Chapter Text
“I’m not exactly the best influence on your daughter,” Keith admitted, grimacing as he looked anywhere but his newly “adopted father”. The man had one of those magnificent desks Allura didn’t even bother investing in. It was the office—the one important people came into and were intimidated by. They were intimidated by not only the desk, but the massive floor-length windows behind it, and the array of bookshelves spread across the other remaining walls.
Keith had spent enough time in there to no longer be intimidated by it, or the man behind the desk. He received nothing more than a blank stare from his adopted father before he sighed and said, “Sorry Shiro—it won’t happen again.”
Takashi Shirogane sighed dejectedly, pressing the pads of his fingers to his temples. “Nothing is a good influence on her. I have a feeling you’ll be just as difficult as her, probably worse as time passes. And I know it’s not your fault. She’s excellent at convincing people to do the wrong thing.”
Keith released a relieved breath. So he wasn’t entirely to blame for what both he and Pidge had done. But that didn’t mean Shiro was any happier about it—it just meant he split the blame in half and gave them both an equal share of punishment.
“You are supposed to be making friends with my acquaintances’ sons and daughters, and definitely not…”
“Egging them on and beating them to a pulp. Got it.”
“Traditional fencing doesn’t involve punching, or tripping for that matter,” Shiro said, pushing out of his chair and towering over Keith. The boy had to be thirteen years old—but then again, they’d never truly know. Keith was as much of a mystery to himself as he was to everyone else. Most of Allura’s street rats were. “I didn’t take you in to remind Pidge what life was like without rules and discipline. The sons and daughters that visit have reputations to uphold, which includes—”
“An external image,” Keith droned, rolling his eyes, “which means bruises and blood are frowned upon. I know that. But Pidge was the one to suggest a sword fight with Prorok’s son, not me. She roped me into it.”
“I didn’t say you instigated it. All I’m saying is that you could have said no. There’s no shame in declining a fight,” Shiro insisted, but Keith scoffed in response, crossing his arms. His expression soured, and it took a moment for Shiro to recover. “You aren’t on the streets anymore. House politics are different. You are part of a family’s house now. Both of your actions reflect on my name—our name.”
At this, Keith’s defensive nature withered. He scratched the back of his head, eyes to the ground. It was the sort of thing he used to do during weekly payment, back where he used to live on the streets. Just hand the change over and don’t make eye contact. The last thing Keith needed back then was a real fight, not a prissy sword fight with Prorok’s son.
“You’re right. Sorry.”
Shiro stared at him from beside the desk, and continued to walk around it and settle his hand on Keith’s shoulder. He gave Keith a reassuring squeeze before saying, “Send Pidge in on your way out.”
“Will do, sir.”
Shiro chuckled a little, and let his hand drop as Keith walked to the exit. He didn’t look back as he left the door open behind him, and found Pidge jumping up from the ground. She’d been sitting across from him in the hallway, just below a landscape painting framed by embossed gold.
Keith nodded to the door, shoving his hands in the pockets of his trousers. “Shiro’s waiting for you.”
Pidge just stared at him as he sidestepped, glancing hesitantly at the door again. Eventually, she uttered, “Did he—? Is he angry with me?”
He scoffed and gave a shrug. “What do you think? You’re the favorite child as of right now. It’s not like you were the one to beat up the kid.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she sighed, shoulders slouching. “Wish me luck.”
“As if,” he laughed, spinning and marching away down the hall. She could fend for herself, especially after initiating the fight. They’d already apologized to Prorok’s son, and now all they needed to answer to was their adopted father.
Keith wandered to the stairs, purposefully avoiding Shiro’s house staff. There weren’t many considering he didn’t even require much help around the house. For the most part, that was Shiro: taking in the less-fortunate. Pidge and Keith included. But unlike Pidge, Keith was a direct reference from Allura. Aside from King Zarkon, Allura was the only other person Shiro answered to. They weren’t even on the same playing field, not exactly, anyway.
Shiro was within the law, and then there were people like Allura.
Keith didn’t know much about Allura other than the fact that she heard about Keith through… strange means. Keith didn’t quite understand them himself, and until he did… he was parading around like he was the only son of Takashi Shirogane—the wealthy, widowed, “heirless” lord from the city. “Heirless” was used hesitantly by Shiro, since he had every intention of leaving his things to the staff, and mainly Pidge when he would die.
Keith was just there as a tool for Allura. And he didn’t really mind, because Allura was incredible, to say the least.
That night, Shiro wasn’t exactly “back to normal”. Dinner was tense, and sitting through it was like waiting for someone to fire a grenade. Pidge looked on edge, which was to be expected. Shiro wasn’t a horrible guy though. He treated them all fairly, but sometimes he could talk and his words could make them feel like awful people. Feeling guilty was always worse than getting a beating, because with a beating, the bruises didn’t last long.
So when Shiro was disappointed, everyone was. That was just how this household shit worked.
Their plates were taken away, and Keith was itching to get out of there. He knew how to keep his eyes to himself, so he all but stared at his plate throughout the entirity of dinner. Sometimes just looking at a man on edge could set them off—but this wasn’t the street. And Shiro wasn’t that kind of person. But old habits were hard to break.
Eventually, he heard Shiro inhale sharply, as if to speak, and tricked Keith to look at him. When he did, Shiro immediately said, “Since you two officially ruined any business with Commander Prorok, I plan on inviting Lord McClain over sometime in the next week. If you don’t behave—” At this, his eyes skimmed right past Pidge and onto Keith, “—I’ll have a word with Allura.”
He wouldn’t, Keith shrieked internally. He could have sworn staying with Shiro was a done deal, but not if Allura had anything to do with it. Keith was entirely her pawn—she could move him elsewhere. She had the power to put him back on the streets if she wanted.
But there was something about Keith that intrigued her, so he could only hope it was enough to prevent her from tossing him out. Or kill me, he mused dreadfully.
Pale, Keith nodded quickly. “I’ll be good. I promise.”
“Dido,” Pidge jumped in. “No funny business.”
Shiro rolled his eyes at her, “What did I say about calling your tricks funny business?”
“Well, it is? I mean, I got a pretty good laugh out of it but—mmhm, right, no I did not. I did not think it was funny at all,” she corrected herself, now sitting on her hands and sucking in her lips as if to keep silent. That was practically impossible, but the effort was appreciated. “Besides, Lance loves me. I wouldn’t do anything to him.”
“Lance?” Keith repeated.
“Lord McClain’s son,” Pidge corrected, and grinned evilly. “He’s on my nice list.”
It took a while for Keith to no longer feel disturbed by that. Something was always unnerving about that girl, Katie Shirogane. Her street name had been Pidge, and she stuck to it when they weren’t around company.
“Don’t be surprised if the McClain boy invites the Garrett’s son,” Shiro said, watching them both sharply. He was acting like if he turned away from a split second, Pidge would relay her diabolical plan to Keith. But she was sitting there with that princess smile on her face, completely innocent and looking excited to see the McClains again.
When they were dismissed, Keith trudged after Pidge and tugged on her sleeve. She turned sharply to him, scowling. “What?” she hissed.
“How long have you known the McClains?” he asked. “Why haven’t I heard of them?”
“You probably have, but they haven’t been here in a few months. They used to come around more frequently, but I business is always kinda slow in the colder seasons. From what I overhear, and pick up from Lance—his father is like Shiro. Not entirely with the King, if you know what I mean. But declaring that view in public could get them in trouble so don’t even bring it up in front of Lance. The kid has a big mouth.”
“And the Garretts?”
“Rich, humble, but they bend the knee so to speak. Zarkon sympathizers for the sake of not getting their throats slit.” Pidge waved a hand in the air dismissively. “But they’re good people. I don’t like shitting on them for surviving, you know. It’s like… you trash-talking me for lynching that old guy with a rope for coping a feel.”
Keith floundered for a second before saying bluntly, “Um, no, it isn’t anything like that.”
Pidge laughed like he was just joking around. She flicked him in the arm. “Yeah, sure it isn’t.”
“I find it hard to believe Shiro doesn’t reprimand you for talking like that. He does it with me all the time!” he complained.
“That’s because you’re the one on Allura’s radar, not me,” she said, voice chipper as she proceeded to snicker at Keith, prancing backwards to keep her eyes on his deadly glare. “Al-lura needs you, Allura owns you, you’re gonna help her—take down Zarkoonnn.”
“That doesn’t even RHYME!” Keith screamed, and Pidge yelped as he went for her, chasing her scrawny, nine-year-old ass down Shiro’s hallways. She giggled like a maniac, twisting around columns and dodging him every where she could. Just watching her every day for all the time he spent being Shiro’s son, he could start to pick out what she used to do on the street. She was probably an excellent pickpocket—could probably be a runner, distraction for the owls when the gangs were doing “business”. It was dangerous calling the police anything other than owls, and once it became unsafe to call them that, the street rats would have to come up with a new nickname.
Pidge leapt onto the ledge of the staircase, up onto the railing, and with her feet catching no traction whatsoever, she floundered up until she was high enough to grab onto the second level flooring. Keith went for her feet, but she swept them up too fast for him to catch.
Cursing, he hurried up the steps, but it was too late. By then, Pidge and flung herself over the railing, down the hall, and locked herself in her room. He ran up to it, fists banging on the wood before letting out an annoyed howl. He stormed away from her door—he could hear her laughing in there.
He supposed getting stuck with a crazy sibling wasn’t too bad. It definitely couldn’t be worse than living on the streets this time around.
Sure, being a street rat was tough no matter what. Most were corralled in the slums of the city, otherwise known as far, far away from Shiro’s estate. There was only so much for a street rat to do, and in the end all the lying, cheating, and stealing was done in the gangs—practically the only way to survive as a kid. The gangs were run by slightly older kids, who answered to the masterminds that connected all the individual gangs like a web. Of course, once entered into one gang, it was unheard of to associate with another. So regardless of the fact that they all answered to the same person, they were still enemies. Even within the gang, there were enemies. Keith loathed to think of them now. He didn’t even give a shit what they were doing now, but that didn’t seem to stop him from thinking about what it was like the week before he left the streets.
The place they lived was by the harbor, in a rundown building on the verge of collapse, and it was owned by Allura. She did that for a lot of the forgotten kids on the street—gave them shelter where she could. Keith had never met her before then, and hadn’t planned on it. He’d heard stories about the Madame of the Streets. She had a reputation for commanding notice, putting men and women on their knees just to please her in any way they could—whether through money, through work, through… other things.
Allura was a goddess to kids like him. Untouchable. The only person in their gang allowed to see her was the older kid, Rollo. He was probably no more than three years older than Keith—sixteen, most likely, but like Keith not even Rollo knew his own age. No one was around to keep track of their ages after they were born. They jump from group to group before eventually landing themselves in a street gang.
Rollo was Keith’s least favorite person on the planet. The kid deserved to have a noose strung around his neck for the things he did. They were something along the lines of strict payments at the end of each week—everyone loathed the end of the week. If a kid didn’t pay up, regardless of the age, Rollo had his trusty thugs beat the living shit out of them. It was worse if he decided to do the beating himself because he didn’t know how to let up.
In the time Keith was in that gang, he’d seen Rollo pummel twelve kids to death. The youngest was probably six. Again, Keith didn’t know the exact age.
He hated seeing the bodies afterwards because he couldn’t even recognize who they could have been. Only the rats who saw the beating knew who it was at the start, and they’d mourn the loss without lifting their eyes for Rollo and his thugs to see. They tended to patrol the lot. So while Allura’s shelter was a blessing, it was also where Rollo resided. So it was also a curse.
Keith stuck to himself. Every week he scoured the slums for pennies, wherever they might be. In the pockets of passerbys, beneath tavern floorboards—anywhere. He had to cough up five pretty coins each week. To someone like Shiro, that was nothing, but to Keith, it was food, fresh water, maybe a trip to the bathhouse in shitty, used water. But all that was given up to Rollo at the end of the week. He didn’t keep any of it. The extras he did scavenge were hidden—kids were known for coughing up more than their share if Rollo suspected they had an extra dime.
He liked to think the money went to the food they were given at the end of each day, but he doubted that. He calculated how much, collectively, Rollo got at the end of each week—it should have been enough to afford two half-decent meals a day.
But the thing about Keith was that he used to be completely unable to control his goddamn mouth. When he wound up in the gang, about seven years old while Rollo was about ten, there was another, bigger fella. Rollo was on the verge of being put into the thugs, and he soaked in every lesson the bigger fella beat into the other kids. That fella was Rollo’s idol, and it was unfortunate because his idol happened to loath Keith’s very existence.
It was the first time Keith saw them shake down a kid for having more than his share of coins. The thugs of the gang were about to search the kid, when Keith tore forwards screaming, “Wait! Wait, isn’t it five coins? Why are ya takin’ more?”
Someone shoved him by the arm, and then dragged him back by the neck of his shirt. He choked, hands going to his throat as the leader pegged him down with a withering glare. “Newbie, huh? Ain’t found yer away around yet, huh, you little shit?” he sneered, yellowish teeth gleaming down at him. “That’s the way things are ‘round here. Steal your share, anythin’ more goes to us. Anythin’ you own, we own, ‘else you’ll have to take it up with Madame Allura. Capisce?”
He hadn’t heard that rule before, but thankfully all he had on him were five coins and his clothes. It didn’t stop the leader from snapping his fingers at one of his thugs and ordering him to cut Keith’s shirt. A lot of kids wore the same shirt every day without change, so it wasn’t uncommon for them to see patches cut clear from the back—small patches, but they all came with small knife marks where the thug cut the fabric while it was still on the kid’s back. The next time Keith got a patch, the leader did it himself, and he bled for days—reopening the wound, accidentally in his sleep.
Patches were usually on the newbies. Once they weren’t newbies, they got beatings. For the most part, he tactfully avoided the beatings, until the day the thugs shook him down no more than a year ago.
It had been a miraculous day up until that point. It was unheard of to get over ten coins in a week, and Keith gathered a staggering eleven. Something like that deserved a bit of bragging—he told one kid about it, someone he’d been talking to lately. When it came time for payments, the kid ratted him out to Rollo, and Keith swore he’d burn the kid to a crisp. He wasn’t able to properly square up to him until after the wounds healed. His eyes were swollen shut for the first three days of the week, which left him with a short window to gather his payment.
The first thing he did, once the bruises on his stomach were manageable, was find the kid who caused it. He hunted that little shit down as soon as dawn broke, and confronted him in an alley. Keith jumped him from above the building window’s canopy, threw him to the ground by his shirt and cracked his fist down until the kid’s face roughly resembled what Keith looked like. He added a kick to the stomach for good measure and took the one coin the kid managed to nab that week.
It was too late to feel guilty about it, because of course the kid tattled on him again. It was one thing to be beat down by a different gang, but fights within the same gang were frowned upon. Keith returned to the harbor later that same day, and regretted it instantly.
He’d always been a good runner—always faster than Rollo’s thugs. The thugs were stereotypically heavyset and good fighters, but that really dampened their agility. So the second one of them pointed at him, from the front of the building, Keith was on edge. They were walking towards him—for him—so he took off running.
He looked back only once to confirm that they were following him. After that, he kept going. He dodged through crowds and swung up a drainpipe, feet kicking off against the side of a house. He rolled onto the roof, and looked down. Down the street, in a narrow alley between two buildings, he saw the thugs coming.
The rooftops only went so far, until they were too spread apart for him to navigate on. When he jumped down, the thugs were on him, coming in both directions. He ducked and evaded the first two that collided, and leapt for the wall, kicking off and swinging his feet forward in time to clobber one of them in the face. On the downfall, he collided with the wall and staggered to a stop, breathing hard and frozen when he realized that everyone looked rather confused—several of them recovering.
“Where the hell’d he go?!” one roared—practically a foot away from Keith. One of his hands gripped the brick wall behind him, the other resting on his chest to stop his heavy breathing. His brain was thinking fast—if they couldn’t see him, he couldn’t be certain they couldn’t hear him, either.
“You three, head that way. We’ll take the other path. If ya find him, take ‘im to Rollo. Asked for him ‘imself.”
“Got it,” they said, gathering together and running straight past Keith. He was afraid to move his head, staring wide-eyed at the wall across from him as everyone in the alley disappeared around him.
They couldn’t see him. He could have stayed in that position all day, if it meant no one could see him, but eventually his hand started to cramp from clinging to the bricks so he let go. He released the breath he’d been holding and reached into the pocket of his jacket, and produced the penny he stole after beating that kid to a pulp.
Worth it, he thought, and left the alley.
The second he did, though, he realized that some of them hadn’t left at all. He was tackled from the side and pinned to the ground. Keith screamed until one of the kids shoved a dirty glove in his mouth and taped his hands to his back.
“I don’t know what stunt ya pulled back there, ya little shit, but Rollo asked for you,” one of them said, yanking him up off the ground. Keith let out a muffled shout, squirming as one of them shoved their shoulder to his still-bruised stomach and heaved him off the ground.
They carried him all the way across the slums. At one point they hid in between the trash bins of a tavern to avoid the prying eyes of the owls, questioning why they were looting around a small, screaming child. Keith would have screamed louder if one of them hadn’t twisted his ear for it.
At the harbor building, Rollo didn’t even wait for them to enter. He barged out the door and stormed towards them. Keith expected him to wait for an audience—Rollo had a thing for punishing in front of the entire gang—but this just couldn’t seem to wait. They dropped Keith, and before he could even recover his breath around the dirty glove, Rollo swung his leg back and kicked Keith square in the stomach.
“Ya think it’s funny, thinking you can pound in another kid’s face, hm? What if we let everyone take out there childish rage on anyone they wanted, hm? That’s why we have a system, buddy, and you don’t go around serving judgement. That’s my job, all right?” Rollo all but spat at him, yanking him up by the shirt to snarl in his ear.
Rollo flicked Keith back by the chest, and he fell to the ground again, arms still restrained behind him. Rollo nodded to the others, saying, “Take ‘im in. I’ll deal with him later.”
As they started to drag him up, one of them spoke up, “Hang on, about catching him—he gave us a bit of trouble—”
“I’ll pay you for it later,” Rollo said, waving a hand over his shoulder as he started to walk away.
“But he—he disappeared for a second there. Like… what ya said Allura talked about. I’m pretty sure that was—”
Before Keith could catch the tail-end of that, Rollo silenced the kid with a sharp look, and a quick, slicing gesture of his hand. And then, Keith was shoved behind the door, and dragged between the rows of kids beneath the building’s roof. They all kept their eyes down, regardless of how badly they wanted to look and stare.
The next day Keith could hardly breathe. His ribs ached, and his back was raw—no matter how he laid, something hurt somewhere. He was a mess under his blanket, and the following day the only bit of sunlight he saw was when a child lifted the corner of his blanket to see his face. They squeaked and ran off instantly. A little while later someone came back and forced some water down his raw throat. He’d heard of terrible beatings done by Rollo, mostly because the victims couldn’t stop screaming. Now even Keith’s throat hurt.
That day, though, was something he wished he could have seen. He heard it, he definitely heard it, but even when he opened his eyes they watered. It wasn’t like he could see much anyway. There were several gasps nearby, and Keith could hear the door closing. It echoed through the building, and a sound he rarely ever heard began to pass directly through the middle of the room—heels, as in, the sort of shoes wealthy women wore.
Children were whispering around him, but they all shut up the second Rollo’s voice spoke up, “Allura, you’re early.”
“I came as soon as I could.” The voice was crisp, accented, and rang just like her heels. Even her voice stood out. It was mature and powerful, and she took command instantly. “Give him to me.”
It took a moment for Rollo to respond. “But—Madame, ya can’t just take one of my kids,” he laughed a little, nervously. “He belongs to me—”
“Yes, and you belong to me. So where that is concerned, your confusion is irrelevant,” she talked fast, and swiftly got to the point. “Show him to me. Now, Rollo.”
And then their footsteps were heading in Keith’s direction. The few kids near him scattered, until there was nothing more than empty sleeping bags, and a single mound of blankets amongst them. Her heels was so close. If he could move, his hand could have touched them.
Instead, she knelt down and threw the blanket off of him. For a moment, she didn’t say a word. The silence was horrifying—Keith knew he should have felt embarrassed to be so weak, so he made an attempt to get up. It must have been the adrenaline at being confronted by Allura that led him to sit up, but a soft hand pushed him back down. She kept her hand there, directly over the tally marks Rollo put down the length of Keith’s arm. If she moved her hand, her palm would be coated in fresh blood.
“He disobeyed me an’ my men twice, Madame. I had no choice—”
“Shut it,” she hissed. “I don’t care. You are going to carry him to the car.”
Rollo sputtered, squeaking out, “But Allura—”
“Do it. Or do I have to ask a second time,” she snarled, standing. When her hand left his skin, it was sticky, and pulled at the wounds.
Reluctantly, Rollo carried Keith to the vehicle. He didn’t say a word, and Keith imagined he had a grumpy, spoiled look on his face like the child he was. Allura slammed the car door behind him, and took the seat on the other side. Keith’s head lolled back, and he slumped against the door.
She snapped her fingers and ordered, “Drive. To Coran.”
Keith was so sure he was going to die that day, but contrary to his belief, it was the day he was almost taken off the streets for good.
Almost.