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He made the world seem full of endless possibilities.
That was what Shiro meant to Keith. Endless reasons, endless choices, changes, fates and destinies. It was something entirely new and utterly unknown to him. Keith had grown up knowing only earth, only that you couldn’t touch starlight. You didn’t get second chances. You clawed your way for what you wanted and if you lost something it was gone forever. You didn’t get to hold on to anything. If you held too tightly, it hurt when it was lost, it made everything become dull and muted and hollow. That was Keith’s world before he met Shiro. Before he was looked at like he could change that. Like Keith mattered. Like Keith had more than just a chance but a choice in his fate. That his life had direction and if Keith chose to take control nothing would be out of reach.
Shiro made the world seem like it was full of opportunities. Yet as he looked up at the stars the only thing he wanted was to see the stars like Shiro did. To reach out and touch space.
To find the one that had shown him he had value and worth and just yell at him ‘I am here, and I will be worth something to you’.
Keith didn’t know why he’d been drawn to the older man. Maybe it was his charisma. Maybe it was his understanding. Maybe it was just a longing inside him, a desperate need for validation and someone to affirm that he had potential like he always believed he did yet no one had told him for so long. Shiro had bolstered Keith up, then like a summer storm after a drought, he vanished after covering him in the water he so desperately craved. Keith had chased air and nothing for so long and now he chased the ghost of a man he barely knew. He chased a dream of being wanted, known, acknowledge.
Accepted.
Shiro might have disapproved, but Keith didn’t care. He would become worthy. He would rise above his fate and destiny as nothing to be something. He would become better. He would become what Shiro saw in him. Even if he had to lose again and again, he’d not give up. Not until he at least was certain. Until he had answers.
Then Shiro was back. Back and trapped and tied down and everyone only cared about what they could get from him. Take from him. Keith saw him and saw what he wanted to see. A friend lost. A mentor trapped. Someone who needed him. Shiro, his motivation, bound and waiting to be unleashed. Interlopers didn’t matter. Keith had his goal. He had his purpose again. But it was changed in an instant. It was changed in a moment in time and he made his choice long before Shiro made his. Keith would go where Shiro would. That was just how it would be.
Lion after Lion, they found their calling. Yet for some reason, Keith felt like it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t ever be enough. It couldn’t be enough. Not to help Shiro. Not to show him just what he could do. It hurt so much. It made him want to scream because as he would sit alone, lost in his own mind, Keith thought back to that time before. When the stars were so far away. Now he was among them, and still, it wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t be enough. Then they began to work together, to work as one. Not just Keith and Shiro. Lance. Hunk. Pidge. Allura. Coran. They became a team. A family made up of lost people who had somehow found one another. Yet when Keith looked to Shiro he could see it haunted him. What had been done to him was not something he could escape from. Not something he could erase. Shiro was chasing his own ghosts.
So Keith would chase his.
Zarkon was the fight they thought they won. The evil Emperor overthrown. But they also thought Shiro was lost. How many nights did Keith wake in a blind panic, silently screaming in terror at the thought that is was his fault. He could have done something. He was the sword. Red line was not defense, not a shield. He was a sword. Attack, attack, attack. Never relent. Never give up. So he attacked. He never gave up. Even as Black chose him, he knew it was wrong. He knew Black was Shiro. Shiro who was out there. Shiro who needed him. Who had seen him when so many others hadn’t. Keith knew.
So did Black. Black understood that one day, Shiro would come back, that Shiro would take his place again as the leader. Red accepted Lance, and Keith accepted that too. He was replaceable. He was meant for other things. But Keith had made his choic-He was going to mean something.
Even if that being Malmora. Galra.
It mattered but it also didn’t. He cared but he didn’t. Shiro mattered. Shiro cared. Shiro cared so much it hurt. It hurt watching Shiro care for him. What had he done for Shiro except make things worse? Make things harder? What had he changed to make Shiro notice him, care for him, be worthy enough for the man who once looked at the stars with such a fondness, a love that made Keith’s heart beat like thunder over the desert plains.
The night before he left for the Blades he looked at Shiro from the doorway of the man’s bedroom. A shadow of a specter, he was to become a weapon. A haunting that would drift in and out of shadows and live behind them, never in front. His place would be under them. Silently supporting them. Changing fates and altering futures. He was going to find his own meaning, his own purpose. But he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to say goodbye. He wanted to stay by Shiro’s side. To help him smile like he had once before. Erase the memories from loving eyes. Sooth old wounds and erase jagged scars.
As he stood in the doorway, Keith looked at the man who’s image burned behind his eyelids and made him think he could maybe find a spot of happiness for himself one day. Shiro said nothing, only moving to be standing and waiting at the foot of his bed, letting Keith act. Letting him be in control. Letting Keith make his decision. Letting Keith make his choice.
The kiss was faint, a touch of skin to skin. No tastes, no lingering memories. No hesitation as he pulled back and away and left him there in stunned silence.
One day, he’d come back as someone with more purpose than just to be a weapon. One day he’d come back and look at Shiro without feeling like he wasn’t helpless to heal the other man’s pain. One day he’d come back, and show Shiro not a world seemingly full of endless possibilities, but something greater. One day he’d come back, and give Shiro a future, a universe with endless stars infinite possibilities.
Keith would come back with a future.
Keith would come back, for their future.