You taught me the courage of stars before you left.
How light carries on endlessly, even after death.
With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite.
How rare and beautiful it is to even exist.
- “Saturn” by Sleeping At Last
“He promised!”, the younger man cried. A heartwrecking, choked sound. “He promised he’d come back!”
Tears seeped through the fabric of Ryou’s shirt and slender fingers dug into his back with a force he’d never thought Keith possessed. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could say. No support he could’ve offered. He could only wrap his own arms around the smaller figure and hold him.
It had been two months. Two months since Keith fled the constricting walls of the Galaxy Garrison and vanished into the cold desert night. Two months and twenty-two days since Iverson’s spokesman announced the Kerberos mission was a failure. Two months and twenty-nine days since the comms of his brother’s ship went dead.
Noone knew where Keith went that night, except for Ryou. There was only one place in the world Keith would seek out for shelter. It was the only place Takashi had never shared with his twin. Because it was their place. Their shelter. Keith and Shiro. Only them. And Ryou had respected that, content with the fact that his brother had finally found love, even if Takashi himself hadn’t known that back then.
Now that Takashi was gone, he couldn’t help but venture out into the desert more and more often. He felt adrift and numb, left in a state of levitation before reality would finally come crashing in. Always looking for that special place that held so many memories of his brother. The shack.
Packed with supplies - food, water, wool blankets, lamp oil, a notable stock of lighters and all the little things Keith may or may not need by now - Ryou had steered his black hoverbike away from the Garrison this morning and straight into the unforgiving heat of the desert. Always looking for that one spot on the map that still held some of his brother’s very soul. That one damned spot that Ryou knew he should never seek out. For it held the only tangible evidence of his brother’s death. His absence at Keith’s side. And he knew this would break him.
When he finally found the shack, he knew Keith was there before he even saw him in person. The red hoverbike, parked right infront of the small porch, gave him away. Its black twin’s engine purred and finally went silent under Ryou. Before Kerberos, before everything went down the drain, the red bike had belonged to Takashi. A gift, Ryou had made for him. He still remembered the face Taka made when he’d seen his birthday present. Now that day seemed eons away… Surreal and alien like memories of a life that belonged to somebody else.
Keith opened the front door before Ryou could even make it to the porch. And for one moment it seemed like the world had come to a halt, remembering that there was something missing, before it started turning again with cold, regardless indifference. Feigning ignorance towards two now incomplete and broken beings. The universe had greater things to take care of.
Seeing Ryou - the spitting image of his lost brother - must’ve been the last straw. Keith hadn’t cried. Not when Ryou had called him after the ship went silent, not when the announcement came that all crew members were believed to be dead. Not even when he had left the base. He had punched people. He had seethed with rage and he had broken things, but never cried. Now however…
“He promised!”, the younger man cried. A heartwrecking, choked sound. “He promised he’d come back!”
Now, after three months, shock and numbness, disbelief and repression finally faded… Keith cried.
So…. uh… this… this got out of hand? All I wanted was to express my headcanon that Ryou and Keith knew eachother from their time at the Garrison and that Ryou visited Keith after he got expelled. And that they both mourn Shiro together. But somehow I ended up writing way more than I had planned. xD Oh well…
The new trailer for s3 kinda left me adrift because WHAT THE FUCK. Why they keep doing this to me with every new season?! Where’s Shiro? Why’s he not in the trailer?! Why can’t we just… have him back and be save for once? Not knowing if my poor baby survives every new damn season has me stressing like fuck! So I felt like drawing Keith coping with losing Shiro. And then I ended up drawing this and feeling bad for poor Keith! Now I feel like I want to cry my eyes out…
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