Chains of Earth - 3 - Update
https://archiveofourown.org/works/29108967/chapters/73588173
Chains of Earth - Chapter 3
Story Series: The Here and After Series
Part 1 - Childhood Arc - Fault Lines
Authors: @sometimesafangirl & @charred-ground
Banner Artist: Composition - @charred-ground Art: - @allexche
Genre: Childhood Friends, Guns of Gamara AU
Rating: Teen (Will change when the characters are of legal age)
Summary: Centuries ago, Earth was destroyed by the Alteans. Survivors were rounded up under the guise of magnanimity and settled in a Space Refugee Colony (SRC). The Altean Colonization Front(ACF) promises a good and peaceful life to all species who follow their guidelines. This is the story of a group of brave people who defied the life handed to them and sought to make their mark.
It takes me about ten minutes to get home from training, throw my bag in my room, and run up the small hill to Keith’s house to see if he’s there. Sometimes he is. Sometimes he’s not. When he pulls his disappearing act, I always check here first. I get to the door, press my face and hand up to the window, and I can see his arm dropping from the edge of the couch, knuckles barely brushing the floor. I slowly open the door, wincing slightly at the squeak. If that doesn’t wake him up…
It doesn’t. Or he pretends it doesn’t. I’ll go along with it either way.
I shut the door with a soft click and sit on the arm of the couch. I watch him for a moment, only a moment, he’s still wearing the watch, of course, but I just picture those lavender cheeks, faintly colored by the heat in his face. Reaching down, I brush his hair out of his face with a hook of my finger. He’s so soft and warm. Keith is an absolute furnace when he sleeps, well, all the time really. It’s kind of unfair.
“Hey…” I whisper, my fingers sliding along his jaw. “Hey sleepyhead…”
“Nn.” He murmurs, his head turning toward my hand, and I try not to laugh at the smile twitching the corners of his lips as his nose twitches to catch my scent. He loves me. I know he does and I covet these moments where it’s unguarded and obvious.
I look around the house, not sure what I’m expecting, but nothing has changed. It’s been three years since Tex died, and his coat still hangs by the door as though he only left this morning. The furniture is all the same. Clean. Keith isn’t one for clutter, but all the same. Every curtain, pillow, scrap of paper, everything frozen as it was that day. He made their home a time capsule. No. A tomb. Or a moratorium on life. I sigh. I love being alone with Keith, but for that to happen we have to come here, and the atmosphere of this house presses down on me. I’ve tried to talk to him, in a ‘real talk’ moment, but how do you tell someone how to mourn? Tex was everything to Keith. The only blood family he had. His protector against the Altean monsters who wanted to hurt him and take him away. I never want to know what they’d do if they got their hands on Keith.
Keith is fierce. He knows how to fight. He is fast. But if the Alteans really find out there is a Galra here? If they know this sweet perfect creature is nuzzling my hand in his sleep… what will they do to him?
