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Getting used to living on a strange castle ship with five people he barely knew plus Shiro took a lot of adjusting for Keith. Most people, like Lance or Hunk, would be growing accustomed to the silence and the largeness of the castle. Keith briefly remembered them talking about how hard it was to fall asleep without the familiar chatter of their large families, though he hadn’t been involved in that conversation, more so just listening in at dinner.
It was the opposite for Keith. He had been isolated in the desert for a year with only himself for company, so growing accustomed to actually living with people (and lively, touchy ones at that) took a lot of his energy and a lot more stepping out of his comfort zone.
Of course Shiro had noticed, he always did, so he hadn’t gotten onto Keith when he left just a little earlier than the others at meals or during activities, but of course, in doing so, he had gained the ‘lone wolf’ appearance to the others.
It took a while to grow a relationship with them, but after the first few weeks, bonds had been built. Hunk had been cooking food for them after their recent victory when he claimed that he needed a taste tester, though no one besides Keith was in the room.
“Hey man?” He asked nervously, twiddling his thumbs like a child. Keith had raised an eyebrow, not understanding at the time why Hunk seemed nervous, “do you mind tasting this?”
And Keith really didn’t mind, because Hunk’s cooking was the best he had tasted in years, and he must have said as much after putting the spoon in his mouth and Hunk practically melted at the praise. The yellow paladin had clapped him on the back warmly, and Keith didn’t reflexively back away.
“Man, you aren’t so bad afterall!”
And after that, Keith had become his unofficial taste tester.
Next had been the Alteans. The other paladins were separated, out doing their own things, and apparently Coran and Allura needed help setting up for something. He didn’t understand why they needed him to help with the castle since Hunk and Pidge were the experts, but he simply shrugged and handed them tools when they asked him.
“You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?” Coran asked, and Keith didn’t think he was a quiet person, he just didn’t have anything to say at the moment.
“I guess I'm just not a small talk kind of guy,” he admitted tensley, waiting for Coran to wave him away and claim that if he wasn’t going to socialize then he could skedaddle. Instead, the man smiled, crows feet bending at the corners of his eyes in a warm way.
“I understand that number four, I’m sure escaping the loudness of the other Paladins here with us is much easier for you.”
Keith felt his muscles relaxing after a while of peacefully passing on the tools, and when they were finished, Allura was the one to smile at him.
“You can come by and help us anytime, Keith.”
He had swallowed down the lump in his throat, of someone openly welcoming him, and continued on with his day as if nothing happened.
Pidge had been similar. Keith had noticed that she got cranky often when being around the others too much, a loud introvert. He had stumbled across her working on her lion, and when she waved him in to grab something she couldn’t reach, she patted a space on the floor next to her.
He awkwardly sat, watching her fingers fly across the keyboard. He was about to open his mouth to ask just why she wanted him here when she answered for him.
“Don’t think I notice how you act. You try your best to socialize, but when in a controlled environment with one or two people, you really start to act yourself.” She adjusted the glasses on her nose, “so tell me while the others aren’t interrupting you, what happened on your side of the mission today?”
It wouldn’t be the last time he helped her work on the green lion.
Lance was difficult to deal with, and Keith didn’t know what the guy had against him. Apparently he was his rival? And with the way Lance kept jabbing and making comments, it was hard for Keith to not get defensive and retaliate.
“What did I do to make him hate me so much?” Keith asked Shiro, trying to keep his tone neutral, though when Shiro looked at him, he looked like Keith had just killed his puppy.
“End training sequence,” he sighed, and the robot disappeared into millions of little pixels. Keith tossed him a rag and a bottle of water he had been using, since they had been taking turns at the gladiator. “That’s what's been on your mind?”
Keith shrugged and absentmindedly rubbed at his shoulder where he had taken too hard of a forward roll.
Shiro took a long swig from the water bottle before sitting on the bench next to Keith, but not close enough for their shoulders to touch. “I don’t think he hates you.”
Keith snorted, “I could have been fooled.”
“I think that Lance just sees you as competition, or maybe a threat.”
Keith slowly turned towards Shiro reading between the lines of what he just said, “are you saying he’s insecure?”
Shiro passed Keith the water bottle to finish off before he got up with a long stretch. “Maybe if you stop egging him on when he pushes your buttons,” Shiro gave Keith a playful look, “then you could gain some ground with him.”
Keith sighed, “I don’t think there's such a thing as gaining ground with him.”
“Hmm, we’ll see about that.”
And he was right, Keith would see. He would see later that night, when he stumbled across Lance at the observatory, wistfully staring at the hologram of Earth. Keith’s stomach lurched and he backed away, feeling like he was intruding on a moment, but Lance had already turned in his direction. He had a hand pawing at his face, wiping away what Keith realized was tears.
Oh he was so not good in these situations.
“Oh, don’t look so scared,” Lance said, slightly annoyed, “I won’t bite your head off or anything. You came to look at Earth too, right.”
No, he hadn’t. He just couldn’t sleep and figured an extensive patrol along the castle would help ease his nerves, but Keith didn’t correct him. Instead, he thought of what Shiro said earlier and slowly entered the room, taking a spot next to Lance.
“I didn’t actually expect you to come in here,” Lance said in a low tone that Keith couldn’t read, causing him to bristle.
“If you don’t want me here, I'll just leave.” He sat up, ready to walk out when Lance suddenly grabbed his elbow. The touch didn’t burn like fire, surprisingly, it was cool but not icy.
“No man I didn’t mean it that way, sit back down.”
Keith obeyed, slightly astounded when Lance’s grip remained iron clad on his arm. “You were crying,” he said flatly, and Lance chuckled wetly.
“You really aren’t good at socializing, are you?”
The question would have offended Keith if he didn’t sound so downtrodden.
“Mmm, no, not really. I’m assuming you miss it,” Keith responded, ‘it’ being Earth. ‘It’ being the large family he always bragged about. Keith had seen the others homesick, and with a tang, he realized that he had nothing to miss. He had found Shiro and that was all he needed.
“Yeah,” Lance sniffled, and under the low lighting of the constellations, he didn’t look as confident as he always did. “I’m sure you understand, missing family and all that,” Lance waved his arms, and if Lance was being vulnerable with him, then Keith figured he could return the favor.
“No, I don’t,” he admitted, slightly ashamed. “I don’t have anything to go back to.”
Lance’s eyes widened marginally as he let out a shrieky “What?!” And when he used that tone Keith always had to cover a hand over his mouth to hide his amusement. The mood shifted as Lance crossed his arms, relinquishing his grip on Keith (he felt cold now) “when we get back. When, not if, I am taking you to my family, they’ll love you. You’re so awkward my little cousins would love teasing you, and-” he sniffled some more, “and my sisters would adore you and make you eat more!”
Keith felt a strange feeling that caused his cheeks to glow a dusty red color, and he nodded along. Maybe Lance really was sleep deprived. But that morning, when he noticed that Lance seemed just a little less heavy on the insults, he knew he hadn’t been. That was the morning their group had finally clicked together, and Keith had never felt more at home.
Though, the people weren't the only thing that Keith had to get used to.
The technology on the ship was downright weird. Their system to wash clothes only took about ten ticks compared to Earth's wash cycle that was thirty. Thankfully, Hunk had learned how to navigate the kitchen so that the rest of them didn’t have to.
It had taken Keith a full fifteen minutes to figure out how to exit his room properly, and even then he just ended up banging on his door until Lance had opened it for him, a smug look on his face. “The hand pads right over there mullet,” he has pointed at the spot on the wall, “you put your hand on it, and it unlocks the door. Man, you’re a grandpa.”
Luckily, Lance hadn’t told anyone else what had happened that morning.
But of course, there was the technology that all of the paladins would eventually have to get used to, and that was the healing pods. Lance had been the first to use it after the explosion in the castle, and when he emerged from it he claimed it was like some kind of super healing sleep that only seemed like it lasted for about a minute. (He had been in the cycle for about a day.)
Following him was Hunk, then Pidge, and finally Shiro. None of their injuries had been serious to the point where they would have died if untreated, but even Shiro had admitted that it was nice to have something to rely on to fix their minor injuries.
Keith did not wish to go through that cycle. Ever.
He avoided it the best he could. Anytime he received an injury that the others would typically use the pod for (A sprained wrist or deep gash) he had simply bandaged it and hoped for the best. It had worked so far.
Allura was putting them through their paces with the training bots, having them fight it two on two until they got to a higher level. Since there were five of them, Shiro fought alongside both Hunk and Pidge, meaning that Lance and Keith would have to make due.
It wasn’t a bad matchup with Lance being a long distance fighter and Keith being hand-to-hand, but Keith had been feeling off. His head was stuffy and his body was slow no matter how hard he forced it to follow his directions. Shiro had noticed, of course he had, but when Keith reassured him that it was fine, he knew not to question him further.
Then again, maybe Keith should have listened to him, or at least he should have listened to Hunk when he told him to eat that morning, but his stomach did a weird backflip at the sight of food.
He just marked it off as being one of his off days.
He was quickly proven wrong when Lance was the one covering his back after the gladiator had sent him tumbling to the floor. “Dude, what’s wrong with you today?” He asked, running up to crouch besides Keith, gun firing.
Keith’s tongue was heavy in his mouth, and if it didn’t feel like cotton was being shoved down his throat he would have found a retort, but his head was still spinning when he pulled himself up.
“Keith?” Lance asked, concern in his tone as the gladiator approached them. Lance’s bullets weren’t doing much, just slowing it down, Keith would have to finish it off. Of course, the gladiator rapidly changed direction to attack Lance, and Keith saw it before the blue paladin did. His body went on autopilot as he jumped in front of Lance, right as the gladiator lifted the butt of its weapon and hit him right across the forehead.
His body felt light as he hit the floor roughly, distantly he heard Shiro’s voice ending the training sequence and a set of footsteps running towards him. He padded his hands around. Oh. He was on the floor.
He needed to get off the floor.
He needed to-
“Keith, buddy?” Lance’s loud voice sounded, and when Keith cracked his eyes open, there was a blur of blue swimming somewhere above him.
“M’ fine,” he felt himself instinctively saying, though he wasn’t sure if it was audible to the others. He shakily pulled himself up to his hands and knees. There was a hand on his back, pressing down. It was large and mechanical, Shiro’s prosthetic hand.
“-Stay down”
Of course, Keith didn’t listen. “‘M fine,” he insisted again, finally finding enough purchase to get to his feet. Colors blurred and there was chatter all around him, but he managed to stay balanced even when Shiro asked him more questions.
What was he saying?
The others seemed to sense it before he could, because Lance grabbed onto his arm and the world tilted, sending him tumbling down. Another arm wrapped around him, lowering him to the training deck floor, and in the back of his mind Keith slowly realized that Lance had been the one who caught him.
“Keith, are you with me? Follow my fingers,” Shiro instructed. Keith felt Lance hold onto him tighter and Keith tried to follow the fingers, he really did, but there were about four and he didn’t know which ones to look at.
“Definitely a concussion,” Shiro confirmed, and Keith could only distantly listen to the situation. But it was hard to focus when Lance’s arms were so warm. He felt his eyes slip closed, but then a sudden pain spread across his cheek like wildfire, causing him to jolt.
“-Shit, sorry Keith, I didn’t know what else to do,” Lance apologized. “Don’t fall asleep.”
“You didn’t have to slap him!” Pidge hissed.
Pidge.
Pigeon.
Keith giggled to himself. What a weird name.
He must have been laughing a bit loud because Hunk’s face came into view, “What’cha laughing at, bud?”
“Pidge soun’s like Pigeon,” he explained clumsily, and Lance must have been worried because he tightened his hold on Keith.
“Yeah, he’s totally out of it.”
‘Hey!” Keith tried to protest against the underwater voice, “‘M in it, not out.”
“Yeah, sure you are buddy.”
“Alright,” Shiro’s voice said once again, and Keith missed Shiro. Where was he? “His bulky armor is off, we can get him up now.”
His armor? Keith didn’t even realize that Shiro had been taking off his armor. He suddenly shivered, cold from the lack of clothes, with only his undersuit to keep him warm.
“Keith, do you think you can stand?”
“‘F course,” what did they think he was, a pigeon? Keith snickered some more. He felt hands on either side of him, lifting him from the ground. Distantly he was aware that Lance and Shiro were taking him to the infirmary with the others trailing nervously behind. Keith tried to get his feet to work, but they were stubborn and only dragged against the floor.
By the time they got there, the lights were much brighter than they had been in the training deck, and he unconsciously moaned at the pain flashing behind his eyelids. “Hey,” Lance, or at least he thought it was Lance, nudged him, “open your eyes. We're setting you down on this table now buddy.”
Was Keith really Lance's buddy?
“What?” The blue paladin's shocked voice pierced through his skull, “Of course we're pals. Keith, my man, keep up.”
“Lance, maybe you shouldn't talk so loud,” another voice offered, and Keith wanted to know who was saying what, but his vision was doubling too much for him to keep his eyes open.
He was sure a little nap wouldn’t hurt.
Lance was freaking out, he was totally freaking out, but to be fair, the rest of the team was too. When Keith had been hit by the gladiator and tumbled to the ground, Lance had just barely managed to cushion his head. Shiro, or course, was the first to react and yell ‘end training sequence’ sounding beyond pissed off.
He had rushed over to them, taking control of the situation and only looking slightly worried when Keith had started to giggle about Pidgeons. Lance would have laughed if he wasn’t so terrified.
“This is my fault, we should have been training with helmets on,” Shiro admitted, looking incredibly guilty as he and Lance hauled Keith up to his feet.
“Don’t worry bossman,” Lance reassured, though it was hard to sound confident when Keith’s head was lolling to rest on his shoulder limply. “We all make mistakes.”
“What could have caused Keith to be so off his game today?” Pidge asked from behind them, and Lance didn’t want to risk looking backwards since Keith was listing heavily in his direction.
“He didn’t eat this morning,” Hunk offered, “maybe he’s not treating himself the right way.”
“Possibly,” Shiro answered through gritted teeth, and when they finally arrived at the infirmary, they deposited him on the bed. Lance tried his best to keep Keith awake by annoying him, but it was all in vain when only a few minutes later his eyes slid shut.
“What’s the situation?” Allura asked, jogging into the infirmary with Coran hot on their heels. Hunk and Pidge must have called them down from the control room that they were working on.
“Keith has a concussion,” Shiro answered automatically, “can we put him in the healing pods?”
They had all been expecting an ‘affirmative’ but when Coran immediately shook his head, Lance looked down guiltily at the forming bruise on Keith’s face. He should have been the one to block Keith from getting hit, not the other way around.
“The healing pod needs someone with a stable mind and energy. Keith appears to have none of that at the moment,” Coran riffled through the medical supplies, “so it looks like we’ll have to wait it out the old fashioned way. Good thing Alteans have a gismo that can help!” Coran finally came up for air, holding what looked like a headband in his hand. It was small and silver colored, kind of reminding Lance of the circuit that rested on Alluras head.
“If he keeps this band on, then his healing should be accelerated, though he should stay off of his feet for a day or two before all of the symptoms completely disappear.”
Shiro calmly took the headband and gently moved some of Keith’s hair to place it on his head. Lance, decidedly, was not as calm. “So there's nothing we can do?”
“I’m afraid not, number three, but keep your head up! We’re in a relatively calm star system right now, so there should be no need for Voltron anytime soon!”
Lance didn’t care about forming Voltron, not when Keith had just been giggling deliriously a few minutes ago. He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to Shiro, who looked stoic.
“That is good news,” Allura decided, “we shall stay in this system until Keith’s head injury is healed.”
“He’s allowed to leave the infirmary,” Coran shouted, already halfway out the door, “though I suggest settling him down in the lounge so you can keep an eye on him. Best of luck!”
The room was dead silent for a minute straight before Shiro waved them off, “I’ll get him settled on the couch, you guys take showers and we can watch him in shifts.”
In the end, Shiro’s shift plan worked out just fine.
Hunk had been on the first shift. Going in, he had been a bit apprehensive about just sitting around and watching his friend suffer, but Keith hadn't moved an inch for the duration of his time except for the last ten minutes.
“Ngh,” Keith made a noise, a cross between a whine and a grunt, and Hunk nearly jumped out of his skin. He was at Keith's side in an instant, watching as dark purple eyes slid open. They were glossy and unalert, concerning compared to his normally sharp gaze.
“‘Unk?” He asked, and Hunk nodded furiously.
”Yeah, yeah dude, it’s me. How are you feeling?”
Keith took a while to answer, eyes searching the room for something, and suddenly Hunk realized. “You haven’t eaten today! Stay right there and don’t move,” he ordered, rushing to the kitchen. Of course, Keith didn’t listen, because when Hunk returned with a bowl of soup in hand, Keith was sitting up. At least most of his weight was leaning back. Small victories.
“Here,” Hunk offered, sliding a small table to the edge of the couch to set the soup on, “I’m sure you're starving.”
Keith stared at the soup for a long moment before reaching out for the spoon. Hunk watched for a good five minutes as Keith kept missing the spoon and sighed. “Dude, you know you don’t have to do that, here.” He took the spoon himself, blowing on the soup before slowly offering it to Keith.
The red paladin had the mind to look slightly embarrassed before he took the spoon in his mouth.
“Unk?”
“Yes Keith?”
“‘Ure the best cook.”
Hunk scrambled to wipe the tears away from his eyes at Keith’s compliment. “Man, you’re so nice when you have a concussion.”
“Thanks.”
Next up was Shiro.
He had decided that whenever Keith got better, he was going to give him a long lecture about taking care of himself and to stop trying to avoid the cryo-pods when they were there to help them. Of course, Shiro knew there was a reason, there had to be, but he hadn’t asked yet.
He had silently taken a seat next to Keith’s head, reading the next plans of attack on a Galra cruiser until he heard a noise coming from Keith. He ignored it until Keith made the noise again, a loud pained groan. He quickly put the booklet to the side before looking down at the red paladin. He was shaking his head and fervently mumbling under his breath.
A nightmare.
Shiro immediately shook his shoulder, not enough to jostle him too much, but just enough to wake him. “Keith,” he tried, “Keith it’s just a nightmare, wake up.”
“No, ‘n, No” Keith squirmed before finally opening his eyes. A pang of sympathy shot through Shiro when he saw just how confused Keith looked as he searched the room for something.
“Shiro?” He called out, slightly slurred.
“I’m right here,” Shiro put a hand on the side of Keith’s face, tilting his head so that he was looking up at him, and that was when he noticed the tears.
“You’re here?”
“Of course I'm here.”
“But… Kerberose, you… you were gone.”
Oh, so that was what he had been so confused about. Shiro tightened his hold on Keith, rocking them back and forth until Keith fell back to sleep. “I’m here now, buddy.”
Pidge was next, dragging all of her laptop gear so she could sit on the floor in front of Keith and work on her programming. She would have suspected that Keith would be asleep for her duration of the time considering it was getting late, but he was bright eyed and bushy tailed.
He turned to watch over her shoulder as she did her work. She tried to ignore how he vocalized his thoughts under his breath, it was strange to have him talking so much.
“How does she t…type that fast,” he wondered in muddle amazement.
Pidge felt the edge of her lips twist upwards, and just to put on a show, she typed even faster, laughing at the way Keith ‘ohhhed’ and ‘awwed.’ It was like having a child on the ship.
“Like a cheetah,” he said.
“Mhm, hey Keith, I never asked what your favorite animal was?”
“Hippo,” he answered without hesitation.
“I always preferred cats, they’re quiet and don’t bother me,” Pidge answered, and when she saw Keith frown, she was quick to correct her error. “I wasn’t talking about you, of course. You’re actually a lot like a cat yourself.”
Keith blinked slowly, “really?”
Pidge wiggled her eyebrows, “totally, do you want whiskers?”
And that was how she had managed to leave the room with a sharpie in hand, leaving Keith fast asleep on the couch with whiskers dawn on his face. Of course, when she came back she took a quick picture and erased her work, because the whole point of having good blackmail was that no one else saw it.
When Lance walked into the room, he saw that Keith was obviously hurting. He cursed under his breath, immediately going to sit next to Keith. “Those altean painkillers must be wearing off, huh?” Lance asked, and it was only then that he noticed Keith’s headband had fallen to the ground.
He bent to pick it up, trying not to look at Keith’s pained expression when he put it back in his hair, brushing it back slightly. He paused when Keith made a small noise, and he slowly put his hand back into Keith’s hair.
Keith sighed in relief, relaxing slightly. It wasn’t a lot but at least it was something. “Want me to play with your hair?” Lance offered, and when Keith didn’t flat out refuse him, he gently propped Keith’s head up to place on his lap. “I’m gonna do it anyway.”
Keith let out a droopy “M’k.”
Keith’s hair was a lot softer than Lance had been expecting it to be, but he didn’t mention it to Keith, who was already dozing off. When he spoke, it was stories in low tones. “My Nieces always loved when I played with their hair,” he sighed, “I guess I missed it just as much as they probably do.”
Keith hissed in pain when he tried to open his eyes, and Lance cupped a hand over his face. “It’s the lights that's hurting you, isn’t it?” That and getting his skull beat in by a gladiator, but Lance didn’t bring that part up. “Lights down to 10%” Lance announced, and just like that, the tension started to drain from Keith’s shoulders.
Lance didn’t stop the movement in his fingers, even after they went numb and both he and Keith fell asleep, they continued to brush at soft coal black hair.