Archive of Our Own

“Shiro,” Keith whispers, his helmet pressed to Shiro’s temple. The dust is still settling around them, glittering in the harsh sunlight, and the world is oddly quiet save for their breathing, and the crackling of the crashed Galra ship. Shiro laments that he can’t feel the hot flush of Keith’s skin against his own, the damp heat of his breath rolling over Shiro’s cheek. It clouds Keith’s helmet visor instead, blurring the features of his face.

Each breath aches, and Shiro can feel the bruises he knows he’ll find tomorrow spreading over his back. A flight suit could only block so much of the impact against the ground, Shiro’s body took the rest as he tumbled to a stop. Keith bears some of his weight as Shiro’s brain reconnects to his muscles, holding himself up in a sitting position despite their protests.

“I’m okay,” he breathes. Thanks to you. His eyes glance over Sendak’s body, unmoving and bleeding sluggishly into the earth. The slash of Keith’s bayard had been so bright, slicing through Sendak’s body like it was tender meat.

And then it was over, somehow. The Galra who had been one of Shiro’s first tormentors, who haunted his nightmares still, finally lay dead before him, at Keith’s hand.

It’s in these moments, when Shiro’s mind is flooded with adrenaline and the hazy relief that comes after a battle, that he wants to close the distance between him and Keith. He wishes the hand stroking over his cheek, tentative, as if it’s unsure of its welcome, was calloused skin and not alien fabric.

“Thank you.” He pulls back from Keith for a moment, indulging himself in the desire to trace each of Keith’s features with his eyes. Violet eyes framed in dark, thick lashes, the bold line of his nose, full lips parted in an awed almost-smile.

A scar, pink and resentful, interrupting the line of his jaw.

Shiro remembers, suddenly, the need for that space. He silences the urge to lean closer again, to push into Keith’s careful touch. No, he can’t do that. He leans away, letting the flash of hurt in Keith’s eyes hit him like acid rain, sizzling against his skin in a welcomed burn.

It’s a familiar sting, almost comforting in the way he knows it so well. It’s there in the scar of Shiro’s making, marring Keith’s beautiful face, in the way Keith looks at him, the way he’s always looked at him, even after Shiro stopped deserving it. It’s there in the hurt etched into Keith’s features whenever Shiro deflects from him, slides away and out of their friendship, away from the devotion that terrifies him.

Keith’s helmet is scratched, messy, and Shiro is grateful for the way it obscures his view. He can barely see the way Keith’s jaw works, swallowing down words Shiro won’t let him say. Keith bears his feelings alone, and Shiro can’t remember when Keith stopped letting Shiro carry a little of their weight, can’t remember when he stopped offering.

Then the wind is swirling around them both; the other four lions hovering in the air. The weight of the other paladins’ eyes on them pushes Shiro and Keith farther apart; it would feel heavy if Shiro wasn’t buoyed by their infectious smiles, and the brightness of Pidge’s voice, crying “We did it!”

They did it.

The whole Earth watches as Voltron climbs, flying higher and higher, carrying the explosive alien tech and the weight of thousands of hopes.

“Shiro?” Keith’s voice spills into the rooms, staticky with the distance.

“Keith, I’m here.”

“Shiro… I don’t know—I don’t know if I’m going to make it—If we will—”

“You will,” Shiro assures him, ignoring the same fear that’s slowly tightening around his throat. “You all will.”

Keith is silent. The other Paladins are silent. The Atlas bridge is silent, watching and listening. There’s no sound but the thump of Shiro’s pulse in his ears.

“Do you remember what I told you, that day you punched Griffin in the face?”

Keith laughs wetly. “Yeah.”

“I’ll never stop believing in you, Keith,” Shiro says. It’s as true as it was that day, truer maybe, strengthened by every time Keith has proven him right. He’s not the same angry, scared boy he was then. He’s better, stronger, settling fully into the person he’s destined to become.

“And here you are, for the second time today even. Always saving me,” Shiro tries to joke. He can’t force a laugh between his teeth, even a hollow one.

“We save each other,” Keith whispers.

Not this time, Shiro thinks. He can feel tears, hot and stinging, prick at his eyes.

“Shiro, I need to tell you—”

“Keith,” Shiro hates the way his voice comes out, it’s his Captain’s voice, the one that’s edged in cold steel and leaves no room for argument. It’s a shield, Shiro knows, keeping secret the feelings he’s been burying for too long. He’ll drown in them now, he knows, if he lets them rise to the surface.

“Keith, you can do this.” Shiro squeezes his eyes shut. I love you, too, he wishes he could say, and please come back to me. But he can’t. It’s selfish, and Shiro doesn’t deserve to be selfish. Not now. Keith would fling himself into the flames, at one word from Shiro. And even worse, Keith would save himself, let the whole planet burn to dust without him, if Shiro asked him to.

It’s a heady, dangerous thing, Keith’s devotion. Shiro could easily throw himself headfirst into it, dive deep and gulp it down, and claim all of Keith for his own.

But he doesn’t.

“Shiro,” Keith says, and maybe everyone else in the room would attribute the hitch in his voice to the battle, or the strain the lions are under, but Shiro knows better. Keith isn’t crying, but he’s as close as he ever gets, and Shiro feels his own eyes prickle and sting.

If Keith was going to say more in that moment, Shiro might have let him; his resolve has been worn thin with each mile that stretches between them now. But the comms click, so loud in the suddenly silent bridge, and all Shiro hears after that is static. He sees, they all see, the brilliant burst of light just outside the atmosphere.

The lions fall. Shiro watches, his heart in his throat, the rainbow streaks plummeting while all of Earth holds their breath. Or maybe his heart is inside the Black Lion’s cockpit, crashing to Earth at terminal velocity. Either way, Shiro feels the impact shudder through him as the lions land. Every muscle in his body locks, his heart leaping up his throat. He falls to his knees. He doesn’t even feel the metal floor bite into them. He doesn’t feel the muscles in his thighs work as he stands again. Shiro is stumbling to his feet, sprinting out of Atlas on unsteady legs. He has to get to the paladins.

Get to Keith.

His heart thunders in his ears, every beat sounds like Keith’s name, insistent, scolding. Its pounding matches the clang of his boots against the metal as he sprints out of the craft and into the desert. The first vehicle Shiro can find is a hoverbike; he flings himself onto it, the engine roaring to life under his thighs. He drives recklessly over the packed earth, taking corners hard, the way he and Keith used to, a lifetime ago. The memory swells around Shiro, ghosts of the past racing in tandem with him now.

He spots Black at the bottom of a quarry, sprawled out like a broken metal doll. Shiro doesn’t slow, not once, careening into the open air at the edge of the cliff. His stomach swoops as he hangs, weightless, before the fall begins. There’s peace in the descent, in the whip of wind against his cheeks, the whistling in his ears too loud for any thoughts to penetrate.

For the first time in what feels like years, Shiro flies with his heart, sensing the right moment to pull up on the controls on instinct alone. Sand flies, scraping his exposed skin in a welcomed sting, and Shiro hurtles through the desert towards Black. Towards Keith.

Later, he won’t remember quite how he got the cockpit open. It must have been quite a struggle, from the caked blood under his nails, but he manages it somehow. What Shiro will remember is the shaft of light that filters past his body, landing on Keith. He doesn’t stir at the brightness, doesn’t stir at the first touch of Shiro’s hands, gentle and trembling, rolling him over and brushing his matted hair out of his face.

Shiro cradles Keith’s head, leaning close until he can feel the ghost of Keith’s breath over his cheek.

”Oh, my god,” Shiro sobs, “You’re alive.”

Relief crashes over Shiro like a tidal wave, knocking him back until he’s sitting, Keith cradled in his arms. He fumbles to press fingers to Keith’s throat, needing the steady thrum of his pulse to be sure that he hasn’t lost the most important person in his universe.

Shiro stays just like that, holding Keith tight to his chest, for minutes, or maybe hours; his world narrows to the weight of Keith in his lap, the coppery scent of Keith’s blood where it trickles down his cheek, the sound of his rasping breaths. When he finally stands, his legs wobble and threaten to fold under him again.

Each step carries them back into the real world, into Black’s frame, eerily quiet without the hum of quintessence she normally emanates. The next steps are into the sun-kissed desert—the warmth of the early evening rays don’t penetrate the cold that has settled over Shiro’s skin, they feel harsh in his sandpaper-rough eyes. When did he start crying?

Getting Keith onto the hoverbike is a careful procedure. Shiro settles him into his arms, laying Keith’s head against his shoulder as he reaches for the handles. It takes some adjusting; Shiro slings one of Keith’s thighs over his, wrapping his arms loosely around Shiro’s waist, and Keith whimpers at the movement.

“I know, baby, I’m sorry,” Shiro whispers, running gentle hands over Keith’s back. Keith doesn’t awaken any further, dead weight against his chest, and Shiro takes breath after shuddering breath. Their return to the Garrison is a longer journey; Shiro chooses winding paths with an abundance of caution now that he’s carrying such precious cargo.

Old man, Keith would call him, if he could see Shiro navigating corners too slowly for his speedometer to register. The thought works a choked laugh free from his throat, and Shiro presses his cheek to Keith’s hair. It’s so soft, Shiro thinks, as he breathes in Keith’s blood and sunlight scent.

Gates open silently at Shiro’s approach, though he sees mouths form hushed whispers as he flies through the Garrison complex. The wind around him snatches the words away before they can reach Shiro’s ears. He doesn’t want to hear them anyway.

There’s a small crowd gathered at the hospital entrance watching him approach. Their faces blend together, pinched mouths and wide eyes, but they part easily for Shiro still holding Keith close to himself. He curls his arms tighter around Keith’s surprisingly light frame, shielding him from the wondering looks.

One of them is speaking to him, but it filters through Shiro’s ears as garbled noises. When hands reach out towards him, towards Keith, Shiro snarls. The noise rips from his throat, loud and feral, and he twists away from the grasping fingers. A mindless need, a wild voice in his head whispering protectprotectprotect, fills Shiro up to his skin. It’s an instinct Shiro hasn’t allowed to come to the surface in so long; for a moment he’s not Shiro, he’s the Champion, sharp toothed and ruthless.

He’s not letting Keith out of his sight, or his arms, again—and he doesn’t care who he hurts to accomplish that.

A new face floats into Shiro’s vision, round, hazel eyes, a messy ponytail of auburn hair framing a face that’s speaking to him. There’s a scar there, Shiro realizes in a distant sort of way, a scar like Keith’s…

“-iro! Shiro!” Matt’s voice punctures the haze in Shiro’s mind, and every other sound floods in after it, like water through a broken dam. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

“Safe,” Shiro repeats, dazedly.

“Shiro, please,” Matt says, a note of begging in his voice, “You have to let the doctors look at Keith.”

Doctors. Doctors.

He looks past Matt and sees the stretcher, sees the white coats and scared, concerned faces. Keith is so still in his arms, save the steady rise and fall of his chest, and Shiro realizes he’s the one keeping Keith from what he needs now. He forces his muscles to unclench one by one, enough to let Keith slip from his grasp. He lays him down on the stretcher. It feels like a loss, Keith’s phantom weight in his arms is a gaping wound.

“Don’t let him die,” he says, helplessly. ”Please.”

Shiro remembers a therapist he’d seen once, when he was a different person, telling him about the Mammalian Diving Response.

“When we submerge our whole bodies, specifically our faces, in water,” she had said, “the nerves in our face send signals to our brain that slow the heart.” She’d recommended it for anxiety. He can’t remember if he’d ever actually tried it.

Now, he holds the cold water in his hands, pressing his face into it. Shiro doesn’t know, really, if it slows his pulse, or soothes the raw edges of his nerves, but something about the action does help. Maybe it’s the ache in his chest as he holds his breath, a gentle kind of pain that grounds him in his body. He lets the water spill through his fingers, listening to the steady drip drip drip against the metal basin of the sink.

Shiro wipes his face with a towel, and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The bags under his eyes are dark like bruises, set off by the pale strands of his eyelashes. He still hasn’t adjusted, not quite, to this new body. To the muscles he didn’t build through hard work and stubbornness, to the scars he didn’t earn. To the white hair, like glittering snow under a streetlamp, and bones that no longer ache with disease.

Nevertheless, when he tells it to move, his body listens, carrying Shiro down long hallways and to the hospital doors. It’s been one day since the paladins crashed, but it feels much longer. The hours stretch into days, weeks, and Shiro’s decades older.

Shiro has a strange relationship with hospitals. They were his second home as a child, he spent as much time there as he did in his own bedroom. He got to know the local ones well, he knew which nurses would bend the rules a little, knew the best items on the cafeteria menus, knew which rooms were the easiest to sneak out of.

They never felt like home, not comforting but oh so familiar. They’re soothing voices, and pink scrubs, and lime jello. But they’re also the pinched expressions of his parents, the sharp prick of needles, the insistent beeping of machines. Nostalgia tastes sweet to some, but for Shiro it’s always been tinged with bitterness.

His shoes click against the tile floors of the Garrison hospital, echoing hollowly in the quiet. The lower floors are bustling, but not this one. This floor is just for the paladins.

Shiro’s grateful for it, grateful that he doesn’t have to plaster his Captain’s smile across his face, make small talk with people who know his name and little else. He’s worn thin down to fraying threads, and each step feels heavy, like he’s walking through mud. The awareness that Keith, that all of the Paladins are there, alive and recovering, only buoys him so much.

His tablet had been pinging all night, with updates from each of their doctors. When Shiro had demanded to be kept apprised of the paladins’ conditions, nobody had questioned it. So he knows, luckily, that Keith had made it through his surgery and was stable. He knows that Pidge had four broken bones that were all set successfully, though one may always ache. He knows of Allura’s Altean body’s resilience, that she was the first to wake. They’re okay, he repeats to himself as he walks. They’re all okay.

The door to Keith’s room is ajar, and it’s quiet, save for the steady chime of the monitors connected to his body. Shiro pushes the door open wider, stepping inside. The window is open, sunlight filters in and catches on the specks of dust floating in the air, and on the glinting metal arms of the plastic chairs beside the bed. The air in the room is stale, it smells like antiseptic and the dying flowers that cling to the edges of the room, gifts from people who don’t even know Keith.

Why didn’t he bring flowers? Where would they even fit in this tiny room? Suddenly Shiro is hyper aware of his empty hands, bringing nothing to Keith’s bedside but whatever confusing affection he can offer.

Shiro’s eyes find Keith, asleep and impossibly small under the crumpled hospital blankets. Kosmo is curled up on the floor beside the bed; she’s simply too large to share the bed itself with Keith. She looks up at Shiro when he enters, boofing quietly in greeting.

“Hey Kos,” Shiro greets her. He’s so busy looking at Keith, that he doesn’t notice the room’s other occupant.

“Shiro?” Krolia’s voice is quiet, rough, like she hasn’t used it in several hours. It startles Shiro, his head whipping towards the corner where she sits, feet stumbling in surprise. He steps back, knocking into a bedside table, and the vase of flowers that were resting precariously near the edge of it.

The entire vase falls, suspended for a moment before gravity takes hold, blooms and water spilling from the glass as they crash to the ground. Shiro feels helpless, watching disaster strike and doing nothing. Again.

A streak of purple light, crashing to the earth.

Shiro freezes, transported back to the paralyzing dread of watching Keith fall .
Then the glass shatters against the tiles, so loud in the quiet hospital room, water spilling in a quickly spreading pool. The flowers are bent and broken, sliced into pieces by the glass, and Shiro is startled out of his stupor.

“Shit, I’m-I’m sorry-” He stoops to clean up the mess, gathering larger pieces of glass in his Altean hand and flowers with the other, and carefully tossing them into the trash. Soon lilac hands join his own and Krolia is there, kneeling, smiling small and gentle in Shiro’s direction.

“There were too many of these sickly things in here anyway,” she jokes weakly.

Shiro stands, straightening, and looks around the room. He laughs, but there’s no real humor in it. “I suppose that’s true.”

Krolia studies him with her keen eyes, so like Keith’s, and she must see something she can understand, because she nods. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Of course, how is he?” Shiro pulls up a seat, sitting close to Keith’s bedside. Bruises speckle the back of Keith’s hand, stark where it rests against the white blanket.. His own hand dwarfs Keith’s, and it would be so easy to shift closer, fold those slender fingers into his palm. Shiro looks away.

Keith breathes steadily, the whoosh of his lungs soft and grounding, one of the loveliest sounds he’s ever heard. It’s interrupted by the harsh sound of Krolia’s chair dragging closer, sitting opposite Shiro on Keith’s other side. She has no qualms about holding her son’s hand, cradling it in her long fingers, studying the veins and bones under his skin. Shiro’s fingers tingle with the urge to mirror her movements; he can feel the heat of Keith’s skin, always so warm, fill the air between their hands, brushing against Shiro like a soft caress.

“Your Terran doctors weren’t sure what to do, so they called the Blades,” Krolia tells him. “His head was injured, and his ankle is broken.”

“His head?”

“An intracranial hemorrhage, your doctor called it. Galra have another word for that, for bleeding in the brain, but I’m not sure you could pronounce it.”

“Did they-” Shiro swallows, choked by words bleeding in the brain, “did they say when he would wake up?”

“No.”

“But he will...wake up?” It hurts to even ask the question.

“Yes.” Krolia’s blunt way of speaking is comforting, free of the flowery language others may try to dress difficult things in. “They agreed that the bleed was small, and it will resolve on its own. He may sleep for a while longer though. Galra call this cruk’val, or warrior’s rest.”

“Oh.” Relief shudders through Shiro, draining the tension from his muscles and taking his strength along with it. He leans harder against the bed, startling when Krolia wraps a hand around his, squeezing gently.

“Keith is a fighter,” she tells him, voice and eyes steady. Shiro breathes out a soft laugh.

“He really is.”

Krolia pulls her hand back, but she doesn’t stop looking at Shiro. He feels a little too visible, under that sharp stare. Krolia is still somewhat of a mystery to Shiro, all he knows are the similarities he sees to Keith: those violet eyes, the sharp angles of their faces, a ferocity unmatched by most.

“Keith told me many stories about you, during our time together in the abyss,” Krolia says. “I think maybe he learned some of that fighting spirit from you, Shiro.”

Shiro blinks, surprised. From him? Shiro pictures Keith as a cadet, bristling and fierce, and shakes his head.

“No, that’s all him, really,” Shiro says. “Did he tell you about the day we met?”

“I believe so. He told me you came to his school, recruited him?”

“That’s true. He was a natural, from the moment he put his hands on the controls. Best sim scores I’ve ever seen from someone that young. Better than mine, definitely. But did he tell you about what happened… after?” Shiro doesn’t bother to fight the shadow of a smile that tugs on his lips at the memory.

Krolia shakes her head, leaning forward to listen.

So Shiro tells her about the way Keith fled from the taunting voice of a bully, stealing Shiro’s car and taking off into the desert, leaving nothing behind him but dust and dropped jaws. He laughs at the way the adults at the school had sputtered, how ridiculous they’d looked, and Krolia laughs with him. Shiro’s not sure he’s ever heard her laugh before; it’s musical and deep, her whole face softened by the mirth.

Telling the story conjures the memories, Keith’s hunched shoulders and guarded face as he’d walked out of juvenile detention and found Shiro standing there. He’d reminded Shiro of a wounded animal, scared and in pain, lashing out at anyone who dared get too close, or assumed he wasn’t dangerous. The genuine surprise in Keith’s eyes when Shiro spoke kindly had cracked his heart a little, and Keith had slid so easily into that space, making room for himself there before Shiro even realized what was happening.

How long have I loved him, in some way or another? It is love, Shiro realizes, thinking about the way he’d felt on Keith’s first day at the Garrison, the swell of pride in Shiro’s chest seeing Keith’s hopeful smile, the excitement dancing in his eyes. He thinks then of the first day he’d left for Kerberos, the way Keith held back his tears to leave room for only excitement and pride as he’d hugged Shiro goodbye. The first morning Shiro woke back up on Earth, confused and terrified until he’d seen Keith’s red leather jacket, tossed haphazardly over the back of a rickety chair. Those moments all felt different, and yet, the same undercurrent remained, constant, unquestioned.

Love.

“I don’t understand,” Krolia says, frowning. “He stole your vehicle, and you… broke him out of jail?”

“No,” Shiro laughs, “On Earth when you go to jail, you can sometimes pay to get out. I paid for him to get out and go home.”

“Why?”

Shiro opens his mouth, closes it. Why? Keith had asked him the same thing, so had plenty of others. Who bails out the punk kid who stole their car, hours after meeting them?

“Honestly? I think I saw something of myself in Keith. Talented, underestimated, alone… I was that kid, too. If I had lost my parents the way he did, if I was alone in the world when things were the most difficult, who knows where I’d be now,” Shiro swallows. He did lose his parents, one after the other, a few years after he and Keith met, but he knows it’s not the same. That grief still aches like a bad knee that throbs before a storm, tempered only by the joy and love in those years Shiro did have with them.

“Keith was lucky to have you,” Krolia says, with such compassion, it makes shame flare hot in Shiro’s cheeks.

Lucky. Maybe back then, but now? Was Keith truly lucky, that the first person to show him the kindness he deserved was too afraid to accept his devotion?

Krolia must see the guilt on Shiro’s face, she reaches across Keith’s body to take his hand again, where it’s pressed close to the lump of Keith’s thigh under the blankets. He’s not sure when he’d moved closer, his thumb brushing absently against Keith’s leg through layers of fabric.

“I’m the lucky one,” Shiro whispers, fingers limp in Krolia’s hold. “Keith, he…”

“You are both lucky,” Krolia tells him firmly.

She looks at Keith’s face, eyes roving fondly over his sleep-soft features. He rarely looks so unguarded; it makes him look younger, more like the young man he truly is, instead of a war-hardened hero.

“I was not there when Keith needed me, and I have always regretted that,” she says, the grief evident in her voice. Shiro swallows around the lump in his throat. “I’m lucky too, that I got a second chance to connect with him. Those two years in the quantum abyss… I am not sure if I deserved it, that uninterrupted time with my son, but I think I got to know him well.”

She looks at Shiro now, holding his gaze.

“I learned about Keith’s life through his own words, Shiro. And throughout everything, since the day you two met, you were in every story. Every time he struggled, it was your voice that he heard telling him to keep going, telling him… oh, what was that phrase he always used. Patience-”

“-yields focus,” Shiro finishes for her, breathless.

“Yes.” Krolia squeezes Shiro’s hand tighter, her gaze imploring. “Find a way to let go of your guilt. Its weight will only drag you down.”

Keith’s hair has fallen into his face, covering one of his eyes, and Shiro brushes it away with a gentle touch. He wants to let his hand linger, to trace the features of Keith’s face and memorize them with his fingertips the way he has in his mind’s eye. But he feels the weight of Krolia’s eyes on him, tracking him.

Shiro’s chest is tight, squeezed to the point of discomfort. The sun-warmed hospital room feels like the vacuum of space, devoid of oxygen, of life. He pulls his hand out of Krolia’s grasp, attempting a smile and knowing he doesn’t succeed.

“I’m going to get some air,” he gasps, as he slips out of the room—as he runs away. Stumbling gives way to long strides; Shiro runs, runs until he finds a door that seems to lead outside, bursting through it and out onto the small balcony. His hands dig into the cold metal railing, he fights for air.

Is it the weight of Keith’s love, ever present and terrifying, that’s sitting on his chest? Or the guilt of pushing it away all this time?

Shiro hasn’t felt deserving of Keith’s dedication for a long time. It’s true that he’d once reached out a hand and turned the trajectory of Keith’s life so sharply, towards the stars and towards so much suffering. He wonders, what would Keith’s life have been like if not for that day? He was clearly destined for greatness long before Shiro came around, but would he have found it? Would he be safer, his body smooth and unscarred, mind free from nightmares about his best friend’s glowing eyes, if Shiro hadn’t stepped forward and laid claim to him that summer afternoon?

The balcony doors open behind him. Shiro doesn’t move. He hears footsteps, a slightly limping gait he knows well. Matt approaches, slapping a hand to Shiro’s back before standing next to him. He doesn’t speak, just settles his elbows on the railing beside Shiro. How many times has Matt found him doing the same, running from the stress of classes, or the pressure of the Garrison’s expectations, by escaping to open sky and the promise of freedom? It’s a comfortable routine despite their years apart.

Matt’s changed too, Shiro thinks, eyeing his oldest friend through his eyelashes. He’s taller, sure, and he finally put on some muscle after two decades of complaining about being a beanpole, but there’s more to it. There’s a surety he didn’t have before, a quiet confidence in the way he carries himself. He doesn’t chatter to fill the silence anymore, he just stands, admires the desert sky, and waits.

“How’s Pidge?” Shiro finally manages.

“She’s good,” Matt says, “or really, she’s awake. So, as good as she can be, considering, you know.” He gestures vaguely at the spread of land and water before them. Shiro nods.
“I’m glad.”

“She’s taking a nap, but I’m sure she’d love to see you when she’s up, Shiro.”

At that thought, Shiro can’t help the small smile that creeps into the corner of his mouth. He’d grown up an only child, and his parents had doted on him, but he had always craved a younger sibling. He’d wanted someone he could look out for, someone who didn’t have to take care of him for once.

That relationship he’d craved clicked into place with Pidge. She was so similar to Matt and yet entirely herself, curious and clever, and funny in a way that always managed to catch Shiro off guard and make his ribs ache with laughter. She was strong too, her small stature deceptive.

“How’s Keith?” Matt asks, casually, peering out at the grounds sprawled around them, but it’s a practiced ease, an act he’s putting on for Shiro’s benefit.

“Still asleep.”

“Like ‘he’s tired from saving the universe so he decided to take a multi-day nap’ asleep? Or?” Matt trails off, and Shiro rolls his eyes. This at least hadn’t changed, Matt’s unique way of handling hard conversations.

“He was bleeding, um, in his brain, but the doctors say he’s okay and he’ll wake up soon, whatever that means,” Shiro says, hearing the words from a distance, as if someone else is saying them in the next room.

“And how are you, Shiro?”

Shiro’s fingers tighten on the metal railing. “I’m scared, Matt,” he whispers.

“Your friends almost died, of course you are,” Matt tries to soothe him.

Shiro just hums. It’s more complicated than that, he knows, but that’s all he knows. He’s still so confused, his own feelings are a mystery, roiling like thunderclouds through his head and threatening to burst, to flood, until Shiro’s drowning in the downpour. Would he understand them then, as he’s choking on them?

“Is this my fault?” Shiro asks in a small, pained voice.

“Is it your fault that Keith turned out to be an incredible pilot and leader, who just saved the entire planet? Kind of, yeah,” Matt says dryly.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Shiro says.

“I do. You’re asking me if it’s your fault that Keith is laying in a hospital bed, hurt and unconscious,” Matt says, with an exasperated sigh. “Honestly, Shiro, you’re one of the most brilliant people I know, and I come from a family of geniuses. But sometimes you are so fucking stupid.”

Shiro blinks at Matt, and grits out, “Explain it to me then, genius.”

Matt studies the horizon again, jaw working like he’s chewing on his thoughts. “You seriously think you’re somehow to blame for an alien invasion, or a mysterious self-destructing ship that nobody saw coming? For a war that’s been going on for ten thousand years, in galaxies you’d never even heard of before last year? Come on, man.”

Matt laughs, sharp in the quiet aftermath of war. “When are you gonna stop feeling guilty about not being perfect, and give yourself credit for all the good you do? Voltron saved us, Shiro, but they couldn’t have done it without you. Keith wouldn’t be who he is without you.”

“He has always been a natural at flying, you know that. He was the most talented pilot I’d ever seen,” Shiro insists. Matt, unlike the other paladins, had been there in the earlier days, when the universe had still been so small. He’d seen Keith’s raw talent before it had been refined, same as Shiro.

“You’re right, he’s talented. But quick reflexes and guts don’t make someone a paladin, or a leader. It takes more than that: control, patience, the ability to relate to others. Without you, Keith had none of those,” Matt tells him. “He walked into the Garrison with nothing but a duffel bag and a fight to pick with the world. He wouldn’t have lasted a month without you there looking out for him.”

Keith really had been so angry, but it was never that simple. He was scared, and alone, and grieving. He had nobody who truly saw him. Nobody who saw past the anger and snarling to the talented, brilliant boy underneath, who had lost so much and hadn’t felt safe in years.

Shiro saw him.

“He had been through so much,” Shiro whispers. “He’s been through even more now.”

“We all have,” Matt says. Blunt as ever. “I think you’re asking the wrong question, though.”

“So you don’t think it’s my fault?” Shiro asks.

Matt shrugs. “It’s not as simple as that,” he says thoughtfully. “You can’t just pick out all the bad things that have happened to Keith and blame yourself for them, because Keith is more than that. Good and bad, you’ve been a huge influence on Keith and his life. I don’t think he would change any of it, not for the world. But do you really regret your part in all of it?”

Shiro thinks of Keith’s face, scarred and pale under the hospital lights. He thinks about his wild panic as he thrashed below Kuron’s weight, his slitted pupils and sharp snarl.

He thinks of Keith’s smile. He thinks of the way he’d laughed, breathless and alight with joy after his first hoverbike jump, his cheeks pink and chapped from the desert winds. The way he’d looked at Shiro with stars in his eyes.

Shiro remembers the way Keith had fought during his trials, fierce and relentless. He remembers Keith’s fear afterwards, and his guilt. The way Keith took his new knowledge of his heritage and folded it into himself without gentleness, carrying the weight of Shiro’s suffering.

He remembers cradling Keith gently in the aftermath, and the way it ached, watching Keith blame himself for Shiro's losses, as if his existence had set them into motion. He remembers thinking, It isn’t fair for him to blame himself. Not for this.

Is it fair for Shiro to blame himself now, for the pain that Keith has endured? Perhaps not, but Shiro feels the weight of it all on his shoulders anyway. Guilt has no regard for fairness. That weight threatens to bury him, and at times he wonders if he might finally find peace below the rubble.

Maybe he didn’t do the right thing when he bailed Keith out of jail, and set him on this path. Maybe it was wrong, the way Shiro let Keith get so attached to him, when he was all alone in the world. Maybe it was wrong to leave Keith here on Earth, to chase his dreams among the stars when he was all Keith had.

“I don’t know,” Shiro says.

Does he regret becoming so entangled in Keith’s life, after everything they’ve been through? Was there ever any other outcome for him? For Keith? It’s not just hard for Shiro to imagine a life without Keith’s stubborn loyalty, or his relentless presence—it’s impossible.

No, he doesn’t regret it. He can’t regret it.

But that doesn’t mean he deserves it.

Matt grips his shoulder, squeezing it. His smile is reassuring when he says, “You’ll figure it out, Shiro. You always do.”

With that, he leaves Shiro alone in the open air.

He finds Pidge first. Her room is just a hallway away from Keith’s. Before he reaches the room Shiro can hear the soft murmur of conversation, multiple voices talking over each other. That’s the Holts, he thinks with a smile, chatty and chaotic. Shiro hovers at the door for a while, watching them, arranged around Pidge’s bed in a tight loop. Her face and arms are mottled with bruises and crisscrossed with white bandages, but her smile is bright as ever.

It’s Colleen who sees him first, her hazel eyes landing on Shiro with warmth that he didn’t realize he’d been needing. She pulls him into the room with a surprisingly strong grip, making space for Shiro next to Pidge.

She’s so tiny in his arms when he stoops down, holding her in a gentle embrace. Pidge grips him back with one arm, the other one held between their bodies in a hard cast. Pidge is shaking, or maybe that’s Shiro, and for long moments they don’t speak at all. Her glasses dig into his skin, sharp and stinging against his throat, but Shiro doesn’t mind. He presses a kiss to Pidge’s forehead before he pulls back.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Shiro breathes, all in a whoosh. The strength of his relief knocks him back, now that he can see for himself that she’s awake and just as fierce as ever.

“You should see the other guys,” Pidge jokes, but it falls flat. Shiro’s mouth twists; he has seen the other guys, he thinks, the weight of Keith’s unconscious form still lingering in his arms. Pidge doesn’t miss the way Shiro cringes away from the words, her shrewd eyes catching every flinch.

“How is he?” she whispers. She doesn’t need to specify.

Shiro exhales shakily. “He’s… okay. Doctor said he won’t wake up until tomorrow.”

“Is he… alone?” Pidge’s fingers twist in her blanket, white knuckled under the fading bruises.

“No, Krolia is there,” Shiro tells her. “And I’m going back, I just wanted to check on the rest of you, first.”

“You know you’re not our leader anymore, Shiro,” Pidge teases, fixing him with a look, “You don’t have to take care of everybody all the time.”

“That may be true,” Shiro ruffles her hair. “But I still care about all of you. You’re my friends.”

“I’m surprised you’re here and not with Keith,” Pidge laughs, with only a little true humor. “If things were reversed, he’d be annoying the doctors until they threatened to kick him out.”

“Maybe that would be better.” The words spill messy from Shiro’s lips; he presses them closed, until his teeth dig into the tender flesh and he’s sure nothing else will escape. Pidge’s eyes are soft when she looks at him, not pitying but close enough that Shiro fights the urge to make his excuses and flee. She looks at Shiro, really looks, and he’s afraid Pidge sees it all. Her vision has always been a little too keen.

“Did I ever tell you about the night you crashed to Earth?” she asks, startling him.

“No,” Shiro answers. His memories about his escape from the Galra prison, his journey back to Earth, are still fuzzy. The first clarity he found was in Keith’s eyes, violet nebulas above him like the expanse of space, the rasp of his voice, the tight clutch of his arms as he held Shiro silently. They sat like that for minutes, or hours, not speaking, just breathing raggedly, clutching each other with clinging arms and their fingers fisted in cotton. That’s when Shiro knew, truly knew that he was safe.

“You should have seen him. Hunk and Lance and I,we saw your ship crash when we snuck out, but we didn’t do anything. It was all Keith.” She smiles crookedly as the memories resurface. “We just stood there, like idiots, as he took down every Garrison guard in his way, until he got to you. Then he flew us off a goddamn cliff just to outrun them.”

Shiro can’t help himself; he laughs, a short, surprised bark.

“Guess who taught him that,” Matt mutters under his breath. Pidge looks between them, surprised for a moment, then she shrugs.

“My point is,” Pidge continues, “that Keith will always fight to get back to you. Even from death’s door. He would never give up on you, Shiro.”

Shiro knows the truth of her words; sometimes he wishes he didn’t.

He closes his eyes, as the image of Keith’s shack in the desert rises to the front of his mind. The sprawl of maps pinned on the wall, the scratchy flannel blanket he’d draped over Shiro that smelled like desert sunshine and woodsmoke, the sticky note with Keith’s messy scrawl: It’s killing me when you’re away.

Shiro had been so tired then, his strength and energy and his goddamn arm stolen by the Galra, though he always tried to hide it from the paladins. It was the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that never really fades, no matter how much sleep you get, not that Shiro got much of that either. He’s tired still, but the urge to simply close his eyes and drift off into eternity isn’t there anymore. Somewhere between his actual death and his new body, his new chance at life, the weariness faded.

They’d been stranded once, he and Keith, sitting shoulder to shoulder while Shiro bled into his flight suit, unsure if rescue would ever come. His mind had been fuzzy then, blurred by pain and blood loss, but he knows there had been… relief. Relief at the thought that maybe he was done fighting, because the fight was all Shiro had ever known. He fought his body, the expectations of adults around him, then he was kidnapped and tortured, and still he fought. It seemed right, somehow, that he should die fighting, with the warm presence of his best friend at his side. He was so tired he hadn’t even considered what it would feel like to be left behind.

Keith was no stranger to being left behind; it was all he’d ever known.He was so stubborn in his refusal to let Shiro go once he found him again. Keith fought tooth and nail to save him, even when hope seemed lost. He was angry at Shiro too, he remembers, yelling at him once they were back on the castle ship and alone.

”What the hell, Shiro? What was with all that talk about me taking over for you, and flying the Black lion? Why do you keep trying to give up?!” Keith had shouted, voice cracking. Guilt had weighed heavily then, pressing down on Shiro as he pulled Keith into a tight hug.

”I’m sorry, Keith. I wasn’t trying to give up, or leave you behind. I never - never meant to leave you,” he’d whispered into Keith’s hair. It was the best apology Shiro could muster, not just for the way he’d almost given in that day. For leaving Keith on Earth in the first place, alone and unmoored.

Shiro can’t imagine how that must have felt for Keith, being abandoned by the only person he had. Again. He can’t imagine the pain of finding Shiro, saving him, just to watch him try to leave him alone again, to give in to his injuries without a fight. Shiro didn’t fight for life; he didn’t fight to stay by Keith’s side. No wonder Keith was angry.

Keith is a fighter, and he kept Shiro fighting even when he’d wanted to stop. Even in death, it was Keith who pulled Shiro’s consciousness forward, kept him tethered to life, kept him whole when the urge to dissolve into the astral plane was so strong. Shiro’s lost count of how many times Keith has saved him.

Shiro laughs wetly, surprising Pidge.

“What’s so funny?” she asks, smiling cautiously.

“Keith,” Shiro shakes his head. “He’s just so… stubborn.”

“Shiro, please don’t tell me you’re just now realizing this.” She looks exasperated, eyes wide.

“God, no, I just…” Shiro smiles, the first time in days, and the muscles in his face creak with the stretch of it. “I’m just thinking about it, I guess.”

“He is stubborn,” Pidge agrees. “But the way he fights for you… you know there’s more to that, don’t you?”

Does he? It was easy to brush aside the way Keith fought for him as a personality trait, something inherent that didn’t need to be examined very closely. Perhaps, at some point Keith’s stubbornness, if it could even truly be called that when it came to Shiro, had crossed the line into something else. Into… devotion. Shiro had seen glimmers of it before he left for Kerberos, but it was easier to dismiss then. It was easier to call it admiration, or even hero worship.

He can picture Keith, breaking into that Garrison containment site in the dead of night, just to save Shiro. He must have been quite a sight that night in his leather jacket, small and fierce and devoted. So ready to risk his life for Shiro’s. It was that act of reckless loyalty that put Keith back on his path towards the stars. Towards the hospital bed where he currently sleeps, injured but alive.

Shiro smiles at Pidge, kissing her forehead before he stands up. “Get some rest, Paladin,” he tells her.

“You got it, Captain,” Pidge drawls, offering him a lazy salute. It makes Shiro laugh, and for the first time in a long time, it doesn’t taste bitter.

Shiro follows the sound of conversation and laughter to another occupied room, finding the door wide open. Hunk is sitting up in his hospital bed, piled high with colorful, likely handmade blankets, and smiling wide at Lance who is sitting by his feet. Shiro takes advantage of the chaos of the moment to simply watch and listen for once. They look like they might be normal teenagers, if not for the bruises and scabs smattering their skin, or the bandage wrapped tightly around Hunk’s shoulder.

Hunk notices Shiro’s quiet presence in the doorway, his warm brown eyes brighten, though Shiro can’t imagine he looks anything but dreary. Hunk slaps Lance’s thigh lightly to make him stop talking. “Shiro!”

“Hello,” Shiro greets them, feeling oddly formal. Maybe the space he put between him and Keith hadn’t been so well contained; he feels it now, in the few yards between him and the bed.

“Get in here!” Lance has no time for Shiro’s newfound stiffness. He gestures Shiro closer, and his enthusiasm has always been difficult to resist. He squeezes Lance’s shoulder before Hunk pulls him in for a tight, brief hug. They’re both moving at half speed, nursing new wounds and old aches.

“Hey, killer,” Lance smirks knowingly, once Shiro’s settled into another uncomfortable plastic chair, “Shouldn’t you be with Keith right now, fighting his doctors for trying to take his temperature?”

“Ah.” Shiro scratches the back of his neck, ducking his head to hide the way his cheeks flare pink. “That, um-”

Hunk looks between them, eager to be let in on the joke.

Lance leans in, whispers conspiratorially, “The Captain here went a little feral after he found Keith. I heard he actually growled at the doctors who tried to touch him.”

“I did not growl!”

Hunk laughs with startled amusement. “I wish I could have seen that.”

“Anyway,” Shiro mutters, “how are you both feeling?” It’s a weak attempt at distraction, but it doesn’t matter—Lance and Hunk ignore him anyway.

“Are we really surprised? You remember what Keith was like when Shiro went missing,” Lance says with a shrug.

“When I died,” Shiro corrects quietly, without thinking about it. A hush falls over the three of them, smothering the playful energy that had been dancing through the air. Sometimes it’s surreal how alone he feels in that knowledge. For everyone else, Shiro had been kidnapped, and he returned, ragged and changed, but alive. They’d learned the truth eventually, about Shiro’s death, and Haggar’s nefarious plots, but it must be a hard truth to reconcile with their own senses. He can’t imagine it feels real to them.

It’s Hunk who breaks the silence, voice kind as ever.

“I guess you wouldn’t remember, Shiro,” he says, “the way Keith was then.”

Shiro shakes his head. “I have… some memories, fuzzy ones, from the clone. But Kuron, he… I mean, he was me, right? So he wasn’t there to see it either.”

“Keith never told you?” Lance asks.

Had they ever talked about it? He pictures Keith, eighteen years old, lost in more ways than one, taking on a mantle he never wanted, sitting in Shiro’s seat while he mourned his life. Even in Shiro’s mind’s eye he seems so small, adrift in his grief and fear.

Once again, he’d lost Shiro to the stars. Once again, he’d been left behind by someone he loved.

They should have talked about it.

“He was angry all the time,” explains Lance. “He yelled at us every time we brought up searching for a new paladin, or re-forming Voltron.”

“He was grieving,” Hunk says, with that same painful gentleness. “He didn’t believe you were dead, even after all of us… Well, we lost hope. But we didn’t mean to give up on you, Shiro.” He sounds so apologetic, it hurts.

Shiro reaches out, gripping Hunk’s hand tightly. “Hunk, you have nothing to apologize for. I was dead. You didn’t give up on me, you kept living.”

“Keith never gave up though,” Hunk insists. “He never believed you were gone, not really.”

“If it’d been you in Black this time, Keith would’ve done more than scare those doctors,” Lance tries to joke, to lighten the mood.

Shiro flashes the best smile he can muster in thanks, to both of them. For Lance’s humor and Hunk’s empathy. He had never even asked Keith about that time, but when would he have had the opportunity? Shiro was dead, floating in the ether of Black’s consciousness for so long he wasn’t sure if he, or anything else, was real. And then he returned, only to be shoved into a body that carried memories and feelings that weren’t quite his, that he could barely cope with.

Memories of Keith’s cries of pain, and his own murderous reflection in Keith’s wide eyes, the stark glow of magenta in the darkness.

Kuron hadn’t asked either. Keith hadn’t known that it wasn’t really Shiro, not until it was almost too late. How much had it hurt, for Shiro to finally return, without any acknowledgment of the grief Keith had endured? The way Shiro felt about Keith was something he’d kept so tightly guarded, even from himself, apparently, that Haggar hadn’t understood it when she made the clones. What had tipped her off? The hurt in Keith’s eyes when Kuron’s had slid over him as if he were the same as the rest of the paladins? The way Keith always said his name, like it was a promise of something more?

“It feels like there’s a lot we haven’t talked about,” Shiro admits.

“Well, we were all a little busy saving the universe.” Hunk’s smile is a soothing balm when Shiro looks up and meets his gaze. He’s right. When had they had time to talk about anything that mattered? Or even to take a fucking breath, or a night off? Every waking moment had been important, crucial even, to the next mission, the next attempt to save planets they couldn’t even pronounce.

“Maybe we should take some time. We have plenty, don’t we, now that the war is over?” Lance asks, a little dreamily. Shiro takes a moment to study Lance, the sharp features of his face that have just started to take their true shape, shedding the softness of youth. He’s so young, they all are. How unfair it’s been, to be carrying the weight of the universe on their shoulders, instead of focusing on the things teenagers should.

But no. Lance didn’t get to moan about his crush to his college roommate. He fell in love somewhere between one nebula and the next. Hunk found his bravery in the stars, not in public speaking before a small, uninterested crowd, like he might have on Earth. Pidge’s lessons in biology came from creating living weapons, not high school dissections.

And Keith? He didn’t find adventure the way a normal young person might, by buying a motorcycle, or taking a poorly planned backpacking trip across Europe. He chased his mentor and best friend across the universe, just to keep closing his hands around nothing but empty space.

“We should,” Shiro agrees. The paladins had sacrificed so much for the greater good, and they’d learned how to do that from Shiro. Shiro, who never took a break, who never let weakness creep in, lest it take from him the things he’d fought so hard to keep. He tried, he really did, to be the leader that they needed, a source of strength and stability in the chaos of war.

What kind of example had he really set?

“You guys deserve a vacation, that’s for sure,” he tells Hunk and Lance.

“We sure as hell do!” Lance agrees wholeheartedly. His smile is wide, childlike. “Like five or ten years, maybe. A trip to the beach with Allura, sipping drinks out of coconuts. Yeah, that would realllly hit the spot.”

Shiro laughs, sharp and surprised. “That sounds perfect, Lance. What do you think?” He looks at Hunk, studying Shiro quietly with a thoughtful look on his face.

“Shiro, you said we deserve a vacation,” Hunk says slowly. “Don’t you think you deserve one too?”

“I…” Shiro hesitates. Does he? He needs a break, that’s for sure, but he can’t remember when that’s ever been an option. What would it even feel like, to not be needed for even a day? A week? Shiro’s not sure he’d know what to do with himself on a vacation; something about the lack of purpose is terrifying.

“Of course he does,” Lance answers easily. “Shiro’s been fighting the Galra since before we even knew they existed.”

Shiro isn’t expecting the sudden ache in his throat, or the prickling threat of tears at the corners of his eyes. These two young men—and they truly are men now, not the boys they were when Shiro met them—are his family now, too. Maybe he’s accumulated more ridiculous little siblings than he realized.

Shiro manages to escape Hunk’s room when Lance’s family comes looking for him an hour later. Lance had used Shiro as a human shield to slip out undetected, avoiding the shrieking toddlers that came barreling into the room. ”I’m the one in the hospital, and those little monsters still want piggy back rides!” he’d hissed at Shiro as they hid in a closet across the hall. “Twenty was my limit, dammit!”

When he gets back to Keith’s room, eerily quiet compared to the bright laughter in Hunk’s, Krolia is bent over in her chair with her head resting on Keith’s bed, snoring gently. Shiro rouses her with a careful touch to her shoulder, smiling at the creases in her skin left behind by the blanket. She blinks sleepily at him.

“Go get some rest, Krolia,” he tells her. He squares his shoulders to face the argument he can see on her face; she’s stubborn like Keith is, for the people she loves. But the resistance never comes, derailed by Kolivan’s sharp rap on the doorframe, and his broad arms leading her out of the room.

“We’ll be back in a few hours,” Kolivan calls out over his shoulder. Shiro nods, waving. The too-small plastic chair digs into his thighs when he sits again beside Keith, but Shiro barely notices. With nobody there to see, he finally does take one of Keith’s hands in his. It’s easier without an audience, to close the distance between them, to take a tentative step towards the person Keith has been asking him to be. The person Keith deserves at his side.

Shiro strokes his thumb over Keith’s knuckles, jutting sharply under his skin. Keith has always run warm, a quirk that Shiro now realizes might be related to his Galra heritage, but his fingertips are cool now. Shiro curls his hand around them, rubbing gently to bring back some warmth. His palm dwarfs Keith’s, oddly naked without his black gloves. His pale skin is littered with tiny scars, the pads of his fingers calloused from the luxite blade that fits neatly in his grip. Keith’s hands are graceful, strong; capable of beauty and violence in equal measure.

It’s been so long since he’s seen Keith so still, and Shiro takes advantage of the opportunity to study him unobserved. When was the last time he saw these hands without a blade in them, or wrapped around the controls of a ship? When did he last see Keith’s face, lax and smooth in sleep, his eyelashes fanning darkly against his cheeks? Far too long ago. As a cadet Keith had been Shiro’s shadow, constantly and quietly underfoot. Shiro lost count of how many times Keith had drifted off to sleep on his couch; Shiro kept a blanket folded neatly on the back of it specifically for Keith, though he’d never call attention to it.

These days, Keith is always in motion. He came back from the quantum abyss taller, and broader, and older and it struck Shiro like a slap to the face, how beautiful he is. He’s always known that Keith is beautiful, in the way he knows sunsets or ocean waves are beautiful, an immutable fact that Shiro stopped thinking about years ago. Then the baby softness of Keith’s face gave way to bold cheekbones and a sharp smile; he wasn’t a wide-eyed teenager anymore, but a powerful young man.

Blood and bruises should mar Keith’s beauty somehow, but it never does. The purpling of his skin is too much like his eyes, and the dark crimson of his blood adds ferocity to his elegant features. The first time Shiro had almost kissed Keith, he was exhausted and blood-smeared.

”I’m part Galra. One of those-” he’d stammered, voice rough, ”Shiro, they hurt you, and I’m-I’m-”

Keith’s cheeks were tear-stained, and the way he’d looked at Shiro was heartbreaking. As if he’d been the one to slice off Shiro’s arm himself; as if Keith was somehow responsible for his own DNA. Shiro had gripped Keith’s arms firmly, looked him directly in the eyes and reminded him that he was still Keith, no matter what.

“You’re still the same brave, passionate person you’ve always been,” Shiro spoke slowly, letting each word sink in. Keith absorbed them all, like a desert plant soaking up water in a rare storm, blinking slowly at Shiro. ”Nothing could change who you are, Keith, or how I see you. Not even this.”

He was so breathtaking, Shiro almost leaned forward and pressed his lips to Keith’s; but Keith had been so vulnerable then. It didn’t feel right. He’d needed comfort, needed to know that he wasn’t irrevocably changed by the knowledge he’d gained that night. Shiro could give him that.

He wonders though, what might have happened if he had given in to that urge. If he’d slotted his mouth over Keith’s and kissed him sweetly, would Keith have let him, or pushed him away? Would he have kissed Shiro back, let Shiro lay him down in his quarters and worship him with tenderness?

Of course he would have.

Instead, Shiro had bundled Keith in his arms, holding him until the trembling receded from his muscles. The most he’d dared was a kiss pressed to Keith’s hair, before pulling away and instructing Keith to rest. He’d returned to his own room with the scent of Keith’s shampoo haunting his nose.

Shiro feels a bit bolder in the darkening room. He leans forward to kiss Keith’s hair again now, achingly gentle. It’s not the same. The smell of blood and antiseptic are overpowering, searing Shiro’s nose and the back of his throat, but he lingers anyway. He pulls away but doesn’t go far, pressing his forehead to the itchy cotton covering Keith’s, and whispers, “I’m so sorry.”

It should be me. Shiro thumps back into the creaky seat. It’s true, it was always supposed to be Shiro in a hospital bed, leaving his loved ones behind in life far too early. He made peace with death long ago—actually dying played a role in that, but so had years of knowing he was living on borrowed time—but the thought of Keith slipping away from him like this? That’s not something Shiro can make peace with. Losing Keith was never supposed to be an option.

“I thought, maybe,” he murmurs, “maybe if I didn’t let you mean so much to me, it would be easier for you to keep living, after I’m gone.” Shiro laughs, harsh and entirely at his own expense. What kind of fucking logic was that? He’s spent months creating space between them, as if leaving Keith alone in this endless war would hurt less from a distance. As if not actually knowing the taste of Keith’s mouth would make it easier to grieve. As if not saying the words would make them less true.

”Stars, I’m such an idiot.” Shiro collapses forward, burying his face in the rumpled blanket and breathing deeply. Death hasn’t scared Shiro for many years, they’re practically old friends these days. But almost losing Keith had left the harsh taste of terror at the back of his throat. It lingers there now, no matter how many times Shiro tries to swallow it down.

He’s been running from this love for so long, he never considered just what it might feel like to lose it entirely.

Not anymore, Shiro thinks, settling more comfortably against the bed. His eyelids grow heavy and yet he fights to keep them open. He can see Keith, his graceful hand, the lines of his palm, his smooth and resting face. Shiro doesn’t want to stop looking.

And yet, the gentle relief of sleep comes anyway.

Shiro’s back hurts. He cracks one eye open, then the other, swallowing a groan. His hand is so warm still clinging to Keith’s on the blanket in front of him. He shifts until he can lay his cheek against their joined hands. Shiro sighs, content. He can ignore the way his back is screaming at him, from being bent in half for too long. What finally does rouse him is a quiet giggle, deep and melodic.

When Shiro lifts head and blinks blearily, he finds the source of that laugh. Smiling gray eyes meet his own, steadily. “‘Lura?”

Allura smiles wider, leaning across Keith’s legs to cup Shiro’s jaw in one of her hands. “Shiro,” she says kindly, “Somehow I knew I’d find you here.”

Shiro’s eyes drift to Keith, lips parted in soft, sleeping breaths.

“I can’t leave him now,” he confesses.

“No,” Allura says, thoughtful, “I don’t suppose you can. You’re needed here.”

“Krolia said Keith is in something called a…” Shiro hesitates, struggling to remember the harsh word.

“-cruk’val,” Allura finishes for him. “Yes, I’m familiar with the concept.”

She looks at Keith, a small furrow forming between her brows. “Galra bodies are built for battle in so many ways, even in healing. It’s part of what makes them so formidable.”

Shiro doesn’t remember the term from his own captivity, but in truth, Galra terms for health and healing weren’t uttered often in the presence of the Champion. There was no cruk’val for his victims.

Shiro frowns as well, his mind still shaking off the heaviness of sleep. “That makes them seem so two dimensional,” he says. “Surely the Galra are built for more than violence.”

Allura’s eyes are shrewd, they don’t miss much. “The Galra, or Keith?”

“Both, I guess.”

“Of course they are not mindless creatures, made for killing. I did not mean to imply such a thing.” Allura tilts her head, considering, “And Keith, he is half-human, is he not?”

“He is,” Shiro nods.

“I have known the Galra all my life,” Allura says dreamily, as if she’s thinking aloud, “But I had never encountered humans before I met you and the paladins. I admit there’s much I do not understand about humankind, or your culture.”

“However, if there is one thing that seems true of every human I’ve met, it’s a deep capacity for love,” Allura says. “You love so intensely, so fully. Keith is no exception.”

Shiro has often imagined how they would be perceived by inhabitants of other worlds. In the past, when the cruelty of humanity reared its head, and Shiro felt so exhausted by being witness to suffering. He’d used to think maybe it was best if they stayed alone in their corner of the universe. He’d never considered that someone like Allura could look at humanity and see love, first and foremost.

Allura continues, “I admit that I… I was not kind to Keith when I learned of his lineage.”

“You were carrying your own grief, Allura,” Shiro reminds her. He was angry with her once, for being so blinded by her hatred, and for taking it out on Keith. But hadn’t Allura lost everything at the hands of the Galra? She saw an angry half-Galra, not Keith. She didn’t know him the way Shiro did, didn’t know he was so good.

“Still,” Allura clears her throat. “I am sorry that Keith was harmed by my hatred, but he is also the one who challenged it. More so than Ulaz, or any of the other blades. Not because he was half human, and not entirely because he was half Galra, either.”

Allura takes Shiro’s hand, squeezing it between her own. “Because he was Keith, and he loved you so fiercely, Shiro.”

Affection is easy with Allura; with no sense of human norms or boundaries, it’s uncalculated, authentic. It makes it easier for Shiro to let himself be held, just for a moment, to be kept safe and warm by someone with strength to spare.

“You are the sun he orbits,” Allura continues, unable to hear the way her words crack open Shiro’s ribcage. “It is clear he’s loved you for so long.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes,” Allura smiles, giving Shiro’s hand another little squeeze, like a tiny hug. “When I was young, my father used to tell me, ’If you ever get lost, my dear, just look for the brightest star in the sky, and it will lead you home.””

Her smile is no less bright for the grief that bleeds into it.

“The Guiding Light, we called it. I always knew if I looked up, I would find it, and I would be safe.”

“The North Star,” Shiro murmurs, surprising Allura out of her musing. “We have something similar. Polaris, our scientists call it. But explorers use it to guide them when they are lost.”

They share a smile. Even galaxies apart, some things remain the same.

“You are Keith’s,” Allura tells Shiro, holding his gaze. “He looked to you whenever he was lost, when he needed guidance. He still does.”

Shiro’s throat burns. He thinks, maybe, it’s the other way around. Again. Keith followed Shiro’s lead, followed him to the stars and back. And yet, Shiro has been the one lost, time and time again. And it was Keith he looked for; Keith, who propelled Shiro forward when he lost momentum, towards his dreams, towards the stars. And it was Keith who pulled him back, whenever Shiro went where Keith couldn’t follow.

Again, a conundrum. An anchor, and wings. Push and pull.

Keith was never just one thing, was he?

“Shiro, do you remember returning to this body?” Allura asks, catching Shiro off guard.

Does he remember? He remembers the moment he almost took a true form again, curling ghostly fingers over Keith’s and driving Black faster through the sky. He remembers a soft, gentle presence that felt like a deep, lilting laugh and pale pink.

Shiro hadn’t had a body anymore, his edges gone blurry in the swirling eternity of the astral plane. But still, he felt Allura’s graceful hands holding him, settling him back into a form that felt so heavy after months without containment.

“Not clearly,” he admits.

“I assume you do remember that I am the one who transferred your soul from the astral plane into this form.”

Shiro nods. He couldn’t have named her as Allura in the moment, but the knowledge settled into place like a puzzle place finding its home. That presence, those intangible hands, had felt just like Allura’s, holding Shiro now.

“I confess that as your consciousness flowed through, I could feel more than I let on,” Allura tells him, fighting a wry smile, “I know the depth of your love for Keith as well, Shiro. You loved him then, and I suspect you love him still.”

Shiro’s throat works, but can’t-can’t say it to Allura, not now. This isn’t the moment, no matter the truth of her words. Keith deserves to hear it first.

Allura’s will had guided Shiro into this body, but it was Keith who pulled him from the depths of the astral plane. It was Shiro’s name in Keith’s rasping voice, the familiar and aching shape of it, that reminded Shiro of who he was. Of why he should return to life, and continue the fight.

For Keith.

Maybe, if Shiro had been a better man, it would be more than that. If he was the leader everyone assumed he was, he would have returned for something bigger; for the other paladins, for Voltron. For the fate of the goddamn universe.

“I felt him, too,” Shiro confesses. “Keith. Calling out to me, or talking to me? I’m not sure-”

“I felt his presence as well. He never left your side,” Allura tells him, nodding. “He stayed, tethered to you as always, and we watched your hair turn white, and he thought you might not have opened your eyes after all.”

Shiro doesn’t miss the way Allura says he, not we. “But you didn’t?”

“No, I knew you would return to us,” she says, “Keith needed you, so much even I could feel it. He wasn’t going to let you go. We all needed you, Shiro.”

Needed. Shiro has always been needed. Always been thrust forward, the front of the charge, the face of the campaign.

“You didn’t need me. You had Keith,” he says. “Even if I’d never returned, you would have been okay. Even Keith—He is more than capable of leading.”

This is a familiar conversation, one they’ve had far too many times, during sleepless nights on the castle ship, over hot cups of almost-tea that always made Shiro’s tongue tingle. Shiro recognized it in Allura, the burden and isolation of leadership. She wasn’t ready to take on so much, especially in the wake of losing her family, her people, and her entire planet.

Shiro never felt ready either. He had just wanted to touch the stars, to travel through space without gravity and disease weighing him down. He’s confessed as much to Allura before. Shiro let her in just enough for her to see through his brave face of responsibility, no matter how well they fooled the others.

“Keith didn’t want it either, I seem to remember,” Allura muses. “But he grew into it, just like we did.”

“That is how it works, isn’t it?” Shiro asks, bitterness staining his voice. “You don’t go looking for it. You just work hard, and you’re good, so the responsibilities get heaped on your shoulders. Nobody ever stops to ask if you can still stand under all that weight.”

“Just because you can take on more, doesn’t mean that you should have to,” Allura reminds him. “It is okay to say no sometimes, Shiro. It’s alright to do things just for yourself. To have things just for yourself.”

“I’m not sure I would even know how to begin doing that,” Shiro confesses. When was the last time he’d made a truly selfish choice, for him and him alone? When he decided to go to Kerberos, perhaps. Between his dreams and his fiance, Shiro had chosen what he wanted, regardless of the pain he caused. He’d left Adam behind, and now he was gone. Killed by the Galra that Shiro had led right to Earth. That grief swells now, ignored and shoved down for far too long.

He was selfish then, and somebody he loved suffered.

“If not for yourself, then perhaps for Keith.” Allura’s voice is kind, but firm. “It isn’t selfish, Shiro, to let him love you. To love him back. It’s the kindest thing you can do, after everything you’ve both endured.”

He pauses. Kerberos wasn’t just for Shiro. Keith’s face, young and hopeful, fills his mind’s eye: Shiro’s dog tags dangling from his neck, dancing in the desert wind, his face awed and tear-streaked.

He made that choice for Keith, too. To live up to Keith’s faith in him, to keep them both moving forward, towards a future where they could explore the stars together.

And they had. If not how Shiro expected.

He rubs a hand over his tired face, digging his thumb and finger into his eyes until he sees spots. Maybe she’s right, but the selfish feeling creeps up regardless.

“How are you doing, Shiro, really?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that, princess? I’m not the one who just crash landed into the Pacific Ocean,” Shiro quips, shaking his head.

“Oh I’m alright,” Allura says. She grimaces. “Though I do not think I will be swimming anytime soon.”

“I can imagine.”

Shiro leans back in his chair, letting his hand slip from Allura’s grasp. The sky is truly dark now, only a hint of the cloudless sky visible through the window.

“Even now, even…here,” Shiro admits, “I still feel suffocated by being inside too long. Maybe I’ve gotten too used to being in space.”

“Or perhaps you were meant for space,” Allura tells him. She shoos him away with a flap of her hands. “Go, get some fresh air. I will watch over Keith.”

It’s easier, somehow, to embrace the idea of leaving Keith’s bedside now. Maybe it’s because Shiro feels more certain than he did this morning, of his own feelings and of Keith’s recovery. Still, he hesitates.

“I’ll send Kosmo if anything happens,” Allura promises. Kosmo, curled up by Allura’s feet, perks up at the sound of her name. She looks at Shiro, tilting her head as if to ask him a question, but Shiro doesn’t speak cosmic space wolf.

“If he so much as twitches, Allura-”

“I know, I know.” Allura laughs softly at him. She settles more comfortably into her chair, taking Keith’s hand in hers.

Shiro wanders aimlessly. He’s always found meditation in motion, clarity in the ceaseless pounding of his feet. His legs carry him down familiar paths, winding between drab gray buildings that once felt like home. Shiro winds up, grinning, in front of a building he definitely recognizes. His steps come with purpose now, approaching the building and climbing the rungs of the fire escape.

Shiro’s boots clang against the metal with every step, loud and echoing. He freezes for a moment, his mind flooded with fear of being caught.

Caught? By who? He’s not a junior officer anymore, sneaking out after curfew. Shiro shakes his head at his own folly, hurrying up the last few feet. He lands on the rooftop with a dusty thud, wiping his rust-speckled hands on his pant legs.

The flat roof top is the same gray as the walls, devoid of any furniture or decoration, just as he remembers. Nothing has changed, and yet everything feels different. It’s Shiro who has changed. He settles down on his back, pillowing his head on his open hands.

Above him, the night sky stretches, a dark and twinkling tapestry. This rooftop was Shiro’s favorite escape as a cadet, and then as an officer. It was his secret, this tiny oasis in the sprawling desert where Shiro could truly be alone. Just him and the stars.

Then it was Keith, too.

They would sneak out through poorly lit hallways, stifling laughter, lay side by side on the hard concrete and watch the stars shine. Shiro couldn’t help himself, he would name the constellations, finger tracing their shape as he recited to Keith the myths and legends that gave them their names. Keith was curious and bright, but impatient. He was constantly in motion, it seemed, and rarely able to sit through something like an astronomy lesson. Only here, with Shiro, would he attempt patience.

Keith listened as Shiro spoke, each story was jumping off point for Keith’s reckless challenges; his eyes lit up as he dared Shiro to race him from star to star, from one constellation to the next.

Shiro would laugh, and remind him, “Keith, it would take decades, maybe even centuries, to fly that far. The dark spaces between the stars look small to us, but they’re lightyears apart.”

Keith was never deterred. He would smile that private, joyful smile, and tell Shiro, “I’d still have you beat, old man.” In the darkness of night, Keith’s eyes looked just like the reaches of space.

Looking at the sky now, Shiro wonders when space started looking like Keith’s eyes, instead of the other way around. It seems like he’s had everything backwards, for a long time.

Shiro almost didn’t go to Kerberos. He doubted himself, once he found out that he’d be coming home to an empty apartment. Keith never did. He never lost faith, even after learning about Shiro’s illness. Even after learning that Shiro wasn’t as perfect as he pretended to be, Keith never wavered. He told Shiro to go. Keith encouraged Shiro to fly farther than anyone else ever had, and Shiro knew he’d be there waiting when he got back.

Keith gave Shiro something to hold onto. He was a light in the dark when Shiro almost forgot his own humanity to the savagery of being Champion. The memory of Keith’s wondrous eyes kept Shiro human, even as his body was fused with metal.

You are the sun he orbits.

Maybe once that had been true, but not now. Keith is truly the sun, and the North Star, guiding Shiro and keeping him warm when darkness threatens.

He knows the way everyone sees them; the Golden Boy and the Rebel. People take one look at the two of them, at Shiro’s practiced smile and Keith’s genuine scowl and they see what they want. They see Keith needing Shiro; to build him up, to keep him in line, to make him better. But Shiro knows the truth—he’s the one who needs Keith.

Shiro’s lost track of how long, or how much, he’s needed Keith since that fateful afternoon. He didn’t recognize it at first, so unfamiliar with the sensation after years of lonely independence. Shiro has raged against the eventuality of needing his whole life, terrified of feeling powerless. Fragile.

And yet, needing Keith doesn’t feel like weakness. Not now that Shiro can see it clearly. It feels like freedom. Like bravery. A glowing lifeline tossed his way, when Shiro was perfectly ready to drown.

Keith will always fight to get back to you. Even from death’s door. He would never give up on you, Shiro.

Shiro knows he can’t say the same; he was a regular visitor at that door, lingering on the threshold at times, but always ready to step through, into the unknown. He viewed his early death as an inevitability, looming around every corner. He had accepted it, even if Keith hadn’t.

It used to feel selfless, holding Keith, holding everyone who dared try to love him, at arm’s length. Like Shiro’s fleeting life was a ticking bomb, and leaving space around himself would lessen the wreckage when it finally goes off.

But somewhere along the line, that selflessness tipped into cowardice, and Shiro began hiding behind it. He thought it was kindness, trying to blunt the edges of Keith’s grief so it might not slice him into pieces. He thought if he built Keith up, set him on a path to explore the stars himself, instead of chasing Shiro through them, he could equip Keith for a universe without him in it.

But Keith, beautifully stubborn Keith, defied even Shiro’s plans for him. It’s mystifying, overwhelming, the way Keith has loved him so fiercely. Keith loved Shiro in all his imperfections, and fought for him as if he were the one thing keeping the universe expanding.

And it felt so good, being loved like that. The way Keith treasured Shiro above all else; the way he was ready to throw everything away for him. Keith’s love is reckless. Indulgent. The most powerful thing Shiro has ever felt, and Shiro doesn’t trust himself with it.

Keith’s bottomless love for Shiro stared death in the eyes and whispered You can’t have him. It could be dangerous, destructive, if Shiro were to lean into it, to twist it into its darkest potential.

He remembers the moment Kuron truly figured it out, how devoted Keith was, how he was ready to doom himself and the rest of the universe, to save a clone wearing Shiro’s face. Shiro recognized the hungry greed simmering low in Kuron’s gut, the way he’d wanted to devour Keith, to take everything he was willing to give.

Shiro has felt the seeds of that same covetous impulse in himself, the same desire to dive into Keith’s depthless devotion and linger, consume. To make Keith his in the greediest way.

Find a way to let go of your guilt. Its weight will only drag you down.

Shiro’s guilt is heavy. He knows he wasn’t actually himself, laughing cruelly at Keith’s pain, claiming him even in their shared demise. It wasn’t truly Shiro who felt lust lick over his skin at the way Keith had screamed as his face was seared, but he still remembers.

The memory is so strong. Shiro remembers the cracking of Keith’s voice, his desperate declaration. The smell of his skin sizzling against Shiro’s glowing arm. The foolish hope in his slitted eyes. That feeling is a part of Shiro now, the same way the memories are. If not for Keith, his impossible strength, his death-defying love, all would have been lost.

You can’t just pick out all the bad things that have happened to Keith and blame yourself for them, because Keith is more than that.

Keith is so much more.

He is everything, all at once. Keith is danger and safety swirled together. He is a bright flame, one that could burn Shiro alive, but keeps him warm instead. And Shiro knows, no matter how long he’s spent avoiding this truth, that he loves Keith, in all his multitudes. Loving Keith is part of who he is, instinctual. Loving Keith is like jumping his hoverbike off of a cliff, adrenaline and joy without a trace of fear.

There’s a sizzling pop a few feet away. Shiro’s abs burn from the way he jolts upwards, only to find bright blue wolf eyes staring back at him. Kosmo.

“Hey, Kos,” Shiro greets her. Adrenaline pulses through him. Did Keith wake up? Kosmo doesn’t seem to be in a hurry, though, trotting to Shiro’s legs and stepping daintily between them, until she’s close enough to lick his cheek.

“Well hello to you too,” Shiro mutters, dodging her next few attempts at wolf-style affection. He takes Kosmo’s face between his hands so they’re nose to nose. Intelligent eyes blink back at him, but they hold no answers. “Nothing yet?” Shiro asks.

Kosmo whines, a quiet stressed sound eking from the back of her throat. She shifts from paw to paw restlessly.

“I know, me too,” Shiro says. He drops onto his back with a heavy sigh, and pats the ground next to him. “Let’s wait together.”

Kosmo doesn’t need to be told twice. She stretches out on her belly next to Shiro, licking once more in the direction of his cheek, and she doesn’t seem to mind that her tongue only finds empty air. When Shiro cants his head to the side to look at her, Kosmo shuffles forward, whining again.

“I’m worried too,” Shiro admits in a whisper. He scratches behind Kosmo’s ears with his Altean hand, studying the sky once more. “But he’ll come back to us. He always does.”

He always does.

Keith deserves the world. The universe, even, held in those graceful, lethal hands.

Shiro told himself it was kind, that it was merciful, to keep walls between them. They would keep him from hurting Keith, again and again. But those walls cut Keith off from everything Shiro had to offer, pain and love alike. Doesn’t Keith deserve for him to try? Doesn’t he deserve to be cherished, and adored, and to have somebody fight for him just as hard as he has always fought for Shiro?

Shiro’s still not sure if he can be what Keith deserves, not as the man the war has made him, broken and doomed. He’s broken pottery, cracked and put back together with glue, and Keith’s force of will. But never the smooth, whole person he was before. Never again. It didn’t even seem fair to offer, knowing that Shiro might just leave Keith alone again. Hurt him more. It felt selfish.

Is it more selfish, he thinks, to promise Keith endless love and not be able to keep that promise? Or to risk losing him, the way Shiro almost just did, without Keith ever knowing how truly loved he is? Never knowing the depths of Shiro’s adoration, never knowing how it feels to be cherished and treasured, the way Keith has always deserved to feel.

The threat of sunrise starts to filter through the constellations as Shiro thinks and thinks. He puts the pieces of his heart together, finally making sense of them, as the sky lightens, black blooming into pink-streaked indigo.

It isn’t selfish, Shiro, to let him love you. To love him back.

Maybe it is selfish, maybe not. Maybe it’s simply inevitable.

Kosmo whuffs gently at Shiro, interrupting his racing mind and ruffling his hair. She gets to her feet, ears alert and twitching.

“Kosmo?” Shiro sits up too, reaching for the wolf, attempting to steady them both. Kosmo steps into Shiro’s space and snuffles at his face, eyes bright and talkative. If only Shiro could understand her. “Is it Keith?”

The sizzling sound comes again. It’s Shiro’s only warning before he is squeezed, blinking out of existence on the rooftop, and reappearing again on his feet, in a spinning room. Shiro puts out a hand to steady himself, touching warm blankets.

He’s in Keith’s room.

“Warn me next time,” Shiro grumbles, shaking his head to clear it, but Kosmo just barks quietly.

Then he sees Keith, stirring slightly. His eyelashes flutter, and his eyes open slowly. Keith blinks once, twice.

“Shiro…?” is the first word Keith says, voice raspy with disuse. Shiro’s heart almost stops, then it thunders hard, propelling him forward, into Keith’s orbit once more.

“I’m here, ba-I’m here, Keith,” Shiro says in a rush. God, he wants to hold him so badly. Keith struggles to sit up, face crinkling in pain.

“Whoa, hang on,” Shiro tells him. “Don’t get up so fast, okay?”

“Where am I?”

“You’re in the Garrison hospital, but you’re okay,” Shiro says. He doesn’t miss the way Keith’s eyes flare wider when he says hospital. His eyes dart around the room, and Shiro is quiet, letting Keith’s gears turn and letting him confirm for himself.

Keith looks at Shiro after a moment, eyes questioning, “The Altean mech…?”

“Do you remember? Voltron flew it out of the atmosphere. You saved us,” Shiro says.

“You saved me,” he whispers, and then the tears come. The ones Shiro has been blinking back for days; they take advantage of the way relief has made him lax, unguarded. Keith looks panicked, watching Shiro’s face crumple. He does sit up now, ignoring Shiro’s protests.

Keith reaches out, wraps his arms around Shiro, and Shiro just falls into them. Keith holds him tight. Shiro's own arms curl around Keith’s back, fingers twisting in Keith’s hospital gown. He shudders as he buries his face in Keith’s neck and breathes him in.

Shiro has so many things to say, they get tangled up together in his throat. So he speaks with his hands. He runs them over Keith’s back, his shoulders, over his hair. “I thought I’d lost you,” he confesses, and Keith grips him tighter.

”Never,” Keith whispers fiercely. “Never, never.”

Shiro pulls back, sniffling, and laughs self-consciously. “I guess it’s a little silly that you’re the one comforting me, right now.”

“I’ve never been much of a crier anyway,” Keith jokes, smiling that crooked smile that Shiro loves. That he’s in love with. Shiro feels like an idiot, more than ever, for not making sense of it all sooner.

“I know of a certain twenty-first century romantic comedy that begs to differ,” Shiro teases back. Keith’s answering scowl is so cute, Shiro wants to kiss it off of his lips.

“You’re really gonna throw that in my face now, Shiro? On my deathbed?” Keith is joking, but Shiro doesn’t laugh. The giddy laughter that was about to bubble out of him dissolves in his lungs. He holds Keith’s face carefully in one hand, stroking a thumb over his cheekbone and the dark bruise there.

“No, not your death bed.”

Keith’s eyes widen but he lets Shiro hold him. He studies each of Shiro’s features in turn, lingering on his eyes, and then on his lips. How did they get so close? It would be so easy to close the distance and press his lips to Keith’s. Shiro drifts closer, powerless against the pull of Keith’s gravity.

“Keith,” he murmurs, “I need-need to tell you-”

“Shiro, you don’t have to-” Keith interrupts.

“No, I do.” Shiro says firmly.

Keith opens his mouth to continue arguing, but he wavers, closes it again. He smiles that secret, boyish smile that’s just for Shiro. “Okay.”

“If you’re too tired, though, I can wait-”

“Oh my god, Shiro.” Keith laughs and rolls his eyes. “No, just tell me.”

Keith lets Shiro fuss over him a little, tucking an extra blanket around his legs and fetching ice chips. He smiles indulgently as Shiro putters around.

When Shiro finally perches on the edge of Keith’s bed, all the words that have been rattling around his head all night, he opens his mouth and-

“I love you.”

Shiro’s not sure who is more surprised—him or Keith.

“Shit, wait - I didn’t mean-” Shiro stammers. His face is hot, like it’s been kissed raw by the sun, and he meant to do this better, more gracefully. Keith’s voice interrupts him.

“You don’t…?”

“No, I do!” Shiro practically shouts. Ugh. Of course he would just blurt it out. He rubs his hands over his face, and laughs.

“Keith.” he says, steadying himself. “I do love you. But that’s what - I just - I wanted to explain.”

“Okay…”

Shiro takes Keith’s hands in his, encouraged by the way Keith squeezes his fingers.

“I feel like we haven’t had a chance to talk, like really talk, in so long. I’m not even sure if I know where to begin,” he admits. “But I know I owe you a lot of answers.”

The floodgates are open now, and the rushing water feels like relief.

“The truth is, I was scared. Not of you, never of you. Of… myself, in a way? And what I’m capable of.”

Shiro forces himself to meet Keith’s gaze as he speaks. No more hiding, not from him.

“I didn’t remember, not at first. Everything that Kuron had done, everything that had happened, it was all… blurry. Indistinct. I dreamed about it sometimes, but the memories didn’t feel like they belonged to me.”

“Eventually, though, I did remember. I do remember. Everything Kuron did, up until the end. I remember that night, Keith, when I - he - tried to kill you.”

Keith’s inhale is sharp, but quiet.

“And I - I remember the way you fought. I remember what you said, that I was your brother, and that you love me. That did scare me. Keith, I almost killed you. I burn - burned your face,” Shiro traces the scar he left with shaking fingers, the raised skin like a brand. The way Keith nuzzles into his touch makes Shiro’s lips twitch into something like a smile. “This beautiful face.”

“Shiro-” Keith whispers, cupping Shiro’s hand and holding it there.

“No, wait, please,” Shiro tells him. “If you interrupt me, I may not be able to get this all out.” He feels the tears burning at the corners of his eyes again, and blinks them back.

“You never gave up on me, Keith, not once. I caused you so much pain, and yet… you loved me. Even when I didn’t deserve it. Even when I wasn’t really me.”

“It wasn’t me, and I think on some levels I know that. But I still have to live with the fact that I hurt you. Kuron is a part of me now, in this body. Those memories are a part of me and so is that guilt. So I - I pushed you away.”

“I felt guilty too.” Keth’s confession is quiet and helpless.

“Don’t - wait, what?” What in the world would Keith have to feel guilty for?

“I didn’t realize it wasn’t you,” Keith grits out through his teeth. “I should have, but it wasn’t until that night that I knew, really knew, something was wrong. I should have seen it, Shiro.”

“Should have seen what? That I wasn’t actually me, but a perfectly rendered clone with some of my memories, being controlled by a psychotic druid bent on destroying all of us?”

“I mean - yes?”

“Keith,” Shiro laughs, incredulous. “Baby, that’s not a fair thing to expect from anybody, don’t you think?”

Keith blinks at Shiro, stunned. His cheeks stain, and when Shiro replays his own words he knows his own cheeks must match.

“Shiro.”

“Yeah?”

Keith’s eyes blaze with a new light; it sends shivers skittering down Shiro’s spine. Keith, beautiful and bold as always, doesn’t hesitate.

“Say it again?”

”Baby,” Shiro’s smile is boyish, so wide it almost hurts. There’s more to talk about, he knows there is, and yet, he says, “Can I kiss you?”

“Finally,” Keith breathes, before their mouths meet. Keith’s lips are warm and a little chapped, and they slot together perfectly. It’s Keith who pulls Shiro closer against him, making a rumbling sound low in his throat. Shiro keeps the kiss gentle, sweet, despite the way Keith nips at his lower lip.

“You just woke up from a mini coma,” Shiro teases him, nuzzling his nose against Keith’s. “Maybe you should slow down.”

“Maybe you should speed up,” Keith grumbles, chasing Shiro’s mouth again. Shiro’s helpless against it, allowing Keith one more languid kiss before he pulls back again with a warm chuckle.

“Brat.”

“You love me,” Keith jokes back, playful and tentative.

“I do.” For the life of him, Shiro can hardly remember what he was so afraid of. The feeling crumbles away into dust in the face of the joy pulsing through him now. “And I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it all out. I’m sorry I pushed you away.”

The words flood, pressured and insistent. Shiro needs to get this out, before he helps himself to any more of Keith’s affection.

“I can’t believe I wasted all that time being afraid,” he admits. “I feel so stupid. And ashamed. It should not have taken you almost dying right in front of me for me to be brave.”

“Can I ask you something?” Keith tilts his head, thoughtful.

“Anything.”

“When you say you needed to figure it out… what do you mean?”

“I-” Shiro starts to answer, and then snaps his mouth shut. “I needed to understand why I couldn’t let myself be with you. I knew I wanted to, more than anything, but something always held me back.”

He shakes his head. “It felt like you deserved so much more than what I could give you. You’re the bravest, most selfless person I know, Keith. All this time, you have loved me the same way—Brave. Fierce. Unconditional. Even when I didn’t deserve it. So it felt selfish to let you love me like that, knowing that I’ve hurt you. That I might hurt you again. I didn’t know if I deserved to call you mine, after everything.”

“But here’s what I do know,” Shiro tells him. He kisses Keith again, awash in the awareness that he can. That this is something they do now, the next evolution of their relationship. “I know my name is Takashi Shirogane. I know that I’m twenty-six years old.”

“Six and a half years old,” Keith interjects, eyes dancing. Shiro throws his head back and laughs, loud and a little wild. Keith is there to meet him when the laughter fades, curling a hand around Shiro’s neck.

“And I know that I love you,” Shiro’s whispers fervently. “I know I’ll never stop loving you."

The next touch of Keith’s lips against his is devotional. Shiro pours his apologies into it, and his promises. Keith meets each fevered caress of Shiro’s lips with his own intensity, and whispers, “I love you too, Shiro.”

“I know.”

Their kisses take the shape of Shiro’s triumphant smile. Now that’s allowed to do this, he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to stop. It’s more than the relief of Keith’s survival, or the freedom of loving Keith without hesitation; it’s more than the sum of its parts.

Like Keith.

Keith is more than violence and grace, more than his hard headed devotion and quick temper. He is more than every scar he’s earned, mapping out the course of his life across his skin. He’s more than anyone truly sees; he’s everything. He’s the entire universe, endless and yet expanding evermore, held in Shiro’s hands.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” Keith sighs against Shiro’s lips.

“I know, baby,” Shiro pulls him closer, desperate to feel the thunder of Keith’s heart through the layers that separate them. He doesn’t remember climbing higher into the bed to sit beside Keith, but here he is, holding him carefully as they lean against the crumpled pillows. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“Oh yeah?” Keith’s smile is wicked as he purrs, “I’ll hold you to that, Captain.”

Someone clears their throat noisily, bursting the bubble that’s formed around them. When Shiro looks past Keith, he finds Krolia in the doorway, one eyebrow quirked. Kosmo stands beside her, looking quite proud of herself for remembering to fetch Keith's mother, when Shiro didn’t. He forgot everything but Keith, from the moment he opened his eyes.

“My mom’s here, isn’t she?” Keith asks, without looking.

“Yep.”

Keith buries his face in Shiro’s neck, hiding, and his frame shakes with poorly stifled laughter. Shiro laughs too, and it builds, into the helpless kind of giggling that only gets more frantic the more they try to suppress it.

Shiro extricates himself from Keith’s limbs, swiping at his eyes. He’s not embarrassed at all by these tears, borne of joy. The awkwardness of being caught making out by a parent feels so normal, so unremarkable, it is a little surreal. Krolia simply looks relieved.

“It seems you are feeling better, Keith,” she remarks, deadpan. Keith nods, and lets himself be folded into Krolia’s arms. There are things left unsaid here too, Shiro realizes.

“Shiro, Iverson was looking for you,” Krolia says. “He said something about a speech?”

Keith rolls his eyes, and Shiro fights the urge to do the same. He thinks of his tablet, ignored for almost forty eight hours now, and grimaces. He doesn’t even want to think about how many emails and messages he will find.

“Did you tell him where I am?”

“I told him… that you were indisposed, but that I would pass along the message.” Krolia’s sharp smile, so similar to Keith’s, makes Shiro laugh anew.

“Thank you,” he tells her. He turns back to Keith, takes his face in both hands and kisses him, slow and steady. He’s pleased to find that Keith’s eyes are hazy as he pulls back; Shiro rains another kiss on his nose, and then his forehead, whispering, “I promise I’ll be back.”

“I know.”

Shiro’s feet scuff against the hard packed dirt. His shoes, finely polished this morning, are already coated with dust. The desert has no patience for perfection.

The lions stand, battered and proud, behind the makeshift stage waiting for Shiro. When he reaches Black, Shiro rests his flesh hand on her gleaming metal leg, and feels a rumble of recognition. For the first time since he woke up in this new body, Shiro can feel her again; her looming, endless consciousness and the lingering presence of Keith within. Thank you, Shiro thinks, and feels a brush against his mind in response.

Lining the small stage are photos, set on easels that have clearly seen better days. Faces, smiling and serious alike, look past him, as if they’re watching the clouds drift. It’s easy to let them blur together, until they’re not people anymore, but a collective aching loss that can be easily pushed away. But Shiro is done running from things that demand to be felt. He studies each face, commits them to memory as he thanks them too, for giving everything.

Relief washes over him like a tidal wave, weakening Shiro’s knees with its crashing weight. Relief that Keith’s face isn’t staring back at him now, two dimensional and incomplete. A camera lens could not have captured its beauty, the way his smile spread slow and easy when Shiro walked into his room this morning.

No, nothing compares to Keith in living, vivid color. Shiro saw him first thing this morning, kissed the taste of toothpaste off his tongue and murmured I love you far too many times, before he was kicked out, rather unceremoniously.

“I want to see you give your big speech,” Keith teased, but there was genuine pride in his voice. Genuine appreciation in his eyes too, as he dragged them up and down Shiro’s uniform, whistling low.

Keith was tired, the violet flame of his eyes reduced to embers in the wake of his healing. Tired, but alive. Unlike the faces looking up at Shiro now.

A crowd has gathered, rumbling with the swell of so many voices all spilling over each other. There’s something buoyant about the hope he hears there, in the midst of the grief that’s settled over the entire planet, like dark storm clouds lingering over their heads.

And yet, the sun shines, warm and bright. Shiro closes his eyes and lets it seep into his skin.

“Shiro? It’s time.”

Shiro sets his shoulders, takes a deep breath of desert air. After so long among the stars, this place no longer feels like home. But there’s something about the sunlight and woodsmoke scent that lingers in Shiro’s lungs and makes a home for itself within him. It smells like Keith.

Shiro steps forward, facing the crowd of upturned faces; human and alien alike, standing together in loss and in hope. He catches glimpses of the same eyes he’d found on the portraits behind him, the same lopsided smiles. Clearing his throat, Shiro begins to speak.

“Today is a solemn day…”