Disclaimer: All to dreamworks.

This was made for the Keith Week, was originally posted on Archive of our own. I may post the other ones later. The prompt was anger and... I'm not sure what this is. Let's assume is good.

English is not my first language. Thanks for reading!

Anger

The desert is cold and unforgiving. Alone, the time moves excruciatingly slow, and Keith feels exhausted. Angry too.

He doesn't regret doing what gained him the expulsion, he usually doesn't get upset by the result of his actions.

By the lack of results on the other hand…

The question "what are you doing?" rings in his head. He is not sure. He knows why he's there, he's investigating the weird energy from that cave. He knows that's important, even if he doesn't know why. His gut tells him so, and he's sure he's right, there is no need to question it. But it's been months of nothing. Little to no result about what's going on, and that's because he doesn't know what he's dealing with and that's upsets him.

He misses Shiro. He's angry about that too. Because he knows the Garrison hides something and he doesn't know what, and that upsets him. The answer doesn't seem to come. The answer about the energy in the cave doesn't seem to come neither.

He's exhausted. And angry. And the desert is cold and the loneliness makes him want to cry from anger alone.

His anger seems misplaced, sometimes. The feeling of futility, of hating the entire world seems to be wrong, as in that he can leave anytime, do any other thing. He's good at many things and anything he doesn't know he can learn it, he's fast in that. Then why, why does he stays there and keeps going?

If he were to leave, then what would he do?

Lance (pedantic, over the top Lance) instantaneously rides the blue lion and he's hardly able to calm the jealousy that swirls on his stomach, but he manages it. He is not upset about Lance riding the lion, but he is angry for not being able to crack the mystery by himself.

Those months would have been more endurable if he knew he just wasn't the right type of guy. It is the uncertainty about which actions he should take that upset him, he's a man of action and acting quickly is the way he moves.

When his lion is just a reflection of that, he smiles happily. Lance ruins it again, but not really, because he found blue for him, and that should count for something. It's okay. He doesn't mind Lance, nor his cockiness, not really.

It is Lance, or maybe, the whole group, the only thing that subdues his anger and makes him feel different, alive, with another reason to fight for.

That's quite refreshing.

He's not sure why he's angry.

He assumes he's angry at life. The things he had to live… the things he has lost. The hardships of a orphan. When he thinks about that, anger bubbles in his chest again. And he hates it, he hates to be angry all the time, and he hates that anger helps him to move faster and do things quickly. It is as if a bad source of energy was within him, and that scares him. There are other things that should push you, and anger against everything and everyone shouldn't be one of those.

But he can't avoid it.

Pidge's force comes from her family and it comes from such a visceral place he can almost feel the hate.

For Galra.

To Pidge, this is a personal fight, and that taints everything she does with such an anger it makes Keith feel less lonely in the world.

Except she does has something he didn't, a family, and when she tries to leave Keith can't avoid anger taint his words as well, and call her out, because he had no family, and because he has a family now.

Pidge doesn't get what he's saying, and Pidge in the end come down her anger and starts working it from a different standpoint. And that's nice. He supposes.

She is still angry and Keith still feel less lonely.

Hunk is passionate, but in a different way than him.

It is not an opposite, it is just different. So foreign that extrapolating it's weird. He's concerned about a whole new world he didn't know previously, and while the girl may have been an incentive, Keith can tell it is not only the girl. It's an endearingly kind and noble movement, a force of pure light pushing his actions.

Doing good things because they're good is good. Keith practical mind can't help but agree.

Those are the things that should inspire you, the life of the others, and he can admire Hunk for that. That's the type of person he aspires to be.

He is not sure if wanting to destroy everything that perturbs Hunk's force is how he should feel. He wants to believe it is not something bad.

Lance… He doesn't know what moves Lance.

Something akin love and something akin selfishness. He's hard with him, he knows, Lance would sacrifice for everyone (and seeing Lance hurt… seeing Lance hurt makes him want to destroy the entire universe just so that he's safe. No one should hurt Lance. No one) but Lance… Lance loves and expects recognition in such a desperate way it makes him look less chivalrous than he actually is.

And he is it. But his actions aren't entirely pure. Or at least, they don't seem to be. And it is not like he enjoys how much Lance wants attention, it's actually upsetting because Keith finds that useless but-

It also makes him feels better about his own motivations. It makes Lance more human. It's not perfect and it doesn't have to be and maybe that's why he has come to really love Lance.

Lance is his opposite, and they didn't need the lions and the elements to realize that. Looking at that reflection helps Keith to ease his mind, to realize the important things in himself. And he can feels there is more than anger in him when he looks at Lance's peaceful and vibrant eyes.

Shiro's standpoint is as pure as it can be, because Shiro would be Shiro even without the Galra torture, Shiro would be leading Voltron in any universe or dimension, because Shiro loves to help and Shiro has always been a leader.

But he is the Shiro he is now because of the Galra torture. And Keith knows it.

He has changed (and that's okay) and for Shiro, just like for Pidge, this fight is personal, it has a visceral component that destroy Keith at every moment.

How they dared to do this to him?

It hurts him, it hurts him to see Shiro like this, he wants to destroy everything and everyone again, just to make Shiro feel safe, just to make Shiro never ever feel afraid again.

Shiro used to be the source of his calmness. Of all the nice things that come within you and don't make you feel miserable. And he is still that, in a way, but then, Keith remembers everything Shiro's been through-

How he can't help him. How he couldn't help it.

All his calm goes away just like that, just anger and hate inside of him. And he wants to think in Shiro in the same way he thought about him, with the unwavering respect he still has for being such a proper man and yet... and yet he feels more angry than he ever feels. More violent.

He supposes and wants to think it is a normal feeling, to feel so deeply, but it is just so strong he starts to doubt himself, and it torments him every second.

Allura and Coran are just like Pidge, but ten thousand worse, and he doesn't even know how to compare at that.

But there's a difference.

They are as calm as they can be and Keith can only amazed by their recollection. When Allura has to fight with nothing else than her father's memories, Keith's admiration grows and evolves.

That isn't something everyone would endure so easily.

Allura is amazing, and Coran's firm resolution is just as amazing as hers, and Keith can't even begin to understand how they're so calm. How didn't they just pilot toward Zarkon and tried to destroy him with their bare hands.

The universe needs us, would be their answer.

Maybe he shouldn't feel bad about not having a proper fuel before. He's there because he has to be, just like Lance and Hunk. They are growing in their roles, and so could he.

He can have a new fuel. His new family.

Or at least, that's how it should be. Love, pure love commanding your movements doesn't sound bad, but it is never only that.

It is also the anger running through his body that wants to destroy, destroy his skin vessel and propagate around everything and everyone.

But it is not everyone.

Of course, he thinks.

He has to protect them. And his rage, that rage that's been consuming him, that he seems to have for everything and everyone since always, could be very well used to achieve his goal. He can be angry.

At the Galra.

Because they destroyed Coran and Allura's home. Because they broke Pidge's family. Because they hurt Lance, because they hurt Shiro. Because they threatened something dear to Hunk.

Because they hurt them.

And if someone, if anything deserved his anger, it wasn't himself and it wasn't his crew. It was them. And what if his fuel what's a borderline obsessive anger toward the Galra?

They deserve it for messing with his family.

Anger that comes from the attack of the things you hold dear to you. Because if Keith is angry about the things he has lost, then the only way to proceed is to protect the new things that are dear to him.

That's a practical action he can take. Make his anger useful, and make it to be worth it.

For the team, and for himself. For the universe too.