SKIN BOUND (DROPPED/UNFINISHED)

3

Keith didn't talk to anyone.

Allura apologized to Keith right before their final mission, or it was supposed to be their final mission.

The mission wasn't exactly a failure, but it wasn't a success either. They defeated Zarkon but his empire still stood. Shiro was gone, now the black lion had no paladin and only a bayard.

Keith felt panic rise up his spine. Shiro told him--how could he ever forget the words--to lead Voltron in the case of his absence.

Shiro left this responsibility to him, and he wondered if Shiro knew what he was doing when he appointed him the leader.

Keith was hot-headed and tempered, or that's what the red paladin was described to be like. He couldn't be the leader, he didn't want to be the leader. He couldn't even trust his own decisions.

So he kept his mouth shut.

He didn't tell anyone, so Allura took the role.

Though she was just as, maybe a little more, tempered as Keith, she was a born leader. She was comfortable in her own skin.

She could do things, unlike Keith.

Keith didn't stop cutting.

Some nights he'd lay in his bed with a deep aching underneath his skin. Like a sudden rush that jammed itself into the hollow of his bones. It made his whole body weak, stomach boil, head freeze, palms clammy.

He'd grab his blade on impulse and start cutting lines through his flesh, then stare at each line while his mind crazily crashes through thoughts that came in waves then burned out like candle lights.

He'd burn out in two or three hours, then regret would follow immediately after.

He promised Lance.

He promised to stop hurting himself, you know, like a liar. Cause that's all he was.

Keith took in a quick breath and exhaled loudly into the cold, frigid air of the room.

He could talk to Lance, just like he suggested. Lance already knew so why not tell him everything. Why didn't he tell him everything?

Lance will find out sooner or later. He'll know about all the frantic cutting and exhaustion Keith's been through. And in the end, he'll know Keith's a liar. It's all his fault, no one else to blame.

Keith threw his blade away to the other side of the room.

Keith collapsed in the training room.

He expected this to happen, from the way he had been treating himself it was inevitable. He slept approximately two to three hours a day and the cutting got worse.

There were nights when the cutting didn't stop for hours. Other nights he'd let his blood soak into the dull grey sheets of his bed.

He would sit in the silence and wonder where his life was spiraling off to. When he's finally given a purpose in his life-- to defend the universe-- he can't seem to do anything right, he couldn't even fulfill that purpose. Look at him, cutting himself away. He's starting to look like rotten minced meat.

Keith knew well that he could talk to the others, someone, anyone. That option never disappeared but he never took it, he simply forced himself to forget.

Blood loss and fatigue left him on the training room floor. But the gladiator didn't turn off, it continued bashing at Keith. It hit his rib cage in multiple blows, sometimes knocking him a little further towards the wall.