“Al-righty.” Shiro hums merrily to himself as he puts the car in park and holds the keys out to Keith. “Here we go.”
Keith stares at them. Shiro’s hand remains where it is, keys dangling from the key ring around his finger. His expectant look leaves Keith at a total loss.
“Did you drive me out here to murder me?” Keith asks eventually, finally breaking the building silence. He looks pointedly out the windshield, where all that is visible for miles and miles is the desert.
Shiro snorts. “Yep. You ate the last ramen pack one too many times. Time to meet your end.” He reaches over with his other hand and grabs one of Keith’s, gently prying his fist open and placing the keys into them. “No, I’m not here to murder you, doofus. That would be a horrible idea. I don’t have an alibi.”
Keith refuses to laugh at that. It’s not funny and also Keith has been warned about letting Shiro think he’s funny. It can only lead to more dad jokes, or worse. “These are your car keys,” he says, gingerly holding the objects in question.
“Context clues imply that you are asking me to drive your car.”
“I am thirteen years of age.”
“We met, famously, because I stole your car. This very car, in fact. And crashed it.”
Keith blinks slowly at him. His amused expression does not shift. Keith’s not sure how else to spell things out for him, so he just shrugs. He’s not about to say no to getting a chance to drive. How many other thirteen year olds can say that a legal, licensed adult took them out to drive?
He steps out of the car, Shiro quickly vacating his own seat as well. He stands outside the driver’s side as Keith settles back in behind the wheel, leaning his torso through the open window.
“Okay,” he starts, voice taking on the same instructional quality he uses to lecture. “First step: seatbelt. You know this.”
Keith dutifully buckles himself in.
“Excellent. Now you can adjust your seat — levers on the underside there, yeah. You want to be able to easily touch the pedals, but when you fully straighten your arms, they should only go to the steering wheel. You’re a little too close.” He reaches down and guides Keith’s hand along the lever, helping him push the seat back slightly. “There, perfect. See you you can reach everything, but you have lots of space to move? That’s perfect. Fix your posture, though.”
“Does that help with visibility?” Keith questions, figuring a straight back will make it easier to see over the wheel.
“Nah, I just don’t like it when you slouch. Moving on.”
Shiro quickly runs through the rest of the set up with him — adjusting his mirrors, making sure he knows where all levers and signals are, testing the brake lights. Once he’s satisfied that Keith has a general idea where everything is, he jogs over to the passenger seat and climbs in.
“Okee dokee,” he says as he flicks through radio stations so fast you can barely even hear the first couple notes. He pauses after a moment, eyes flicking to Keith, then clicks back a couple stations, finally settling on a country station playing an old Johnny Cash song. “Start the engine.”
Keith does. The old car sputters for a second, then roars to life.
Keith looks at him in alarm. “What? Just — go?”
Shiro grins, wide and cheeky. “Go!”
Keith doesn’t need anymore encouragement. He steps on the gas, and the car careens forward at top speeds, shooting a cloud of red dust behind them. Shiro whoops, turning the song up louder.
The wind blows loud and fast through the open windows, competing with the blasting music and whipping Keith’s hair all around his face. He gets sand in his eyes more times than he can count, but he doesn’t dare take his hands off the wheel, just blinks it away as fast as he can. He watches the speedometer climb past forty, fifty, sixty, and his belly swoops every time they ricochet up a hole and go careening back down. Every so often Shiro calls out instructions — “Look at your mirrors and your blind spot before you make turns! Foot off the gas for the first half of the turn, then accelerate through the end of it! Don’t cross your arms over the wheel! Listen to the car so you know when to shift gears!” — sometimes a little too late. Keith stalls the car more than once. He also, at one point, swerves to avoid a cactus that seems to appear out of nowhere.
But Shiro never asks him to stop. Never has him pull over, never screams at him for messing up, never chides him about his speed (which, he might add, is entirely reasonable). He only grips the ceiling handle and cheers Keith on, whooping every time they hit a bump. He only calls out words of encouragement, smiling big and proud, cheering Keith on til he’s smiling just as wide.
For the first time since he lost his Pa, Keith feels like someone wants to see him happy.
