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Crack went the whip, and Keith screamed. Pride was nothing more than a remnant of a forgotten memory-- he’d been here too long to care anymore. Besides, it wasn’t like he was worried about letting information slip. Lotor wasn’t trying to get anything out of him. He was just having fun.
“Who are you?”
Like a hundred times before, Keith kept his mouth shut, though it sprang open again at the next lash from the whip, his cries echoing through the small metal cell. He kept asking the same question: over and over and over. Keith knew what he wanted him to answer. The last shreds of who he used to be (Guardian of Fire, the hothead, the stubborn one, Pilot of the most unstable Lion) had kept him from answering, but every repetition with the reinforcement of the lashes was breaking him down.
Piece. By. Piece.
“Who are you?”
Keith swallowed and coiled his numb fingers around the chains holding him up by his wrists. His knees ached, his limbs felt like static from adrenaline and hunger, the air in the room was hot and muggy and made cold sweat bead up on him underneath the purple prisoner uniform.
“Please,” he croaked out, dry throat grinding, only to be rewarded with another lash from the energy whip, burning and cauterizing as it cut.
“Wrong answer.”
He couldn’t cry. He’d run out of tears.
“Who are you?”
Crack.
“Who are you?”
Crack.
“Who are you?”
Crack.
“Who are you?”
“NO ONE!”
Finally the lashes stopped, a brooding silence dropping over the room. Keith hung his head and sobbed dryly. He could feel the eagerness radiating off of Lotor behind him-- a threshold had just been crossed over, and they both knew it.
Lotor didn’t hit him again. The absence of the predictable pain made Keith’s stomach roil with simultaneous relief and dread.
“What are you?”
Keith gasped out the answer, “Nothing.”
“Who is coming for you?”
“No one.”
Lotor’s heels clicked as he paced around to Keith’s front while he kept his eyes on the floor, hanging limply from his bonds. He could feel those last shreds of himself dissolving in his chest, floating away in the bitter wind. Leaving him empty. Nothing left but the desire for the pain to stop.
“Say it.”
Impossibly, something else crumbled in him when he said the words.
“No one is coming for me.”
His shoulders slumped that last inch. Lotor’s smirk was audible in his next sentence.
“And why aren’t they coming for you, Former Paladin?”
“Because--” The words choked him and he swallowed bile quickly, rushing to speak, to stop the pain from returning. “Because they don’t want me.”
“Why don’t they want you?”
“Because I’m br-broken and wor-rthless.” He was so tired. Lotor had driven the words into his mind over the last god knew how many sessions until he had no choice to believe it was true. After all, if the others still cared, wouldn’t they have come by now? He’d held out for so long, been strong for so long, and now his fingers had slipped from the cliff’s edge and there was nowhere to go but down, down, down.
“Are you ever going home?”
“No.”
“Say it.”
“I’m never going home.”
Lotor moved forward two steps, tight and precise, and knelt.
“Look at me.”
He could just grab Keith by the hair and make him look up. He’d done it plenty of times before. But this was a test, one Keith didn’t dare fail with his back still burning from the hundreds of lashes that had been opened and reopened and reopened. The skin there would never be smooth again. It would always be raised and ridged and red.
He looked up. Lotor was smirking like a predator, eyes shining like flint. Keith could feel his hot breath on his cheeks and it was awful and wonderful. As much as he hated Lotor, as much pain as his visits brought, he was the only person he was allowed contact with. Otherwise he was alone.
“Who do you belong to?”
Keith’s mouth opened and closed. Lotor was really testing him, pressing down on the last inch of resistance, watching it spiderweb under his power. After a moment of silence his hand went to his belt, where the handle of the energy whip was, and fear projected the words from Keith’s mouth like vomit.
“You! I belong to you.” After a moment’s hesitation, he tacked on, “Prince Lotor,” and the Prince positively beamed.
“There you go, good, you’re finally being good.” He reached out a clawed hand to cradle Keith’s jaw, and impossible tears caught in his eyelashes as he turned into it. God, gentle touch had never felt so good. He thought he’d been used to its absence before, but now he really craved it. Starved for it.
“Was that so hard?”
“Recite.”
“I am no one. I am nothing. I am broken and worthless-- no one is coming for me and no one wants me. I’m never going home. I belong to Prince Lotor.”
“Again.”
“I am no one. I am nothing. I am broken and worthless-- no one is coming for me and no one wants me. I’m never going home. I belong to Prince Lotor.”
“Once more.”
“I am no one. I am nothing. I am broken and worthless-- no one is coming for me and no one wants me. I’m never going home. I belong to Prince Lotor.”
“Good,” said Lotor with a sick smile, stepping forward to ruffle Keith’s hair in a bone-chilling facsimile of affection. They’d been practicing this for days, Keith sitting docile on the floor, hands unbound and neatly rested in his lap, reciting the words until Lotor was pleased. If he tripped or stumbled or hesitated even slightly he’d be struck with the energy whip again-- this was the first day he’d made it all the way through three times without screwing up.
The sick feeling that had prevailed in his stomach the first few days had dissipated. What was the point? He’d already given in-- he’d given in a long time ago.
“I think I’ll keep you saying that at least once a quintant, just to remind you while we work on other things. What do you think, wagsza?”
Wagsza is Galran for dog.
Keith nodded tiredly, obediently. “Yes, Prince Lotor.”
The next day Lotor took him out of his cell for the first time. They went down a labyrinth of dark halls that Keith didn’t bother to pay attention to. Running wouldn’t get him anywhere, not even killed, probably. Lotor would just capture him again and then the pain… it just wasn’t worth it.
His hands were bound before him but it was nothing more than for show, considering that there wasn’t any sort of lead or anything for Lotor to guide him by. They were just there for Lotor’s entertainment. The same as everything else. The same as him.
They went into a large, blank room that looked an awful lot like the training deck on the Castle. Keith automatically shoved the memory away; they almost hurt more than the whip.
“Stay.”
He stood obediently in the center of the room while Lotor opened a panel on the far wall and collected a few items. A collar and a blaster, the former that he locked around Keith’s thin neck and the latter that he pressed into his bound hands, nudging his index finger over the trigger.
“This,” said the Prince, tapping the collar, “Is going to shock you. To turn it off you’ll need to put this here,” he guided the blaster up until the barrel was firmly under Keith’s chin, a small notch on the side clicking into the collar, “And pull the trigger. Understand?”
Keith’s inhale was shaky. As broken as he was, putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger was not something his survival instincts was going to allow him to do. Then again, Lotor had always found a way to break him before, so he nodded.
“Yes, Prince Lotor.”
“Good. Gun down.”
He lowered it back to his front, wrists still bound, and Lotor took a few steps back. His hand went to his belt.
Fire. White fire. It was so much worse than the whip had ever been and it was everywhere-- he couldn’t scream, he couldn’t even breathe, it was agony, and before he even had time to think about it he’d raised the blaster and pulled the trigger.
It clicked but didn’t fire, and the shocks mercifully died down. It wasn’t until then that Keith realized he was on his knees at Lotor’s feet, trembling and twitching with aftershocks, tears cascading down his cheeks and dripping onto the metal floor.
“Good,” was all Lotor said. Keith sat, waiting for an order.
A minute later the collar turned back on.
It repeated, over and over and over, each pull of the trigger buying Keith a minute of respite until he was completely collapsed on the floor with his eyes glazed over, repeatedly pulling it every thirty seconds or so to spare himself the pain, reveling in every little click that promised him solace.
The collar remained for the next few weeks. Whenever he felt like it (meaning there was no predictable pattern) Lotor would activate the collar and toss the modified blaster to the floor, watching in amusement as Keith scrambled to mock-execute himself to make it stop.
Keith wasn’t stupid. He knew he was being conditioned to kill himself in the impossible event that someone did come after him. It didn’t matter-- he already knew no one was coming for him, so why fight it? Resistance wasn’t worth the pain.
One day after a long training session, Lotor removed the collar.
The next day he appeared in Keith’s cell, smirking in approval when Keith went to his knees at the sight of him as he’d been taught to do, and knelt in front of him like he was about to give a difficult task to a golden retriever.
He pulled a different blaster from his belt.
“This one is different, wagsza. This one will fire when you pull the trigger. Understand?”
“Yes, Prince Lotor.”
“Good.” He set the blaster on the floor. “Pick it up.”
Keith scooped it into his palm, settling his finger over the trigger. The movements were mechanical and practiced.
“Gun up.”
He raised it to his chin, shivering at the cold metal against the soft underside of his jaw.
“Shoot.”
He pulled the trigger. And nothing happened.
Bitter disappointment coated Keith’s tongue, sour like lemon he couldn’t remember the taste of.
Lotor had said it would shoot. Lotor had lied.
He’d really hoped, and tears of frustration stung at his eyes as Lotor smirked at him.
“Good boy. Good wagsza.”
More time passed, and Lotor was getting bored of him. Keith could tell. His visits to the cell became fewer and further between, and Keith dug up some emotion from his shell of a self to hate himself for missing his presence. With any luck Lotor would decide he wasn’t worth playing with anymore and leave him to starve.
But Keith had never been lucky.
The next time Lotor visited, he brought with him a strange contraption. It was a darkened visor, not unlike the ones the helmets had when they were in training mode ( Don’t think about Red, don’t you dare think about Red) with thin, needle like spikes on either end. It didn’t look good, and it looked even worse when Lotor raised a hand to push his hair away from his temples.
It had gotten much longer in his captivity, the ends now brushing his shoulder blades, almost as long as Shiro’s had been when they’d found him again. Faintly he wondered if Shiro had looked for him the way Keith had when he disappeared, but the thought vanished quickly.
Keith whimpered pitifully and squeezed his eyes shut when the spikes dug into his temples. Warm blood coursed down the sides of his face, which Lotor smeared with a rub of his thumb. He murmured for Keith to open his eyes.
When he did all he saw was darkness.
“Can you see anything?”
Keith blinked several times, but the dark stayed the same.
“No, Prince Lotor,” he whispered, voice trembling for the first time in a long time. He couldn’t see Lotor’s face to gauge his reaction, but his tone was pleased.
“Good.” His hand grasped the back of Keith’s neck through the greasy strands of hair. “That’s never coming off.”
He hadn’t known there was anything left in him until he felt it shatter.
Before, when Lotor hadn’t been playing with him, he’d pace around the room to keep himself entertained. Now he sat still in a corner where he could feel both walls at his back. When he had the energy he’d drum his fingers in a slow rhythm over the floor, listening to the quiet impacts.
One, two, three, four.
Other times he’d pinch the inside of his left forearm until it turned red and mottled with bruises, or click his tongue, or bite his lips or his hands, or snap his fingers. Appreciating all the other senses he had in case Lotor decided to take another one away.
At least for now he seemed entertained. He liked bringing Keith to unfamiliar rooms and telling him to find this or that object and bring it to him. It would take Keith some time to locate them, stumbling and feeling along. When he grew too practiced at it he started giving him a time restraint, whipping him when he failed to complete the task in time, one lash for every tick he was over.
Absentmindedly, he drew his hair over his shoulder and began to braid it. It was soothing in its repetition, right over middle left over middle right over middle, all the way down. Then he could comb it apart with his fingers and start over. He’d begun to sleep more, as well. He was tired all the time, and it was hard to keep his eyes open when it didn’t make any difference to what he saw.
“I am no one,” he murmured to himself as he braided. Right over middle left over middle right over middle. “I am nothing.” Right over middle left over middle right over middle. “I am broken and worthless.”
Right over middle left over middle right--
An alarm blared, so loud it had him falling over with a yelp, hands clamped over his ears. He’d never heard them before, he hadn’t even known this building even had alarms, but the volume made his ears ring and his head throb within seconds.
What was this? Another game? Was Lotor watching through a camera, enjoying how he tried to block the sounds out to no avail? Was it a more fun way to destroy his hearing next? Was it a punishment?
Under the racket of the alarms, he heard his cell door slide open.
“Move!” Barked the Prince, seizing him by the upper arm and hauling him roughly to his feet. Keith tried his best to follow where Lotor pulled him, though he kept tripping over himself without his sight, and more than once Lotor gave an irritated growl and hit him with the butt of what felt like a blaster. The alarms followed them all the way down the halls.
Not once the entire time he’d been here had Keith heard any footsteps other than Lotor’s or his own. Whichever base they were on was practically abandoned. Until now.
Dimly he could hear another pair of feet pounding over the metal, chasing them down, and Lotor suddenly jerked to a stop, hissing a Galran curse under his breath. Had they come across a dead end?
He spun Keith around, holding him to his chest with a forearm tight around his neck. A hostage position.
“Stay back!”
“It’s over, Lotor.”
Shiro had him pinned down, back against the wall, with nothing between them except a blaster and Keith.
God, Keith. He was so thin; his collar bones protruded even through the fabric of the prisoner uniform, hair tumbling over his shoulders in a greasy, overgrown mass. Some sort of dark visor was fastened over his eyes. And the worst part? The worst part was how he didn’t even fight Lotor’s hold on him. He just stood there, and when Shiro had been chasing them down the hallways, he’d gone wherever Lotor had pulled him.
The Prince snarled and bared his teeth, pressing the blaster to Keith’s throat, who didn’t even shiver in response.
“I said stay back, or I’ll kill him.”
Shiro let his hand light up and watched how Lotor’s eyes narrowed.
“Killing him won’t save you,” he growled. Nothing would.
Lotor’s lips curled cruelly, but began to lower the blaster away from Keith’s neck. But before Shiro could sigh with relief, he’d pressed the handle into Keith’s hand instead. Then Lotor let him go.
“Forward three steps.”
The Keith Shiro knew would’ve taken that opportunity to spin and fire at Lotor, or dash for Shiro, or drop for cover and let Shiro attack. But, appallingly, he did nothing of the sort. Instead Keith strode forward three steps and stopped, his knuckles turning white around the grip of the blaster.
“Keith?” He didn’t even register how his voice cracked. “What are you doing?”
Lotor laughed at him. “Gun up.”
Before Shiro’s horrified eyes Keith obeyed, raising the blaster to press against his chin, finger on the trigger.
“Keith, stop!”
He didn't react to Shiro’s voice. Not so much as a twitch. He just… stood. Waiting for an order.
Lotor opened his mouth. Shiro was lunging before the command even came out.
“Shoot.”
Shiro tackled Keith to the floor. He heard the blaster go off, but the shot ricocheted off several of the metal walls, pinging back and forth over their heads. Lotor’s footsteps echoed as he fled past them. Shiro couldn’t care-- he had Keith in his arms and he wasn’t bleeding. He’d gotten there in time.
With shaking fingers, he activated his comms.
“Guys, I got him.”
Lance immediately let out a whoop. “See Red? You can stop yelling at me now!”
“Thank fucking god,” muttered Pidge viciously.
Hunk muffled a sob from the microphones.
“Shiro, what of Lotor?”
Shiro swallowed down bitterness at Allura’s question. “He escaped.” But with Keith lying limp underneath him, he couldn’t find the space to care. “I’m bringing Keith home. He doesn’t look injured, but have a pod ready just in case.”
“Is he conscious?” Asked Hunk, and Shiro frowned, sitting back on his heels to get a proper look at Keith. The picture wasn’t pretty, between the matted hair and clear weight-loss, Shiro’s heart was already aching. But that wasn’t all. All he had to do was push Keith’s hair back just a little to glimpse two things-- silver scars shining on the sides of his throat, and the edges of the visor digging into his temples. With it on he couldn’t see his eyes to determine if he was awake or not, but Shiro didn’t dare go near it for fear of hurting Keith, and everything else about him was indicating not being all there.
“I don’t know for sure,” he answered gruffly in his ‘No questions’ tone. “Just be ready to meet us.”
Picking up Keith was far easier than it should have been, and all the way back to his Lion, Shiro forced back tears.
The med bay was silent as a funeral when he brought Keith in. Everyone was there waiting, even the Princess, standing by Coran with an expression that said she was ready to do whatever was asked of her, blue eyes burning like hellfire. The other Paladins were a mess: Hunk was crying openly, though he immediately rushed to help Shiro lay their teammate out on one of the cots as gently as possible. Pidge stood nearby, fists clenched and eyes fixated on the floor, and Lance was frozen in the corner with a horrified look on his face.
It was worse than any of them had expected, but Shiro was grateful. After six months, Keith was lucky to be alive… with all of his limbs intact.
Coran was ashen when he stepped forward to do his examination, gloved hands fluttering over Keith like butterflies, pressing here and there in search of injuries. Keith gave no indication he felt anything, and after a minute or two Coran moved his attention to the visor.
“Quiznack,” he murmured in a trembling voice. Allura instantly started forward.
“What is it, Coran?”
As an answer Coran grasped the left side of the visor, and with a firm tug pulled it away from Keith’s temple. Shiro’s stomach roiled at the sight of blood and metal.
“Nope,” said Hunk, promptly turning around and hiding his face in his hands. “Nope nope nope I’m not looking I cannot look at that, nope.”
Lance hovered by his side, soothingly rubbing his back, but even he was looking a little green.
“This will need to be removed,” Coran was saying, “And then I can do a scan for other injuries.”
“I can help,” Allura offered, only for Coran to bat her away.
“No Princess, I can handle it.”
“Turn the lights down first.”
They all turned to face Pidge with varying expressions of confusion.
“What do you mean?” Asked Shiro, and Pidge gave a harsh sniffle, her shoulders jumping. She still wouldn’t look at any of them.
“We-- we need to turn the lights down. They’ll hurt him.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “He’s had that on for… a while.”
“How do you know that?” Allura questioned even as Lance hustled off to the rooms control panel and Shiro tried his best not to vomit right then. Pidge was shaking all over.
“The base had data on it. I didn’t see much but… there’s files. And… and videos.”
The dimming lights accentuated the sick silence that fell over them all before Coran visibly shook himself and turned back to the cot.
“We’d best get it off then, shouldn’t we?”
Shiro held Keith’s hand and forced himself to watch as Coran slowly, excruciatingly, extracted the spikes pinning the visor to Keith’s temples. Allura swooped in the moment it was gone to secure bandages over the puncture wounds that sluggishly oozed blood, all three of them anxiously watching Keith’s face for signs of life. He was still breathing steadily, but his eyes were closed. Scrunched shut tightly, like someone who didn’t want to see what was in front of them.
He was awake. He’d probably been awake the whole time, and said nothing.
“Keith,” Shiro murmured softly, raising his other hand to push his fingers through Keith’s hair. Keith turned his head to press into the motion, but didn’t open his eyes. “Keith, it’s ok. You’re safe now. Can you look at me?”
His eyes fluttered open (he tried not to think that it was in obedience to an order) but even as he looked at Shiro’s face and blinked at the low lights in the med bay, he didn’t react. His gaze was blank and empty. Still he said nothing.
With great effort Shiro managed to swallow a sob. Hunk and Lance were not so lucky, but Keith didn’t so much as twitch at the sound. He just… laid there.
“Do you know where you are, lad?” Asked Coran, moving to stand on the other side of Keith’s head. Keith’s chest rose and fell.
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse, but still a relieved shock ran down Shiro’s spine, and despite his best efforts the tears spilled. God, he’d thought he would never see him again. “I’m with Lotor. This is a dream.”
That made Pidge break; she let out a raspy sob that a moment later became muffled. Whether she was being hugged or if she was smothering it with her hand Shiro couldn’t tell. He could barely see as it was through all the tears.
“No, Number Four,” Coran reassured. “We got you out of there. You’re back home, in the Castle.”
Keith’s eyes slid to the ceiling. “I’m never going home,” he said, rote, like a machine repeating its programming. Allura stepped forward and brushed a hand over his forearm, but Keith didn’t look at her. It didn’t stop her from speaking.
“You’re home, Keith. It’s alright. Lotor is never going to hurt you again.”
Keith closed his eyes.
The next twenty four hours were grueling. Coran did a medical scan and determined that there were no fresh wounds for the pod to fix. Emphasis on fresh.
“The pod cannot heal scars,” he’d said regretfully while Shiro stared down at Keith with bloodshot eyes. He knew that, of course, but he’d never wished harder for it to be otherwise. Keith was laden with them now-- silver circles on either side of his neck, thin rings around his wrists and his ankles, and his back… Seeing it had finally made him excuse himself long enough to vomit.
Then Shiro had taken Keith back to his old room, heart breaking in his chest at the way Keith followed along behind him without a fuss or question. He hadn’t shown any signs of recognition to the room. He’d just stood there, waiting, until Shiro passed his old clothes to him and asked him if he’d like to go change, and maybe shower and wash his hair.
He went without a word.
He was sitting on Keith’s bed with his head in his hands when the door slid open and admitted Lance, who came shuffling in with bent shoulders and red rimmed eyes.
“Hey. How is he?”
Shiro rubbed his eyes. “Quiet. He doesn’t do anything unless you tell him to.” After a moment's thought, he continued, “The next time you see Allura, will you ask her to lock the door to the training deck and the armory?”
Lances expression melted into concern. “Uh yeah, but why?”
“When I was rescuing him,” he had to stop and take a breath, cold shivers wracking through him at the memory, “Lotor gave him a gun and told him to shoot himself. And he was going to do it.”
Lance pressed a hand over his mouth and squeezed his eyes shut. Shiro let him have his second and waited patiently until he was able to take a breath and put his hand down again.
“Yeah. I’ll tell Allura.” His voice wavered.
“Thank you.”
Then Keith came out of the bathroom and they fell silent. He was back in his old clothes, but they were too big on him now and hung off of him like the rags on a scarecrow. His hair was clean but still knotted beyond belief, and Lance made a wounded sound at the back of his throat as Keith took a single step into the room and then stopped, heavy bruised eyes still locked on the floor.
“You guys stay here, I’ll be back,” said the Blue Paladin before marching back out the door. Shiro cast a glance back at Keith, but he still hadn’t moved.
“Keith? Do you wanna come sit down?”
He did so with that same obedient stride. Thankfully Shiro didn’t have to figure out what to do with him next, because a moment later Lance returned armed with a hairbrush and comb. He climbed onto the bed behind Keith and began to gently, more gently than Shiro had ever seen Lance do anything, comb through the knots.
For a long moment Keith remained rigid, then his eyes fluttered shut and he slumped under Lance’s hands, the same way he’d slumped in the med bay whenever someone touched him with a warm hand. Keith had been touch-starved before, but after all of that time with no one but Lotor around it must be so much worse.
They sat there for a long time, all silent as Lance brushed the knots from Keith’s hair. When he finished with that and couldn’t stall any longer, he began to braid the lengthy strands down his spine, inadvertently revealing the scars on his throat. Shiro knew what they were from— he had a matching set.
By the time Lance was done Keith looked practically asleep, head tilted down so far his chin rested against his chest. But the tension in his legs gave him away.
“There you go,” Lance said quietly, tucking a stray strand behind Keith’s ear. “Maybe in a couple of days I can cut it a bit for you. Bring back that mullet you love so much, yeah?”
Keith didn’t answer, merely lifted his chin and opened his blank eyes, and Lance gave Shiro a heartbroken look that made his throat tighten.
“Would you like that?” He managed to ask, and to his relief Keith nodded his head a bit and opened his mouth to speak.
“Yes…” His sentence trailed off uncertainly and his lips turned down into a frown that had both of the other men baffled. For the first time in a long time, Shiro had no idea what was going through Keith’s head.
“...Keith? What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” he answered automatically, then sighed. “I don’t know how to address you. But I guess it doesn’t matter. This is a dream anyway. I’ll wake up soon.”
“It’s not,” said Lance, “It’s not a dream. We got you out. We looked for you for six months! Do you know how many ships we blew through trying to get to you?” His hands were white knuckling the sheets, restraining himself from grabbing onto Keith, but he didn’t even look back at him.
“No you didn’t. I’m never going home, because I’m broken and worthless and you don’t want me.”
“Keith, no,” Shiro instinctively reached out for a hug and Keith didn’t fight him, going lax into the embrace, but Lance was already getting to his feet with a broken little sob.
“I can’t do this,” he muttered through his hands, “I’m sorry Shiro, I just can’t—“ and then he fled the room, poorly muffled crying following him away down the hall.
Shiro sat there and hugged Keith until his own tears had dried, then summoned up the willpower to take him to the kitchen.
That, thankfully, wasn’t so strenuous. Of course he didn’t eat or drink until Shiro told him he was allowed to, but he ate steadily enough and didn’t vomit anything up again like Shiro had the first two weeks after coming back, so he counted it as a blessing.
Then he pulled him back to his bedroom to sleep and promptly found that he couldn’t bear to pull himself away so soon after finding him. And if Keith was this starved for touch, well, maybe it would help them both.
“Can I stay, Keith?” He asked, and Keith responded with that same dutiful nod. He wasn’t completely focused on Shiro— instead dragging his fingers over the sheets and pressing lightly on the mattress like he couldn’t believe it was real.
Shiro could relate.
He didn’t make Keith get changed again. He had preferred sleeping in his day clothes before he left for the Blade, so Shiro just waited for Keith to climb into the bed before turning down the lights and following him under the covers.
They laid there for some time. Keith wasn’t sleeping yet; his fingers were drumming out a pattern on the wall beside his head, and every so often he’d snap them or click his tongue a couple of times. Meanwhile, Shiro was torturing himself imagining what kind of things Lotor could’ve done to him. What he’d done to break Keith, the strongest of them all.
“Keith?”
Before, he would’ve given a little hum of acknowledgement, or glanced over his shoulder to raise an eyebrow.
Now he just said in his dead voice, “Yes?”
Shiro gulped, unconsciously pressing closer. “Did Lotor ever… do this with you?”
“No.” He paused to click his tongue. “I don’t have a bed in the cell. Besides, he doesn’t like to touch me lately. Says I’m dirty.”
Shiro couldn’t help giving him the protective squeeze. “That’s not true.”
Keith moved his shoulders in the tiniest of shrugs. “I don’t mind. Maybe he’ll forget about me.”
This was so, so wrong. Something in Shiro was saying that he should be grateful Keith was alive, grateful he hadn’t been permanently maimed, grateful he was talking at all. But he couldn’t. He was talking, sure, but the things he said and the way he said them… it wasn’t Keith. Not the Keith he knew. It wasn’t his little brother.
Carefully Shiro pulled up the blankets, tucking them around Keith as closely as he could. He wanted to make him comfortable. Help him forget what cold steel felt like on his back.
“It’s gonna be ok, Keith,” he promised in a whisper as Keith continued to drum his fingers. “I know you don’t believe me yet, but you’ll be ok. I know you will.”
This time Keith didn’t answer.
He wasn’t any better the next day, or the next. He didn’t come out of his room unless someone escorted him, didn’t do anything without being told. If left alone he’d sit wherever he’d been left and calmly braid his hair, murmuring something under his breath.
“How are you doing?” Hunk dared to ask once.
Keith blinked up at him. “Fine. Waiting to wake up.”
On the fourth day Lance pulled him into his bathroom, armed with a pair of scissors.
“How short do you want it?” He asked quietly, voice echoing in the small tiled room. Keith stared at him in the mirror and said nothing.
“Alright,” answered Lance with a trembling smile. “Mullet it is.”
His hair was already in a braid, so Lance simply aligned the scissors with the nape of his neck and gnawed through it, setting the rope of hair aside on the counter.
Keith stared at it for a long moment, and when Lance glanced back into the mirror he found Keith’s eyes locked on his own reflection with a new intensity as his hair fanned out around his jaw.
Lance gulped and focused back on the haircut.
Snip snip snip went the scissors, releasing tiny chunks of ebony to float serenely to the floor. Lance had no idea what he was doing, but he tried his best. The end result was shorter than it was meant to be and chunky, cut into awkward blocks that stuck up from his head, but it kinda looked like a mullet.
When he finally raised his eyes up to the mirror, Lance was shocked to see tears streaming down Keith’s cheeks.
It was the first time he’d shown emotion since Shiro brought him back.
“Keith?” Lance asked hesitantly, laying a hand on his bony shoulder. “Are you ok?”
Keith’s back heaved as his breath caught. “He… he said I was never going home.”
Lance swallowed back tears. “He lied. You are home. You’re home now.”
Keith choked on a sob, ducking his head to obscure the tears, and Lance felt himself crack right down the middle.
He pulled Keith into a hug and held him as he cried.
That night Keith had his first nightmare. Shiro was sleeping with him still, after an aborted attempt at letting him sleep alone the night before only to find him on the floor the next morning with nothing more than his thinnest blanket.
He was awoken by an arm slamming into his stomach, jolting him awake breathless and gasping. Keith was flailing in the dark as though struggling against restraints only he could see, tiny whimpers escaping his throat between panting breaths, and when Shiro touched him he screamed. For a moment the sound made him freeze, echoing off the metal walls of the room, before he gulped and resumed his efforts to wake Keith up.
Eventually he succeeded, but he had at least five new bruises to show for it. Shiro couldn’t care about them, though. Keith was sobbing as Shiro held him to his chest, muttering incomprehensibly to himself through the tears. Shiro couldn’t do anything besides stroke his hair and whisper useless platitudes into his hair and try not to cry too hard himself. Eventually, either from Shiro’s soothing or from sheer exhaustion, Keith fell asleep again.
Then it happened again. And again.
And the next night. And the next. Like clockwork, three or four times a night, Keith would wake screaming and flailing and not knowing where he was, until Lance and Hunk insisted on taking turns with staying the night with Keith so that Shiro would stop walking around like a sleep deprived zombie.
The daytime wasn’t any better. Something about realizing that this whole situation was real, that he wasn’t dreaming, had utterly shattered Keith’s calm. He was paranoid and skittish, flinching at even the slightest movement. Once at breakfast Hunk had reached for something tucked into his belt and Keith had straight up fallen from his chair in an attempt to get away. He still did things when he was told to do them (or gently suggested, as the team tended to do) but it wasn’t out of detached obedience anymore.
It was out of fear.
They all tried their best. Gentle touch seemed to calm him-- though whether that was a result of touch starvation or if it was a conditioned response from Lotor they didn’t know and, frankly, didn’t want to-- so they gave him as much of it as they could. Shoulder touches and hugs were par for the course from Shiro and Hunk, and cuddling was Required whenever someone shared a bed with him. An activity which Pidge was strictly forbidden from lest Keith accidentally hurt her.
Aside from that, every night Lance would go to Keith’s room and brush his hair for him. He’d stopped talking so much when the nightmares came, reverting to a nod or shake of the head when he thought a response was required, but whenever he did speak it was either to Shiro or to Lance during these times.
He never said much. Just a few words of acknowledgement instead of a nod, or a quiet, “No,” instead of a headshake. But it was progress.
Slow and steady as it was, it was progress.
Seven quintants after the nightmares started came the outbursts, and Allura had never felt more baffled in her life. Everything could be perfectly calm and quiet, and suddenly Keith would just… explode. Like a child, he’d start screaming and shouting and throwing things about the room, even the furniture! They had no discernible pattern or reason for their occurrence, they’d just happen. Shiro warned them not to get too close, otherwise they’d probably have been struck, as well.
Shiro tried to explain it to them. “He’s just confused,” he’d said to them, all gathered in the lounge for the Important Discussion. “He learned to expect a certain way of being treated, and now we’re acting different and it’s confusing and scary for him. So he figures if he acts out, if he makes us mad, then we’ll start acting the way he expects us to.”
“But why would he want us to be abusive to him?” Allura had questioned, scrunching her brow against the headache that was building. “Wouldn’t he appreciate comfort and kindness?”
“Not necessarily.” Shiro had sighed then and pinched the bridge of his nose. “He doesn’t want to be treated badly. Not really. But kindness for kindnesses sake isn’t something he’s used to anymore, and the devil you know is the better than the one you don’t.”
So, in light of that conversation, they all went exceedingly out of their way not to react to Keith’s temper tantrums. Even if he broke something important, even if they were all tired and sore from the battles that still hadn’t stopped, they never shouted or used cruel words with him, and eventually the fire would die out and Keith would go back to his quiet, fleeting presence.
It felt strange to think about since they’d gotten him back, since he was right there with them, but Allura missed Keith. The old Keith. She missed hearing the banter with Lance echoing down the halls, or his triumphant whoop when a battle was going their way. They could still form Voltron and fight, but it always felt empty and cold, like they were missing their spark.
The Princess isn’t sure what came over her that night. She’d gone to the kitchen for some water late one night and found Keith there. He’d frozen, like he’d been caught doing something wrong, but Allura had merely given him a warm greeting and went about her business. And that, for some reason, set him off.
As she stood there, watching Keith throw chairs at the walls with anguished yells, she thought of everything she possibly knew about him and how he reacted to the world before moving.
Allura waited for him to dispose of the chair in his hands, then moved forward and pulled him into a gentle embrace. At first he began to slump, just as he always did, but this time he fought it. He growled low in his throat and thumped his fists against Allura’s shoulders, trying to break free, but Allura held him securely and didn’t flinch even the littlest bit at the punches.
“I know,” she murmured to him, and the growls paused. “I understand. You’re confused, and scared, and hurting. Everything is different now and you don’t want to be hurt again. I know. But we’re not going to give up on you. We’re never going to hurt you. I promise, Keith.”
She felt his shoulders tense and shake, and knew even before she felt the warm tears soaking into the arm of her gown. Still she stood, unbending as a pillar, and let him hold onto her as long as he needed to.
Two months had passed since Shiro had brought Keith home, and things were going pretty well, in Hunk’s humble opinion. Keith still needed someone to sleep with him lest he retreat to the floor again, but the nightmares were becoming an every other night occurrence rather than a nightly one. The outbursts, too, were on the decline. It wasn’t linear-- some weeks he’d have none and others he’d have five, but it was getting better.
Allura had granted him access to the training deck (just the punching bags and equipment, not the weapons or the gladiator) for an hour a day and that seemed to be helping, as were Coran’s attempts at therapy sessions.
But there was something else that was bothering Hunk. He still wasn’t talking much, just a few words to Shiro or Lance during their nightly hair brushing sessions, but even when he wasn’t speaking his lips would move like he was muttering to himself, and that really concerned him.
It had only taken a few days for him to notice how he was repeating the same words to himself over and over. But he did it so quietly Hunk couldn’t catch all of it. Only bits and pieces.
He was even doing it now as he watched Hunk cook dinner, sitting across the counter in one of the bar stools. He had new fidgets now-- he’d tap his fingers on whatever surface he was near, slowly and one at a time. If he wasn’t muttering, he’d click his tongue. Sometimes he snapped his fingers. Today it was tapping and muttering, though the room was so quiet that for once Hunk was able to snatch a few of the words.
“-- no one, I-- nothing-- wants me-- broken and worthless-- no one.” He couldn’t even hear the full sequence, but it sounded so sad as it was that he didn’t want to.
“Hey, Keith,” he said, cutting off the muttering. “What’s that you’re always saying to yourself?”
Out of his periphery he saw Keith go still.
“... it’s nothing.”
Hunk tsked and tossed another pinch of the alien herb into the soup he was stirring. “Are you sure? I’m pretty curious now.”
Keith gave a tiny little sigh. “You really want me to say it?”
He was looking for an order. “Only if you want to.”
For a moment or two there was silence, Keith debating as Hunk stirred. Then he took a breath.
“I am no one,” he began so quietly Hunk stopped stirring. “I am nothing. I am broken and worthless and no one wants me.”
He couldn’t bite back his gasp. “Keith, that’s--”
“There used to be more,” Keith interrupted, which was a pleasant surprise. He hadn’t done anything like that in a long time. “But some of it stopped being true.”
“Well,” Hunk drew out the word, staring into his soup and trying to figure out what he was going to say. It had to be good. This was a moment of truth. “I don’t know what the rest of it was, but based on what you said, I’m going to guess that none of it was ever true.”
“But--”
“You are Keith Kogane.” He said it as firmly as he could manage. “You’re a paladin of Voltron. And you’re brave and strong and a valued member of our family, and we love you.” He looked up to find Keith staring, wide eyed, completely still except for a tiny tremble. When he spoke, his voice was even softer than before.
“...but--”
“No buts,” Hunk said, hopefully not unkindly. “I’ll sit here and tell you that all day if I have to. You’re important to us.”
Keith gnawed on his lower lip and didn’t say anything. Hunk swallowed hard and decided to push his luck.
“You are Keith Kogane. You’re a Paladin of Voltron. You’re important to us and we love you.”
Keith’s eyes shone with tears.
“You are Keith Kogane. You’re a Paladin of Voltron. You’re important to us and we love you.”
Hunk didn’t care how many times he had to say it. He’d do it as many times as he had to. Until he convinced Keith it was the truth.
Until Keith believed him.