Look at me
Summary: What happens when you watch your boyfriend almost sacrifice himself for a mission and you patch him up after.
Pairing: Keith Kogane x gn!Reader
Word Count: 3.3k
Content Warning: Angst, hurt/comfort, established relationship, post s4 finale before s5, rebel fighter!reader, second person, no use of y/n,
A/N: I have taken it upon myself to write keith fics because I miss him. Also can we talk about how they did not talk about how keith almost self-deleted in the s4 finale at ALL 😭 anyway, if you find this fic ily and ty for reading <3
•───────•°•✶•°•───────•
“We’re not going to make it!” Lance’s voice rings through the comms as a devastating blow to morale.
You’re huddled behind Matt’s chair watching helplessly as this disaster unfolds in front of you. Whatever weapon the Galra had attached to their ship was like nothing any of you have ever seen before. Then as they put up their shields, it felt as though your fate was sealed.
With Voltron not making it in time, there wasn’t much you could do. All the fighters were shooting the forcefield with full power and it didn’t even budge. The shots were wasted, practically going off into empty space as they disappeared into the purple honeycomb.
Matt leans over to talk to Keith directly, a last call for anything that could work. Any last minute idea that might sway the tides in your favor. A concept of a plan was better than what you had going on right now- shooting and praying.
“We’ll never penetrate those shields!”
You watched as the only boy you’ve ever loved stare into the space ahead of him. As his eyes unfocused and blinked back in that split-second, you knew he’d thought of something. Just by the way he swallowed, it registers in the part of your brain trained on his micro expressions, that this was an idea you weren’t going to like.
When he mutters the words, “maybe not with our weapons,” your blood runs cold.
Frozen to your spot, it all felt like a really bad dream. No nightmare your brain had ever managed to make could compare to reality you were forced to live in this moment.
Turning off his chat, your forced to watch in horror through the window. And in that moment- your heart stops pumping. You don’t hear yourself scream when he goes full speed into the shield. You don’t feel the tears flooding from your eyes. You don’t even feel yourself move. It’s not until Matt has to jump out of his chair to catch you from launching yourself through the ship, you’ve caught up with your shivering body.
Matt’s pleading, the paladins are yelling, every shot from the ship feels to loud in your ears, and all you can focus on is how he’s going to die.
He’d going to die and you won’t have gotten to say goodbye.
You won’t have even gotten to say you loved him one last time.
Blinking away the memory, you try to tune back into the debrief of the mission. You’d all been grouped together for a little over an hour, everyone talking over each other with what happened and trading notes.
Your focus kept drifting away into the stars, only to be recaptured every time Kolivan’s voice rumbled through the foyer. Your eyes drilled into him with desperation leaking from your lower lid, practically begging for the information that would unlock why Keith’s first instinct was self-sacrifice.
Speaking of whom, he’s been down in the med bay since landing on the castle. Coran’s been attending to him and you couldn’t stop fidgeting, anticipation eating at you from the inside out. You needed to see him. You needed to make sure with your own eyes that he was alive- that he was okay.
No one brings it up, not once. Floating over the topic as if it were something miniscule.
They were all discussing what to do with Lotor now that he was trapped in the castle. He seemed ready to give up any information, yet you couldn’t find the joy in the success.
Not when your boyfriend seemed so set to give up his life for it.
You tried cracking your knuckles with your thumb for the fourth time to no avail. You’d cracked them about ten minutes ago, and then tried again, and again. It was a nervous habit that used to set Shiro off during missions, but you never could break it.
“Hey,” Lance whispers while nudging you with his hip.
Humming in reply, you keep your head straight but look at him out of the corner of your eye.
“Are you okay?” his head leans down in order to be as quiet as possible, “that’s like the fifth time you’ve tried cracking your knuckles, are you trying to break them off or something?”
“It’s fourth actually,” you scoff under your breath before shrugging, “and I guess- I mean we’re all alive. That’s gotta be worth something.”
He nods, but doesn’t straighten. He’s still looking at you, and it feels more like he’s seeing right through you, like he can tell what’s really been plaguing you. Then, he nudges you with his elbow and nods his head back.
“Go see him,” he didn’t have to specify who he was, “I’ll give you the run down on what you missed later.”
You really hoped it wasn’t as obvious to everyone else that you weren’t paying attention. It wasn’t something you struggled with usually, you were always the one who knew what was going on and had the perfect notes at the end. But there’s something about watching the love of your life shoot himself into a forcefield ready to act as a bomb, that’ll really throw you for a loop.
“Thank you Lance.” your whisper barely carries into his ear, but by the way he shares a soft smile with you, you know he heard it.
“Anytime.” he nudges you again with a whisper of his own, before you turn your back on the group to head out.
Maybe it was disrespectful, maybe Allura would give you shit for it after dinner; yet even so, your body was seconds away from imploding if they didn’t meet the violet eyes you called home.
Your shoes slap on the pale floor of the castle and every step rang louder than the last. The lights faded into your periphery and the Altean wasn’t legible as your eyes blurred in anticipation. Anxiety was about to pour out of your ears as your heart threatened to break out of your chest and land somewhere amongst the galaxies.
Realistically, you knew he was okay. You knew he landed on the castle and you knew Coran was attending to him.
Your brain just wouldn’t accept it until you saw him in front of you. Your mind couldn’t comprehend that he was still alive until your hands met his freakishly cold skin.
It feels like years of your life have been shaved off when you finally reach the automatic doors. Everyone else is being patched up in the hanger since the bay couldn’t hold them all, but the ointment Keith needed was hidden away in one of Coran’s cupboards.
The doors open with a woosh and the two occupants instantly whip their heads in your direction. Despite all the desire in the universe being summoned in the past hour to see him, you don’t make eye contact with him.
You feel the weight of his gaze and decide against meeting it. Looking at Coran instead, you offer him a brief but believable smile.
“I’m here to take over,” you manage to take two steps into the room before your feet root themselves to the floor, “they’re talking specifics in the command room and I’m pretty sure you’ll be more useful than I 'll be.”
“Ah- well yes,” he claps his hands together, “I guess we’ll trade then.”
He gets up with not even a tick passing. The ointment’s left on the tray next to him and he disposes of the gloves he was wearing in the bin to his right. Your eyes are still on him while Keith’s haven’t left yours.
A part of you felt like you’d never be able to move from your spot in front of the door way- a statue of relief and fear. Then, as Coran goes to take his leave, he does a very un-Coran thing when he passes you; his expression softens and rests a palm on your bicep.
“Do not be too hard on him, he’s just as scared as you.” he offers you under his breath, and then steps out.
The doors close behind you, and you still haven’t brought yourself to move- you haven’t even been able to look at him. It was as if there was a hypocritical block in your mind. You wanted nothing more than to have proof that he was here- that he was alive, but you couldn’t actually look him in the eye.
After a few deep breaths and internalizing Coran’s advice, your feet begin to move on their own. Setting your destination, your eyes latch onto the small stool the old man was perched upon. The distance felt too long and too short at the same time. You'd reached him impossibly fast yet he was still too far.
Keith’s attention has been on you since your appeared in the door. He hasn’t heard anything but the sound of your voice and the breaths you were trying to control. The air in his throat catches when you sit down in front of him.
You haven’t said anything to him and he doesn’t know what to do with that.
He was ready for you to come in here and rip him apart. He was ready to defend his plan, to say that it was necessary. He was ready to find you and hold you tight and never let go.
He wasn’t ready for you to not even look at him.
“Coran was basically done,” he murmurs- a weak attempt at neutrality, “none of the burns and cuts were that bad.”
You hum while ripping open a new packet of disposable gloves with your teeth, “Well I’ll be the judge of that.”
He wasn’t wearing a shirt which was a small pleasure you indulged in as your eyes roam the muscled plane. It takes every ounce of effort you have left, which isn’t a lot, to not cry at the sight of him. The burns that littered his body were proof that the past three hours actually happened. That it wasn’t some sick trick your mind played on you. All the stitches were already secure, bandages covering the larger ones to avoid infection. The ointment for his burns had been massaged in on his left arm, but not on his right.
“Turn to the left.”
He knows better than to go against on your orders, and obeys. Just when he finishes shifting into place, he opens his mouth to say something, but you don’t give him the chance.
You’ve already got the ointment ready for him and start applying it lavishly to his forearm. A hiss escapes through his teeth.
That bad my ass, you think to yourself. He looks like he’s having a meeting with God.
Moving up his arm toward his elbow and bicep, you hold his wrist down with your other hand. No one could have known how grounding this was for you, to know that he was still alive, still breathing. The first touch of your fingers on his skin was a gift from the heavens. Relief flooded your body in a tingling sensation down your spine that he wasn’t a hallucination you created to cope.
His skin isn’t as cold as it usually is, throwing you off. It’s warm but not feverish. Another piece of evidence from the reality haunting you. You know he’s noticed how your fingers were wrapped around his pulse point, an effort to counter the possibility of the alternative tonight almost was.
“You didn’t get hurt did you?” his voice is quiet, unsure of the situation at hand.
“No,” you breathe out, pausing the cyclical movements on his bicep for a second before continuing, “I didn’t.”
You attempt to cling onto the thin silver lining of having him here, of knowing you both survived this impossible mission; but the next few minutes still pass in a tense yet peaceful silence. The calm before the storm.
When you finish with the ointment on his shoulder, you stand and turn your back to him.
Discarding the gloves in the bin, the small tub is cradled in your hand as you to go return it to the cabinet. Your feet barely take one step on the eggshell tile before a hand wraps around your forearm. It’s a loose grip- rough pads of fingers barely grazing your skin, yet it was still tight enough to paralyze you into place.
His chest is warm against your back, and you’re half determined to scold him. The smaller stitches aren’t bandaged and shouldn’t be making contact with anything. You almost do it too- just when you go to turn around, his grip tightens for a brief beat before his voice echoes in your ears,
“Why won’t you look at me?”
His voice is small with a plea, broken down to nothing but a man begging for his lover. He sounds as though he’s two seconds away from dropping to his knees if that’ll have you yelling at him, holding him, looking at him, anything that isn’t this half-assed attention.
You feel him shake from where he’s standing behind you. His forehead meets the back of your head in a silent resignation of pride. He acts like he isn’t a beggar, but he wasn’t above anything when it came to you. There wasn’t something the universe could name that he wouldn’t do for you.
This was the longest he’s ever lasted. A solid twelve minutes since you entered the med bay.
You swallow hard and take a deep breath. He feels it, there’s no way he doesn’t- not when he’s practically molded himself into you.
“Why’d you do it?”
You don’t have to specify what you were talking about. He knew.
The heartbreak was evident in your voice. You’re sure even Zarkon could hear it from across the universe.
He doesn’t respond right away. He’s stuck absorbing the fact that you’re finally acknowledging him. He could feel you two on the cusp of a fight, any wrong word would send you both off the deep end and he didn’t want that tonight.
Tonight, he just wanted you with him.
It’d been so long since you two got a night to yourselves. Right now, he wants you to hold him like he’s the only thing that’s real. He wants to kiss you until the galaxies forget your names. He wants to get the laugh out of you that puts every star to shame. He wants you tangled in bed together as proof that he was worth saving. He wants you in his arms to remember that there was still something worth fighting for in this hell you’ve found yourselves in.
But he’s here instead, facing the consequences of his actions.
“It was necessary.”
“It really wasn’t.”
“I had to do it.”
“Why?”
The word is practically ripped from you and your eyes squeeze shut. His chest is still on your back, and no amount of blinking is able to act as a dam of the flood about to escape you.
No one questioned his self-righteousness. No one questioned how he felt like it all landed on him. Everyone had the sense to run away from danger- to try and outrun the inevitable. Yet Keith had this habit of chasing it, seeing if he could beat death face-to-face.
“I’m one tiny life in the grand scheme of things,” his breath is warm against your scalp, “it doesn’t matter-”
“It matters to me!”
And with that, Keith finally gets his wish.
You whip around faster than you ever have before and meet his eyes. Tears have started falling in a steady stream down your face. His expression drops from an honorable mask, to a guilty mirror. The anguish in how you said it almost tears him in two. Your free hand was clutching at the necklace that hung around your neck, a thin chain with a gem star pendant he saw on a mission and thought of you. It was a birthday gift he got you this past year.
That almost makes it worse.
You hadn’t truly seen each other in so long. The short weekly conversations were littered with sweet nothings and small catch ups. You saw him occasionally on calls for plans and didn’t say much. You catalogued his face to memory and noticed the small scars he seemed to collect like tokens. Neither of you had been given the luxury to see each other without armor, for so long.
“I-” his breath hitches in his throat when he tries to reply, “I had to save you.”
“And why don’t I get to save you? Why do you get to make that decision for us?”
He doesn’t have an answer for that. His impulsivity was going to be death of him. And soon, there was going to a cruel day where you weren’t going to be able to do anything but watch.
“You didn’t even say goodbye.”
The words barely register over the sound of blood pumping from his heart in between his ears. Your voice cracked in the middle of the sentence, and he’s sure his heart shatters into a million little pieces. Your shoulders start shaking and he does what he’s wanted to do since you walked in.
He pulls you into him. He holds you tight against his chest as you both collapse into each other on the floor. His embrace is bone crushing while he buries his face in your hair. Your sobs echo off the wall in a heartbreaking symphony from the stars.
“You’re not one -hic- tiny life Kogane. you know that right?”
He whispers an “I know,” but it lands upon deaf ears. He’s not sure you would believe him anyway. He didn’t know if he actually believed it himself or if he was just trying to comfort you.
“Do you know how awful it was to -sniffle- watch you come to terms with death? Do you know how devastating it was to -hic- see you make that plan in your head?” your hands are fists against his chest as he takes his turn rubbing cyclical motions on your back, dropping small kisses to your temple, “I know you better than anyone Keith- and having to live through that in real-time, to watch you fly into the shield is the worst thing you’ve ever done to me. I’d rather you leave on a thousand missions than do that to me again. Because at least then, I know you’ll come home.”
He doesn’t say respond right away, and you don’t say anything else. Neither of you move from each other’s arms, relishing in the feeling of being together in spite of earlier events.
The bay is silent except for an occasional sniffle and breaths that don’t quite settle. Your sobs have quieted down and he’s probably going to have to change the bandage you cried on, but he wouldn’t trade this for the world. The tear stains were proof that he was loved- that he mattered.
In truth, he didn’t think anyone would be too torn up if his plan worked. Maybe they’d mourn him for a few days, but the mission would go on. You’d all gotten too far to give up now.
But this- This reaction?
He wasn’t prepared for it.
And here, with his body screaming at him with stings of the burn scattered across his torso, he realizes he’d fight through every circle of hell if that’s what it took to come back to you.
Keith Kogane was not a man who was skilled at belonging. Hell, he wasn’t even all that good at loving. But what he did know, was that you were the center of his universe. And if you loving him meant he didn’t take risks anymore, than so be it. All that mattered was that you still loved at him when the moon rose.
So in the wake of the worst hours of your life, you remain holding each other on the floor; as he whispers promises that he’ll always come home.
And you hold him to it.
•───────•°•✶•°•───────•
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