Growing Pains (A Voltron Legendary Defender Fan Fiction)

Chapter 11

A few weeks had passed since Keith stopped talking and things had actually been getting a bit better. It was weird at first, but the others eventually got used to his silence. While it seemed to still make them sad, they had at least mostly gone back to treating him how they had before.

Now, whenever they ate together, Keith would just sit with them, and take his food back to his room later. It didn't take a ship full of geniuses (and Lance), to realize that the issue must have been something with his mouth. But they couldn't figure out what.

Now, the only time that Keith spoke was when he made one of his calls to Kolivan, but even those had become few and far between. He had grown tired of listening to him trying to convince him to tell his friends. Plus, he couldn't stand the sound of his voice now. He was sure that with practice he would be able to sound a bit more like normal, but he couldn't even listen to himself talk for long enough to do that. It was a bit lonely not being able to talk to people, but he made up for it by hanging out with his friends.

After a few series of interesting charades, Keith was eventually able to find an activity that he could do with each of his friends in order to spend time with them but didn't require talking. For Hunk, it was helping him in the kitchen. Hunk was pleasantly surprised to find that Keith was a pretty good chef. He obviously couldn't ask Keith about it, but when he asked Shiro he said that Keith had used to make a lot of the food when he stayed with him on Earth.

Hunk could see how much Shiro was hurting because of this. Keith was his little brother, and it was eating him up inside not knowing what was wrong with him. Hunk laid a comforting hand on his shoulder and assured him that everything would be alright. But he didn't know if he believed that himself...

For Allura, she and Keith enjoyed playing volleyball together in the castle's gym. Keith had not spent a ton of time with Allura before he found out he was half Galra, but he actually enjoyed her company. She was easy to talk to, given that she talked a lot, and could hold a conversation all on her own. It also helped that the space mice followed them around everywhere, so she was able to talk to them.

It took a long time for Keith to convey to Lance that he wanted to spend time with him. A loooong time. He thought that Lance might enjoy playing basketball with him, so he tried to suggest it. However, even when Keith brought in an actual basketball, and pointed between himself and Lance repeatedly, he still didn't get it. Keith sat down and banged his head against the table. "Hey, I just got a great idea, we should play basketball!" Keith hit his head even harder.

Pidge was one of the easiest to convince to spend time with him. In fact, she was the one that first asked him if he wanted to hang out with her. "I know that... well... I know you are going through a rough time right now; I don't know what that is but... I was wondering if... you would want to come play some video games with me? Sometimes I find that they're... a good way to escape the real world. Just for a little while at least..." Keith gave her a small smile and nodded his head. he might be terrible at video games, but he did enjoy playing them with Pidge.

Lastly was Shiro. Spending time with him came almost as easy as breathing. However, he could tell that things had changed between them. Currently, they were both sitting in the lounge playing one of Allura's Altean board games. Unlike the others, Shiro didn't try to talk more whenever he was around Keith to fill the void. In fact, Shiro remained quiet as well, only speaking whenever he was making a move in the game.

"Can I ask you something?" Keith looked up in surprise when he finally spoke. He nodded. "Whatever happened... was it something I did?"

Keith's eyes widened, and he quickly shook his head.

Shiro let out a sigh of relief, "That's good." He leaned back on the couch, seemingly forgetting about their game. Keith scooted over and sat next to him.

Shiro gently ran his hands through his hair, and Keith couldn't help but make that stupid purring noise at the back of his throat. Shiro smirked, "You've been doing that a lot lately." Keith blushed, but couldn't help but melt as Shiro massaged his scalp. He blamed it on the Galra blood, but this just felt so good right now. Keith eventually fell asleep with Shiro continuing to pet his hair. "Why did you push us away?" it was strange. Keith had seemingly pulled himself away from all of them, with his silence. Yet, he was now spending more time with all of them than he ever had in the past. It just didn't make sense. Shiro sighed, "I just wish I knew what was going through your head... I could help you if you'd only let me..."

(A/N - hey guys, thanks for reading. I hope you're still enjoying it! :) When I say Vol, you say...)