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Keith is in a dark red suit, sitting on the steps outside in the middle of the night while a wedding goes on behind him.
Well. The aftermath of the wedding. The wedding already happened.
Shiro is married.
The stars are bright, mockingly so, and it’s a little hard to believe that he was up there just a few days ago. That he’ll be back up there soon, distributing food and resources to healing planets, doing the occasional stealth mission for the Blades when he’s called for it.
Because right now, it’s just him and the chilled night air. Sitting on the steps. Numb.
There are bits and pieces of confetti and flower petals scattered everywhere, white balloons tied to the railing. The sky is perfectly clear, not a cloud in sight, the moon a thin slice of beaming silver. A picture perfect image, marred by a man in a suit in love with his best friend, grieving for what he could’ve had.
Fuck. Who is he kidding? He never stood a fucking chance. He’s grieving for what he’s never had, never will have, was never going to have, and he should be used to this feeling by now after years, literal years of it, but he’s not. He’s not, and it’s never gotten easier.
He thinks that he’s just gotten better at ignoring it. It’s a bit harder to ignore when it’s staring him right in the face in the form of Shiro kissing another man at his wedding. And Keith was there, just on the wrong side of the altar.
He really, really hates himself right now.
Keith props his elbows up on his knees, staring out at the parking lot. If he squints, he thinks he can see a small group of people chatting amongst themselves, leaning against a few cars together. They’re bathed silver in the moonlight.
He hardly remembers the speech that he gave. He wonders if Shiro knows how torturous it was for him, to get up there and talk in front of a crowd, talk about how he’s happy that Shiro is marrying another man, of all things, because there’s no way that Shiro doesn’t know how Keith feels at this point. Everyone else does. It was obvious in how they looked at him when Shiro told them that he was getting married, and even before that, back when Shiro was still single, and they used to throw him teasing looks whenever Shiro would put his hand on his shoulder or do whatever it is that he--
There’s no point anymore. Shiro doesn’t touch him like that now. He hasn’t in… months.
He hasn’t touched him at all.
I love you, Keith had shouted to a Shiro that wasn’t Shiro, and he still doesn’t even know if this Shiro remembers that or not. But now he’s never going to know.
Shiro never responded back then. But Keith supposes that that was answer enough.
If that wasn’t, this definitely is.
And it’s not that Keith isn’t happy for Shiro, because he is, he really, really is, and if he thinks hard enough, he’s pretty sure that he said something about that in his speech. About how Shiro deserves happiness, because he does, and how he’s glad that he’s finally found peace, which he is. And he also remembers studiously avoiding eye contact with Shiro as he lied, lied, lied between his teeth, because while Shiro does deserve happiness, and while Keith really is glad that he found peace, Keith is also a selfish fucking bastard who wishes that Shiro could’ve had it with him instead.
He thinks, in his speech, he also said something about wanting nothing but Shiro to be happy. He also thinks that he sounded like he was trying not to cry the entire time. Hopefully, people passed it off as joy for Shiro and not for-- for--
“We really thought it would’ve been you two,” Lance had said, quiet, when Shiro broke the news to them, staring incredulously after Shiro’s retreating figure. “We thought it was going to be you and Shiro. Everyone did.”
Keith drops his gaze from the stars, hands clenching as he looks down at the ground between his feet.
He’s shaking.
Keith parts his lips to take a deep breath, and it shudders on the way out, trembling horribly, and his eyes are starting to burn. He blinks a few times, willing the tears to go away, but it just makes it worse.
Before he knows it, his vision is blurring, and there are hot tears spilling down his cheeks, dripping down to the concrete below.
He’s lost Shiro forever with this one.
Keith lifts his head, baring his face for the stars as tears slip down his face. His nails cut crescents into the soft skin of his palms, jaw clenched so tightly against the sob threatening to wrench itself from his throat that he’s surprised he hasn’t broken anything yet.
He would do anything for Shiro. This hasn’t changed that. He could be across the universe, and Keith would still find a way back to him.
But he can’t-- he can’t stay here any longer. He can’t. He couldn’t when Shiro started dating Curtis, and Keith still remembers how he’d had to find out that they were together through fucking hallway gossip instead of from Shiro’s mouth, and by that point, he was the only one who didn’t know. He increased his missions with the Blade after that, and he’s going to do the same thing now.
If all works out, he won’t have to come back to Earth other than for diplomacy and those reunions for anniversaries that everyone keeps talking about. Earth has never been home to him, anyways.
There’s no point in staying here without Shiro. He was the only person keeping him here.
And he does think that he could’ve had a life here, with or without Shiro. He’s certain that he could be a help in rebuilding Earth, perhaps more so than he is out in space, his efforts spread so thin that he’s never sure if he’s helping or putting a bandaid on a bullet wound, because here, at least, he’s familiar enough with the customs, the people, the languages. He knows, too, that he will always be welcome back in a way that he hadn’t felt he was before.
But, for the first time, he doesn’t want to accept that welcome.
Earth finally wants him. Keith no longer wants Earth.
Keith wants Shiro. Shiro doesn’t want Keith.
The sun rises. The moon falls.
Nothing has changed.
He’s never going to stop loving Shiro. He’s it for him. It’s only ever been Shiro, even before Kerberos, before Voltron, before any of this shit happened, and that’s not ever going to change.
Patience yields focus, but Keith has waited through Adam, through an entire war, through a clone, through death, through everything, and now he’s beginning to think that he never really had a chance in the first place. That he could give and give and give everything he had to Shiro, and nothing would ever come out of it. Nothing that mattered.
Nothing that he wants.
The worst part is that he would’ve kept on giving, and he wouldn’t have expected anything in return. He never did. He would’ve waited for eternity if he had to. Now, he doesn’t even get to do that.
Because, more than anything else, he wants to wrap his arms around Shiro and hold him close, so tightly that there is no space between them, to travel the universe with him and brave new planets, new cultures, constantly moving together. He wants to see the stars with Shiro, to live with him, to breathe with him, to die with him, and he almost thinks it would’ve been better if he and the clone died when they fell together, because at least then, he wouldn’t have to live with false hopes and the heavy weight of what he said hanging in the air.
They still haven’t talked about it. It doesn’t seem like they ever will.
I love you.
As many times as it takes.
The tears don’t stop coming. It’s years of suppressed emotion, of heartbreak and unrequited love, flooding out all at once, finally experiencing some release, a confirmation of some kind, and Keith, he’d-- he’d hoped, naively, that this inevitable breaking point would’ve happened with a confession, with a return of love, but that’s-- that’s--
He’s not too late if he never stood a chance in the first place.
There’s a quiet beep at his side. Incoming call from Pidge.
“Where are you?” Pidge’s voice asks when he picks up. Keith can hear the sounds of laughter and chattering around them, and something in his chest clenches painfully. “Shiro’s looking for you. He’s gotten all weird about it.”
“I’m outside,” Keith says quietly. He’s a little proud of how steady his voice is despite the tears still pouring down his face like rain during a thunderstorm, but maybe Pidge can sense something is wrong, anyways, because they pause.
“Are you coming back in?” they ask, suddenly subdued. And Keith hesitates.
It’s a surprisingly easy decision to make.
“No,” he says, a bit tight. He sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face to wipe the tears off of his cheeks as something so intense that it might pass for anger begins to rise in him. “No, I’m-- I’m leaving, Pidge. I think I’m just going to go.”
“What?” Pidge asks sharply. All traces of hesitation are completely gone from their voice, replaced by incredulity. “I know that tone, Keith. Are you leaving the wedding early or are you-- are you leaving?”
“I’m leaving,” says Keith tiredly. “Mission for the Blades. It’s urgent.”
It’s a lie. He knows that Pidge can tell, but he doesn’t have the energy to sound any more convincing than he has to be.
“You said you would stay for another week,” Pidge says, voice trembling slightly. “I thought-- Keith, you-- you promised us you wouldn’t go like this again.”
Keith swallows, hard. “I know,” he says, and it’s impossible for Pidge to not have heard how his voice breaks slightly, how it shakes like he’s crying, because he is. He takes a deep breath, steadying himself. “I know. Tell the others that I’m sorry.”
“And what do you want me to tell Shiro?” asks Pidge. They sound angry, almost defensive-- no, that’s not quite right. They sound betrayed, their voice is quivering even more, and Keith is pretty sure that they're about to start crying, too. “That you’re fucking us all over again? That you’re leaving on his wedding day to--”
“I love him, Pidge,” says Keith quietly, and Pidge goes dead silent. He’s got nothing left to lose in saying this out loud, now. Because everyone already knows, and it’s not like anything is going to happen now that he’s finally got the courage to say the words when death isn’t looming above. “I love him. I can’t-- You know I can’t stay here.”
“That doesn’t mean that you have to go,” Pidge says, desperate. They inhale, sharp and shuddering. “Fuck, I’m-- I’m terrible at this shit. Lance! Lance, fuck, get over here, talk some sense into this goddamn idiot--”
“No,” Keith says, the corners of his lips tugging up humorlessly. He looks back up at the sky, at the stars twinkling above. They’re the same stars that he screamed at when the Kerberos mission failed, standing in the middle of the desert with nothing but himself, throat going raw and hoarse with every breath he took in. The same stars that he’s going to flee to now. “No, Pidge. I’m going. Tell Shiro that I’m leaving early, okay? And tell everyone else that I’m sorry. Tell-- tell Shiro that I’m sorry.”
“Tell him that yourself, you bastard! Keith Kogane, don’t you fucking dare hang up on--”
Keith hangs up. Silence fills the empty space.
He’s not the same person he was when he left Voltron for the Blades for the first time all of that time ago. He’s certainly not the same person who screamed at the stars in the desert, but sometimes, sometimes, he really feels like he is. Sometimes, he feels like he’s both of those people, desperate in his longing and anger and grief.
You gave me this scar, Keith wants to shout, scream to the unrelenting void, the void that stole Shiro away from him all of those years ago, the void that he’ll now re-enter to escape the man that he wants to spend the rest of eternity with. Take back what’s always been yours.
He doesn’t do that. Instead, he stands up. He must look like a wreck, tears still glistening on flushed cheeks, eyes rimmed red.
He’ll never stop loving Shiro. Never. He knows that like he knows of the inevitability of death, of the certainty of life, like the sun rises in the east and the moon shines silver. And if Shiro is happy, Keith is not going to do anything to stop that.
But he’ll never let him go.
He should, he knows that he should, but all he can think about is how the two of them dangled off of the edge of the clone facility, held up only by Keith’s own hand, and he-- he knew, then, that he would never let go of him, in both a metaphorical and entirely literal sense. And he isn’t going to let go now, either.
He should. He knew that back then, too.
But he can’t. And he won’t.
Instead, he’s leaving. He’s not sure if that’s better or not, but he’s a coward either way. And Keith has never been a coward, no one could ever give him that label, but he’ll be the first to admit that this one is well deserved.
Tomorrow morning, the sun will bathe this place in gold, and by that point, Keith will be long gone. The sun will keep rising, the moon will keep falling, and Keith will keep moving. At some point, this moment will be nothing more than a dull ache in his chest, easily ignored and easily brushed aside. He’ll never let go, but maybe, one day, he might move on.
Keith knows that this isn’t the case. But it’s nice to pretend.
He tucks his hands into his pockets, expression wiped clean of all emotion, and walks away. The communicator at his side keeps buzzing insistently at his leg, but he flicks it on silent without a moment’s pause.
The stars are waiting for him.