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Lasers were firing from what seemed like all directions as Keith and Pidge sprinted for cover. They had been caught up in a fight by a Galra ambush - what had been supposed to be simple reconnaissance had turned into an all out battle.
Keith grabbed Pidge’s arm and yanked them behind a half-crumbled installment that was just enough left standing for the two of them to hide behind. When they were crouched behind it, Keith pulled off his helmet and whacked the side of it.
“I can’t get through to the rest of the team,” he muttered. “Something’s up with my helmet. Is yours working?”
“No, I can’t get any signals through either,” Pidge responded, voice tight with stress. “There must be some sort of interference.”
A shot fired directly past their hiding place, and Keith narrowly dodged it. The laser singed part of his armor as it sailed past and connected with a rock some ways past where the two paladins crouched. The rock exploded almost instantly upon contact, and Pidge winced at the power behind the attack.
“Okay, that’s-” they started to say, but were cut off by the installation they hid behind being shaken by an attack.
The metallic structure groaned and creaked under the sudden strain, having been destabilized at the base. Keith’s eyes widened as he looked up at it, starting to tip to one side and crumble towards them.
“Pidge, move!” he yelled, getting to his feet and pushing Pidge forward.
Pidge stumbled forward with the push and got to their feet and out of the way with just ticks to spare. The structure made an unsettling shriek of twisting metal as it collapsed towards the duo.
As the thing collapsed, Keith fired his jetpack to try to boost himself forward... and felt a crushing pain in his right leg as it crumpled on top of him before he was clear. Pieces of metallic rubble fell around him and on him, one landing on his back and knocking the air out of his lungs. He was already effectively pinned, and there were still chunks of metal and stone crumbling towards him.
Distantly, he could hear Pidge yelling something, but he was more focused on the pain spreading through his chest and legs. It was a crushing sort of sensation, one that kept the air from reentering his lungs and made it almost impossible to move. Panicked thoughts made his head spin, stuttering and broken off trains of thought muddying together and making it impossible to act upon any of them.
“Keith!” Pidge’s voice split through the pained static in his mind. “Hey, hey! Can you hear me?”
The pressure on his chest was making it a challenge to draw breath, much more so to respond. All Keith managed to do was lift one outstretched hand slightly, twitching his fingers ineffectually before dropping his arm back down to rest on the earth below him.
A pang of fear stabbed through his chest as he realized this might actually be it. If he couldn’t get out of this, he would either die here or the Galra would find him. Either way, his life - at least as he knew it - would be over. Anxiety tightened his chest further and he tried to force his heart rate to slow, to calm down. Panicking would only make things worse right now. Even still, his heart raced and his chest felt constricted - although, that could just be from the chunk of metal on top of him.
Then the weight lifted. Keith lifted his head to look around, try to figure out what was happening, ignore how much it hurt. To the side, he saw Pidge dragging a piece of engraved metal away from him - was that what had been on top of him?
The air stung as it entered his lungs all in a rush. Even the natural expansion of his lungs ached, damaged muscles screaming in protest at the change.
“Hey! Stay with me!” Pidge called out, crouching in front of him and snapping their fingers. “Can you move? Are you still pinned?”
“My- my leg,” Keith panted, voice pulled taut with pain. “Think it’s still pinned.”
Pidge’s expression fell, and they sprang back to their feet - assumedly to check out the damage. The sound of clattering metal and shifting rocks came from somewhere outside of Keith’s field of view, and he heard at least one hissed curse from his teammate. Then a renewed pain shot through his leg, and he felt something snap. The air in his lungs went hot and he closed his eyes against the sudden rush of nausea.
“Are you okay?” Pidge asked from somewhere behind him.
“I’m- I’m fine. Focus on what you’re doing,” Keith choked out in response.
The sound of guns firing was getting closer, loud enough that the sound seemed to distort in Keith’s mind when laid alongside the pain he was in. The shifting pressure around his leg seemed to get more insistent in nature, as if Pidge was starting to panic.
“Pidge, you have to go!” Keith yelled hoarsely. “Get out of here!”
“I’m not leaving you to die, dumbass!” Pidge yelled back, voice strained. “We’re both getting out of here!”
Keith hissed through his teeth as the searing ache redoubled and his vision briefly blurred, dimmed slightly. When he got his eyes to focus again, Pidge was crouching down in front of him, eyes filled with fear that would have been well-hidden if not for the set of their jaw and the tightness of their shoulders.
“I don’t know what to do,” they said urgently, gaze darting around. “They’re getting closer, and your leg-”
“Leave me here,” Keith cut in. “Get the hell out of here, they don’t- they don’t have to lose two paladins today.”
“Are you crazy? I’m not leaving you!” Pidge hissed. “Not an option, no way.”
“We don’t *have* another option!” Keith shot back. “They’ll be here any minute, and unless you want to cut my leg off-”
He stopped talking when a determined glint showed up in Pidge’s eyes.
“If that’s what I have to do, I’ll do it,” they said firmly.
“It’ll take too long! This isn’t worth your life, Pidge-”
But Pidge was already shaking their head, pressing one hand over Keith’s mouth to silence him.
“I’m getting you out of here in one piece,” they insisted. “Maybe two, if I can salvage the leg. Just- stay conscious, okay? Stay with me.”
Keith, silenced by Pidge’s hand and rendered basically useless by the circumstances, just nodded. Pidge gave a firm nod in response and got up, forming their bayard at their hip as they ducked under a renewed round of fire.
The next thing Keith knew, there was a new pain in his injured leg, just above the knee. At first it was stinging, an even pressure along the back of his leg. Then it turned sharper, felt crueller before he reminded himself what was actually happening. Unwanted tears formed in his eyes and his breath caught in his throat. A few tears were pushed past his eyelids as he squeezed them shut, trying to breathe through the pain that was only getting worse.
He could only just feel the blood, soaking into the fabric that lay under his armor. It felt like it was weighing him down, even though he wasn’t moving. Faintly, the pressure of a hand on the back of his leg - Pidge’s hand, steadying their workspace. Not their workspace, his leg.
The sensation moved deeper in his leg. It wasn’t a clean cut, by any means; instead, it was full of regretful hesitations and panicked catches. Every time Pidge hesitated or shifted their blade, Keith felt the pain seep deeper into his leg than they could possibly be; down to the bone and further, to a level that he couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined.
By the time they had reached bone, Keith’s head was spinning. *How much blood was he losing? Was this just from the pain?*
The gunfire still blasting around them felt distant and seemed to echo and distort. Pidge yelled something, but their voice was muffled by the ringing in Keith’s ears. It was getting harder and harder to stay present, and his eyelids felt weighed down by twin planets.
A shock of pain across his back dragged him back to the present. It burned - had a laser just grazed him? He lifted his head, trying to crane his neck to see the injury, but even that small shift of position left him feeling dizzy and sick.
There was a staticky sensation building up in his extremities, climbing up his hands and wrists as though it was trying to find his heart. Nausea churned in his stomach, curdling with the pain that felt as though it was in every inch of his body by this point.
The world felt like it was backing away from him, slowly retreating from the reality of the situation. The pain, the gunfire, the panicked speaking from Pidge, all felt distant and blurry, like he was experiencing one of the Garrison’s simulations again instead of real life. Briefly, Keith pondered the Garrison. Would his old teachers and peers ever know, if he died here?
Slowly, and ever so painstakingly, his vision blurred, and then faded. Darkness crept in from all angles. Everything felt cold, like ice water had been dumped over him. Was this what dying felt like?
The last thing he felt before slipping away was hands, grabbing at his arm and shaking him, pulling him into a position that resembled upright. Pidge? Or maybe the Galra soldiers had arrived after all, and were about to capture them both.
The fear was fleeting. It slipped away with the rest of the world as his consciousness failed him, and everything dimmed to a cold, calm darkness.