Chapter Text
“I don’t need a pod.”
Shiro didn’t offer Keith the liberty of a response, merely sending a dead-eyed look at the younger boy. He focused back onto where he’d been threading the red paladin’s limp and bloody arm into the pod suit.
Keith’s voice was quieter now, “I’m sorry Shiro.”
The older man sighed quietly, “you don’t need to be sorry Keith.” He smiled, “You do need to get in a pod though.”
Shiro looked over at Coran and nodded in response to the older man’s affirmative thumbs up. Shiro manoeuvred Keith’s uninjured arm over his shoulder and brought them both to their feet, they started towards the pod Coran had been prepping for Keith.
Shiro took a step backwards as Keith became obscured by the translucent blue film of the pod door. He saw the smaller boy shiver slightly as the pod started the cooling process.
Shiro stayed until he saw the younger boy’s eyes flutter shut and heard the affirmative beep of the pod’s initiation sequence. He turned and headed out of the medbay.
***
Everyone -bar Keith- had gathered on the bridge to debrief Allura on what had happened during the mission.
Hunk failed to see the point, if anything this mission had gone better than others. No near-death experiences and/or injuries, and they’d managed to actually gather the intel they’d set out to get!
A success in most regards. Well, Hunk thought, other than Keith’s getting hurt. At least, for once, when their resident red paladin had gotten injured, he hadn’t had to be carried into the castle by either Hunk or Shiro.
A debriefing seemed pointless. But seemed to be happening anyway, because of course it did. Just because they’d avoided injury enough to justify a pod didn’t mean they weren’t bone tired.
Hunk knew that he himself was harbouring more than a comfortable number of scrapes and bruises, and he was certain in the fact he wasn’t the only one.
His eyes ached pleasingly as he blinked, the struggle of opening them becoming more apparent as time went on. Hunk patted Pidge’s hair as her head thumped onto his shoulder.
Lance’s jaw split with a yawn and he stumbled backward into Hunk as he stretched, The yellow paladin smothered a laugh and the trio were sent a disapproving glare from Allura.
Shiro sighed and, looking twice as tired as Hunk felt, lifted his prosthetic arm to pinch the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes tightly, “Allura, maybe it’d be better if we held this off until everyone got some sleep.”
Lance seemed to perk up slightly he raised his hand, “I vote to raincheck this.” He looked back at Hunk and Pidge, “I mean, gremlin’s basically asleep, princess.”
Pidge sent a sleepily affronted glare toward him, too sleepy to harbour any real malice, “dude.”
Allura seemed as if she were about to argue when she noticed everyone’s exhausted looks. She looked over at Shiro’s tired smile and nodded in acquiescence, “Right, everyone get some sleep. We can go over this in the morning.”
Allura looked over at Shiro as everyone filed out of the room, “when I said go to bed, I mean it.” Everyone was fully aware of Keith and Shiro’s self-negligence when the other was going through the healing cycle.
He sent tired eyes at her, “yes princess.” And carried on out of the room.
***
Shiro thought he might actually get a good night’s sleep. He was deeply tired, head stuffy with exhaustion. It had been a long mission, and it wasn’t as if he’d exactly been sleeping well prior to it.
He stumbled slightly as he shed himself of his armour and put on the comfier pyjamas Lance had forced Coran to synthesise upon the realisation that they would be on the castle for a long while.
He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
And jolted awake to the piercing sound of alarms. He fumbled on his undersuit and had nearly all of his armour on by the time he left his bunk. Shiro started to sprint toward the bridge, struggling with his vambrace clasps as he ran.
Keith’s absence at his side was gaping as he lost the last of the mental fog from his abrupt awakening.
Other than Coran, Shiro was the first to the Bridge. Allura walked in soon after him, Hunk, Pidge and finally Lance, followed her.
“What’s happening Coran,” Allura’s voice was regal, despite the fact she was rubbing sleep from her eyes and aimlessly trying to smother a yawn.
“It… well-” The older man smiled humourlessly, “The castles autopiloting technology seems to be a tad out of date. And, well, we seem to have gotten ourselves into quite the debris field.”
Shiro’s brow furrowed, he opened his mouth to speak but Hunk had beat him to it, “Why would that set off the alarms?”
Pidge spoke up at the same time, “Can we not just, y’know… leave?”
Lance yawned beside her, “I can’t believe you woke us all up for space junk.” He glared lazily out of the Bridge window at the assortment of clutter floating around them.
Coran looked as if he were about to say something, an unreadable look on his face, when the floor jolted beneath them and the lights shut off with a muted thump.
“I’ll assume something like this happening is why the alarms triggered.” Hunk’s voice was jarring in the newfound dark silence of the room.
Coran sighed, “yes number two.”
The lights flickered on, dimmer than before. But bright enough for Lance to see Pidge’s face light up as she turned on her gauntlet.
“power’s pretty much out on the whole ship.” She messed around with the display, “whatever we hit packed one helluva punch. Other than emergency light, We’re dead in the water.”
Hunk made a wounded sound.
“Pidge, where were we hit?” Lances voice was quieter than usual.
“The lower decks lad.” Coran answered absently. He had activated his own monitor -apparently also separately powered to the ship- and he stared down at the holographic screen.
Lance looked uneasy, arms crossed over his chest, “Coran the medbays are on the lower levels,” He drummed his fingers on his arm. Coran had stilled where he stood. “Could it’ve- I mean, if it cut out power on the whole ship. Could it have damaged the pods?”
Shiro was first out of the room. The mental image of Keith, unconscious and completely vulnerable clogging his mind. Coran ran alongside him for a moment, before sprinting ahead.
Allura caught up with him part way, staying at his side until they reached the medbay.
The pair went in to see Coran tapping hurriedly on the monitor beside Keith’s pod. Allura hadn’t seen Shiro move faster than he did on his way across the room, toward the pod.
She frowned, the soft blue glow from the cryopods was absent and the medbay was a mess, all the shelves were empty, contents spread around the room. A dim, red light pulsed throughout the room, casting an almost frightening glow onto Coran and Shiro alike. Her view of Keith had been obstructed by the two’s panicky movements.
Coran was trying to bite back his anger at not thinking about the cryopods once seeing the area of damage.
The monitor remained frustratingly unresponsive; he’d noticed straight-away, however, the fact that everything apart from the emergency lights were logged off.
Shiro didn’t know what to do with himself, he scanned over Keith for the nth time, “Coran his lips are blue?” His voice was low with confusion, which sharpened into concern, “Is there air in there?”
Coran paused in his typing to press a reassuring hand onto Shiro’s shoulder, “Air won’t be an issue lad, there’s plenty of reserves sitting by the pod feeding right in, number four will be fine in that retrospect.” He moved his hand back to the monitor, “however” he continued, “the cryopod’s run by lowering the core temperature and then continuing all basic functions during the healing cycle, but the support system is offline, and the temperature is less than ideal for a human.”
Shiro looked up at him, shocked, “Take him out then!”
“Number one, the pods are offline, I can’t do anything to them.” Coran’s voice was levelled with barely concealed frustration.
Shiro didn’t seem to comprehend Coran’s slightly patronising tone as he activated his arm.
Allura stepped forward, eyeing up the black paladin’s now-glowing prosthetic, “That won’t work Shiro. Cryo-technology was a staple of Altean development, they were built specifically to be resistant to this sort of attack.”
Shiro started to bounce on the balls of his feet as he noticed Keith starting to fidget. Shiro let out a shaky breath as he saw the smaller boy’s eyes flicker open, the younger stared into his brother’s eyes, face blank. Then his face creased into a sleepy frown and he lifted his hands up to the glass of the pod and pushed against it.
Shiro sucked a harsh breath inwards as he saw Keith mouth his name, the red paladin’s face remained a mixture of confusion and exhaustion but Shiro could see the first inklings of panic on his face.
Shiro tried to lock eyes with the smaller boy, the latter stared up at him- chest heaving with the beginnings of panic, ‘Shiro’. They couldn’t hear him from outside the pod, Shiro pressed a hand up to the chilled glass as Keith’s shivering became apparent.
Pidge stepped beside him, Shiro hadn’t seen her come in; he looked behind him and noticed that both Lance, and Hunk had joined them in the room as well. She stepped closer to the pod and held up her monitor toward Keith. The Red paladin gazed at the screen, seemingly without processing what was upon it before focusing more intently on it, reading. Shiro could only focus on the shivering growing all the more aggressive as time went on.
Keith nodded, finally, and seemed to notice everyone had gathered around his pod, he crossed his arms over his chest, He was blatantly attempting to smother his shuddering. Keith spoke again, ‘What’s happening?’ Shiro didn’t know how to answer. Luckily, he didn’t have to. He jumped as Lance made an explosion sound from behind him and mimed a collision- his fist slamming into the palm of his other hand.
Keith sent a dead-eyed stare toward the blue paladin, before sighing and mouthing his thanks.
Keith began to fidget, looking back at Shiro he started to open his mouth. He then, realising no one could hear him, mimed tapping a watch, ‘how long?’. Shiro could only offer a shrug in return, Keith sighed and leant against the back of the pod, irregular shuddering moving his whole body.
Keith was clearly uncomfortable with the whole team around him, Shiro turned toward the three younger paladins, “I don’t think there’s much to be done in here guys, head back to bed.” He saw them all frown, “I’ll wake you if something happens.”
Pidge’s voice was sharp with aggression borne of concern, “I can help, Shiro!”
“I know, I’m not saying you can’t. But you need rest, all of you.” He raised his hand to the green paladin’s shoulder, looking over at Lance and Hunk. “I’ll wake you all if anything happens.”
Pidge shook his hand away angrily and stormed out of the room.
“I’ll go after her.” Lance said, he looked toward Shiro before leaving, “You promise to get us?” Lance left the room in response to Shiro’s sincere nod.
Shiro looked over at Hunk, “Don’t exhaust yourself too much Shiro.” He said, and with that, he left the room
Shiro sent an apologetic look toward Keith and Coran who stood awkwardly behind him, Allura having left quietly at some point before.
“Shiro we need to get him out.” Coran said, a newfound look of confusion taking over his features, “the pod’s internal temperature is still lowering.”
***
Keith had woken up confused, and he hadn’t really gotten any less since noticing Shiro on the other side of the pale blue glass.
There was a moment before he’d opened his eyes, where he’d assumed the pod was just messing up, some weird remnant from the glitch caused by the Galra. He’d realised his arm still hurt next. It had jarred him enough to force him into opening his eyes.
Seeing the pod still being shut around him had been wrong thing number two and had spurred panic enough for him to start pushing against the glass.
“Shiro?” his voice echoed harshly around him, calling out for Shiro had been almost reflexive in its speed.
Wrong thing three, his brother looked more concerned about Keith than normal, which was hard.
Wrong thing four was that the pod was really fucking cold.
He could see Coran to his left, Keith assumed he was doing something to let him out-- or, well, he hoped it was to get him out.
There was a lot going on outside of the pod, Keith had focused on trying to pry his nails between the seam of the metal and glass, he stopped once he realised his attempts were getting him nowhere.
It was probably best he’d stopped anyway; Coran would kill him if he damaged his beloved technology.
He hadn’t realised how small the pods were until then, it had always been in-and-out, too quick to process the pressing claustrophobia of being trapped in a tube too small to move in.
His breathing quickened again as he became all the more conscious of how close all the sides of the pod were to him.
Was there even air in there? He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe and they weren’t letting him out.
He couldn’t think, couldn’t see past the blue of the glass, the glass shutting him in. They probably could open it, they just weren’t, keeping him in there to mock him, to torture him.
He was so cold.
Numbing fingers grasped at the glass for the umpteenth time, hoping against hope that he’d stumble upon some unseen fault, some way to get out of the cold, cold coffin he’d been trapped in.
A bright square of light moved into his view. He forced himself to breath, hands falling back to his sides, eyes staring intently at the aggressive brightness of it. He could see the blurry outline of writing upon it and fought to focus in on the words.
He took his time, figuring out each letter and imagining himself writing them out with a pen. Stroke by slow stroke he went through all of the short sentence, matching his breathing to the pretend movements. By the time he’d calmed enough to actually read the writing Infront of him he’d realised it was Pidge holding the screen up.
‘hang in there, we’re figuring it out’
He allowed himself one final, stutteringly uneven breath before he forced himself into calm.
They would get him out.
He shivered again. God, he was cold.
***
The temperature was still decreasing, Shiro didn’t want to think about what those words entailed. An image of Keith, pale and still, still trapped in that godforsaken pod flickered through his mind.
He forced himself to look over at Keith, Shiro didn’t realise he was just staring blankly at the younger until he focused in on Keith’s cocked head and questioning glance. He nodded, assuring the red paladin that yes, he was fine.
He dragged his flesh palm down his face, “Coran how- Why, is it still getting colder?”
The older man looked wearier than Shiro could recall seeing him. He shrugged, shaking his head, “I don’t know. Some of the power is still functional in the ship, so one would assume that it’s just a matter of one part of the process being halted, and, well… one not.” Seeing Shiro’s still carefully blank look, he continued, “generally, in case of emergency, the pods are supposed to release their occupant and stop the sequence entirely. I think, perhaps, that lingering effects from when the empire manipulated the castle are causing them to malfunction.”
“Coran, you know this technology. Isn’t there a weakness or something so we can open it?” Shiro’s voice was growing desperate as he begged soundlessly to the advisor for a solution.
Coran’s tone was patronisingly quiet, “Lad if there were any obvious faults, they would have been long since rectified.”
“So, what do we do?” Shiro was horrified at the raw desperation that was oh so apparent in his tone.
Coran looked older than Shiro could recall seeing him. All he could offer the black paladin was a wordless shrug.