Kangst for the Soul

7

This was a request I got over on Ao3.

I don't own Voltron

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Keith woke with a loud gasp, sitting bolt upright as he panted before he groaned and buried his head in his hands. He blinked back tears and realised how much he was shaking. Fuck, that was some nightmare.

He focused on calming his breathing down, keeping his eyes closed as he did so. After a couple of minutes, he could breath normally and was no longer shaking. He looked around and registered the fact that he was in the training room, on the floor. What the hell?

Standing up took effort, and Keith couldn't stand properly without leaning against the wall. He groaned as a wave of vertigo hit him, and tried not to gag. He was not going to throw up. He blinked and slumped against the wall, one hand covering his mouth. A stupid dream wasn't going to make him throw up.

"Keith?"

Keith's head snapped up at the sound of Lance's voice. Lance was wearing the lion pyjama's and was carrying a blanket and pillow, was he going to Hunk's room or something? The red paladin suddenly closed his eyes and gagged, making Lance look at him in worry and take a step forward.

"Keith? Are you ok?"

Dull indigo met ocean blue and Lance knew from that look alone that Keith was anything but ok. But, the stubborn teen nodded and Lance shrugged, figuring Keith just wanted do deal with whatever was wrong alone. That was how Keith worked, right?

Keith wiped his mouth with an ungloved hand. He looked Lance up and down again and blinked.

"W—Where you going?" He asked, wincing at how rough his voice sounded. Lance shrugged, not even seeming phased by how bad his voice was. He shruggedinternally, used to the blatant ignorance that everyone seemed to carry when dealing with him. It didn't mean he didn't like it though.

"Eh, we're halfway through a movie, then we're sleeping in the rec room." The taller teen said lazily.

"Oh... Can I-"

"Look, douchebag, I'm missing the movie. We can talk tomorrow." Lance said, interupting him and walking off in a clear dismissal. Keith watched him, wide eyed and what he'd done wrong.

This time he didn't bother blinking back tears.

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Over time he got used too it, how the entire team seemed to leave him out of things. He never got hugged after coming out of a pod like the others did. He was never offered a high five. Hunk never cooked with him, and Pidge never asked him for help. Lance only spoke to him to insult him, and Shiro only spent time with him if they were training. Allura and Coran didn't seem to realise he even existed unless he fucked up somehow.

So he retreated, feeling like an outsider looking in on a family. He spent more time training and talking to red than anything else. The sentient lion would remind him to do basic human things that his body needed like eat and sleep, because he would forget. He grew used to only having a telepathic lion as company, and slowly stopped being fazed by everything else. He just wasn't worth their time.

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"There, you're all checked up, my lad!" Coran said as he stepped away from the alien on the infirmary. Massive pink tinted eyes stared back as their mouth streched into a toothy smile. The small child chirped it's thanks to the altean and jumped of the bed, running back over to where Keith and Lance were both in separate pods. It pressed it's face against the pod door and sat there. The elder sibling, walked over and chirped at it. The alien language was lost on the three remaining paladins, who thought that they sounded like birds. That and the fact that they had wings and claws instead of regular nails only cemented the fack that they were bird like. But their slitted eyes and cat like ears gave them a very distinct look.