Okay how about "Take me Instead" with Keith! and with platonic Klance or Kidge. :3
Administrative stuff: this is for the @badthingshappenbingo, in the Voltron: Legendary Defender fandom.
For reference, red X has been done, blue circles requested. not that y’all couldn’t figure that out, sheesh
Alright, here goes!! “Take Me Instead”, with platonic Kidge (good one, I live for Kidge friendship) :D This monstrosity is about 1800 words, beware. It was just too much fun.
*PSST*: you can also read this on AO3
“I don’t understand.” Keithscowled over Pidge’s shoulder at the device on the counter before them. “Whatdoes it do?”
Pidge, unwilling to let suchmundane things as purpose dim the stars in her eyes, dug out her pouch of GAC.“It’s a robot, Keith, it doesn’t needto do anything now, I’m gonna upgradeit! How much?”
“Three thousand GAC.” The way thealien shopkeeper’s assessing gaze roamed over Pidge gave Keith theheebie-jeebies. He stepped closer, looming behind her.
“Pidge. You don’t need this robot.”
“Keith.” Pidge did not look upfrom her wallet. “I need this robot.” Now she did look up at him, and somehowher eyes were bigger, wider, and her face was doing something that made it hardto remember why he had thought the robot was a stupid idea. Oh.
“Are you… using puppy-dog eyes onme?”
Her eyes got bigger (was thatpossible? Apparently so), and now he felt guilty for accusing her.
“Is it working? I’m short a couplehundred GAC.”
And just like that, whatever magicwas in the puppy eyes was gone. “We’re supposed to be looking for supplies forthe castle.”
“With your money! I brought myown. I just need a couple hundred, you know Coran gave you way more than we’llneed. Please, Keith, I need this robot. Look at it! It’s socute! How can you say no to such a cute-” “Pile of metal?” “Keeeiiiith,” she whined, whacking him inthe arm. “Pleeeeeeeaaase, Keith?”
Matt probably would have beenable to say no. Shiro too, maybe even Lance. They all had experience withyounger siblings. But no, they sent Keith, who had no idea how to handle hugeeyes and a face full of desperate need for something frankly trivial. He wasnot prepared for this at all.
Sometimes surrender was the onlyoption. Keith yanked out his wallet and began flipping out GAC. “I’m nothelping you fix it.”
“But Keith, you’re my best labassistant! C’mon, it’ll be fun!” Pidge tucked the robot lovingly under her armand turned a blindingly bright smile up at Keith.
Keith sighed and shook his head.He had a feeling that he was going to end up helping fix the robot. “C’mon, weneed to look for that component-thingy.”
“Flux modulator,” Pidge correctedabsently, engrossed in fiddling with the robot. Keith dropped a hand onto hershoulder to steer her through the teeming masses, scowling out from under hisbangs at the scurrying aliens who hurried this way, that, and always across thepath he was trying to steer Pidge through. Crowds had always been hard for him,but since bonding with Red his instincts tended to go haywire whenever he feltsurrounded or not in control.
“Woah,” Pidge muttered, peeringup over her glasses as Keith yanked her to a stop just before a horde of tinyorange aliens screeched across the end of the aisle. “Keith, you okay, man?”
“I’m fine,” Keith said tightly.Something was wrong; his instincts were screaming – he needed to fight, run,fly – anything to calm the fire burning down his spine. “Let’s just get the frackmandala” “Flux modulator-” “-and get back to the lions.”
“You got it.” Perhaps picking upon whatever had Keith’s senses firing, Pidge put the robot into her satchel andpeered around at the stalls. “Ooh, maybe over there.” She wriggled out from underhis hand and darted over to the corner stall.
Something was coming – he couldn’ttake it anymore. Keith drew his bayard, glad he had ignored Allura when she orderedthem to leave all paladin-identifying gear behind. Screw the flip-flop macerator,he was getting Pidge out of here. They could find it somewhere else.
“Pidge, let’s- PIDGE!” Keithpelted for the alley, heart in his throat. A large green arm had snaked out ofthe shadows and latched onto the littlest paladin, yanking her out of sightbefore she could so much as startle at the unexpected contact.
Keith activated his bayard, arrivingin a whirl of violence. Five huge aliens blocked his way, while a sixth hauleda struggling Pidge down the alley, heading for a pod parked at the other end. Ithad her tucked under its arm like a ragdoll, one three-clawed hand wrappedentirely around her head, and though Pidge was one of the fiercest people heknew, without her bayard the size disparity was simply too great for her to domore than annoy the hulking alien with her struggles.Â
Keith charged, cutting down oneof the aliens with a swift slash across its throat before the rest swarmed him.He raised his blade to block an overhead strike, letting the angle of his sworddeflect his opponent’s blade down and off to one side, before whirling hissword about to parry the next attack. Shoving the blade off of his own, Keithyanked his knife out of its sheath at his back and stabbed blindly to his left,where he could feel a third alien approaching from behind. The alien gurgledand screamed, but kept coming, and the other two were swiftly recovering aswell. And all the while Pidge was being hauled toward the pod. Keithglanced about the narrow alley frantically. He needed some sort ofadvantage; between their size and their numbers, there was no way he was goingto take all three down on his own.Â
A pile of crates stackedhaphazardly against the wall protruded from a mounded pile of discarded trash.Keith yelled and ducked under the rightmost alien’s scythe-like weapon andjumped up the mound. His footing was precarious at best, but his back wasagainst a wall now and he was nearly at eye level with his opponents. One swungat him with a heavy-handed overhead strike – really, again? Clearly these guyswere not used to actual opposition – and Keith blocked it easily, twisting theblade aside and lunging in to take out the alien’s eyes. Three down, two to go.
The one he had just blindedstaggered into one of his remaining opponents, keening loudly, and Keith tookthe opportunity to leap atop the other one, wrapping his thighs around its’ neckand stabbing downwards through the alien’s skull. He rode the enormous body tothe ground, cleaving the last alien from neck to navel on the way down. Thatleft only the blind one, staggering across the alley in futile search of itscomrades. Keith took a running start and leapt up its back, using his momentumto bring the disoriented alien crashing to the ground. Stunned, the alien frozeas it felt Keith’s blade against its’ neck, cold metal warring with hot bloodagainst its scaly flesh.
“Let her go!” Keith shouted, proudthat his voice projected only his anger and not the crippling fear underneath. Not Pidge, please not Pidge. “Let hergo, or you lose the last of your team!”
The alien halted, its reptilianeyes skittering over the carnage Keith had wrought. Over its clawed hand, Pidge’senormous brown eyes locked onto Keith’s.
“You have brought blood-debt uponyourself, stranger,” the alien snarled.
“Let her go, and I’ll give you achance to collect,” Keith retorted. Beneath him, the blinded alien shifted, andhe ground his heel harder into its spine until it stilled.
“This small one is a lawful prize,taken fairly. She will bring good price to me.” The alien shook Pidge slightly,and Keith’s gut twisted at the strangled whimper that emerged past the thickscaly claws wrapped around her head. “What have you to offer, stranger? Your blood-debtis already greater than you can pay.”
Everything was speeding up,unlike in battle when time seemed to slow; this was too fast, too much, and allKeith could think was not Pidge, notPidge in endless, frantic loop.
“Me,” he said, ignoring Pidge’ssudden muffled cy. “Take me.”
The alien snarled. “I havealready said your debt is greater than you can pay. I tire of this. Flee, whileyou still can, before the debt-hunters are given your scent.”
“I’m a paladin!” Keith blurted. “I’ma paladin of Voltron, heard of them?”
The alien’s sudden stillness wasanswer enough.
“Take me, and I’ll pay yourblood-debt. But you have to let her go.”
The alien watched him, reptilianeyes unblinking and hard as stone. Keith stepped off the blinded alien,shifting his sword back into bayard form and sheathing his knife. “Take me,” herepeated. “But let her go.”
“What is she to you?”
“No one,” Keith said quickly –too quickly, damnit. “A messenger,” he tried again, locking eyes with Pidge’s furioushoney-gold orbs and hoping that just this once he could communicate what he wanted.“She’s just a messenger. I hired her to carry my stuff while I shopped. She’s aninnocent.”
The alien lifted Pidge, eyeingher satchel dubiously. With a single claw, it ripped the satchel down thecenter, sending the robot and various other wires and connectors they had alreadypurchased clattering to the ground. It glanced back at Keith, gaze lingering onhis bayard. Keith thanked whatever gods held sway out here for its distinctivered-and-white coloring. Thanks to Coran’s Voltron shows, most of the galaxy nowrecognized the paladin colors and bayards. Beside him, the blinded alien rolledover, scrambling to its feet, and Keith stiffened, but kept his bayarddisarmed. “Take me,” he repeated. “But let her go.”
Slowly, the alien lowered Pidgeto the ground. “Go, child,” it said harshly. “Offer thanks at your hearth thisnight for the foolish ideals of this paladin.”
“Keith,” Pidge whisperedhoarsely. Bruising was already darkening her pale skin, crossing her face inmottled hues that didn’t belong.
“Go on,” Keith said, his mindstill circling madly, stuck in its loop ofnot Pidge, not Pidge. “You’ve got a job to get back to.”
The alien shoved her towards theentrance to the alley when she stayed rooted to the spot. “Run, child. Deliveryour messages.”
The giant claws descended on him,then, wrapping around Keith’s torso and pinning his arms painfully to hissides. His bayard clattered on the ground, but the alien’s sinuous tail snakeddown to seize it as well.
“Get out of here!” Keith snarledas it began to drag him away. He couldn’t try to escape until Pidge was safelyaway. She couldn’t start tracking him until she was back at her lion, she wasn’tsafe until she was back with Green.
Finally, Pidge fled, dashingtears out of her eyes, and finally, Keith’s panic over her began to subside,even as his own spiked. But Pidge was safe. He could handle whatever came next,as long as it was him and not her.
