Disclaimer - I don't own Voltron: Legendary Defender. This story is written for NaNoWriMo2016. The working theory for this story is that Shiro and Keith are biological brothers. Their mother is the blue paladin, who went into cryostasis on an Altean ship in hopes that it would find the blue lion after King Altor dies only to crash land on almost the other side of the world, where she meets their father. The fic will use some of the Shirogane family members I created for my story Aniki, but also ships Keith and Allura, with the ship playing a role in story. Other details will be revealed later, however, readers should be aware that part of the plot involves attempted suicide.

Broken Wish
Conflation

A blush temporarily spread across his cheeks, as his dark blue eyes looked at the other three paladins, his entire jaw tensing in frustration. Keith stood against the wall, leaning up against the structure for moral support, to hide exactly how he felt from the other three. His arms crossed his chest, his fingers digging in as feelings fought to swamp over him. A stale, blunt feeling of silence filled the room, only adding to the negative feelings hanging over his body. Nobody said what needed to be said, that Shiro managed to leave all of them in a lurch.

Keith's eyes finally looked down at the ground, unable to maintain his focus anymore, as his mind drifted. The sixteen-year-old paladin found his life filled with broken promises and broken wishes. The family of the red paladin was also broken, the final piece broken away with Shiro. He couldn't remember, honestly, how or why his parents died, but he did remember as a child how he felt when the adults in the Shirogane family decided to pull him away from his brother, shoving him into the uncaring branch family. He never felt accepted by anyone but Shiro, and now, Shiro was gone again.

"So…" Lance's voice broke the silence, bringing Keith's face up to look the Hispanic young man in the eye, the bright blue eyes of the other sixteen-year-old piercing deeply. "This is all your fault."

The young man looked down, his throat tightening as his fingers tightened. Keith felt the blush surge to his cheeks again, the feeling of shame attempting to overwhelm him, but also make him suddenly lash out by turning towards the wall and slamming his fist in. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact you were with Shiro, yet you couldn't bring him back! Now you want us to believe he wanted you to be a leader!" Lance's arms flew out in one of his over-exaggerated expressions.

Keith felt his eyebrows narrow, his dark blue eyes as well. "I never said I wanted to be a leader! I'm as pissed off with Shiro about that as you are!"

The reactions were not what the red paladin expected. Pidge, who maintained a sour look upon hearing that Shiro was recaptured, let her eyes widen in shock. Allura somehow managed to maintain a smile this entire time, only showing absolute shock when Keith let her know Shiro was gone, but her eyebrows did shoot up as she continued to smile at him as if knowing something he didn't. Hunk continued to pout, while Coran's jaw dropped.

Lance, however, visibly tensed up, his arms dropping to his side, while his facial features twisted into anger, his cheeks flushing. The blue paladin also walked over, approaching Keith when everyone had kept their distance, and poked his finger painfully into Keith's chest. "How dare you! You, Keith, are the only one! You're the only one who's pissed off at Shiro." Lance's comment made the chest of the red paladin hurt, the feelings begin to well up even more. "We're pissed off at you! We're pissed off at you because you didn't bring back Shiro!"

Allura's smile twisted into a frown, before softly speaking up. "Lance…"

"No!" Lance threw his hands up in the air. "No way am I going to follow this loser! You seriously don't get it, Keith! Never have!"

The "new" leader of the paladins watched as the blue paladin turned, storming through the door nearby. Had Keith not been leaning against the wall, he imagined that Lance would have rudely bumped shoulders with him. The red paladin felt his eyes drift over to Pidge, whose honey-brown eyes narrowed. "No. Sorry. But I'm kind 'a pissed off with you right now as well."

Keith felt his emotional state sink even farther as she too left. Hunk shrugged his broad shoulders, lifting his hands up slightly. "So, I'm not per say mad at you, but I'm not exactly in my happy place right now, so I think I'll go find my happy place if that is okay with you."

This left the red paladin with Allura, who obviously seemed way to fine with the situation. Keith felt his eyes drift to the ground, feeling rather uncomfortable with the fact she kept trying to make eye contact with him. Coran glanced over at the princess, before glancing at Keith. The advisor pulled at his red mustache, before looking back at the princess one more time. The man then proceeded to slip out of the room, leaving Keith in the room with Allura, by himself.

Keith's dark blue eyes widened, his jaw dropping. He felt his throat tighten, the realization that he was in the room with her alone sinking in deep. His eyes closed and opened once, as he tried to regain his composure, but figure out exactly what he was thinking. "Umm…"

"So…" Allura got the rather sing-song tone in her voice, meaning she was going to try and patronize someone to get something.

The red paladin's eyes narrowed, his mouth twisting into a frown. "Um, no."

"You haven't even heard…"

"If you're trying to pep talk me so I can go off and, I don't know, do some kind of leadership thingy to pull the four of us back together. Don't. I'm not leadership material, but there's also the fact without five paladins, we can't form Voltron even if I did have those kinds of skills."

Allura's eyes widened, blinking a couple of times. "I think you're being too hard on yourself."

"I think you're being too optimistic, and I don't need that." The dark-skinned female frowned, before stepping over to Keith. Nobody other than Shiro ever got into his personal space like that, making the red paladin cringe at the unexpected advancement, but also how Allura leaned in, still smiling in that horribly optimistic manner of hers. "No, don't." For some reason she thought reaching out both hands to gently touch his face was okay, but instead, his dark eyes shut tightly against the onslaught. "Stop."

"Keith." The princess spoke in a soft manner, making a shudder run down his spine. His eyes refused to open, and the fact she entered his personal space set him off. Allura leaned in close, much, in the same manner, Lance did when they argued about staying or fighting. This was different, as that time Keith was just as guilty of getting into the blue paladin's personal space. Her voice, however, was soft. "Can you look me in the eye?"

Keith's dark blue eyes snapped open, and he found himself sinking into her bright, crystal blue ones. The overall feeling which rushed over him gravitated him towards a place he didn't want to go, where feelings ever so foreign lurked, and he had enough feelings already to deal with. How long he remained like that, he did no, but Keith did know he pulled away awkwardly, and he visibly saw displeasure on Allura's face. "Please don't."

"Akira."

"What?" Shock flooded through Keith's entire body, as Allura managed to add one more thing to everything he now found himself worrying about. He pulled away.

Her eyes blinked a couple of times, almost as if the Altean princess felt some kind of shock. "That, that is your real name?"

Keith felt his chest tighten, his eyes darting away, as making eye contact at this point in time would only make him feel even more uncomfortable. He could hear his voice strain, the feeling of betrayal rushing over. "Shiro told you?"

Allura's eyes blinked a few times. "No. Why would he know your real name?"

"Wouldn't you know that answer! I mean…" The red paladin almost looked her in the eye, but flinched. "How else could you have known?"

"Keith…"

"I'm going for a walk."

"Oh. About the local alien species…"

"Don't care." Keith turned, his entire body tensing up. What happened to him between then, and when he got out of the castle was a blur. He stopped short, watching a white creature float in front of him, his mouth dropping. His fingers reached out to touch the creature, a calm washing over his entire body as memories of his childhood on a rainy day when Shiro showed him how to make a small rain talisman to make the rain go away, a small, cute ghost like creature much like this one. He watched the creature turn then, the feeling of nostalgia washing over him, before a flash of white occurred.