The (Quint)essence of Friendship

by WordGoober

Summary:

The druids try out a nasty new attack on everyone's favorite emo. It sucks, but the team is there to help as he gets back on his feet. Really the majority of this fic is me developing the relationships between the paladins because I feel like we don't get nearly enough of their sibling-like squabbling/snuggling in the show.

Takes place between S3's 'The Red Paladin' and 'Hole in the Sky'

Notes:

Hello! You clicked on my fic, wow thanks!! This thing is unbeta-ed fyi, hope you enjoy anyway! Also, this first chapter has a lot of technical jargon that is literally just me taking science-ish words and praying. In the long run it's not important to the plot, so I hope no one gets turned off by that. If you do, I'm sorry. I am Not A Science.
Enjoy!

Chapter 1: The Chapter Where Everything Goes to Heck

Keith may not have considered himself a good leader, but there was one thing he was really good at - getting himself into bad situations. He’d done it before and he’d do it again, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that since he’d taken the position of team leader, his team tended to follow him into those situations (which honestly, was their fault. He’d been upfront about the fact that he’d be shit at this). Currently the paladins were hiding in a closed off storage room on a Galra ship, attempting to get back to the red lion that had brought all of them aboard. Infiltrating a Galra ship was nothing new (although it was still pretty new for Allura). The team had gotten the information they came for, but getting out was proving to be an issue.
“Hunk, keep trying to get that message through to Coran.” Keith hated being in charge. If Shiro were here, he would know what to do.
Hunk frowned at the tablet in his hands. “I’m trying, but something’s interfering with the signal. It’s like the ship itself is scrambling our communications.”
“Great,” Keith growled, “Pidge, have you found anything in the ship’s records to explain why there are so many guards here?”
“I’m still looking, but I think it’s just a routine inspection. I just can’t figure out how we missed it while we were planning the raid.”
Lance stood by the door, keeping it cracked open just enough to be able to steal occasional glimpses into the hallway.
“Look, whatever the reason is it doesn’t really matter now. We just gotta figure out a way to get past them.”
Allura leaned over Pidge’s shoulder to look at the map of the ship displayed on her screen.
“The red lion is hidden outside the North shuttle bay. We’re not that far away.”
Pidge nodded. “The only big obstacle is this guard station.” She pointed at the map. “From what our sensors can tell, there are way more guards there than we planned for. There’s no way we can fight our way out without setting off some major alarms.”
“So we can’t do it the Keith way.” Lance sent Keith a pointed look toward the former red paladin.
“I get it, Lance.” Keith sighed. Part of him wanted to be insulted, but he couldn’t pretend Lance was wrong. Time to try to think like Shiro.
“What if we split into groups?” He suggested. “Send half of the team around one side and half around the other. It’s easier to be stealthy if we have less people.”
“It also puts us at a disadvantage if this does turn into a fight.” Allura pointed out.
Keith frowned.
“The goal is to get out without that, though. Shouldn’t we focus on that part of the plan?” Hunk asked.
“I mean, yeah buddy, but we’ve gotta be prepared for the worst.” Lance took a few steps away from the door, joining the discussion.
Hunk seemed to deflate. “Can’t we go one mission without expecting the WORST?”
“Not one as high stakes as this, big guy.” Keith smiled wryly. Trying to lead the team was nerve-wracking to no end, but the fact that the team wasn’t acting any differently than they did with Shiro helped.
“I think splitting the team is pretty risky,” Pidge input,”unless we take out some of the guards from that station. I have an idea. The way the power system on this ship is routed, I think my bayard can send a pulse through to overload some of the systems on the lower levels.”
Hunk pressed into Allura’s side to check out the diagram on the screen.
“If we open up one of the panels in the walls we can break into the system and shut down the power for the entire ship. Wait, but that would also keep us from opening the bay door and getting to the red lion.”
“Exactly,” Pidge agreed, “ so what I’m thinking is instead of letting the pulse disperse through the entire system, we trap it in one sector.”
“But Pidge, that’ll - that’ll blow it up. You want to blow it up?”
Pidge shot Hunk a look that could only say ‘heck yeah I want to blow it up’. Hunk got the message.
“It’s actually a good idea, Hunk.” Allura said.
“Blowing up part of a ship that we’re on?”
“Yes. We need a distraction to get the guards away from the shuttle bay.”
“Well, an explosion is one way to get people to look the other way.” Keith shrugged.
Lance crossed his arms. “I kind of agree with Hunk though - how do we make sure we don’t blow up a part of the ship we need to get through? I’m not as sciency as you, Pidge, but this doesn’t sound like the most controlled blast scenario.”
“It’s not,” Pidge agreed, “but I think at this point any way we get off this ship is going to be risky. This is the best I’ve got.”
This was the point in the plan where everyone would have looked to Shiro for a verdict, but Shiro wasn’t there. It took a moment for Keith to realize that instead, the team had turned to him. It caught him off guard.
“Uh - Pidge, how long would you need to do… what you need to do?” (dear god, he was not a leader. Could the team tell how much he was floundering?) Keith felt a flush begin to creep into his cheeks. Thankfully Pidge seemed to understand, and graciously brought the team’s attention back to her screen.
“Depends on a few things.The most important thing is that we manually block off the circuits in the area that we want to explode. We’ll have to time it though. Obviously we can’t put more power into something that’s completely closed off, so we’ll have to leave one open and then close it right after the pulse enters. After we do that, we’ll open up a panel and I can send the pulse through, we close the open circuit, and let the power build up. That’s where some guess work comes in. Depending on how powerful the pulse is, it could take anywhere from 10 or 20 dobaches.”
Keith frowned.
“Guess we should start then.”
“Where are exploding?” Lance asked.
“If we blow up the entrance to the guard’s barracks, that will keep more of them from coming through.” Allura pointed out.
“It also means there’ll be more guards to avoid while we set up. Is that gonna be an issue?” Keith directed the question to Pidge, who took a moment to think.
“I don’t think so. There’s no particular order that we need to close things off. We can be adapt to the situation.”
“Ok. Let’s go.”

-

It didn’t take long for the team to get down to the level the guard’s barracks were on. It did, however, take a good deal of sneaking, which made the journey feel much longer. By the time Pidge was ready to initiate the plan, Keith was ready to be Off This Ship.
“Once I set this one, we’re gonna have to get out of here fast.” Pidge told the team quietly.
After receiving a few nods of acknowledgement, Pidge went to work. While Pidge worked, the rest of the team kept guard - which was good, because otherwise they may not have noticed the sudden wrongness of the situation.
Pidge was tucked into an alcove near the entrance to the barracks, with Lance standing in front of her protectively and the others hiding along the hallway. The end of that hall connected to another going across, and that’s where Keith, who was closest to the other hall, started to notice something different.
“Guys. I think I know why there are so many guards here.” He said softly, trying to peek out from his hiding spot but remain unseen.
“What?” Lance asked, alarmed, “Why? Is something -”
He cut off suddenly, and Keith knew it was because Lance was now feeling it too - the way the air hummed with power, making their skin crawl, the feeling washing over them of wanting to hide, wanting to run, wanting out Out OUT.
“Druids. There are druids here.” Keith answered.
“At an outpost as far from the hub as this?” Allura asked, incredulous.
“Apparently.” Keith shrugged, trying to portray calmness to the team even though it felt like unease was taking over his body. He felt nauseous and too hot and scared. He hated the druids.
“Pidge. How much longer do you need?”
He heard a pop as Pidge slid the panel she’d removed back into the wall.
“Done.” She said.
“Then can we please get out of here?” Hunk urged.
Keith gave a nod and the team started to creep back down the hall the way they’d come. The shuttle bay was only one level up, and hopefully Pidge’s explosion would get enough guards out the way for them to make it into the bay, crack open the door, and get to the red lion unnoticed.
As they made their way toward the hangar, Allura frowned.
“Pidge, you said there wasn’t anything scheduled in the ship’s records except for a routine inspection. So what are druids doing here?” She wondered aloud.
As the team came to a stop a few corridors away from the main door into the shuttle bay, they found out.

“-have received news from a nearby planet that Voltron may be in this quadrant.” The low, raspy voice of a druid.
Keith felt himself gritting his teeth. This was bad, and by the way the rest of the team shared a concerned glance, they all knew it.

“We assure that if Voltron had been sighted, it would have been captured for the glory of the Galra empire.” A different voice. Galra. Angry.

“Commander, as much faith as you have in your little outpost, it is not shared by the Emperor. Or by Haggar. You have been ordered to allow the druids take over this station until we can be sure of this claim.” The druid’s voice betrayed little emotion.

The Galra commander was clearly displeased, yet yielded.
“As the Emperor sees fit, and may he recover quickly. Vrepit Sa.”

The druid only hummed in response. Suddenly the ship was shaken, and with a loud bang, it became clear to the paladins that Pidge’s explosion had gone off. Keith spared her a glance and saw that she was grinning smugly. Of course she was - it was Pidge.

“What was that?” The Galra commander cried out in alarm. “Guards, with me!”
A loud rumble of running footsteps passed by the hall. When they sounded far enough away, Keith peeked into the corridor and, finding it empty, motioned for the paladins to move. One by one, they slipped into the shuttle bay.

There was only one guard still stationed in the bay, standing by the controls. When he saw the paladins, he reached for his gun only to have it slapped out of hands by Hunk, who made quick work of hitting him hard over the head. The guard fell unconscious quickly.
While disabled the guard, Keith went straight to the control board, pressing his hand on the controls to open the bay door just enough for them to escape through. The team had already turned and started heading to their escape when the entrance to the shuttle bay slammed open.
Startled, the paladins whirled around to see the druid from earlier standing in the doorway.

“Shit.” Keith said under his breath, activating his bayard and hearing the others do the same. Before the druid could do anything, Lance fired a shot. The druid held its hands up and redirected the energy back at him, and Lance had to dive out of the way.
“Did we know they can do that?” He yelled in alarm.
“No!” Allura shouted back, also alarmed.
Keith, the closest one to the druid, raised his sword and began to charge toward it. Before he reached the druid, Pidge’s bayard did, knocking the druid’s hands apart and forcing the electricity the druid had been gathering to disperse. Keith took the opening and slashed down, only for the druid to reach up and GRAB HIS SWORD WITH ITS HAND (WHAT THE FUCK). The druid then yanked down on the sword, hard, causing Keith to stumble. As he fell, the druid reached its other, non-sword holding hand out and pressed it against his chest. Keith tried to pull away, feeling the crackling of some sort of energy building up in the druid’s hand. The druid followed easily as he moved and then, bringing his hand back slightly, released the energy directly into Keith’s chest.
And fuck did it hurt.
For a moment Keith lost function of all of his senses, only registering the pain. It felt like being hit by a fucking bus. Fuck. His vision went dark and fuzzy, his ears rang like they would after being too close to an explosion. He didn’t feel himself falling to the ground, but suddenly there he was, in a helpless puddle on the floor. His brain felt fried, and the the only conscious thought he managed to grab hold of was “that sucked”. Little pieces of the world returned - Lance and Hunk yelling, guns firing. A hand shaking his arm and, sounding like he was trying to hear through a wall of cotton, Allura’s voice.
“Keith? Keith please, can you hear me?”
Her face appeared in his line of sight, fuzzy and hard to hold onto. He was far too tired to answer.
“Get him up!” Pidge? Maybe. “Get him out of here!”
More shots firing, a yell of pain. Keith vaguely hopes that it wasn’t from one of the paladins before the thought slips away. He wants to sleep. He should sleep.
He feels someone, probably Allura, pulling him in the direction of the cracked shuttle bay door. He hears yelling. He sees stars, and then, as blackness blots out the light, he sees nothing at all.

Chapter 2: Figuring Out What the Heck is Heck (heCK)

Summary:

The team gets back to the Castle and tries to figure out what's wrong. Also, Pidge is gremlin (but you probably already knew that).

Shorter chapter than I originally wanted, but I can't really think of anything of importance to add, so *shrug*. You get a short one today. Who knows, if the writing faeries decide not to leave me, I may update again tonight. Love and hugs :D

Hunk hated when anyone on the team got hurt - for any reason, in any fashion. It was always hard to watch his friends fall, and this time was no exception. No to mention it was Keith and he was practically invincible in Hunk’s eyes. So yeah, watching the druid blast their crackly-yellow energy bomb right at Keith and seeing him go down HARD and not get up - that SUCKED. And, unfortunately for the druid, it activated Hardcore Protective Hunk Mode. It was rare that Hunk threw caution to the wind. Now was one of those times. With Lance at his side, Hunk charged toward the druid with a shout, not even bothering to fire his bayard and opting instead to whack the druid as far away from the fallen Keith as possible. And then kick it. And punch it. Nobody hurts Hunk’s friends.
It didn’t take long for him and Lance to subdue the druid to an unmoving mass of the floor.
“Is it… unconscious?” Lance asked tentatively. Honestly, it was hard to tell.
Hunk glanced back to where Allura and Pidge where hauling Keith’s limo form toward the shuttle bay door.
“Who cares?” He asked, “Let’s throw ‘em into space and be done with it.”
Lance looked only mildly surprised. He himself had been subject to Hunk fierce protective streak, after all.
“Savage,” He nodded, “I like it.”
Taking no time to be gentle, Hunk grabbed the druid and, along with Lance, brought it the the shuttle bay’s open door and unceremoniously kicked it out the door. He gave a satisfied huff at seeing the druid drifting away, then and ran to the aid of Allura and Pidge, who were still trying to rouse Keith/get him outside. They didn’t have time for this. Hunk leaned down and scooped Keith into his arms.
“Let’s go!” He urged the team, and they listened.
Without wasting a moment, they slipped out the bay door and inched along the outside of the ship until they reached the red lion. The lion opened quickly, probably sensing both Lance’s distress and Keith’s pain. Hunk could relate.
Lance settled into the pilot’s seat and, without a word, blasted off from the side of the ship and toward the small moon the castle was hiding behind. Allura wasted no time contacting Coran.
“Coran, prepare a healing pod. Keith’s been hurt - we don’t exactly know by what, but it’s not good.”
“Right away, Princess.” Coran’s voice came through the comms.
Lance steered the red lion into its hangar and landed as softly as possible. As soon as they touched down, Hunk stood, with Keith still cradled in his arms. Along with the rest of the paladins, he started to head toward the healing pods.

When the team reached the pods, Coran greeted them with a grim smile. Gesturing toward the pod he’d prepared, he said,
“We’ll put him in that one. As soon as he’s sealed in we can run his vitals and figure out what’s wrong.”

Hunk nodded and took a knee, propping the still motionless Keith up against his chest. Pidge knelt beside him, working Keith’s helmet off his head. Lance got to work on Keith’s boots, Allura on his chest piece, and in no time they had rid Keith of his armor, leaving him in the black undersuit that wouldn’t impede the healing pods sensors. As gently as he could, Hunk lifted Keith into the pod, waiting for the weird anti-gravity of the pod to activate before stepping back and allowing Coran to seal the pod. Coran began skimming the pod’s control panel for any information.
“Anything?” Allura stepped up beside Coran.
“Nothing yet. This is… odd.” Coran frowned, starting a new scan. “So far all the pod is registering are some minor burns and trauma - oh! Here’s something.” Coran selected a small section on the screen to enlarge, leaning in close to read it.
“What does it say?” Pidge, as calm as she’d been so far, was clearly getting antsy. She was on her tiptoes, trying to read the Altean text on the screen over Coran’s shoulder.
“It’s - it’s his quintessence.” Coran sounded bewildered.
Lance looked upset at the lack of explanation. “What does that mean?” He asked.
Coran stepped back as if to collect his thoughts.
“Whatever they did seems to have just sucked the quintessence right out of him! Not all of it, obviously, he’s still alive, but a good chunk. Enough that he’ll be feeling it for a while.”
The paladins didn’t know how to respond to that.
“How is that possible?” Allura asked, at the same time Pidge asked, “What the fuck?”
Coran frowned. That was bad, Hunk noted. Coran was usually bubbly and fun and optimistic, and seeing him this subdued was unnerving.
“Look, this is… new, to say the very least. We’ve heard the rumors of the druids developing ways to collect quintessence from planets, but to draw it out of a human? Or, ehm, a mostly - human? I don’t have any form of reference for how he’ll recover from this.”
“What, so he just won’t?” Pidge snapped.
“I said how, not ‘if’, Number Five.” Coran replied, “I’m sure his condition will improve over time, I’m just not sure what we can do. How we can help. He may just need time.”
“We don’t have time!” Allura sounded panicked. “We already had to find a new black paladin. We need him to get better. Coran, are you sure there’s nothing we can do?”
Stepping back up to the pod’s control screen, Coran ran a hand through his hair.
“The pod does seem to be helping repair any physical damage the attack caused. The problem is, as incredible as they are, healing pods can’t regenerate quintessence. That’ll be something Keith has to do himself. I’m sure he can, you humans are resilient. But we have no frame of reference for how fast that will happen, or how we could speed it up. The good news is, once he’s out of the pod, he shouldn’t be in any pain. He’ll probably just be exhausted beyond belief!”
Allura seemed to wilt at the last sentence. “Excellent.” Her tone of voice conveyed the opposite.
“How long should we leave him in the pod for?” Hunk asked Coran.
“I’d say a few more hours. Then we’ll just need to make sure he rests.”
At that, the team shared a look - raised eyebrows and pursed lips - that was a perfect blend of amusement and dread. ‘Ah, yes’ they seemed to each other, ‘that will be so easy. Make sure Keith doesn’t do shit. Make Keith stay in bed. What fun’. And just like that, the tension in the room eased.
“Great. Awesome.” Lance deadpanned, causing Pidge to snort and Allura (though she’d never admit it - she had nothing but respect for all of the paladins. She didn’t think Keith was overly impulsive. Really, she didn’t.) to giggle behind her hand.
Hunk took a deep breath, reasonably satisfied that everything was indeed going to be alright.
“Cool,” he announced, “Then I’m gonna start working on dinner. Keith deserves something nice when he wakes up.”
“OOOOH I’m helping!” Lance butted in before Hunk gave him a faux stern look.
“No you’re not. In Lance language helping means eating. I want this to be nice.”
Lance pouted for a moment.
“Fine. Then I’m gonna absolutely destroy Pidge at some video games.” he said, causing Pidge to perk up and accept his challenge.
“Oh no you’re NOT.” She grabbed Lance’s hand and started dragging him toward the door, muttering something that sounded like ‘I’m gonna kick your ass so hard’. Lance laughed, and Allura smiled at the scene. “Actually, I think I’ll join you.” She said, stepping forward. Lance and Pidge looked surprised, but pleased.
“Awesome.” Pidge said, and Lance gave her a playful shove.
“I will warn you, Princess - things can get pretty heated with this little gremlin.” He informed Allura.
“I am not a gremlin.” Pidge announced, resuming her battle march toward the door.
“You kind of are though.” Lance laughed.
“Well if I’m a gremlin then you’re some sort of… weird dolphin!” came Pidge’s retort.
“You think I take offense at that?” Lance asked.
And then they were out the door, Allura trailing along behind and good-natured bickering echoing down the hall.
Hunk grinned. Sometimes it was hard being in space, so far away from Earth and feeling isolated from home, and then he felt like he was home, and this was exactly where he was supposed to be.
He glanced at Keith’s unstirring form in the healing pod - he was so still, so pale.
“You’re sure he’s gonna be okay?”
Coran clapped a hand on Hunk’s shoulder, giving a reasurring pat.
“You know Keith. He’ll be fine.”
Hunk nodded.
“Yeah. He better be.”

Chapter 3: Some Soft Sibling Shit (mmm Good)

Summary:

The chapter that contains the reason I started writing this fic (aka sibling affection between Pidge and Keith because. There is not?? Enough???)

Notes:

I'm so sorry I dropped off this story for a while. In my defense, the whole concept of having the quintessence sucked out of someone is serving as a metaphor for my depression, and it was super easy to write depressing shit when I was feeling super depressed. But I was feeling real good there for a bit, so :/ good for me, bad for my fictional coping mechanisms? Anyway. I apologize and I hope y'all still wanna read this. We're finally gettin to the good fluff.

In Pidge’s opinion, it should go without saying that she soundly defeated Lance at any video game he chose. In Lance’s opinion, Pidge was a cheater and a liar and ‘you only one because you pushed me off the couch’ (<-- insert mocking voice here). That was a lie. Pidge didn’t push Lance off the couch. Allura did. Because Pidge told her to. And for someone who’d never before participated in one of their Great Video Game Wars™ before, the princess was out for blood. Pidge admired her spirit (although she did admire it slightly less when Allura’s scores came close to knocking her off the #1 spot on the leaderboard. They didn’t, though. Don’t worry. Pidge Remains Supreme).
Electronic violence was always a perfect stress reliever, and by the time Coran was calling everyone down to the healing pods to take Keith out of stasis, most of the fear and stress of the day was gone from Pidge’s mind. That good feeling was only heightened at the thought of having the team whole again (or, as whole as it could be without Shiro).
And then, little by little, it started to slip away. Tiny clues pinged at edge of Pidge’s mind as she, Lance, and Allura made their way through the castle halls. It was too quiet. Coran hadn’t updated them since his initial summons, and it was unlike him to be quiet about anything. Had something gone wrong? Something had to have gone wrong. Keith was hurt, or Keith was dead, or something else horrible and shitty and stupid had happened. That had to be it. Whatever ugly forces that tore Pidge’s family on Earth apart had come to do the same thing to her new family. And that fucking sucked.

By the time their small party reached the entrance to the sick bay, Pidge had worked herself into a quiet panic. It took all of her self control not to launch herself at Coran, who stood in the doorway to greet them. Hunk was already at his side.

“What happened?” Pidge’s distress burst out in the few syllables she spoke. She pushed past Coran (sorry, Coran. She was panicking, it’s forgivable) to peer into the room, hoping desperately to see Keith looking healthy (or if not healthy, okay. And if not okay, then treatable. And etc., etc.) only to be surprised by the sight of an empty room. No Keith at all, ailing or otherwise. Unable to immediately infer the answer, Pidge’s panic pettered into a slightly more calm confusion.
Coran, bless him, had clearly caught on to her frantic state of mind.
“Woah there, Number Five.” He placed his hands on her shoulders, the slight pressure reminding Pidge that - oh yeah, breathing That was a thing.
“Nothing to panic about.” He continued, addressing the whole group.
“It seems the healing pods can’t tell the difference between a physical injury and ah - whatever you would call a quintessence injury. Deficiency? To be honest, I’m not sure what to call -”

“Coran.” Allura gently interjected, cutting off Coran’s tangent before it could get too far. “What exactly is your point? Is Keith alright?”

Coran’s focus seemed to snap back into place. “Ah - yes. I think so. The point is, this whole thing is unprecedented. I have no frame of reference for what recovery would look like from this.”

Lance furrowed his brow. “So - where’s Keith?”

“He asked to be alone. Said he really wasn’t up for team greetings or any of that. He went back to his room to get some rest.”

“Did he seem… y’know - okay?” Hunk asked.

Coran gave a small nod. “Exhausted, but that’s the one thing I did expect. Other than that, no immediate concerns. Besides, I’m sure Keith would tell us if something was really wrong.”

Lance and Pidge snorted simultaneously.They acknowledged this with split-second grins and then returned to Serious Business.

“I think the best thing we can do for him right now is give him some time.” Coran concluded.

“And food,” Hunk cut in, “I don’t care what kind of sickness or whatever this is, he needs to get his strength back. And nothing can raise strength and spirits like some good food. So if you’ll excuse me.” Hunk started heading back in the direction of the castle’s kitchens. After a moment of hesitation, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself, Lance began to tag along behind him with the air of a lost but excited puppy. And then Allura was asking Coran something about data and ‘what information did we manage to gather’ and ‘can we go over the charts again’ and then they were gone too. And Pidge was alone. Pidge did not want that.
For a moment she contemplated following Hunk and Lance to the kitchens, but something in her brain told her that their typically jubilant company wasn’t what she was craving right now. No. Pidge was feeling solemn. The initial panic had faded, but her worry and concern had not. There’s a huge difference between seeing that someone is okay and having someone else tell you that the person in question is okay. That difference, Pidge was sure, was what caused her to still feel like a tightly coiled spring - all tense and squished and icky. No, as much a she trusted Coran’s opinion, Pidge had to analyze this situation herself. If Keith wanted to kick her out as soon as she got there, then fine. That in itself would be a reassurance that Keith was unchanged and antisocial as ever.

Pidge arrived at Keith’s door and, with a deep breath as an attempt to tell her anxiety to calm the fuck down, he’s okay, knocked softly. No response. After a moment, she knocked again, louder.
A muffled sound that could’ve been ‘come in’ came from inside the room, and Pidge took that as her invitation. She waved at the door sensor, causing it to slide open with a hiss of air. The light inside the room was dimmed, and there were virtually no signs of activity. A lump that had to be Keith lay curled up on the bed, looking small and mildly miserable. The lump moved, revealing messy black hair and a pair of tired eyes.

“Oh. Hey.” The Keith-Lump mumbled. “Thought you were Coran.”

“He said you’d be here.” Now that Pidge was here, she didn’t really know what to do with herself. She’d wanted to see that Keith was okay, and there he was, so… now what? (To be honest, she’d sort of expected to have been kicked out by now.)
She cleared her throat. “Um - how are you feeling?”

The Keith-Lump took a moment to respond. “... Fine.” It said.

Ah. There was Keith, pretending nothing was wrong and he was ‘fine’. A wry smile crept across her face. His response was consistent with usual Keith behavior, and while that was comforting it was also -
“Bullshit.”

That got a soft snort of laughter out of the Keith-Lump.
“Okay, not fine. Everything hurts and I’m dying.”

Apparently his dark sense of humor hadn’t been wounded.
“Good,” Pidge responded.”I mean, not the dying, but honesty is important.”

Having established a point of conversation, Pidge crossed over to the bed and took a seat near where she was pretty sure Keith’s head was. He barely stirred as she sat down, and Pidge felt the small smile she’d built up slip.

“Is there anything I could do? To help?”

Sensing the thinly veiled worry in her voice, Keith finally rolled over, plopping his head in her lap and yawning. Seeing his face took some weight out of the worry. Pidge didn’t even register herself absent-mindedly running her fingers through his hair. Keith didn’t comment. (Or mind. But shhh, don’t tell anyone.) He was shivering.

“I don’t think so.” He puffed out a tired, frustrated sigh. “I’m just - ugh. I’m aching all over and I’m so fucking cold. Like I can’t get warm no matter what I do.”

“Explains the blankets.” Pidge noted.

“Yup.”
Pidge flattened out her hand over Keith’s forehead, trying to get a read on his temperature.
Sure enough, he was freezing.

“Oh man, yeah. That’s cold.”

“Thank you for your scientific observation.” Some of the most tired sass Pidge had ever heard, but still sass. Still Keith. Satisfied, Pidge went to remove her hand only for one of Keith’s to emerge from the blanket cocoon to stop her.
“Don’t move.” He ordered sleepily. “You’re warm.”
He seemed so damn tired. Made sense, really. After having basically the life sucked out of him. Pidge hummed in response.
“Maybe I can help after all.”

Pidge leaned over, draping herself over Keith’s shivering form. She could tell from the way he snuggled up against her that she’d had the right idea.

“That better?”

Keith nodded in response. Pleased with her solution, Pidge fished her phone (communicator? whatever) out of her pocket, opening up a game to pass the time.

“Are you just gonna… stay? Here?” Keith asked quietly.

“As long as you want me here, I’ll be here.”
Her response seemed to take him by surprise. Pidge was suddenly hit with the memory of Keith’s comment about Shiro. ‘He’s the only one that never gave up on me.’ Ah. Right. Keith was new to the whole ‘being loved and wanted’ thing. Pidge swivelled her head to look him in the eyes.
“I mean that.” She hoped her point got across to him - the scale on which she gave her support and companionship. Judging by the look in Keith’s eyes, it did.
He was quiet for a moment before offering a small ‘thanks’ that sounded as shocked as it did grateful. She’d have to work on that.
“Anytime.” She smiled, settling back into her comfy position against Keith. He squirmed for a moment, trying to get in contact with as much of her warmth as possible before settling into a peaceful pattern of slow, deep breaths. Pidge’s mind flickered with memories of afternoons that now seemed like forever ago - her and Matt flopped all over each other on the couch, playing video games and jokingly bickering over stupid things that only siblings would ever pretend to care about. Sometime, when he felt better, she would invite Keith to play video games with the rest of them. He’d like it, she thought.
For now, however, she stayed nestled against him, tapping away at her phone and losing track of time to the rhythm of his slow breaths. It wasn’t long before her eyes slipped closed and she joined Keith in a peaceful sleep.

Chapter 4: Foods

Summary:

there are foods and love

Notes:

I'm sorrrryyyyyy. I sort of abandoned this. I assure I have lots of creative excuses. Anyway, this is short, but it's something. If y'all still want me to continue lemme know. I love each and every one of you <3

Pidge was roused from her light sleep when her communicator’s screen lit up with a message from Hunk.

‘Where r you?’ it read, ‘i just made a batch of those cinnamon rolly things ur obsessed with’.

Aw shit yeah.
‘With Keith. I’ll drag him along in a sec’ she typed back.
Pidge sat up fully, stretching her back and yawning. She blinked a few times to get the sleepiness to leave her eyes, then swivelled to look at Keith. He looked to be soundly dozing, a small smile on his face. Aw. She almost felt guilty waking him, but those cinnamon roll things? Worth it. Keith would agree once Hunk could shove one in his mouth.
“Hey, get up.” She nudged him. “We’re going to eat the food of the gods.”
Keith’s only response was a soft ‘mmhmm’ as he nuzzled against his pillow. Pidge wrinkled her nose.
“Keith. Seriously. These things are Nirvana but food.” She poked him in the side. Keith sleepily attempted to swat her hand away, but his plan backfired. Pidge grabbed hold of his wrist and pulled him into a sitting position. He gave a weak, grumpy sort of groan.
“Ugh. Pidge. This better be worth it. That was the best I think I’ve slept ever.”
Pidge grinned. Sleepy Keith’s hair was even better than Sleepy Matt’s hair, and that was setting a high bar. She raised one hand to flatten the fluff. Keith didn’t even seem to notice. His eyes were only half open, but he still seemed more alive than he had when he was huddled up all alone.

“Trust me, Keith. Worth it is an understatement.”

 

Okay, so it might not have been 100% necessary, but Pidge, as promised, did literally drag Keith into the kitchen. He’d still been trying to get his arm into his jacket sleeve when Pidge decided waiting one more second for those beautiful cinnamon rolls was just too much to ask of her. Hunk and Lance looked on in disbelief as Pidge pulled Keith into the kitchen, depositing him in a chair and then going straight for the tray Hunk was still holding.

“They’re still hot.” Hunk warned.
Pidge gave him a withering glance (you’re Weak), grabbing one of the rolls and taking a bite.
Tragically, however, Hunk’s warning had merit. Pidge immediately drew the roll away from her mouth with a startled yelp.
“I told you -” Hunk began to say.
“Don’t.” Pidge glared. “How is Lance eating one? He’s fine!”
“I dipped mine in space milk!”
“For the last time, Lance, it’s not ‘space milk’ if it just came from Kaltenecker.” Hunk sighed.
“Um, it’s milk, and it’s in space. It’s space milk.”
Pidge grabbed a glass of her own.
“But it sounds like you’re talking about, like, the ‘milk of space’. That’s not a thing.” She protested.
Keith made a face from his spot at the table.
“If it is, I don’t want to drink it.” He offered.
Lance and Hunk turned to look at him, as if they’d been so caught up in the Great Milk Debate that they’d forgotten he was in the room. Hunk snapped into caregiver mode the moment he remembered, setting the tray down and sliding into the chair next to Keith.
“Hey. You feeling better?”
Keith seemed confused by the sudden change in the tone of the conversation. Shit, right. He hated attention. Thankfully, Lance seemed to observe his discomfort immediately, re-sparking the debate by pointing out that ‘There’s almond milk, isn’t there?’ (Yes, but space isn’t a food, Lance. Almonds are). Hunk grinned, watching Pidge and Lance bicker, and offered up a cinnamon roll for Keith as he became more at ease. Quietly this time, so as not to draw the others’ attention, Hunk addressed Keith.
“Really, though. How are you doing?”
Keith thought for a moment.
“Better than I was. I’m just - everything kind of hurts. And I’m not as cold as I was, but I still feel like I can’t get warm.”
“Mmm.” Hunk nodded. “Well that’s what these are for - food warms the soul when it’s made right.”
Keith took the cinnamon roll Hunk offered, looking at it as if it might bite him.
“They shouldn’t be too hot as long as you don’t put the whole thing in your mouth like Pidge did.” Hunk reassured him, finally convincing Keith to take a bite.
The roll was warm and soft and sweet, melting in his mouth. Pidge was right - totally worth it.
“So how do you make it right?” He asked Hunk.
“Huh?”
“You said food ‘warms the soul’ if you make it right. How do you make it right?”
“Oh!” Hunk smiled. “Well, you have to care about what you’re making. You have to want it to make people happy.”
That sounded like Hunk, Keith thought.
“And you have to make it for the right people.” The softness of Hunk’s smile was almost too much for Keith to take. How did he do that? Just come out and say stuff like that without messing it all up?
Hunk noticed the way Keith froze as he implied Keith was one of the ‘right kind of people’. Poor dude didn’t know how much they cared about him. That’s okay, Hunk thought. We’ll show him. Even if I have to make cinnamon rolls every day for the rest of my life - we’ll get him to understand.