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It wasn't often that they had to fight outside their lions, but it happened. Keith was usually too focused to worry on anything else. Hand to hand was something he trained long and hard at so he always used his training to his advantage. His bayard helped in that respect as well. If he did feel like he needed to keep an eye on anyone, Shiro was the last person he worried for. He was strong, and he was gifted. Not like Pidge, or Hunk, or even Lance.
So it caught him by surprise when out of the corner of his eye he saw the black paladin go down. A slash wound rather than a stab, but still across the stomach, and Shiro was down. Force of will or maybe just plain rage burned through Keith. Every enemy in his way to Shiro was cut down with terrifying efficiency. His demeanor did not change when he reached him. Violent, though stationary.
He did not leave Shiro's side, though struck down any attacker that approached them, until they were all downed one way or another. Honestly Keith doesn't remember it a whole lot. Not how he got the deep cut marring his forearm. None of it really mattered. He doesn't know when he started crying, but the tears are falling hot now, down his face and onto Shiro's bloody clothes as he attempts to slow the bleeding.
"God" Shiro's voice was strained and quiet, though there was a ghost of a laugh underneath it. It was jarring to Keith's ears. "Things must be really bad if you're crying." And that only made the rage bubble up again. Or maybe it was despair.
"I'm not crying!" Keith hissed, his voice betrayed him though. It was broken and watery. "It's going to be fine!" he insisted. The others had gathered around them. Keith was pretty sure they were speaking but he couldn't focus on their words. He needed to get Shiro back to the Castle. Into a healing pod, this wasn't working. "You're going to be fine." he said, again, though it was more to ease his own mind than Shiro's, "but this is going to hurt. Keep pressure here if you can." He instructed, bringing Shiro's arm to the wound.
For as incoherent as Shiro seemed, he managed to follow the instruction. Keith hauled him up, with Shiro's free arm over his shoulder, and Hunk came to Shiro's other side to help without any sort of instruction, and Keith was glad for it. It was slow and clunky back to the castle. Keith wished there was a faster way but they made it, and rushed Shiro into a pod.
Keith hated to admit that he was downright combative in the hours following. He wouldn't let anyone look at his own injury, didn't eat in the mess hall, didn't leave the spot in front of the healing pod where Shiro was healing. He just hoped it was enough. He was covered in blood, most of it Shiro's. Allura had looked unusually grim when she saw the damage before he was placed in the pod.
"I don't want to survive in a universe you're not in." Keith found himself mumbling. He was sitting now, beside the pod, and his head was resting against the cool glass. Keith at his core was a survivor. He didn't honestly know the meaning of giving up, he'd lived by himself for as long as he could, and even though it was hard he never stopped trekking on day by day. He knew that he couldn't. Even if he was alone, he wasn't now he knew that, he still couldn't just fade away. Loneliness was something he'd come to hold in his heart since he was a child. He'd learned to live with it, but that didn't make him enjoy it. As much as he seemed to default into a lone wolf status, that didn't make him happy.
"You can't leave me again." He said quietly. He opened his mouth to say something else, but footsteps in the distance cut him off, and announced someone else's presence. He was wiping the tears away from his eyes, though the sweat and everything else only made his eyes sting more.
"Sitting here and moping isn't helping anyone, least of all him." It was Hunk's voice that met his ears.
"I want to be here when he wakes up." Keith insisted, looking up.
"Allura says that won't be until tomorrow at the earliest. You need to clean up. You need to eat. Heck, you should probably be in one of those yourself. You took some nasty blows out there."
"I-"
"I'm not taking no for an answer. Clean up, pretty sure Shiro would actually kill you if you let yourself lose your arm because you let it get horribly infected." Hunk was shouting, which was startling to Keith. Hunk wasn't one to get angry, but it was clear in his tone. "We all care about him. We're all worried. But we all care about you too, you know. So march!" The order came with a finger pointed in the vague direction of the showers. Defeated, Keith stood up, though his stance was wobbly at first.
It was mechanical as he worked on getting himself cleaned up, careful to keep his injury covered and out of water as he showered, and careful cleaning of the wound after. Though a litany of angry muttering escaped him as he did. Hunk didn't leave him alone for long, and made sure he didn't need to get tossed into a pod himself.
"He's going to be alright you know." Hunk assured him as he strong armed him into letting him help bandage his arm.
"Allura looked so..." Keith paused, tipping his head back and forth for a moment. "Worried. More than normal. She didn't give her usual 'he'll be fine in just a few hours' thing she usually does. It's a bad sign.."
"She was giving you space dude. You came in with him like a feral cat ready to pounce at anything that so much as looked at him funny. She was worried about you. We do that sometimes you know."
"But Shiro he's..."
"Going to be fine. Honestly the wound didn't hit any major organs. All flesh. It looked worse than it was. He was in shock, but the healing pod has healed worse without so much as a scar. Unless you go and ignore your injuries, like someone we know." Hunk said, and it was meant to be teasing but Keith didn't really know how to take it. "Now go get some food, and get some sleep. Shiro will be out of that pod before you know it."
"Thanks Hunk."
"Oh you know, what are friends for, if not for preventing one of them from crashing and burning in their downward spiral while the other is in a healing pod?" Hunk shrugged it off like it was nothing, and that Keith didn't quite understand. He never really had a real family before, but maybe this is what it was like.
The pride takes care of it's own.