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poor-sickies · 5 months

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irreconcilable differences

Read my post first! - TLDR: I'm releasing unfinished drafts!

Long prologue, fic is under the cut! (sorry about that)

Okay, I’m not sure if I’ll continue this or not, but it has been sitting on my drafts for literally five years, has gone through many edits, and I just want it out. Will I ever finish it/edit it? Maybe. If I do I’ll put it on AO3. If not, have this unfinished version. Edits were very inspired by my bf’s elbow surgery - things like this always make me wonder if the universe wants to curse me for writing whump, or urge me to keep doing it.

I swear this one will be the death of me. There’s fanart and everything. I might post it one day.

Initial goals with this one: This is a fanfic that started out as me just wanting Keith really miserable, and just wanting to grasp the concept of a nearly permanent injury. He broke his arm really badly, he knows how bad this is. In the back of his mind, he’s worrying if his arm will still work after recovering. Then I decided to turn it into angst - Keith living with the blades and “running away” from voltron, Pidge knowing about his kamikaze moment at the end of S4, Shiro finding out about that, and just putting everyone in a room to deal with their emotional stuff. Just angst in general. Ends with Keith writing to Shiro after a huge fight, sort of apologising and updating on his medical state. This is also the fanfic of Shiro yelling at Kolivan about the Blade’s protocols, which took me five years to get one single scene that I liked. It plays around with the Blade’s modus operandi and morals, and Voltron’s own view on that - and how much they might disagree, which I feel could have been something to explore in the show.

Plot: Set during S4 and S5. Double (or triple?) agents screw up with Marmora mission, also interfering with a Voltron mission. Stuff blows up where it wasn’t supposed to blow up, and Keith gets badly injured. Shiro wants to get to the bottom of this, so he sort of interrogates Keith soon after he wakes. Meanwhile, Pidge is sulky at Keith, as she knows he was about to off himself a while ago, and a difficult conversation ensues. Mission - it was a small Voltron Coalition outpost - the “blade members” had sent a message, warning Blades that the outpost was getting attacked by the Galra (this is an important, strategic outpost, and it’s important that the Galra don’t get it). They call specifically for high rank backup - that means Kolivan, their original target. But Keith goes instead, while Kolivan had stayed behind for some reason. When Keith goes in, the outpost is already taken over, and he’s attacked by the double / triple agents. Keith sends a message, but Kolivan doesn’t receiveit, because the comms were sabotaged.

There’s more, this is part one, I suppose. I have more written, but I need it to be more intelligible before I post it.

Keith feels himself being manhandled in and out of the ship by Kolivan, legs moving on its own accord, and not very efficiently, judging by Kolivan’s arms wrapping around his back tighter to keep him up. There’s voices around him, frantic, stressed, but he can’t make out the words. His ears are still ringing, and he can still feel the aftershock of his whole arm being twisted backwards, ligaments snapping and bones breaking instantly, making a nasty crunch in his shoulder first, and then in his elbow, when the Galra soldier had twisted more.

That moment, he had looked behind him, making out the Galra uniform, and the expression on the face he stared at wasn’t one of kinship. Keith’s hadn’t even begun to process his own confusion, when a cybernetic hand grabbed Keith's wrist and crushed it like a couple of twigs in his grasp. A knife had been jammed in his shoulder, and taken off quickly with a downward motion.

What followed was probably half an hour of trying to keep himself alive.

Now, the blood loss was certainly making itself known, with black spots dancing in front of his eyes. Adrenaline cursing through his veins, Keith was barely keeping himself up, even with help, and the pain was so indescribable he was incapable of forming words. His right arm screams with pain, muscles and ligaments throbbing in tandem. His chest aches where they kicked him, making every breath burn.

It briefly goes through his head how badly injured he is, before he finally succumbs to exhaustion.

When he wakes up again, it's slow and gradual. His elbow throbs with pain, and all of the other aches make themselves known quick enough. He wants to rub his eyes, but when he attempts to lift his left arm, pain explodes in his shoulder.

His vision blacks out, and tears immediately pool in his eyes. He grits his teeth and exhales, trying to get through the worst if it. When it's finally more bearable, he realizes his arm hadn't moved an inch when he'd tried to move it. With his good hand, he fumbles around in the dark, touching his shoulder first, then moving his hand towards his chest, where he feels a stinging sensation. His arm is in a sling, and from the tight sensation, wrapped in many layers of bandages. His breath hitches, and his fingers trail the path down his arm, until he feels a splinter, holding his wrist straight. His chest is bandaged too, and breathing takes a little more effort than usual. And to his dismay, he feels the prick of a needle sticking out the back of his good hand. He tries to ignore that.

Opening his eyes, he winces at the bright lights of the infirmary. A twinge of homesickness hits him when he realizes he’s at the Castle of Lions.

On his left, he hears a rustling sound.

"Keith...?" Shiro voice sounds, echoing a little, traced with exhaustion. "Are you awake?"

"Shiro...?" Keith slurs out, finding his voice not fully responsive. He rolls over carefully in bed, towards where Shiro seems to be, and gasps when his whole arm protests.

"Hey, don’t move," Shiro says, much more alert now, and Keith can hear his slow footsteps towards him, before he comes into his field of vision. He’s wearing his black undersuit, and has deep dark circles around his eyes. "How do you feel?"

"Like shit," Keith confesses, with a weak exhale.

Shiro’s hand finds his good shoulder, and rubs soft circles there. Keith closes his eyes and focuses on the motions the best he can.

"My - my arm, " he says, making his best to sound coherent. "How bad?..."

Shiro doesn't answer right away.

"Bad," he finally sighs. "Compound fractures, torn ligaments... Kolivan was hoping to get you here and into a cryopod immediately, but unfortunately one of the big crystals that powers them up is gone. Allura, Hunk, Lance and Pidge went out to get more."

"Bad timing to get this fucked up then," Keith chuckles humourlessly.

“Never a good time,” Shiro chides disapprovingly. “At least we still had some good painkillers, though they’ve probably worn off by now, huh?”

Keith shivers - if this is what’s like with painkillers, he doesn’t want to imagine without. “Uh, yeah, definitely,” he groans.

“You also lost a lot of blood, so it’s normal if you’re feeling weak. We had to stitch you up too,” Shiro adds. Keith glances at Shiro’s left arm, noticing the bandage peeking from the inside of his elbow. It’s hard to feel lucky right now, but by now, Keith knows he would be screwed if he had gone to space without an universal donor like him. He’d hug Shiro right now if he didn’t feel this bad. Guilt twinges at the bottom of his stomach. His eyes fill with tears again.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Shiro reassures, “you’ll be fine. I’ll go get Coran to give you something for the pain, yeah?”

Keith tries to nod, but he’s still dizzy, so he just grunts in acknowledgement. He knows if he tries to speak he’ll probably just start crying.

“I’ll be right back,” Shiro says, before walking, well, pretty much running out.

And Keith goes under again.

"Do you remember what happened?" Shiro asks.

It’s a few hours later. The Castle is practically deserted, with pretty much the whole team on the mission to retrieve the cryopod crystals. Coran had stopped by to give him some painkillers and check on him, and Shiro just brought some tea, and the alien equivalent of toast. Keith doesn’t eat - even with the painkillers, the pain is bad enough to make him nauseous. He sips the tea carefully, and even just that seems to sap all of his energy.

"I - we received a message from a fellow blade. The Kellan outpost was going to be taken over. We had two Blades stationed there… they attacked as soon as we left our ship. I - I don't remember much else."

“They attacked you? The guys that supposedly belonged to the Blades?”

“Yeah. Soon as I showed up.”

"Do you remember getting here? Kolivan brought you."

Keith nods.

“Keith… we need to know… what were those guys doing? Why were members of the Blade of Marmora blowing up the Kellan base? What did they know?” Shiro asks.

“It wasn’t part of any plan… I don’t understand. Those guys must have gone rogue, I- I really don’t know, Shiro,” Keith sighs, closing his eyes.

“Did you call for backup? When you realized something was wrong?”

“Yeah,” Keith rasps out. “I thought they’d received my message. But our comms were tampered with,” he says, shaking his head, “only realized that later.” He puts the tea cup back on the tray.

“But Kolivan knew you were in there,” Shiro insists, “why didn’t they come in for you?”

“I don’t know, Shiro.” Keith grits his teeth, and opens his eyes again to stare pointedly at Shiro. “I haven’t really had the time to ask Kolivan what exactly was their strategy after that. Maybe they wanted to play it safe, since a couple of guys we thought we could trust had just managed to sabotage everything.”

Shiro sighs. He knows it’s no use to torture Keith with more questions, especially not in the state he was in. He had to get his answers elsewhere.

“Get some rest,” he says, gently. Keith’s eyes close again, and he grimaces painfully. “Anything I can bring you? Do you want me to stay?”

Keith shakes his head. “Just need to sleep.”

“Okay,” Shiro says, placing his hand carefully on top of Keith’s, avoiding the IV. “I’ll be right here.”

Shiro is usually proud of his good temper.

How he's able to keep a cold head when things get heated - his good manners and politeness were what conquered the hearts of the Voltron coalition.

And even with the frequent battles they get in, and the stressful days that come with being a defender of the universe, Shiro is able to keep his good spirits.

Not today, though. Screw manners.

"I need more details on the mission Keith was sent today," Shiro demands, with an unwavering tone.

Kolivan doesn’t seem to react much. But then again, his usual expression betrays nothing. "That’s Marmora intel. We can’t simply-”

"He spent almost an hour there before you came in for a rescue!! With your ship hovering around the base!!" Shiro exclaims, waving his hands in the air. "How could you possibly-"

"We had been compromised. We had to make sure-”

"So he was all but lost bait for you? Was that it??"

"I couldn't safely assemble my men for an extraction right away. Under the circumstances, we did the best we could. We had no safe way of getting him out of there so quickly, and we couldn’t risk-"

"His right arm is destroyed!! He was alone for forty five minutes fighting rogue blades!! What kind of organization are you running when-"

"Enough!" Kolivan says firmly, enough to make Shiro quiet. "Keith knows the risks of participating in missions with the Blade - the same risks that are implied in any mission as a paladin of Voltron, might I remind you. He made his choice when he agreed to join the mission. We do not take risks. Better one man less than two men less, and he knows it. After a breach in security, we have to be extra careful, and not rush in foolishly."

Shiro stays silent for a moment, before muttering.

"We would have saved him immediately. As soon as we knew."

Kolivan lets out a huff, cold and bitter, more than Shiro has ever seen.

"If that’s what the Voltron coalition calls strategy, we may have to rethink how we work together."

Kolivan shakes his head, angry and offended, and turns off the comm.

It doesn't leave Shiro any more content. He feels hung up, stressed, like something inside him is wired up. He turns around and leaves the bridge - there’s someone who needs him right now.

#vld #keith #injury #shiro #fanfic #vld fanfic #m

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