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So. Perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.
Keith glares down at the ground between his legs, elbows on his knees and chin in his hand. It’s raining too hard for him to sprint back to the Garrison, and it’s far too cold for him to even have the energy to move. He doesn’t have an umbrella, he’s soaked to the bone, and rain is still pounding down so hard that he’s honestly nervous that the awning he’s found shelter under will split.
This is not what he had in mind when he snuck out two hours ago. His phone is out of battery, too, meaning that even if he wanted to call someone, he wouldn’t be able to.
Okay. Who is he kidding? Who would he even call? Shiro? He wasn’t even at the Garrison today.
Keith’s knuckles are still smarting from when he decked that guy in the hall. He digs his nails into his palms, jaw clenching tight.
Yeah. There’s no way in hell he’s calling Shiro.
“Keith?”
Keith feels his mouth drop open.
No fucking way.
He looks up, still somehow surprised to see Shiro standing across the street despite having heard his voice. Keith shifts uncomfortably, hyper-aware of the tear tracks on his face that he can’t pass off as rainwater and the bruise blooming on his cheek. He’s always tried to look his best around Shiro, if only because he made such a shitty impression the first time and because Shiro always manages to look perfect every single time.
Except today.
It’s the first time Keith has seen him out of uniform. Instead of the crisp lines of the grey Garrison uniform that Keith knows he irons almost every night, he’s got these tattered, dark grey jeans that look like they’ve been worn a million times and a black leather jacket pulled over a white T-shirt. He’s holding an umbrella in his right hand, left hand tucked into his pocket, mouth slightly opened as he locks eyes with Keith.
Keith knows he’s staring.
The sky rumbles, and the metal poles supporting the awning above him rattle. It seems to snap Shiro out of his shock, and he hurries over, looking both ways before jogging across the street. His boots splash in the puddles, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he slows to a stop in front of Keith, still holding the umbrella.
Keith doesn’t look at him. He avoids eye contact, glowering at the ground again, except now all he can see are Shiro’s boots.
Great.
“Keith,” says Shiro again, and his voice is gentler this time, less taken aback. “What are you doing out here? It’s nearly one in the morning. Curfew—”
“I punched a guy,” Keith interrupts, and Shiro goes quiet.
It’s better this way, probably. To get it out of the way, blunt and honest, before anyone else can spin the story into something that it isn’t. Shiro’s already seen the worst of him, but he’s kept offering him chances. Second chance, time after time. Three strikes, but Keith knows that this is far beyond his third.
Because that’s what happened. No matter what his motivations were, Keith punched the guy, and the guy might’ve punched him back, but Keith started it.
It doesn’t change the fact that the guy was a year older than him. Doesn’t change the fact that Keith got the discipline, not the other guy. Doesn’t change the fact that Keith did it because he was provoked; doesn’t change the fact that he ran off and snuck out of the Garrison to try and clear his head. To run away, just like he always does when things go to shit.
Maybe it’s better that it ends like this. Keith, soaked in rainwater and still aching from the fight; Shiro, completely dry and holding an umbrella as the storm rages on. It feels appropriate.
“Hey,” says Shiro softly, and there’s something in his tone that Keith doesn’t recognize. It’s delicate, a little fragile, two things that Keith has never associated with Shiro before. “Look at me?”
It takes a moment, but Keith does. He’s still glaring, mostly in an effort to stop himself from crying like a fucking kid again, because Shiro’s already seen enough shit from him.
Except.
Keith feels his lips part. There’s a reason for Shiro’s brittle tone, because when Keith looks, really looks at him, now that he’s standing closer to him, it’s impossible not to see the red lining his eyes. Even in the darkness, his eyes glimmer with the remnants of tears, and there are the faint hints of tracks on his cheeks that the rainwater can’t hide.
“Oh,” whispers Keith. He stands up hurriedly, eyes wide with worry, suddenly forgetting why he’s even here. “Are you— Shiro, are you okay?”
And Shiro looks… tired. He seems so much younger like this, dressed down and weary, posture slumped even with the tension held in his shoulders as he scrubs a hand over his eyes, lips pressed together in a tight line, teeth gritted so tightly that Keith worries for his jaw.
Keith has never seen him like this before. It makes him that much more human, somehow; untouchable god and Garrison prodigy becoming more vulnerable than Keith thinks he’s ever seen from a person before.
And, of all people, he’s seeing it from Shiro.
There’s rainwater on Shiro’s shoulders, even despite the umbrella. It shines on the leather, forming little puddles in the dips in the fabric.
“I was—” Shiro drops his hand. “Well. I’m sure you noticed I wasn’t at the Garrison today.”
“Yeah,” says Keith. It was hard not to, given that Shiro is the only person he actually talks to in a semi-friendly, non-defensive manner. He noticed long before that guy even made that jab at him in the hallway, something about him and Shiro that he doesn’t even remember now.
No. That’s a lie. He remembers. Shiro’s pity project, he’d said. Among other things.
How many blowjobs are you giving him to get your scores so high?
Keith shoves the memory out of his head, even as anger begins to boil back up to the surface again. Shiro is still hesitating.
“My grandfather died three years ago today,” he says quietly.
And.
Oh.
“Oh,” says Keith quietly. “I’m— I’m sorry.”
“Yeah,” Shiro says, equally as quiet. He clears his throat. “I, uh, took a day off. Sick day, technically, but Iverson and the others all know what that means by now. I might as well be sick, really,” he adds, a dark twist to his lips, “given how useless I am today.”
“Don’t say that,” Keith says. Shiro looks at him, slightly apologetic.
“Sorry,” he says, but Keith can tell that he isn’t talking about the words. “I shouldn’t be saying that kind of stuff to you.”
“I don’t care about that,” snaps Keith. He folds his arms, and maybe it’s a little bit of a self-protective gesture. “You’re not— You’re not useless. So don’t say that you are.”
Shiro looks like he wants to protest, say something else, but Keith glares at him. It’s probably a stupid sight, really, with him being a foot shorter and Shiro years older, but Shiro still smiles a little. The smile is fond, affectionate, maybe a bit more than exasperated, and it might be condescending on anyone else, but Keith knows how painfully earnest he can be by now.
“Alright,” says Shiro softly. “Sorry again. But, yeah, that’s why I’m—” He gestures vaguely to his face, his clothes. “Like this.”
“It’s a little weird,” confesses Keith. He’s skirting the topic of Shiro’s grandfather, both because he knows what that feels like and because Shiro is giving very strong signals that he does not want to talk about him. “I’ve never seen you out of uniform before. And I didn’t know you had a leather jacket.”
Shiro shrugs. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he says. “Few people know half of it.”
There’s something that he’s not saying. Keith doesn’t push, even though Shiro has practically invited him to look now that he’s put that out there.
Shiro has walls, fortified steel that towers over those who dare approach. It’s only now that Keith realizes just how many of those walls he’s managed to work his way past, intentional or not.
Or maybe it’s because Shiro is letting him.
Keith feels his shoulders slump, all of the pent up energy and anger from the fight draining out of him just like that. He can’t stay worked up when Shiro’s allowed himself to be so vulnerable in front of him. He could’ve just left him here in the rain, sitting out all alone at an unreasonable hour in the town outside of the Garrison, but he’s not. He isn’t, and Keith doesn’t know why, because any other grieving person would’ve ignored him and left him out to soak, but Shiro…
Shiro is being stupidly selfless, as usual. And he’s opened up, which makes it worse.
“I lost my dad, too,” Keith mutters. He directs his gaze back down to the ground. “So I, uh. Kind of get what you’re talking about, I guess. Just— in case you want to talk to someone, I guess. I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
“Thank you,” says Shiro quietly, and Keith can tell that it’s genuine. His shoulders relax a little more.
“That’s not why I punched the guy, though,” Keith says. “I really was trying, you know. I know you get— that you get upset when I get into fights, even if you don't show it. But I couldn’t help it this time. It’s not an excuse; I’m just— just saying.”
“Did he say something?” Shiro asks, concern leaking into his tone. Keith still doesn’t look at him.
The thing is, he was fully prepared to lash out at Shiro and demand if he truly saw him as something to be fixed, a project that he could work on and then drop. He was ready for it, whenever he saw Shiro again, except now he’s in front of him, and all he can think about is how exhausted Shiro looks.
And he, quite suddenly, doesn’t have the energy to be angry about it anymore.
But he still asks.
“Do you see me as a project?” asks Keith, looking up at Shiro. He forces himself to maintain eye contact, even as Shiro’s face ripples with surprise. “Something to be fixed?”
“No,” Shiro says without hesitation. And that’s a surprise to Keith - not the words, because he was expecting him to deny it, but the complete lack of avoidance. “I don’t.”
“Then why?” asks Keith. He falters for a moment, struggling to find the words. “Why— Why help me out? I know you told me before, but that’s hardly anything. I don’t know anyone who would’ve helped me out like that. People don’t do that.”
For several heartbeats, there’s no sound but the rain on the awning, on the concrete below. It should be an awkward, tense silence, but the rain makes it bearable.
“I chose you because you’re talented,” Shiro says at last. “And I was telling the truth, before. Everyone deserves a chance. It helps that you’re talented, and it certainly helps that you’ve got the kind of personality that makes no one want to look away from you. I can say with complete certainty that I didn’t pick you because I wanted to fix you, Keith. People don’t need to be fixed.”
Keith swallows. He searches Shiro’s face for any hint of a lie, and maybe it’s not the best thing to do considering how many of Shiro’s usual boundaries have collapsed in the rain, how easy his expressions have become to read, now. But he doesn’t find anything. Nothing beyond firm, unflinching confidence in his words.
“Okay,” Keith says in a small voice. “Um. Thank you.”
Shiro raises his eyebrows, but there’s a smile on his face, now. “That make you feel better?”
“A bit,” admits Keith.
“Anything else?”
For a variety of reasons, he is not going to tell him the rumors of Keith performing sexual favors on Shiro, even if Shiro’s reputation being put at risk and the challenge to Shiro’s character was the breaking point for the punch being thrown. There’s no way that Keith is putting that into words. Absolutely not.
“No,” Keith says. He’s always been a pretty shit liar, but Shiro doesn’t call him out on it. Maybe he’s too tired. Keith certainly is.
“Alright,” says Shiro. He pauses, and his gaze on Keith is so intense that he has to look away again. “We should get back to the Garrison.”
“Yeah,” says Keith. He kicks the ground, sending water up into the air in little droplets. “Guess you’re going to have to turn me in for another lecture.”
“I could,” Shiro allows. “Or I could sneak you in through my room. I’m on the ground, and I have a window. Adam probably won’t mind.”
Keith’s head jerks up. He looks at Shiro with nothing short of astonishment, eyes wide and mouth opened.
“Seriously?” he says. “I punch someone, run off after I get lectured, get stuck out hours past curfew, and you’re going to help me again?”
Shiro shrugs. “Unless you want to get disciplined again, I mean.”
“No,” Keith says quickly. “Nope, I’m good.”
Shiro grins. He gestures to Keith, and it takes him a moment to realize that he’s offering him a space beside him beneath the umbrella. Keith hesitates, eyeing the sky.
The rain isn’t going to be letting up anytime soon.
Keith crosses the little strip of space between the awning and Shiro’s umbrella. Shiro offers him another smile, one that Keith manages to return a shadow of. Both smiles are fake, but neither call the other out on it.
Keith’s right shoulder is a little wet from where the umbrella doesn’t quite cover him completely, and he knows that Shiro’s left shoulder is probably the same. But it’s better than one of them being completely covered and the other completely soaked, so Keith just pulls his jacket a little tighter around himself.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” Shiro says quietly as they start walking. Keith nearly stumbles, hands tucked into his pockets, boots splashing in puddles with every step.
They’re familiar words. He’s never known what to do with them, fully aware that they’re the words people say when they’re not sure what else to say. But, as with everything else with Shiro, coming from him, the words are almost painfully sincere. Keith knows that Shiro has heard these same words before, knows that they’ve come with fake flowers and forced smiles, and he knows that he’s heard the same delicate uncertainty and insincerity behind them, too.
It’s the first time that Keith has heard these words sound as honest as they do.
“I’m sorry about your grandpa,” responds Keith after a pause. He hears Shiro exhale, and it’s a little shaky.
“Thank you,” he says softly, so quiet that Keith almost misses it with the sound of the rain pounding down around them. But he’s listening for it, and he hears it.
They walk in silence beneath the umbrella as the rain keeps pouring down. There’s a flash of lightning, the boom of thunder, and Keith hears Shiro fumble for the keys to his car in his pocket, picking up the pace.
“Thank you,” Keith says, even though Shiro just said it, because it feels right to say. And he means it.
He feels Shiro’s eyes on him, even as they continue to walk, but he doesn’t look back at him. And he can hear the smile in Shiro’s voice when he speaks, real this time.
“No problem,” he says quietly. He nudges Keith’s arm playfully. Keith shoves him back lightly, and Shiro stumbles exaggeratedly, huffing a small laugh.
The rain keeps pouring, and they keep walking.