Chapter Text
The silence stretches a beat too long as the commander’s words hang in the air.
“I asked if you’re all prepped yet for your year-long, son?” He reiterates politely, putting a hand on Shiro’s shoulder as though to snap him out of whatever momentary lapse had him zone out. “Not long now ‘til you ship out, right? What is it, eight? Ten days?”
Shiro tears his gaze away from Keith, just past the commander’s right shoulder, and forces a smile.
“The mission, yes- uh, yeah, of course. I’m definitely looking forward to it.” He hardly knows if what he’s saying makes sense, but the commander seems satisfied and he pats the shoulder beneath his hand a few times.
He grumbles some words to excuse himself and without knowing what he’s just done, he leaves the room behind him in utter stunned silence.
Shiro presses both hands over his mouth and lets out a controlled breath as he waits for Keith to say something.
“You’re leaving.” He speaks the words quickly, as though refusing to have them dwell in his mouth too long, and it makes it difficult to properly gauge the level of his anger. “You’re leaving Earth, in ten days, and you--”
“Hold on, let me-”
“How about you let me get this straight, Shiro!” Keith cuts him short and there’s no mistaking now how pissed he is. “You signed onto a mission into space for an entire year, and you’re leaving in ten days.”
He leaves a beat, and Shiro realises this time it was actually a question.
“Yes, and--”
“And you weren’t going to tell me.”
Shiro sighs. It’s not that simple, but the chance to explain the entire logic behind his decision without Keith punching him or storming out of the room seems slim. “Of course I would have told you before I left.”
“You lied to me.”
Shiro hurts in a way that makes him wish Keith had just out and punched him already. He’d have known how to handle that. “No. Keith--”
“Everybody else knew, right? They had to. So it was just me. God, I’m such an idiot. Or, what, did you bribe the whole base to keep their mouths shut when I was around? They conceived that mission seven months ago! The effort you must have put into keeping this from me!”
“I thought it would be easier--”
“Easier for you,” Keith spits. “You’re an asshole.”
He turns, thumps the pad to open the door.
“Keith, don’t walk away!” Shiro panics and uses his commanding officer voice.
Keith freezes in the doorway, practically shaking with anger. When he looks back over his shoulder he sees Shiro’s hand outstretched slightly like he wants to grab hold to stop him, and scowls at it.
“Is that an order?” Keith bites, resentment clear in his voice.
“It doesn’t have to be,” Shiro says, and then deflates slightly, his shoulders slump and he pushes a hand into his hair. “Please, just hear me out.”
Keith waits, and Shiro pleads with him once more to stay and hear him out, but Keith just punches the keypad and leaves.
_____
There isn’t anywhere to hide on the base that isn’t predictable or restricted, and while Keith doesn’t particularly give a shit right now if he’s breaking rules, it is late and nearing lights out and he’s kind of exhausted.
He’s avoided the training rooms, knowing that Shiro would go straight there to find him and hash this out. The garage was his next thought, but then that means it would be Shiro’s next thought, so Keith is instead in his room counting down the minutes until Shiro comes knocking.
It’s four hours later.
Keith sits up abruptly when the door opens and Shiro stands waiting in the doorway. He looks frustrated, and Keith thinks he has some fucking cheek to look at him like that.
“You forget how to knock?”
Shiro frowns, and he does look a little ashamed of himself at least for that.
“Can I come in?”
“Now you’re asking permission? I could’ve been doing anything in here,” Keith snaps, kicking off the blankets and shifting to sit on the edge of the bed.
Shiro still doesn’t enter. “I can go, if you really want me to, but I thought we should try to talk about this.”
“Again; now you think we should talk about it?” Keith shakes his head incredulously. “What if I said I didn’t want to talk about it right now?”
“I’d say we can leave it ‘til tomorrow but it’s not like you’ll get any sleep tonight.” Shiro leans against the doorframe and puts a foot just on the threshold so that the door doesn’t close on him. “I know you, Keith. We might as well hash it out right now and get it over with. I just don’t think the other cadets on the corridor need to hear it.”
Keith flicks his eyes to the side, but that’s as much invitation he’ll give Shiro.
He waits until Shiro has sat himself down opposite on the edge of the desk before asking, “Did you bribe Matt, or should I follow through on my gut-instinct to beat the shit out of him for not telling me either?”
“I blackmailed him,” Shiro admits immediately, as though showing Keith he is completely open to answering any and all questions.
Keith nods; resolves to at least let Matt off, for now.
“I’m not helping you,” Keith tells him abruptly, when the silence has stretched for an uncomfortable amount of time.
Shiro bows his head and chews on the inside of his cheek for a moment before sighing heavily. “Yeah, no, I’m trying to think of how to word this.”
“I just need the truth, Shiro. It’s not that hard.”
Shiro narrows his eyes slightly. “The truth is that you would have taken it just as badly if I’d told you straight away, and there was no way to know how that would have affected everything leading up to leaving.”
Keith opens his mouth to say something, but Shiro raises a hand to indicate he hasn’t finished yet. “Look, I didn’t lie to you, and I never made anybody else lie to you, either. I just asked them not to talk about it.”
“So your ‘calculated decision’ was rather than give me seven months to digest this, you thought a few days would be just as good?” Keith asks, incredulous and irate. “And you’re honestly trying to convince me that that decision was made purely to benefit me? Not because, oh, maybe it would just make it easier on yourself?”
“No--”
“No.” Keith agrees, stands so that he can be on level with Shiro while he yells at him.
“I think I get what you’re saying,” he bites with sarcasm, “it’s because I’m so obsessed with you, right? That finding out you were going off to Kerberos for a year would cause me to flip my shit and then you’d have to deal with all the drama and embarrassment I would cause?”
Shiro scoffs. “What are you talking about? I never said that.”
“Not explicitly, no. But I know what you think of me,” Keith sneers. “This way you can just leave earth and get as far away from me as possible-”
“Stop,” Shiro snaps, finally. He puts a hand on Keith’s shoulder, but it’s shrugged off and Shiro is just left reeling for a moment, unable to fully absorb the level of self-derision Keith is spewing. “Jesus Christ, you don’t really believe that, do you? Keith, you’re- You and Matt are my best friends! Why would I think any of that about you?”
Keith shakes his head. “I don’t know, Shiro. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you told Matt about it straight away, but if Iverson hadn’t have dropped it into the conversation earlier, I would still not know about you leaving.”
Shiro presses his face into his hands for a second, then raises his head and continues. “Tell me, then. Tell me what you would have said? If I told you the same day I told Matt, tell me exactly what your honest reaction would have been.”
“I’d have been devastated!” Keith yells back truthfully, but he wields his honesty like a weapon rather than a concession. “Of course I would! I doubt Matt jumped for joy, either. Whether you’d told me seven months or two years ago - you’re going into space for a year - I can’t help that. It’s not like my feelings would have stopped you from going. I wouldn’t want to stop you from going.”
“This is the problem,” Shiro groans, and Keith misunderstands and scowls at him. “No, not you.”
“The problem is that you’ve made me feel like a fucking idiot, and I’m still no closer to knowing why you kept it from me, specifically.”
“You’re not listening to what I’m saying to you--”
“Oh, I’m listening,” Keith growls. “I’m listening to you dodge every chance to apologise. Do you think I want to hate you for the last ten days you’re here?”
Shiro seems to flinch at the word ‘hate’, and looks desperately at Keith. “I’m sorry,” he says imploringly.
Keith lets the apology sit there for a minute, lets Shiro hang for an agonisingly long time, and then shrugs. “It’s done now, right?”
Keith walks over to the door and stands beside the keypad pointedly. “I’m pretty tired,” he says, without meeting Shiro’s gaze and hits the pad to open the door.
For a brief moment Shiro doesn’t move, frozen with incredulity, and then he gets up and walks obediently over to the door.
“I might see you after breakfast,” Keith weakly offers as he passes, and as soon as Shiro is in the corridor he closes the door behind him.