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actress4him · 4 years

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Whumptober 2020 - Day 13

We’ve got another POV change today, this time to Lance! Gotta give not only my semi-regular shout out to @trope-appreciation-tuesdays for providing inspiration, but also a special shout out to the mod @the-wandering-whumper since they have declared two different tropes used here to be “their jam”. ;) Don’t expect the chemical pneumonia part of this to be medically accurate haha. This is called science fiction for a reason.

Day 13 - Chemical Pneumonia/Oxygen Mask

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: death mention, respiratory distress, needles

The Yadselites were brilliant scientists. Pidge and Hunk had been in their element all day, oohing and aahing and making googoo eyes over all the equipment and experiments they were being shown.

Lance? He was the opposite of in his element. Sure, some of that stuff was pretty interesting, once someone, anyone, bothered to explain to him in plain English what the heck they even did. But most of the day had been a whole lot of science-speak that he only understood every five words of, and he had zoned out so many times that he was about to fall asleep.

“So, it’s a gas that does...what exactly?” Shiro asked. At least he wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the techno-babble speak.

Pidge pushed her glasses back up on her nose with one finger. “It incapacitates the Galra. Basically it’s like throwing in a smoke bomb before the SWAT team goes in.”

“Yeah but this doesn’t just make their eyes water,” Hunk added. “Sounds like by the time you got in there every Galra would just be lying on the floor.”

“Dead?” Shiro sounded a mix of fascinated and horrified.

“No, no,” their tour guide, Rokuba, assured in that perpetual soothing tone that was part of the reason why Lance was falling asleep. “Only, as your Green Paladin says, incapacitated.”

“So it would, like, do our work for us? I’m okay with that.” It wasn’t like he minded how difficult his job was. He just wouldn’t mind if it was a little less difficult.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Keith had taken a few steps backwards away from the group. Oh. Right. Galra-incapacitating gas, half-Galra Mullet. He’d probably be a little nervous, too, if it were him.

“Is it safe for other species...humans, for example?”

“Oh yes, very,” Rokuda smiled. “The gas targets a very specific combination of genes that are only found in Galran DNA. For humans, Yadselites, and all other species, there is only a light, sweet smell.” She reached for the canister. “If you will allow me to demonstrate…”

Before Lance - or apparently anyone else - could even think to protest, a flowery-smelling mist erupted into the air. Shiro and Hunk both shouted and lunged for the canister. Lance spun around to face Keith, who had clapped a hand over his nose and mouth and was staring at the gas in wide-eyed panic.

Then Pidge was bodily shoving him out of the lab, everyone following close behind while Rokuda stammered out multiple apologies. Ignoring her, Shiro shoved his way forward and clapped his hands onto Keith’s shoulders.

“Keith! Keith, talk to me. Are you okay?”

Keith coughed.

But it wasn’t, like, a terrible sounding cough. Just pretty much your typical “I have a tickle in my throat” cough, not one that seemed like he was about to keel over and die.

Slowly, he lowered his hand, swallowing visibly. “I...I definitely inhaled some. But...I think I’m okay?”

They all let out a collective sigh of relief, despite the fact that he didn’t sound all that sure. He wasn’t choking or falling over, so that was as good of a sign as any.

“Dude,” Hunk groaned. “Don’t scare me like that!”

Keith’s nose wrinkled and he looked as if he was about to protest that it wasn’t his fault, but Pidge interrupted. “Either you didn’t inhale enough to do any damage, or you don’t carry all of the right genes for it to affect you.”

“It could be either,” Rokuda offered. “We have not yet tested the effects of a minuscule amount, or on any species mixed with Galra. Again, I apologize greatly, your heritage momentarily slipped my mind.”

Shiro gave her a tight smile. “Well, he seems to be alright, so that’s what matters.”

The tour continued. Vargas passed, or at least it felt that long. By the time they finally, finally got back to the Castle, Lance had completely forgotten about the incident with the gas.

Everyone gathered at the bridge so that Allura could lecture...ahem, brief them on the diplomatic meeting they’d be having the next day. Lance and Keith were standing side by side, the former tapping his foot rapidly, about to have a nervous breakdown if the Mullet cleared his throat one more time.

And of course, he did.

“Dude!” Lance exploded, throwing his hands up in the air. “Stop it with the throat clearing already! What is your problem?”

Keith’s eyebrows knitted together, and he raised one hand to his neck. “Sorry. My throat is just…” He covered his mouth with his jacket sleeve and coughed.

“Our briefing is almost done, and then perhaps you should drink a hydration pouch,” Allura suggested. “However, it will be much easier for me to finish if there are no more interruptions.”

“Sorry,” both boys mumbled in unison.

They fell quiet as Allura resumed, not even any more throat clearing from Keith, though it kinda sounded like he was having to try really hard not to. The breaths he was pulling through his nose were loud and extremely deliberate. Lance was torn between still being annoyed and starting to be concerned, but leaned definitively more toward concerned once his breathing began to stutter both in and out.

Shooting glances out of the corner of his eye, Lance pressed his lips together and wondered if Keith was somehow even paler than usual. There was a strained look on his face, and Lance was debating whether or not he should interrupt again to ask if he was okay when Keith lost his battle to hold everything in and burst into a coughing fit.

The rest of the room fell silent as he doubled over, sounding like he was about to hack up a lung into his sleeve. Shiro crossed to him and rested a hand on his upper back.

“You okay, bud?”

Keith nodded through the last of the coughs, then straightened and swiped his hand across his eyes. “Yeah,” he rasped. “Sorry. ‘m fine.” He sucked in another labored breath, and coughed once more.

Coran edged his way toward the door. “Perhaps I should go get you that hydration pouch now.”

“Yes, please,” Shiro answered for him.

“Sorry, ‘llura. You can -” Keith tried to draw another breath, but it seemed to get stuck in his throat and sent him into another coughing fit.

“Would you quit trying to talk?” Lance protested. “You’re clearly not okay right now.”

“‘m fine,” he whispered, but then his eyes went wide and he froze, his mouth hanging open as if to gasp in more air but the sound of his heavy breaths had completely stopped.

“Keith? Keith!” Shiro shook his shoulder. “Hey, look at me, what’s going on?”

Without further warning, Keith listed to the side, stumbling a few steps until he was falling practically into Lance’s arms. He scrambled to catch him before he slammed into the ground, though they both went down in the process.

“What the heck, Mullet?” Lance would never admit it to anyone, but he was scared. Keith’s head was laying on his shoulder, the rest of his body sprawled out inelegantly in his lap, and his eyes and mouth were still open wide. This close he could just barely make out a faint gurgling noise coming from the back of his throat.

Lance snapped his attention up to Shiro, who was crouched next to them. “He’s not breathing. Shiro, he’s not breathing!”

Their leader bent over with his ear next to Keith’s face, then suddenly scooped him up off of Lance, standing and immediately breaking into a run. The others followed, looking just as alarmed as Lance felt.

“What’s going on?” Allura demanded.

“I don’t know,” Lance replied, “but he needs the infirmary, now. Page Coran!”

He was close on Shiro’s heels when they entered the infirmary and Keith was dropped down onto a cot. His lips had taken on a blue tint, and he was definitely paler than usual this time. Hovering over him, Lance waved his hands around frantically, desperate for something to do to help but unable to think anything past, he’s not breathing he’s not breathing he’s not breathing.

“Here!” Pidge launched herself into his field of vision with something in her hands that she slapped down over Keith’s nose and mouth. An oxygen mask. Lance felt an inkling of relief at seeing the device, but it was quickly overshadowed by fear.

“His throat, though. His throat was...if it was closed up, then he still won’t -”

“I know.” Shiro’s voice was terse, all his attention focused on the boy who might as well be his brother. He stroked his human hand through Keith’s messy black hair, pressing his bangs back from his forehead. “I know. But I don’t...we need Coran in here.”

“He’s on his way,” Allura assured.

“I’m here!” The advisor burst into the room with all his usual gusto, and Lance felt his chest loosen the tiniest bit. Immediately snatching up the scanner, Coran frowned and mumbled to himself as he waved it over Keith’s prone body. After examining the screen for only a tick, he spun around and pointed at a cabinet against the far wall. “Number Five, I need an injection of stavunairalducord!”

As the only one of the humans who could read Altean, Pidge accepted her assignment right away and dashed to the cabinet, rummaging until she found the correct item and bringing it back to Coran just as quickly.

“Thank you, Number Five.” Twirling the needle around in nimble fingers, he popped off the cap and plunged it none too gently into the side of Keith’s neck. Lance flinched and cut his eyes away.

“What is that? What are you doing?” Shiro demanded.

“Number Four has extreme swelling in his throat and lungs, preventing air from passing through. This injection will begin to take the swelling down while we prep him to go into the healing pod.”

Sure enough, as Lance watched, Keith’s chest began rising and falling again, almost imperceptibly. Behind the oxygen mask his mouth relaxed, and his eyes fluttered shut as if in pure joy of being able to breathe. Shiro slumped a bit when he saw the reaction, though his hand never stopped carding through the black hair.

“What does he need the pod for?” Hunk asked, wringing his hands together.

Coran was already methodically beginning to remove Keith’s jacket and gloves. “To clear out the foreign substance that caused this reaction, and also to heal the damage that it caused. Whatever it is, it seems to have started eating away at the lining of his lungs.”

“Foreign substance?” Lance echoed.

Pidge gasped. “The Yadselites’ gas! You know, the...anti-Galra stuff!”

Groaning, Shiro dropped his forehead into his hand. “How could I have forgotten? But I never expected it to take this long to have an effect. I should have brought him back to get checked out right away.”

“He seemed fine, though,” Pidge offered. “It must have something to do with him only being half, or because it was just a tiny amount.”

Coran hummed. “Well, whichever it is, it’s a nasty little bugger. I’d hate to see what would have happened if he had inhaled any more.”

“Is he...gonna be okay?”

Lance had been almost certain that Keith had lost consciousness by that point, but his eyes slitted open then and found Lance’s. His hand twitched, and Lance glanced down to see him giving a weak thumbs up.

Coran chuckled. “Yes, I think he’ll be just fine. That is, if we get him into that pod as soon as we can, so let’s give him some privacy to get changed, shall we?”

Hunk ushered everyone out of the room, eager to let Keith start healing. Lance kept looking back over his shoulder at the pale, still figure on the bed. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be relaxing at all until the Mullet was up on his feet and throwing jabs at him again. The feeling of him collapsing into his arms and the sound of his struggles to breathe would be sticking with him for a long time to come.

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jarienn972 · 7 years

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Debt of Honor (intro)

Okay, this might be cheating a little on the Inktober Whump prompts, but it fit perfectly in to day 10 - Held at Gunpoint. I originally posted this a little over a year ago and the full short story can be found on Tumblr, AO3 or FF.net. It’s mostly a little CaptainCharming piece that’s set roughly post 5B. I’m going to tag @killian-whump on this one because I found the whole Whumptober prompt list on her page and I know she’ll appreciate this. I have a few ideas for some of the future prompts too...

"Any idea what this thing is that we're following?" Killian asked as David abruptly pulled his old Ford pickup truck off the side of the road, veering onto the muddy berm and splashing through one of the deep puddles formed by the morning's rainstorm.

"Not really sure," David replied as he slammed the gearshift into park, "but it headed off that way." He pointed at a narrow footpath through a thicket of old growth oak and pine forest. "This is as far as we can follow it on the road. We'll have to take it on foot from here."

Wonderful, Killian thought. Trudging through the woods at the edge of town chasing god knows what. Just another typical Tuesday morning is Storybrooke… A giant creature with fangs that were probably sharper than his hook comes barreling through the center of town terrorizing the citizens and he's daft enough to volunteer to drive it out of town.

As they both climbed out of the truck, David drew his weapon from his holster.

"No one has ever seen this beast before?" Killian wondered, feeling a bit unprepared as he hadn't had the foresight to bring a cutlass with him to breakfast.

"Nope," David stated. "This is a new one. To me, it looked kind of like a really big mountain lion."

"Mountain lion? Do they grow to the size of small horses around here because the creature I saw was a lot bigger than a mountain lion?"

"I just said it looked like a mountain lion. All I know is it seemed to be some sort of really big cat."

"Big cat….Wonderful…," Killian sighed. "Don't suppose you have a spare weapon on you? I seem to have been caught slightly unarmed. Don't think my hook will serve as much of a deterrent to a giant cat."

"Yeah – I keep a sword stashed behind the seat. You know, just in case."

Killian raised an eyebrow in amusement as the prince grinned. Leaning into the truck, he found the sword and scabbard wrapped in a slightly threadbare striped towel on the floorboard behind the bench seat. He quickly unwrapped it and flung the towel onto the seat as he tucked the scabbard under his left arm to hold it securely while he pulled the blade free.

"Always good to be prepared," Killian smiled as he tossed the scabbard onto the seat with the towel and pushed the door closed.

"Okay – let's go find this thing," David said as he closed the driver's side door and walked around the front of the truck, eyeing the muddy path ahead of them that led deep into the dark forest. Thankfully, the earlier heavy rain had tapered off to a drizzle which, while still annoying, at least meant that the creature's footprints weren't being washed away, leaving them a trail of distinct impressions to follow. Both men had an uneasy feeling as they tracked the beast but each knew that the animal clearly needed to be subdued before it harmed someone and they'd tasked themselves with that responsibility.

Nearly twenty minutes later and about a mile off of the road, they realized the trail had abruptly ended in a grassy clearing. Without a word spoken between them, they exchanged looks that communicated exactly what each was thinking – where the hell did it go? Surrounded by low brush and towering trees, there were a multitude of places where the beast could be lying in wait so they knew choosing wrong could be fatal. Killian was to the right of David and he turned slowly away from the prince, scanning the foliage before him for any sign of movement. David, on the left flank, gave the bushes on his side the same scrutiny – that is until a low, guttural growl froze them both in their tracks and drew their attention toward a cluster of oak trees to their north.

And to a pair of glowing fiery orbs stating back at them.

"Bloody hell…," Killian muttered, raising the sword as the creature ventured out of the cover of the trees and padded toward them. The huge feline with a coat the deepest shade of obsidian glared at them and as it snarled, bared its fangs – each four or five inches in length and dripping saliva. As he finally got a good view of the animal, David thought it reminded him of a panther – but where had a panther come from in the woods of Maine? "Any ideas, mate?" Killian asked as his own mind was drawing comparisons to a very different fearsome creature he had unfortunately stared down. He just hoped that this one didn't sprout additional heads.

"How do you say 'stop or I'll shoot' to an animal?" David asked as he raised the gun and lined up his sights as the creature continued its aggressive motion toward them. "Nice kitty…"

"Nice kitty?" Killian couldn't believe that David had just said that, but he was less concerned about the prince's poor choice of words than he was of the fact that the feline was still coming toward them, seemingly ready to devour one or both of them for its breakfast. "I don't think we're going to be able to reason with it," he stated, unable to divert his eyes from the beast which was now less than a hundred feet in front of them and not the least deterred by their weapons.

"I really don't want to do this but…," David pulled back on the trigger, firing a single shot toward the creature. He didn't know if a lone bullet would bring it down, but he sure hoped it would at least slow it down or stop its advances before those razor sharp fangs tore them both apart.

Only what happened next was something that neither of them could have imagined, nor would they have believed if someone had tried to tell them this tale.

The bullet David fired never reached its intended target. Instead of striking the menacing animal, the projectile suddenly halted in mid-air, hovering in front of them for what seemed like an eternity before it regained its velocity – and a new trajectory.

One aimed directly at Killian.

By the time either could mentally register what was happening, there was no time to shout a warning. No time to try to dive out of the way. Killian's only recourse was to twist his torso just enough to his right so that the bullet tore into his left shoulder instead of striking him mid-chest. The searing hot bullet ripped into his flesh, radiating pain across his chest and down the length of his arm. His brain seemed to react in slow motion as the reality that he'd just been shot sunk in and he staggered back a step. He let the sword fall to the earth as his hand instinctively covered the wound.

"Hook!" David shouted as he watched his friend and soon to be son in law drop to his knees and then tumble to the wet grass while clutching tightly to his injured left shoulder. He still couldn't fathom what he'd just witnessed: the bullet stopping in mid-flight then changing direction. Only magic could have done that, but as he shook his head to try to clear the fog of confusion and disbelief, the stark reality of their situation set in. His eyes darted around the clearing searching for any sign of the beast, certain that it was ready to pounce during this moment of vulnerability, but it was nowhere to be found. David fully expected it to attack as Killian lay bleeding on the rain soaked ground, but the assault never came, as though the creature had simply vanished.

Quite sure that his gun would be useless if the beast returned, David re-holstered it as he rushed across the clearing to check on the severity of Killian's wound. Crouching down next to him, David could clearly see that the pirate's fingers were already slick and stained with blood.

"What the hell just happened?" Killian wondered as he rolled onto his back, blades of damp grass and dirt clinging to the side of his face, his right sleeve and down his right side of his dark denim jeans. He instantly regretted changing position as a blinding, burning spasm hit.

"I honestly don't know," David replied.

"Where did that thing go?"

"No idea. It just vanished, but right now, let's see how much damage that bullet did." Reluctantly, Killian withdrew his blood drenched hand so David would have a clearer view of the wound.

"How bad does it appear to be?" Killian wondered as the prince peeled back layers of leather and cloth to locate the entrance wound.

"All I'm seeing is a lot of blood," David told him. "I need to see if there is an exit wound. Think you can sit up?"

"Aye," Killian nodded as David extended his hand to help him into a seated position. The answer was quickly evident as he noted the concerned look on the prince's face. "By your expression, I'm surmising that the bullet is still somewhere in my shoulder?"

"Unfortunately," David sighed. "A through and through would have been cleaner, but there's no exit wound and no way to know the bullet's position. We'll have to worry about it shifting."

"Then let's get back to town so Emma can heal it."

"It's a long walk back to the truck," David reminded him. "Think you'll be able to make it?"

"Unless you know of a better way, I don't think I have much of a choice, mate," Killian stated as David helped him to his feet, his stance already shaky. David stooped to retrieve the sword once he was sure the pirate was steady enough. He drew the flat of the blade across his thigh to wipe the debris and moisture from it, then had a thought to fish his cell phone from his jacket pocket only to be disappointed that there was no available signal this far from town.

"No signal to call for help," David said as he tucked the phone back into his pocket. "Look's like we're on our own. Let's get going before that thing comes back."

"Agreed," Killian stated as he took his first uneasy step toward the road and David's waiting truck. The prince followed warily behind, keeping his eyes peeled for a potential ambush that thankfully never came.

#cs ff #captain charming ff #whumptober #debt of honor

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