open post (general)

[secondnature]

general open post. i will always be up on the most recent canon.

Comments

casually makes shit up

[upholding]

[ The first thing Shiro knows is that they're in battle, in what's probably the most important fight of their lives, and it seems like they're about to finally pull through. The next?

He's waking up.

The team is gone. The Black Lion is gone. His bayard is gone. ... But where does that leave Zarkon?

It's different from the amnesia. He knows something had to have happened, but before, he could feel that he was missing something. He knew that his head had been scrambled as he fought against the haze of what he only half remembered, and it slowly lifted as the pieces came back. This time, there's nothing like that, and he's not sure how to feel about it. There's a definite jump in his memories, but it doesn't seem like he hit his head this time. In a way, it's almost worse, because not having that fog as he looks back means there's nothing to shut out the panicked voice inside of him. What happened? How did he get here? Did he just black out, or is there something much worse going on here? What does this mean for the fate universe? There are so many questions pressing down, each a little more terrifying than the next.

But in the end, he has no choice but to force them back down. There isn't time to puzzle about what this means when he doesn't have the slightest clue where he is or how to get back to the team. There's not a soul in sight, and nothing familiar about any of his surroundings, and he has to prioritize getting his bearings before he can even think to focus on anything else. Whatever he learns later, he'll have to deal with later—right now he has to make sure he survives. The good news is that he still has his helmet, so he can at least try and call out for help. ]

Guys? Anyone out there?

[ The signal is clean, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Just because he can connect doesn't mean anyone is in range to hear it, and all he can do is hope with all he has someone can. He can't be lost here. There's too much he doesn't know. Too much still resting on his shoulders, and the thought of being unable to follow through isn't one he'd ever be able to forgive himself for. ]

[secondnature]

[Pidge had said that the reading itself was irregular. Irregular. Keith doesn't know what that means, but apparently it has something to do with the readout of the message sent to the castle. With Voltron's five main pilots already caught in a crossfire between a should-be-abandoned Galra colony and the rebel forces that have decided to become an insurgent group, it's up to Keith to seek out the source of the message. He's a little surprised that the message comes from Pidge and not Shiro, but then—is he really that surprised? Shiro's only been concerned with orders and their mission as of late. With all the near-constant close calls, Keith can't blame him for being stressed.

Leading is hard. It's why he couldn't do it. It's why he never wants to do it. Every close call is his fault, and he can't deal with possibly letting people down. Not like that.

Keith can't hear Shiro's original message—there's too much time between the relay ping and the message to Keith—but he does show up about fifteen minutes later in a Galra fighter. As he lowers to the surface of the mountainous and craggy surface, he's reminded of the place where he and Shiro landed. The gravity readings are closer to Earth's than that place, but the look is similar enough. It's gray, dreary, and he can't help but wonder if this place, like a great deal of others in the universe, was once flush with green before the Galra invaded.

He doesn't exit the ship yet. That leaves out the possibility of an exit strategy. This could be a trap. Somehow. Someway. Pidge seemed certain he could come here alone, but then—there's no way to tell for sure.

From his seat, he sends out a message to the same frequency:]

This is Keith of the Blade of Marmora. We got your message. We need confirmation about who you are.

[His voice is awkward and strained, stiff and formal, like he's trying to sound official. Keith has never been good at that.]

[upholding]

[ Shiro's impulse is to hide the second he notices the craft is Galra, for all the good it will do. He can't imagine what business anyone would have somewhere so desolate unless they knew he was here somehow, either through intercepting his message or some other means. If they are here for him, it seems unlikely they'd overlook him just because he isn't visible, but if he's lucky, it will buy him enough time for a contingency plan. There's only two options: lure the pilot out somehow, or force his way onto the ship. The fighter might be small, but fighting it head-on on his own would be absolute suicide. Neither are good options, but they're better than jumping into open fire.

He relaxes a little when he's contacted. There's a lot to process in three simple sentences, and the first thing he latches onto is the part that's easiest in the moment: the Blade of Marmora. That much is a relief. They'll know who he is, and they can help him back to everyone. But— ]

Keith?

[ That can't be right... But he knows that voice, and this whole situation seems too elaborate just to be a ruse. There's easier ways to flush him out than... whatever this is. He decides to step back out into the open. ]

Keith. It's me.

[ His voice is a little tired. It's good to have a friend here, but Shiro is too bewildered to be happy about it. He's starting to feel like someone pushed him into the deep end. ]

[secondnature]

—Shiro? [How is that even possible? Hadn't Pidge sent him here because Voltron—all of Voltron—was needed elsewhere? And if that's the case, what is Shiro going to think about him being here? He's supposed to have a mission. A specific mission. He's not supposed to be off doing ... whatever this is, as that doesn't really legitimize why he left the team.

Suspicion doesn't rise in his mind. It never does when it comes to Shiro. Maybe it should. But that "maybe" isn't a voice in his head—it probably would never have been, had it not been for this chance meeting.

The door opens and he steps out.]

Hang on, I'm on my way. [There's a beat of silence, and then he adds:] Didn't think I'd end up in a place like this with you again.

[Almost as if it's normal.]

[upholding]

[ He could almost laugh if there wasn't so much going on right now, but he can see Keith's point, too—it is similar. Just the right kind of desolate to bring back memories of fighting within an inch his life, probably only surviving because Keith was there for him. How many time does this make? Probably a couple too many, as grateful as Shiro is. ]

Yeah, it was the best vacation I ever had. Thought I'd repeat the experience.

[ Which is a terrible joke, but it reminds him that he's better off this time. No alien wounds, no lizard monsters, an easy way out of here. It doesn't mean everything will come easy, though.

Keith is close enough that Shiro can see him approaching, and seeing the uniform of the Blade of Marmora is draining somehow. It doesn't feel right—Keith has never acted as Blade before, and it doesn't seem like something he'd just wake up to like this. There's way too much missing information here for comfort. Inundating Keith with all the questions running through him wouldn't be productive, so he boils it down to one very basic one: ]

.... Keith, what's going on?

[ He's trying not make that sound loaded. It's not entirely successful. ]

some futuro stuff w/e

[evenslimmer]

[ Getting yanked through time and space— it's really just another day in the life of the X-Men. Scott knows he'll never lose count of how many times it happens (or he wouldn't be Scott Summers), but he's not sure he's comfortable with how easy it's become to just fall right in in medias res into some crisis. And there's always fighting. Because when do the X-Men solve their problems without an opportunity to optic blast someone in the face?

It's just that, normally, he doesn't get dropped into it alone. It's quieter than he's used to, without Bobby's endless chattering or Hank's sharp sarcasm. Or Jean's now-constant presence in the back of his mind. Still, the Book of Cyclops has room for improvising a plan on the fly. Or just bossing people around. ]

Watch your six!

[ Scott doesn't know the guy from Adam, really. They're here, they're going after the same objective, it's bad tactics to let somebody get hit in the back of the head. Without pause he ricochets a blast off the wall to their left to catch the assailant in the side of the head. Team Random Time Agents 1, Bad Guys 0? ]

[secondnature]

[The nature of the mission meant that Keith was better off looking like a member of the Blade than a Paladin. It's a quick extraction mission: set up shop and then, within five days, infiltrate a giant castle to ensure that a evil power once divided from a special gem of ostensomething doesn't grab it now that circumstances have changed. Sure. He could do that. Alone. But it's been a long time since he's been alone on these missions. Being a part of Audentes basically means he's ... never alone.

Ever.

And that he doesn't have to be anything that he doesn't want to be. Or that he isn't ready to be.

The problem is ... well. Sometimes there are just too many people on the missions at any given moment. That basically means that they're bound to be found, bound to have to deal with being found, and bound to have things about to knock them in the head and give them concussions.

Keith wishes he had his armor to help prevent that, as his head would be better protected. But ... instead, he has to drop down, sliding knees first out of the way of the strike. His mask glows purple as he looks back at the downed assailant.]

See anyone else?

[Thanks can come later.]

[evenslimmer]

[ Good question. Scott kicks himself for the moment of hesitation before he answers, waiting for Jean to give the all-clear. Telepath'd come in handy right now, to keep it quick and clean. But it's fine. They can do it the old-fashioned way. No boots coming quick down the hallway, no shouting. They might have gotten away with it. ]

...all clear.

[ The visor narrows, abruptly cutting off the faint red glow. He holds out his hand to pull the other guy to his feet. ]

If you're good, we need to move.

[ And if he's not...well. He can do his best, cauterize if necessary. He's done it before. It feels like he's done all of this before. ]

[secondnature]

I'm good. [Keith doesn't even bother to check himself. There are sore spots, but he's had worse. He's had worse while piloting a giant robot lion, for instance. His jaw sets, and he considers demasking himself, but decides against it. For now, the fact that they both have some face gear might help them down the line.

And ... like with 9S, he assumes that this guy's mask thing is just that: gear.]

How good are you at climbing? [He asks the question while striding forward. There are two ways through: climb up a wall to a long tunnel that's like a ventilation shaft, but with very little air, or risk the hallways and more encounters like this.]

[evenslimmer]

[ It’s weird, working without quips. Scott never realized how much he’d miss his teams’ constant repartee as they worked. Like here, now, Bobby or Miles would have something great to say. There’s a shaft joke waiting to happen. Too bad Scott’s sense of humor doesn’t lean that way. It’s probably a really obvious one.

Though this guy doesn’t seem like much of a jokester. Who knew somewhere in the multiverse there was someone to rival Scott Summers for the role of “straight man”?]

I’d be better if I could stick to the walls. [ That isn’t a joke. It would be good to be a Spider-Person right now. ] I’ve done worse with a broken leg. I can make it if you can.

[toebeans]

[ They're going home.

Shiro doesn't remember much after the initial moment of waking up, feeling Haggar's presence fade from something not dissimilar to claws in his mind to a distant awareness. He can fight her like this, he thinks. He knows how to fight her, now, even if he's not certain he'll be particularly good at it.

The Castle is gone and he doesn't think to ask questions about it; they usher him to a bed, and he's too out of it to argue or object, stumbling like a baby animal learning how to walk until he finally gives in and leans heavily on Allura, who refused to let Keith help.

Probably because he's injured, too, his mind points out and there's nothing he can do about it, not in this state where talking is borderline impossible. They get him into a bed, get him a pouch of water and he falls asleep again halfway through draining it.

When he wakes the next time, he's out of armor, covered in something holding his arms down. It's dark and for a moment, he panics, thrashes against the bindings and realizes abruptly a moment later how much of a shit decision that is because his whole body screams in protest, tender and bruised, too weak to do much let alone fight. It's not the metal band of Haggar's worktable around his chest, though: it's a duvet and a sheet, tucked firmly in around him. He's not in the darkness of her lab, he's--

Well, he's not sure where he is, but it looks a hell of a lot like a hotel, paisley walls and an old lamp that looks like it'll stop working if he looks at it wrong. ]

What--

[secondnature]

[Thanks to some quick thinking (something that Keith doesn't even have available to him at the moment), Pidge manages to draw together enough false identification papers and insurance information to get Coran a rental car. Of course, Coran isn't going to be driving. Hunk is. They just needed someone old enough to get them to where they were going: the Garrison. Well, to the Holt household, and then to the Garrison. It's all very questionable, but they know how bad things are out there—in the universe. They know, so they have to do something about it.

Not that all of this is really important. Keith ... doesn't remember more than about ten percent of it. One bed over from Shiro's, he's lying there, the aches and pains and feeling still keeping him from sleeping well. But he's always been a light sleeper. That's part of the problem. He knows Shiro is there. He can hear his breathing, can tell that he's still holding on to life, and—

And then Shiro speaks.]

Shiro! [Keith's burst of Shiro's name is just as breathless and quick as ever. Without any of the others here, they can't scold him for clambering out of his bed, kicking aside the blanket and nearly tripping over it until he stumbles onto the side of Shiro's full size bed.

Pain threatens and throbs through Keith's body as he collapses into a spot beside Shiro, his hand being the only thing to keep him up. A lot of things have been slow to inch up on Keith in the last day. Days? Time has been hard for Keith since he stepped off the whale's back. Shiro's attack on him. What was happening. All he had was adrenaline. That was all he had, nothing more.

Now he just has this: Shiro. Alive. Better. They barely made it here. The Galra still had a means of tracking them when they had their minds set on it. Sendak ensured that the attacks would happen. He dug up the old information the moment Lotor's appearance was reported, and rallied much of the Empire behind him. It's why Keith is in even worse condition ...]

How are you? I—what can I get you? The others. They're out. But I think they got us stuff. I'm not sure.

[Keith has a vague, vague memory of Lance waltzing in and declaring the wonder of a 7-11 slurpee had finally been returned to his life, complete with a long, annoying slurp of his straw. Once again, Mr. Light Sleeper couldn't sleep through anything quite as annoying.

Not that Keith can really ... move ... to confirm that ever happened. His fingers twist into the duvet cover, holding on as he holds himself up.]

[toebeans]

[ It's a hotel bed.

Not a cot, not a bed built into the wall of the Castle, pristine, shiny metal surrounding it. It's a proper bed, with creaky springs and a wooden headboard that protests almost as much as his body does at him moving, leaning back against it. Sitting up feels like it takes literal ages; he nearly falls the first time, expecting an arm to be there that absolutely isn't. The second time around he manages it, exhaling shakily as he sags against the headboard and takes stock of everything.

Hotel bed. Keith. Keith, looking like he'd gotten the hell beaten out of him, stumbling over from the other hotel bed he had apparently been laying on to settle onto Shiro's, the springs giving another low creak of protest at the abuse before quieting.

He tries to take mental inventory of what happened but it's jumbled at best and when he pokes at it, he remembers fighting Keith, remembers trying to kill him, remembers Haggar's directive pressing down over him so sharply he couldn't dream of fighting it.

(I love you)

He remembers other things, too, but can't figure out what to do with them so he focuses on what he can. Patience yields focus and he needs to be both while Keith asks him a million questions and he tries to remember how to speak, how to move a body that feels heavy and foreign. ]

...why are we in a hotel?

[ He remembers the Castle and leaving it, but why does the hotel look like an Earth hotel? They couldn't be on Earth, could they? Shiro forces himself to focus, head throbbing, watching Keith grasp the duvet, realizing what's wrong. He's hurting, just like Shiro is, but this is worse because he caused it. Moving far is out of the question but Shiro pats the duvet at his side, where there's plenty of room if he needs. ]

Alright. Lay down or lean back against the headboard before you fall over.

[secondnature]

I'm fine. I can handle myself. [The words are almost perfunctory, words that Keith has delivered countless times before to Shiro in the past (before Kerberos came along and ripped him away from Keith's life). He barely realizes he said them.

And then he does. His eyebrows pinch together and he looks at Shiro, a guilty expression blooming on his face.] I mean—we can hold each other up. I think we'll have to. [The initiative there is new. The certainty there is also new. The haze of his mind wars between his older, more prickly self, and his newer self, which is like ... half a cactus full of needles rather than an actual cactus' needles.

Keith draws himself onto the bed the rest of the way, and eases toward Shiro. He grunts in pain, but he finally settles onto the headboard. He then extends his arm, all to help Shiro closer.]

Come on. I think I can catch you up. I just don't want to have to tell you everything twice. [That's a joke. It's just that Keith's delivery will make it very hard to tell that it's a joke—unless Shiro catches the smile on Keith's lips as he patiently readies himself to carry the burden of the both of them right now.]

[toebeans]

[ Shiro shouldn't take it personally, but at first, he almost does. It's such a sharp, dismissive statement that he really doesn't know what to do with it because things were always different with Keith. They understood each other and Shiro was able to weather moments like this because they were fewer and further between than with other people and Keith.

Trying to kill someone really puts a dampener on that, he supposes. ]

Alright.

[ It's not, but there's nothing else he can say; he isn't going to argue. Keith hauls himself up and Shiro waits until he settles as comfortably as he can before inching over, touching their shoulders together gingerly. His other arm aches, which is absurd because there's nothing there to hurt, but somehow with that sliced metal and wiring, it's like his body finally picked up that it wasn't there any longer and was making up for lost time.

They're certainly a pair, grunting and moving gingerly like old men. Shiro leans back against the headboard delicately and settles his hand in his lap, glancing over at the joke with a faint twist to his lips. ]

Is this a hotel on Earth, or just...one on a planet that really managed the 'weird hotel in the middle of nowhere' look?

cont. tfln

[secondnature]

from here]

I don't know. I mean.

That sounds like a lot.

And you're not here.

[upholding]

[ He can't quite deny that, but— ]

A lot's happened.


Maybe I don't say it often enough.

[secondnature]

You know that's not what I meant. It's a lot to ask of you.

[upholding]

Keith. It's alright. If it were too much, I'd let you know.

[secondnature]

All right.

Do you know when you're getting back? Someone decided that I should be the one to do some of your job for you while you were gone.

[Which sounds familiar, but he doesn't know how to help with the inventories on the Atlas ...]

s8 spoilers alllllll the way down

[secondnature]

I know I agreed to be your best man.

But I don't really know where to start. Or what I'm supposed to do.

And you know if I ask Lance he'll want to be the other other best man, and this is my job. It's the one I'm not gonna pass up on.

So, uh. What were you thinking? For it.

[igf]

Most of what you have to do is just stand there next to me.

Traditionally, the best man also gives a speech at the reception about the person they're standing for, but I know speeches usually aren't your thing.

And, uh. Sometimes the bachelor party is the best man's thing. I'd really rather skip that part though.

[secondnature]

The speech part doesn't sound as bad as the party. I've given plenty of speeches about you.

[Weird out of context but also: true.]

What if we just go do something instead?

[igf]

Just don't tell any stories that are too embarrassing?

[ since keith probably has a few..... ]

That sounds much better than the strip club I know some people insist is tradition. Especially considering our luck.

[ the last thing they need is to end up with like. an unilu stripper. ]

[secondnature]

Why would I tell anyone an embarrassing story? It's a big day for you. I know how important Curtis is to you.

[Keith: if he's been to a wedding, he hasn't gotten the point. He probably just thought that the best man was being rude at ... whatever space wedding he's surely gone to by now.]

Anyway.

No strippers.

Just flying somewhere.

Or we can go back to the desert.

It's up to me, isn't it?