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I
Mail comes every morning for the Garrison, 0700 sharp, always delivered by a stern-faced woman who doesn’t start calling out the names of the cadets who have mail until they’re all lined up and quiet. Keith walks past the line every morning, not bothering to stand in it because there’s no one who would bother to send him mail. Besides, it means he beats all of them to the mess hall which means on Thursdays he has a chance of actually getting fresh pancakes and a non-bruised apple.
It’s 0630 when he walks past the mailroom and at first, he doesn’t hear his name when it’s called, but it sounds again, sharper and his back straightens in response as he turns, squaring his shoulders.
“You have mail, Cadet,” she says, passing him an envelope and then the tablet for him to press his thumb to, acknowledging that he got it. Keith pauses, because no, he never gets mail so there must be some sort of mistake. It’s his name there, written in neat, small print, along with the Garrison’s address. Junk mail, maybe. Do cadets even get junk mail? He thumbs the tablet with a small frown and pockets the little envelope. It feels like a card, but that makes even less sense. It doesn’t really matter; he needs to hit the mess hall before everyone else does so he can get breakfast with Shiro before training starts.
Unsurprisingly, Shiro’s already at a table, bent over two books with his meal at the side, forgotten as he reads. There’s a pen in his mouth and his coffee is the only thing that even seems to be touched; Keith isn’t surprised, exactly.
He drops his tray on the table a little more firmly than needed mostly just to see if he can get Shiro to jump, which doesn’t work. Instead, he gets a raised eyebrow in response and the sight of Shiro pulling the pen out of his mouth, smiling up at him. “Morning to you, too.”
Keith’s not the most verbal during normal times and certainly not at six thirty in the fucking morning so he makes a low sound of acknowledgment and starts smearing butter over his pancakes with his knife, curling his hand around the warm coffee with the other, taking a long drink of it. At least Shiro’s used to the way he needs to wake up a little more when they’re up this early; he nudges his foot against Keith’s in a playful little kick and then turns back to his meal as if remembering it’s there only because he sees Keith’s food.
A cup of coffee down and Keith feels marginally more human, at least enough to dig into his pocket and pull out the card to stare at it, still relatively certain that it’s got to be a mistake of some kind. Shiro, on the other hand, looks up and a small laugh escapes. “Oh, hey, you got one too.”
That just raises more questions than it answers. Keith sticks his thumb under the edge of the envelope and starts to open it. “You got one?” The return address isn’t one he recognizes either, and the name isn’t listed on it, but that doesn’t mean much. “What is it?”
The astrophysics books Shiro’d been pouring over are closed and neatly bookmarked, his notes tucked back into the pad of paper he carries around, each individual thing organized with post-it notes and highlighter for easy reference. “Mom’s got this thing about sending official invites to things, she won’t touch email for it because it’s not personal enough.” There’s no disdain in his voice, like Keith might imagine hearing from some of the other cadets about their parents. No, it’s just warm affection. Shiro’s always had a good relationship with his family, as far as Keith can tell. “It’s for a summer dinner thing; we have one every year, like a more casual family reunion.”
Which, sure. That makes sense and Keith understands that but that also doesn’t even begin to explain why he’s currently holding an envelope and card addressed to him inviting him to what sounds like a family thing.
“Oh.” Which is really all he can manage to say at this point, because he’s not sure what the right questions to be asking are and he looks to Shiro a little helplessly, hoping he’s going to explain this.
“Sorry, I told her I’d invite you but she’s-- she likes cards,” Shiro shrugs helplessly, propping his chin up on his hand, elbow on the table. “The Garrison clears out over that month in the summer, I thought you could come with us. Normally we do it back home, but since it’s so far mom and dad wanted to rent a house a little closer for the weekend and...you don’t have to go, if it’s weird.”
“What?” Keith jerks his attention back up to Shiro, realizing that his silence and furrowed brow could probably easily be taken as disdain, or disinterest when it really wasn’t the case. “No, it’s not-- weird.” It’s a little weird, but not in the way Shiro’s worried about.
He’s met Shiro’s parents a handful of times; they might live in the Garrison, but Shiro’s father graduated from here, too and it’s not unlike college in that usually the first day new recruits come in, there are parents milling about, too. A large handful of the kids are military brats in some capacity, Shiro being one of them. They were always nice enough, Keith figures, but he hadn’t really put much thought into it when he’d met them past the thought that this was Shiro’s family. Now, he idly wiggles the card back and forth, the neat script inside inviting him to the event.
“It’s...fun. Most of the family doesn’t see each other like this except for Christmas, so it’s nice to catch up with everyone and see how they’re doing.” Shiro shrugs one broad shoulder and watches him so patiently it’s almost painful, Keith fighting down the urge to bristle and demand that Shiro stop pitying him.
He knows Shiro well enough now to know that it’s not pity; he’s genuinely earnest, watching Keith to see what he wants to do. He’s not the kind of man who’ll push the issue if he thinks that Keith is genuinely disinterested, but he is the kind of person who will push if he thinks Keith is afraid of being a bother, or that he’s saying no because he’s worried about it being an inconvenience. Keith knows that.
He also knows that he’s going to say yes, even if it’s going to be one of the most awkward weeks in recent memory.
“Keith, you don’t have to-”
“I'll go.” Keith tucks the card away with care, back into his pocket so he doesn’t crush it. It’s a nice card.
Shiro’s smile when Keith says he’s going to go, is a thousand times nicer than any piece of paper.
II
The Garrison doesn’t really get too into holidays as a whole. Some people like to decorate their rooms in advance when it comes to things like Halloween but since costumes aren’t really allowed it’s mostly masks and then whatever crafts the cadets can manage to make with what they’ve got. Some parents will send certain things; during the morning mail run, he saw a huge package and when it was opened up at breakfast, it contained a miniature desk Christmas tree and a bunch of lights and ornaments. It’s from my mom! the cadet says cheerfully and Keith turns back to his oatmeal, shoving his spoon into it.
He’s never been through Christmas at the Garrison but he figures it’ll be just like everything else, just with more lights, or something. In the end, it is, but it’s also people singing in the halls and that one kid insisting that a fake white Santa beard doesn’t violate the Garrison standards for personal grooming. With two full weeks before Christmas, everything is business as usual until the woman handling the mail room calls him over again, another card pressed into his hands.
This time, he recognizes the handwriting, the card, the location. Summer with the family hadn’t been the weird experience that he had been expecting. He’d shared a room with Shiro, his dad had dragged him out to help with repairs at one point on one of the old hoverbikes that hadn’t been working and he was a pair of hands to help in the kitchen for Shiro’s mother. By all rights, so many aunts and uncles and cousins in one house shouldn’t have worked; it should have felt claustrophobic, overwhelming, but instead, they’d welcomed him in and Shiro played defense for some of the more invasive family members but it had been -- good.
He peels open the envelope gently, barely noticing Shiro settle down until he’s got the card open and a bunch of little metal Christmas tree confetti pieces fall out of it, right into his oatmeal. For a moment, he just stares and then he hears a snort directly across from him, Shiro with his face pressed into his hands, shoulders shaking. “Sorry-- sorry, I was gonna-- I wanted to warn you, she likes putting those little things into all the cards. I love them, but I know to expect them--”
With a spoon, Keith scoops up the oatmeal with the tiny confetti pieces in it and neatly plunks the spoonful right down onto Shiro’s plate. He gives him a nonchalant look while he does it, challenging him to say something about it. Unsurprisingly, it just makes him laugh even more and Keith feels his traitorous lips twitching up in response. “Christmas, huh,” he says after skimming the card, written half in red ink, half in green.
“Christmas,” Shiro agrees, digging blunt nails into an orange, peeling it and silently giving Keith a piece every time he pops one in his mouth. “The Garrison’s a ghost town around Christmas.”
That much is true, he’s heard that during the holidays especially, it tends to be only the students who have to stay because family is too far or if they have remedial classes and then the officers in charge of them. It’s his first year at the Garrison, he’s not really looking forward to spending it alone, but this -- this isn’t some summer get together. This is Christmas and Keith isn’t an idiot. It was always a family affair. The orphanage tried, of course, to an extent, but it wasn’t the same. Foster families were hit and miss and he decidedly did not think about that.
It’s only when Shiro gently clears his throat and knocks their knees together lightly that he realizes he’s been silent this whole time and probably needs to answer at some point. “I don’t have the money for a plane ticket,” he says after a beat, realizing that’s probably the most important part here. The cadets are given a monthly stipend and he’s saved up a lot, but there’s a reason for that and -- he could push back the budgeting by a few months, sure, but he doesn’t even know how much a plane ticket to Shiro’s city would cost. He doesn’t imagine it’s cheap.
“What if you didn’t have to worry about the cost? Don’t give me that look, Keith, it’s not charity, it’s not pity.” Shiro passes him another slice, squinting at Keith’s open mouth for a moment like he’s debating tossing the orange slice into it just to see if he can. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s done something like that. His mouth closes with a click of teeth and he frowns at Shiro instead of the paper.
“I don’t want you paying for me,” Keith says finally, finding that’s a non-confrontational enough response while still addressing the issue at hand here.
Of course, though -- of course, Shiro just shrugs his shoulders and his tone turns a little sheepish. “Technically, it’s not me paying. Mom and dad said they wanted it to be your Christmas present, because they weren’t sure what to get you.”
Somehow, that’s worse. He hadn’t even considered getting them any sort of Christmas present because they were Shiro’s parents and that would be -- weird. He’d gotten Shiro something small, of course, but he hadn’t even considered that his parents would do something like that and the awkwardness builds heavy in his gut, leaves him squirming in his seat uncomfortably. “Why would they get me anything?”
“Keith, you and Matt are my best friends.” Another piece of orange is handed over. “Matt’s little sister threatened to come here and drag him out if he didn’t come home, or else they would have had him come, too. He came last year and I thought my mom was gonna replace me with him.”
That makes him feel marginally less awkward about it, but there’s still the fact that it’s going to be a lot of money and there’s no way for him to really pay that back. Maybe a payment plan of some kind. Maybe-
“Dad said that if you helped out on the bike again, you could consider that paying it back if it bothered you too much to accept the ticket.” Shiro wipes his hands clean and starts in on the bacon, cutting it into manageable, bite sized pieces whereas Keith would have just picked it up with his hands. “I told him you wouldn’t want it for free.”
He’s not wrong, but the thing is, it’s still weird. Inhaling to steady himself, he holds it for three seconds and then releases, poking at his oatmeal. “How does the bike need fixing already? I thought he only had a few more days to work on it during the summer?”
As if sensing that he’s already won the argument (which he has, Keith isn’t an idiot here and he knows himself) Shiro shrugs one shoulder and smiles a little too smugly. “I didn’t ask, honestly, but it couldn’t hurt for you to take a look at it, right?”
No, it couldn’t. Keith knows that and Shiro knows that and they both know that Shiro’s already won at this point.
“You could at least pretend to be surprised when I say yes,” Keith mutters and mulishly sticks his spoon into his oatmeal, rolling his eyes when Shiro doesn’t bother to hide his laughter.
Christmas happens in a wash of soft lights, the crinkle of wrapping paper, ugly sweaters and Shiro draping an arm over his shoulder while they drink hot chocolate on the porch to escape the insanity for a little while. “Merry Christmas,” he says warmly into Keith’s ear and there’s nothing he can do to pretend that the shivers are from how cold it is outside.
They’re sent back home with an absurd amount of leftovers in a tupperware and a temperature controlled box and a standing invite for Keith to come back next year.
III
Keith’s second year in the Garrison, Shiro gets promoted to officer. It’s not a surprise to anyone except maybe Shiro himself, but even then, he looks pleased, not shocked when the meeting lets out. They take off to the little town that borders the Garrison and get a real meal - not the mess hall stuff, but real, huge burgers that are messy and dripping and Matt joins them halfway through, bundled up to the nose with his scarf and jacket.
The desert is warm during the day even in winter, of course, but at night the temperature drops and Keith’s grateful for the jacket that Shiro’s parents got for him, even if he’d nearly protested that his present was supposed to be the plane ticket. It’s a little big on him, sinking past his wrists but he’ll grow into it. They wouldn’t let him fight them on it, instead letting him help with dishes when he insists on making himself useful.
Shiro and Keith linger a little longer so that Matt can put an order in for dinner, too, the three of them huddled over their sodas and fries, Matt over his chicken tenders. Shiro’s a long line of heat up against Keith’s side, warm enough he can feel it even through the jacket but he doesn’t move away.
An hour before curfew, they make their way back, warm and full of good food, Shiro and Matt heckling each other over a training sim they’d run, Keith laughing quietly under his breath in response to one jeer or another.
Things settle comfortably, Shiro taking on additional training and duties as an officer but they still train together in the mornings and one month bleeds into the next until it’s March and his name is called out again, another piece of mail passed to him. It’s not Christmas, it’s not a major day, it’s nothing so he’s not sure why Shiro’s parents are sending anything but he doesn’t really have time to read it, either. He’s running late and there aren’t any eggs left right then, so he goes without and hauls ass to class before he ends up late. They’re running sims in the machine this time and he’s sure as hell not about to miss that.
Shiro DMs him on the tablets later that afternoon and tells him that he ought to keep his schedule clear tonight, which, it’s not like he’s exactly brimming with things to do, but he does it anyway. He gets his work done early and raps his knuckles on Shiro’s door at exactly 1800 as instructed. There’s shuffling inside, brief voices and for a moment, his stomach twists. It’s not like he’s an idiot - Shiro’s expressed interest in people before and he’s pretty sure he isn’t imagining those looks that Matt gets since getting promoted to officer, but it’s also not like he’s really into the idea of seeing it.
Just as he’s about to turn, the door opens a touch and Shiro’s head peeks out, his eyes widening. “Uh -- can you wait two more minutes? Thanks.”
The door closes again and now he’s really confused. If someone was in there for private reasons, wouldn’t Shiro just tell him to come back later?
Still, he waits, and then the door opens again, Shiro’s broad figure filling the doorway out. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Keith says, drawing the word out a little longer, slower, more dubious. “I can come back.”
“No, no, it’s -- come in.” Except the lights are off and this whole thing is just really weird, but alright. Keith follows him into the bedroom after a beat of hesitation and then stands there in the dark room, frowning. It smells sweet in here for some reason and the bathroom fan is on and he doesn’t know why, but a moment later the door to the bathroom opens and Shiro turns the lights on and -- oh. Oh.
Matt comes out with a small cake on a plate clearly stolen from the mess hall, a wad of candles lit and smoking in the center of it. Just like that, the bathroom fan being on makes sense and Shiro and Matt beckon him over in a hurry, laughing. “Don’t set the smoke detectors off, come on, come on, make a wish and blow them out before--”
Keith doesn’t think twice, he leans in and blows all of them out in one go, while Shiro hurriedly opens back up the bathroom and main doors and starts waving papers to get the smoke out before the detector is reached. The card and envelope make sense now and something twists in Keith’s chest, his cheeks warm despite himself.
“I didn’t ever tell you-” he starts, only to be stopped by another plate nicked from the mess hall being materialized in front of him, this time with a slice of cake on it. Pieces start to fit into place; all the times Shiro’d nonchalantly talked about cake just to see if Keith would argue about what flavors were good (vanilla, buttercream frosting). He still hadn’t ever told Shiro his birthday but from the smug look on Matt’s face, he knows who to blame for that.
“I told the Garrison that we need to institute a better security system for information,” Matt says airily, waving his fork around in the air a moment before stabbing it into the cake to take a bite. “They never listened. And you weren’t going to tell Shiro, so.”
Which means Shiro asked Matt, Matt told Shiro and Shiro told his parents. Keith ducks his head and pretends like his throat isn’t a little tight, like he isn’t both itching to run out of there but also situate himself more firmly at the tiny table they’re all at and never give this up. He settles for something in the middle, looking at both of them through the mess of his bangs. “Thanks.”
They make him sit through presents - small things, like a knife sharpening set from Shiro and a new set of gloves from Matt. Small enough that it’s not like he can protest how expensive they were, but kind enough that he knows that they actually thought about what to get him. When they make him open the card up later, he’s relieved to note it’s nothing but a card. He’s not sure what he’d do if they’d gotten something for him when they’d already done so much over Christmas. Somehow, he figures Shiro had told them not to do it, because Shiro looks at him with warm understanding when he opens the card and is visibly relieved all that it contains is a sweet letter.
“No confetti?” Keith asks dryly and carefully slips the card back into the envelope and then pockets it to later place with the other cards when he returns to his room tonight.
“She debated it.” Shiro starts plucking candles out of the cake and then drops them neatly onto Keith’s plate for him to lick the frosting off of, which is only clear when Matt steals one and sucks the frosting off of it before Shiro can smack his hand away. “I told her it’d get in the frosting so she said she’d put extra in the Thanksgiving one. My sister found some little turkey ones that mom loves.”
Matt begs off after the cake is finished, claiming work (true) and he’s tired (plausible) and he needs to return the plates (also true) but it means that when he leaves, it’s just him and Shiro and this weird warmth and twisting sensation in his chest like he’s too full and doesn’t know how to handle it properly.
“Come on, Matt managed to download the sequel to that movie we saw last summer. It’s only an hour and a half, we should get done before lights out.” Shiro pads over to the desk where he keeps his tablet and unplugs it, the two of them settled on the bed moments later, legs stretched out, shoulders pressed against each other, the tablet balanced on their thighs. He spends the night watching a terrible mecha movie and eating a second helping of cake just so they can turn the plate in before anyone notices it’s gone.
It’s the best birthday he can remember having in years.
IV
Early summer brings acceptance to the mission to Kerberos, a new slew of training and Shiro’s birthday. Unsurprisingly, it has a much more rowdy party than Keith’s. It’s not shocking when you consider Shiro’s friends with everyone, officers and cadets and trainees and the fucking lunch ladies. The party starts in Shiro’s officer quarters - larger than the tiny spaces cadets and trainees get, sure, but still not large enough to host the thirty odd people that start filtering in. They have to move to the cafeteria because his birthday falls on a night that they aren’t allowed to leave the Garrison, but it works out.
Keith sees Shiro for maybe twenty minutes the whole three hours it lasts and makes an attempt to linger as long as he can before he realizes there’s only so long he can stand off to the side like a nervous kid at a school dance.
He studies, instead, sending Shiro a quick message to let him know where he’s gone and it’s twenty minutes before lights out that he hears a knock at his door. He expects Shiro, sure, but what he doesn’t expect to see is the warm flush on his cheeks and the loose, easy way he carries himself, so unlike how he normally is on Garrison grounds. “I-- did you drink?” Keith asks incredulously, letting Shiro in so no one else hears it.
“The other officers grabbed me once the party ended,” Shiro says and it’s not quite as guilty as he would normally sound. He slides himself down into Keith’s lone chair at the tiny table and grins, shaking his hair out of his eyes. “Two of the officers have whiskey that’s older than I am. It still tastes like drinking fire.”
That’s not shocking, really. Shiro’s never gone drinking in rooms with smuggled alcohol like the other cadets did, but officers are allowed more leeway on this sort of thing and it’s not like Shiro isn’t old enough. “Eugh,” Keith says eloquently in response, slinking back to his bed to stretch out on his belly, watching Shiro quietly for a moment. “Did you have fun?”
“Eugh,” Shiro agrees cheerfully and rises up, puttering about Keith’s tiny room like it’s his own, grabbing a glass and filling it with water from the tiny kitchenette. “And yeah, I did. Sorry, I know it was -- a lot. You didn’t have to stay as long as you did, Matt left before you did, I think.”
“It’s fine. I finished going over the schematics for the sim tomorrow, so I think I’m prepared.” He doesn’t feel like it, but at the same time, he and Shiro have spent the last few nights studying over every little thing and he knows he can recite it backwards, forwards and sideways. There’s always something that goes wrong on the sims - cargo, fighter, or otherwise, but he thinks he’s got down everything that he needs to, to pass.
“You are,” Shiro says. There’s not an ounce of doubt in his tone. Keith doesn’t really know what he’s done to deserve that faith.
Over the speakers, the warning chime for ten minutes to lights out sounds and Shiro heaves a sigh, pulling out something from his pocket. It’s a card, but what he shakes clear of it is what catches Keith’s attention. “What did they send?”
“It’s a key.” That gets Shiro a look, because yeah, obviously, he’s not an idiot and he knows what a key is, but that doesn’t answer the question here. “To the hoverbike you and dad fixed up.”
Oh. Oh. Keith’s eyes widen and he feels his heart pound with something like excitement. They’d never gotten to take it out after he’d worked on it the last time, because one of the parts they needed for it was on backorder. They’d promised to let them try it as soon as they were out there next but apparently the piece arrived and it was up and running. “Did you bring it here?”
“Yeah. It’s sitting in the garage. I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out on it this weekend. I’d say tomorrow but you’ve got your sim and I have two straight days of officer meetings and training, prep for Kerberos.” Which, of course. Keith isn’t shocked by that, but there is a little pang of regret that goes through him. It’s only a year and he’s more happy for Shiro and Matt than he is anything else, but he also is realistic. It’s going to be a boring year while they’re gone and while he’s had a month to sit on it, that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. As if knowing that mention of the trip was going to make Keith hesitate, Shiro soldiers on. “Also, there’s a letter for you.”
“Your parents?” Keith asks, though he knows the answer to that question. He takes the letter when it’s passed to him, the same envelope, but not a card this time, just a letter.
“Mmhm. Dad got a new bike and had some questions about parts since you uh, had really strong feelings about what he was using last time.” It wasn’t a lie. Keith had gotten into a debate over the best brand of parts to use for certain aspects of the bike, hence the need to order the specific parts, because you don’t just put shit pieces into a beautiful machine like that. Shiro smothers a yawn with one hand and tips his head back, glancing at the clock with open disdain. “I don’t think mom ever expected he’d actually get that thing fixed up any time this year, but he wants to have another project. They were just going to get me a new one but I wanted this one; at least I know someone here who’s going to be able to fix it, right?”
When they’d been repairing the old one, Shiro hadn’t had much interest in fixing it up. He’d linger while they worked, handing tools over, sipping at his drink while they talked shop, quizzing Keith over tests he’d have to come back to after the trip, but for the most part he’d left them to it. Keith figured he was mostly just smug over the fact that he was right about Keith getting along really well with his parents.
“Yeah, I’ll make sure you take care of it.” A pause, because the one thing they don’t seem to have considered is Kerberos. “Are you sending it back when you’re gone? It’ll need to be driven every so often, it can’t just sit for a year.”
“I know,” Shiro says easily, rolling to his feet with a graceful gesture, tugging at Keith’s bangs on his way past. “You can handle that while I’m gone, right? If you need it for errands or anything, you can use it. But that’s not for a while, remember?”
He ambles toward the door like he didn’t just tell Keith that while he’s gone he can just use it whenever he wants, like that’s not a huge deal and like he’s not insane. “Shiro-”
“Lights out is in three,” Shiro says, far too smugly. “Night, Keith.”
He’s out the door before Keith can bitch about anything, or demand answers, or do more than just gape at the door and curse loud enough he hears Shiro’s laughter outside in the hall as he walks away. Insanity runs in that family, that’s the only answer at this point. Keith huffs under his breath, opening the letter he was given.
There’s an invite to the summer event again, a standing invite to Thanksgiving and Christmas while Shiro’s gone, and a note from Shiro’s mom asking him to kindly keep Shiro from breaking his neck on the thing, and if he runs into any sort of issues when needing to use the hoverbike or when he’s taking it out for maintenance, to contact them. The whole family’s insane, that’s the only answer that makes sense at this point. At least he knows where Shiro gets it from.
There’s also pictures of the new one, a deep blue in color, bigger, less sleek than the red one that they’d been fixing up. It’s gorgeous and an old classic, sure, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the one that he knows is in the garage, now. Still, he wants to get his hands on it, wants to see what he can do with it, what work Shiro’s dad has already put into it. The X800s weren’t a series he was as familiar with but he can pull up the schematics and help figure out what parts they’re going to need.
Keith tucks this letter away with the rest of the cards, into a larger envelope and the pictures are pinned to one of the posters he has up on his wall, the before pictures so he can put the after ones next to it.
It’s only a few months til Kerberos, but Keith knows that it’s going to pass too fast.
V
Kerberos happens.
Keith takes the bike out religiously, once a month and tunes her up when it’s necessary. When he doesn’t send a receipt of any purchases he’s made for her to Shiro’s parents like they asked, they send along money for it, because they know he’s doing routine maintenance and not billing them for it. He knows better than to fight them on it. The money goes into the bank with the rest of his Garrison stipend, slowly growing.
He puts his nose to the grindstone and works harder than ever while Shiro’s gone; his record isn’t perfect, because he’d been a hell of a brat when he first started, but where his instructors had worried he’d revert to how he was before Shiro, he only works harder. That isn’t to say he has any time for idiots; he scuffles, briefly, but it’s nothing and no one finds out.
Kerberos is lost.
He finds out three hours after everyone else. The bike needed a new air filter because he could tell she wasn’t working properly on the right side, and it’d taken ages to get there, get the part and then bring it back to the garage. No one is manning the security gates which is weird enough, but the garage is empty, too.
Puzzled, he yanks his helmet off and unzips the jacket - it fits better now, his shoulders filling out a little more in the last few months because without Shiro around, he spends more time doing PT, lifting weights. The halls are empty, everything’s freakishly quiet. Idly, he wonders if there’s some sort of assembly he’s missing or what, but no, nothing. It’s only when people start filing out of the mess hall, eyes wet, visibly distraught that he starts to realize that there’s something wrong. He’s not exactly close enough to anyone to just ask one of his peers, but he pushes through the group as neatly as he can to try and see whatever is projected up on the main screens.
Normally, they only use them to display vids or orientation items, but it’s the news right now. The first pass of his eyes over the words don’t connect. The second doesn’t either. He must be reading it wrong. There has to be something about this that he’s reading wrong, or it’s wrong, or they’re lying. It’s some kind of drill, they do drills for everything else, why not this?
Keith sucks in a breath and feels the world tilt to the side, has to grab at the table to steady himself while everyone else keeps filing out of the hall. Half of the people upset don’t even know Shiro like he does, they don’t have any right--
How do they even know, anyway? Keith whirls on his boot and stomps after everyone else, intent on demanding answers from someone about this. How do they know it’s lost. Comms can be dropped, that’s an issue to resolve in training: number 18 on the fighter sims and 12 on the cargo sims. He knows that. He’s studied those damn missions so often that he knows everything about them. There’s a million things that can go wrong that stop sending information to Main Ops and the fact that the news is reporting on this without knowing that is -- it’s shit journalism.
“Cadet.” He hears it, but it doesn’t register, too focused on getting past the front desk to the Colonel’s office. “Cadet Kogane.”
That gets his attention. Keith turns again, hands clenched into tight fists, the helmet clutched in his right hand. The synth-plastic creaks in his hand when he holds it, but he barely notices.
“You have a call. Side office.” A call? The Kerberos mission failed and they want him to-- take a call? Before he can open his mouth to spit out who is it, the officer grimaces before he speaks again. “It’s Shirogane’s mother.”
It’s the only thing that stops his potential to storm into Iverson or someone else’s office and demand to know what’s going on. His mother would have known before the news did. God, Shiro’s parents--
He sucks in a breath and turns woodenly to the office where cadets can take calls when they get them, and pretends his hand doesn’t shake when he reaches for the tablet and hits the line that’s glowing with her name. Some part of him still thinks there’s a chance that she’s calling to tell him that this was faked, it was a military exercise, and they’re fine. They’re telling him because he knew Shiro and Matt and they can’t keep a secret from him.
“Hello?”
It’s not that kind of call at all. It’s Shiro’s mother, her voice soft and wet, asking him if he knows anything else because the Garrison’s told them nothing. They were alerted that the mission had made it to Kerberos, it seemed, but that something had gone wrong. Effectively they knew just as little as Keith did. He thinks he could take the screaming, or the crying, but the cool, trembling questions that Shiro’s mother asks are what gets him.
How did it happen? I don’t know, ma’am.
How soon was it announced? I don’t know, I wasn’t here.
Did the other officers seem to know? I don’t know, I was in training sims and then out all day.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
He snaps the last time and then instantly freezes, hunched over in his chair, his hand fisted in his lap so tightly his knuckles are making the leather of his gloves creak. Against his ear, the line is silent for a moment and he hears her take a trembling breath in. He can’t even make himself spit out that he’s sorry. Instead, he grits out, I can’t - I have to go and hangs up. He makes it all the way to the training room before he loses it and tears into a punching bag until his knuckles bleed and bruise and he can tell himself that the wetness on his cheeks, sliding down into his tshirt is sweat, not tears.
VI
Thanksgiving rolls around. It’s been three months since the mission was declared lost and Keith has spent exactly a week of it staring at the little card on his desk, his stomach twisting into knots. He’s on probation for a variety of reasons, and idly, wonders if Shiro’s parents A) know and B) are the type to scold him about it. He doubts it on both parts. He doesn’t know why they’d want to contact him, after the way he’d snapped at Shiro’s mom on their call; foster families would give up a kid for something like that, and they had no reason to care half as much as a foster family could and usually that wasn’t much at all.
When he finally gets the courage to open it, it’s just a simple letter. A reminder that he’s invited to Thanksgiving dinner. A question asking him how he is. A neatly printed set of both of their phone numbers. A small baggie of little confetti turkeys stapled neatly to the top of the card, because Shiro had told them that he’d opened it over his oatmeal.
Keith can’t bring himself to do a damn thing. The card, its carefully stapled glitter package, its envelope, all of it are shoved in the larger one with the rest. He can’t do this. He can’t go to Thanksgiving and pretend like they’re not all waiting for the magical number of 180 days to hit. Four months, 180 days. That’s how long it’ll take for the Garrison to decide they didn’t give enough of a shit about Shiro and the others and they’ll declare them dead. He can’t go there with that hanging over his head.
He doesn’t respond to that card, he can’t.
Soon, it’s 160 days. Then 170. They don’t even make it to 180, because the Garrison finds something. Keith doesn’t know what the hell it is but whatever it is, it’s apparently good enough for the brass to decide that’s it, they just give up ten days early and hold a slew of meetings internally before it’s released to the public. Unsurprisingly, he’s not invited to any of them. Being Shiro’s best friend and knowing Matt mean exactly jack when you’re not an officer.
He’s so furious he could spit, he could yell, he could break his knuckles on another bag. He needs to get out, needs to fucking leave because he can’t do this, he can’t sit here and sit through meeting after meeting about proper safety, about piloting, about the great, devastating loss that this is. He makes it through one mandatory meeting and then the moment the pompous asshole starts to go on about how to prevent pilot error, he stalks out. He’s already on thin ice with the Garrison, but it doesn’t fucking matter, because the Garrison doesn’t seem inclined to do a damn thing about finding out what actually happened, on finding Shiro. Hell, on finding Matt and his father.
Shiro’s family doesn’t call this time, but he knows they’re probably being made aware. He can’t bring himself to talk to them before and, well, after it’s confirmed, he’s on his way out of the Garrison with his belongings in a single bag, slung over his shoulder, and the keys to Shiro’s hoverbike heavy in his pocket.
He doesn’t know what direction he’s going to go, but it doesn’t matter, he’s been told he has to leave and he’s ready to. When he finds Shiro, he can take whatever talk he’s going to get, but right now, he takes the hoverbike and opens her up in the driveway, spitting sand everywhere. They’re going to have to clean off the roads they’ve paved in over the desert. It’s petty, but it’s all he can manage.
He ends up having to call them from town, because he might be the kind of pissed off that gets him kicked out of the Garrison, but he’s not the kind of asshole who steals his (presumed dead) best friend’s bike, either. It takes him four attempts to actually dial the number but when it picks up, he grips the tablet tightly, staring at the little blue line and name tag that signified Shiro’s mother’s voice.
“Keith?” Her voice is horribly gentle and it makes his stomach twist.
“I have Shiro’s bike.” The words sound like they’re dragged out of him and Keith inhales sharply through his nose and forces himself to push on. “If you want it picked up, I can give you an address. It works fine.”
There. It’s even and quick and he can almost pretend like his stomach isn’t twisting itself into knots at something as simple as a call.
“We can have the Garrison send it, it’s alright. You shouldn’t have to worry about it after you’ve taken such good care of it.” At least she doesn’t question him or try to make him talk about it, but there’s a problem with that.
“I’m not -- at the Garrison. Anymore. I can drop it in the parking lot of the Garrison, though, or somewhere downtown.” Keith’s not going to make this inconvenient for them, not after already taking the bike from the Garrison. He’ll take it back there if he has to but that’s really, really not what he wants to do here.
“I see.” And oh, he hears the steel in her voice, imagines how many times she’s taken that tone with Shiro and can’t come up with many. “Keep it. I’m -- Keith, I’m glad you called. If you’re not at the Garrison then you won’t get--”
Whatever it is makes her pause and go silent for a while. He tries to place the date to figure out what it is and then realizes it’s getting close to Christmas. It’s still a few weeks off but he’d be getting a card soon, he knows that.
“We’re holding Shiro’s funeral soon. The Garrison said- they said that they likely won’t find a body to bury. That to hold it off any longer isn’t something that they could do, because they’re paying for it and it’s going to be the same time as the Holts’.” Somehow, she seems more put together than he could ever imagine being. Keith doesn’t know how she does it. “We’d like it if you were able to come out for it. Especially if you’re not in the Garrison right now.”
And oh, there’s that edge of tone again, disapproving but not outright calling him out for it. Out of anyone -- anyone on Earth, anyway, she’s the one that knows the most about how hard he’s worked to get where he is. Shiro had written home religiously when first starting at the Garrison and Keith was both surprised and a little mortified to find out just how often Shiro had apparently written home about him.
He can’t bring himself to give her the same argument that he gave Iverson and the rest. That’s not fair to her. “Where is it?” Keith sounds wrecked, even to himself but there’s no way he can fix it, not when it takes everything to keep himself still. “I’ll be there.”
In the end, he is invited to Christmas, but he can’t bring himself to do that. Can’t bring himself to stay, either, from the funeral to Christmas because he knows that’s going to be overwhelming and a whole new kind of awful he’d rather not discover. No, he needs to come back here. He doesn’t know what it is, but there’s a feeling tugging at him, making him think that there’s something he’s missing out here. Maybe it’s just a need to get out of town and away from people; it wouldn’t be the first time but it also feels like more than that.
Besides, this at least guarantees him a bed and a shower tonight. He hops the first flight there the next morning.
Walking into the funeral is hard enough, but it was the actual event that felt like he was slowly ripping his own heart out. Shiro would never forgive him if he hadn’t shown up - not for him, but for his parents.
Except, that’s not true. Shiro would forgive him, because Shiro knew him. No, he knows Keith. He’s not dead, Keith has to use present tense. He’d understand that this would be the hardest damn thing he’s ever done, walking in there, listening to the speeches from family, the Garrison speakers, the fucking spectacle that they make of their funerals.
There are reporters there, and one of them tries to stick a fucking cam in Shiro’s mother’s face to ask her questions and Keith doesn’t hesitate to grab it and break it neatly on the ground. For all that Shiro’s mother reaches exactly five foot nothing, that same commanding tone that used to get Shiro to straighten up and take note still works on everyone else around her. “This is a private event and unless you are here to pay your respects, I am going to ask you to leave.”
He’s pretty sure it’s all that tone and her ramrod straight shoulders that get the asshole to leave, but he’d like to think that maybe the fact that he looks like he’s two seconds from kicking the guy’s ass along with his camera has a little bit to do with it.
It’s the shittiest experience of his life which is impressive, given that Keith’s had an abnormally large amount of shitty experiences with foster care, the orphanage.
VII
He has to go to the post office to get his mail; the little shack he’s been working on in the middle of the desert isn’t exactly the kind of place that gets daily mail. He makes the trip every morning, 0800 before it gets too hot during the day. Sometimes he gets supplies he needs and sometimes he just goes to get the mail, even though it’s next to never that he gets any. He needs some part of routine to his life, even it’s as simple as this.
Sometimes there’s miscellaneous ads that they stuff into every box. Around any holiday of note, Shiro’s family sends him a card and an invitation to come see them for a few days again. He never brings himself to accept.
When he stops by the post office this time, there’s actually a package for him. He signs for it, hefting it up curiously. It’s huge and absurdly heavy. It feels like there’s a blanket of some kind in there, if he’s being honest. There’s only one place that would be sending him presents or packages so he doesn’t need to check the address. He’ll have to wait until he’s home again to open it and check what it is, but he’s undeniably curious. It ends up strapped to his hoverbike with bungee cables, secured as best as he can manage and he takes the drive home significantly slower, unwilling to have it slip free and hit the ground.
When he gets back to the shack, the box is placed on his table with all the care in the world - partially because it might have something fragile in it, but also because he hasn’t found a fourth cinderblock for his table and it’s rickety as hell. His knife slices open the box neatly and when he pulls apart the flaps, there are two more boxes inside. The note on top explains that one box is his leftover belongings from the Garrison - what he hadn’t grabbed when he left in the rush he left in. He hadn’t exactly provided a return address, the note explains, but when they’d come to pick up Shiro’s, they’d picked up his too.
When he opens it, there’s the basics - knicknacks he had forgotten. His posters, folded up and basically ruined, the granola bars that Matt had left during a study session with them in Keith’s room before he left for Kerberos, sunglasses, and underneath, a set of clothing that’s not his at all. He pulls at the black material and then drops it, abruptly, realizing whose it is. It had been that same meeting from the granola bars - he and Matt had stayed in Keith’s room til past lights out while studying; they were officers, they wouldn’t get in trouble and Keith was just going to stay up anyway for his own assignments. This way, they could all still stay up together and Keith could pick their brains on tasks they’d finished and could help on, and Matt and Shiro would be able to dodge anyone who needed anything this late at night.
They’d ended up with Matt stumbling his way back to his room in exhaustion, but Shiro staying an extra hour, which had turned into Keith giving him a set of pj pants and a shirt, and the two of them falling asleep studying instead. At some point in the night, Keith had woken up and groggily helped Shiro stretch out on the couch, tossed a blanket over him and staggered back into bed to go back to sleep but without the pencil poking him in his stomach. He’d meant to do the laundry and return Shiro’s clothes to him but hadn’t before he left for Kerberos. It wasn’t like the Garrison would know that it wasn’t his. The clothing had been laundered, too. Now they only smelled like detergent, but he can’t bring himself to just throw them out. It, and the box of items he doesn’t need right away get tucked to the side.
The second box is opened up, and he feels his breath catch when he unwraps the first item. Shiro had a collection of ships up on his shelves both at home and at the Garrison. After the funeral, his parents had asked Keith if he wanted anything. If he had a specific request and they could bear to part with it, they’d try to get it to him. He hadn’t expected anything to come of it, but inside were three of Shiro’s little figures.
They’re set with all the care in the world on the windowsill next to Keith’s bed, out of the way of anything that could break them. The most recent one was the Kerberos ship; Keith had chipped into the pool with everyone else to get it, because everyone who knew Shiro knew that he was a big, unrepentant nerd about anything to do with space, and ships, and flying. Only a limited run were produced for the Kerberos launch and they’d managed to grab one for him. The other two were ones Shiro had actually assembled - a sleek fighter pilot and the Vostok capsule.
Underneath that, is one of Shiro’s hoodies, a note pinned to it. You wear it more than he did.
It was true; he commandeered the hoodie when he came to visit the first time and then Shiro had told him to hold onto it the second time and that he’d always have one to wear when he came with Shiro back to his house. Apparently someone had noticed Keith wearing it, because they’d sent it over.
It’s too hot in the shack to even think about putting it on, but he does bury his face in it and pretend for a moment that they’re back at Shiro’s parent’s house, that nothing like this ever happened. That if he inhales, he can smell cookies baking, the scent of tea, and under it, Shiro. When he pulls back, it’s just the desert and for once, he’s too tired to try and find another cinderblock, to go and tune up the bike, to try and hunt down whatever was in this desert, drawing him here.
Instead, he grabs the keys to the bike and takes her out again because just driving is better than anything else he could do right now. It feels more final like this - the rest of Shiro’s belongings either in storage or with him, the funeral over. Shiro’s been dead for eight months, if the Garrison was right. Four months for the Garrison to finish all their internal meetings and deal with whatever bureaucracy meant that Shiro’s family couldn’t get the contents of his room until they’d finished going over everything in it.
He hadn’t anticipated how final having something like Shiro’s ships, his stupid hoodie would make him feel. Both of Keith’s hands tighten over the trips of the bike and as soon as he hits the main stretch, no rocks for miles in front of him, he floors it.
+1
“This is sweet, you know.”
Shiro nearly startles him into dropping the little baggie of stars he’s holding and trying to gently shake into the envelope without tossing all of them in there. Behind him, arms slide up around his waist, spreading over his chest and lie flat there while he gently pours two shakes of the stars into the envelope and then lifts it over his shoulder, the sticky side of the envelope facing Shiro.
“Lick,” Keith orders and it’s worth it just for the way Shiro huffs an, ooh, into his ear and hums before doing as he’s told and licking the glue for him. Keith seals the envelope shut and then neatly tapes the bag back together again, so they can use it for- well, honestly, probably the next time they have to contact Shiro’s mother. There’s something absurd about sending actual, physical mail when literally everyone else in the universe uses the equivalent of email, but they both go along with it. At least she’s started to use the tech a little more, especially with the upgrades from Altea.
“I mean it. Mom loves those little things. I can’t believe you found them at the store.”
Truth be told, he hadn’t just ‘found them at the store’ he had actually hunted for them, after Hunk had pried out of him that he was scared of sending an invite to the family, feeling it was inadequate after all the other times he hadn’t sent anything. The stars were Hunk’s idea and Keith had literally taken Red to the other side of the country because someone had mentioned a store that had them. It only took a handful of minutes for Red, but still, they’d all sort of promised when it was over that they wouldn’t use the lions for anything and everything because then people would see and there were certain agreements in place.
Of course, with the increased cloaking that Pidge had outfitted all of the lions with, they could go hours without needing to uncloak so it wasn’t really like anyone would know if they were out taking the lions on runs. What the Garrison and everyone else didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, after all.
“All the other invitations are sent out?” Keith asks and allows himself to sink back into the steady weight of Shiro.
“As of an hour ago. Allura and I finished signing the invitations sent to the remainder of the Alliance, too, so anyone who is going to send a representative from their planet has to tell us sooner rather than later. We’ve already gotten some responses in, which we expected.” Shiro’s chin settles in on Keith’s shoulder, his breathing warm and steady in his ear. “How are you holding up?”
It’s not as idle of a question as it seems. Out of the two of them, Keith hadn’t really cared as much about getting married years later, because when it came down to saving the universe, fighting the Galra, trying to survive for years on end, something as simple as a piece of paper that said you’re together didn’t seem...adequate. He knew they were together, just like Shiro did. No piece of paper was somehow going to make that final. But Keith also wasn’t an idiot and knew that every time they returned home to visit family and deal with the Galaxy Garrison talks, working as ambassadors between the Alliance and Earth, Shiro’s parents asked.
After five years together, they’d started wearing rings. It wasn’t much, but Shiro hadn’t pushed and Keith had been the one to start it because he knew that of the two of them, Shiro was the one more invested in things like that. They were lightweight and terribly strong, made from pieces of Red and Black that had been shorn off during a battle they’d nearly died in. The scrap was too damaged to build back into the lions and so he’d kept them after asking permission from the lions and created the rings himself.
After ten years together, two full years of calm after the war, Lance had thrown himself down in the seat across from Keith, leaned in and asked, So, when are you gonna make an honest man outta Shiro, huh?
Of course, planning a wedding on its own was a nightmare. Keith would have been fine with a little thing, courthouse, some of Shiro’s family, the paladins, Allura and Coran. But given how well-known the paladins were at this point and the fact that the Alliance was as prevalent as it was, they couldn’t just get married and not have it be an event. Even Keith understood that though he wasn’t a particularly huge fan of the necessity of it. They struck a compromise instead; they would have an Earth wedding, according to their customs (still, nothing as simple as a piece of paper at the courthouse and Keith sighs) and then a second wedding, on New Altea, where all the representatives and people that wanted to come, could come.
“Keith,” Shiro skims his Galran hand up Keith’s side, nosing gently at the nape of his neck where his hair is pulled back into a short messy bunch to get it out of the way. “How are you holding up?”
He hadn’t answered the first time it was asked, he realizes, too caught up in his own head. One hand reaches for the stamps to place one on the card for Shiro’s mother and then he breathes deep, leans into Shiro and answers. “I’m good. Really.”
It’s not a lie. His leg still aches in the middle of the night, still seizes if he uses it too much without stretching properly, he’s got a scar on his stomach from a blaster to the gut that he’d taken on a mission that had nearly killed him - both times where they couldn’t get to the cryopods fast enough for the scars to heal. Shiro has more scars than Keith cares to count and years later, still has nights where he wakes up screaming or crying. They're better, though. They're healing. He’s still terrified of the idea of two weddings, let alone one. He still has to go with Pidge to help them figure out whether they’re wearing a suit or a dress for the wedding on Earth because Lance had somehow roped him into this as best man for Keith.
He walks the mail out to the post office while Shiro starts fixing breakfast and by the time he comes back, the house is full; Hunk’s helping make some sort of something that smells like sugar and deliciousness, Pidge has commandeered their couch with their computer, and Lance is sprawled across what’s left, every so often wiggling his feet in Pidge’s face when he wants their attention. At the table, hefting two giant bottles of champagne and trying to sort out both counting who is there and the number of glasses for mimosas is Matt.
“We have a lock for a reason, I was only gone fifteen ticks,” Keith says dryly, accepting the glass that is handed to him, along with the friendly little shoulder bump he gets from Matt in return.
“Mmm, they followed me home, I thought I would keep them,” Shiro tosses over his shoulder, spatula in one hand, the hideous apron that Lance had gotten him a year ago covered in flour. “I’m kind of attached to them.”
From the couch, there’s a howl and thrashing; Pidge apparently got tired of Lance sticking his feet in their face while they were trying to work and had smacked a pillow into his face, and the cat that was sleeping peacefully on the windowsill, curled around the collection of ships, hauls ass out of the living room and skitters into the dining room to hide under the table. Hunk goes to play peacekeeper and steal the pillows so they don’t start fighting, Matt hands Shiro a mimosa, and Keith settles at the sink to start doing dishes. Yeah, he thinks. He’s pretty attached to them, too.