Rio had never regretted anything more in her life.
Okay, that was an exaggeration. But on a list of "Things She Would Do If She Had A Time Machine" this would definitely be near the top.
Arriving at the Garrison last year, an unawares Rio, in an effort to get closer to the cute girl in front of her desk (maybe she was single?), had the misfortune of being plagued by the worst neighbor the class had to offer. Okay, maybe Keith wasn't the most obnoxious person in the class (that privilege belonged to Lance), but something about him was off. It made Rio twitchy.
Not that he didn't to plenty of twitching on his own. Oh no, he was constantly fidgeting, shuffling his feet, drumming his fingers, scratching slow furrows into the wood of his desk. Rio, for the life of her, could not concentrate with the constant noise and motion out of her periphery. Lately she had been lamenting the misfortune of her hallmates: that is, the one person a few doors down who had to get up hours before sunrise and pace the halls or go off somewhere outside the dorms. That person was Keith. Of course it was. Who else could could be such an irritant?
When her grades started to inch lower due to sleep issues and lack of concentration in class, Rio was pissed.
The obvious solution was to get rid of the disruptor of her schooling and scores. That is, get him suspended. The instructors were already at odds with Keith, it shouldn't be hard.
This was most certainly not the least reasonable idea Rio's ever had.
—
The first move Rio makes is a search for incriminating evidence while Keith is on one of his late-night ventures doing God-knows-what. After hearing the soft taps of retreating footsteps, Rio slithered out of her bed and rolled out of her covers in exhaustion (the lack of sleep was starting to get to her, she should tell). Softly poking around for her glasses, she finally found them below the bedstand and crookedly placed them on her nose. Vision restored, she grabbed a flashlight and opened her own door, carefully looking for other wanderers before creeping into Keith's room. Her hope was to find something incriminating, enough to get him in administrative trouble. Receipts from banned items, anything would work.
Rummaging through the trash bin while trying to rationalize said snooping to herself, she pricked her fingers on something sharp at the bottom. Curious, Rio snagged the object and lifted it up into the sight of her flashlight, she spotted the slightly serrated edge of a white tooth, of all things. It resembled a shark's, flat and sharp, but with a much smaller width. She shone her light down to the bottom and found similarly-discarded teeth. Pocketing the fang in her pajamas, she moved on.
After finding nothing, not even a soft magazine, Rio returned to her room, stuffing her face into her pillow.
She didn't think about the canine in her pocket, or the oddity of its location.
—
After shuffling into class early next morning, feet and eyelids heavy, Rio brightened when she remembered it was a simulator testing day, where the instructors would call out teams of three to test their practical skills. Maybe while the others were taking their tests (her group was among the last to be called) she could catch some naps. It looked like a large number of the other students had the same idea: the cute girl in front of her, Aryn, already had her head down on her arms. Moving to do the same, her eyes were involuntarily drawn to a stutter of movement beside her, and of course the culprit was her unfortunate neighbor yawning.
But.
Something was wrong.
Rio saw orderly rows of needle-like fangs flash out in front of his teeth, before they retreated back into Keith's gums.
Alright, okay, Rio thought to herself, trying to shake off the way her neck hairs stood on end, I definitely need more sleep, if you're seeing things.
As her eyes drifted shut with her cheek resting on her desk, Rio dearly hoped for a breakthrough. If she was seeing things like this after not sleeping well for a while, things that startled her this much, she needed to remove the perceived origin of her woes as soon as she could.
—
The distinct sound of a door sliding open woke Rio, alerting her to the absence of Keith from his room after curfew. Stepping out of bed (she was proud of herself for not falling over again) and snatching her glasses from her dresser, she pocketed her flashlight. On her way out, she took her phone with her in order to record evidence. Being out after curfew wasn't really that high on the list of punishable offenses in the Garrison, but the consistent nature of it would still be blatant disregard of the rules put in place.
Rio allowed her socked feet to soundlessly glide across the smooth concrete floor as she followed the light footsteps. A minute creak pricked at her ears, and she came up to see the door to the cafeteria balcony ajar. This made Rio's eyebrow quirk upwards: outside was certainly incredibly off-limits at night.
After mentally preparing herself, she whirled around the door, flashlight on and phone camera recording-
And screamed.
Glowing yellow eyes like headlamps blared back at her, wide and unblinking and casting a faint glow around the creases of its eyelids.
Rio turned tail and ran for her life, feet skidding beneath her as she fled.
She turned the corner and locked her door, and heaved her dresser over and placed it in front of the entryway. After panting and giving herself a number of minutes to calm her breathing and her mind, Rio shakily opened her phone and checked the video file.
Her eyes had not deceived her.
Heart hammering, Rio considered her options, and slowly pressed the 'delete' button. The video was whisked away, and no longer did she have then evidence of… whatever that was.
She had concluded this was something she shouldn't touch, something murmuring deep in her bones that whatever she saw on the balcony was dangerous, something she should stay far, far away from.
She did worry for Keith, as much as she disliked him, still outside in the same building as whatever she saw. But despite her concern, Rio's primary directive was herself, and she was not going out there in defiance of her self-preservation instinct.
Rio tried to sleep that night, but stayed awake, long brown hair splayed across her pillow like a forest, eyes never leaving her blockaded door.
—
Nearly a week later, a still-skittish Rio was nonetheless pleased to hear that her personal annoyance had been punted out for a 'disciplinary issue'. Her nerves were eased in class, and over then next months her school life improved: Her grades increased with her sleep, and she and Aryn had started dating (just thinking about it made Rio feel squishy inside).
In the coming years, she would hear explosions outside the Galactic Garrison. She would hear of the four classmates presumed dead, she would briefly mourn them with her friends and instructors, and she would move on.
—
Not even four years after the death of four students, Rio, having access to the teacher's lounge as an assistant instructor after graduating, heard of some direct negotiations between the top officers at the Garrison and aliens.
Aliens.
Unless she saw it on the screen herself in the meeting room, she wouldn't have believed it. But, the satellites picked up the fussy image of a flying marble castle, and the tall, dark-skinned woman who spoke with the officers was certainly not human. Apparently, the GG's "dead" students had been assisting them in fighting off an encroaching alien empire. Now that they had succeeded, the princess had said that they wished to return home. She, too, wistfully said she wished to see the planet her friends had spoken so fondly of.
Aliens. It was going to give Rio a headache, she could feel it.
When the castle landed at night, far out in the desert bordering the Garrison, Rio was there, holding her girlfriend's hand, waiting with the other instructors if the Altean princess's word of the humans on board was true.
It was.
They disembarked and Rio could see the premature age on their faces, the battle-worn stances. Pidge had grown longer in both hair and frame, the joy in their eyes contrasting the bags beneath them. Hunk looked much the same, but the wariness in his gait was evident. Lance had filled out, and his arms were tense, twitching towards something holstered on his belt. Keith was purple, and to Rio's complete astonishment, sported glowing yellow eyes, reminding her of her misbegotten days as a student, creeping around after dark. His upright, furred ears swiveled around to catch the sound before flattening against his skull in apprehension. Taking up the rear was a face Rio had only seen in pictures: Pilot Shirogane, declared dead five years ago.
Regardless of the weight of a war clear on their shoulders, all of them looked truly happy to be on Earth. Their families were brought out from the safety of the Garrison to see their missing members, rushing forward without prompt after seeing their family.
When Mrs. Holt audibly burst into tears, Rio felt she was intruding on a truly intimate scene, and turned away.
Gazing at the stars, thinking of the infinite realms beyond them, Rio squeezed Aryn's hand.
The world had just gotten vastly bigger.
Notes: Hilariously enough, as absurd as it might seem in the fic, these are based on true events. minus the aliens, of course. When I was still in high school, someone tried to get my classmate suspended because he was distracting him so much in class and he couldn't move because the petition for a swap of assigned seats was denied. As for Keith's weird night wanderings, that's a headcanon for Galra sleep cycles: they run off a 6hr/6hr/6hr/6hr sleep cycle as opposed to a human's 12hour/12hour circadian rhythm.
If you want to know, my tumblr url is Forblazes.