Devil's Advocate (Voltron: Legendary Defender Fanfic/ONC Entry)

Understanding

Matt felt ill. His hands twisted his hair while he sat in his quarters with his knees drawn up. His entire world was falling apart, yet everything. He'd always looked up to Shiro, yet Shiro also treated him like an equal. Shiro opened up and told him many things very few knew about the man before and during the Kerberos mission, which made him admire Shiro even more. Shiro also protected Pidge as much as he could given the circumstances of being thrown into a war.

Keith did as well, yet Matt remained one of the few friends if only friend Keith ever had. In so many ways Matt thought Keith not having friends was changing only for the young man's life to be tragically ended before it even began. Worse, Matt felt the end result of every time Keith found happiness of any kind was losing that happiness tragically.

Then Pidge died.

Matt learned how to be a better brother from Shiro and Shiro's interactions with Keith. It wasn't that he wasn't a good brother before, yet he felt he learned to read Pidge better, but appreciate what he did have even more because of all the struggles Shiro and Keith went through. What he learned to appreciate more was now gone.

Worse, Lance mocked him for how he felt. Lance was supposed to be a paladin of Voltron, yet treated him in such a manner Matt expected of the enemy or one of the kids at the garrison who bullied...

A sniffle escaped Matt's mouth as he buried his head in his arms. Lance was, in fact, one of the kids at the garrison who bullied Keith, yet Matt thought he'd changed. Lance never stopped being jealous of Keith. He outright called Pidge ugly despite the fact Pidge could dress up nicely with some prompting from their mother, but he commented about Pidge wetting herself.

Matt stiffened. "How did he know that?" His head lifted. "Lance is the one who killed them?" Matt shook his head. "No. Lance wouldn't kill Hunk. Hunk was his best friend." Hunk was probably Lance's only friend, yet the reason Lance truly only had one friend was different from the reason Keith once had only one friend. "This is a pile of poo."

Matt glanced at the floor looking for his dog, but for some Bae Bae wasn't there. The lights blinked off and then on, but a scream escaped Matt's mouth upon seeing Allura surrounded in darkness standing there glaring at him.

"Allura, what..." A cord wrapped around Matt's neck and he felt his body hoisted up into the air as if someone were trying to fake his suicide. The last word he gasped out was, "why", yet he wasn't even sure how Allura was doing what she was doing despite the fact she was in front of him and not behind him.

"If you were his friend, why did you let him stay away? You of all people should have known something was up, shouldn't you have."

Allura was, of course, talking about Keith, yet in truth, he didn't understand where she was coming from. When Keith was with the blades he had very little communication with him, yet didn't know the dynamics of the team and hadn't figured out Lance was driving Keith away.

"That's why I don't like him either."

Tears welled in Matt's eyes. He didn't want to hear this from her as she got together first with Lotor and then Lance.

"But you wanted to flirt with me."

He'd flirted with her because he was a ladies' man who specifically liked flirting with females because he liked buttering them up, yet he knew when someone wasn't in their league.

"I don't like ladies' men."

She, of course, meant Lance, yet didn't like the comparison. In the back of his mind, he remembered flirting with girls in an attempt at getting Keith to interact with them as well, yet Keith was so slow on the uptake.

"Keith isn't that way!" Allura snapped. "Just die!"

The lights flickered on and off again and Matt found himself hanging from the rope but no longer saw Allura anywhere. For some reason, her conversation lasted longer than the oxygen in his lungs, yet he didn't think much about it as he was dying. His eyes opened and closed and in front of him was Keith. "Matt?"

"I am so sorry Keith." He knew Keith was a ghost which in turn meant Keith couldn't do anything, yet he saw Keith attempt removing the rope around his neck, in the same manner, Matt's own fingers clawed at the rope. Despite being a ghost Keith was in fact crying. "I wish this wasn't happening to you. I don't know why this is happening, but it is."

His vision started blurring, yet somehow he knew he needed to communicate that it wasn't Keith's fault, but that everything would be okay even though Matt didn't think things would be okay. His mouth opened and slowly mouthed the words as his brain died.

"It's... okay... not... your... fault."

He didn't know if Keith would get the message. The fact Keith kept yelling didn't mean he didn't get the message. Keith was good at blaming himself. That was the last thing Matt wanted – the regret of a good friend hurting. He knew what it was like for a friend to hurt, but wanted to do anything to make it better, yet there was nothing he could do for Keith.