Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.
Ugh.
Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering what horrifying event in his dream had made him have such a violent awakening.
It was, surprisingly, vivid - terrifyingly so, to the point that he wasn't sure if it was a dream or not. Even now, Keith could make out small, minute details like the way that the weird space goo tasted and the heat of battle from an explosion caused by his ship, his Red Lion, and the way that Shiro-
No. It was a dream, it had to be, because Shiro was...
Shiro is...
Shiro...
Climbing to his feet, Keith dumped his blanket back on his bed, not caring to make it, and made his way towards what was supposed to be a kitchenette, but was basically a bunch of cupboards with rusty handles and even rustier hinges, surrounding a broken stove, a leaky fridge and a temperamental sink with anger issues, for it was fussy on which days water was allowed to travel out of the tap and had a drainage problem more often than not, to the point where Keith just couldn't be bothered to fix it anymore, and god-forbid he use the hot tap, unless he wants to be hit the face with water. He opened a cupboard door, the one with the least rust on the handle but made the most noise to open, only to be disappointed to see emptiness staring back at him.
So he slammed the door, ignoring the moans and groans from the hinges and the wood on wood thump of the door hitting the sides of the cupboard and moved on to the one next to it, ignoring the bottom cupboards where mould had already began to move in. Maybe be should start making it pay rent, then he wouldn't have to be so reliant on the stolen rations from the occasional Garrison supply truck that went past or the soup from the town three miles away.
Taking a bar out of the slowly dwindling pile (five left - better get some more soon), Keith walked into a room containing a broken couch, a cracked table and a bookshelf, all being overcast with the bright sunlight coming through the gritty windows.
Resigned, Keith flopped onto the couch, breathed in deeply and sighed loudly.
Home sweet home.
He had moved in here about three months ago, after the last school year had finished, after he was kicked out of the Garrison due to 'disciplinary issues', after Shiro...
It's been four months since the it was announced to the public that the Kerberos mission had failed, failed due to pilot error. It had been four months since Shiro had...
Shiro had...
It's been four months, but he still couldn't admit it. It just doesn't seem real, the believe that he was...
But yet, that dream, where everything seemed possible and life-threatening, had made him feel more alive than he had felt in what seemed to be forever, which should be impossible because none of that could have been possible. Sentient robotic lions? Princess of an extinct race with her royal adviser? That cute but really annoying blue pilot? Shiro!? None of it can be possible, is even possible. He shouldn't let the dream get to him, it wasn't real?
Was it?
Fuck it, he needed to go on a run, work out, anything to clear his head of the stupid thoughts and questions that the dream presented.
Back up to his room to change, not bothering to wash because he was going to sweat a lot from and it wasn't like anyone who was going to see him anyway.
Back down the stairs, into the hallway and almost out the front door until the small calender nailed to the wall caught his eye, and he was overcome with the strange sensation of deja vu, with the nagging thought tumbling all over his brain, telling him that 'he had done this before'. It was creepy and unnerving, giving him the impression that it was something to do with that stupid bloody dream he had the night before.
The calender itself was nothing too remarkable, something that Shiro had gotten him that Christmas and one of the only things he had yet to throw away from his time at the Garrison. On it were days that had been marked off, days starred and with notes of the next Garrison ration delivery and the best time to take it. Every night Keith would mark off a day, showing that time did move in the desert, showing it was a day more since Shiro...
But the day was October 23rd. How did he miss that?
Not that it really mattered, after all, there wasn't anyone here to celebrate his birthday with him.
Time for that work out.
--
He had been quick to forget that dream.
The days in the desert were long and the night's longer, with only training, working on his bike and stealing to keep him occupied. The days turned into weeks and weeks into months and suddenly it was February.
It would actually be Shiro's birthday this year.
He spent the day on his bike, traveling across the desert in hopes of forgetting what day it was, crouching low to keep the sand from going in his eyes and wearing a bandana over his mouth so he could breathe without dust particles ripping this throat apart.
He was about to break his time record (he thinks) before he had the strange feeling of being watched.
It couldn't be the Garrison, for as angry as they were for the missing food portions, he doubted they would come this out in the desert, where it was closer to his shack than it was the main building. There were no roads out here either, so lost pedestrian or some crook hoping to steal his bike. There was nothing here, except the cave opening around the corner-
Was there someone in the cave?
Hiding his bike, Keith took out a torch, turned it on and directed the light into the opening. Taking a step though, he was hit with another wave of deja vu, which was impossible, because he had never been here before. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
He was being watched.
Quickly turning, Keith shined the light on one of the walls, only to see carvings of lions and a big robot-
Voltron.
His breath sped up. This was impossible. That dream, it was only a dream, right? That one dream that he had months ago, about Shiro and robotic lions and weird alien princesses, it was all impossible-
Yet here were the carvings, these stupid carvings that lead to the Blue Lion...
How did they find the lions last time?
--
Four months.
That's how long he had to wait until Shiro escaped. Until then he had to wait.
He didn't realise how lonely the shack was until he started to miss what he used to have - or was going to have.
He spent his time training and getting ready.
He was going to be prepared this time.
--
He had forgotten how badly Lance flew, but that was okay, because everyone was here.
Sure they were all screaming at the top of their lungs because Lance really was theworstflier there ever was, but it had been eight months since he had seen them.
(He had missed them.)
(He was never going to admit that fact ever in his life, because one, Lance would never let him live it down, after getting the fact that, yes, Keith too did have feelings, and two, they weren'thisfriends, not yet, because this Hunk still has motion sickness, this Pidge is still believed to be a boy, this Shiro is still unsure and this Lance is still annoying-
Lance never changes.)
Keith smiles as they go through the portal, the one that everyone but him and Blue have doubts going through, and he sighs deeply at the sight of the castle when they first land, and he looks at all the nooks and crannies as they walk though the corridors towards the cyropods where Allura and Coran have slept for 10,000 years.
Keith doesn't know when he first started this castle home, but he does know that he is so glad to be back after all those months.
--
He hangs back when the others go and get their Lions, mainly because Red was on a Galra warship that was circulating the planet, leaving him to watch the Alteans go through the castle and basically dust everything off. But, unlike last time, when he crossed his arms and stared at the wall until the other came back, he smiled at Allura, and asked random, silly questions for Coran to answer, ones where Keith already knew the answer.
To them, it had only been a moment since the destruction of their planet
To him, it had been eight long months since he fought Zarkon to free Allura.
That was okay though, since he was here now, surrounded by his friends, on the way to getting his Lion and freeing the galaxy of Zarkon's influence.
It was going to be okay.
--
Things were not going okay.
Like before, Shiro and Pidge went one way to get the prisoners to look for someone that Keith knew wouldn't be there, while he went another way, by himself, to collect Red.
It went just like before, eerily so, not that that should surprise him in anyway shape or form. He hasn't done anything that should change the future yet, at least, he doesn't think he has.
He shouldn't have, and he doesn't think he wants to. Everything turns out fine, in the end. But, now that Keith thinks about it more carefully, some events, like Blue taken from them by Rolo, could be avoided, and the corruption of the crystal should be stopped before it started.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
Before Keith could start planing for either event, he came to the hanger in which Red was being held. Surrounded by the bright blue particle barrier, she looked as magnificent as ever, her coat of red paint reflecting the purple light of the ship and her amour looking better than he last saw her, which left him with the daunting realisation:
This isn't the same Red.
He could feel her quintessence flow over his, judging him. She could feel that he had a connection with her, a different her, a Red that had help him fly into battle against Zarkon himself, but this wasn't her, this was the Red that he first met over eight months ago, when they met for the first time, on this ship.
Keith was getting the through that she still wasn't impressed.
The sudden sounds of plazma guns brought Keith out of his mental stump and turned his attention on the Galra Sentries that have invade the hanger.
He almost forgot that this happened.
Projecting his shield and summoning his bayard, Keith looked around, thinking about what he could do next. Last time, he activated the airlock and got projected into space, along with all the robots and Red.
He didn't want to do it again, but scanning across the room, he couldn't see anything else that he could use.
He also doesn't see the plasma beam come towards him and hit him the backside of the head.
--
Unceremoniously, Keith rolled out of bed, overcome with the dizzy and nauseous feeling that came with falling without control.
Ugh.
Breathing deeply in hopes to slow his pulse, Keith laid on the bare but dusty wooden planks that made up this small little hut in the middle of nowhere for a moment, wondering where the fuck the headache had come from.
Then he remembered the dream, and the dream in the dream that actually wasn't a dream because time travel was totally a thing now.
He was so, unbelievably, fucked.
--
*Authors Note: should be updating my other stories, but here I am, writing this, because I notice there is like, one time travel fic in this fandom, with said person being Lance, and I just kinda wanted to explore the idea that Allura and Coran not being the only people stuck in a time loop, thought this one will be vastly different that the one they were stuck in, as you can see.*
*If you have any suggestions for the story, then please let me know!*
*If you read my Tokyo Ghoul fic, then letting you guys know that I'm halfway with writing the third chapter!*