Work Text:
I was broken from a young age
Taking my sulking to the masses
Writing my poems for the few
That looked at me took to me, shook to me, feeling me
Singing from heart ache from the pain
Take up my message from the veins
Speaking my lesson from the brain
Seeing the beauty through the...
Pain
--
This is the third house this year alone. Each one lasts a few months before deciding that he was too much – too unruly, too rude, too fiery, too hard to look after.
People were harsh, and children even more so, and so he was constantly left alone and over-looked. Bruised knees and scrapes on his elbows and the occasional split lip, fighting like his life depended on it.
Maybe it did.
Years of the same thing had made him jaded. Every new school and house was just like the last, and if he acted out because he was holding onto a lot of resentment, no one seemed to care beyond shipping him off to the next place for him to call 'home'.
But none of it was home.
Home was a distant memory, or something he created while he slept; a place that held a tiny flicker of hope that was almost smothered time and time again. A place that smelled of gasoline and sawdust and jasmine. A place where he actually belonged.
A place that no longer existed.
He had been four, almost five, when he last saw his parents. They had dropped him off at school, like usual, and it wasn't until a strange person came to pick him up that he found out something was wrong.
It was labeled an accident, his dad's garage had caught fire from a stray cigarette, and ignited the gasoline stains. The rest of the house went up quickly, and neither of them had a chance.
He was four, almost five, when a little bit of him died, too.
He was now twelve, and had been through too many 'homes' to bother remembering. Passed around from one set of foster parents to another, none of them trying beyond the initial introductions to get to know him.
He had withdrawn, expressing himself mainly through a black, leather-bound book he carried with him everywhere. He refused to let anyone look in it, though, knowing that his only form of coping would be stolen from him if he did.
Another home.
He had gotten into a fight with someone at the school. The kid had tried to steal his book, after calling him many different synonyms for autistic, none of them very nice.
So he had punched the kid in the face. Repeatedly.
And that is how he ended up with the Shirogane family.
They were much nicer than any other family he had been placed with, which is good because his case worker really didn't want to have to deal with him or his shit anymore.
The Shirogane's lived in Michigan. It was cold and wet, and it had actual seasons, something that he had really no previous experience with, growing up in the southern states.
Moving to this house gave him an older brother, Takashi, another thing he really never had before. Sure there were other kids in the foster homes, but none had wanted him around enough to bond with. Takashi was different, despite being four years older. Or, at least, he should have been four years older. In reality, Takashi was only four.
He didn't know how to take this. Wary that he would be taken away again for even the smallest thing, he refused to open up to his new family.
But they still kept him.
They even went so far as to officially adopt him.
Years pass and he eventually grew to be a part of the family. He kept his original last name, Park, so he had something to remember his birth parents by. When Akira and Hiroki died, Takashi took over as legal guardian.
He enrolled in the Garrison like Takashi before him, becoming a fantastic pilot.
And then, the Kerberos mission was lost. Pilot error, they said. And Keith, he raged. How dare they drag his brother's name like that? Don't they know who they were talking about?
All of a sudden, it was like he was four, almost five, and being thrown into a strange world. He was alone again, and he struck out.
Literally.
“Did you hear? Keith Shirogane-Park punched Iverson in the face.”
“I heard he was expelled.”
“What a shame. He was a good pilot.”
A year in the desert of Arizona left him reverting to how he was before. Unruly, fiery, and unable to communicate properly.
A year of being alone.
Until a meteor came crashing down, and Takashi stepped out, alive, and his entire world changed again.
He met Lance Espinosa, a loud-mouthed boy with blue eyes and skin the colour brown that leaves turn in the autumn; Pidge Gunderson, a tiny, bony and terrifyingly smart person that reminded him too much of Takashi's boyfriend, Matt; and Hunk Kamali'i, a boy who looked like a teddy bear had turned into a person.
And then they were blasted into space in a giant, sentient, blue metal lion, with Lance at the controls (and now Keith remembered him, and was scared for his life – do you know how many times Lance had crashed the simulator?). Narrowly missing being shot out of the sky by evil, planet-enslaving aliens and being covered in the remains of Hunk's dinner.
Finding a castle with two 10 000 year old aliens in cryo sleep, and then being told that they had to fight in an intergalactic war after only just getting his brother back.
Keith was tired, and overwhelmed, and maybe a little scared.
New things always made him freak out.
But the beds and sheets didn't make his skin crawl, even if the texture of the food gave him major heebies. He found a way to get out his excess energy, while not entirely safely, in a way that didn't involve Takashi's patented Disappointed Dad Stare (too much).
Pidge was like him, too much stimuli made them catatonic or irrationally angry, and they bonded over easy silences. And cryptids. Though Keith thought that Pidge was a little bit of a cryptid, anyway.
Pidge did nothing to dispute this.
Sure, Lance and him butted heads. A lot. But it was nice, somewhat.
“Hey, Mullet, I'll race you to the training deck.”
“You're on!”
And that is how he found himself, red faced, lungs heaving, feeling more at home than he had in a long time with no explanation other than a strange boy treating him like he was just like everyone else instead of the autistic weird kid with no social skills and got in fights a lot.
“Hah, looks like, hah, I won.” Lance gasped out, bent in half with his hands on his knees.
“No way,” Keith said back, gulping down air, “I totally, be-eat you.”
“You, uh, wish, Mullet.”
“Whatever, lets just, hah, get to training.”
“Ready for another beat down, hey, Keithy-boy?”
Needless to say, Keith was the winner of their little sparring match.
Days pass in the same manner, training, food goo, learning the lions, and silly competitions with Lance. When he had free time, he wrote in that little journal, beaten to all hell and barely holding together except through sheer will.
The battles never seem to end, always coming at them when they least expect it. It didn't take too much effort for Keith to fall into the routine of it all, though. Routines were familiar territory.
It had been a long day of training and then a hard battle, when things changed.
Keith had been writing in his journal earlier in the day, in the few minutes of down time the group had. He had been writing in what Lance labeled the living room, but had to drop it and rush off when the alarm sounded.
When they got back to the castle, all Keith wanted to do was sleep. So that is what he did.
And the journal was still in the living room.
When he woke up, he was groggy, and sore, and a little irritable, as he headed to the dining hall to get his breakfast. Much as he hated the goo, he knew that he needed to eat something, even if the texture didn't agree with him.
He walked through the doors, one hand rubbing his eyes. He figured that it was just him, and his brother like it usually was in the morning, so he didn't do anything different than he usually did. “G'morning, Takashi.” He mumbled, heading towards the goo dispenser.
“Why, good morning, Mullet-boy. Might I just say that you are looking just awful.”
Keith froze, and turned. “Is that so?”
“Mmhmm. Your hair looks even worse than normal.” Lance laughed. “Didn't think that was possible.”
It was then that Keith noticed what Lance had in his hand, opened like he was reading it. Keith's journal.
“Where did you get that?”
Lance lifted his hand. “This? Found it in the living room.”
“And you just decided to read it?”
“It's a book, isn't it?” Lance said. “Books are meant to be read.”
“Not that one. That's mine.” Keith snapped. “Give it back.”
Lance made a face like he was going to say something else, but Keith didn't let him. “Give it back, now, Espinosa!”
And those terrible, infamous words left Lance's mouth, leaving Keith seeing red.
Just like all those times before.
“Make me.”
And, just like all those times before, Keith lashed out. Violently. He vaulted the table and punched the other boy in the face. Hard.
Hard enough to draw blood.
“What the fuck, Keith?!”
Keith pulled his arm back to do it again, but was stopped with a grip like iron.
He turned to face Takashi, whose thunderous expression told him just how much he was in trouble. But he didn't care. Lance had not only touched his journal, he had read it.
“Keith, go cool your head.” Takashi's tone left no room for argument. “Lance, to the infirmary. I will be talking to both of you in a bit.”
“I didn't do anything!” Lance yelled out.
“Now, Lance.”
Keith grabbed his journal, and took off. He needed to go somewhere that he could be alone. He's over-stimulated, and angry, and terrified.
How far had Lance read? Did he get beyond his terrible childhood in the foster system and into the Garrison years? Did he find out about Keith's weird feelings about him? Feelings that Keith didn't know how to describe other than the fact that it felt like he had swallowed a bunch of butterflies alive?
He booked it to his room, threw the journal under his pillow, and ran to the shower. He wasn't thinking clearly when he turned the water on full blast, uncaring about the temperature or that he was still clothed when he climbed in. He wasn't thinking clearly when he collapsed to the shower floor, his emotions too much to deal with himself so they spilled out in the form of tears and snot, mixing with the water beating down on his head.
He wasn't sure how long he had stayed there, either, soaked to the bone and shaking like a leaf, before Takashi came and found him. Somehow he knew exactly where to look for his little brother, and that was both a comfort and a nuisance to Keith.
“Keith? I have a towel here for you. I'm going to turn the water off, okay?”
Keith nodded.
“Okay, good.” Takashi said, voice soft, caring. Home.
“Can you take your jacket off for me, Keith?”
Keith didn't know the answer to that question. He shook his head.
“That's okay, that's okay. I'm going to wrap you in the towel now, okay?”
He nodded again, and then he was wrapped in something fluffy and soft and slightly warm, like it had just been pulled out of the dryer. Did space even have dryers?
He decided it didn't matter. The towel didn't bother his skin, and since Takashi had brought it, he had probably picked out one specifically for Keith to help minimize his sensory issues.
“Can I pick you up?” Takashi asked.
Keith hesitated, before nodding again.
Gently, he was lifted in a bridal carry, pressed against a familiar chest, ear to pectoral to listen to that calming heart beat.
Takashi sat down with him on the bed, still holding Keith close. It was just like all of the meltdowns from when he was younger, before the Garrison, and Kerberos, and all of the terror that comes with being shot into space.
“I'm going to hold you until you feel like you can tell me about what happened, okay, Keith?” Keith could feel the vibrations of the words as Takashi spoke.
“Hm.”
“Do you want me to hum?”
“Hm.”
“Okay.” And so he did. Soft, deep, another familiarity. A song from when Akira and Hiroki were alive, from when Takashi was not stolen and broken and forced to fight for his life.
Home.
He was finding that a lot in space.
It took a while, Takashi humming the same song over and over until Keith began to pull away slightly. They shifted until they were side by side, barely touching, but still comforting each other.
“He was reading my journal.”
Takashi only nodded.
“My journal, where I write about my past. About my future.” Keith wrapped his arms around himself. “That journal is my way of coping with things, Takashi.”
“I know.”
“And Lance was reading it. Reading my journal. Reading about things that I don't even understand.”
Keith shook his head, burrowing into the towel, now damp, to hide his face. “There are things about him in there, Takashi. Things about all of you, but mostly about him.”
“About your crush?”
Keith looked up, startled. Takashi held up his hands. “I didn't read it. I just know you.”
Keith buried his face again. “What should I do?”
“Talk to him for one.” Takashi said simply. “You do have to apologize for punching him, at least. You guys are a team, and teams depend on communication.”
“I'm bad at that.”
“We all are, but you have to at least try.”
Keith was silent for a moment, before nodding. “I'll try.
“Good, because he's waiting outside.”
Keith squeaked, throwing himself across the bed and against the wall. “W-what?!”
Takashi chuckled. “Talk to him.” And with that, he stood and walked out of the room.
The door didn't even start to close before Lance was walking in, body language sheepish and defensive. “Uh, hey, Keith.”
“Hi.”
“Can I- can I sit?”
“I guess.”
It was silent and tense for a few moments, each of them afraid to speak. Unsurprisingly, it was Lance that broke it.
“I'm sorry.”
“Hmm?”
“For reading your journal. I'm sorry.” Lance rubbed the back of his head, nervous and unsure. A weird thing to see, Keith thought. Lance was always confident. “I, uh, saw you with it everywhere, and I wanted to know you better. Thinking back on it, there were better ways to go about getting that done.”
Keith swallowed. “I'm sorry too. For punching you. You didn't deserve it.”
“Nah, I probably did.” Lance shrugged. “It happens. I get it. S'not the first time I've been punched. I'm kind of annoying.”
They fell into silence again, Keith not knowing how to respond.
Again, Lance broke it.
“They were good.”
“What?”
“Your poems. They're pretty good.” Lance said. “They made me feel a lot of things. Anger. Sadness. Loneliness. Grief.”
“How-how much did you read?” Keith asked softly.
“Not much. Maybe a third? I'm not the fastest at reading. Well, English, anyway.” Lance replied. “I got to when your parents died. Shiro's parents, I mean.”
“Oh.”
“For what it's worth, I'm sorry about that, too.” Lance said. “It must have been rough to go through that.”
“Yeah. It was.”
Lance looked over at him, a strange emotion in his eyes. “Uh, you want me to brush your hair? It's going to knot if you leave it like that.”
“Oh! Uh, sure.”
They shifted around each other, Lance ending up against the wall, legs splayed in a 'v', Keith in between. He tilted his head back, and Lance began the daunting task of untangling the knots that made up Keith's hair. First with his fingers, and then slowly moving to the comb that Keith handed him.
It was soothing.
Keith could feel himself relaxing and falling into an almost-sleep like state.
“Keith?”
“Hmm?”
“I, uh, I have something else to tell you.”
“Okay.”
“I might kinda maybe like you a little bit. Like, like-like you. Kinda sorta.”
Keith's eyes fluttered open, and he turned to face Lance, whose face was bright red.
“Well, that's good, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“Yeah,” Keith nodded, a small smile forming on his lips, “Because I might kinda maybe like you a little bit, too. Kinda sorta.”
“Really?”
“Mmhmm.”
Lance's face split into a grin. “So, can I hug you now?”
Keith nodded.
Home. That's what Lance's arms felt like. In a way different to that of Takashi's hugs, Lance felt like home. Like warm summer sun and the cool grass and the soft breeze.
Keith didn't want this to end, much like the lazy days of laying out under a shady tree and fading in and out of consciousness as the sun crawls across the sky.
Unbeknownst to him, Lance felt the exact same way.