Chapter Text
The low groan of the cell door creaking open had Lance lifting his head, squinting into the patch of light overtaking the room and silhouetting one of their captors…
And highlighting the metal-studded whip in his hand.
Next to him he felt Pidge tense and across the room Hunk let out a whimper accompanied with the soft clanking of chain as he no doubt flinched back at the threat of more torture none of them fully understood.
Keith didn’t react at all where he was still passed out from being dragged in nearly half an hour ago, his back in tatters, and quite honestly Lance was grateful as while he wasn’t going to say he wasn’t scared of both the pain and the violence and the utter disregard for their lives these aliens had… he’d never forget the flinch Keith had made when the whip had first been cracked in their dungeon cell.
He never wanted to see that expression on Keith again.
“Please,” Allura’s voice, hoarse and raspy and exhausted with pain that made Lance’s heart twist, sounded as the alien stepped towards her, “we can help you. You do not,” she broke off with a breathless cough, “need to, to do this.”
The alien ignored her, as he always did when they spoke or, in Keith’s case, snarled, out demands, pleas or appeals of compassion since they’d been captured two days ago.
The aliens had not even told them why. They had a clue; it had something to do with the fact that Voltron had apparently been missing for three years — the rift, Allura had murmured, horrified, it must have created a time ripple and Voltron, right on the edge, had been caught up in it — and in that meantime the universe had fallen into even further ruin than Zarkon’s reign had left it and these aliens and no doubt many others blamed Voltron.
Yet rather than giving them a chance to fix it, to stop Sendak and his armies, these aliens, the Chivarii they’d called themselves, had knocked them out with some type of gas the moment the team had arrived in their town, and then chained them up in what Lance could only describe as a dungeon.
The only time they were released from the heavy chains was when they were individually pulled from the room and tortured in an adjoining chamber, close enough that they could all hear the screams that they all made by the end of each session, even if as the days went by they were getting softer and softer as they lost their voices.
The Chivarii seemed to be going in a rotation as to who they tortured and they stuck to it, even if the lengths varied. Keith went first followed by Allura, then Pidge, Lance and finally Hunk. Shiro, chained to his own section of wall, they did not touch despite his demands to hurt him, to leave the others alone.
He was not a Paladin any longer, one of the Chivarii, her face permanently twisted by a large scar, had sneered at Shiro. They were seeking the chosen and he was not it.
Which gave them another clue: one of them, likely, was somehow the chosen.
How exactly being whipped over and over would reveal that none of them had any idea.
Lance was afraid they might not live long enough to find out.
Especially…
His eyes shifted over to Pidge, her knees drawn up to cover her bare chest — her and Allura’s upper part of their uniforms stripped away the same as the males and no amount of demands or asks for modesty had been acknowledged and so while Allura had pulled her long hair over her shoulders Pidge didn’t have that option and spent her time either lying on her stomach or curled up with her knees raised — but her back was his concern.
She was so small and the whips were the same for them all.
Her back…
He could barely even see her skin any longer around the mess of blood and wounds and he could feel the heat radiating off her where she’d curled up against his side, shaking and trembling in a way Pidge never, ever should.
The Chivarii had reached Allura now and was grabbing her by her manacled hands to undo her from the chain holding her tied between Keith and Hunk while two more moved in with glowing tipped spears at the ready and pointing them at Shiro and Keith, warning clear.
Allura had already tried once to free herself — she had the best chance, they’d decided in their quiet moments between the torture sessions, with her Altean strength and shapeshifting to try to blend in so she could escape and get help from Coran, Krolia and Romelle who as far as they knew remained free and hopefully had not been captured by a scouting party, and Keith had resolutely told her he was willing to take the risk of the retaliatory strike — but she hadn’t even made it to the door before the spear had been held against Shiro’s throat and although he’d choked at her to go…
Allura had surrendered.
She’d been chained up with even more links, a permanent connector holding her ankles with barely a half foot of length, so she could not run, and they’d all been told if any of them ever tried to escape before the ‘chosen was found’ again they would kill Shiro.
No warning.
He was not necessary but he proved useful in other ways.
And when Shiro had told them to not worry about him, that if they saw an opening they had to take it…
Keith had snapped at him, voice broken and not at all from the pain he had to be in, that that wasn’t an option. “I can’t lose you again,” he’d choked out, chains clanking as he shook, “God, Shiro, don’t, don’t ever ask us to do that. I’ll never forgive you. ”
And that at least had been that, Lance doing his best to give the two of them privacy for a quietly worded conversation, hearing only Shiro’s murmured apology and Keith’s choked back sob.
That attempt though had pretty much determined they were not going to be escaping which meant they had to await a rescue. But it was going on three days now by Lance’s best guess and Pidge was fading.
She didn’t have much longer and honestly, he could feel his own body starting to shake, his vision speckling at times and going in and out as while they gave them water they gave them nothing else and they’d all lost quite a bit of blood at this point.
Not only that while it wasn’t cold-cold in the dungeon it wasn’t warm and they were all half-clothed and given the states of their backs even a well-intentioned hug with their chain buddy — what Lance had called them back on the first day, still optimistic they could talk themselves out of this situation and how wrong he had been — would be beyond painful.
Lance had pulled Pidge as carefully to his side as he could, letting her press her cold nose into his shoulder and her hands tucked inside his own, rubbing a thumb across the backs of them in what little comfort he could offer.
Allura had staggered upright now, nearly falling over between the change in height and her chained ankles, and despite her state of undress, her clear pain and exhaustion, she showed no fear.
Lance was equal parts awed at her strength and ashamed that he could not display the same.
And Allura must have felt his eyes upon her as she caught his gaze and it was there he could see it.
Not quite fear but…
But helplessness.
It hurt even more.
He didn’t even have a chance to try to convey something, anything, to try to take that expression away before she was dragged forward and the door slammed shut behind the departing aliens with a deafening clang.
Keith didn’t so much as twitch and as Lance glanced between him and back to Pidge, who had gone back to huddling and shivering at his side, he wasn’t sure who was worse off.
Keith was clearly bearing the brunt of their attacks between the fact he didn’t scream — or tried not to — and they seemed to take that as a challenge as he was always gone the longest of any of them and likely the fact he was the leader and they seemed to be expecting something.
They hadn’t found it yet though, in whatever they were looking for to determine this ‘chosen.’
Lance wondered if they ever would.
He wondered if by the time Coran launched his rescue he’d be retrieving only bodies.
He bit his lip at the thought and gave a small shake of his head.
No.
That was not what was going to happen.
They were all getting out of this.
Somehow.
If, if they could just figure out what the Chivarii wanted.
Who was the chosen?
How did it relate to where Voltron had been for those three years? As far as they were aware three years had been but minutes and it’s not like they ever asked any questions as they whipped them. They actually got hit more if they tried to speak so it couldn’t be some interrogation.
What was it?
What were they looking for?
What had Voltron done to wrong the Chivarii so badly that this was their solution?
Lance leaned his head back against the rough stone behind him, closing his eyes.
Think.
There had to be something.
His brain felt like mush though, his head heavy and all his body wanted was sleep but anything he gave it wasn’t restful.
It was all he could do though to try to replenish his strength and maybe something would be different when he woke up. But before he tried to sleep…
“Hey,” he croaked, giving Pidge the barest nudge. “Pillow?”
In answer he felt Pidge shifting, easing herself onto the ground and her head onto Lance’s thigh as he pressed his raw back as hard as he dared against the wall, his head supporting most of his weight, and he descended one of his hands with a soft clink of chains against Pidge’s dirty hair, stroking gently.
“Thanks,” she whispered, her voice as dry as his own and he winced hearing it.
They said nothing more, the silence broken only by Hunk’s own soft, whuffling breaths as he found what solace he could in sleep and a glance over at Shiro revealed the man sitting cross-legged, his head bowed and Lance could practically feel the same helplessness Allura had been projecting pouring off of him.
It felt so wrong.
All of this felt so wrong.
As far as their recollection went the fight with Lotor had barely been five days ago, Shiro had been returned to his body (and Lance still didn’t fully understand all that and he’d never had the chance to ask and now didn’t feel like the right time) but he was weakened and literally disarmed and being held captive in a dungeon, even if he wasn’t being tortured, was doing him no favors.
It probably hurt him more to see the others hurt.
Lance knew for himself it did. He’d rather take on the pain of Pidge’s whippings, of everyone’s, to take away Keith’s fear and Allura’s heavy responsibility, to bear that hurt if it it would ease their own. But, his lips quirked into a humorless smile, he knew everyone else thought the same.
It was why they’d all offered, begged, screamed, at first when each other was taken away.
Hurt them.
Torture them.
Leave everyone else alone.
It did no good and in a sick way it made it a little easier to know that no matter what they said their words fell on deaf ears and they all got to bear the same burden of helplessness and pain.
It didn’t make it any easier.
Lance averted his gaze from Shiro — who was letting out a low, rasping cough now and clearly trying to hide it — down to the top of Pidge’s head, focusing on combing his fingers through her hair rather than clench them into a fist and dig into the crescent circles littering his palm from doing just that when he was whipped.
They just…
Just had to hold on.
Something was going to change soon.
It had to.