Work heavily inspired by theprojectava
specific work of inspiration for this chapter is -
https://theprojectava.tumblr.com/post/161711113423/saturn-you-taught-me-the-courage-of-stars-before
“I’m going to go to space!”
“No, no, no. No going to space unless it’s in something that I build. I am your older brother it’s my job to get you to space and back safely.”
“You’re not even older than me by five minutes. Doesn’t count.”
“I’m older than you by 317 seconds and it does too count!”
“Fine. Then you better enlist at the Garrison too because I’m going to space. Bitch.”
They had always been together, maybe not always side by side but they had always been close enough to be there. Ryou had always figured that they would be together until the end, but looking back he figured that destiny had always been trying to split them up and when it had found that no force on Earth could do it, destiny gave Shiro visions of stars. So, when Shiro went for them, Ryou followed as closely as he could but, he’d never dreamed of them the way Shiro had. His paradise wasn’t in space, it was on Earth, digging through scrap metal and tearing apart engines only to put them back together better than ever. To build something better. But still, he followed Shiro to the Garrison and he became one of the best damn engineers they had the displeasure of working with.
He should have known that the day Shiro fell in love with stars that Ryou would lose him to them. He should have seen it coming but, he’d apparently had put too much faith in Shiro’s love for Keith, his brother’s younger protégé and firmly denied crush, would be able to bring him back home. But it hadn’t. because even though Shiro was ass over heels in love with Keith, the stars had still been his first love and though they were beautiful, space was a cold and cruel bitch.
Something wasn’t right though. Because he may have lost Shiro to the stars but he was just that; lost. He wasn’t gone. Ryou could feel that he wasn’t gone.
They said it was a crash. They said it was either due to engine failure or pilot error. Which was absolute bull shit. Ryou had built that engine himself. He had Matt Holt test it himself daily and neither of them had ever let themselves get too distracted by lingering looks, or subtle touches, or rushed kisses in a closet in the engineering lab. And Shiro was the best pilot the Garrison had. Hell, those bastards had boasted and bragged about him for months. Top of his class, best of the best, the one that everyone should aspire to be. They put his brother on a shining pedestal and then had the audacity to push it into the mud with their lies of pilot error.
It took watching Matt’s little sister, Katie, get dragged out of the Garrison kicking and screaming about them covering it up, about them not even sending someone out to actually investigate what happened, and just lying through their fucking teeth, for all the pieces to snap into place. Matt had always said that his sister was one of the smartest people he’d ever met, that she was probably even smarter than he was. Is she was putting pieces together than he should be too. So, he drops out. And he grabs Keith on his way out because the kid was on a war path. Ryou couldn’t even find it in himself to be mad when he finds Shiro’s room torn to shit, looking like a tornado ripped through it instead of a distraught teenager. It would have broken Shiro to see Keith like this so, Ryou grabbed him and left. Neither of them glancing back.
Ryou doesn’t even finish the plans to the ship he’s going to build, to the ship he’s going to take to fucking space to find his brother, before Keith disappears too, taking the hover bike that he’d been fixing up for the past few months while Ryou had been busy planning. It hurt. It felt like he’d failed Shiro once again. But he couldn’t blame him. Keith was young. He had more to do in his life than morn a man lost to the stars. Keith needed to move on and being stuck in a scrap yard was not helping him do that. So, no. He didn’t blame him. But, that didn’t stop him from getting drunk and cursing him for abandoning his brother just like everyone else. He starts drinking a lot after Keith leaves.
He stops drinking the day he finishes his ship though. He tests everything, from the engine and thrusters all the way down to making sure the fucking toilet flushes properly. Matt would have been proud. He has everything prepared, everything ready to go. He builds a launch pad and sets up the ship. He’s ready. He’s leaving. He’s going to find Shiro and his crew, drag their asses back to Earth, and never let his stupid brother leave this planet again. Firing up the engines is a powerful feeling.
Turning them off and just sitting in the cockpit, starting up into blue sky, is a defeating one.
It’d been over a year. Not by much. 12 months and 17 days. But still, Shiro had been missing for over a year. In space. Vast, endless space. The only lead he had was Kerberos and even that would take him months to get out too. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe Shiro was gone.
When Ryou had left the Garrison, he’d planted a device that would allow him to pick up any radio chatter they put out, hoping, praying really, that he’d eventually hear something about Shiro. Or about anything weird that might explain something. He’d given up hope around the time Keith left. But reports of a ship crashing to earth and causing a red alert caught his attention. And a name. A name that make the world feel as if it were falling from under him.
But before he could finish grabbing what he thought he might need; food, first aid kit, a fucking bat in case the garrison tried to stand in his way of getting to Shiro; the reports changed to another code red of how Shiro had been taken from garrison personnel by four as of yet unknown individuals. Ryou punched the wall. Could nothing go right? Could destiny not just keep Shiro in one fucking place for 10 fucking minutes so that Ryou could get to him?! Please?!
The chatter was over as quickly as it had started and Ryou was beyond frustrated. Patience yields focus had always been something Shiro loved saying but Ryou could absolutely confirm that it was bull shit. He’d been patient, he’d done his waiting and his planning but none of it mattered.
The chatter started again around noon the next day. This time it wasn’t talking about a ship, but a… giant blue lion? And something told him that if he was leaving, that if he was going after Shiro, he needed to leave now. The reports were talking of the blue lion leaving the atmosphere as he’s doing his final checks before he turns on the engines. Ryou had never dreamed of the stars. He’d never wanted to go to space. He’d wanted to build things and live surrounded by plans and projects. He’d wanted to stay firmly planted on the Earth. But he wanted his brother more. And if that took shooting himself into the void of space after a blue lion then so be it. Though he would have to admit, seeing an alien war ship was a bit more of a surprise than he’d expected.
He gunned his thrusters when he realized that the ship was about to go into the same warp it had just come out of and if he wasn’t behind it, tailgating on the wake it left, then he was going to lose Shiro. again. He was thankful for the auto-pilot feature he’d installed because his ship was not made for the speed it was currently traveling at. He was pretty sure he passed out at least 6 times in the several minutes it took them to get to the edge of the damn solar system. But even then, after everything, he still wasn’t fast enough to make it to the wormhole the lion flew through. If Shiro wasn’t dead by the time Ryou found him, he was going to kill him.
The alien war ship was stalled for a long time, Ryou hiding his ship in the space debris so as not to be seen, before what looked like a portal opened up for it as well. He knew it probably wasn’t going to the same place Shiro had gone but he was already the far out and going back to earth no longer felt like an option.
Months turned into another year but that was fine. He could be patient. He could wait for this war to be over. Because he was a part of it now, and months of fighting with rebels against the Galra empire had taught him that sometimes destinies were different than what you planned.
Especially when destiny directed you on to a Galra ship to plant bombs in all of its main engines and you get lost trying to get out, only to stumble into a lab where you find your brother being held captive in a tube full of really gross looking liquid. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“You know what, you little shit, fuck you.” Ryou cursed as he activated the electric baton that he’d lifted off a Galra soldier during his third or so month in space. “If anyone should have gray hairs, it should be me after all the shit you’ve put me through.” He slammed the baton against the glass, fracturing it and send spider-web like cracks through it. The second hit, caused it to crack even more. The pressure of the liquid behind the cracks caused it to shatter and Ryou stepped back to avoid the initial rush before moving back in to catch his brother as he fell. Shiro’s physical weight plus the emotional weight of staring his younger brother in the face again after two long years, made his knees buckle and they dropped to the floor. Ryou checked his pulse and let out a relieved sigh when he found it, dropping his head and pressing his forehead to Shiro’s.
The first explosion shook him out of the elation he’d been feeling at seeing Shiro again. At being back with his twin. His other half. He took a breath and slid one of Shiro’s arms over his shoulders and stood as he wrapped an arm around his brother’s waist. The metal arm made him falter for just a second, as did the discolored scar that ran across the bridge of his nose. But now was not the time to think of the implications of new features. Now was the time for him to get his ass in gear and get his little brother to safety.
Moving around the ship was slow going, even more so since he had to be extra careful of guards and sentries since he wasn’t just going to be able to drop Shiro and fight and the explosions were happening more and more meaning that the countdown to total engine failure was coming to an end. They had just about reached his ship, which he had hidden in a transportation hanger when the ship suddenly pitched to the side, sending them sliding. Fuck. Being this close to the outside of the ship, he could almost feel the atmospheric gravity of the moon, pulling them in. They needed to get out of here. Now. Ryou grabbed Shiro and dragged him to his ship, dropping him into the only passenger chair with probably a little less grace than intended.
“Sorry, not that sorry.” He muttered, buckling him into the seat before hopping into the pilot’s seat. He quickly pulled out a device and punched in a code, making the hanger door open. It was probably a good thing that Shiro was unconscious. There was no way that he wouldn’t get a firm and obnoxiously serious lecture about his flying. Sentries suddenly started marching into the hanger, weapons drawn and immediately firing on sight. He started the ships thrusters a little harsher than necessary but launched them out the hanger door. He cursed loudly and repeatedly as he caught one of the wings on the side of the hanger door, effectively ripping it off and sending them spiraling. Yeah, he definitely would have gotten a lecture.
He tried to fly them out of the ship’s wake so that they wouldn’t be pulled down with the ship but the explosions had created a field of debris that kept them too close. They were going down one way or another and fuck it, if it wasn’t going to be on his terms. Ryou turned the ship so that instead of trying to fly out into space, he was flying towards the moon, using the Galra prison ship as a heat shield as they entered its atmosphere. Once through, he turned the ship to the right and activated the thrusters, sending them speeding away from the falling ship. He tried to keep it steady as warning signs started popping up and alarms started blaring. He looked over at Shiro and took his brother’s hand as he braced for the crash. he couldn’t help smiling a little before his ship smashed into the surface of the moon and he blacked out.
“-ou! Ryou, I swear to god! Open your eyes! Ryou, wake up!”
What the fuck. Why did Shiro sound so panicky? Did they sleep through a class again? No… wait. They hadn’t had class since they had graduated as officers. Hell, he didn’t even go to the garrison any more. He was too busy looking for-
“Shiro!” Ryou shouted as he launched himself into a sitting position. They stared at each other for what was only a few seconds but what felt like a small eternity before they were wrapping their arms around each other and squeezing, each trying to hug the other as close as possible. He didn’t even realize that he was crying until he heard Shiro let out a sob. They both paused and moved back, looking at each other’s face, not so identical any more, before letting out a noise that was half sob, half laugh. Ryou ran his fingers through Shiro’s two toned hair and Shiro grabbed the back off his neck pulling him into another hug.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
Ryou wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that but it was long enough that they finally ran out of tears and the ones they had shed were starting to dry on their red faces. His face kind of hurt but they were alive and they were both smiling, so he really couldn’t see a down side in any of this. He had his brother back. He had Shiro back. Maybe not entirely in once piece but who cared, they both knew that one of them was going to lose a limb one day though they had both figured it would be Ryou during some engine blowing up in his face. Shiro was alive. He was safe. He was back. Destiny had tried to separate them. It had found that no force on Earth could do it so it sent them to the stars. But fuck destiny. Sure, they hadn’t been side by side but now they were back together and no force in the fucking galaxy was going to separate them again. Destiny and Zarkon’s War could kiss his ass.
The sound of engines flying past broke up the good feeling and they both turned to look out the cockpit window, Ryou pulling Shiro closer to him. Two lions flew overhead, not unlike The Blue Lion of the Legendary Voltron that he’d seen what felt like a lifetime ago, though these two were Green and Yellow. He turned to look at Shiro, who was smiling again. The smile wasn’t as wide and abundantly happy as it had been, it looked like it had aged a little. But that was understandable. A few moments ago, all that had mattered was that they were back together. Now, they were back in the middle of a war, people counted on them, and shit needed to get done.
“I need to get to them… we should go before they leave us here.” Shiro said, sounding just like he had when he was heading off for his mission to Kerberos. No, he sounded different. Back then he’d only sounded like a mission leader. Now, he was one. Ryou nodded before taking a moment to look at all the ways Shiro had changed. The ways they had both changed. They were taller, they both had scars, they both had a look in their eye that spoke of different horrors. Shiro was different than how he had been back on Earth, but so was he. And they were together again so he really didn’t give a shit.
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