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The day the shuttle for Kerberos left, Keith stayed up all night on the roof looking at the stars. In the desert, the weather at night was cold but Keith, by all standards, had always run hot and even deep into the night he wasn’t that bothered by the chill finally settling in his bones anyway. His mind was too focused on that infinitesimally small dot in the sky. It wasn’t exactly new for him either, being outside stargazing. But that night, his eyes remained fixed on that part of space he last saw the shuttle before it disappeared out of his sight, out of his reach.
Becoming a pilot and flying out among the stars had become a goal at some point but it was first and foremost a way to escape the reality he was facing. At a very young age, Keith had learned that speed brought him a taste of freedom he had always longed for, and he was good at it. He was fast and strong, always racing in some way or the other but adults around him never saw past the danger of such a hobby. It should have been easy to ask themselves ‘why’ he was like this but it would have meant ‘try and do something’ and no one was ready to do that for him. So they labeled him a free spirit and really, they couldn’t have thought of something more well fitted.
So Keith kept on that way, but with every new race, every adrenaline rush, the taste it left in his mouth felt wrong. It took the stubborn efforts of a young Galaxy Garrison’s recruiter to learn that he could fly without necessarily having to run away. He had no reasons to escape anymore, he had a reason to come ‘home’ to.
Shiro gave him a purpose and promised to never give up on him. And Keith believed him because as he had discovered, Shiro was nothing but a man true to his words.
Shiro was a lighthouse, a beacon in Keith’s life, a sun he would gravitate around endlessly.
He knew it was wrong. Keith was young but had lived quite a life already to understand that it’s not healthy to rely on one single person. But Keith never truly had a dream before and was it so bad really, or at least was it worse than what he would have faced by turning down Shiro’s hand when he asked him to join the Garrison? In any case, Keith had no regrets. His life was better in Shiro’s hands no matter what he would have done with it.
As he stared at the infinite sky that night, Keith thought that maybe Shiro truly took a bit of his life with him to Kerberos considering how much it hurt to look at the blackness of the sky.
But nothing would hurt more than the two words he would see and hear over and over again shortly after Shiro’s departure.
Pilot error.
People tried compassion at first, they all knew he was the kid Shiro took under his wing but Keith had never been good dealing with the pity in others eyes nor the fake sympathy in their voice. He knew what they were all saying behind his back anyway, how they all blamed Shiro for something Keith felt in his bones to be wrong.
They accused Keith of being blind. They told him he worshipped Shiro too much for his own good and that people had flaws and it was okay, except it wasn’t okay because it cost the lives of the Holts and Keith had to accept that his hero, in fact, was not of that kind.
Keith had shouted and punched his truth and frustration into walls, and doors, and that one time- people too. No one had listened to him anyway. They kicked him out because it was easier that way. Just like before, rather than trying to understand him, to listen to him, people just got rid of him. They saw him as a problem no one had the time to try and solve.
Shiro had always taken the time to untangle the mess that was Keith. He saw him like he saw the world, as one more question to answer, one more challenge to face. Shiro had strived all his life to be the best, even when it meant the best at understanding Keith.
But Shiro was not there anymore.
Keith tried to move on. Eventually, the pull from the Blue Lion became strong and for a moment it served as a distraction. During the day at least, because every night Keith would sit outside on the creaky stairs of his shack in the desert, his eyes trained on that specific corner in the sky and he would remember how Shiro used to take him to the roof of the Garrison and constantly talk about the infinite and how fascinating it was that the light carries on seemingly endlessly even after stars die. Keith would ask again and again questions about the universe he had the answers for but would never get tired of hearing Shiro talk him through the same explanations. No book could light up like Shiro’s face did whenever he rambled about what was ‘out there’.
“The universe was made to be seen by your eyes.”
The night before he left, Shiro had said this as they were outside yet again on the roof lying on their back, side by side, his right hand reaching toward the stars as if he wouldn’t be out there to touch them soon enough. Keith hadn’t exactly paid attention to the words, too busy fighting the pang of jealousy that had come to grow when Shiro started dating Adam. As Keith became older, the lost boy giving way to the young man discovering the many kinds of relationships the world had to offer it became evident that Shiro meant many things to him and that one of these was love.
And Keith was fine with it being unrequited, as long as he had Shiro in one way or another by his side. He had made the decision very quickly, way before he understood that within the wide range of emotions he had for his friend, there was something buried deep.
But the stars, they were taking Shiro for themselves and he had more trouble accepting this than accepting Shiro sharing his life with someone else.
Some days it hurt too much to know how much he loved him and how he’d never even see him again- on those days, Keith convinced himself that the rest of the world was right. Shiro was missing, never to return.
But because he couldn’t give up on someone that had promised to never give up on him, Keith would resume his research full force, deeply persuaded that what was calling him, whatever mystery it was, was related to Shiro.
Turned out he was right.
Shiro was not the man he used to know. Or maybe he was, but what he went through added a whole new layer to him. Reflectively, Keith thought that he too had something more to himself that he could hide under. The company of the other paladins, Allura, and Coran included was a little overwhelming at first because they weren’t like the people he used to have in his life but he wanted to try this time. He didn’t just want the others to try and understand him.
At some point in his life, he realized that if he accepted Shiro’s trust it was only because he too made efforts. It’s one thing to be understood- you have to grant people the right to try so they can actually succeed in that arduous task.
So he made friends, he let people into his life because if Kerberos had taught him one thing it was that it was definitely unhealthy to just rely on one single person.
That didn’t mean Shiro ceased to be a priority in Keith’s life. After the Blades, after defeating Zarkon it shifted a bit though. Shiro was different. Wrong. But Keith refused to admit it and as the saying goes, old habits die hard. So he ran away. One could say his goals changed but that wouldn’t have been entirely truthful. Keith had one weakness and it was one he didn’t want to confront because that would have meant revealing more than he was ready to.
Nevertheless, sometimes desperation makes you cry out things you thought were perfectly in your control.
As they fell, Keith closed his eyes and remembered the struggles, the loneliness, the pain it was to have Shiro taken away from him, at first willingly and then torn away without the faintest care.
He gripped the hand of the unconscious clone and just like those nights where he would lose hope only to be more determined than ever, he called out for whoever was willing to hear him. He had to save Shiro. He had to ask him to explain the infinite again. This time he would listen.
“I’d give anything, to hear you one more time.”
Space is a funny thing though, where nothing is ever simple. He got Shiro back, again. But Shiro was dead and the body he lives in now is new. This time, no matter how you look at it, Shiro has changed and yet it feels right.
They spend time in Black and there’s nothing much to do but talk about the giant elephant in the room.
Keith is neither the lost boy nor the discovering young man he used to be- he’s more whole. He has a mom now and understands his origins better, his struggle to fit in a world that was only half his. He has spent two years on a space whale and that has made him a wiser man. He had lost Shiro so many times that now he knows nothing can really take Shiro away from him. Even death itself yielded in front of his determination and so he’s not scared anymore of his feelings.
Shiro doesn’t reject Keith. He can’t because after spending such an unreasonable amount of time in Black’s consciousness, he came to the conclusion that he did love Keith- although he had known for a while if he’s entirely truthful. But Shiro has a lot to deal with at the moment and he asks for time to learn how to be himself again.
The body he’s in feels too foreign, and although it grounds him it still makes him think as if he’s in some sort of out-of-body experience looking at things through a set of eyes that aren’t his. He spent too long with just his own mind as a company in the astral plane that at times it was hard to even live with himself… it's a horrible thing to be stuck with nothing but your thoughts. You have to struggle constantly not to drown in your flaws when it seems clear that there's no way out. He’d been through so much that what he brooded over had to be rather unpleasant...
He needed to learn to be him again, to love himself again and he was afraid he was too damaged that it would ruin everything before it has even started.
So he went the rest of the journey with Pidge in Green and Keith was alone again but only physically away from Shiro. Not out of reach, not presumed dead.
Sendak tried to scratch the word ‘presumed’ from existence but he’s unsuccessful. Of course. He’s annoying but he's not worse than death so he can only lose this fight.
After everything is said and done, Keith finds himself lying on his back, a hand behind his head while the other tries to reach out for the stars as if he hadn’t seen them up close already. It’s just that he’s thankful for them. They took Shiro away from him, broke him time and time again but they let him exist and that’s all he asks. If Keith needs to be the one taking Shiro under his wing this time, he will. Shiro taught him the courage of the stars before he left and it's only fitting that Keith is the one to remind Shiro how much he and the stars are alike.
When Shiro comes to lie down with him, bringing him to his arms under the pretense of the cold night Keith knows without Shiro needing to say the words that he’s taken enough time for himself. Nestling his face in the crook of Shiro’s neck Keith closes his eyes and lets out a content sigh.
Of all the things they could talk about, Shiro asks about the quantum abyss, because it’s Shiro and he’s nothing but curious about the universe. Even after everything he had been put through by it.
This time, it’s Keith that will explain the infinite, how rare and beautiful it is to even exist.