“-Tron,” Lance grins back, having taken a liking to having a kooky space alien uncle.

You lock your helmet in place as Matt pilots the pod towards the work camps. They were just as grim as the first time you’d seen them. It was the same all over in many of the Empire’s work planets. They were at the bottom of the totem pole. There were some planets where the native species and Galra coexisted more or less peacefully, this was not one of them.

“So what’s up with Keith,” Matt asks you.

You shrug. “No clue. I keep waiting for Lotor or one of the Blades to drop in so I can corner them but he’s a picture of perfect health so I’m not worried.”

“But the,” he takes a hand off the wheel, motioning to his face.

You frown, arching a brow. You’d never looked at Allura quite the same after the way she had treated Keith upon learning about his heritage. It’s not like he’d been a completely different person, she’d known him for over a year.

Matt might be Pidge’s brother, but you weren’t about to let anyone get away with giving someone you loved shit. Especially not Keith who would just silently take it.

It made your chest ache, thinking about how sweet he looked when he smiled. He didn’t deserve any of it.

“What about it?” You stare back at him cooly.

Matt focuses back on landing the pod just beyond the sentires line of sight. “Nothing. Pidge figured it was nothing, didn’t even seem curious. I figured you might know, you two are pretty close.” He glances over at you meaningfully.

“We’ve known eachother since the garrison,” though you hadn’t really been friends. Keith had been kind of a loner. You’d tried to include him, having shared a couple classes with him here and there, but he’d never taken you up on any offer.

“Right.” He doesn’t sound all that convinced. “Glad to hear it’s all good. I caught the sneazles while in the work camp,” Matt makes a face.

You laugh.

“It was horrible! But also like an episode of spongebob somehow?”

“Space is weird.” You had way bigger problems and had seen stranger things by now. For fucks sake, you were saving dragon looking aliens from the Galra right now. This planet was like a silent hill game!

Thick fog obscured the rocky landscape. Even from within your suit you could smell the stench of rotten eggs. Yet this was home to the Vexuin.

Shiro gives the signal.

You take the safety off the taser gun Pidge had built for you. Anything pilfered off the Galra was too large for your small stature, just a hair shorter than Keith. The gun packed a punch, with enough voltage to take out the robots.

Matt and you get to work.

“Almost got it,” Matt mutters as you take aim and shoot.

Stupid damn biolocks.

“Hurry the fuck up,” you tell him, dodging a shot from another sentry before frying it with your own weapon. One shot, one sentry. You needed to take them down before they got close. The robots were durable and strong. You knew better than to think you could go hand to hand with one, you were a medic not a fighter.

“I am, I am,” Matt insists. “Ah there,” he grabs a taser flash bomb out of his pocket and tosses inside the sentry outpost.

You shoot again, trying to keep your hands steady. It was easy when it was just programmed machines. Nothing to feel bad about.

Matt and you rush inside, stepping over more fried sentries. You take position at the entrance, gunning down anything that makes its way towards the two of you.

“You in,” you ask him.

“Patience my young apprentice,” Matt says, laughing at his own joke, “it’ll take a moment for my worm to work its way through the software and give me complete control.”

The ground shakes as the main part of the battle takes place outside, at a monsterous factory that’s gray, chimney shooting out smoke. You can only see hints of lions shooting and Galra fighter ships lighting up the sky.

The sulfuric fog coats everything.

You taste rotten eggs on your breath.

Inside your suit, sweat runs down your back.

“Okay,” Matt chimes into the coms, “I’ve hacked the camps. Ready to open the gates.”

The rolling low grutal voices of the Vexuin rebel leaders fill your coms, “Good.”

“Go ahead Matt,” Allura gives the order, “Voltron?”

Pidge answers, “dropping in, should override their” static, “ticks.” Then an explosion reverberates in your ear where the communications device is.

“Pidge,” Keith yells out.

“Keith cover Lance,” Shiro grunts out, blasts audible from here. “Pidge?”

Nothing.

Matt’s face goes ghostly white.

“Pidge, come in Pidge?” Allura asks. “Paladins? Are you able to reach Pidge?”

“Negative,” Shiro replies, “Hunk, take the main gate! Time to land.”

“On it.”

“Guys,” Lance yells, “the shield’s down. Pidge hacked them.”

“Keith,” Shiro yells, “wait!”

“Fine.”

You decide to hope for the best. There was nothing you could do for any of the paladins all the way from here. “Turn it off,” you tell Matt.

He steals himself. “Right.”

The lights of the compound go out. Sentries power down where they stand, puppets with their strings cut. Locks disengage, and for the first time in decades, the Vexuin are free to leave the barracks free from Galra supervision.

You and Matt go out to meet them.

“I could get used to this,”  Pidge calls out as everyone meets on the planet’s surface. Rebels come in from the forest slowly, making sure this is for real, before sniffing the air and calling out to their loved ones lingering around the liberated camp complex.  Their vision worked in the infrared, all the better to see on this planet. You’d need at least three showers to get the smell out of your hair.

Keith carries Pidge, careful not to jolt the youngest member of Voltron. She holds a leg stiffly, a sprain or fracture.

Matt rushes to his sister, “Katie!”

She waves him off, “I’m fine.” Then snaps her fingers, “Down.”

There’s a small smile on Keith’s mouth as he places her down on the ground gently.

Lance comes up behind Keith, ruffling his hair, and being every bit himself as he comments with a smirk, “good boy.”

The shorter paladin smacks Lance’s hand away, but it’s too late, Lance is already smothering Keith in a hug that turns into a competition, like always with those two. Keith shoves at Lance’s face while Lance tightens his grip on Keith.

Shiro clears his throat, “paladins.”

“A dobesh in the pod,” you ask Pidge as Matt gets his turn to fuss over her.

“Yeah. Landed right as an explosion went off,” Pidge frowns. “Not my best moment, but my program still did it’s job and,” she pats her bayard, “I took them out.”

“Can’t be that bad if you can stand,” you agree. Nothing serious but you’d be keeping an eye on her all the same. The faster she got into the pod and took weight off her injury the better. You didn’t want to exacerbate the sprain.

“The jet pack helped,” Pidge points out.

“Lucky you,” you grin.

Shiro and Allura are consummate professionals as they go over the last of the logistics with the Vexuin, “It would be wise to stay until your people have situated themselves in case the Galra Empire retaliates,” Allura states, ending her sentiment in a question, “but it is ultimately up to you.”

The Vexuin chatter among themselves for a moment before one speaks up, “we would not turn down Voltron’s help. A few quintants should be enough time.”

“Then we will make ourselves of service to you,” Shiro nods. “Please, let us know anything we can help with.”

A red scaled one smiles, showing off her many sharp and jagged teeth, “our people long to see the camp destroyed.”

Hunk offers, “I could help rig a controlled explosion.”

“Very good.”

“The system inside the weapons factory is down,” Pidge tells them, “but I can reprogram it to keep the Galra out so that you can decide what to do with the place.”

“Oh no you don’t,” you cut in, “Matt can take care of that. You’re going in a pod first.”

“Pod person,” Matt mutters under his breath with a snort.

“Then let us get to work,” Allura dismisses everyone.

Pidge tries to take a step, and almost falls over.

You grab her.

Her face goes crimson from the pain.

The adrenalin must have been keeping the bulk of the pain away.

Keith picks her up.

It’s not until you’ve loaded Pidge in for three vargas that you pull off your helmet, savoring the crisp clean air of the Castleship.

“I can still smell the sulfur,” you comment, wrinkling your nose.

Keith shakes his hair out.

You look at him thoughtfully, “must be worse for you though.”

“Why,” he asks, genuinely puzzled.

“Because your nose,” you point out, then frown, “your sinuses did clear up yeah?” He never said anything about it so you figured they had and he could smell fine again, but you weren’t sure.

“Oh. Yeah. They did.”

You smile fondly, “very convincing Keith,” you tell him, reaching out to him. He lets you run your fingers right under his ears, behind his jaw. Everything was in order.

A knot of anxiety dissolves in your chest.

“Well,” he asks, “satisfied?”

“Mhm.” You look at the purple markings on his skin.

Keith’s breath hitches. His gaze is trained on you, watching carefully.

“So if not rotten eggs,” you ask, slowly bringing your fingertips over the marks on the sides of his face, giving him every opportunity to pull away, “what do you smell?” You couldn’t help it. It was that scientific curiosity. Everyone at the garrison had ended up there because they were nerdy in some way: devoting themselves to some STEM field while other kids were watching cartoons. You’d had a stutter as a kid, self conscious about it too, so instead of trying to make friends you read your textbooks under your desk, racing ahead.

Keith’s eyes meet yours. There’s a level of vulnerability in his gaze that worms its way into your chest and all of a sudden you’re incredibly aware of how close you two are, the lack of space between your bodies, your fingers caressing his skin.

You look away, focusing on the marks. They were purple, which was obvious. His skin itself had grown purple, perfectly delineated.

“Like wet soil,” Keith explains finally, “when they just added fertilizer.” You wince, remembering the smell of the horticulture center wafting through the garrison’s campus during the spring. “And garlic.”

“I like garlic. I’d kill for some,” you tell him, sounding very much like Hank. You hadn’t expected to be homesick for food. “Best food they served at the cafeteria.”

“That’s not saying much,” Keith mutters, amused.

You chuckle, pulling your hands away from his face.

He leans forward, asking for physical comfort in a very Keith way: unsubtle and wordlessly, putting the onus on you to get the hint.

Pidge must have freaked him out more than he was willing to discuss.

You wrap your arms around his waist, hugging Keith. “Pidge’ll be fine.” Sure, she was younger and short, but she was more than capable of handling herself. “I’m more concerned about how she left the other guys,” you comment lightly resting your chin on Keith’s shoulder.

His shoulders shake as he laughs easily. “They asked to surrender to her personally.”

“That’s Pidge all right.” You glance over at the pod. She’d be back on her feet in no time.

Keith’s breath against your skin feels nice. Your heart flutters in your chest and you find yourself blushing and pulling away, thoughts racing as you realize just how much you liked this boy. You pull away, unsure what to do and suddenly finding it too awkward to be around him at all.

The start of a whine escapes his throat before he smothers it, looking away, as he lets his bangs fall over his eyes, effectively hiding his easy to read features.

“Let’s go help the others,” you say, fumbling to grab a med kit and click your helmet back in place, your face too warm and it must be obvious. You didn’t want to make things weird. You didn’t. But-

“I’m going to stay here until Pidge wakes up,” Keith tells you.

“Oh. Okay.” You nod. “That’s a great idea. It’s always confusing as hell to get out of the pods.” It was akin to waking up from a midday nap: completely confused and exhausted instead of rested.

Your skills would be more useful with the Vexuim than fussing over Pidge at the moment. And having something to do would keep your mind off Keith.

—————

“You know,” Lance comments, sliding up to you as you watch Lotor strut away from you after another failed attempt to talk to him. “If we bottled up whatever galra repellant you have going on, we could defeat Zarkon with perfume.”

You look over at Lance, trying to suppress a smile. “What would you call it?”

“Starlight.”

“That’s-that’s actually pretty great,” you tell Lance.

“I know,” he grins. Then the latino boy sobers up, “trying to find out what’s going on with mullet?”

You nod. “I even tried to corner Acxa,” you admit. For an eight foot tall purple alien, boy could she make herself scarce.

Lance’s eyes widened in delight, “like could and should peg me Acxa?”

You groan. “Lance, sometimes it’s okay to keep things to yourself.”

“I’m just saying,” he laughs, “the ship’s not that big…”

“It’s designed for six thousand people.” You’d learned that fun tidbit while practicing your Altean with Pidge.

“Like for real!”

“Yeah.”

“Ay dios mio,” Lance utters, “you’re screwed.”

You finally hit the motherlode.

Lotor and his generals are in a stately room that reminds you of the socratic lecture halls at the garrison, sofa arranged in a half circle, with Shiro and Allura. The former Prince had shown up for a reason beyond making a nuisance of himself. Allura looks at her wits end with him, as he smiles like a douche, her eye twitching.

She invites you in without hesitation, “take a seat next to me,” and effectively uses you as a human shield against Lotor.

Literally since you and Shiro were the only humans here.

“Everything has been thoroughly discussed,” Lotor comments dryly, snubbing you once more. Normally, you wouldn’t have cared but you were trying to get information out of the man. “Unless either of you have further questions?”

Shiro hums, rubbing his chin, “I know saddling you with a rebel ship or two will slow you down but I don’t see another way around it. A display of size on their part will go a long way to show it is an alliance and not the Galra Empire hy another name.”

Allura nods, a small smile on her lips as she looks over at Shiro, “The black paladin is right. It will be a steep hill to climb to show that you are not the Galra Empire. Their fears would be alleviated with the presence of the rebel alliance.”

Zethrid sucks in a sharp breath, “So that’s it then. We will always be scorned and merely tolerated.”

“Time,” Shiro sighs with a look of gentle understanding at the muscular woman, “they need time. You can’t erase 10,000 years of history. It is hard to extend trust after being imprisoned and enslaved.”

“The alliance has started coordinating with you and the Blade directly have they not,” Allura asks stiltedly. It was by the necessity of time that they had stopped going through Voltron first. Lotor might be too smug for his own good, but his team was effective at sabotaging warships and infiltrating Galra ranks to liberate prisons and cities, enough to turn the tide for the rebels.

Her feelings towards Lotor and the Blade were still tinged with suspicion, her treatment of them lukewarm at best.

Still, Lotor brushed it off and continued to help. “Well then, Princess, Shiro, we have a long journey ahead of us.”

Shiro nods.

They shake hands.

You stand up, ready to corner Lotor.

“But first a word Shiro, it is a private matter.”

“Yeah, sure,” Shiro leads Lotor away.

Your eye twitches.

That snake!

Zethrid and Narti walk purposefully away as Allura pushes in her chair, ignoring the last two of Lotor’s team. “Princess,” Acxa, tries. “Until next time.” She nods at you, “stay safe.”

Allura gives the woman a strained smile, hooking her arm with yours. Human shield.

“You too,” you tell her. She doesn’t wait, already halfway out the door. You sigh.

Ezor giggles, by far the friendliest and easiest to get along with of Lotor’s team. “Stashing food and water will cut down the embarrassment by half.”

“What?”

“Oh,” she shrugs, “I guess Lotor was right. Darn it! Now I owe him one hundred GAC.”

“Wait-”

But she scurries off.

“Ugh,” you kick the wall, tired of everyone being weird. The usual frustration with being caught up in a space war was just the salt on the wound.

Your toe throbs, “fuck,” you hiss.

“They are rather tiring to deal with,” Allura agrees, reading the situation wrong, “but it hardly calls for assaulting the Castle.”

“Sorry,” you flush red with embarrassment. “I just had a question for Lotor and he seems intent on never being in the same room as me.”

“Ah-,” Allura smiles easily, “Lance did mention that you were in possession of a Galra repellent.” The twinkle in her eyes lets you know she was in on the joke.

“Come, let us work our frustrations out with some introspection.” Which was just Altean for weird breathing exercises that supposedly helped you do alchemy. She had managed to rope you into practicing with her before.

“Anything to spare the wall,” you joke.

——————

You walk back from the library. It was a cozy room, especially when you dimmed the lights. The Castle was always so bright, designed with the Alteans sight needs in mind.

Sometimes you just needed some time away from everyone. You loved them, but spending years with the same people while floating through space…you had no clue how Shiro had managed it.

Getting a walk around the ship was also nice. It was easy to forget how big the Castle was when you mainly stayed on the same three floors. Just a couple months ago Coran had rediscovered the greenhouse. The plants were a little piece of Altea, and had quickly become one of Allura’s favorite spots.

The windows were wide portholes. It unnerved you still, looking out and not recognizing any star, any constellations.

A lump of homesickness lodges itself in your throat. It had been over two years, your siblings would have grown so much in that time. You certainly had. The last vestiges of childhood had gone from your face.

Acne cleared up even without Lance’s ten step routine.

You walk across the bridge, trying not to look down. The viewing platform was clear glass in space, you could lay on it. It freaked you out a little.

It was the only constantly dark place in the castle.

You still yelp when you spot Keith, his eyes luminous violet like a glow in the dark t-shirt. That should have tipped all of you off, but alien was not the first thing that came to mind when you previously believed aliens had never visited earth.

He whimpers, curling up further.

“Keith,” you gulp, focusing on him and not the glass separating you from the void of space. “What’s wrong?”

He looks up at you miserably, blinking sluggishly. “I have the worst migraine.”

“And you’re down here instead of getting painkillers?”

Keith shrugs. “It’s not as bad, quiet. Dark.”

You sit down next to him. “I can go get you something,” you offer, your cheeks warming up and it was ridiculous how you can’t even manage to act normal around him anymore.

“Coran already gave me a dose.”

“Oh.” You were hurt. You were supposed to be the medic. That was your role on Team Voltron.

You hug your knees to your chest, and look down at space. It was darker than the photographs back on earth. Not so purple and blue.

You weren’t Matt who was just as good as Pidge with technology or Allura who was the leader and a princess to boot, you’d just planned on having a late dinner with Hunk once he got over the motion sickness before Lance roped you into following Pidge. You weren’t a paladin.

Keith shuts his eyes. “You were with Allura. I didn’t want to bother you.”

“It’s no bother.” You swallow thickly, letting silence fall over you both.

You listen to Keith breathing, looking around the darkness of space for any familiar stars. You knew the space around Shay’s Balmerra, and Arus was at least a little familiar. But the universe was so vast and wide.

There were planets you’d only ever been to once, each with a different night sky. Some of them never even had a night, with multiple suns staving off a night cycle.

“Do you think Allura minds?”

“Mind what,” you ask.

Keith clenches his jaw, rubbing his temples. “That I look more Galra.”

Allura has always been harder on the Galra. For her, it had been such a short time since Zarkon had destroyed her world and her people. You didn’t agree, but you could understand where she was coming from, the pain still there as she continuously wore Altean mourning pink.

You look over at him, the outline of his body against the glass. “I think your marks look cool.”

“Bullshit.”

“I do,” you whisper gently, considerate of his migraine. Those were the worst. “They frame your face. You look nice,” you finish lamely, looking away. You look nice. Lance might say stupid things but at least he tried.

“What if I looked even more Galra?”

“Like completely purple and tall?” You couldn’t really wrap your head around it. It also seemed incredibly unlikely. Could his phenotype change so drastically? On earth the answer was no, but who knows how the Galra work. It was fascinating to see such a wide range of traits in one species.

He was also half human.

You worried if his body would even tolerate such a drastic change.

“Yes,” he says, not waiting for you as he rants in agitation, “the rebels hate the Blade and Allura doesn’t trust them at all and that’s not even mentioning Lotor.”

“That’s not true. Te-Osh likes Acza and Ezor. Lotor’s kind of annoying if we’re being honest, and I’m sure his being Zarkon’s son makes it a little hard to believe he’s on our side,” you try to reason. “And don’t write off the Galra who have changed sides or were in the camps right alongside other aliens.”

Keith says nothing in response, mouth a thin line as he thinks.

You wonder how long it’s been bugging him.

You want to reach out and hug him, but he isn’t Hunk. You’re not sure he’d want to if he’s not initiating the contact. So you don’t.

“Everyone knows how the last Galra paladin worked out.” A low growl in the back of his throat is enough to clue you in to how distressing this was for him.

Your heart hurts. “And everyone knows you’re not Zarkon,” you state evenly back. “We already know you’re Galra.”

Keith snorts humorlessly. You can’t see his eyes; they’re hidden by his bangs.

“The glowing eyes are not exactly subtle dude,” you point out, “not to mention your hair does the poof thing guinea pigs do when they’re eating, but not when you’re eating, more like when you get annoyed.”

“I-what!” His eyes go comically wide as he sits up. His dark hair does the thing, making him look like a character from those old Japanese kids movies.

You giggle, “you’re doing it.”

Keith tries to look at his reflection in the glass.

You blush, grateful that it’s too dark to see, and then realize that wasn’t true for him, so you look away, hoping he didn’t notice. “Yeah. I’m the medic, it’s my job to know these things. Like how Pidge has two webbed digits on her foot and Lance is allergic to flax seeds and bees.”

“That…makes sense.” Then he smiles, “still didn’t put two and two together.”

“Don’t be a smartass.” Reason number three thousand Iverson had it out for him back at the harrison. “And if anyone has a problem with you I’ll kick their ass.”

“You?” Keith snorts. “You wouldn’t even flip me during self defense.”

“You remember that?” You run a hand over your face, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” you always took forever to practice on your partner. And your weak arms didn’t help.

“That’s what the mats were for.”

“Still!”

Keith laughs at your expense.

You smile, taking delight in watching him smile and laugh and you wish it could always be like this and the war would just end.

Then you sober up. “You’re going to be okay, right?”

He doesn’t answer you right away.

“Keith-” you reach out, voice cracking. “You’re going to be okay, giant purple space cat or not, right?”

He takes your hand, squeezing it firmly. “Yeah. Don’t worry about it.”

“Good,” you utter, but tears bead up in your eyes anyway. It was terrifying watching someone go through something unknown that you couldn’t help them through for all your medical training. You knew how to set bones and run a pod…not whatever this was.

You trusted Keith.

He knew himself better than anyone. After all, he’d been right about his teeth growing back.

“You really are worried,” he whispers in disbelief.

“Duh.”

“I can smell it on you,” then he seems to realize what he said, and pulls away, ducking his head. Like he hadn’t meant to say so much.

“Really?” Learning about anything alien biology was pretty cool, you had to admit. Allura had once described colours that you couldn’t perceive. It was a fun talk. And then she’d made you meditate for alchemy stuff or so she claimed. It might have just been payback. “Is that new?”

“Yeah,” Keith admits, still drawn into himself. “Can we not-I already feel like enough of a freak already without,” he waves aggressively at himself.

You bite your lip, nodding. You wanted to say something, to get it through his head how you saw him, incredibly kind and fiercely loyal (to the point of taking on Zarkon by himself) and an endearing smile you never got tired of seeing.

You liked him.

The universe was lucky to have him as a paladin.

But you don’t know how to say it in a way he’d accept. And he asked you to drop it, so you do. “Right, I’ll just go then.” He’d been here first, and the glass made you nervous.

Could it withstand a hit from a galra battleship?

Keith opens his mouth like he wants to say something else, but he just nods, then winces, “Argh,” he groans as he curls up on his side, covering his ears with his hands.

You rush to his side, kneeling next to him, “Keith,” you utter softly, not wanting to make it worse.

His eyes are pressed close and for all your medical know-how, you’re at a loss.

So you running your fingers through his hair soothingly and wait for the pain to pass.

He shifts, laying his head in your lap as he whimpers.

You can’t stand to watch him and do nothing. You press your com, pinging Shiro and Coran. This was beyond you. He’d trust Shiro with whatever was going on and he’d gone to Coran. You respected that even if it did sting.

Your pride meant little so long as Keith felt comfortable and sought help.

“Shh, shh,” you whisper gently.

Sweat beads on his brow.

Whines escape his throat.

“Fuck,” he grunts, clenching his teeth.

He’s warm to your touch and that rouses another bout of worries. At this temperature it’s a fever, but he didn’t have the symptoms, the flushed cheeks and chills.

Keith curls up further, muscles stiff.

You’re helpless.

After what feels like ages, Shiro and Coran finally appear.

“Number four, Number five,” Coran claps his hands.

You hold out your hand, motioning them to shut the fuck up as Keith winces at the sound.

His hair is damp near his ears.

“Keith,” Shiro utters much more gently, kneeling down on his other side, “I’m here, I’ve got you.”

He raises his head, blinking groggily at Shiro, trying to concentrate through the pain, “Shiro,” he reaches for his brother who easily pulls him against his chest. Keith buries his head in the crook of Shiro’s neck.

You sit back, trying to get out of the way. Your hands are wet.

You look down and realize it’s blood. His ears-

Oh god.

“Number five,” Coran says gently, helping you up, “I’ll take great care of our Paladin. Why don’t you go get cleaned up.”

You don’t get any sleep that night.

——————

You were always struck with cognitive dissonance walking around colonized planets like Rahiri where the natives and Galra lived side by side. This was not a planet ravaged by the empire. The flora-like aliens in all shades of green with rootish limbs and leaves and petals for hair had assimilated into the Empire, achieving citizenship over generations. 10,000 years deca-phoebs was a long time. That was a huge source of tension in the Alliance, what to do with the world who neither wanted or wished to leave the Empire.

It was also a source of dark humor that no one spared the four of you a second glance despite two paladins of Voltron walking around.

Hunk holds Shay’s hand in front of you as they point and awe and drag their feet on the way to the space port.

“You could always stay with,” Hunk says hopefully, “we could just drop you off. Personal taxi service.”

Shay smiles back kindly, “that would be wonderful but I have been away from home for too long. I am, as you say, a homebody.”

“Aw, yeah,” Hunk chuckles, “I feel that. I like the ground. And dirt. Piloting is overrated.”

“Don’t let yellow here you say that,” Keith comments so dry, you think he’s serious for a second. Allura and Pidge had gone shopping for supplies. That was an advantage of a planet that had not seen war.

Hunk glances back, clearly having forgotten we had tagged along in case anything went down. “Yeah well, she’d like a small moon. Or an asteroid. There’s colonies on those.”

“Very true,” Shay laughs. “I think my balmerra is also like a moon. A beautiful creature. We have learned how to ask for crystals so we do not need to cut them.”

“That’s impressive. Did the books from Allura help,” Hunk asks.

As much as you liked getting to stretch your legs, seeing a different planet where the threat was not imminent, you didn’t like being a third wheel, or fourth wheel if you went according to Coran’s favorite numbering pattern. That inch difference between you and Keith mocked you.

You glance over at the red paladin.

His gaze kept flickering back and forth, around the street. The occasional loud noise of crates being unloaded made him jump.

“You good,” you ask Keith, cracking a joke so he’d know you weren’t judging him. “You see la llorona or Davy Jones?”

“Hm?”

“You know…a famous ghost? Do they have ghosts in space?”

Keith snorts, cottoning on. “They don’t even have ghosts on earth.”

You pull a face, “well that’s no fun. Seriously, you okay? Or have we been made?”

He shakes his head, glancing around again just to be sure. “So much for Zarkon’s finest.”

You laugh, following Hank and Shay into the space port. Shuttles were departing pretty consistently. Everything was in orderly fashion. You especially liked how no one was shooting at you.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“What does?” You watch as Keith shakes his head, making his hair fall back from his face.

Shay and Hunk go to the ticket counter, but you decide to find somewhere off to the side, wanting to give them privacy.

“Stuff.”

You roll your eyes at Keith, “you suck.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, leaning against the wall, looking anywhere but at you. “Lotor explained it to me and Shiro…what’s happening.”

“Oh.” You swallow, looking at Hunk and Shay hugging and saying their goodbyes yet again. They’d said them last night at dinner, this morning in the pod, and again when you’d split from Allura and Pidge. It was cute. They were adorable.

“Sorry.”

“Hm,” you glance over at Keith, not sure why he would be sorry about anything. He was the one getting screwed over by half of his heritage.

“You’re hurt.”

“You can smell that too,” you ask him, holding his deep gaze. There was an intense commitment to everything Keith did; it was reflected in the depth of his violet gaze. He didn’t do things in halves.

“Now I can.” He looks at his shoes, red dusting his cheeks. The red didn’t tinge the purple marks on his skin.

“So this is all,” you’re not sure how to put it, “nothing to worry about?”

“He said it was normal. But because I’m half there’s no way to know what to expect.” He looks away as he says it, stiff as he glances around.

The anxiety that had settled into your jaw since you’d had to wash his blood off your hands eases up. “Giant purple space cat,” you joke, nudging his side.

“Oh fuck no,” Keith grumbles. Even that furrowed expression that crossed his chiselled features made you feel all giddy inside.

Bad timing.

“I’m not hurt I-I just wish you trusted me,” you finally admit. It was silly. You felt selfish, so you tack on, “You know I’m here for you if you need me. We all are. I know Shiro’s your brother, but we’re your friends.”

“I know,” he sighs wistfully, “I do trust you…it’s just-it’s been hard. I don’t know how to feel about any of it and I’m not used to it either.”

“It’s fine,” you tell him, “I’m being silly, making this about me. As long as you know I’m here for you…I’m not trying to force you to tell me anything…” you cringe internally at yourself. The galaxy garrison had been made up of nerds, so it followed everyone was a character. It hadn’t helped anyone’s social skills.

You wish you could just go, I worry about you because I love you instead of stumbling through word vomit.

“Come on,” Keith brings you out of your thoughts, grabbing your hand and pushing through the crowd of people coming and going to different boarding gates, “I think Hunk’s going to need some comfort food.”

You glance around, finding Hunk’s form making it’s way to you both. He was wiping his eyes, bittersweet smile, making no move to really hide that he was crying.

“Let’s get back to Allura yeah,” he tells you both.

“Or,” you go with Keith’s idea, “we can get something to eat. Allura gave us a good hour or so.”

“Varga,” Keith supplies.

“Yeah, that.”

Hunk nods, “that sounds nice. It’s just,” he looks back at the departing shuttle, “it’s hard. It’s war and you never know when your going to see each other again but it’s not like she can just drop everything and I wouldn’t ask her too, if anything I’d like to retire there. Nice and quiet. Maybe open a restaurant…”

“Vrepit Sal two,” Keith offers.

“Could make it a chain,” you add with a smile. Hunk, like you, was not such a gung ho pilot. You had landed the flight simulation without crashing exactly once, for your final emergency protocol exam.

“Thanks guys,” Hunk grins, “but I think I’ll bring some earth out here. Give these people a taste of traditional earthlign cuisine.”

“So your menu’s going to be as long as Cheesecake Factory’s,” you ask with a silly grin.

“Maybe not that long. A burger, ramen, scratch that, pizza instead of a burger.” Hunk rubs his chin thoughtfully sniffing the air and following his nose to a food stand. You trusted him for food. He had a knack for combining goo and exotically colored food that screamed fake and poisonous into pretty great meals.

Keith was still holding your hand, not as a loose afterthought: every now and then he’d rub his thumb against the back of your hand and it sent a thrill down your spine.

You don’t pull away, wanting to savor the feel of his skin against yours even if it wasn’t that deep. You’d hugged and napped with everyone at least once, grabbing each other’s hands in the confusing crowded hovels of swamp malls (actual swamp malls and not places Coran thought of as a swamp mall).

You nab a table outside the stand.

Everything was in Galra which none of you could read. “Damn,” you mutter looking over.

Hunk glances at Keith without subtlety.

You were starting to think only Allura and Shiro could do subtly.

Keith raises a brow.

“Nothing,” Hunk looks down at his screen.

“Point and hope for the best it is,” you shrug.

“I love a good surprise,” Hunk nods, then looks down at his hands, “we’ll see each other again right? Shay…they’re pretty safe. And well…yellow’s got thick armour.” He sighs, resting his cheek against his fist, elbows on the table.

“Shay’s a badass,” you confort Hunk, “she figured out how to communicate with the Balmera and through the Balmera. She’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty freaking amazing,” Hunk blushes.

You order from an alien that somewhat resembles Ezor, all cotton candy color, and twiddle your thumbs, enjoying the rare moment of rest and relaxation.

“I could get used to this,” Hunk comments, savoring the strange dish he’d been served.

“Get a travel food show,” you tease, “I’d watch it.”

“It could be like this all the time,” Keith muses hopefully, “aren’t planets like this proof we could all get along.” He bites into the glowing blue lotus root shaped meal, and blinks widely.

“What,” you ask, looking over at him.

Keith grabs a napkin and spits out his food. “I think I just lost another tooth.”

“You think,” Hunk raises a brow, “how could you not notice a missing tooth?”

“Smile,” you nudge Keith sitting next to you.

He rolls his eyes, before fake smiling which was always so undeniably forced when he did it. You laugh, nodding, “yup, missing tooth.”

Keith frowns for a second, before continuing to eat.

“Oh,” Hunk utters, before he kicks your leg lightly.

You look up, meeting the yellow paladin’s searching gaze.

He looks at you with a knowing smile.

Heat rushes to your cheeks, the tip of your nose burning hotly, you look down, shoving a questionable sticky black slice into your mouth. It was easy to chew despite the sticky-ness, the flavor starchy and nutty.

There was no way this wouldn’t get back to everyone else in the Castle. No way.

They were all so nosy.

Oh fuck.

——————

“It sure is hot in here,” Lance says with a challenging smirk at Keith.

You roll your eyes.

Lance stretches, resting his arms against the back of the sofa, his hand tapping annoyingly against your shoulder.

Keith is unmoved. Or more accurately, Keith’s mouth twists as he tries hard to ignore Lance’s latest attempts to get him to remove his hat, a lime green thing that clashed perfectly as was his fashion sense, or lack of any fashion sense.

Pidge smacks her head, then peaks curiously at Keith: at Keith’s hat.

You flick Lance’s cheek. “Hey hot shot, don’t hug me when you’ve set the thermostat to ninety degrees.”

“Ninety five actually,” he winks, hugging you towards him. Ugh, you couldn’t do it. You’d already done away with your afghan coat, tied your lavender flannel around your waist, what more could you do. You didn’t have shorts in space. The skirts stored in the castle were breezy, but made you feel at risk of tripping over the hem with each step.

“Hm,” Keith voices, taking a seat, “reminds me of home.”

Hunk snorts, “really thought that through,” he tells Lance.

Lance is undeterred. “Could go higher.”

“I don’t think your cow would like that very much,” you point out.

The blue paladin sulks, looking down at you, “you’re just saying that because you like-”

You jab your elbow into his side.

“Ow! What ever happened to do no harm?”

“Technically,” you tell Lance, “I never graduated.”

“She’s got you there,” Pidge smirks from beside Keith. She was taking apart yet another radio. The signal had yet to reach earth.

“Thank you Pidge.”

She shrugs, “It’s true.” Then turns on Keith, “The hat, explain.”

He looks like he wishes he could merge with the sofa at that, slumping in his seat.

You decide to step in, “I’m going to turn the thermo down.”

Lance is quick to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you back onto the sofa, “come on, relax. Like mullet said, it’s homey.”

You throw him a dirty look.

“Keith?” Pidge side-eyes her fellow paladin. He’s sat up, gripping the sofa cushion so tightly he’s ripping hole into the ten thousand year upholstery.

“You okay there buddy,” Hunk asks.

“No.”

“Oh.”

Keith sucks in a breath, and with deliberate motion, pulls the hat from his head.

Oh.

Your eyes widen.

OH.

His ears had changed.

They weren’t nearly as alien as Allura’s, but no one would mistake their shape for human. Keith’s ears tapered up and out, portrudding, but it was more than just a pointed tip, the entire shape of his ears had transformed, resembling a butterfly’s wing. It was still human in color, but…

Hunk breaks the stunned silence first, “so are you going to like to end up purple?”

Keith ducks his head, wrapping his arms around himself.

No one else gets the chance to further interrogate Keith, or hear his own thoughts, because Allura calls everyone up to the bridge.

Lotor hailed the Castle of Lions. Everyone stands around the bridge while Shiro and Allura take the lead as usual. They might as well be twins given how well they got on, communicating differing ideas without undermining the other.

“There are nine warships in the system,” Lotor acknowledges, “I would be much indebted if you would do me the favor of sending Voltron for the aerial battle.”

“The Empire’s presence is still in its early stages,” Acza explains, “but their terraforming development for the planet will cause the destruction of the Talpidae living there.”

“Then we have no choice,” Allura clenches her fist, never one to sit back while there was something she could do about it, “we will provide air support. Sent me the coordinates so that I may Teleduv there.”

Lance is still obviously eyeing Keith’s latest development. It was readily visible, and you were fighting the urge to do the same.

But you weren’t also trying to flick his ears.

Keith growls lowly.

Lance sniggers.

Pidge offers Lance a piece of paper to make paper balls with.

Hunk sighs long sufferingly, having resigned himself to the more childish side of his two friends. They were terrors. Put Pidge and Lance together, and they were gremlins out of a horror movie made for elementary school teachers.

You slip your hand into Keith’s, squeezing reassuringly. It would take some getting used to like anytime someone got a new haircut, but you would. Like his atrocious boots, they’d become an endearing part of him.

Keith squeezes your hand back.

Shiro nods, agreeing with Allura, “have the Talpidae been contacted.”

“Very much so,” Ezor chimes in, “they’re funny little people. And their sensory-”

“The point Ezor,” Lotor sighs, rubbing his nose bridge.

“They sent for help to the rebels. We were closest to their system,” Exor elaborates with a shrug, “they do not have the background to fight head on, and will evacuate most of their people into bunkers, but they have been digging under the new construction and weakening the structural integrity of the Galra outposts.”

“Very well,” Shiro accepts, “Princess Allura and our chief medic will meet with the Talpidae as a show of goodwill.”

“Our only medic,” Hunk points out.

Keith growls, his hand squeezing yours hard.

You all look over at him.

“Red Paladin,” Allura says, trying to look as professional as possible in front of her least favorite of Voltron’s allies, “is something the matter.” She shares a look with Shiro, but otherwise looks unsurprised at Keith’s less than human ears.

Or maybe she’d make a great poker played.

“Can’t you meet with the Talpidae after the battle,” Keith utters harshly.

“They may need immediate tactical support,” Allura reasons, “we should be there in person to provide it.”

“It’ll be fine Keith,” Shiro adds.

Their words do little to calm Keith down. His dark silky hair puffs up. His grip on your hand tightens and you feel miffed. You’d been on the ground working triage before. You might not be a fighter or pilot but you could look after yourself.

You pull your hand out of his. “I really don’t see what the problem is,” you tell Keith pointedly.

“I’ll watch Allura’s back and she’ll have mine.”

Allura nods. “Our chief medic is correct-”

His ears twitch, “You’re not exactly a fighter.”

Shiro covers his face with a hand.

Your brows furrow. You’re livid. “So! I won’t be fighting. We’ll be in the bunkers with the Talpidae. It’ll be safe so it doesn’t even matter.”

“If it’s perfectly safe then you don’t need to be there,” Keith’s voice breaks, a whine escaping his chest but you don’t care, done with the conversation.

“Yikes,” is Ezor’s quiet whisper.

You’re not a paladin so you don’t care, you just stalk off the bridge ready to go scream into your pillow in frustration. Or better yet, go for a swim and scream underwater.

“Wait-” Keith follows you.

You ignore him.

“I just-,” he keeps trying as you stalk down the stairs, deciding your room was better after all if only because you could lock Keith out.

“Listen-,” he whines.

“I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean what,” you round on him, hands on your hips, pissed off and maybe some of its was from being stuck on this stupid ship all the damn time but like eighty percent was earned. You might not be taking on a squad of Galra soldiers, but you could take one on if it came to it.

Keith at least has the decency to look miserable, sad chirrups in his throat as he crosses his arms over his chest and looks at the ground.

“Well?” You tap your foot on the ground.

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” he finally manages. “Especially if you don’t need to be there.”

“But I do,” you counter, “There’ll be people running into those bunkers having escaped soldiers and sentries and the faster they get treated the better chance they have.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Keith repeats himself. “You-you can hold your own.” He looks up at you through his bangs, still hunched in on himself.

“Obviously.” There’s no heat, the anger having deflated already. It was just white hot ache in your chest, hurt at the idea that Keith thought you would get in the way, that you had nothing of value to add to the Alliance and Voltron.

You bite your lip.

Don’t cry, you think to yourself.

You were being dumb.

He was just being plain stupid.

“I mean it,” Keith repeats, “I’m sorry. I was just looking for an excuse to make sure you were safe.”

“Right, because Allura can handle herself but I can’t.” Your voice cracks.

“No,” Keith says in a rush, “it’s not the same.”

“Because I can’t fight?”

“That’s not,” Keith runs a hand through his hair, “It’s me okay. I’m-I’ve always jumped into things without thinking, but I decided to go for it, like breaking Shiro out but now I’m doing things before I even notice and it’s all these stupid Galra instincts!”

You swallow.

“I’m sorry,” he tells you once more. “I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry. No one thinks you can’t handle yourself. That’s why Shiro paired you up with Allura, because he knows you’re capable of watching her back.”

Your smile is fragile as you look over at him, “yeah?”

“Yeah.” Keith holds your gaze, looking as skittish as a stray dog. Another whine escapes his throat.

What the heck.

You hug him, “you’re such a dumbass.” You understood why he’d worry. This was war. Pidge was on a two man campaign with Shiro to get Matt to stay on the Castle, both scared witless that Matt might die on a mission with the rebels. Ulaz had died so everyone could get away.

You’d had patients in the last decaphoebs you could do nothing but ease their pain. You’d had patients that you couldn’t even administer anything for the pain because of how torn apart they were: guts spilling out, charred people shapes that you were surprised to still find breathing.

The images would never leave you as long as you lived.

“I’m sorry.” Keith buries his head in the crook of your neck, his breath tickling your skin sent shivers down your spine.

You hug him tightly, aware that every battle could be your last: the last time you saw him. “You’ve said that already,” you tease, memorizing the smell of him, stale sweat and something cloying that you had wanted to bottle up from the moment you’d met him and had never found on anyone else. As embarrassing as it was to admit to anyone other than yourself, Keith smelled good. Really good.

Most people smelled like nothing at all.

He stiffens.

“But it’s nice to hear again.”

Keith smothers a laugh.

You kiss his hair. Boys were so dumb.

He purrs.

You smile goofily, warmth building under your skin, and toes curling up in your shoes. You should say something. Right?

At some point?

Or maybe it shouldn’t be said under the looming threat of an upcoming battle.

Fuck.

You can’t decide, so you say nothing at all.

——————

Bombs still pelt the surface.

Your teeth chatter as the ground shakes even deep underground. Even more soil falls onto you. Your spacesuit was more oche than white at this point as you carry an injured Talpidae in your arms. It’s arm had been completely blown off. Sluggish blue blood oozed out.

Allura was last, tailing the group.

You reach the bunker.

The sentries had followed some of the feeling Talpidae into the tunnels, but they’d been sorted out.

The people here were strange, russet in fur colouring, with no discernable eye, just strange pink flagella protruding from their nose and large claws for digging. They stood at about Pidge’s height.

The bunker seals and you get to work.

Tourniquet here, pain patch there. There were so many of them banged up.

The fight continued on the surface.

The paladins had to form Voltron.

You and Allura work as a team, she takes the bruises and broken bones with no immediate risk of death. You triage the worst of the Talpidae, giving away your precious stash of painkillers to those you can’t save and are not in for a quick death, a Talpidae lies twitching, it’s nose blown off but alive. Another holds it’s hand, but shakes their head when they look at you. They weren’t going to make it.

Training kicks in and you focus on saving those you can.

Your hands stain blue from the blood.

Allura works alongside you.

You cauterize a Talpidae named Soedob’s hand, the claws on their right limb were gone, but most of it was spared.

“You smell Galra,” Soedob utters, blinking out of the pain induced haze as the painkiller kicked in.

You half hear, half don’t, so focused on the task at hand. It was easier to not stop until you were finished and could curl up and sleep and not think about blood and war and Zarkon.

“We have Galra allies,” Allura answers diplomatically, leaving the issue of the half Galra paladin alone.

It irked you.

“No, not them,” Soedob notes. “Those had a different aura.”

“Smell,” you guess, finishing off. You hoped the fighting ended soon. You supply was not unlimited. The castle had better facilities.

“Is that what you call it?”

“Our primary sense is sight,” Allura explains, giving you a long look.

You shrug. You hadn’t even seen any of Lotor and his team. There hadn’t been time. It had all been relayed over coms, over video.

“Another then?”

You swallow thickly, flushing with embarrassment because you both spent time around Keith but Soedob was only smelling him on you and it’s not like you had been doing anything intimate…well, it had felt intimate, hugging Keith, but it wasn’t anything like when cadets snuck into each others dorm room, shoving a sock on the door handle in the universal symbol of don’t bother us. “The red paladin is part Galra.” Mercifully, your voice doesn’t shake from the embarrassment, but you can’t look at Allura.

“Ah,” Soedob nods, neither outraged nor pleased.

Then there’s no more time, you have more Talpidaes waiting for medical aid. You give their own healers some of your supplies, freeing up Allura to find the clan leaders.

You can feel Allura’s questioning glance on you.

——————

“Team meeting in the mess hall,” Shiro calls over the coms system.

“Mess hall,” Pidge rolls her eyes, “it’s the dining room.”

You snort.

“I like to think of it as the dining room too,” Hunk offers. “I mean there’s only eight of us. It’s sort of like being home again.”

“Mess hall makes me think of the garrison,” you admit, falling into step besides them. “and the food.”

“Ugh,” Pidge groans. “That was the worst. Matt wasn’t kidding.”

“It does make the space packs easier to digest,” you muse, “maybe that was the point.” It took the garrison two years to get to Mars. It was funny, once you’d thought that was a long way from home.

“I liked the cheese garlic bread,” Hunk allows.

“Food goo,” Pidge grins, “or the garrison space food?”

“Food goo.” Hunk doesn’t even have to think.

“Food goo,” you agree. “Though not Coran’s paladin special.”

“You don’t even eat that,” Hunk huffs, half outraged half amused, “you’re always like well I’m not a paladin so…”

You laugh. “Seeing it is more than enough.”

The rest of the ship’s inhabitants are already there waiting for you. Lance is trying to teach Coran how to play slide, moving very slow as he claps their hands together.

Shiro and Allura are in easy conversation. Her mice scamper around her feet.

Keith looks absolutely miserable next to Shiro, folding himself into the smallest possible size, trying to disappear. It was hard to reconcile the Keith that was quiet with the Red Paladin that shot first and asked questions later.

You smile at him, excited to see him, but also figuring he could use some reassurance, whatever it was going through his head. Keith meets your gaze and the corners of his mouth turn up, before he ducks away.

You know better than to take it personally.

It was Keith.

Your toes curl inside your shoes and you bite back your smile, suddenly aware of how much you might be revealing and not wanting Lance of all people to start a meeting by commenting on it. For him, it might be all fun and games, but you weren’t sure what to do with these newfound warm and fuzzy feelings. You sure as fuck didn’t want to be called out on it.

You weren’t sure what to do about liking Keith so your current plan of action was: nothing.

“Thank you everyone for being here,” Shiro claps his hands together, his leader impression defaulted at awkward dad. He thought he always had to be on. Despite being the most trained out of us, he’d only just started his career during the Kerberos mission.

You wonder if he’d picked up his leadership style partly from Pidge’s dad.

“Where else would we be,” Pidge shrugs, never one to miss a shot.

“All the same,” the older man smiles.

“Yeah, no problem my dude, bro,” Lance flashes finger guns at Shiro.

You snort, taking a seat between him and Hunk.

“But seriously, what’s up,” Lance leans forward. “Or is this some lowkey way to keep us on our toes,” he winks at Allura who smiles indulgently.

“I await the news alongside you paladins,” Allura answers, hands resting in her lap. She looks over at Shiro.

The whole room turns to look at Shiro.

He had called the meeting.

Meetings tended to be informational in nature: updates about the expansive war, rebels hailing Voltron for intervention, the Blade passing on the rare bit of information, and the always popular distress signals. But Shiro and Allura both looked too calm for that.

Keith goes rigid, a spring wound up too tight.

Hm.

You wondered if the elephant in the room would finally be addressed.

Shiro puts his hand on Keith’s shoulder, smiling encouragingly the way a parent dropping their child off for their first day of school would, “go ahead Keith.”

The red paladin focuses his gaze on Shiro, his expression more sour than it’s been in a long time.

The past few years had done a lot to get him to open up to everyone on board, but right now, he looks exactly like the stubborn closed off cadet he had been back on Earth.

His ears twitch slightly. He manages to look even more taunt, and you wonder if he’s going to wave this off. Then, he lets out a breath.

His body is stiff, but Keith no longer pulls away from Shiro. He looks down at his hands pensively, nails cut to the quick. “Right.”

You can feel the nervous energy of the rest of the room, leaning in, waiting to see what Keith wants to say.

“Mhm, go on,” Lance says, chin in hand.

Hunk elbows him in the side.

“Hey!” Lance is about to start in on Hunk.

“Guys,” you snap, shoving Lance’s shoulder.

“Okay, okay,” Lance zips his mouth and throws away the key, “shutting up.”

“Looks like that didn’t work,” Pidge snarks.

“Paladins,” Allura’s clear commanding voice rings out. When everyone shuts up again, she nods at Keith, “you may continue.”

He looks up at everyone through his bangs, “I’m going through Galra settling.”

Hunk looks over at Allura, who was far more familiar with all this alien mumble jumble than anyone else.

Shiro squeezes Keith’s shoulder.

“And that is,” you prompt gently, before Keith hastily decided that was all he needed to say and left.

He meets your waiting gaze. Under the ship’s bright rooms, his eyes were obviously violet, heavy on the purple. He’s chewing his bottom lip like he isn’t sure he wants to go through with saying any of this and you wonder if he must be thinking of how weird things were between everyone when he learned of the alien part of his heritage.

Your mouth quirks up into a smile.

You were more than willing to stuff someone into a cryopod if they bothered Keith. He may be part of Voltron, tasked with defending the universe, but you’d make sure there was someone to defend him.

An embarrassing rush of heat bubbles under your skin. You look away, nervous.

“Shiro,” Keith asks.

Shiro nods, wrapping his arms fully around Keith’s shoulder. “Galra settling is when Galra,” he looked like he was trying to figure out exactly what he was talking about as he said it. Aliens were weird. “When Galra reach a certain age their appearance locks in.” Even Shiro looks a little puzzled. He was a pilot, not a biologist. You knew organisms back on earth who could manipulate their genotypes, generally sex changes with the right environmental conditions, but you weren’t sure there was anything comparable to whatever this was. “The Galra are apparently very adaptable in individuals. That’s why there’s such a range of them.”

Huh.

That explained the fur, range of tails, more reptilian looking once, and the eyes.

You wanted a Galra biology course, a full semester long one. What exactly caused such a plasticity in their phenotype? Did the trait have to be encoded in their genotype to appear or was there something freakier, Allura’s space magic, going on?

“-because he’s half human and we don’t go through anything like this it’s more painful than it would be. Lotor said the chameleonic abilities of Alteans helped him when he went through this,” Shiro finishes without a satisfying or thorough explanation.

At least Keith wasn’t dying.

Thank god.

Thank whatever freaky Altean magic existed in the universe.

“So,” Lance starts, “it’s Galra puberty.”

In a split second Keith loses any self consciousness about the situation, “it’s not Galra puberty!” His hair puffs up and you have to fight the urge to laugh, covering your face with your hands.

“There’s…” Shiro glances at Keith, before Lance and Keith could really get into it, “there’s more.”

Keith looks mullish, but ultimately gives Shiro the go ahead.

“Part of these..changes,” the black paladin explains, “have brought out some Galra instincts.” Clearly he was having as much trouble grappling with what this meant as Keith was. Your body suddenly deciding to change was no fun when you had no context for it. “Among them, the need to scent family…”

Pidge tilts her head, “is this like the most convoluted and emotionally constipated way of asking for a hug,” she asks Keith.

Keith smiles wryly, “pretty much.”

“Oh come here dude,” Hunk grins, engulfing Keith and Shiro in a hug.

“Ah number four,” Coran points up in the air, “I am now just recalling the galra that lived on Altea having explained this once, of course it didn’t occur to me because of the apparent dominance of your human genes.”

“So they’re actually co-dominant,” you muse as Lance drags Pidge along for a “group hug!”

“No.no,” Pidge makes a half-hearted effort to wiggle out, being a younger sibling herself, was used to being subjected to affection. She smiles even as she struggles.

“It would seem so,” Coran nods, “though not every gene.”

“Just these.” You wonder if there’s a space equivalent of the human genome project.

“Lance,” Keith yelps, “that’s my foot.”

“Buddy, I am not feeling the love here.”

“Is it working,” Hunk asks, peering at Keith, “are you going to turn purple now?”

“No one turns purple from hugs,” Keith replies, annoyed but makes no move to pull away.

“Thank you for trusting us with this Keith,” Allura smiles, her eyes crinkling.

“Get in on this too Princess,” Shiro motions over, before catching your gaze, “you too. Don’t think you can get out of this. You’re part of Voltron too.”

You snort, and join the group hug.

Pidge’s elbow is a bony thorn in your side and there’s the slight hum from Shiro’s prosthetic, but it’s a good mix of warmth and intimacy with the people you were closest to in the entire universe. Allura’s shoulder presses into you back and it’s sort of ballooned to ridiculous proportions, Keith somewhere in the center of it all, his hair barely visible to you.

“Add cuddling Keith to the chore wheel,” Pidge proposes.

Keith groans.

“How about we let Keith decide,” Shiro proposes.

You snort, knowing him too well. “Are you willing to take that risk? Died-from lack of hugs.”

Lance laughs.

Shiro looks convinced by your stellar argument.

“I’m not that bad,” Keith grumbles.

“You’re a terrible hugger,” Lance argues back. “You’re all stiff, like you’re enduring one of Iverson’s paradox sims. Not as bad as my abuelo but still.”

Keith lunges for Lance.

Someone topples over.

Everyone falls.

You laugh, smothered by limps and someone’s hair in your mouth…maybe Hunk’s? You don’t move, worried about kicking someone’s head.

From somewhere, Keith does that low rumbling chest noise that reminds you of a cat purring happily.

No one makes fun of him for it.

——————

“You should comb your hair before we take the pod down,” you tell Keith. You’d spent your free time before this alliance dinner scrolling through a datapad, trying to learn names, where they hailed from, species, things that may prove useful.

Half a varga ago, Keith had found you balled up on a sofa, and sat next to you, his way of asking for physical comfort. You’d obliged him readily, throwing an arm over his shoulders and spooning him as you both laid on the sofa. He was already in the paladin uniforms that Allura had dug out once the alliance became a reality instead of a loose string of rebel groups fighting the Galra empire.

You’re both short and slight, fitting together perfectly.

You squash any feelings you have, this wasn’t about you, it was about him. You’d done it a thousand times with Hunk or Lance, fallen asleep listening to Allura, why should Keith be any different? (You know why.)

He’s reading the screen with you.

“I doubt they’d notice,” he remarks as you scroll to a particularly vivid color alien race with sensory appendages sprouting from their heads.

“You have a point desert bum,” you tease, “I’d rather be a bum by a beach town. All surfer bro.”

“Can you even surf,” he asks flatly.

“No. Learned how to swim at the garrison,” you admit. “But tanning by the water has to be more appealing than roasting under the Texas sun.”

“I like the desert.”

“I know.” You were pretty sure everyone just liked their homes.

“It’s quiet,” he admits, “and watching how the sunlight transforms the landscape…”

“It’s too big and wide,” you admit, thinking of space. Flat land that went on forever…empty dark space that went on forever.

“Good for driving,” Keith smirks.

You laugh. Or course that’s where his mind went. “Sure, but it all looks the same, everywhere you turn.” It was disorienting. To be fair, you were a city girl. Your background noise was cars honking and people yelling even at four in the morning. The garrison had been a big adjustment.

“It’s really not. You just have to look.”

“I’ll trust my gps,” you counter, “not my sense of direction. I’d probably end up one of those cautionary tales about mirages and deserts.”

“You can’t really get a good signal,” Keith replies lazily, his body slack against yours, “out there. It’s best to mark a trail with chalk if you don’t know the area.”

“But you do, know it I mean?”

“Out past the Garrison? Mhm. All of it. We used to go hiking…before,” he trails off.

You press your lips to his hair lightly, before shifting, “my arms asleep.”

“Sorry.”

“I don’t mind.” You sit up, “it’s nice. I used to put my sister to sleep this one year she had nightmares almost every night.”

“You miss her,” Keith states, sitting up, looking at you with his intense expression. Having someone focused one hundred percent on you was a new experience. He wasn’t thinking of a thousand other things, just you.

“I do. I miss everyone, but,” you shrug, “I’ll see them again. Meanwhile you’re stuck with me.” You smile fondly at Keith. “I’m going to change before we have to go to dinner.”

“I’d take fighting Zarkon anyday,” Keith mutters, cringing at the upcoming show of diplomacy. There was so much smiling and hand shaking. It was exhausting to be that extroverted with a roomful of strangers.

Even Lance zonked out after these things.

“Knock on wood,” you laugh.

_____________

Treaties have been signed. A wrecked Galra fleet floats in space above the planet your on today, but today’s battle is won.

One of Lotor’s General’s is here, Acza. She’s wary, and surprised at the warm reception she’d received. She might be Galra, but she’d been crucial in taking down the Galra base’s shields. Biolocks, Zarkon should really rethink those.

You sip at your thick drink, warm and flavored like cinnamon oatmeal, that chases off the chill of the night. The idea had been to sleep, your hands still ached from all the sutures and stitches you’d woven, but Allura refused to hear it, dragging you along. There would be time for sleep on the Castle, she’d claimed, joyous to have helped another besieged planet.

“My congratulations,” a Blade utters from behind their glowing mask.

You jump, not having known there was even a Blade here. They were allies, yet their anonymity that made them so useful in information gathering, created a gap between you. You had no way of knowing who this person was. Their suit obscuring any details, the mask a rank.

You couldn’t even see their eyes.

“For what,” you ask, puzzled. You hadn’t fought. Your skills made you most useful after the battle, trying to save lives and patch up wounds. It was important and emotional draining work, but you hardly won battles.

Because of the mask, you can’t get a read on their reaction. Blades. Spies. Maybe if you could see their eyes…

They nod, and walk off without explanation.

You watch them go, still confused until they disappear among the bodies loitering around, celebrating liberation.

It was a feat to disappear when you were eight feet tall.

First the Galra had avoided you like the plague, the black plague, now they were being cryptic as fuck.

You lean your head down, trying to sniff your armpits without making it too obvious. Was it the blood? Or the space bleach? That tended to linger.

You didn’t smell that bad. Certainly like bleach and rubbing alcohol…

You take another sip of your drink, looking around for a place to sit. You’d been on your feet for too long. You wanted to sleep.

Someone would find you.

You wander around. Smiling when someone notices you, and thanks you and you hurry to get away before they ask you a hundred questions. There were only eight humans in space. Well, seven and a half. You stood out.

They wanted Voltron, but you would do.

“There’s space here,” Acxa calls out.

“Thanks,” you plop down next to her, sagging into the seat. Oh, yeah, you were so freaking tired.

“Of course. You look dead.”

“Yeah,” you look around the rebel camp, “I’ve no clue how they have the energy.”

“It’s like that everywhere. This is their home,” Acza offers, “people fight hard for their homes.”

You nod, before looking over at the alien woman, “not avoiding me anymore then?”

She shrugs, not disputing the allegation. “No need anymore, now that you and Keith sorted yourselves out.” She’s so blunt about it. “Galra are so sensitive when settling. We didn’t want to cause any incidents.”

“Is this about the scenting?” You still hadn’t had time to read through the information you’d gotten your grubby little hands on.

She nods.

You put your drink down on the mossy ground. “Yeah, Keith explained it. Well, Shiro did, really. Lance is over the moon about having an excuse to bother Keith.” Now you really all were a family. You’d named it outloud.

Acxa’s brows furrow, “Lance?”

“I think he just misses his family a lot,” you offer. “We all do and while we’re family too, it’d be nice to see our family back on earth too.”

She frowns. “Keith and you are not,” she asks slowly.

“Me and Keith,” you flush, ducking away from her. “No-I, no. We’re not.” You should’ve gone back to the Castle the moment Allura turned her back. She would’ve never known.

Acxa’s frown becomes tinged with anger and worry, her hand grabs your wrist. “Galra have more than one type of scenting, between families, and between partners.”

“Oh.”

You try to connect the dots but your brain gets stuck between ideas. Scenting. Keith. You. You and Keith. It was right there but-

“Keith isn’t marking you as family,” she explains slowly, “he’s marking you as his partner.” Acxa waits until her words sink in before adding, “to do so without letting the other know…” She makes it clear what a social taboo that is.

But you’re one step behind her.

Did Keith like you?

You think back to all the times you’d been with him in the past few vargas, trying to pinpoint any hint: he’d smiled at you but he was happier now in general so it could be a coincidence…

“If you need,” Acxa offers, “I will help clarify the situation.” It’s an awfully kind gesture.

“No,” you say in a rush. “no. It’s-I think I need to go talk to Keith.” He’d known what he was doing…you could draw a thousand conclusions but nothing would be better than confronting him about it.

“If you’re sure.”

“I am,” you stand up, glancing around. During parties, Keith tended to find a quiet corner out of the way. He’d opened up, but he was still more of an introvert.

You find Keith lying stretched out in the shadow of a makeshift building, looking up at the stars. It’s his eyes that give him away, reflecting the light enough to be inhuman, nocturnal vision.

“We need to talk,” you wrap your arms around your body. You weren’t angry, just confused. Didn’t he know he could just come talk to you about it by now?  

Keith looks up, startled, then stands. “Alright.” He sounds resigned, a man sentenced to detention for a month which was janitorial duties at the garrison. It kept even the most smartass cadets humble.

You look around.

No one was really here. You could hear the music and people a bit further into the heart of the camp. Here was good enough.

“I talked to Acxa,” you start, “she said-” you look down at the trampled vegetation underfoot. It was embarrassing to your human preconceptions to even think, let alone say, which was why you were pretty sure Keith didn’t mean any harm. Scenting meant nothing on earth, where he’d grown up. “She said you’ve been scenting me, which like I know but not that way?” You look up at him as realization sets in and he ducks his head, looking away. “Is it true?”

He crosses his arms over his chest. “I-,” he takes a deep breath before ranting, the agitation and months of buried emotions flooding out, “I hate this. I hate that I can hear the conversation outside and smell which direction  Shiro’s in and how much my eyes hurt on the Castle from how bright it is but I don’t-I can’t say anything because I’m already enough of a freak. Before I was just the weird kid but now I’m just a fucking alien freak! There’s always so much going on and I don’t even know what’s next!”

You wait, wondering if there was more.

It was a lot of changes.

You couldn’t understand, there was nothing in your life comparable to your biology deciding to be a little more Galra after twenty years.

“And I tried not to-,” he admits, meeting your waiting gaze, “I tried to leave everyone alone so you wouldn’t,” Keith swallows, forcing himself to continue with an obvious disgust at himself, “you wouldn’t smell like me or whatever Lotor explained but I couldn’t-it was driving me crazy like this itch, this buzzing under my skull and seeing you guys with others-I thought I was going crazy until Lotor explained. And then when Lance would ruffle my hair or you would check that I wasn’t about to fall over and die and-,” he waves his hands in the air, “I would just zone out.”

“Oh,” you utter, recalling past events with a newfound understanding. Keith had been reaching out, all instinct even when he was trying not to be a bother. It broke your heart, how he always came from the perspective that he was an inconvenience.

“I did know,” he says in a small voice. “That-you…but I don’t know if it’s me or this, or all these things happening to me.”

Your expression wobbles. You bite your lower lip, trying to get a handle on it. How silly to worry about a crush when Keith was going through it.

“I like you, but I don’t know if I like you or if it’s just these stupid Galra instincts messing with my head.” Keith deflates, drawing into himself. “Everything

s…it’s been a lot.”

“I get it,” you utter, “maybe not the situation but I’m not mad. Though Acxa was ready to kick your ass and she totally could,” you try teasing.

But Keith flinches, looking away guiltily.

“I’m joking. I-I get why. It makes sense. It’s a lot to get used to.” You swallow, not sure what to do about anything either.

“Its a huge offence,” Keith utters, “that’s why she was pissed. Made worse because you can’t even tell…I-I couldn’t think straight and I…it took the edge off.”

“Scenting me?”

He nods.

You take a step towards him.

“I-,” Keith’s eyes meet yours, his attention entirely captivated by you. It sends a thrill down your spine. You’d seen how he could be when laser focused: on piloting, on training. “I know they say it’s wrong but you and Lance do stuff like that all the time. And I thought…I figured I could figure out how much of what I’m feeling is me and how much of it are these new instincts.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” you tell him. “I-you’re right, it’s whatever to me. Like, a Blade congratulated me earlier which was weird but fuck them you know? I can ‘smile and nod’,” you smile as fakely as possible to show what you mean, “through it so long as you’re okay.” He’d bled in your lap.

Keith looks a little unsteady, unsure what to do with your lack of anger. “You don’t-”

“So is it like galra marriage then?” You were curious as to what exactly the Blades were going to gossip about you and Keith.

He makes a choked sound. “Sort of. They bond. It can be broken but that generally means someone killed the other.”

“Let me guess,” you reply, “Zarkon fucked even that up.”

Keith nods.

“That guy’s the worst.” Your voice is light.

Keith snorts, smiling for a split second. “I won’t anymore. I’ll-”

“Keith,” your voice cracks as you out your hand on his arm to keep him from rubbing off, “if its really causing you all this additional confusion in too of everything…you can…” the words were too intimate to say, too charged with a sensuality that he clearly was figuring out. You were willing to wait. For him.

He was conflicted enough without you dumping your feelings on him.

“You don’t-”

You raise your hand, caressing the side of his face with the back of your hand, ghosting over the purple mark on his cheek, “I don’t mind.” Sure, you had a crush on him, you could admit that much, but more simply, you loved him.

This was a small ask.

Your gaze flickers to the tips of his ears.

You had washed his blood off your hands.

“Besides, shit’s hard enough. My arm falling asleep is a small price to pay if I can help you.”

Keith’s mouth quirks up in a smile.

You laugh, “come here.”

It finally sinks in that you weren’t just talking bs. You meant it, as you hug Keith, wrapping your arms around his middle. He smelled good in spite of the battle he’d been through earlier.

Without really thinking, you breathe in the scent of him.

Keith hugs you back, cuddling you against his chest, resting his chin on your shoulder.

You yawn. “want to sneak back into the castle?”

“Only if you tell Allura you’re the one who wanted to leave,” he deadpans dazedly.

You laugh.

——————

“Come,” Allura motions as you stand from one of the Castle’s weapons systems, “we must meet with the rebel leadership on planet.”

The planet was a farming camp.

The slaves were overworked and underfed and they had still revolted when they learned Voltron was near. Now, they were free.

“Princess,” Coran calls out, “it appears that number four is heading back to the ship.”

A pained expression crosses Allura’s broad features, her full mouth frowning, before she decides to pick her battles for the day. “I am sure Keith has a good reason for his actions.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.

You don’t want to go down there either.

This entire last week had been spent synthesizing medicine and treating thousands of people made harder by the range of species. The garrison better give you that medical degree immediately.

“I’ll go check on him,” you say automatically, “he might need me to prep a pod.”

“Fantastic idea number five,” Coran believes your excuse.

“Let us know if anything happens,” Allura says, giving you a long look, before heading for the exit.

The central Galra soldiers had been taken out, but small bands of fighters were still fighting to their last breath. It’s why Voltron has remained on the planet.

The lions had roamed the landscape answering calls for aid and hunting down the last of Zarkon’s forces here.

You meet Keith in the red lion’s hanger.

He’s popping his helmet off, running a hand through his flattened hair. “I thought you were headed out with Allura?”

You shrug, suddenly feeling awkward. “I was, but I wanted to check on you first.” That was a normal thing to do for your friends. There was no reason to overthink things.

“I’m fine.”

He sets the helmet aside, working on undoing the armor off. There was dirt and dust but thankfully no blood to speak of, his or otherwise.

“Then I’ll see you there,” you ask.

Keith looks over, a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar, his smile slight when he replies, “I’m not heading there.” Blunt. Concise.

“It is depressing,” you admit. There was so much resource allocation and need planet-wide.

He raises a brow. “Oh. Yeah.”

“Keith?” Now you’re wondering what the real problem was. “What is it?”

“Does it matter. I don’t need to be there. Shiro and Allura can handle it.” He looks away, suddenly very interested in the wall. Unlike the rest of the ship, the red lion’s hanger was dim, in a permanent night cycle.

Pidge’s work.

“I think the people would like all of Voltron present.” Then you make a face, “oh god, I sound just like Allura don’t I?”

Keith laughs, “just a bit. As long as you don’t make us all meditate…”

“It’s so boring. I fall asleep.” You smile softly, “Seriously, go down for a moment. Then you can hide out here.”

“I-I’d rather not.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Four out of five is is fine.”

“I’m sure they’ll understand,” you agree.

“I’m sure they’ll be glad.”

“Keith-” you start, knowing he already felt hyper aware of how his appearance had changed. Before, it hadn’t really ever come up outside of the team. No one would tell and if Keith wasn’t vocal about it…now everyone in the entire universe probably knew.

There were rebel Galra, mostly in prisons and work camps. Feelings varied.

“That’s not true,” you say, not sure if it was true, “you helped free them.” You shift your weight onto your other foot, “there’s a few assholes everywhere.”

He gives you a long look. “The Galra enslaved all these people.”

“Pfft,” you wave off, “you look like one sixteenth Galra. And-”

“They stare.”

“Because you’re a paladin,” you reason. “Pidge is also cranky about the attention.”

Keith sighs.

The paladin armor lies in a discarded pile.

You step forward to him, “anyone would be lucky to have you as a pilot. And Voltron sort of lucked out when the red lion chose you.”

Keith’s eyes widen as he looks at you, pink dusting his cheeks.

In for a penny, in for a pound, you lean forward and kiss his cheek, ghosting over his skin, “face marks and all.” You can’t meet his gaze when you pull away, blushing fiercely.

Why did you do that!

God, you were so dumb-

He cups your cheeks and brushes his lips over yours.

Oh! Oh.

“Is-is this okay-,” Keith starts asking.

You feel giddy, smiling before kissing him. Yeah, it was okay.

#keith kogane #vld keith #keith x reader #voltron #mine #trying this agin to see if it shows up in the tags #as usual: is this any good? #was supposed to b smut but turned into fluff

[facets-and-rainbows]

Blue Exorcist 10th anniversary book Q&A session

The 10th anniversary book has a section where Katoh answers 100 questions submitted by fans on Twitter, so here they are translated/paraphrased! May contain manga spoilers up to the recent flashback arc, so be warned.

(Note that I’m playing it very fast and loose here because there are A HUNDRED OF THEM, so not exact wordings, but it should capture the gist. Lemme know if there are any you want elaborated on)

1. Katoh likes the feel of traditional drawing more than digital but is impressed with how far digital has come

2. Meph THOROUGHLY ABUSES spacetime to watch all his shows and ensure that he gets all the merch he wants

3. Did the girls take all of Yukio’s school uniform buttons in middle school? Yes, they did (apparently it’s like A Thing for girls to ask for a button from their crush at middle school graduation, based on some sad movie from the 60s where a guy who got drafted as a kamikaze pilot gave a girl one of his uniform buttons to remember him by)

4. Rin's tail is about a meter long

5. There are tons of servants working at Mephisto's mansion. Belial is in charge of them

6. Katoh borrows from all sorts of neat real locations when making settings

7. Katoh identifies with pretty much all the characters the most! Except Lucifer.

8. Demon designs she's proud of include the impure king and hachirou, pretty much anything that was the main one in an arc

9. Katoh lists a bunch of her favorite musical artists/music she’s listening to recently: King Gnu, Official Hige Dandism, Kenshi Yonezu, BAD HOP, Sakanaction, Keyakizaka 46, Hypnosis Mic, Aimer, B’Z, Queen Bee.

10. Awww the rabbit manga that characters are often reading isn't just Robo to Usakichi, it's an even older one that she drew as a little kid

11. She likes industrial style interior designs

12. Rin and Yukio alternated who got the top bunk growing up, because they couldn't agree on it lol

13. Katoh cares a whole lot about panel layouts and speech bubble positions, might even be her favorite part of the process (it shows!)

4. Katoh does NOT have a mashou, lol

15. Rin has probably been practicing in secret so he can learn to carry stuff with his tail

16. Izumo probably got into shojo manga around 1st grade, her mom had some around the house

17. Specialty dishes: Rin - lots of stuff but especially nabe Yuri - stuff you can throw together quickly Shiro - stuff he learned from Yuri and/or cookbooks, alongside teaching Rin Yukio - Does. Not. Cook.

18. Can't pick a favorite place she's been on research, but there's no place like Japan

19. Kinzou's band isn't currently meeting because demons, but he's probably still thinking of new songs

20. Hardest characters to draw: anyone with detailed flowing hair. Hardest to write for: Lightning and Gedouin. She had to go read books about serial killers specifically for material for Gedouin, lol 

21. Suguro actually gets a dorm room to himself, though allegedly Yukio is technically assigned as his roommate, lol. Didn't end up that way what with Yukio being a teacher and also Rin’s whole...situation

22. Shiemi makes some of her own hair accessories! Cute

23. Katoh doesn't mind if you include stuff with fan letters but check with the editor first

24. Time for making each chapter: Planning/storyboarding: 1-5 days. Sketching: 3-5 days. Drawing/inking: the rest. Just...the rest of the time

25. Neither Suguro nor Izumo have dated before and neither is currently dating. But that's probably just because things were hectic for them! It could happen

26. Yukio breaks 5 or 6 pairs of glasses a year, someone get this kid a strap or something

27. How many spare glasses does Yukio have? Check the fanbook lol it's in there (dang it Katoh)

28. The demon she wants us to pay the most attention to is Lucifer. Because plot.

29. What's under the Order's big meeting table? It's a BOTTOMLESS PIT and if you fall in it you DIE that's what makes it COOL (laughs)

30. What are the job requirements for the angelic legion? Literally just Arthur liking you and inviting you to join

31. She WANTS to do more character profiles but just hasn't gotten to it

32. Rin's tail feels like a cat tail, texture wise

33. The "red Assiah fire" is literally just actual fire nothing special

34. Rin's current hair color is light blue fading to white at the ends

35. Thoughts on Rin's growth: she likes that he stays positive in awful situations and she also thinks it's very main character of him to face the past instead of avoiding it

36. Mephisto didn't purposely surround Rin with stuffed animals when he woke up after going crispy. Mephisto's bed is just Like That

37. Kurikara was based on a cool sword she found in a sword book, but that one was technically just a ceremonial sword. The symbol on it us a Sanskrit letter kaan (sp?) associated with Fudou Myouou

38. Kuro can communicate with normal cats and hangs out with them often

39. Sometimes Shiemi's skirt is extra fancy around the hem what's up with that? Apparently it's an optional accessory that comes with the skirts help I haven't noticed this and don't know any fashion terms in any language

40. When coloring, Katoh always tries to have an overall theme in mind ("emphasis on blue" etc) so it comes together in the end

41. Yes the twins are genetically related to Shiro because of Goro (she says they're like his nephews but I say GENETICALLY at least they'd be indistinguishable from his children)

42. Strongest mom of all the strong moms around here? Yuri! Did you SEE her give birth??

43. Are you careful about your own health Katoh-sensei? Not particularly! Her mom has had to bring her food at work sometimes! Don't do this at home kids

44. At the dating events Shura goes to, does she drink cocktails in moderation? Yeah, she probably downplays her normal drinking habits at these things. But normally she's down for just about any kind of drink

45. Lucifer just really likes oysters okay

46. How many pages of manga does Katoh draw in a day? If she's being good about self-care: three. Maximum number ever: TEN

47. Mephisto is one of those folks who can eat like a garbage compactor and never gain weight. Possibly because his body resists that sort of change the same way it resists aging etc

48. First food Rin cooked: fish burger type patty. Yukio's favorite things Rin cooks: fish simmered in soy sauce, yellowtail with daikon radish. It's fish all the way down

49: Did Rin ever get more monthly allowance from Mephisto? It doubled! He gets TWO 2000 yen bills now (rip) [T/N: That's uh, that's USD $37.26 a month or 33.10 euro]

50. Why isn't Rin more popular with the girls? He gets nervous talking to them, plus he's too oblivious to notice even if he DID have some fans

51. Why change Suguro's hair? She gets bored with keeping everything the same, and she wanted a visual representation that he was getting serious and going into kind of a training arc

52. Things Katoh pays extra attention to when drawing: trying to capture the feel of whatever she's drawing (like "that looks warm and soft" or "I bet that guy stinks" cough Lightning cough)

53: Does Rin take after Yuri more? (He's got her eyes!) Katoh tried to draw Yuri so she looks like both twins. Personality, too - Yukio has her smarts and Rin has her optimism

54: Do you ever wanna be like Mephisto? Well she'd like to be able to get away with just ANYTHING EVER, but no, let's not be like Mephisto

55. Konekomaru not only carries around a cat toy in case he meets any cats, he MAKES cat toys to carry around based on what he thinks the cats would like

56. How'd you come up with Shima? Go read the fan book!

57. Do the kids have Twitter/Instagram accounts? Rin - probably not. Konekomaru might be on some social media. Paku and Izumo are totally on instagram

58. Is there something Rin makes that you wish you could try? All of it! That's the whole idea! He's good at cooking!

59. Will we ever have a (G-rated) reveal of what ALL of Mamushi and her family's tattoos look like? Maybe! She'll think about it

60. Does Arthur have a repertoire of different hairstyles? Not really, he just puts some of it up on the top. Heck he might even have people to do that for him

61. If you wrote a shojo manga what would it be about? She'd have to do a lot of research before even coming up with a story, since there are so many style differences between the genres aside from just the subject

62. The other two of Mephisto's top 3 favorite foods: Cup ramen and....f-fried bubblegum?? Is that a THING???

63. Where do you start when drawing a character? Usually the outline of their face but if it's a complex pose/composition she'll start with whatever's in the foreground (like hands)

64. If Katoh could have a familiar, what demon would she choose? Mephisto. As the all-powerful author, she might actually be able to command him as a familiar!

66. If you swapped Yukio and Rin's relationship around what would change? not much, you'd pretty much have Rin going to the Illuminati and Yukio going to the past

67. Top 3 foods/souvenirs to try in Kyushu? Well she doesn't know what’s good CURRENTLY but when she was there she always used to like burdock tempura udon, hakata torimon (a kind of manju with white bean paste inside), and Chikae style cod roe. today I learned Katoh went to high school in Kyushu

68. Katoh listens to music a lot while she's storyboarding, then when she and the assistants are all drawing and inking they put various videos/movies and stuff on in the background

69. For all his hitting on girls, is Shima actually popular with the ladies at all? He's got enough girls in his life that he probably COULD find a girlfriend if he really wanted, but the double agent thing tends to get in the way. He still wouldn't be as popular as Yukio though (side thought/translator’s note: Shima would be proud of being number 69.)

70. Katoh has the ending planned out in a big-picture way, but there are still a few details here and there that she's fretting over

71. It's cute when the boys put their ties over their shoulders when they're working on something! Where'd that come from? She just figured a tie might get in the way and that seemed like a realistic way to get it out of the way

72. Looks like Yukio is getting some facial hair! What about Rin? They're both about the age for it, but maybe Rin can't grow a beard yet. Maybe a little peach fuzz here and there

73. Katoh's favorite blue exorcist merch? There were some exorcist licenses a while back, and the exorcist pins. Basically it's really cool that these little accessories she drew ACTUALLY EXIST NOW, LIKE YOU CAN HOLD THEM IN YOUR HANDS

74. Okay realtalk how long do we have left, I don't want the series to end yet? We're solidly in the second half by now but it's not, like, ABOUT to end yet

75. Katoh would be a Knight meister, based on what characters she likes to play in games and such

76. How many people in the whole exorcism cram school? More than you think! She doesn't give a number but apparently licensed exorcists also attend classes for new meisters, etc, so there's a wide age range attending

77. How's Arthur feel about, like, studying Taming on the way to becoming Paladin? He's at least mostly accepted that you have to use demons to fight demons effectively

78. Konekomaru started wearing glasses in his first year of middle school, so like 7th grade (more recent than I thought!) He has one spare pair, in contrast to Yukio lol

79. Katoh's current obsessions? Ghost/scary stories! She's even been going to live readings of them recently

80. Media Katoh consumes for inspiration? A wide range of foreign teen drama, horror/suspense, shojo manga, light novels, anime, etc. Special focus on things where two boys are in conflict or there are brothers involved

81. If they weren't exorcists what jobs would they have? Rin - chef. Yukio - doctor. Shiemi - uh, florist?

82. Inspiration for the design of True Cross Town? Katoh and her assistants gathered up a bunch of references, picked out stuff they felt matched the tone, and mashed them all up together

83. Did you use any references etc for the school/exorcist uniforms? She says she probably should have but she just kind of made them up before publication

84. Favorite part of drawing? For color pages, picking out a color scheme. For black and white, drawing in all the little details (though she doesn't always get time to lately)

85. Once again confirms the demon kings' weird hair is a representation of their horns. ADDS THAT PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SEE DEMONS CAN'T SEE THE WEIRD HAIR

86. Now that Yukio's at the Illuminati, where's he gonna get his Jump SQ and spare glasses? Well he probably never planned to stay for long, but hey it's a big ship and they might have an optometrist and/or newsstand there

87. Do you base the demon characters on any references etc? Not really, she just gets a general idea of popular demon designs and then makes up her own in her own style

88. Merchandise Katoh personally wants to have made: stuff that an adult could just use in their day to day life. Also, it's not gonna happen, but if her favorite figure brand made AoEx figures she could die happy

89. If Beelzebub's host body was a beautiful woman, how would Shima react? Would the womanizing win out over the bug phobia? Katoh replies that Shima would probably just faint from being near a girl that pretty, before the bugs even got involved

90. Will the twins ever get to smile and eat dinner together again?? We'll just have to wait and see!

91. What do you check at a "scenario check"? what's a scenario check man I dunno They check for people being out of character or the setting feeling off. They had a lot of these checks for the anime, but they also do them for the drama CD, games, and all that other stuff where multiple authors are involved

92. Why does Shura use baldy as an insult for people who are clearly not bald? She feels like they have some kind of metaphorical, mental kind of "baldness" and she's calling them out on it. Whatever that means

93. After Blue Exorcist ends, what do you want to draw next? She has SO MANY IDEAS, SO MANY

94. Did Katoh make up the Shinto chants that, for example, Izumo used against Gedouin? They're assembled from bits of actual Shinto prayers according to what feels right in the scene

95. Yukio reads the Jump SQ, right, and, just hear me out here, he likes gag manga, right? Does this mean he reads Salaryman Yukio? It's something he would read, but let's say that in the AoEx universe there's just a very similar manga that he finds oddly relatable

96. What do Yukio and Shima do in their free time on the Dominus Liminus? oh my god you guys this ship has so many amenities.  Yukio probably spends time reading in the library, which they totally have. There's also, like, a gym, and a movie theater, and a THEATER theater, all of which are free. Shima probably hangs out at the pool (!) and goes to the movies, and hits on illuminati girls, lol

97. Easiest character to draw? The ones with boring simple hair, lol. Lightning gets an honorable mention for ALSO not having eyes in most shots, but Rin wins--he was specifically designed to be easy for Katoh to draw because that's what you want in your main character

98. How do demons understand gender? They just possess whatever feels like the best match to how they feel in Gehenna, whether that's a man, or a woman, or a rat, or whatever

99. Where do you start when you're coming up with a story? She starts with character design and how the characters relate to each other. Currently she's just continuing an existing story, so she works on splitting up the overall plot into episodes and fleshing it out with scenes and information about characters

100. When do you feel most happy? She honestly feels like she lives a very happy life overall. Mentions noticing a lot of little things, like how nice her cats' heads smell when she cuddles them or taking a nice cold refreshing drink of water. There's happiness in everything. aww.

#blue exorcist #interview #Ao no Exorcist #translation

[eastofthemoon]

A Paladin in the Fire Nation

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

Rating: PG

Series: Voltron Legendary Defender/Avatar the Last Airbender

Summary: After the fight with Zarkon, Shiro accidentally gets tossed into another reality where humans have the ability to bend the elements. His best shot at returning home is with someone called the Avatar, while he waits he might as well take on the job of being the Firelord’s bodyguard.

-----------------------------------------------------

Zuko was silent as Shiro told them his story. He tried to keep an open mind these days and being close friends with the Avatar had caused Zuko to experience very strange things.

However, Zuko did have limits and Shiro’s tale was pushing them to the extreme.

“So you’re from another universe,” Sokka said slowly. “Where you go into space inside ships in the shape of lions, who are sentient and can become on a giant ship shaped like a person called Voltron, and fight an empire run by beings called Garlic.”

“Galra,” Shiro had corrected as Iroh poured himself another cup of tea, “but yes.”

“And you got here because your lion accidentally sent you here while you were fighting the emperor,” Toph added.

“Correct,” Shiro confirmed.

Toph and Sokka turned their faces to Zuko, likely waiting for his reaction. Zuko took a deep breath. “That is an..interesting tale.”

Shiro raised an eyebrow as Zuko stood and tucked his hands into his robes. “Toph, Sokka, may I speak with you in private for a moment?”

“You can use my bedroom and shut the door,” his uncle offered and by the sound of his tone had been expecting it.

“Thank you, Uncle, we’ll just be a moment,” Zuko said briskly.

Toph and Sokka followed close behind while Zuko was being very careful to not say a word until they were all inside and he shut the door.

“I’ll be the first to say it,” Zuko said as he turned to his friends, “he is insane, right?”

Much to his shock, neither of them instantly agreed. Instead, Toph was silent and Sokka waved a hand back and forth.

“Ehhhh, maybe but my gut is telling me no,” Sokka replied.

“You’re kidding,” Zuko said in disbelief. “Did you hear what he said? There’s no way for it to be true.”

“But that’s the thing,” Sokka said as he paced. “Look, a real criminal would probably try to come up with a reasonable explanation. Why would Shiro tell us that story unless it is the truth?”

“You’re saying it’s so crazy it has to be true?” Zuko asked.

“Exactly,” Sokka said with a nod. “Why even bother with telling us about giant lion ships if he assumed we wouldn’t believe it.”

“I’m with Sokka,” Toph said. “I monitored the guy’s heart during the whole time he talked, he’s not lying.”

“He could be good at lying,” Zuko argued. “You told me Azula is able to pass it.”

Sokka raised an eyebrow. “You honestly believe that Shiro guy is at Azula level of lying?”

Zuko opened and shut his mouth. He hadn’t even known Shiro for a day, but he had seemed confused by the interrogation earlier. It was possible the man was a very good actor, but still…

“It would also explain why his armor is so odd,” Sokka added, “and his arm too. Not even Teo and his dad have designs that advanced.”

“Plus, Iroh is taking him seriously,” Toph added. “That should say something too.”

Sokka touched Zuko’s shoulder. “Be honest, what do you feel in your gut about Shiro?”

Zuko shut his eyes. “My common sense is saying he’s delusional,” he sighed, “but my gut says he’s telling the truth.”

“So we are all in agreement then,” said Toph with a shrug. “Now what?”

“How about we start by telling Shiro we believe him?” Sokka offered.

Zuko nodded as he turned around and led them back. Iroh was pouring another cup of tea while Shiro watched them come back with concern in his eyes.

“We believe you,” Zuko stated and sighed. “Although a large part of me is calling me crazy for doing so.”

“I don’t blame you,” Shiro said with a nervous chuckle. “I would have a hard time in your position.”

“So then spaceman,” Toph said as she sat next to him, “how do you think you can get back home?”

“Yeah, if this Black Lion sent you here by accident can she just take care of it,” Sokka said as he and Zuko took their seats.

“I wish it were that easy,” Shiro said, “but I’m too far away for her to help even though I can still hear her.”

Zuko froze as he tilted his head. “You can..hear her?”

“In my head,” Shiro said as he tapped forehead. “We paladins form a connection with our lions and it allows us to communicate them with our minds.”

“I see,” Zuko said, trying to keep his voice calm while he felt his common sense glaring at him. What have I gotten myself into?

“Right, okay,” said Sokka who also sounded unsure as he crossed his arms. “Only person I can think of to help you is Aang.”

“That is what I was suggesting when you three entered,” Iroh said as he sipped his tea. “Since it sounds like at least some form of the Spirit World is parly how you came to be here.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call the Astral Plane a spirit world,” Shiro replied as he rubbed his neck, “but I can’t deny it isn’t that either.”

It certainly felt like a place where spirits could dwell.

Toph sucked the air between her teeth. “Yeah, well, you’re going to have to wait awhile since Aang is dealing with settling some disputes over in the Earth Kingdom.”

Zuko sighed but nodded. Some of the towns had been former Fire Nation colonies that had been given back, but the previous Lord it had belonged to had died and so his twin sons were currently arguing on who the towns now belonged to.

“He is supposed to come straight here when he’s finished,” Zuko replied firmly, “but it’s hard to tell how long as it takes.”

“I see,” Shiro said with a sigh. “If you can recommend where I can stay I would greatly appreciate it.” His frown tightened. “Also possibly where I can make some money since I have nothing to pay-”

“No need for either since you’ll stay here as our guest,” Iroh said.

Zuko choked slightly as he shot his uncle a look. We barely know him and you want him to stay in the palace?

Iroh slightly glanced at Zuko before sipping his tea. “Given your circumstance, I’m sure our GENEROUS Firelord would be more than happy to accommodate you until we can figure out how to get you home.”

Zuko twitched an eye and wanted to argue, but Sokka grabbed his shoulder and whispered into his ear.

“I get your concern, but it’s probably better if he stays here since I doubt we want a ton of people finding out we got a person from another world just dropped into our laps,” Sokka muttered.

Zuko frowned, but gave a slow nod. A lot of people would dismiss it, but there were a few that would probably try to use it to their advantage and there were a few former FIre Nation nobles he rather kept that information away from.

“Alright,” Zuko said as he tucked his hands into his sleeves, “although we’ll have to think of an explanation as to why I’m suddenly treating the intruder as a guest.”

“Just say it was a prank I pulled that went wrong,” Toph said with a shrug.

Shiro raised an eyebrow. “You expect the guards to believe that a mysterious intruder was all just a prank pulled by you?”

Zuko narrowed his eyes before sighing and massaging his forehead. “After the Badgermole and Groundpecker incident, they would.”

Shiro blinked. “The what?”

Sokka sighed. “Don’t ask, trust me.”

Zuko nodded in agreement.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Once Zuko had announced Shiro was a guest, he and Sokka escorted Shiro to a guest chamber. It wasn’t nearly as big as Iroh’s room, but Shiro was just grateful to not have to return to his cell.

The rest of the day passed by rather quickly. Iroh told Shiro he would get him some more clothes in the meantime, and Zuko had his armour returned to Shiro. He assumed it was a lost cause, but Shiro attempted to see if he could contact the paladins through his helmet. Much to his chagrin, all he heard was static.

It was killing Shiro to not be there with his team. They were probably all worried if he was dead, Keith especially. Shiro hated that he was putting him through this again, but it wasn’t as if he had a choice.

He briefly wondered if the Black Lion could just send a message that he was still alive, but Keith’s connection with the Black Lion wasn’t deep enough for that yet. Which meant, all Shiro could do was wait and hope this Avatar would be able to get him home.

Shiro tried not to dwell on this as he ate dinner. Zuko and Iroh had other duties to attend to, but Sokka and Toph joined him. They were energetic, but they seemed to be good kids. Truth be told, Sokka reminded him a lot of Lance, and he wasn’t sure if the two met if they would get along or butt heads as a result.

Shiro didn’t stay with them long. He was exhausted both from the day, and it hadn’t even been a full 24 hours since his life or death battle with Zarkon. So, Shiro went to bed early.

It hadn’t taken long for him to sleep, and it would have been restful if not for the nightmare.

Shiro was back at the Castle of Lion. He wasn’t sure how, but it was wrong.

The lights were off and everywhere there was nothing except darkness.

And no sign of any of his friends.

Shiro ran through the halls. “KEITH! PIDGE! ALLURA!”

He called out but no one responded.

“HUNK! LANCE! CORAN!” Shiro ran through the endless hall. “ SOMEONE ANSWER ME!”

He reached the control room and barged inside.

Shiro froze.

Allura, Coran, and all of the paladins lay motionless on the ground.

The only one who was standing was Zarkon as he wiped the blood off his sword.

“You took too long to come home, Paladin,” Zarkon scoffed as he slowly approached.

Shiro told his feet to run, but they remained planted. His body wouldn’t move.

“Your friends are dead because of you,” Zarkon continued as he raised his sword. “Now you shall share their fate.”

The sword lowered for his head.

Shiro gasped for air as he sprang up in his bed. Sweat dripped off his forehead as Shiro felt his heart pounding in his chest.

“Just a dream,” he muttered to himself. “Just a dream. They’re alright.”

For now, he thought darkly. But they could get killed tomorrow while you're stuck here all nice and safe.

Shiro grip tight on his bed sheets. Once he felt his heart calm down, he scrubbed his hand over his face.

“No way I’m going back to sleep,” he muttered.

If he was back at the castle, he would do some reading or go to the training room for practice. Shiro sighed as he tossed off the sheets.

I’ll go for a walk, Shiro thought. Maybe I can find a quiet place to do some training exercises.

He threw on some clothes and went out into the hall. Shiro headed towards the gardens. Iroh had said he would be free to go there and it seemed the most likely place where Shiro could be alone. He couldn’t see anyone being there this early.

The sun was just starting to rise as Shiro ventured outside. He didn’t see anyone in the garden, except for the ducks in the pond.

At least Shiro thought they were ducks.

The creatures certainly had heads and bodies of ducks, but upon closer inspection they seemed to have turtle shells on their backs.

“Turtle ducks?” Shiro muttered as he kneeled.

A small turtle duck glanced up curiously at him and quacked.

“You are actually not the weirdest creature I’ve ever seen,” Shiro admitted.

The turtle duck tilted it’s head, and then quacked once more before swimming away.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Shiro said with a grin.

“What are you doing here?”

Shiro jumped slightly, and rose back up as he turned around to see Zuko.

He looked different. Zuko’s hair was loose and not as neatly tied up like earlier, and he seemed to be wearing more casual robes.

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Shiro said as he rubbed his neck. “I couldn’t get back to sleep and was looking for a place to train.” He then gave a frown. “Why are you up so early?”

Zuko’s eyes narrowed. “I am a firebender, and thus the optimal time to train is when the sun rises.”

“QUACK!”

Zuko froze.

Shiro glanced downward.

A small turtle duck quacked again before using its beak to tug on Zuko’s pant leg. It was only then Shiro noticed a small piece of bread in the Firelord’s hand.

Zuko sighed as he kneeled and tore off a piece of the bread.  

“It..is also the best time to feed the turtle ducks,” Zuko muttered while blushing.

Another quack was heard when the turtle duck snatched the bread, gobbled it up and spirited towards the pond.

“I see,” Shiro said as he did his best to repress a smile, but couldn’t resist a small chuckle.

Zuko glared. “You find this funny do you?”

Shiro shook. “No, no, sorry,” he said quickly. “It’s just you look like my friend Keith when I caught him feeding some squirrels.”

He thought back to it. It had been Keith’s birthday, and Shiro had taken him into town to celebrate. They had ended up wandering into a park. Shiro had gone to get them some ice cream, only to discover Keith had been tossing some peanuts towards a squirrel.

Shiro may have quietly taken a photo on his phone before Keith realized he had been caught and blushed bright red.

Zuko frowned in response. “You mean rabbit squirrels?”

Shiro’s chuckles paused as he tilted his head. “Um..no squirrels.”

Zuko raised an eyebrow as the turtle duck finished the rest of the bread. “Your world must be very weird.”

Shiro held up his hands. “Look, I didn’t mean to invade your privacy. I’ll just leave.”

Zuko tossed the rest of the bread to a nearby duck and dusted the crumbs off his hands.

“It’s fine,” Zuko said as he stood. “I was about to leave anyway. There’s paperwork I wanted to get taken care of. You can use the garden if you like.”

“Um, thank you,” Shiro said, “and not just for the garden, but for also letting me stay here.”

“I’m not the one you should be thanking,” Zuko said as he crossed his arms. “That should go towards Uncle, Sokka and Toph for convincing me.”

“But it was still your decision in the end,” Shiro replied. “I realize it can’t be easy letting a stranger into your home.”

“It’s not,” Zuko said as he crossed his arms. “Frankly, I’m still suspicious of you.”

Shiro suddenly thought of Keith, who he knew would have had the same response as Zuko.

“Why are you smiling?” Zuko asked.

“Sorry,” Shiro replied. “You just remind me a lot of my friend Keith. He would have agreed with you.”

He couldn’t resist wondering if the two would get along.

“Then your friend is smart,” Zuko said as he turned his back to Shiro. “I’ll send a servant to fetch you when it’s time for breakfast.”

“You don’t have to-” Shiro began, but paused.

There was a metallic glint shone in the bushes. Why would there be-

Adrenaline and panic struck as Shiro dashed forward. “GET DOWN!”

He shoved Zuko to the ground and remained on top of him as an arrow flew over their heads.

“You okay?” Shiro asked as he and Zuko scrambled back to their feet.

“Ask our attackers that,” Zuko snapped and launched a ball of flame at the bushes.

There was a yelp and two men with scorched clothing tumbled out, one of them holding a bow.

“I don’t know who you are,” Zuko declared, “but surrender now and I promise you’ll be treated fairly.”

The archer snarled and prepared to launch another arrow.

“Oh no you don’t,” Zuko said as he charged and with fire burning in both his fists. The archer dropped the bow and pulled out a sword.

Shiro could only assume Zuko could handle it as the other attacker decided to rush at Shiro with a dagger.  He dodged, grabbed the dagger with his cybernetic arm and twisted it out of the man’s hand before kicking him away.

The man stumbled, but quickly regained his balance. He glared at Shiro, and then stomped his foot to the ground. Instantly, spikes popped from the ground and headed straight towards him.

Shiro jumped and rolled on the ground just barely avoiding the spikes. He panted as he leaned on his knees.

“Wild guess, but I take it you’re an earth bender?” he shouted.

“Oh gee, aren’t you smart,” the man sneered as he raised his arm.

A small spike rose out of the dirt, only for it to harden as the man reached for it and snapped it off the ground.

The earth bender charged again.

Shiro sprang to his feet in time to block and flip the man, but not before he felt the spike cut at his normal arm.

He hissed as blood dripped slightly.

Really wish I had my armor on right now, Shiro grumbled.

Flashes came from fighting hand to hand. Having to ignore every cut, every broken bone and keep fighting.

No, no, not now, Shiro thought as he shook his head at the memories. It wasn’t the time.

Shiro looked up. The man had crashed against a tree, but was already getting back up. A battle cry caused Shiro to look over to Zuko. The young Firelord was holding his own, but the archer wasn’t slowing down with each swipe of the sword.

“Do the world a favor and die with your father!” the archer snapped as he tried to slice at Zuko’s head, but missed as the boy ducked.

Shiro heard movement and managed to block the earth bender by gripping his wrists stopping the spike just inches away towards his face.

Shiro grunted and realized Zuko was closer to him now as an idea came.

“Zuko,” Shiro called out, “I think these two should face each other instead!”

Zuko abruptly turned, frowned and gave a nod signaling he got the meaning. Swiftly, Zuko yanked the archer’s arm, and tossed him over just as Shiro did the same with the earth bender.

It was satisfying watching the pair collide into each other and fall into the pond.

Shiro dashed to Zuko’s side. “You alright?”

Zuko brushed the hair from his eyes and gestured to Shiro’s arm. “I should be asking you that.”

Shiro glanced at his arm and gripped the wound. “I’ve had worse.”

Zuko looked ready to say something, until the attackers climbed out of the pond. Both of them were dripping wet and eyes full of fury.

Shiro and Zuko got into fighting position, but suddenly mounds of earth sprang up and trapped the attackers with only their heads poking out.

Shiro blinked, but saw Zuko glanced over and spotted Toph who was now retracting her hand.

“You guys got into a fight and didn’t invite me?” she shouted.

“It was hardly planned,” Zuko snapped.

“Whatever,” Toph muttered as she walked over to them. “Everyone okay?”

“Shiro’s injured,” Zuko replied and sighed, “and he also saved me from getting an arrow through my head.” He slowly looked up and rubbed his neck. “Thanks for that.”

“Welcome,” Shiro said as he gripped his arm, “and it’s not that bad.”

“I think a doctor will be a better judge of that,” Toph replied as she crossed her arms.

Shiro opened his mouth but was cut off by a yawn.

“Okay,” Sokka muttered as he stumbled out, “why was there such a ruckus-”

He spotted the trapped angry men, blinked and then looked to the group. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing good,” Zuko muttered grimly.

Shiro nodded. He might not be in a war, but he had landed right in the middle of a lot of trouble.

#vldgen #atla #a paladin in the fire nation #vld #takashi shirogane #my writing

[calligraphist-artemisia]

Finding Courage

Written for the Kidge Spring Event! 

Prompt 6: Edelweiss | Courage, Devotion

Summary: AU - Canon Divergence. Five years after the end of the war, Pidge finds herself wanting to go back out and see the universe with her own eyes. Luckily, she knows someone who can help with that, but only if she can find the courage to ask.

Also posted on AO3 under the username Kishirokitsune

❀ - ❀ - ❀ - ❀ - ❀

The time had come.

Pidge looked in the mirror as she ran her hands down the sides of her shirt, trying to smooth out the few wrinkles that had accumulated. She wanted to look nice, but not too nice. Lance and Hunk would notice if she was trying too hard and they would poke and prod until they were satisfied with the answer she gave, and that wasn't something she really wanted to deal with. (Shiro was likely to notice as well but at least he would be polite enough to keep it to himself.)  

Which was why she'd selected a pair of jeans, her signature green shirt (at least according to Lance), and her nicer lab coat that didn't have oil stains all over it. And while for most of their Team Voltron get-togethers she would forgo the lab coat for something nicer, she had plans to drop by the hangar where Project Lionheart was in the works to grab a few things from the lab she shared with Matt.

Text appeared at the bottom of her glasses.

Matt: I leave in 10 minutes if you want a ride.

Pidge pressed her finger to the right side of her frames. “Send message: I'll be down soon.”

Her new glasses were a labor of love that were nearly five years in the making. She'd spent countless nights trying to link it to her computer and then to get the voice recognition to work and then to devise a lightweight battery that would both hold a charge for a minimum of twelve hours while also having the capability of being wirelessly recharged. She'd wrangled Matt and Hunk into helping her, which sometimes involved 2 am conversations when she couldn't sleep because an idea wouldn't leave her alone, but she needed someone's brain to pick and see if she was crazy or on the right track.

She still had a hundred new ideas to try out for it, but for the moment it was the perfect way for her family to contact her when she was eyeballs deep in some new project. (Not to mention, it was also remarkably helpful in displaying measurements and any other schematics when she needed them.)

Pidge slung her bag containing her laptop over her shoulder and then headed downstairs to join Matt and tell her parents they were headed out.

Colleen pulled her in for a tight hug, her eyes glimmering with unshed tears. “I'm so proud of you!”

“Mom, I haven't even asked him yet,” Pidge complained, her voice muffled against her mom's shirt.

“Oh, please, like he's going to say 'no'?” Matt remarked from the doorway. He grinned at the glare his sister cast in his direction. “I'm just saying that I talk to Shiro a lot. And you know who else talks to Shiro? Keith does. Trust me, he'll be tripping over himself to agree to let you join him.”

Pidge rolled her eyes. The very idea of Keith being anything other than composed and unshakable by something she had to say was silly. Maybe it would have been different when they were younger and just starting out as Team Voltron, but not after all of their experiences during the war and throughout Reconstruction.

“You're all getting way ahead of yourselves,” Pidge said as she extricated herself from her mom's arms. “And making way too big of a deal out of this. All I'm doing is asking if I can go with him and help with the Outreach Program.”

With Kolivan serving as the interim Emperor of the Galra until he either stepped down or Reconstruction reached its ten-year mark, it had fallen on Krolia to lead the weakened, but not fully depleted, Blade of Marmora. She split the Blade into two separate but equal groups – one to continue their undercover work and root out any insurgents before they could cause too much trouble and the other a much more public branch dedicated to reaching out to affected planets and offering aid in whatever way they could.

Pidge, who felt like she was stagnating by staying on Earth and doing the same thing day in and day out, thought that going back out and seeing the universe with her own eyes was exactly what she needed. And sure, she could ask Hunk if she could tag along with his crew and he would gladly welcome her on board, but she wasn't sure she'd really find what she was looking for on a ship devoted to the culinary arts of the universe. Pidge had thought about it for a long time and, in the end, came to the conclusion that asking Keith was the way to go.

That was months ago and she'd seen him twice since then. She'd chickened out both of those times.

Because maybe she had a second motive for wanting to go with him. Something beyond wanting to explore the universe and even more of a... personal desire.

“Leaving already?” Sam asked, poking his head into the entrance hall.

Matt nodded. “Yeah, I have a few things to check on in the lab and Pidge wants to get to her meeting on time, so I figured we should head out.”

Pidge and Matt wrapped up their goodbyes and then set off to the Galaxy Garrison, where Matt dropped her off close to the Voltron Memorial before continuing on his way to the parking garage. Pidge watched him leave before she began making her way up the gleaming white stairs, which led to the top of a hill where a massive stone sculpture of Voltron stood watching over the land.

Normally the area was crawling with tourists, but once a year it was reserved for a group of 7 as they celebrated the day they first met.

As Pidge reached the top of the steps, she saw most of her friends were already there and seated at a round patio table. Shiro was smiling as he listened to whatever story Lance was enthusiastically telling, while Hunk leaned back and occasionally interjected.  Lance paused his story as she approached.

“You're on time!”

“Like you haven't been late a time or two,” Pidge shot defensively shot back. Seriously, she was late once or twice (or a lot) because she got wrapped up in something she was working for and the man would never let her forget it.

Lance grinned at her. “I was just telling Shiro and Hunk about the time you came out to visit the farm.”

“A memory I'd rather forget,” Pidge said with a wince. She sat down between Hunk and Shiro and gently set her bag down on the floor at her feet. “Where's everyone else? I figured Allura and Coran would have come with you, Lance.”

“Dropping the twins off with Romelle. She agreed to babysit,” Lance responded.

“Even after last time? Brave woman,” Hunk joked.

Pidge couldn't help but smile. The twins were Lance and Allura's 3-year-old children, Alfor and Maribel, and were a handful even for the most experienced and patient people. Romelle was practically a saint for being able to watch them on her own and Pidge wished she could know how she did it. (Maybe then she wouldn't end up covered in mud or running from bees or locked in the attic, all of which had happened during her first and last visit to the farm and was undoubtedly the story Lance was telling when she walked up.)

“You could have brought them along. I would love to see Alfor and Maribel again,” Shiro said.

Lance shook his head. “No, trust me. This is the better option. If we take our eyes off of them for even a second they'll have climbed to the top of the Voltron statue. Somehow. And good luck getting them down.”

Shiro made a sound to indicate his disbelief. “They're not that bad.”

“Yes, they are,” Lance and Pidge deadpanned in unison.

And honestly, they were sweet kids, but the amount of trouble they could get into was staggering and, in some ways, only reinforced Pidge's feelings that she never wanted to have any of her own.

Lance soon launched into a series of stories of the more interesting antics of the twins, which Allura and Coran backed up once they arrived. Pidge found herself laughing over some of the ones she hadn't heard before and because of that, she completely missed Keith's arrival via one very special cosmic wolf. He easily inserted himself into the conversation as he took a seat between Shiro and Coran – directly across from Pidge – and it was like he'd been there the whole time.

They soon branched off from stories about the twins so everyone could describe what they'd been up to since the last time all seven of them were together.

Lance and Allura, of course, had the kids and their farm on New Altea, which they ran with the help of Lance's family. In the beginning, Allura tried to split her time between them and trying to rule as Queen, but it eventually became too much and she turned to Coran for help, who suggested a council of trusted individuals to run the day-to-day duties that were necessary for the new planet to flourish. No one was surprised when he was elected Head Chancellor of the Council.

Even once things calmed down, Shiro retained his role as Captain of the Atlas, if only for the fact that he was the only one the ship responded to. The big, bulky ship didn't have much use outside of exploration and assisting with Reconstruction (sometimes by providing extra muscle for goods, sometimes just for transporting more sensitive or bulky materials), but Shiro spoke of his job and crew with pride. He even mentioned that he started seeing someone, though he wouldn't say who.

(“It's still new to both of us,” he said in response to Lance's begging. “We want to wait and see where things go before we start telling everyone.”)

Hunk had a myriad of new stories about all of the new recipes he created, as well as some of his worst failures. He had them all laughing so hard that it brought tears to their eyes at some of his descriptions. He then spoke of future plans and how he was looking to hire more chefs to help with the increased demand for their food before turning the conversation over to Keith.

“There isn't much to say,” Keith said with a shrug. “It's not like anything has changed since the last time we talked. You all know what I've been doing.”

“Are you really going to sit there and say that nothing interesting has happened to you? You're traveling with Zethrid and Ezor and yet you have no stories?” Lance asked incredulously. “Nope. I don't believe it.”

“You don't have to believe it, but it's true.”

Some things never change.

Pidge tried not to laugh as the two bickered. They only stopped because Shiro stepped in to put an end to it and then it was her turn to gloss over what she'd been working on. Project Lionheart was largely still a secret, though they'd be ready to announce its existence in a few months.

Hours bled together as the seven friends sat and talked and laughed together. Eventually, the sun began to set and Allura and Lance stood to say their goodbyes and go collect the twins from Romelle. Shiro followed soon after, giving the excuse that he had a “hot date” to get ready for, and then Coran and Hunk left together, talking about food supply and whether or not Hunk was willing to make a stop by New Altea during his next round trip.

That left Pidge with Keith.

Alone.

With no one else around to watch her make a fool of herself.

“Are you alright?” Keith asked.

Pidge jerked her head up to stare at him with wide eyes. “Y-yeah, of course! Why wouldn't I be? Everything's great!”

Keith raised an eyebrow. “You've been more quiet than usual.”

Pidge opened her mouth to protest and then immediately shut it. He wasn't wrong. She'd spent most of the afternoon trying not to blurt out her question in the middle of someone else talking and she was dying to get it over with. Finally, they were alone and it was the perfect chance, but everything she wanted to say had suddenly fled her mind.

It was ridiculous!

Keith was her friend!

Her rather handsome friend who she'd developed a large crush on, but her friend nevertheless. Talking to him was easy. She just needed to keep it simple.

“I was wondering... If I asked to go with you the next time you head out, what would you say?”

She watched as Keith sucked in a breath as her words registered in his mind, his eyes widening slightly, and then...

“I'd say that I'd be lucky to have you by my side. You're welcome to come along whenever you'd like.”

#voltron #kidge #kidgemas #kidge spring event 2021 #fanfiction #canon divergence

[corvus--rex]

Another one that's soundly asleep and not abandoned. Non-canon compliant, and all 7 of them are lgbt+ (I also may, possibly, be projecting onto Keith - just a little). And Lance is a they/them enby.

~*~*~*~

Liberating the planet Artrax was the easy part. Eliminating the Galra presence was simple. Voltron’s Paladins had done their job in securing the planet’s freedom. No different from any other occupied planet they’d been to. The Artraxians were holding a celebratory festival both in honor of the Paladins and in anticipation of joining the Voltron Coalition. Not complicated. It wasn’t something they hadn’t done many times before. And while every planet’s traditions and customs were different, they more or less knew what to expect. At least, they thought they knew what to expect. They were apparently wrong about that.

Allura dropped into her usual seat at the head of the dining table with a heavy sigh, the tablet in her hand clattering to the table’s surface. A lack of her usual composure was evident in the way her shoulders slumped, the annoyance and displeasure clear on her face. She sighed again before facing the Paladins.

“I’ve just spoken with Artrax’s leaders. They are going forward with the celebration in our honor and over joining the Coalition,” she said, heavy with exhaustion.

“I’m sensing a ‘but’,” Lance said cautiously.

“The Artraxians have a very rigid society when it comes to gender roles and sexuality. They are also insisting that, as distinguished guests, we are to dress according to their standards. At the very least I got them to agree to modify their fashions to our anatomy. But they will not back down from their views on gender. Not even for us. Alteans may not believe in those strict lines, but they do.”

“And combined with their enhanced sense of smell, especially when it comes to hormones and pheromones, there’s no way we can get around it,” Pidge noted disappointedly.

“Unfortunately. Please know that I would never ask any of you to do something that makes you uncomfortable in that way. But they would consider it a personal insult not to attend, or abide by their customs. And their trade routes are invaluable to the Coalition. I am so sorry.” Allura slumped back into her seat, gaze dropping to the table.

The room was silent for a long minute as they all considered their options and what the Artraxian societal standards meant for them. Three fifths of the Paladins didn’t identify with their assigned genders and none of them, Allura and Coran included, were straight. Hiding their sexual orientations was manageable, their gender identities far less so. Neither Lance nor Pidge in any way liked the idea of being forced into presenting as their assigned genders. After expanding their wardrobes beyond what they had worn into space, there was no telling what Lance would appear in on any given day, while Pidge’s remained as non-gendered as physically possible.

It had only been a few months since Pidge had come out to the team as agender, aromantic, and asexual. “Triple-A Queer” they had called it. They had known for some time before, but their disguise to get into the Galaxy Garrison was important to their self-imposed mission to find Sam and Matt, and so allowed everyone to believe that they were male. Lance, on the other hand, had never made their semi-fluid nonbinary identity a secret. Being bisexual and nonbinary at the Garrison had been an unpleasant experience at times, until the day when Tommy Bailey was harassing them for it again and Hunk simply appeared behind Lance without a sound, glaring. Tommy was too afraid of Hunk after that to try anything again.

While Lance and Pidge – as much as they hated it – could power through the discomfort of dressing to their physical sex, it was a little harder for Keith. He had kept it a secret at the Garrison, Griffin’s homophobia and “teasing” about Keith’s parents was bad enough. The only ones who had known were Shiro, Adam, and Garrison medical staff. He figured his life was hard enough being the gay, orphaned, golden boy without adding his trans status on top of it. His recovery time after top surgery was dismissed (by him) as having been sick, and hormone shots as being for specific, undisclosed allergies. (“Yeah, I’m allergic to being female,” he’d told Shiro with a laugh when they decided that was going to be the “official” story.)

He’d been off hormones since not long after leaving the Garrison, and told the team shortly after settling into the castle. He wanted to, but even if he hadn’t, it was going to show itself sooner or later. He’d rather they were prepared for bitchy, PMS-ing Keith, followed by angry, period Keith. It was not a side of himself he liked anyone seeing, but without access to his hormones, they were going to whether he liked it or not. He had the grace of the gods in that respect. Shiro handled it the same way he always had – from a distance and with care. Pidge was right there with him, commiserating over a bodily function neither of them wanted. Hunk had two moms and a younger sister, so he understood, even if it was from the outside. It was the same for Lance, with both of their sisters, one of whom was their twin, so they’d seen what she went through a little more closely than they’d wanted. Allura and Coran didn’t understand human reproductive cycles, but understood that it was an uncomfortable process, and did what they could.

But all that meant that he was going to be the one out of all of them in the most discomfort. It had been years since he’d had to pretend like he wasn’t in the wrong body, and now he was having to face that all over again. He knew that if they’d had any kind of leeway, Lance and Allura would be there to help him to be as comfortable as possible while stuck in a dress. But they didn’t. They were going to be in a modified version of the planet’s inhabitants’ traditional costume. None of the paladins knew what it looked like, but from how upset Allura was, it couldn’t be good.

Keith decided to rip off the band-aid. “So, what do these outfits look like?” he asked.

Allura played with the tablet she’d brought with her for a moment before turning it on. The images projected over the table were of the Artraxian people modeling their traditional clothing. Their race was in an eternal transitional period between reptilian and avian. Mostly scaled, and more closely resembling their reptile ancestors, they also had patches of brightly colored feathers and slightly wing-like arms with retractable membranes. The feathers that grew along their shoulders, forearms, and thighs were short, and nearly mistakeable for scales if it weren’t for their texture. They also had feathers that grew in a swath from forehead to neck, but these were longer, some trailing down their backs. Artraxian scale colors ranged from pale, leaf green to deep forest, those colors determined by regional origin. Unlike what the paladins would have expected of either reptiles or birds, Artraxians were a live-birth species, and so had some features more like Earth mammals, most notably two close-set rows of three breasts. Six-titted aliens was not what they were expecting. But combined with their long, thick, tapering tails and wing-arms, the paladins could see why their clothes would have to be adapted for human and Altean anatomy.

The clothing itself was as brightly colored as their feathers. It appeared light, soft, and silky, but was wrapped around their bodies like bandages, ultimately not leaving much to the imagination. Some of the wrappings were sheer, showing off the scales beneath. The females wore a two-paneled, A-line skirt over their leg wraps that ran to mid-calf, completely sheer and split at the sides to the waist. Males wore something similar, but slightly shorter and opaque. Both sexes went barefoot, no doubt a necessity due to their sharp claws. All five paladins looked over the projection with varying degrees of curiosity, anxiety, and fear.

“We’ll be providing the Artraxians with our physical measurements from here, and they will send us our…outfits,” Allura said, eyeing the female Artraxian with trepidation.

Keith was sorry he’d asked; he felt sick.

Lance was sitting directly across from him and was the first to notice it. Leaning over the table slightly, they nudged his foot. “You ok?” they asked quietly.

“No.” It was all he could get out before bolting from the room.

Shiro started to get up, but Lance stopped him. “I’ll go. No offense, but I don’t think a cis guy is what he needs right now.”

“Want me to come too?” Pidge asked.

“Maybe in a little bit. I think too many people will be too much for him.”

Pidge nodded at the same time Shiro spoke. “I’m not offended, Lance. You’re the best suited out of all of us to talk to him right now.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll call if I need anyone.”

Lance paused in the hallway, considering the possibilities of where Keith was most likely to be. Training deck? Always a possibility, but it didn’t seem as probable at that moment. He’d been genuinely upset, not just aggravated or frustrated. So not there. Holed up in his bedroom? Maybe, but it felt a little too obvious. The shock of seeing what he was expected to wear had made him bolt, and Lance knew he’d gone to ground. Ok, so not his bedroom either. The castle was not a small place, but there were only a handful of places Keith would go. If not the training deck or his bedroom, he had most probably run for his favorite of the observation decks, and that was where Lance set off for.

Walking the halls of the castle, Lance enjoyed the feeling of the soft fabric of their long skirt and fluffy cropped sweater. They liked the way the silky material flowed around their legs, and how their sweater floated and felt like it was made of clouds. It also made them think about their own coming out process. How their twin sister Rachel was the first person they’d told at age 12. Barely a month before their thirteenth birthday, Lance had taken Rachel on the short walk to the beach, to the spot away from where even the locals stayed. Their favorite place where they went swimming all summer long. Where their older siblings taught them to surf, and where their mother had shown them the constellations and sparked a love of space in Lance.

That’s where they’d gone with Rachel on a hot day in June. Lance remembered standing ankle-deep in the warm, clear water. They couldn’t look at her, too nervous about what she’d say. But looking out over the Atlantic, they’d found the courage they needed, and told Rachel everything. About how they’d been thinking about how they noticed they liked girls ok, but also boys and nonbinary people too, and considered themselves bi. It led them into talking about their own gender. That they didn’t feel much like a boy, but that they felt kinda like a boy sometimes, kinda like a girl sometimes, but mostly felt nonbinary. Lance told her that they felt like gender didn’t matter as much to them, and that while they didn’t feel the need to change their name, their preferred pronouns going forward were they and them.

Rachel had sat on the beach and listened. She thought it over while Lance was talking, and when they were done, she got up without a word, left her flip flops on the sand, and joined her sibling in the water. She crushed them in the tightest hug of their life and told Lance that they were her twin, nothing in the known universe could stop that, and that the absolute most important thing was that they were comfortable in their own skin. If there were a few tears before they left for home, no one needed to know. With Rachel firmly beside them, they told the rest of the immediate family that night, getting almost the same reaction from them as they had from their twin. Their father Diego was only a little more reserved, admitting that he didn’t understand the nonbinary part, but as long as Lance was safe and happy, that was all he cared about. By the time Lance had left Earth, Diego had come to understand what being nonbinary meant and that those five years of expressing themselves freely had been the happiest of Lance’s life.

The memory of that summer day made them smile to themselves as they walked, but also made them miss home and family all over again. With a sharp shake of their head, they remembered what they were coming up to the observation deck for. They knew Keith understood how important this party was, but being forced into that was more than enough to cause that kind of reaction. Ironically, Lance thought, the Artraxian male fashion sense was actually feminine-leaning, non-gendered by human standards and didn’t bother them as much as they thought it would, although it still did upset them. But that was them, not Keith. Especially with what Artraxian women wore, they knew how much it upset Keith. And that was why they were there. Not to try to convince him to wear it, but to be supportive. Let him know that both they and the team had his back with this. That Lance would be there for him however he needed.

Lance knocked on the door, walking in when they didn’t get an answer anyway. Keith was sitting on the floor with his arms wrapped around his knees as he watched the stars. Lance curled up beside him without looking over.

“Hey. It’ll be ok. I know it really, really, sucks, and I wish we didn’t have to do it, but we do. We’re all here for you, you know that right?”

Keith sighed, rolling his head from where it rested on his knees to look over at Lance. “I know you are. Doesn’t make it any easier. I thought I was past all that. Having to pretend to be something I'm not. It’s been hard enough being out here without even the possibility of access to my T shots. And now this. I think I would have been more ok with it if it didn’t look like that.”

“Yeah, I get that. Kinda exposes almost everything. None of us like it, even if I know Allura and Shiro are gonna look amazing in it, but Pidge and Hunk will be really uncomfortable. Hunk doesn’t like going to the beach without a shirt on unless he’s really comfortable with the people around him. And I don’t think I can even imagine Pidge in anything girly, let alone that. And even I’m not really comfortable with it. Way too much skin on display, y’know? I mean, I say this while wearing a crop top, but…” they trailed off with a soft laugh and turned to face Keith. “Really what I’m saying is that we’re all uncomfortable. I know it’s not exactly the same, but you’re not alone. If you need to stay close to one of us for the party to feel safe, it’s ok. No one will mind.”

Lance thought that the soft huffing sound that came from Keith might have been a laugh until they heard the sniffle and realized that he was wiping away tears.

“Thanks, Lance,” Keith said softly.

“Anytime, Samurai.”

It was barely a day after transmitting the team’s measurements to the planet’s surface before an unmanned shuttle landed onboard the castle. They realized that color preferences hadn’t been asked of them, and that their “outfits” were all individually wrapped in black tissue and labelled with their names. Coran busied himself with handing out the packages and sent Allura and the paladins off to change.

“Hey, Lance?” Keith called quietly.

They turned to him and immediately saw the discomfort and anxiety all over his face. “Hey, it’s ok. What do you need?”

“I think I need to call in that favor.”

“Ok. Would having Allura there help?”

Keith thought for a few seconds. “…Yeah, I think so.”

Lance turned to where the princess was making her way across the pod bay floor. “Allura, I have a question for you.”

She stopped and waited for both of them to catch up with her. “Yes? What is it?”

Lance looked to Keith first for his silent confirmation before continuing. “Keith’s gonna need some help with this. I figured you being the only girl here would help with making him as comfortable as we can.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Allow me to change and then we can meet.”

“My room?” Lance suggested.

~*~*~*~

Links to the rest of the series:

1 | 2 | 3* | 4 | 5* | 6* | 7 | 8 | 9* | 10 | 11 | 12* | 13 | 14 | 15* | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19*

#my writing #abandoned wips #klance #keith x lance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid 193

193 When Lance fell asleep, their roles had reversed. Keith calling Shiro to check in, after overhearing how they hadn’t really talked to anyone. The conversation with his brother wasn’t that long due to him not wanting to leave Lance. Knowing Krolia, whatever advice she’d given him was probably shit, though, as Lance had said, his mother was probably the closest person he could turn to advice for this. Coran may have had a pretty interesting past, but as far as Keith knew, he’d never been on the end of being pregnant. Pidge... wasn’t exactly maternal, and Allura... was Allura. She’d make a good mother... in her own way. Maybe this trip would have been better if they’d invited the others? Not so much Rieva and Matt, but Pidge and Hunk. “Keith?”Hearing Lance call his name, he forced himself out the bathroom. It was now closer to dusk than to dawn. Lance had needed time to cry out his frustrations“Hey, beautiful. How are you feeling?”“Better... thirsty... and sorry”Sorry because they hadn’t been to see his dad yet... Keith was slightly annoyed by that fact, but not mad. Lance hadn’t asked for his ego to start being a pain in the arse, and with all the stress he’d been putting himself under, he really needed the rest“Do you want some blood?”“We didn’t do my injection”Fuck. He hadn’t thought of that“Do you want to go the bathroom, and I’ll get it organised?”“Okay” It felt like nothing now to draw a bit of blood for Lance’s injections. The fear of the curse had lessened. Lance would have never tried to feed off Matt or Rieva, even in a desperate situation. But whether it be luck, or Lance’s own curse, it seemed to kill the werewolf curse before it could turn their twins. Maybe Lance had a point about some of their more careless activities? They shouldn’t be able to stand being in the same room, they both shared moments with their egos that really hurt, but he hadn’t been thinking of his own safety since turning. Just the safety of everyone they called family. Coming back from the bathroom, Lance sat beside him on their bed. Resting his against Keith’s shoulder, he sighed softly “Okay... inject away”The injection always only took a moment. In, inject, out, then Lance would rub at the healing mark. His boyfriend sighing again, overthinking things“You needed to let it out”“I know. I feel like I’ve brought the whole mood down and I hate it. You must be starving”Yep. He was. His metabolism was something crazy. The amount of food he consumed was frankly scary“I’m okay. Here, have some blood and we can think about getting something to eat”“I thought I had this planned. You know? We’d have breakfast, than go see your dad. Clean his grave up. Talk to him... A mental breakdown wasn’t scheduled”“Are they ever? Did mum help?”“She’s no Mami when it comes to advice. She said to chuck my fear out the window”Keith snorted“Right. Because it’s totally that easy. Was she okay?” They didn’t know if she was coming or not. Not with her work schedule. Keith kind of hoped she would, yet she’d made indications of it. Like, would he even recognise his father’s grave? And what did he say? “Yeah. She was her usual self. I called her for advice, but I know she was disappointed it wasn’t you”“Nah. She loves you. I think she even likes you better than me”“She’s your mum. She loves you. She’s pretty worried how this is affecting you. I could tell”“I’m okay... kind of. I’m getting there. Umm... Nothing time with my beautiful boyfriend won’t fix” Lance groaned at him“Babe, you don’t have to try so hard. It’s okay. I’m hardly beautiful... I’m like... the very definition of a wreck right now”“You’ll be okay. Here, wrist or um... neck?”“Wrist... sorry... it’s just easier in this position”“Don’t be sorry. I’m not sorry”He’d noticed something. Lance only liked to feed on his neck when they were making out or in the heat of things. His fingers when Lance was trying to be quite mid do“I am. I love you so much. So so much. I neglected your safety... and you’re still being... so good to me”“Idiot. I love you. Your hunger won’t last forever. I should have gotten some blood into while you slept... it’s bad to let your... um... levels drop”“I’ll be okay. They’re still okay... I think one of them tried to break my rib when I was in the bathroom” Keith loved hearing the twins were moving. Even when it was uncomfortable for Lance, he felt like he was hearing cute stories he wouldn’t be able to forget. He didn’t think he had the patience to be pregnant... which only made him prouder of strength Lance showed“They take after you. All silent and deadly”“Babe, I’m not a fart”Keith hadn’t thought of that, chuckling as he shook his head“I know. You smell awful in a good way. Not like my lactose farts”“Eh. They’re part of you. A couple of wads of tissue up my nose and you’d never tell”“I’ll remember that for next time. Here, eat something. Don’t be afraid if you need a little more” That was something else Keith noticed. Lance took care with the amount of blood he took from him, but the volume seemed like it would be a lot for a human. Very rarely he felt light headed, questioning if he’d be conscious if he was still human. He’d never tell Lance. He’d freak out immediately, plus fluids and a good meal had him back in shape in no time. Lance moaned as he bit into Keith’s wrist, reminding him he’d have to make more of an effort. Maybe it’d be for the best if he ran an IV line for Lance tonight, just to get his hunger knocked on the head completely. Pulling off, Lance lapped at the trails of bloodied spit left on Keith’s arm. The wounds starting to heal instantly“Better?”Catching a few small beads pushed out by the healing wound, Lance hummed “Mmm... I know this isn’t comfortable for you”It shouldn’t have been hot, but it was. It stroked his pride to provide for their boyfriend the one thing he needed above all else“I’m fine, babe. As long as you’ve had enough”“Yeah... I’m good. I’m still sorry. I think I’ve been taking more and more of late”“Nah, it’s fine. But I was thinking we should probably set you up with an IV later, seeing how little you ate today. You need to keep your fluids up”“But keeping my fluids out means I have to pee”Whining at him, Lance was too cute“I love you and your walnut sized bladder anyway”“I think it’s more like a grape at this stage. I’m sorry my ego chuckled a wobbly... and that we spent most of today in bed”“There’s nothing more that I love, than spending the day in bed with you”“Pervert. I’m serious though. I don’t want to be scared like that. I want to see where you grew up. I want to know everything about you. All of it”“You might not like all of it”“I don’t know. I think we both know that I’m like crazy stupid in love with you and all those little things that drive me crazy only make me love you more” Keith groaned softly. He’d become weak to Lance. Last real story he had left to share with his boyfriend was the night Shiro saved his arse. Lance knew most of it. Keith couldn’t remember what he’d told him, nor was he sure why he’d never told him all of it. Being on the streets had taken a toll, and the thought of a warm bed and decent shower left him going with people he already knew were no good for him. They’d offered him a good time when he’d been so completely done with fighting to be alive“Alright. How about we go get dinner and figure things out from there”“Mmmm... sounds good to me. Let me change, then we’ll go”“I probably need to freshen up too”“I hate to say it but we both kind of stink” From sweat. Under the blankets left them both sweating in their sleeps. Lance smelt deader than ever, with Keith not far off. Personally he didn’t mind stinking of Lance, but Lance felt like he needed to do more to protect Keith with things like being careful with his scent“Want to take first shower while I look for somewhere good to eat?”“Sounds like a plan... I... don’t know if I’ll freak out again”“It’s okay. If you do, we can totally go. I know we’re here to see my dad, but your safety and comfort comes first. I don’t want you to think you have to hide things from me”“I know. I won’t take too long”“Don’t go rushing. The last thing we need is for you to slip. That sounded harsher than what I meant”Lance shook his head at him“It’s okay, we both know I’m a klutz. I’ll be careful. We’ve come this far. I’m not about to risk them”“I’m worried about you, too. I don’t want you being hurt”“I’ll be fine... Let me freshen up, then you can take me out for dinner” Lance kissed Keith’s wrist where he’d fed. Keith couldn’t believe the passage of time since meeting Lance had moved so fast. It must have been a year now, or very close to a year. This time last year, he’d have thought himself turned and cursed with a single bite. The Blades really did teach some total bullshit when he stopped to consider all of things he hadn’t thought of before. He’d been such a dumb arse. Luckily he had Lance to set him straight... or not so straight... though he wasn’t sure what he was as it was Lance he loved and not only his physical body. Realising how easily he could fall into an internal debate over all of that, he gave a shake of his head. Lance said he’d let him take him to dinner, so that’s what he was going to do. *Holding Keith’s hand, the freshness of the night felt nice against Lance’s skin. Keith either hadn’t bothered looking up somewhere else to eat, or he’d been trying to please Lance, resulting in dinner at the same restaurant they’d had breakfast at. This time Lance figured out what was wrong with the place. As they’d finished dinner, the waitress had come to collect to their plates, on her arm balanced by the nozzle was a bottle of orange scented surface spray. Being a public restaurant, smells of all sorts bombarded his senses from the moment they walked. With so many scents, he hadn’t consciously noticed the orange surface spray. The fact that Sendak still held such a hold over him left Lance unable to enjoy his meal. The atmosphere of the restaurant was good, Pidge would have loved the idea of sneakily signing them up for the weekend Karaoke competition, then abusing everyone heckling her over bad singing... He missed those days. He missed not being pregnant and not fearing his scent. Heck, he missed ghost hunting. He missed watching Pidge get super enthused as Hunk prayed for it all to be over. The restaurant was the kind of place he could see himself having a few quite drinks had the place been in Garrison. The kind of place that Sal’s had been to them before he’d had to hideaway his changing body. The Lord knew he was looking forward the day they could all go out again. He was going to order the biggest, greasiest, slimiest, cheesiest pizza in existence. Maybe even have Sal get some cigarette ash in there for that true diner flavour... “Want to take a walk?”No. Maybe... He wanted to go home to bed... but he’d spent the day in the hotel room. Staring past Keith, the stars twinkled over the town as if trying to say that nothing bad could ever happen here, which was a bold faced lie if ever there was one. Keith drew strength from the moon, and both of them had eye sight sharp enough to walk around in the dark safely enough... plus... it’d give them time to get the layout of the town down... His boyfriend seemed to be oblivious to internal wavering, Lance wondering if this was his way of easing into things he either wanted to tell, or easing into seeing his father... or even a chance to cover his arse when Shiro asked how much of the town they’d gone out and seen“Sure. There’s a park a few blocks down. I saw it on the town map”“You saw a town map?”“Did you really not look this place up at all? They have a similar lay out to Garrison, which makes sense in a way... they were both trade posts at some time, though I’ve got not idea what they could have pulled out of all the sand”“I didn’t even know that much. It’s like... all I remember is the shack... all of it feels like being on another planet”Lance slid his hand into Keith’s “It’s a good thing I’m here to keep you grounded. Don’t even think about packing your bags for another planet. You’re not leaving me behind”“I’m sure that if I ever got spirited away into space, you’d be right there with me”“Yep. Probably screaming my head off the whole time too”“I think I would be too. Let’s go, I’ll follow your lead”“Don’t you always?” Keith kissed his cheek. Lance blushing lightly as his boyfriend replied “yep”, followed by two more kisses on his cheek. Lance would follow Keith to the ends of the Earth, with Keith just as happy to follow him instead. Unless one of them made the decision, they’d be following each other around in circles for the rest of their lives... That didn’t actually sound too bad... Walking down to the park, the town had a nice vibe to it. Lance felt bad for whoever was in charge of cleaning the park’s rubbish bin after his dinner decided to make a reappearance before they’d reached the toilets towards the middle of the park. Cleaning up, and using the facilities, the pair of them settled themselves down on the swings. It’d been months since he’d been on a swing set, in Cuba, yet it had to be longer for Keith. Dragging his feet in the sand to make a heart, he supposed they looked like a couple of kids up to no good. He’d seen enough memes that he knew adults missed swing sets, and he knew he definitely counted in their ranks. Pushing off lightly, the chain creaked under his weight. A memory of Veronica coming to mind from back when having a baby brother that was a vampire was something cool. He’d wanted to go higher and higher, the pegs of the swing set shaking, so Luis and Marco held it down as he swung as high as he could get. He’d been sure if he’d gotten a little higher he could have looped the chain around the top, but Papi had lost it at the four of them“You seem happy”“Mmm. I like swings”Letting the swing slow naturally, Lance grinned at his boyfriend mischievously. They had the whole playground to themselves “What about you? What’s your favourite piece of playground equipment?” Keith hummed. He’d been making a mound between his shoes, trying to keep the sand from slipping back down “I hate the monkey bars”“Oh? What’d they ever do to you?”“A shit kid at one of the families threw a rock at me because I could pull myself up to sit on top of them. It hit me in the head and I fell off backwards”“Wow. That kid sounds like a wanker”Keith nodded, expression semi serious “They were. I got in trouble for falling off”“That’s kind of what kids do though. They play and climb... it’s what kids are supposed to do”Keith sighed, before shaking his head“It doesn’t matter now. I can’t even remember their face, let alone why they through the rock”“They were probably jealous because you’re so much cooler than them. I bet you were a totally rad kid. I wish I’d known you then” Lance didn’t think about what he’d said. He felt like kicking himself as Keith mumbled “Right. The fucked up orphan no body wanted was a “rad kid””“Hey. No. No. That is not on you. Not at all. Adults are supposed to be there and be the strong ones. Not kids. I sincerely wish I could lord over every single person who hurt you, how fucking amazing you are”Keith gave a scoff of disbelief. Lance saddened that his boyfriend’s anxiety had gotten to him this badly. Climbing off his swing, the vampire wrinkled his nose at the sand pouring into his shoes as he moved to stand behind Keith“What are you doing?”“I’m going to push you?” Wasn’t that obvious? He’d waddled his pregnant arse all the way behind Keith. The only logical conclusion was he was going to push him on the swing“You don’t have to”“Maybe I want to? Maybe I want to play in the park because there’s no one else around. No bad scents. No blood. No spirits. No yucky feelings other than the sand under my socks...”“It is a nice park”“Right? Now, hold on” Pushing Keith on the swing, Keith gradually loosened up, even starting to laugh as Lance backed off and watched“You can do it, babe!”“I’m totally going to jump off, you know that, right?”“It’s like an unwritten law of swinging, seeing how far you can jump”“I think I have an advantage...”“Doesn’t matter. I’m totally challenging you to a swing off once these two are born”“That’s not fair, you’ve got wings”Lance huffed. They had a mind of their own, much like the rest of his body “Which are mostly useless. I can’t even fly around as a bat”“That’s fine. Ready?”“Go for it!” Keith jumped a little too soon, half faceplanting in the sand. With the way he landed, Lance rushed to his side to find his boyfriend laughing“Are you okay?”“I fucked that up”Kicking Keith lightly in the side with the toe of his shoe, his boyfriend rolled over, smiling like an idiot. Lance’s heart had stopped with the way Keith landed, now the idiot was smiling so happy he felt all warm inside “You had me worried!”“I guess I’m not that great at sticking the landing”“You weren’t that great at jumping. You went before the swing was at the right height!”“You make it sound like you’re training me for the Olympics” Channeling the best sports commentator voice he could, Lance’s voice wobbled slightly as he tried not to laugh at how funny he was“You don’t get at a ten-point-zero for your landing. Zero style. Very simplistic. Could this spell the end for Keith Kogane’s budding career before he even goes professional?”Keith laughed. A proper unguarded laugh. Lance feeling the luckiest man in the world to hear it “I’m being serious!”“Uh huh. Sure you are. You know, the stars are really pretty. I feel like I can see them way better than before”“That’s because all your senses increased. Werewolves and vampires are kind of night creatures”“I still don’t know how to turn into a wolf. I don’t know if it counts”“It totally does... Now, are you getting up? Or should I pick you up in the morning?”Keith patted the sand next to him“You could come down here”“Or you could come up here... I’m too pregnant to deal with sand”“Fair point. We have the whole park to ourselves... I don’t think I’ve ever really... just... you know...” That Keith hadn’t played on a playground saddened Lance. Even as an adult, playgrounds were still fun. With no one around to watch them, there was no point being responsible adults“You know, there’s a slide over there... and a flying fox...”“Babe...”Keith tried to dismiss the idea, Lance using “boyfriend” which proved very effective. Damn Pidge. She’d gone and put that back into his head at her birthday party“Come on, it’ll be fun. I mean, I probably can’t use the spinner, not unless you want to scramble the twins, but the slide never gets old”“Fine, but if we get in trouble, you’re taking the blame”Lance shrugged. They weren’t violating any laws that he knew of. They weren’t intoxicated. Nor were they committing property damage or trespassing“The lawyer in me tells me it’s going to be okay”“I’ll remember that when I get my one phone-call”“You better. Though it would be a conflict of interest to represent you, so let’s not get in trouble?” The did indeed get into trouble. Keith got wedged in the kids slide, and Lance was too tall for the flying fox, so that was disappointing. They were still messing around when the lights of a cruiser flashed red and blue, the two of them called over by a police officer who looked unable to catch them, even if they had been human. Swallowing down his fear, Lance took Keith by the hand, walking him over to the officer when Keith kept telling him they should run. Getting closer, the man clearly didn’t expect two fully grown adults to be playing in the park so late at night. “Officer, how are you tonight?”Putting on an air of responsibility, Lance felt he’d be the more convincing adult of the pair of them“I had a call about teenagers mucking around in the park. Want to tell me about it?”Keith snorted with laughter, Lance stepping on his foot to shut him up“That was us, sir. I’m sorry if we created a disturbance. We’re on holiday, you know, before the twins come, and wanted to have a little fun. I had no idea we we’re causing a disturbance” Keith tried to muffle his laughter, Lance mentally rolling his eyes at his boyfriend who was clearly upsetting the police officer. Huffily, the man asked“So I’m not going to find any of that junky paraphernalia you young people are into these days?”“No, sir. I know we might look young, but I’m 46 and my boyfriend here is 28. No drugs, or alcohol, sir”The man looked them up and down, Lance waited for something along the lines of “I wouldn’t lie to a police officer, if I was you”. Instead the man sighed“Look. You can’t be playing in the park at midnight. You’re obviously not locals. You staying at the hotel?”“Yes, sir. My boyfriend is a photographer, we’re travelling to work on his portfolio. Sorry. We wanted to have a little fun with no one around”“I’ll have you save that sort of fun for a more appropriate environment. Get in the back, I’ll give you both a ride back”Lance immediately shook his head“We’re both able to walk back...”“That wasn’t an invitation. We get a lot of blow ins for this damn Easter festival the town insists on having. The last thing I need is the pair of you thinking your entitled to cause trouble. Get in” Lance felt like a scolded school child as he did as he was told, Keith sliding in beside him, though his boyfriend still thought they should run. Clipping their belts in obediently, Lance bit his bottom lip. Maybe they’d gotten carried away? He didn’t think they were being too loud. All they’d been doing was acting like idiots. They hadn’t damaged any property... plus Keith had gotten on the spinner, which had been hilarious given how much strength he could put into a spin. His boyfriend had gotten off with shaky legs, tripped, fell in the grass and burst out laughing. Lance knew he should stay quiet, but this was a golden chance“Excuse me, have you been an officer here very long?”The man met his eyes before pulling away from the park curb“Long enough” Damn. He wasn’t giving him anything“Do you happen to know anything about the fire that took place here about 20 years ago?”Keith’s heart started racing harder. Yeah. He should have been considerate about Keith’s feelings, but this was like the perfect chance“Oh, I know about that fire alright. One dead. 250,000 dollars worth of damages. I don’t know why you’re bringing that up, but you’re best dropping it. A lot of people were hurt by that incident. Damn candle left unattended. The place went up faster than a whore’s knickers drop”“If one wanted to know about the fire, is there a local registrar office?” The office pressed the breaks suddenly, instead of gently stopping at the stop sign“Look. I’m sure you’re nice... whatever you are. But what happened that day is no laughing matter. We lost one of our own that day. It’s an ugly scar on the history of this town and I won’t have the pair of you treating it like a joke”Whelp. He’d gone and made him angry“I mean absolutely no disrespect. It’s such a horrible thing to have happened. When you saw you lost one of your own, I assume you mean an officer?” Resuming driving, the man sighed at him as if he was stupid, their eyes meeting again in the rear view mirror “No. Not an officer. One of our local fire fighters. They tried to stop the blazing jumping house, when the second floor came down. Horrible tragedy. We lost a fine man that day”“Did you know him?”“Aye, we all did. Bit of a loner. Kept to himself, especially after his missus skipped town. Heeee... had a boy from memory. Hard worker though. That boy... he was tiny thing of a kid. Still, he gave everything he could to that boy. He ended up vanishing, just like his mother. Couldn’t tell ya where she went. Up and vanished as suddenly as she appeared here. No idea how the pair of them met, and before we knew it, she was up the duff, then gone a couple of years later. Couldn’t handle the stresses of being a parent, if you ask me anything about it”“And all of this is public record?”“Bits and pieces. Look. I won’t tell you again, losing Joe hurt a lot of people here. He was a good man. Kind of man you never really knew what was thinking. But when he saw his boy, he’d light up like a goddamn Christmas tree. Loved that kid, he did. He was real torn up when his woman shot through, but never blamed his boy. We often used to wonder what happened to that kid, ah, but I suppose it’s one of those things you’d never know” The officer was letting his accent show. Keith seemed on the edge of tears“Say we didn’t want to drop it, is there anyone from around there that we can talk to about it”The man fixed him with a glare“People move on. Dredging that up again is only going to cause pain. If I hear you two are stirring up trouble because your curious over something that is none of your business, I will escort you out of town meself” That mean there were indeed people out there who’d been around at the time of the fire and may remember Keith, and his father... and that the council office should have record that’d help them place the pieces of that day together. The last few minutes of the drive was in silence. The officer having to squidge himself out the door in order to open the back door of the cruiser to let them out. The man really didn’t know what to make of Lance, he got it. He looked like a woman and sounded like a man. Some people were so damn backwards that they couldn’t accept change. Lance still opting to be polite, on the off chance they crossed paths again “Thank you for the ride. We’re sorry we caused you trouble”“Don’t let it happen again. There’s laws about these kinds of things. Consider yourselves both lucky and warned”“Yes, sir. Thank you” As the police cruiser left, Keith collapsed against him, sniffling as tears rolled down his face. His boyfriend wrapping his arms around him with a little too much force“Babe?”“He... loved me”With his arms pinned, Lance could only raise his hand enough to pat Keith’s arm “Yeah, babe. He did. I’m sorry I didn’t ask if it was okay to ask, but the opportunity to know something more was right in front of us”“He... he still went back in... he...”“He loved you. He loved you, and I know I’m not him. I could never know what he was thinking, but I think all he wanted to do was stop the fire before more people were hurt”“He left me”“Not by choice. You heard that guy. He loved you. He adored you. And he was so proud to be your dad. You... you were loved. You are loved”“Can we go back to the room?”Lance’s heart was breaking for his boyfriend. Sure, they’d learned a little and tomorrow Lance wanted to hit up the council to dig up whatever he could on Keith’s father’s past, but right now...“I was thinking the same thing. I want to hold you”“Please?”“Always, babe. Always and forever” ReplyForward

#Once Bitten #once bitten twice stupid #oncebittentwicestupid #pregnant lance #klance #vld #bottom lance #vampire lance #werewolf keith #soulmates #voltron #mpreg #laith

[maliciouslycreative]

For prompts, how about some Sheith bondage fluff?

I will admit that when I got this prompt I was like “wow, I do not want to write this”. But then I thought about it for a few days and my brain provided me with this. It’s surprisingly very silly and only rated T so I hope you enjoy!

----

There are a lot of things in Takashi Shirogane’s life that have gone tragically disastrously wrong. One would think that after being kidnapped by evil aliens, forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena, having said aliens replace his arm with an evil alien robotic arm, dying, having an evil clone impersonate him, the clone dying, a magic lion putting his spirit into the evil clone’s body, and then defeating said evil aliens by barely saving all of time and space was enough disasters for one lifetime. But apparently not. Sure most of those other things were not his fault. But this? This is a torment entirely of his own making. He has nobody to blame but himself in this. Well, maybe Keith is indirectly responsible since it is for his benefit but it was Shiro’s choice to embark on this endeavour. 

“I… I could come back.” 

Shiro drops the end of the rope he’s holding, spins and strikes a defensive pose. 

Lance drops his data pad and shrinks back. “Your door- look whatever you do in your own room is- man I should just go!” He turns and starts to head out of the room, data pad completely forgotten.

“Wait!’ Shiro races forward and grabs Lance by the arm. “It’s not what it looks like.”

Lance apprehensively glances between Shiro and his bed. “I dunno man, it looks like you’re practicing bondage on that stuffed bunny.”

Ok so maybe it is exactly what it looks like. 

“His name is Mr. Fluffy Bun Bun.” Shiro hears himself say.

“That does not make it any better.” Lance says. 

Shiro releases Lance and covers his face with his hands. “I’m so sorry. I thought the door was locked. You didn’t need to see that-”

“No I did not!”

“Why didn’t you knock?” Shiro eyes Lance suspiciously.

Lance crosses his arms over his chest and glares “I did. Like a lot. And then I tried the door and it was unlocked and then I saw that.” 

“I need help.” The request sounds desperate, even to Shiro’s own ears. 

“Having sexy times with a stuffed rabbit?”

Shiro’s eyes almost pop out of his head. “Oh my god, no! I’m practicing! To use it on Keith!” 

“Dude!” Lance makes a disgusted face. “TMI. Like way way way too much TMI.” 

Shiro pales. “You’re right. You should go.”

“But also,” Lance steps forward and studies Mr. Fluffy Bun Bun, “I think you’d kill Keith if you tried to tie him up like that. Dude’s flexible but like that is not a position that any human or galra could like ever get into.”

“I know.” Shiro says dejectedly.

“Do you have like a guide you’re following or are you just like winging it?” Lance edges closer and pokes at the rope around Mr. Fluffy Bun Bun.

“I have a guide opened but I don’t know where I went wrong.” Shiro picks up his data pad off the bed and shows Lance. 

“Ok, I guess get this rope off and let’s see if we can figure this out.”

The first attempt with the two of them together goes about as well as Shiro’s previous attempts, only with more yelling. The second goes better. Marginally. By the third attempt Shiro and Lance are feeling pretty good that they might not kill someone with how they’ve tied up Mr. Fluffy Bun Bun. Still doesn’t look comfortable though so they better try again.

“Should I even ask?”

Both Shiro and Lance spin around and stare at Keith while sporting twin guilty faces.

Keith quirks an eyebrow and looks between Shiro, Lance, and the bed. 

“It’s not what it looks like!” Shiro tries to force a smile. It probably looks terrifying by the way Keith takes a step back when he sees it.

“Shiro doesn’t know how to do sexy rope bondage and as much as you’re a pain in the ass I don’t want you to die!” Lance blurts out in a rush.

Both of Keith’s eyebrows raise and his mouth opens like he’s going to say something but he seems to get stuck. Shiro goes bright red.

“I need to go.” Lance pretty much sprints out of the room and nobody tries to stop him. 

“You asked Lance for help with rope bondage?” Keith asks, voice strained.

“I didn’t mean to, he just walked in! I wanted to surprise you.” 

“Ok, let me rephrase, you let Lance help you with rope bondage? Lance who like can barely tie shoelaces?”

Shiro hides his face in his hands. “I see your point. But he was here, and I was desperate.”

Keith walks forward tentatively and looks at Mr. Fluffy Bun Bun sprawled on the bed. “You both suck at rope bondage. If he were a real person he’d die if you tried to tie him up like that.”

Shiro walks over to the nearby desk chair and sinks into it. 

“I could show you if you want?” Kieth cocks his head towards Mr. Fluffy Bun Bun. 

“I don’t think I can tie up a stuffed bunny any more.” Shiro says dejectedly.

“Well,” Keith steps close and tilts Shiro’s head up so they’re looking eye to eye, “I could use you instead of the rabbit.” 

“Oh.” Shiro gasps. “I like that idea better.”

Keith smirks. “Alright then, cowboy. Lock the door and I’ll free the rabbit.”

“If you’re going to be the one doing the tying up, wouldn’t that make you the cowboy?” Shiro asks as he locks the door. 

“Well then, I guess you’ll just have to get me a hat.” Keith winks. 

#voltron #sheith #takashi shirogane #shiro #keith #lance #fanfic #my fanfic #replies #unforth

[aonogifreactions]

a/n: i apologize for Luci’s hc being kinda written in general! as i’ve said, i tried to write it not too long, but after amaimon i went overboard, especially with Yukio xD also, regarding Shiro’s hc: the timeline is set when the twins are 3-4 years old, so he’s quite young there. under “read more” due to the length!

✰ Characters: Lucifer, Amaimon, Shiro, Rin, Yukio (written in that order).

✰ Words: 1,3k

Lucifer:

suspicious. VERY suspicious. resists the urge to squint at his "son", so he just keeps staring at him without saying a word and blinks occasionally. even if he looks similar to him or you, he still doesn’t trust it; he might be as well a clone that’s pretending to be his child.

actually thinks it’s a prank pulled by Mephisto, since his child mentioned time traveling.

he believes it’s his actual child once he mentions something that only Lucifer and you know - for example, the initial names you planned to give to your child.

very interested in his son’s own interests - he’d ask a lot of questions and smile proudly if he announced he helps his father reach his goal; when his child doesn’t follow his steps, he just nods and asks how his studies are going (because, quite frankly, I don't think he’d force his child to join Illuminati and do stuff related to it)

as the conversation goes, he starts to notice the features he’s inherited from his mother - both in his personality and looks. it makes him feel excited to be a parent, knowing his strong genes allowed his beloved to also create a beautiful child together.

Amaimon:

confused, a lot, but he won’t question it. he just does his thing, and to be honest, doesn’t care much.

that being said, he starts to care when he realizes his so-called “child” is following him everywhere and trying to eat chips from his bag. for some reason, he lets his son take a handful of chips, staring at him and squinting menacingly.

when his son is done eating, they both just look at each other with the same blank expression.

it clicks in his head once his kid mentions your favorite brand of sweets like it’s nothing; Amaimon looks shocked for a minute, then his usual, bored expression returns.

unlike Luci, he doesn’t ask much questions, but enjoys hanging out with him as long as possible. Amai notices his son’s personality is like his, but his appearance is exactly like yours.

he’s honestly more open to the idea of having a child; In a way that he doesn’t actually mind them existing, but when they grow up, he’ll have another person to do his shenanigans with. once he gets past the diaper stage, he’s fine.

Shiro:

literally he just

when he looks back at his son, he sees him lighting a cigarette.

“well, shit.”

Shiro looks at the exact same copy of him. both in personality, and appearance as well. and it terrifies him. yet, the only reaction he lets out is a loud laugh. (thank god that “copy” has been made naturally..)

again, like Luci, thinks that Mephisto is making fun of him.

his son, on the other hand, isn’t laughing. he looks quite unsure and almost sad; that’s when he says, “it’s good to see you, old man. it’s been a while.” he doesn’t end the sentence though, wanting to say he’s glad to see his father after a few years of seeing his name only on a gravestone.

Shiro, despite being quite some time away from death, understands what his son meant to say nonetheless; he then decides to spend some time with him, asking how things are going in the future. His son isn’t very willing to talk, but he tells him in a calm voice, “there have been some bumps here and there. but I’m fine now. they’re fine, too. so you don't have to worry about that two devils, either.” and smiles genuinely; it makes Shiro’s heart melt completely because he recognizes that smile - the smile he gets to see on your beautiful face every day.

when his son was gone, he still yelled at Mephisto. Poor demon, it wasn’t his fault this time, actually.

Rin:

opens the door and screams. the person on the other side also screams. Rin’s so shocked and confused he might pass out; he manages to stay on his feet, though. (even though,, he doesn’t know why he screamed in the first place)

when he calms down a bit, he immediately notices that the person standing in the doorway looks kinda similar to him - he’s almost as tall as he is, but his eyes and hair differ a little.

the person greets themselves with the same last name, then breaks the news - “i’m your son! nice to meet you, dad! you can call me by my name or Shiro, that’s a nickname I’ve received from my friends!” he says happily, scratching nervously the back of his neck.

Rin’s expression softens a little; he sees the way he acts and is almost sure the kid is telling the truth. He invites him inside and softly closes the door.

Meanwhile Rin tried to ask if he wants a drink, his son interrupted him whilst taking a photo frame in his hands and yelling excitedly, “oh man! that’s mom?! you have a good taste, dad!” Rin just blinked at him, mumbling a slight “thanks?”.

after the initial shock has passed, his son told him a little about himself and generally, they shared some good time together. that is, until his son asked if he knows what happened to auntie Shura.

Rin tilted his head to the side, his white locks tickling his eyes; he said a confused “no..? is it... bad...?” his worry has started to risen.

“well... she got pregnant with triplets! or.. will... get...?”

Rin choked on his spit, to say the least.

Yukio:

Yukio’s been silently enjoying his coffee, quite early in the morning. After all, that’s what he deserves after that entire bullshit with satan and his eye.

Since the order allowed him to take some time off, he decided he’s gonna dedicate it for healing - both mentally and physically.

As the clock showed 8am, the sun rays hit his face harshly through the curtains - he decided to go to a store to buy some of the products you’ll use to make breakfast later.

He felt uneasy going to the store. He felt something was not right... but he ignored it, thinking it’s probably still because of the previous events. Going through the aisles and taking his sweet time, he grew even more confused, seeing that most of the products he was gonna buy is missing - they couldn’t have bought everything. Sure, lots of people left the store when he walked in, but it’s barely 8.30am.

Leaving the store with just a few products, it was hard to say he wasn’t annoyed. That’s when he felt someone tapping his shoulder, making him ultra-aware of his surroundings.

“Are ya lookin’ for this?” another male voice asked, smirking, “Sheesh, you probably look really annoyed, and I haven’t even seen your face!”

Yukio turned around, facing a male that quite resembled him - the same height, build, the only thing he was missing was glasses. Yukio, being annoyed as it is, wanted to politely brush him off, but he was interrupted mid-sentence.

“I’m Okumura. Your son, to be exact,” his features softened, eyes gazing at the pavement he stood on, “I got this stuff for you. This is what mom always needs for breakfast, right?” the male smiled gently, handing him the grocery bag. Yukio took it hesitantly.

“I know it’s all so weird, but, do you wanna maybe go on a walk with me? I like the weather today,” he fixed his [hair color]-colored locks, smiling brightly, “and I like spending time with you, dad.”

Well, Yukio’s walk to the store’s certainly gotten more interesting than he originally thought.

edits arent mine! :3

#Ao no Exorcist #ao no exorcist imagine #blue exorcist #blue exorcist imagines #blue exorcist imagine #lucifer #amaimon #Shiro Fujimoto #rin okumura #Yukio Okumura #Headcanon #Pure #queued

[alitaimagines]

“Could you do an imagine where Rin's s/o can see ghosts and sees shiro watching over the twins and one day when rin beating himself up she tells him how proud shiro is and etc? I love you😍🥰” 

rin okumura x fem! reader

fandom: ao no exorcist / blue exorcist 

note/song recommendation: requests are open! i made this into a small blurb, i hope that’s okay but I love you too!. / rise up - andra day 

Rin slammed his head into his book. You looked up to see his face holding a look of concern, agitation, and anger. It was rare for Rin to show anything outside of anger so seeing him this way worried you. 

“Rin, what’s wrong?” You asked as you set your book aside. He didn’t look at you as he remained staring at the wall. “I can’t help you through what you’re going through if you don’t tell me what’s going on.” 

Rin sighed. “What if this isn’t all worth it? What if going to the cram school along with the regular program is not worth it?” You knew this wasn’t the first time he had beat himself up about this. “I just don’t see a point but whatever. I’m going to make our dinner before it gets any later.” 

You knew when Rin got into this mood, there wasn’t much you could do about it. Rin was the kind of person who had to go through his million and one emotions before he could even take advice from someone. 

Rin set him books on his desk before walking out of his room. You sat on the bed, contemplating. Growing up with supernatural powers did have its pros and while it was no secret to Rin that you grew up being able to see the dead and their spirits, Rin never asked if you had ever seen Shiro. Of course being around Rin, you had but you never mentioned because he never asked. 

You got a few more sheets of homework done, as well as doing Rin’s, knowing he wouldn’t do his work with his mood. You knew Rin would compensate you later for it. 

The homework for Yukio wasn’t exactly easy so it took you a while before finishing it up. After doing it, you quickly wrote the answers into Rin’s homework, making sure to scribble it so it made it look like he wrote it before shoving it into his backpack. 

Being that Yukio was out on Exorcist duty, he wasn’t supposed to return until the late hours of the night and you basically had Rin to yourself until visiting hours finished. 

You walked out of his room and made your way slowly towards the kitchen. Rin usually played music while he cooked but as you crept closer to the kitchen, you heard no music. 

Before you could even enter the room, you seen Shiro looking at Rin while he cooked. You gave him a smile as he watched you walk into the kitchen. Being able to see spirits had their downfalls as well. You were only able to see their spirit for a few minutes at a time unless the situation was extremely dire. 

The way you heard spirits talk to you was completely different story. You heard it through the air and while that sounds extremely unbelievable to the average human, you knew the kids in the cram school believed it. 

“Tell him he’s doing great.” 

You gave Shiro smile as you nodded and watched him vanish. You slowly crept towards Rin and wrapped your arms around his waist. 

“Hey, how are you feeling?” You asked as felt him shrug. “Well, I heard a little birdy tell me that Shiro is proud of you.” 

Rin whipped around and looked at you. “How do you know?” Rin asked. You gave him a look, as a silent indication of your supernatural ability. He gave off an emotional sighed, like tears were on the brink of spilling. 

“Listen, I know since your father passed its been hard for you but Shiro didn’t die for you to fail. It’s not going to be easy, I know but you have to push for it to become easier.” You mentioned as he nodded. You pushed Rin’s head up, wiping a few stray tears away. “Shiro died protecting you but now you have to make sure he didn’t die for no reason.” 

Rin nodded again as you gave him a hug. “Now how about you finish up cooking and we can eat before watching some television?” Rin nodded, giving you a quick kiss before turning back to the food in front of him.

ALITA 

#Ao no Exorcist #ao no exorcist imagine #ao no exorcist x reader #rin okumura #Rin Okumura x reader #rin okumura imagine