2019 Voltron Whumptober Collection

24 Secret Injury

Word Count: 2,045

His arm hurt.

It- it hurt.

But he wasn't about to be caught dead asking Coran if he could spend an hour or two in a pod just for a broken arm.

He'd take care of it himself.

After all, after the time he spent on his own in the desert, he knew how to handle himself, he was used to it by now.

He could do this.

His arm throbbed in response.

Keith grimaced, clutching the limb to his chest as he made his way back to his room, each step causing the bone to shift making him bite his tongue nearly right off in the process, bile inching its way up his throat, and he swallowed it back down.

He- he could do this.

Obviously, he was probably lying to himself (he wasn't), but he didn't want the humiliation that came with admitting to the rest of the team that he had gotten hurt, not in battle, but by a freaking training bot in the safety of the castle. Everyone would see him the moment they'd set foot in the infirmary, suspended in a pod, and they'd immediately turn to Coran to ask what happened.

And what would the Altean say?

That Keith got his butt handed to him in a training simulation.

A fucking training simulation.

He could practically see Allura's lips press into a disappointing line.

Pathetic.

Heck, after the pain had died down enough to finally let him think straight, crumpled on the floor, he'd been ashamed of it himself. How could he even protect himself in a real fight if a training robot had taken him out with a swipe of its staff? Simple, he couldn't, so he had to at least prove, if not to anyone else but himself, that he wasn't useless to the team, that he could, at the very least, take care of himself, like he'd always been doing.

This couldn't be any harder than taking care of a few broken fingers, right?

He'd gotten plenty of those back on earth, when he'd been tumbling over rocks and ledges, looking for the strange energy that just so happened to be coming from the blue lion.

Then again, he had the splints to secure them in place when he got back to his shack, he didn't have the supplies he needed to take care of a broken arm, much less hide it until it healed.

He was screwed.

He- he wasn't going to give up that easily.

Keith bit his lip, trapping a whimper inside as his arm throbbed again, the pain nearly blinding.

He could do this.

...

He couldn't do this.

It's been a week since the accident, and he's honestly surprised he lasted this long without someone questioning why he hid out in his room most of the time, or why he hid his right arm under his jacket at meals.

It hurt.

Dammit, it hurt.

After a day or two of trying to keep it as stable as possible his elbow was growing painfully stiff from holding the arm at his side.

He still wasn't planning on giving up just yet though.

He- he could do this.

He wasn't sure if he could do this.