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It was halfway through dinner when Keith felt the first pains of the transformation hit. He nearly doubled over at the feeling, both from the pain and the fact that he very much did not expect it. They’d all been in space for months. He’d been carefully tracking the time and not once did the monthly transformation kick in. Why now? Why now?
Stupid moon magic.
Even though he did manage to suppress most of his reaction, his sudden flinch at the onset of… wrongness didn’t go unnoticed. Every single member of Team Voltron seemed to immediately look over at him, the movement cutting off whatever dinner conversation he hadn’t really been paying attention to.
“Keith?” Allura asked, concern laced into her voice. “Is everything alright?”
He barely managed to suppress another flinch, forcing a strained smile onto his face. “Yeah… yeah! Um, just some, uh, cramps. That time of the month, y’know?”
It was a shitty excuse and under any other circumstance, he may have laughed at it. However, right now, he was beginning to feel the forever uncomfortable movement of his organs shifting to prepare for the full transformation and the sharpening of teeth that were threatening to cut into the sides of his mouth the more he talked. Regardless, it seemed to at least be the right thing to say, earning knowing looks from most of the paladins (barring Pidge, who looked at him with sympathy) and confused looks from Allura and Coran.
“I’m just…” He stood up a little too fast, nearly knocking his chair and himself over in his haze of sudden dizziness that had overtaken him at the movement.
Shiro reached over, steadying him with knowing suddenly morphing into pure concern. “Keith--”
“I’m fine.” His voice was sharper than he wished, just barely avoiding a growl slipping into it. “I’m just… going to crash early, I think.”
Shiro frowned. Or at least, Keith thought he saw him frown. Pain was very much taking over all of his senses at this point.
“Do you need help getting to your room?” He wasn’t entirely sure who said that, but he shook his head regardless.
“I’ll be fine. Just need to sleep it off.”
“Are you--”
“Good night.” Again, no growl slipped into his words, but it came out a lot harsher than intended.
Pain flooding every moment and the taste of iron flooding his mouth (He must’ve bitten the inside of his lip. “When” was the question and did anyone notice?), he stumbled out of the room, ignoring any further protests to his absence and completely ignoring whatever culinary monstrosity Coran had cooked up. He tried to keep his pace even while he was still in sight, but as soon as he heard the doors close behind him, he picked it up to a sprint, vision blurring and spotty as nails sharpened into claws.
In the beginning, he’d made a fort on one of the lower decks, far away from any of their rooms or where anyone ever really went anyways. It was supposed to be a little dwelling for him during his monthly transformation… but those transformations had never come. He figured it was probably due to the moon or space or stupid moon phases. Hard to have a full moon when you’re in space after all. So why now? Why now?
His run down there was a blur. He was fairly sure he stopped by his room at some point to drag his pillow and a blanket down. At least, he thought he did. Otherwise, he had no clue where the blanket and pillow he was carrying when he reached his fort came from. Regardless, the familiar scents on them would hopefully serve well to… calm his transformed self.
The fort was thankfully still exactly as he left it, undiscovered and tucked away. He’d built it out of pillows and blankets and cushions he’d found stashed away in the storage rooms down there, having clearly not been visited by anyone even since Allura and Coran woke up. He’d even found a couple of chain shackles that he managed to secure to the wall on one end. To restrain himself. Just in case.
Back in the desert, there’d been no one around for him to judge his… behavior like this. Here, there were people around. People he refused to hurt. Even if there was only the slightest possibility of it, he refused to risk it.
The blanket and pillow from his room were dropped unceremoniously on the preexisting pile of the fort as he began to fidget with the shackle. His vision was blacking out at the edges as he slowly lost control, fingernails sharpened into terrifying claws and eyes no doubt beginning to glow that sickly, horrifying yellow. He could even feel reddish-orange fur beginning to grow along his arms.
He’d managed to click one of the shackles to his right ankle when he heard something that chilled him straight to the bone.
“Number four? What are you doing?”
Keith jumped, head spinning to look at Coran before realizing what he currently looked like. His head snapped away, raising his hands to block any view of him.
“Shit. Coran--” Whatever he was going to say next died out with a very animalistic whimper. What was he supposed to say? Even his brief roommates at the Garrison had never stumbled across him like this. No one ever had.
“Keith--”
“Leave,” Keith growled out. “Please. Just--” He was cut off with a scream he failed to muffle as his legs gave out, bones cracking and morphing as the transformation cemented itself.
Coran was in front of him in a second, catching him before he could truly collapse to the floor. Risking a glance at him, Keith could see pure terror on his face as he took in his current appearance, an expression very un-Coran-like. The Altean quickly tried to hide it, steadying himself as Keith let out another whimper of pain.
“Come on. We need to get you to the medbay.” There was a tremble in Coran’s voice as he reached to the one secured shackle, clearly intent on freeing Keith’s leg.
“No!” Keith slapped his hand away, panic racing through him. He didn’t want to be free. He didn’t want to hurt them. He didn’t want to hurt Coran. He couldn’t--
Coran yelped at the contact, drawing his hand back, bleeding sluggishly from where Keith’s claws had sliced through fragile skin. At the sight, the latter’s breath began to pick up to hyperventilating.
“Go,” he begged. “Please. I need--”
He shoved Coran away harshly, allowing himself to fall to his hands and rapidly-morphing knees. The Altean stumbled back, far out of his reach with the shackle, staring back at him with shock, confusion, and fear.
“Please,” Keith begged again, sweat matting his hair and allowing it to fall messily around his tired face. “You need t’ go. Run. Please. ”
“Keith--”
“Please. I can’t-- I can’t hurt you. I can’t-- I need--”
Whatever was left to say was cut off with a scream as an unbearable amount of pain ripped through him. As his vision began to fade and he fell to the floor, sprawled out in twitching pain, he could’ve sworn he saw Coran mouth something, running towards him.
He hoped he was wrong.
Keith came to to the sight of the gray-white ceiling of the castle ship and a pounding headache. With a groan, he rolled to his side, only barely realizing he’d been laying on his back at all, squeezing his eyes shut to block out the annoyingly harsh lights of the ship. Fuck, what time was it? What’d happened?
“Welcome back, Number Four.”
Keith’s eyes shot open at Coran’s soft voice (Was that sadness? Sympathy?) behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, meeting the man’s eyes.
Both. It was both sadness and sympathy.
Coran was sitting a bit off to the side, watching Keith with tired eyes and a frown that looked out of place on his usually joyful face. There was a bandage tied around his hand, stained with blood.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh, right.
Keith shot up to a sitting position, scooching away from Coran in a panic. Coran had seen. Coran knew.
Oh, quiznack, Coran knew.
“You didn’t-- You didn’t see anything,” he hissed, pressing himself into the blankets and pillows in a feeble effort to escape. Coran was blocking the exit to the room, after all. He felt more like a trapped animal than he ever had before.
There was a pause between them before Coran simply sighed.
“That’s… a bit hard to agree to, Number Four.”
A low growl stumbled out of Keith’s chest, contrasting the panic he knew was written on his face and his body language. Coran barely flinched at the noise.
Keith spared a glance around the room. It seemed mostly untouched. The blankets and pillows were slightly moved, clear that someone had laid down at them at some point. There weren’t any claw marks on the walls, like he was used to from locking himself in that little shack in the desert. And the shackles…
Oh, crap.
The shackle he’d bound to his leg was undone, leaving him free to move as he needed. But, oh quiznack , he’d been freed .
“Keith--” Coran started, clearly seeing how he stared at the chain.
“Are you hurt? Did I-- did I hurt you? Shit, did I bite you?” His voice picked up faster and faster with each word. He wasn’t sure what his bite would do to an Altean, but he doubted it would be good. Or even wanted. Keith didn’t know how much he knew at this point, but he was damn sure the elder man didn’t fully understand the curse that flowed through Keith’s whole being.
“What? No, no, you didn’t hurt me. Well, besides this little scratch--” He gestured to the bandaged hand. Keith stared. “But I’m fine, Keith.” And then after a pause, “Why did you ask if you hurt me?”
Keith took a deep breath, slouching down into the pillow and blankets and burying his face into his hands. Deep breaths, Keith. Deep breaths.
“I’m not-- I’m not in control during… that. Not really. I’m-- it’s-- I’m a monster, Coran.” He laughed, dryly and verging on hysterically. “I’m a fucking monster and you should’ve ran.”
There was silence, tense, merciful silence, before Coran muttered out a simple, soft, “What?”
He didn’t get it. Of course, he didn’t get it. He couldn’t possibly--
“Frankly, you were as cuddly as an Altean scriblettal.”
It took a moment for Keith’s brain to even begin to process those words. He wasn’t cuddly. He was a furry, feral, monstrous cursed creature. He couldn’t possibly be cuddly.
He tried to voice those thoughts, tried to get Coran to understand the danger he’d put himself in, but all he could stumble out was a quiet, confused, “I don’t-- I don’t know what that is.”
Coran perked up, putting on a clear mask of joyous goofiness to comfort Keith. “A canine. I believe Shiro’s mentioned canines before. Some people near the woodlands of Altea would keep them as hunting buddies. Oh, they were the cutest little guys. When you got past the 17 eyes and hallucinogenic saliva that is. Oh, well. You were just as cuddly as them last night. Y’know you really like scratches behind the ears--”
“I what?” Keith’s voice was still quiet, laced with pure confusion. His dad had always warned him to be careful around people. The two of them were predators after all, feral predators who lived to hunt. The way Coran was making him sound was positively doglike.
“Yes!” Coran continued, oblivious to how much of a breakdown Keith was on the verge of. “You wanted to curl up next to me almost the entire night and you also really liked tummy scratches--”
“Stop. Just stop.” He did not want to ever be told he liked “tummy scratches” ever again.
Thankfully, that seemed to catch Coran’s attention, finally sitting still with a quiet, “Alright.”
Fucking christ, Keith thought, the situation finally settling on him in the silence that he’d been caught. Coran had seen everything. And his first thought--
“Let me get this straight,” he said, out loud this time, sitting up fully to face Coran, avoiding looking him in the eyes. “You saw me violently transform into a fucking wolf and you’re first reaction was that I was cuddly? ”
“...What’s a wolf?”
Keith sighed. “It’s like a dog.”
Based on the silence that followed, he was fairly sure Coran did not know what a dog was either.
Another sigh. “A canine. Look! It doesn’t matter!”
It very much did matter, but this was not the part he cared to explain right now.
Coran opened his mouth, clearly intent on saying something, but almost immediately closed it.
“Look,” Keith said, struggling to his feet and trying desperately to ignore the way his voice wavered. “Just… forget you saw anything, okay? Nothing happened. Everything’s fine.”
His legs nearly gave out under him, not used to being bipedal again. For the second time that night, Coran caught him.
“Keith .” The Altean’s voice was sharp, leaving no room for argument. “We’re not forgetting what happened. We need to get you to the medbay now.”
“No.” Keith struggled in his grip, still weak and exhausted from the transformation and unable to escape. “No.”
“Number Four, please, we need to make sure there’s no lingering effects from this witch’s spell--”
That took Keith aback. “What? What spell?”
“The witch’s spell? I know you’re not the most… open to discussing your injuries, Number Four, but you should have told us that Zarkon’s witch hit you--”
“She didn’t.”
Now that took Coran aback instead. “But--”
A deep, wavering sigh. “Coran. The witch didn’t do anything. This was all me.”
“You-- but… I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand what you’re--”
“Look,” Keith said, cutting him off. He tried to stand up on his own again, but simply collapsed back into Coran. “Help me get up to the kitchen and I’ll tell you everything. I just-- that takes a lot out of me.”
Coran adjusted his grip, moving to Keith’s side with little hesitation and swinging one of the paladin’s arms over his shoulders to support him as he walked. “Okay. Any preference for food?”
Keith took another sigh, giving an apologetic smile. “Do you have any meat?”
As it turned out, Coran did have meat to make: a weird bird thing he’d picked up during a recent supply run. Keith didn’t recognize the name of the planet which it was native to nor did he care, hungry as he was. He did feel a slight tinge of guilt when Coran mentioned he’d been saving it for a special occasion, but the latter immediately noticed and tried to dispel his concern, noting that this was a special occasion.
It took around 20 minutes for the bird to be cooked through, Coran focused on cooking and Keith, sitting on the counter, trying to come up with what he was going to say. Admittedly, he was fine with eating the bird raw. Salmonella or whatever the space equivalent of it was didn’t seem to affect him really. And hopefully wouldn’t in the case of the weird potential space version. Coran, however, was not comfortable with taking that risk, insisting on cooking it.
In the end, Keith expected it to taste like chicken, honestly. That was a thing, right? In books and movies, right? Bird-things always taste like chicken. Maybe he was reading and watching the wrong movies. Regardless, the bird thing tasted like fish, salmon he thought. Oddly enough, Coran had explained that it was native to a desert actually and the planet it was from had very little water, much to Keith’s confusion. Regardless, meat was meat in the end and his body seemed to appreciate it, hunger pains quickly subsiding.
Coran was a patient man, waiting until Keith was done eating and not pushing the matter too quickly, seemingly waiting for him to bring it up on his own terms. That was also appreciated and, God, Keith owed him so much for this one night alone.
…Was it even still night? None of the other paladins or even Allura seemed to be awake and around, with the lights even dimmed slightly as they usually were in whatever night mode the castle had.
He voiced this question to Coran and was met with a curious look.
“You were only out for a few vargas, Number Four,” he said. “Around three, to be exact.”
“Three,” Keith repeated, slouching down further into the chair he was sitting in, around the main table he’d fled from apparently only three hours earlier. “Huh.”
“You were expecting more?” It was a simple question and still it made him laugh.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “I’m… usually out ‘til sunrise. Or I guess, ‘til the moon sets.”
A quizzical tilt of the head and Coran was asking, “The moon?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Keith said, again. “It’s… this is linked to, uh, the… the moon. The full moon, specifically.” The last part came out quietly, a confession almost, like deep down he was scared Coran would know what that meant. There was no way he could. He doubted this was a space thing too.
“The full moon,” Coran mused, sitting back into his own chair across from Keith. “We did briefly pass close to the planet Lueparya tonight. It has five moons so I wouldn’t be surprised if I checked and one of them was full tonight.”
“Which would trigger… me and would only last as long as we passed,” Keith finished. “Well, shit.”
Coran didn’t say anything at that revelation, but Keith didn’t have to have him say anything to know he was thinking exactly what Keith was thinking. Close passage to planets with active full moons during passage was enough to trigger Keith’s transformation. Which meant they now had to monitor this. And hope it doesn't become a problem later on.
After a moment, Keith met the Altean’s gaze, quickly glancing away to stare down at the empty plate that sat in front of him instead. “Look, I’ve… I’ve never had to explain… this to anyone. Not even Shiro. He doesn’t know. So I’m… I’m sorry if this is a bit… awkward. I’ll… I’ll do my best.”
“Take all the time you need.” Coran’s voice was gentle and Keith almost despised it. Not because he didn’t think he needed it, didn’t deserve it, but that he was in this situation in the first place. He’d never hated what he was. But in space, he could already see this becoming a major issue. And the last thing he wanted to be was some problem for others to have to deal with.
But he did take a moment, let silence, not awkward but patient, settle between them as he found his words.
With a sigh, he looked up, choosing to stare instead at Coran’s mustache rather than his eyes. “I’m a werewolf, Coran.” There. Cut to the chase.
He waited to see if there would be any recognition of the term present on Coran’s face, but it seemed he was right. Werewolves were not a space thing, but rather an Earth thing. Which meant more explanation.
“I turn into a wolf every full moon. Don’t really remember much when I’m transformed. My dad always warned me that I could be dangerous to humans or, I guess, non-werewolves when transformed, but well…”
“So you’re not human?” Coran asked after a moment, trying to process the unfamiliar concept.
Keith shrugged. “I guess? I’m not an alien, and I am from Earth. So. But I was born like this. My dad was a werewolf, too. Seems it was hereditary.” Another shrug.
“Oh, and he…”
“He died when I was a kid.” He could feel his face twisting in long since processed grief as his gaze fell. “Only had a few transformations with him before he was gone and I was all alone. Never knew my mom. Doubt she could’ve helped me.”
“My condolences.” Again, Coran’s voice was quiet, but this sympathy was at least something he was used to.
“It’s fine. Happened a while ago. I’ve had time to deal with it.” He really didn’t. That was a kind of set of losses you don’t recover from easily, but that was a conversation for another time, if at all.
“So,” Coran said, clearly encouraging further conversation. “You had to teach yourself?”
“Sort of? My dad taught me a few, basic things and, like, I saw stuff too when I was growing up that he went through.” Keith bit his lip, recoiling slightly at teeth still a bit too sharp. “But, yeah, I taught myself everything else.” With a bitter note in his voice, he added, “Which is basically just running and hiding when I feel it start to happen.”
“I’m guessing that’s what that… nest was for?”
A shrug. “Yeah. One thing I did find out is that it’s a much smoother transformation when I’m surrounded by familiar… scents.” For some reason, that felt more awkward than anything to admit: that his werewolf side, which he didn’t ask for and barely could control, was wolflike.
Coran either didn’t seem to care or ignored it for Keith’s sake, but he nodded nonetheless. “Fair enough. Being in a familiar environment does make anyone more comfortable, and the Castle certainly isn’t familiar enough to you, yet. Correct?”
Keith slumped further into his chair with a half-hearted shrug. “I guess.”
The elder man hummed. “Is there anything else regarding being a wolfwolf?”
“Werewolf,” Keith corrected, with a weak glare. “And I mean, I can smell and hear a bit better, I guess? My vision is pretty good in the dark. I don’t know. That’s all what Dad said. I really don’t have anything to base it on. Especially compared to you and Allura.”
Another hum. “Fair again.”
“Besides,” Keith said, leaning forward and pushing weird bird bones around with his fork. “I doubt any of this will be any help against the Empire.”
“That’s not--” Coran almost seemed surprised at that. “Keith, no. That’s not why I’m asking.”
“It’s a valid point.”
“Keith.” The uncharacteristic seriousness in Coran’s voice demanded his attention. “I’m not asking for how you can be a better warrior. I’m asking for you. I want to understand. This is… new territory for me. I want to be able to help you as best as I can.”
Keith opened and closed his mouth a few times, not sure what he was more stunned by: the fact that someone wanted to help him or that someone wanted to help him after learning what kind of a monster he was.
“Okay,” was all he could force himself to say.
Coran smiled, a soft, almost parental smile that reminded him of the “Uncle Coran” nickname he overheard Pidge, Hunk, and Lance joke about sometimes.
“And,” the Altean continued. “I would like to look you over in the medbay. Just to make sure you truly are alright after tonight, especially since this night was strange even by your admission. And it would certainly help to have a basis for you as opposed to the rest of the Paladins if you ever get hurt.”
“Okay,” Keith said again, still a bit taken aback.
“Okay,” Coran repeated. “But first, you did miss dinner cleanup…”
That forced a small laugh out of the paladin. “Alright, alright, I’ll clean up.”
Coran stood up, pushing in his chair. Keith copied him, grabbing his plate, fork and knife, and napkin as well. He’d started making his way towards the kitchen, brain still reeling from the conversation, when he paused in his steps and turned back towards Coran, who had started to make his way out towards the medbay.
“Coran?” Keith’s voice was quiet through the almost empty room.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.” This time, Keith was the one giving the soft smile, slightly more awkward and nervous but still there.
“Anytime, Number Four.”