#tw electrocution

You were surely going to throw Lance off the tower balcony when the power came back on. According to Pidge and Shiro, he’d been messing around the power source of the castle, only to activate some sort of ‘emergency alert’ that sent the castle plunging into darkness.

Keith, your boyfriend of only two weeks, sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed as you rushed around your room. If you weren’t moving or busy, it made you jittery, eyes always scanning for something else that could be done. You folded sheets, brought out at least five different blankets, headphones, even a set of flower incense Allura had gifted you.

“Anything else?” you blew a strand of hair off your face, hands on your hips, but Keith nowhere to be seen. “Keith?”

“Behind here,” Keith said awkwardly, hidden behind the pile of supplies you had brought out. You let out a small ‘oh!’, tilting your head to the side to smile at him.

“Is it enough? Do let me know- I can get another mattress if this one’s too firm.”

Without waiting for an answer, Keith grabbed your wrist, and you stalled in your footsteps, seeing his rare, comforting smile.

“It’s all enough, thank you,” he said gently. “Is something wrong?”

You blinked at him, then laughed. “I just don’t want you to be uncomfortable. After all, my bed is a bit on the… shorter side for you.”

After a fraught discourse, Keith had finally been unable to dissuade your insistence that he take the bed, and you would sleep on the sofa. You assured him- and he knew too- you’d fallen asleep soundly many times at various strange places around the castle. The sofa would barely affect you, while Keith, a paladin going through hours of intense training a day, could probably use the bed more than you.

You two fell into easy conversation as he pulled you down to sit next to him. Your head rested against his shoulder, as the moon glowed brightly outside your window and the translucent curtains. He told you about the mission he’d been on- some distant planet filled with waterfalls, and the fox-like creatures he and Hunk had rescued and brought for rehabilitation. Keith promised you two could visit them in the terrarium where they were recovering, delighting you.

“So, what’d you do today?” Keith asked, eyes so filled with genuine interest as if it were the hottest topic in the universe. Before you and Keith had finally gotten together, he’d often trail behind you when he didn’t have training or missions, as you scurried up and down through the castle keeping everything in immaculate condition. You’d happily chat with him- though granted, it was one-sided for a while, as he seemed too flustered to do anything but nod along and stare at his boots.

Regardless, Keith knew your daily routine like the back of his hand, down to the hour. Yet he still always enjoyed hearing about how your day went.

“You know nothing special happened,” you smiled, head resting against his shoulder. “I found a box of Altaean recipes in the storage unit, I might try some out tomorrow if there’s time.”

“I’ll be your taste-tester then,” Keith offered.

“Really? Most of these seem poisonous,” you teased. “Or are you that eager to try intergalactic tentacle soup and alien slime pudding?”

Keith’s face turned a tinted green, then he cleared his throat. “You know what, I think Lance will be free tomorrow, he can try them out.”

The sound of your laughter always made Keith’s mouth tug into a smile, despite how hard he had fought against it when you two first met. Sometimes it seemed so foreign, almost impossible that you, who had been forced under the palm of Galrian oppressors, always shone like a beacon. Never had you let the past you scarcely spoke about bring you down, at least in the eyes of all the Paladins.

Oddly, you still had energy by the time midnight rolled around, even if Keith caught your eyelids fluttering a few times, your speech sometimes lulling and eyes slipping out of focus. For some reason, he could see you fighting against sleep. Maybe you thought it’d be rude to fall asleep before him? Keith grinned, pressing a light kiss to your forehead, causing you to stutter mid-sentence.

“It’s getting late,” Keith reminded gently. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Psh, not at-” you trailed off, trying desperately to stifle a yawn. Plus, Keith’s shoulder was so warm, and the aroma of the candles were practically serenading you to sleep, but if you slept now, if you succumbed-

The nightmares.

The screaming, the cold sweats when you burst awake, the short breaths of fear, hyperventilating as you had to spend hours trying to ground yourself in the darkness.

You looked into Keith’s eyes, so full of concern, knowing that you could never show that side to him- not any of the Paladins, but him least of all. All you had to do was stay awake for one single night, and he was making it really, really difficult.

At some point, you slipped into unconsciousness. You’re not sure when, because the nightmares came almost instantly, and there you were, in a pitch-black ocean.

“No,” you murmured, feeling your heartbeat accelerate immediately. “No, no, not tonight, please-”

A ripple of electric pain shot through your body, tracing your spine like a ghost. You screamed out, falling to your knees, gasping for breath as you hugged your body.

“Keep moving.” The Galrian guards would order as they marched you through the endlessly winding black corridors of the space vessel, nothing more than a set of hands to perform repairs, lest they send scorching pain through every nerve in your body.

But in this nightmare, you couldn’t move. Could only stare down, pleading and begging and hands outstretched as your captor’s voices bled into every cell of your body, yelling commands and blinding-white agony shredding your senses to ruin, and tears dripped into the pool of blackness around you, but all you could do was cry out.

You had to keep moving, somehow. Or else the lingering phantom of the suffering would climb along your body, whispering under your skin. Yet it stretched on for hours. Endlessly, in a void you could never escape whenever your mind surrendered to sleep. When blackness took over your world, your throat felt raw from screams that had never echoed.

Surrender. Surrender. Alone. Helpless. Prisoner. Useless. Slave.

Surrender.

You shot awake, tears still fresh on your cheeks, fist clutching at your shirt, gasping for air without a sound. It had felt even more real tonight. You stared at your arms in the darkness, as if new scars really had bloomed, as if the soldiers broke into your room at night to send shockwaves of voltage through you again.

Their faces were still flashing in your mind, racing by like a shutter camera. Mocking the fact that some scars couldn’t be healed in the castle infirmary.

The smallest sob escaped you, head ducking to hide in your knees. It wouldn’t be the first time you couldn’t go back to sleep after the nightmares. You were all too familiar with staring blankly out the window until the rays of dawn seeped through, then pretending to the others you had only just woken, and hadn’t been stifling cries for hours.

Oh, but Keith’s damned hearing, whether from his Galrian blood or his training, immediately heard the second choked hiccup that left you, even if your hand muffled your own mouth.

You hadn’t known how light of a sleeper he was, until you felt someone kneeling in front of you, obsidian eyes overflowing with worry.

Even before dating, you were always the one with the words to say, and Keith felt nearly as helpless as you, unsure what exactly to do but hold you gently by the shoulders.

“You… don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,” Keith muttered. It didn’t take a genius, nor his just-awakened brain, too long to deduce that you had a nightmare. And certainly, it explained your reluctance to fall asleep earlier.

They must’ve been a common occurrence for you, but Keith’s heart strained at seeing you still shakily breathing and burying your face deeper into the ball you curled up in.

Carefully, so not to startle you, Keith sat beside you, hesitating to hug you, one arm awkwardly slung around your shoulders until he felt your shuddering breaths slow ever so slightly when you leaned in against his side.

“Can-” your breath hitched, and Keith froze at the sound of your voice. “Can we just stay like this, for a little bit?”

All earlier hesitation melted away, only into you. Always you, and everything else was just the background.

“We can stay as long as you need,” Keith whispered, one hand holding yours, and despite the awkwardness, even a dying sun couldn’t force him to budge a single inch until you were ready.

“Do you know why rain happens on earth?” Keith continued talking quietly, feeling your racing heartbeat slow back down with every word. “Because clouds carry all this weight and pain with them, and then they rain when it’s too much for them to hold. Then storms cover the sky, but they never last forever. It’ll end, it always does. And then everything is going to be okay.”

It was a story he had heard from someone in his memory, but he wasn’t sure who. A message of hope that winning battles meant one day there’d be battles to fight no more.

So when you fell asleep for the first time in a long time after a nightmare, still in Keith’s arms, shielding you from the wounds of the past, and when you woke up to see him soundly sleeping beside you, the first stitch over your torn heart began to form.

“I was before, too,” he manages, voice rough but intact. It scrapes a little on the way out, but it holds.

That matters.

The figure pauses at his side.  He can’t see their face clearly from this angle—just the tilt of their head, the brief stillness as they assess him.

“Baseline resistance remains consistent,” they say, again not quite addressing him.  Like he’s a data point.

He huffs a quiet, humorless breath.  “You always narrate your thoughts out loud, or is that just for my benefit?”

There’s a beat.  Then—something shifts.  Not visible.  Subtle.

Interest, maybe.

“Verbal coherence intact,” the person continues smoothly.

He lets his head fall back against the metal with a soft, controlled thunk.  The surface is still cold.  It hasn’t warmed under him.

Nothing here does.

“Glad to hear I’m performing well,” he mutters.

Another pause.  Then the figure moves.

He tenses automatically as something enters his peripheral vision—a tray, stainless steel, set down within reach.  The sound is deliberate.  Meant to be heard.

Inside it, a small arrangement of instruments.  Clean.  Ordered.

Not rushed.

His eyes track them despite himself.

Thin leads.  Adhesive pads.  A handheld device with a smooth casing and a single, unlit indicator.

Not as invasive-looking as before.  Which somehow makes it worse.

His fingers flex involuntarily against the restraints.

The figure notices.

“Anticipation response,” they note.

“Or pattern recognition,” he shoots back, a little sharper this time.

Silence.

Then—unexpectedly—

“Possibly.”

That almost throws him.

Almost.

He swallows again, slower now, buying time.  Watching.

“New stimulus,” the figure says, finally turning slightly toward him.  “Lower intensity. Longer duration.”

His stomach drops before he can stop it.

Don’t react.

“Sounds boring,” he says instead.

The faintest pause.

Then—

“We will see.”

The first contact is deceptively gentle.

A pad pressed just below his collarbone—cool, slightly damp adhesive against his skin.  Then another, lower, near his ribs.  Each one placed with clinical precision, no wasted motion.

He forces himself to watch.  To catalog it.  To stay ahead of it.

“Comfortable?” he asks dryly.

No response.

Of course.

The device gives a soft tone as it activates.  Not a beep—something smoother.  Almost pleasant.

A sound that doesn’t match what he knows is coming.

He inhales slowly, bracing without letting it show.

There’s a fraction of a second—

Then—

It starts.

Not sharp.  Not like before.  This is different.

It seeps in.

A low, crawling sensation slips under his skin—diffuse at first, unfocused—like something moving where nothing should be.  His muscles twitch before he can stop them, a small, involuntary jerk that pulls against the restraints with a muted clatter.

He clamps down on the reaction immediately, jaw tightening.

That’s it?

He almost believes it.

Then the current shifts.  Finds something.  Locks in.

The sensation narrows suddenly—pulling tight into a defined line that bites inward rather than spreads.

His breath catches—not a full gasp, but close.  The sensation deepens, tightening into something more focused, more insistent.  Not overwhelming—just…persistent. Impossible to ignore.

Like a muscle cramp that won’t release.

He exhales slowly through his teeth, trying to ride it out.

The figure watches.

Of course they do.

“Still boring?” they ask.

He lets a beat pass.

Then, strained but steady:

“Yeah.”

Another pulse rolls through him—stronger this time.  His shoulders jerk before he can fully stop it, tension snapping tight across his back.  His fingers curl.

The restraint chain shifts with a soft metallic sound.

He closes his eyes briefly—not to escape it, but to contain it.  To keep the reaction from spilling outward where they can measure it, quantify it, use it.

Don’t give them the scale.

When he opens them again, he forces his focus back onto the room.  The lights.  The ceiling seam.  The edge of the tray.

Anything but the sensation threading through him.

The hum in the walls continues, unchanged.

The current doesn’t stop.

It builds—incrementally, carefully, like someone turning a dial a fraction at a time.

Testing.

Mapping.

Learning.

A soft note from the device marks each adjustment.  He starts counting them without meaning to.

One.

Two.

Three—

His breath stutters on the fourth.

He swallows it down immediately, but it’s too late.  The figure’s head tilts slightly.

Logged.

Everything is logged.

“Response curve established,” they murmur.

He lets out a quiet, shaky laugh despite himself.

“Congratulations,” he mutters. “You found…muscles.”

But his voice is thinner now—drawn tight, like it’s being pulled along the same line as the current.

The current surges again—just enough to make his back arch a fraction off the table before he forces himself down, every muscle fighting for control.

The restraint bites into his wrist, pressure sharpening where bone meets metal.

Grounding.

He clings to that instead.

Something solid.

Something real.

Not the current.

Not them.

The figure steps closer.

“Duration will increase,” they say.

Of course it will.

He turns his head slightly, just enough to look at them properly now.  His expression is strained, but there’s still something defiant there—something unbroken.

“Then you’d better get comfortable,” he says quietly.

A pause.

Then, almost thoughtfully—

“We are.”

The device hums.

The current holds.

And the seconds stretch.

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