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Accepting the Blade mission was Keith’s third mistake of the week. Granted, that was on Monday; by now he's accrued a dozen more. But the mission easily takes the cake for biggest fuck up of the week. Potentially the month, too, but Keith hesitates to speak too soon.
He doesn’t know what possessed him to agree to the deal—maybe it was promise of escaping the castle for a night, escaping the disappointed faces of his teammates. He isn’t doing any good here as Black paladin—he might as well return victorious from a Blade mission. So, yes, he’d decided. He’d accept the mission, give them something to look up to. One win in the face of a hundred failures.
Only the mission turns out to be the last thing he needs. It’s a multi-day affair, and solo, which he only finds out after accepting the offer. On paper, it sounds simple: bust up an old Galra mega-station for intel. Only the station turns out to be less abandoned that previously thought. There are no Galra occupying it, just another horrific, three-headed species of alien megafauna, that seems to spawn from every room that contains a shadow, which is all of them.
Keith trashes his leg and elbow in the subsequent fights, and manages to lose half the intel to the jaws of whatever animalistic species occupies the base with him. When he finally boards the escape shuttle three days later, he’s slept a grand total of five hours, and is running on fumes. His calfs been torn open, his shoulder has been hastily popped back into place after a painful dislocation, and his evac team have already sent him a message threatening him about the repercussions of losing so much intel.
So here he is, alone in a banged up shuttle orbiting an abandoned mega-station, three medical staples in his calf, a head wound that verges on a concussion, and cold.
The worst part, which Keith hesitates to admit even to himself, is that it isn’t his calf or his head wound or the cold that bothers him—it’s the loneliness. He’s starving; for touch, for affection, for a hand to tend to his wounds or to rake through his bloody hair or to transport him anywhere but here.
He shivers as the temperature continues to plummet. Help will be hours away, if it comes at all. The Blade might finally decide to cut their losses, this time. Why bother returning the Black paladin if you’re only allowed to use him this once, anyway? Easier to leave Keith out here. If they can’t have him no one can. It would be their final ‘fuck you’ in the passive-aggressive stand-off they’ve been having with Voltron.
No, Keith tries to sternly remind himself. Voltron needs him. They’d raise hell if the Blades failed to return him. Surely they would. Even if he’s cost them the past three missions. Even if he destroyed their tentative alliance on Deluga-3. Even if they likely spend all day every day praying and praying that someone better qualified comes along to fix this mess.
Keith’s chin hits his chest, and he struggles to swallow a muted cry. He doesn’t care that he’s alone—he can’t stand to hear himself cry. He doesn’t deserve to cry. This was a basic fucking mission, and he’d fucked it right up its rosy ass-cheeks. A better Blade, a better paladin, would have had this packaged and complete in a heartbeat.
Keith practically bruises himself smacking a tear from his cheek. His leg throbs, and his muscles ache in a consistent, nagging manner, begging him to rest and sleep. He can’t sleep. He can’t even relax. Screwing his eyes shut, Keith pictures himself back on the castle.
Sure, he fails the team consistently, but in spite of his misgivings they don’t make him feel like shit the way the Blade does. All that effort to get away from the castle for a day; now Keith misses it. God, he’d give anything to be back in his room, to have this breakdown there. He never imagined the castle would be such a sanctuary. Just knowing the others are there, knowing he could go to Lance…
Keith swallows roughly. And what? What exactly is this little agreement they’ve got going? When Lance is there they fall into it so easily, but whenever they’re apart, Keith struggles to come to terms with how they could have ended up in this situation. He could never have done it alone. He could never have pushed for this, asked for this, begged for this—until he had Lance telling him to give in.
Unbidden, Keith’s hand detaches from the armrest he’s been throttling and moves for his suit. The back zipper is stiff with dried blood, and his battered shoulder screams in protest as he twists awkwardly to tug the zipper down. He pauses as he gets it to his hips. What the fuck is he doing? He could die out here for all he knows. He should be shifting through what intel he has, getting ready to meet his rescue party, finding a way to excuse the mess he just made.
Instead, Keith exhales shakily as he peels the suit from his shoulders and down over his bruised arms. His elbow twinges where he smacked it too hard into a wall, and his wrist is slightly swollen and numb, though he seems to have avoided a full sprain or fracture. Even so, his breathing turns laboured as he finishes peeling the suit from his arms, exhales turning to small sobs.
Bare chested, he considers his tiny reflection in the shuttle’s controls. Pathetic. Bruised, bloody, and small. The Black paladin? What a fucking joke.
Ignoring his reflection, Keith shifts the suit further down his hips, exposing his cock and subjecting his bare ass to the cold seat. He shivers harder now, but doesn’t care. The cold is worth this temporary comfort.
With little tact, Keith grabs his limp cock, fisting it and forcing it to harden. He gasps out little broken nothings as he does, wincing at the pain in his elbow. He can’t focus when all he can see is the shuttle and the empty stretch of space beyond. Shutting his eyes, Keith pictures Lance’s room abroad the castle. He pictures Lance, though he feels guilty doing it, and tries to recall the way Lance had touched him. A rough palm rubbing over his groin. Long fingers curling around him, squeezing warmly, tugging lightly until Keith came undone in his arms.
He doesn’t possess the talent Lance does. He clenches too tight, his fingers are too stubby, and cold, and Keith whimpers as he angrily fists his cock. Fuck. How did Lance handle him like that, like he was something precious? Something that could be broken?
He misses him, Keith realises with horror. He misses Lance so strongly it stings. The realisation tears through him, causing his body to ache and spasm with want. He wants Lance’s hand around him, Lance’s mouth whispering warm nothings into his ear, Lance’s weight surrounding him, crushing him, all with the assurance that he can fall apart and Lance will put him back together.
Keith whimpers. He stuffs a hand into his mouth, biting into the flesh. He tastes of sweat and dust, and he cries bitterly as he roughly jerks his cock. Fuck, his chest is tight. He wants to smell Lance again, press his face to Lance’s thighs, swallow down his cock, curl his fingers into Lance’s flesh. He wants Lance on top of him, his stubbled jaw tickling Keith’s neck as he kisses him, his fingers teasing his twitching hole.
Inspired, Keith sucks a finger into his mouth. Wet, he lowers it to his ass, furiously jerking himself all the while. He sniffles a moan as the finger presses to his tight entrance. God, he’s too cold; he needs Lance’s fingers. Desperate to create some semblance of the moment, though, Keith powers on. Clenching his teeth, he circles his entrance before slowly inching the finger inside. It’s tight, too tight, and painful, but he swallows his cry and stubbornly keeps the finger there.
Lance, think of Lance. Eyes shut tight, Keith pictures the red paladin between his legs. Kneeling on the floor of the shuttle, Lance parts his legs; Keith spreads them obediently. Lance’s fingers wrap around his cock, and he squeezes; Keith slows his pace, brow tightening in pleasure as he milks his cock the way he wants Lance to. Lance spreads his thighs, so Keith claws at his soft skin, parting his asscheeks. The finger slips in easier this time, though he winces when he pushes too deep, too eagerly.
Slowly, he tells himself. Lance would take him apart slowly. Keith struggles to control the pace, the existing pain in his body urging him to go harder, faster, hurt himself in new ways to distract from the burning sensation in his leg.
With both hands occupied, he struggles to stop the sounds that escape his lips. He bites them instead, plump red flesh swelling as he fights to keep his cries within. He longs to sink his teeth into something; numb, Keith presses his face to the chair and bites into the cold leather. He groans, hand jerking, as he imagines what Lance’s flesh tastes like. The groan turns to a sob, and he blinks as hot tears spill onto the leather.
Fuck. What would Lance say, if he saw him like this? What would anyone? Keith whimpers into the leather and pistons his finger into his tight hole. It hurts, it’s too much yet not enough, and his body trembles as pleasure battles the pain in his core. Just a little more.
He throws his head back, muscles coiling as he drives himself toward climax. He yells as a sudden movement drives molten pain through his leg, but pushes on. His elbow screams, his swollen wrist numb, but Keith tightens his grip and fists himself harder.
Lance should be here. Lance should be here. Keith whines lowly, bearing down on the finger.
“Lance.” The name slips by his lips, sending an immediate shiver down his spine. God, it tastes good. It feels so good, as his body hums with pain and pleasure, as he shivers through the cold and the loneliness. “Lance,” he gasps.
He arches from the seat, injured leg slipping against the floor. His movements grow faster, erratic, as he chases the strings of pleasure that keep him sane. He fights to picture Lance, imagines him urging him on with touches and compliments, imagines the shade of his eyes as he gazes darkly into Keith’s soul. He pictures Lance between his legs, his own erections straining against his pants as he palms himself to the sight of Keith spread open before him.
“Good,” Lance purrs. “So good, baby.”
Keith shouts Lance’s name as he comes. His body jerks, spasming around his finger as his orgasm surges though him. He gasps, cheeks wet with tears as he rides the high, fisting his cock until the sensation is too much.
At last, he lets go. As his orgasm fades, so does his image of Lance, and without it the cold returns. Keith shivers. He’s even more empty than before.
Shaking, he rubs the pool of cum over his stomach and thighs, uncaring of the mess. He feels disgusting. Used. Pathetic. He doesn’t deserve to be comfortable.
His lips tremble as he thinks of Lance, the way he’d gently offered to clean Keith up after their last encounter. Keith drags the suit back up, cringing at the stickiness that coats his body, and cries weakly as he struggles with the zipper.
Hours later, when the evac team finally arrives, Keith has erased the traces of his breakdown. He’s smudged the worst of the tear tracks. He’s wiped his spit from the corner of the seat, which he’d sunk his teeth into. He sits frozen in the shuttle, eyes red with exhaustion, teeth clenched against the pain. He pictures Lance, over and over and over again. His smile, the way he walks, the way he frowns, and way he’d touched Keith. He thinks about it even as the Blades berate him.
He tells absolutely no one what he feels.