Epilogue fic.

Shiro is nibbling at his scent gland again. He should stop him. He's going to hurt later if he doesn't, but for once the stress gesture feels comforting for him too. Somewhere over their time in the Castle, Shiro's compulsive behaviors have started to feel normal. Like how things are supposed to be.

When they were in the Galra cell, everything had been wrong. He'd felt like the ground had shifted out from under him. His mate's distress had been so strong he could taste it, but he hadn't sought to bury himself in Keith's scent. He knew why. That hadn't been the place to drop guards, yet the wrongness of it all had eaten away at his insides.

Being back in their bed, with Shiro worrying at his neck for comfort, soothes the little parts of him that can't quite believe they escaped. He's home, both he and his mate are safe. Shiro won't be forced to fight in the arena again, and Keith got out before he had to..His shiver has nothing to do with the temperature.

Shiro's lips leave his skin. He doesn't have to look to know grey eyes are trained down on him in concern. Keith closes his eyes and tries to bury his face into his pillow. He doesn't want to talk. He just wants to lay here with his mate acting like he should. Is that too much to ask?

The arm wrapped around his torso pulls him back tighter into Shiro's chest, and he feels something pressing against the side of his face. He realizes a second later that Shiro is marking him. Rubbing his scent into Keith's hair and neck. Claiming his mate. It's something he didn't know he needed. Their bed, their intermingled scents, the feel of Shiro's chest rising and falling against his back.

He could almost pretend the nearly whine comes from Shiro. Concern for his well being, but he knows, even if he'll never admit it, that the needy noise is his own. There is a soft nip at his jaw and Shiro rolls them until Keith's all but smushed under him. Protected from the world. The tension he's been carrying since their capture still refuses to leave.

"You know I love you right?" Shiro's cheek is pressed directly against his own as he speaks, "I'll always love you, no matter what happens." Shiro continues. He's aware, right now. Sometimes his own issues curl up and strangle even the most fundamental pieces of his universe, but this moment isn't one of those where he doubts he can be loved.

"I know," Keith whispers. Shiro's building up to something, better to get it over with now than to let it stew.

"You can tell me anything. No matter what, I'll still love you afterward." Shiro pressed down a little harder, like he's trying to make testament to his words.

"This is about Lotor isn't it?" Keith sighs. This topic had to come up sooner or later. He's surprised Shiro had dropped it for as long as he had, since Keith refused to answer him in the cell.

"You don't have to talk now, but I'll listen when you're ready," No, Shiro had a right to know. Especially now that there was no longer reason to fear his reaction getting him hurt.

"Nothing happened," This time the almost whine really does come from Shiro, "Not what you think at least," He knows Shiro has assumed the worst, and the most important thing is that he knows that that didn't happen, "He wanted to talk, and because he's Lotor he made a show of it with a meal. Insisted the civilized thing was to finish my glass. I don't know what it was," The drink had been blood red and served in a goblet obviously designed for a race averaging seven feet in height. Lotor had laughed at his inability to walk straight afterward.

"You smelled like him," Shiro says while rubbing himself along Keith. Like he can still smell the scent he washed off as soon as entering the castle and wants to cover it with his own.

"Nothing below the clothes," Lotor had refused to discuss what he wanted from Keith until after the meal, then insisted they go on a walk to do so. Forcing Keith to walk tucked under his arm after he'd stumbled. His skin had practically vibrated from the need to commit violence, "Just rubbing it in that I couldn't bite him." Shiro doesn't ask why he couldn't attack Lotor. His mate is too familiar with the many ways the Galra have of keeping their prisoners in line.

"What did he want to tell you?" Shiro asks. He must have been quiet for too long.

"He wanted me to join his harem," Shiro's growl is completely expected. Keith had reacted the same way despite the threats against his mate, "He said if I didn't he'd arrange for us to have a death match against each other in the arena," And what kind of choice was that. He couldn't kill Shiro, and he'd never be able to convince Shiro to kill him. They'd both be executed for refusing to fight, or through some stroke of fate live with the murder of their mate. Becoming a spoiled prince's sex slave was a horrifying and demeaning but still preferable option.

Shiro's stops breathing above him. His mate has nightmares about this exact situation. Waking up panicked, shaking Keith awake, just to see for himself that he's still alive and not bled out on the arena sands. Keith gets a hand free just enough to scratch behind Shiro's ear, "It's okay. I wouldn't let him do that to you," Keith reassures. He'd suffer anything the Prince could dish out if it would keep his mate healthy and whole.

Shiro breathes in again, "No," Shiro whispers, "No, baby, no, tell me you didn't. He didn't?" Back to thinking the worst case scenario.

"No, I told you. Nothing happened. He sent me back to the cell to think it over for the night," More of Lotor's playing at being not the scum of the galaxy, pretending that he was giving Keith a genuine offer that he could refuse.

"You were going to, though," Keith doesn't bother confirming. Shiro's knows that there was only one acceptable option, "If we hadn't been rescued, you were going to tell him yes. You were going to leave the cell without telling me what was going on," Shiro's voice takes on the edge of anger, propping himself up on an elbow so he could look Keith in the eye, "Leave me without knowing what happened to you and if you were even alive or dead."

Oh, he hadn't thought about Shiro thinking he was dead. What else could he think when Keith didn't come back? No, still, he'd made the best choice he could think of at the time, "I couldn't tell you," Keith hisses, rolling over on his back so he can glare up at Shiro, "You weren't behaving like yourself," He can see Shiro's minute flinch at the accusation, "If I told you, you would have done something to get yourself hurt."

"I'm not an animal," He can see the flash of pain in Shiro's eyes, "I can control myself. I survived for a year on my own." Key words on his own. He was Shiro's weak point, and Shiro was his. They were compromised when it came to the other.

"Would you have let me go, when the guards came, knowing what Lotor was going to do," Keith asks, as calmly as he can muster. Shiro start, stops, stares down with big eyes, before making a wounded noise. He knows Keith's right, he couldn't stand by and watch them take his mate away for that, "That's why I didn't tell you." Keith rolls back over to his side, facing away.

Shiro stays propped up a minute more, before curling around Keith's back again. Rationally he shouldn't be angry. How can he blame Shiro for how he behaved when put through his own personal hell. Especially when the worst he'd done was be overprotective of the thing he cared most about in that cell. He should understand, but he can't help the hurt that has been festering.

"I needed you," They'd already opened up the can of worms, might as well get it all out, "I needed someone to talk to, and I couldn't talk to you." Shiro's hand clenches against his chest, and Shiro lets out a little huff of breath. His brows are probably furrowing, like they tend to do in situations like this.

"You can talk to me now," Shiro says quietly, "I'll listen." He would too. He could so easily turn this around on Keith. Say if he wanted to talk, he should have talked when Shiro asked in the cell, but no, he'd ignore that Keith just accused him of not being there for him. Listen because that's what Keith needed, and this was why he loved him.

"Lotor thinks I'm pretty," Keith finally gets it out. The words that have refused to leave his head since. Lotor had gone on about it at length during their meal. Keith hadn't even been able to snipe back, after the Prince made clear he considered that not behaving, "Like an omega. He said he understood why you skipped over their comforts for someone who looked like me." No matter how much he tried to pretend differently, it was hard to ignore that his mate filled several physical categories of an ideal alpha that he fell short of. Despite his constant training, the arm wrapped around him was twice the size of his own. That had been true even before Shiro bulked up in the arena.

Shiro sucks in a breath, "Baby, that's not true," That's his mate, always quick to soothe his bruised ego, even when done so by a hit of the truth, "You don't look like an omega, and your appearance isn't why I'm with you."

"You think I'm pretty, though," He'd said so on multiple occasions. Not as often as he called him cute or gorgeous but often enough.

"I find you attractive for who you are," Shiro presses a kiss to the back of his hair, "I didn't ever mean it like that. I'm so sorry. I'll stop using that word." That wasn't what he meant.

"I don't mind. I mean, I didn't mind," Keith lets out a frustrated breath, "I don't know," When Shiro called him pretty he didn't feel less, it felt like long desired adoration to be coveted, but when Lotor did it, "The way he said it. It's different, and I just…Why me?" That's what it all boiled down to, more than the words used. The sentiment of targeting him specifically, "If he wanted pretty, there is a whole galaxy of omegas to choose from, and if he wanted a human alpha, why me and not you?" He didn't want Lotor to make a pass at Shiro, but the fact he'd had plenty of access to him and had chosen Keith anyways, "What does that say about me?" How pretty was he, how much less of an alpha in alien eyes?

"Nothing," Shiro's voice holds no trace of doubt, "It says nothing at all. Lotor didn't pick you because of how you look," He seems so certain, "You're a paladin of Voltron. The one who piloted the Black Lion, when he came to power. The biggest thorn in his side in the universe. That's why he chose you." Shiro presses a kiss behind his ear before continuing, "If this was happening to anyone else, you'd see that." It's a logic he can sink his teeth into. Something he should have realized on his own, if he hadn't been so drunk and worried about Shiro. Why him and not the actual omegas on the team, or anyone else in the universe.

The tension, the tightness he couldn't get to ease since the escape, finally relaxes, "Thanks babe, you always know what to say."

Shiro huffs a laugh, "I have to do something to pull my weight in this relationship."

"Love you,"

"Love you too"

End Note:

I'm really happy how this turned out, got to touch on some of the issues Keith has that have been brushed barely in previous fics, and also got to let these two air out their problems after the strain put on their relationship by the rest of Cornered.