Posting my full short, Keith centric fic, his experiences growing up with Shiro, his found family.
(Rated T. If you prefer to read it on Ao3, go to: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15371835)
Spells Run Out
Shiro was (like) a brother to Keith.
So Keith watched as Shiro stood with another, hand in hand.
The first time Keith heard the words said, he stopped breathing for just a short moment, looking upwards to level his gaze with the man standing before him.
”Light and warm, the words surrounded him like an unexpected, but comforting embrace. A soothing balm against wounds he never thought he had.
Or rather, wounds he thought he had let scar over.
Still, at the brink of adolescence, his cheeks flushed, shifting his eyes and deflecting. “You’re not my brother, Shiro.”
Shiro laughed, full and low in his chest. A hand came to rest on his shoulder, startling Keith just enough to nearly topple, but of course, Shiro held him steady.
“Like a brother then. Keith, you’re like a brother to me.”
Keith knew that when it came to Shiro, those words meant nothing different. The sentiment was the same, and he felt his chest tighten, his throat closing up over a breath. It was all tell tale signs, the threat of tears spilling over. With balled fists, he managed to mutter, “You’re like a brother to me too.”
Shiro smiled, a knowing smile that this was the furthest he could manage with Keith. Wordlessly they watched the sunset over the desert, Keith’s heart so full, he could almost choke on it.
And it was full after hearing it a second time, and a third, and a fourth.
An endless echo that he believed he would never tire of hearing.
It was after Keith lost count that he began to feel the unknown emotion, the feeling of the hair at the back of his neck standing on end. The sweaty palms and unreasonable irritation.
Shiro was (like) a brother to Keith.
So Keith watched as Shiro stood with another, hand in hand.
“Oh, Keith!” Shiro beamed as he approached, releasing his hold on his partner to step closer to Keith. “I heard your piloting test scores were great today. I’m really proud of you.”
The praise that he had been yearning for, all those long nights in the training simulation, was suddenly white noise in his ears. He watched as Shiro continued to gesture, the way he turned to give that enthused little smile to the man standing next to him, and the man grinning right back.
“Keith?”Faint, surprised, and slightly confused. He heard Shiro’s voice, fading further away as he swept through the hallways, only taking a stuttering breath as he rounded the corner.
He would read the word, internalize it and finally understand it as something of his own days later. Keith would grip the dictionary tightly, fling it against the wall of his room, burrow his head under the covers.
How selfish of him, for being so incredibly possessive of the one that had stood by his side and refused to give up, the one he had come to know as his brother.No.He would shake his head, willing the thoughts away.
Shiro was like a brother to him.
Until then, he would clutch at his chest, breathless and stunned. Words that once made him whole, now whittled him down until he felt himself as nothing.
Keith wasn’t in the habit of self-reflection, but if he had the presence of mind to consider, he would be quite aware of his self-loathing.
Instead he watched Shiro, slumped closely against him, just enough to feel his exhale against his neck, the smell of alcohol apparent, but not unpleasant.
“Help an old friend,” At the door, Shiro with a crooked grin had lifted a six pack of beer in one hand, an overstuffed duffle bag in the other. “Let me stay for a couple days before the mission?”
Keith couldn’t refuse. He never could.
But who could ever deny Shiro?
And so he welcomed him in, slammed the beers against the lip of his desk, and watched the caps fly into the far corners of his dingy dorm room. The white froth had barely subsided and Shiro had already reached for the closest one, tilting his head back and drinking with an aggressiveness Keith had only seen so rarely before.
Came the words, garbled and haphazard until they slurred off into the oblivion halfway through Shiro’s third beer. Keith paused on his second and choked.
And then something else. Light and wonderful and certainly unbidden.
Keith pushed that one aside in favor of his fury.
He ranted, perhaps with less grace than he would imagine himself having, his mind spinning and his tongue pressed against the jagged edges of his teeth. “How could he do that? Right now? In the middle of everything, with everything that is going on-”
“I get why.” Shiro replied. Three words, simple and final.
He let Shiro polish off the last beer, watched as he laid back on the bed with a grunt.
Keith opened his mouth to answer, but the words suddenly too hard to speak.
“I’m so glad that I have a brother like you.”
He clamped his mouth shut, silence filling the absence in the air.Over time, the sound of the grasshoppers outside his open window blended into the rhythm of Shiro’s breath, even and heavy with the weight of sleep. Keith found himself memorizing the details of his face, the sharp, silvering brightness of the moon against his black hair.
You’re (like) a brother to me.
He found himself realizing the words no longer fit anymore.On the precipice of a sheer drop into the darkness of the universe, Keith would bring it up just one more time.
The sounds, the phrasing would roll against his mouth, desperate and so horribly out of place. He was reminded not of the compassionate words, spoken to him when he only felt the dry emptiness of loneliness, but of the words he himself had spoken to Shiro only months prior.
A Shiro that was the embodiment of his fear.
A Shiro that had walked away.
How stupid and ineffectual, Keith thought to himself. It was like a spell that had finally run out of its magic, and he himself had also run out of time.
Because now, with the violet in Shiro’s eyes and his blade carving a path against his cheek, Keith finally understood.
He uttered, and the words fit against him like a glove.
And for one single moment, it seemed that Shiro had understood.
This was what the words meant, Keith wholeheartedly believed, those tattered and half formed feelings had bloomed, the culmination of both his grief and his hope.
He would not let go of this emotion.
Keith closed his eyes, felt the light envelop him as he descended into blinding white, hand gripping tightly the one person he refused to let go.
He would not let go of Shiro.
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