Empath [ON HOLD]

Chapter 1

A/N: Keith is an empath and he is struggling with dealing with his ability.
*Contains self harm*

- Picture from twitter: misspoofles

Keith's life has never been simple. After never knowing who his mother was or the reason why she left him. Losing his father and the only brother and friend he ever knew to space.

Struggling with the ability to sense and read the emotions of another being was painful, which made him push others away and keep to himself. Over the years in many different foster homes and feeling others pain he became so distant he became touch-starved. Whenever someone touched his skin, it felt like it was on fire and only hurt him worst than being hit or feeling someone's emotions. He wore finger-less gloves because if the palm of his hands came into contact with a surface someone previously had touch, some of their emotion could linger behind and effect Keith even if it was of the past.

So, when he discovered strange energy signals, he followed them and they soon enough lead him to his lost brother and only friend.
They plus a few other teens soon were rushed up into space, into an unknown area, in an unknown war.

After a while once everything settled down, Keith let out a breath that he didn't even realize that he was holding. Being in space had many problems but it also had an upside to it all. It was quite out there, calm. He still locked himself away in his room, to get away from the others emotions on the castle but it was so different than being on Earth. He had to move out to the desert to find some kind of peace and quite. Keith couldn't function with others, he couldn't live by them either for he was overwhelmed with everything.

Now when he got overwhelmed, he would either train for hours or find a space spot in Red. He was so grateful for Red, for the red lion seemed to pick up on his abilities and the pain and stress it caused him on a daily basic.

Keith thought things were looking up, however he should have known better than to get his hopes up. After a horrible mission, everyone came back injured in someway and their emotions were high, with their thoughts racing putting Keith more on edge. Allura had locked the training deck off because she wanted everyone to get a chance to rest up after they lost horribly on their last mission. By doing that, she had unknowingly put Keith in more harm than a few hours training could ever do to him.

Everyone was sitting around in a kind of daze as they all thought about what had just happened. Once in awhile one of them would speak up and a small conversation would begin but eventually it would die down once memories and pain came back to them. Keith sat off in the corner of the room. He had his eyes held tightly shut as he tried his best to shut everything out but it was beginning to become way too much for him to possibly handle, especially on his own.

Keith gripped his left shoulder tightly, feeling the pain in it where Hunk had injured his shoulder. His body was slowly beginning to tremble with all the stuff he was getting hit with. Out in the battle, his mind and body seemed as if they didn't focus on any of that stuff at all. He would soon come to learn that Red was somehow blocking everything out for him when he was in the cockpit.

Keith had blocked out everyone voices and was just drowning in all of their feelings. He was itching to escape it all but had no real idea on how to do that.

Eventually, Keith was curled up in a small ball and was shaking with so much pain. His shoulder ached along with different parts of his body, injuries that he knew the other paladins had received during their battle.

"S-Stop" Keith whispered in pain as his grasp around his legs tighten, bringing them closer to his aching chest.

Just then Pidge had walked over towards him and he just lost it, all the strength he had that was holding him together was lost within a second of her coming closer towards him.