send my soul to worlds more beautiful

by rose-tinted-bones

If Shiro can believe there's still a part of him – no matter how infinitesimal – that's good, that's human, that Keith can still touch and not feel the imprint of all the lives he's cut short, then maybe there's still hope and maybe it'll be enough for what comes after.

send my soul to worlds more beautiful

---

They don't know my heart. It's the only ledge Shiro clings to, his nails bloodied and broken and biting – to keep his sanity, to keep himself breathing, to keep himself from running the blade into his own chest. No matter what the Galra did to his body, no matter how many battles they make him fight, no matter how many times they make him spill blood.

No matter how many times they make him ruin his own promise.

If he can believe there's still a part of him – no matter how infinitesimal – that's good, that's human, that Keith can still touch and not feel the imprint of all the lives he's cut short, then maybe there's still hope and maybe it'll be enough for what comes after.

---

And it's my whole heart, though tried and tested, it's mine.
And it's my whole heart, trying to reach it out.
And it's my whole heart, burned but not buried this time.

- Which Witch; Florence + the Machine

---

"Keith."

A curl of dark hair moves, the morning sun peeking through the cracks of the boarded-up windows, and purple-mauve eyes open. Keith's breath is warm on his skin, and the scent of earth and petrichor – the subtle linger of cedar – is strong when Shiro presses his nose against his.

It was another day – desert runs, morning mess hall coffee and mauve sunsets and constellations dotting the sky. Keith's lips form a smile when he whispers back.

"Shiro."

---

It's the dull ache in his side that pulls him out of the blissful nothingness of sleep. Shiro groans - hitched, cracked groan tumbling in the hollow of his throat and behind his teeth - and it's the pain that keeps him curled, his limbs lead and his eyes shut like it'll deafen the pain, turn the needle-sharp bite into something more manageable — keeping him hissing through gritted teeth.

"Fuck." He manages to blurt out, the word riding on the tail of a breath and an overhead middle finger to the heavens. The surface he's on is cold - metallic - and it creeps past his skin and into his bones. The clattering he hears, reverb inside his own skull, is actually his own knee battering against the ground, and it takes him a breath and an entire universe to still himself.

He breathes — keeps it at the pace of his own heartbeat, just a second slower, a drumbeat echo — and if he can concentrate on breathing, he can start concentrating on everything else. Baby steps. Left after the other. One after two. You can do this, Takashi.

The ache in his side — bludgeoned, his mind supplies — doesn't disappear, but the eye-watering pain does dampen, simmering under his skin and just enough to breathe without gasping. Good, that's good. Gotta think of the positives. Gotta think of the good.

Shiro blinks his eyes open, tries to acclimate to the inky darkness as the tension around them slowly disappears over time. His cheek is pressed against the cold, and he feels something had dried against his skin and he's sure it's blood or spit or vomit or a shitty combination of all three and it's enough. To open his eyes.

The backlash of memories - hammering inside every groove of his brain and against the thin, fragile lining of his chest - churns in the back, waiting to remind him of where he is — what he is and what he's done — but Shiro doesn't pay attention to it. Not yet. Not now. If he does, he'll lose his breath and he'll lose his concentration and he'll lose. He'll lose.

"Fuck." He says again, as he turns his head — the crawling ache running from hip to spine and up his back, each frisson of movement like a jackhammer on each of his bones — and he grits his teeth, tastes the blood in his mouth and his breathing is shot, bottlenecked, until he finally manages to lay on his back. Warmth trickles down his temples — he doesn't care to guess if it's sweat or tears.

Hair glued to his forehead, Shiro keeps his eyes open - even if the darkness doesn't change, the same blackness echoing in his mind when he's exhausted enough to pass out, when they've exhausted him enough to not mind the fact that he's fainted, his face pressed against a puddle of his own spit and piss.

As if his thoughts had taken physical form, the stench hits his nose and he can't even pretend to be disgusted, just breathes with his mouth open and ignores the pervasive, almost-toxic stink. He's alive, and his eyes are open and he's fucking breathing. Can't ask for more. Not like this.

Doesn't matter if it's his own shit and his own piss like an ironic reminder of what he's become.

Just keep breathing, Takashi. Doesn't fucking matter what they do to you.

The thought is a fetid oasis in the middle of the desolation in his mind - and it burns his eyes and his hands when he keeps holding on to the thought - because keeping on breathing means more. More fighting, more bloodshed, more pain and more promises he's broken.

He's broken enough, already.

Shiro groans as he tries to raise his askew leg - tries to straighten it out and let the blood flow and rid the numbness - and his vision flashes and his mind blanks out as his scream is cut in gasps, the lighting-arc of pain crashing into all his senses. The rapid flashing of black and white does not waver and Shiro chokes in air instead of breath as he starts coughing - saliva and blood and his own scream coagulating in his own throat - and only when the pain dulls that he can start gasping for air instead of his own insides. His pants drag into minute sobs as he presses his temple against the ground, the cold a minuscule relief in the white-hot pain.

He has no idea how long time passes - a second, a minute, an entire millennia - but when he can breathe again, when he can turn his head and not want to bash it against the ground until it paints a dented crimson flower with his own brain, he manages to open them again and just lay still - the entire act of moving his leg taking more out of him than anything in the last few, what, weeks? Months. Years.

The last battle had been fucking brutal, and a part of his brain - some small, almost nonexistent part that still thrives on the beating of his heart - finds it funny, almost hilarious how he's alive and he's in pain and he's breathing after being thrown at four stone columns like a fucking rag toy.

He can still joke and he can still think to laugh even when his lips are pulled into a drawn-out, pained grimace. He's either extremely resilient or he's lost it. Shiro likes to think that he's one of two things or both, and neither absolutely makes sense. Nothing makes sense here. Nothing had — in a long time.

And the thought of sense, of normalcy, has Shiro thinking of dark hair and purple-mauve eyes and it's fucking amazing — amazing like crying, amazing like sobbing, amazing like his entire body splintering into a million glass shards and cutting him by the thousands — how the white-hot, corded lighting pain lancing through his entire fucking body can't ever compare to the sandpit, canyon-deep pit his chest falls into the moment he remembers what — who — he's left behind.

Don't. Takashi. Don't think of him. Don't think of him or you'll never be able to get up. Gotta think future tense. Gotta think of what's in the distance.

Shiro bites his own lip — and when it cuts open and bleeds, he doesn't even notice it until it touches his own tongue — and he ignores the bone-cracking spasm in his chest, banging against his ribs with the force of a world shattering, with every echo of a smile against a ochre sunset in a russet desert. If he thinks too much, too much of him and the agony and the emptiness in his hands, he might never get up.

He needs to. He has to—get up. Adapt. Survive.

It's the only way he can get out of this and breathe.

Shiro doesn't try moving his leg, lets it bend on its side like a caricature of a broken man, and he's fine as long as he can still move his hands and his head. The texture of his rags against his skin is barely any shield against the cold, but he'll take what he can get — even if half of it is gone, his back bare against the steel and the coldness finds a home in his muscles and his bones and his chest and it's fine, as long as it keeps him breathing.

Doesn't matter what kind of mangled mess he's in, as long as he's alive.

Surviving has to take precedence—always will. Basic military protocol. Keep yourself alive and you can keep others alive, too. No sense getting yourself blown to bits when you got people to protect. Everything else is details, you do what you need to do to survive. Pick up a weapon and defend yourself — done. Gut everything and everyone that wants to put you six feet under the ground — done, with time to spare.

Break every promise, every goal and every ideal you've held on to for the longest time, ruin whatever is left of your humanity, and more if it means one more step, one more second, and one more day until you're home — details, details.

If it means that you get to stagger and limp through space and asteroids and the relentless wave of red that you've let loose, if it means crashing past warp storms and wormholes and solar systems and hurtling back to that single, broken-down shack in the middle of the desert where a dark-haired man waits for you with the kindest eyes you've ever seen, then everything else is nil.

Do what you can.

Get home to him.

Don't think about missing him with an ache that makes you want to pull your own chest out.

Think about going. Moving forward.

The darkness doesn't shift, and Shiro is content to be on the ice-cold steel ground, and when his ears pick up the distant sound of footfalls, not even he can bring up any semblance of fire. It's too cold.

The sound of metal sliding — smooth and robotic — pulls his eyes to the sudden influx of red light and his eyes close of his own volition, and he can't help the groan as his eyes feel like they're on fire as they try to adjust. He turns his head away, ignores the approach of booted feet but he's stopped by a rough grasp on his chin—

The hand on his face is too large to be human, the indents pressing against his skin too sharp to be nails, and when he manages to squint one eye open, the skin is a swath of lavender. Galran.

His head is moved side to side forcibly, and his jaws echo with each thrust, the claws drawing blood from his cheeks as the Galran inspects him. Alien language echoes in his ears and his groan is cut short as another hand grasps his leg and moves it.

A soundless scream tears from his throat - enough to scrape off the skin inside his own throat - as the pain returns - blinding and deafening. He tries to get away, to convulse and run - pain pain pain pain echoing in his head - but the grasp on his jaw forces him still and he can't breathe as the torment continues.

His mouth is forced open through the pain, gritted teeth pried loose and liquid is poured in - washing down blood and spit - and he coughs and chokes on whatever fucking passes as water on this goddamn ship but he's so thirsty and his entire body has gone dry in the hammering agony, and Shiro splutters and coughs as some gets into his lungs.

The powerful grip on his jaw doesn't loosen, and he can already feel bruises forming but it doesn't matter as he tries to breathe around the boulder in his chest and the numbness of his leg straightened against the steel ground. The Galran above him speaks and Shiro doesn't get a single thing except for the few he's tried to learn and remember, repeats them in the circle of his thoughts until they're an insane mantra.

The Galran mutters about healing and battles and Shiro tries to shake his head — can't stop the childish, infantile action no matter how much he wants to — tries to curl into something smaller and insignificant but the Galran doesn't care.

The grip is gone the next second, and the relief has Shiro sighing, eye opening in the crimson-cerise glow of the light and he sees the silhouette of his abductor, one of many - thousands, millions. Gargantuan, beast-like. Merciless.

There's a bowl next to the beast's boots and Shiro spies the colorless liquid, given a scarlet hue and it's the same gruel they feed him, the same tasteless shit they stuff him with to keep himself from starving to death. Enough to stave off the lethal hunger, not enough to get rid of the gnawing in his stomach.

The Galran stands back, tips the bowl over with his boot and Shiro watches the gruel slosh a bit before spilling on to the ground. His eyes follow the liquid run into a pool, growing bigger as it travels outward. The steel ground is covered in piss and blood and shit.

Light cuts, the door is shut.

Shiro breathes - once, twice - and ignores the sting of his eyes as he presses his face against the steel, lips to the cold. His leg is tingling, trembling, but it's not sending sharp points of agony across every plane of his skin and if he moves his shoulder and his arm, he can inch his face closer to the gruel.

It's slow - fucking slow - and every intake of air is shorter than the last as his battered body reminds him that he's gone past the limit. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Everything else is details.

Survive. Get to the gruel. Doesn't matter if it's in a bowl or on the ground.

Just survive. Get home. Find him.

His lips touch the liquid and his eyes close on their own accord as he turns his face in and starts lapping at it. His tongue has cuts - too bitten - and it stings as it wades through the mush and against the steel, but he doesn't stop. The liquid is cold, the steel colder and inside his chest is frostbite.

He doesn't think about how he looks like. He doesn't think about what everyone he knows — the people he can still remember and can still name, the faces that have not greyed out in the middle of all the violence and blood — will think of him at the state he's in. He doesn't give a rat's ass about his own dignity and his pride and his humanity. Everything else is details.

The liquid turns salty and acrid and Shiro keeps lapping and licking, even as his breaths tumble into broken gasps and a trembling chin.

Survive. Just survive.

Keep on going.

Think of going home, think of returning. Think of running so far away that nothing can ever catch him and think of who is waiting at the end of the line. Think of rushing past stars and galaxies and towards the one person still keeping the threads of Shiro's sanity in place. It doesn't fucking matter what they do to him — he'll take it whatever they throw at him, and he'll keep surviving. Just get home and find him.

His tongue hits the side of the bowl, the gruel gone, but there might still be some stuck to the inner rim, so he starts licking at it, too.

Shiro's a million light years away, Keith's on his mind and he's so tired of crawling his way back home.

---

The launch of the Proserpina is met by hundreds. Not just the beige-colored coats of the Garrison cadets standing on the ground, eyes looking up as one of their own - the best one - is off to catapult mankind further than anything else in history. There are representatives from international space academies and politicians and press. There are the white coats of the several space agencies from across the world and there are more flashing cameras than people or maybe that's just because Shiro's been smiling too long at the reporters.

There will never be a time where he'll get used to the amount of cameras in his face, and his muscles are starting to ache, so he ducks down and looks to the side. Matt sends him a look of shared agony, but his eyes are bright and excited under his chestnut hair and he sees the same anticipation in Samuel Holt's eyes over his son's head.

Shiro throws them an uneasy smile that tries to look confident as Commander Iverson steps up next to him and poses with them, before turning to offer a salute. Shiro automatically follows suit, body stilling, back ramrod straight as he cleans his face of all emotion.

Iverson's face is gleaming with pride — a bit too much — but, in spite of the nonstop chatter of the press, even Shiro is feeling the excitement and the anticipation.

After all, it's not every day when your dreams come true.

"Take it all in, Shiro." Matt whispers against his side. Shiro turns his head to look at him, and grins. "It'll be a long time before you see this again."

"If you mean the reporters," Shiro whispers back, raising a hand and waving a bit at another camera, "then I will be happy to never see them again for the rest of my life."

An arm wraps around his shoulder, another around Matt's, and they're pulled close as Samuel grins wide and bright-eyed in the face of a hundred spectators - disregarding the fact that he's close to forty-five and holds a rank on the equivalence of a major. "Chin up and smile wide, boys. Today, we don't just make science. We make legends."

"This is one legend I'd like to avoid, though." Shiro's grin turns genuine for a moment, amusement slipping out at Matt's dry tone. The throwaway comment turns into a bit of a choke as Samuel tightens his grip around Matt's shoulder. "Jeez, dad, try not to kill me."

Shiro chuckles a bit at that - ignoring the increasing number of flashes in his face, finding it more bearable if he zones out a bit instead of actually looking at them - and, in spite of his dislike of being in the face of so many cameras, he is excited. His blood is thrumming, and he resists tapping his foot impatiently.

"Will be a really long while before we're back." Samuel comments, voice going soft and Shiro watches as the smile on his and Matt's faces grow tender. Down below, a bespectacled girl with hair the same shade of chestnut as Matt smiles back at them, wide and bright, even when she looks like she's about to cry. "It's not really goodbye, but still. I will miss them."

"Yeah." Matt's voice is wobbly, and suddenly he's tearing his way out of his dad's grasp, as he steps forward and waves with both hands in the air. "Katie, Mom! I'll see you around!"

Shiro smiles at the scene, warm, and looks up to find Samuel looking at him, head cocked to the side. He blinks. "Sir?"

Samuel grins. "How about you, Takashi? Have you said your goodbyes?"

And—

Unbidden—

Shiro's head turns, and he looks past the reporters and the crowds and the politicians, above and beyond the flashing lights and the publicity, and he spies the dark mane of hair and the pale skin and the mauve eyes. Keith's standing at the edge of the crowd, remote, and he's leaning against the Shiro's crimson speeder. His arms are crossed over his chest, and a brown, too-large jacket — his jacket — is over his shoulders and shielding him from the desert wind.

Shiro's heart skips past two paces as the smile on his face grows tight, his chest echoing and when Keith smiles back, minute, almost invisible, but it's there and it's real and Shiro hopes Samuel or the rest of the freaking world can't see whatever expression is on his face — even though they obvious will.

The picture of Keith burns like a furnace against his chest, hidden inside the lapel of his coat and Shiro resists the urge to clutch at it, giving away more than just a tidbit of the emotion in his veins—holding back from releasing the floodwaters of how fast his heart is pounding.

That day, when the first ray of light hit the horizon, cleaving purple amidst the black, Shiro had watched Keith open his eyes, slits of purple-mauve, against a backdrop of gold and his arms had grown tighter around the cadet. He didn't catch a single second of sleep — didn't really matter.

The hours he spent watching Keith sleep in his arms rushed by in the blink of an eye and the fan of Keith's breathing against his chest.

The entire crowd of the Garrison and the press disappear, and there's nothing but Keith and the speeder and the russet of the desert. A hand is on his shoulder, squeezes it and even though Shiro can't tear his eyes away from Keith and his beautiful smile, Samuel's voice echoes in his ears.

"It's not goodbye, Takashi. You'll be back soon." The words are spoken in confidence, and Shiro's heart oscillates between stopping and beating too fast. Maybe a bit of both.

Yeah. It's not goodbye.

---

The metal door opens, and Shiro looks up from his position on the ground. The crimson light blinds him for a bit but he manages to get past the sting in his eyes and glares right back, brows furrowed, as the light cuts into a form - a shape. His jailer.

The Galran's form is lined in purple and as he approaches, Shiro tenses. Their...healers' magic is still making him feel weird, tingles in his veins and against his skin. The scars running down are not gone - they'll never be gone - and the constant gnawing will never disappear but he doesn't feel like he's going to die every time he moves or breathes. He doesn't know what to feel about it — swinging from disappointment and the burgeoning sense to live.

"Another fight?" He sneer, teeth bared. He doesn't raise his head, just glares at the Galran from under his hair.

The size of the Galran eclipses most of the light, and what he sees other than the violet skin, lining the edges of his silhouette, are the cold, vicious gold eyes. The force of it - the animal rage and the quick intelligence - terrifies Shiro. He's not going to lie about it - they fucking terrify him, a testament to everything he thought was real upturned and thrown out the window.

He doesn't know much about them — doesn't know much about anything anymore. All Shiro knows is the bloodthirst and their rage, the merciless fights to the death they put him through. All Shiro knows is that the purple skin is a symbol of everything that's destroyed everything he stood for, everything that made him turn his back on what he had been so proud of.

Something clatters to the ground - clanks against the steel. It's his sword.

His eyes catch sight of it - the crimson is lined against the blade's edge and it looks like blood. Like the rest of the blood on Shiro's hands, all the crimson and scarlet he's painted across the battlefield, the endless red of his ledger seeping into the grounds of the arena. Reaped flowers and petals - splotches of red - in the faces of so many jeering, ravenous grins.

The sword is still, and Shiro's breath catches in his throat. His hand spasms, like it's itching to grasp the hilt and make for an upward slash. In a second, he sees it—

A curl of his wrist, a knee on the ground as he lunges forward, and putting all of his force in, the blade digs deep into the Galran's stomach, the squelching echo of flesh ripped open and, using the momentum, Shiro pulls the sword up, the blade running through organ and skin, blood leaking through the tear as his blade frees itself from the sternum, alien innards against his own skin.

The sword is still on the ground, and Shiro closes his hand into a fist, tight enough for him to leave indents in his own palm.

The Galran continues to stand before him, eyeing him like prey. Just one of many, hundreds and thousands more. Shiro is just a man, too broken to battle an army. Not enough.

Survival is what powers him through. Bow his head and play their games and keep every cracked, festered part of him together by the skin of his teeth and the warmth of his hatred.

Slowly, gradually, Shiro reaches for the sword, his fingers closing in on the hilt and the calluses and the bruises of his palm slide over the grooves and it fits. The weapon is cold in his hand, but Shiro's been so cold that only the tiny ember of hatred keeps him warm on the inside, alongside the wisp of a memory of a mauve sunset.

"Who am I fighting?" He grits out, venom in his tone.

His opponent is another alien life-form. Thinner. Smaller. Too many eyes, and too small a mouth. The spiked mace in the alien's hands tremble, and Shiro sees it cower before him, terrified beyond wits. The arms are struggling, weak. Inexperienced. This battle will be over in seconds.

Shiro breathes in - once, twice, and thrice. The crowd around the arena cheer and curse and Shiro locks away the memory of Keith's smile deeper into his chest.

He doesn't say sorry. He doesn't apologize. He's long lost the right to forgiveness.

Shiro raises his sword - and goes in for the kill.

---

Shiro is eighteen when he walks into the orphanage, and it's honestly a sad place to be in.

The walls are old, rustic and the entrance door jamb doesn't even seem sturdy enough for Shiro to lean on — and he doesn't test his theory. The items are minimal, the decorations spartan and there's a pervading sense of loneliness to it.

He's not surprised — and he may sound a bit cruel with the thought but it's a bit expected. In a place like this, a home for the abandoned and the lost, it's almost second nature. Still, he looks past all that and aims for the reception, walking past the rooms.

He doesn't really look around, but he takes note of the absences of laughter and voices, and what he can hear is just the quiet music from a radio by the reception, where a couple stands with their backs to him. The matron is talking in a low voice, and Shiro stands at the side.

Her eyes sift to his for a moment, and they widen at the insignia of his uniform but Shiro smiles at her, watching as she finishes her conversation with the couple.

"...unless you're willing to see it through." She says, wringing her hands. Shiro looks at the bare walls and the windows. No pictures or handprints or haphazard drawings on paper taped to them. Sure, the thought may seem stereotypical but...there must be a grain of truth to it somewhere, right? Shiro frowns. Sure, the movies make it seem better, or worse, than it actually is but he can't be blamed for expecting to see some semblance of, well, life to everything. It didn't seem like an orphanage — it was too sterile and unwelcoming.

He hears the couple talk to each other, coming to agreement before shaking their head and Shiro watches as they turn away and walk off, hand-in-hand. There's an open door by the entrance he hadn't noticed, and Shiro watches as they turn to look into the room, before hurrying off.

Confused, Shiro's brows furrow at their receding backs before turning to the matron. The older woman smiles at him - a bit cautiously - wiping her hands on her pants. "We don't usually get military folks over."

Raising a hand to scratch at his head, Shiro grins at her before extending his hand. "Oh, no, I'm from the Garrison. Shiro Takashi."

The matron shakes his hand languidly, and her face says everything about her understanding on the differences between the army and the aerospace program. Shiro keeps his smile up, though. It wasn't a big deal. "What can I do for you, officer?"

So...no name, then. Okay. "I'm here on behalf of the Galaxy Garrison for our aerospace cadet program."

A blink.

Shiro keeps his smile up. No biggie. "We're actually opening the program to a younger range of interested applicants. We house them, take care of their education and hopefully have them work for our space exploration initiatives."

Understanding dawns on her face and her eyes flick towards the open door for a bit. "That's...fulfilling. I take it you're here on getting hopefuls?"

Shiro shrugs, grinning, taking note of her choice of words. "Hopefully."

"Well, I appreciate the interest, officer, but," another flick, "most of my wards have been adopted. If you were expecting a large crowd, I'm sorry to disappoint."

Sure, the number could have been better but Shiro's nothing but an optimist. "Ah, one or one hundred, still a good number."

The matron wrings her hands once more before she places them by her side, eyeing him and the door. Shiro doesn't know what to make of the almost nervous way she looks at him, he doesn't really see himself as someone unapproachable, but it's probably because most of the people he's around are wearing the same uniform he's in. Outside the Garrison, the sight of his coat can be a bit of a cause for alarm.

The matron crosses her hands in front of her. "We can't really allow to have kids adopted when they're below eighteen and without legal documentation—"

Shiro waves his hands, cutting her off. "Don't worry, I should have been clearer. It's less of a recruiting drive, to be honest. I'm here just to hype interest."

He also doesn't say that Iverson likes to have him as the poster boy for Recruitment, but that's another story. The matron finally relaxes, as if she had been afraid he was here to unlawfully steal her kids. "Alright. Unfortunately, we only have one ward here."

He follows her to the door, boots clinking softly as he hums. "Really, how old are they?"

The matron stands by the jamb and looks in, smiling before turning back to him. "Keith's sixteen. He's our oldest ward here."

Sixteen. Two years short of legal age. Curious. "And how old was he when you took him in?"

The matron's voice grows softer and she steps closer. "Keith was four when his only parent, his father, died. We don't know who or where his mother is."

Shiro stills. Twelve years. Twelve years in an orphanage. He doesn't know how it must feel — to stay so long and watch as each ward gets taken in, and you're the only one left and the years grow longer, and you grow older until you're almost an adult and still by yourself.

He blinks, and tries to ignore his thoughts. It's not that he pities the kid - maybe a bit, but he tries not to let it show. He wasn't one to look at someone's past and hold them against it. What you do with your present mattered more, and it was always something he kept in mind, and something he looked forward to in his years training in the Garrison. "I understand. May I speak with him?"

The too-long pause before the nod is the only sign of hesitation and Shiro steps into the room—

And he can't help the grin from growing true on his face as he suddenly feels like he's staring at his own bedroom.

It's small, yes, but overhead were paper planets, loving painted and hanging from thin threading. An end table next to the bed and atop were several piles of books - Celestial Mechanics, History of Astronomy, Ptolemy's Almagest - and there, on top of the bed, a lanky, dark-haired boy — no, young man — sat, legs crossed under him, an open textbook in his lap and purple-mauve eyes staring at him from under the dark fringe.

"I'm Shiro," he greets, extending a hand, a smile on his face. It's not hard to make it true — the purple-mauve eyes glitter in the setting sun's light seeping through the curtains, and in a certain angle, they seem to glow. Enchanting.

The other stares at his hand for a bit — almost too long — before he hesitatingly reaches out and holds his. It's warm.

"Keith."

---

A parry of his blade, and the force of the alien's cut against Shiro's weapon has tremors jaunting up his arm and his shoulder, his muscles burning at the weight. He seethes, trying to breathe, and bending his knees, shifting the center of his gravity, and pushes back. The crowd erupts in a deafening cheer as the alien steps back, axe swinging wildly as it tries to regain balance.

Shiro doesn't let up his barrage – rushing forward and ignoring the blood running down his temple, mixing with the grit and the sweat and slides towards his opponent, swinging his blade in a sideway arc, edge cutting against the alien's calf, drawing blood.

The audience roars, their cries echoing in the tumble of the earth and the foundations of the arena and his alien opponent's cry of agony is silenced, tusked mouth open in a muted scream. Shiro pants, feels the tightness of his muscles in his arms and thighs and his blood is hot, the adrenaline of battle and the overpowering, human need to survive taking center stage.

He shifts the grip on his blade, resting the dull edge against his forearm and surveys the fallen alien. It's big, muscled and took a lot of damage – Shiro would be hard-pressed to aim for the jugular or the heart, as something padded and thick like armor was strapped around its chest.

Death by a thousand cuts, then. His mind supplies, and the tinge of Keith's smile dims in his chest. Shiro bites his lip hard enough until it bleeds.

The alien makes for its weapon, a large steel axe, but Shiro's faster and he dashes around it, circling and aims for the muscle on the inside of its huge wrist. The blade sinks deep and slices cleanly, and Shiro ignores how the blood is red – just like his own, like a human's – and the alien cries again as its limb falls short. Useless.

The resounding applause doesn't make it to Shiro's ears as he pants, stepping back and kicking the axe further away. He stares at his enemy – the pathetic form, the manifestation of human imagination, the question of extraterrestrial life answered a million times over – and he watches as it howls in agony, muscles trembling, as it tries to crawl and stagger away from him. The creature rises and limps, blood spattered on its blueish skin like war paint, except it's a soldier on a run from a rampaging army, and Shiro bares his teeth at the line of blood following its feet.

It was useless – that he knew. The entire arena was surrounded by Galran soldiers, and overhead were automated turrets ready to deal death at a moment's notice. A shadowed being sits on a throne at the highest alcove of the arena, above the crowd, and Shiro spits blood at the golden visage cutting through the darkness.

The noise of the crowd finally starts seeping into his hearing, and Shiro notes the anger as his opponent continues to stagger away, snorting out pitiful bleats. He changes his grip once more and doesn't even run, just walks after the alien, his footfalls silent in the rage of the crowd and bares his blade across the other calf.

The alien howls as it falls to its knees, the ground shaking at its fallen weight. Blood paints the ground, and Shiro steps in it and feels it seeping into his footwraps, and the blisters of his feet mix with crimson. His opponent's back is supine, and his movements are sluggish – languid – and perhaps the blood loss has started to take effect.

From his vantage, with the alien almost curled into a ball on the ground, Shiro was taller and it didn't look as fearsome as it had before – at the beginning of the battle – and he ignores the ice in his chest as he leans forward and grabs the hair at the back of its head.

He's not sure if it can be called hair or just large follicles, and he doesn't really give a shit. He pulls it back, ignores the aching of his muscle at the weight of the head and the gasped, choked breathing of the alien as its neck is bared to the audience.

Shiro knows what they want – they want drawn-out bloodshed and rampage and torture and infinite agony. They want to see him turn into the monster he's become, and they want to see him paint and carve agony into the creature's skin a thousand times over. They want to see him broken into too many splinters and shards until he's swept away in a deluge of blood, a flood of all the lives he's cut short.

You're a good guy, Shiro. Keith's voice echoes in his mind, almost unnoticeable in all the shouting. Shiro holds on to it like a sailor on a tightrope in the middle of a fucking maelstrom.

He sets the blade against his opponent's neck. The muscle and tension in the creature's arms and shoulders loosen, relax and maybe it knows – it knows what Shiro's about to do, and it knows what kind of punishment awaits Shiro in the aftermath of this, that this show of mercy will not be viewed in kindness and that there will be no charity waiting for him when he returns to his cell.

Shiro ducks his head and closes his eyes. His opponent's breathing falls into pants, and the bleats almost sound consoling.

Forgive me itches at the edge of his lips, wanting to crawl out. He bites his tongue and runs the blade against skin.

---

He sees the fight at the end of the hallway.

Shiro doesn't know what's been said, who threw the first punch, but all he sees are a crowd of beige-coated cadets around two beaten figures, and his eyes narrow down towards the dark mane and the bruise around a purple eye. Keith's atop another cadet, and his fist is raised for a punch and Shiro sees a cut lip and a bruised cheek on the other cadet's face.

"Enough!" His voice echoes and cuts through the cheering of the other cadets, and all heads turn to him as he stalks forward, worry masked by the disappointment and the rage. "What the hell is happening here?"

The cadets all freeze at the sight of an officer, and they all start edging to the sides. Shiro ignores their wide-eyed gaze and just looks at Keith—

Who is looking at him wide eyes and fear and the hand raised falls to the side, listless. The cadet under him pushes Keith off him and stands, a hand to cover his own face. "Sir, he started it—"

"You fucker—"Keith bites back, fangs bared as his eyes shift from Shiro's to the other cadet, muscles tight.

"I said enough!" Shiro bellows, and throws a withering glare at each of them before turning to the rest of the cadets. "Get to your classes."

His roar of "now" when they don't move makes the cadets jump and he turns his gaze back to Keith and the other cadet as the rush of the others trying to vacate the premises of an extremely pissed-off officer slowly trickle into silence.

Keith stands to the side, head bowed and his arms crossed over his chest. The expression on his face is thunderous, but it dims and wanes when Shiro glowers at him, dark hair falling to cover his eyes. The other cadet, Shiro notes, seemed to have come out of the fight more bruised than Keith.

"Cadets, explain yourselves."

Two pairs of eyes turn to him – one wide and afraid, the other seething. Keith opens his mouth, lips trying to form the words, and Shiro shifts his eyes to him – trying to hide the worry on his face. He's an officer, he can't play favorites even if it pains him not to be on Keith's side. He has to set a line between familiarity and professionalism and if Keith ends up starting fights in the Garrison, that would be a chink in his reputation and a breach of protocol.

The other cadet, taking Keith's silence as hesitation, barrels forward as he points at the other. "Sir, he started it! He just started throwing punches at me!"

Keith growls. "Asshole—"

Shiro turns to Keith, barks. "Cadet!"

Keith freezes in place, unused to being the target of Shiro's ire and his wide eyes turn cold, shuttered, as he looks down and crosses his arms tighter. Shiro bites his tongue, holding back the almost automatic need to call Keith by his name, but not in front of the other cadet. Only the higher-ups knew of Shiro's involvement in having Keith in the Garrison, and if they hear about him being biased, it's going to put both him and Keith in trouble.

He shakes his head and turns back to the cadet. "Start at the beginning, cadet."

"There was no beginning, sir!" The other gives Keith a baleful look. "I was just joking around with my friends and suddenly this weirdo started attacking me. He should be kicked off the Garrison, would serve him right."

Keith starts, fists tightening. "Sir, I didn't—"

"What do you mean you didn't?" The cadet points at his cheek. "Have you seen my face?"

Shiro tries to cut in, but Keith gets a line ahead. "Well, you fucking deserve it!"

"Cadet!" Keith jumps, turning to him. Shiro tries to control the expression in his face, tries not to let the shock and the disappointment from clouding over. He wants to give Keith a chance to explain, he would have, but what he said – what Keith said. He knows it's not the full story, but Shiro can't help feeling like he's been punched in the face. "Voluntary injury against your co-cadets is worth four demerits and can be a valid reason for dishonorable dismissal."

"But—he—I—"Keith falls short, and purses his lips. Shiro knows that the frustration on his face is apparent, and the look in Keith's eyes turn frigid before he ducks down.

Shiro sighs, tired. He turns to the other cadet. "Get an ice pack on that cheek and get back to your class."

The cadet glares at Keith a bit, before saluting him and walking away. Shiro watches as he turns the corner before he looks back at Keith and the other's face is turned away from him, crossed arms and he sees Keith's thumb biting into the skin of his index finger. "Keith…"

"I wasn't—"Keith growls, angry and hurt and afraid. That's what Shiro sees and he tries not to step closer and put his arm around the trembling shoulders. "I didn't attack him. I just—he—"

"What did he do, Keith?" Shiro prods, keeping his voice soft. Keith wasn't the type to go about hurting others. He was quiet, kept to himself most of the time, but he wasn't violent. He reacted with anger and sarcasm, but he didn't initiate. Keith attacking is unusual, and it bothers Shiro.

Keith is silent, trembling, and his gaze is angry as he tries to look for the right words. Shiro waits, allows himself to be patient. The other isn't used to expressing his thoughts, and more often than not, it was always Shiro peppering the silence with his words. Keith is more of a listener, the kind that turns to you and watches you with purple-mauve eyes and you can't help but look back and just keep talking, just keep those eyes on yours.

But, this time, he needs Keith to explain. He needs Keith to talk and be the one to start. Shiro can't keep on letting him off the hook, and he can't let Keith just sit through this and not say what's on his mind. Sometimes, keeping things in do more bad than good.

"Keith," Shiro nudges, "talk to me. It's just me."

Keith resumes eye-contact and Shiro tries not to flail at the intensity of the emotion in the mauve eyes. The other's eyes had always been unique, singular and Shiro still finds himself entranced and fixated at the pulsing of colors – dark purple turning to mauve as the fluorescent lights overhead shift with Keith's movement. "That's exactly it."

Confused, Shiro tilts his head. "Me? This was about me?"

It takes a moment – an eternity, actually – before Keith looks away and nods, just a slight movement of his chin and almost unnoticeable if you haven't spent so long just watching the nuances and fluctuations of Keith's quirks. Shiro has, and he steps closer. "Why were you fighting about me?"

The other is reticent with his words, and Shiro watches the way he bites his lip and the argument forming in his eyes. There's hesitation and shame…and fear and Shiro doesn't know why his chest tightens at the sight of it. There was – there was no reason for Keith to be afraid of him, right? He doesn't want Keith to be afraid of him, never at all, not after so long. He's been doing so well – smiling more, laughing more, talking more. A far cry from the stone-still, almost invisible shadow he was in the orphanage.

"He was—"Keith starts, brows furrowing as he looks at Shiro pleadingly, asking him not to do this. Shiro wants to – God, the look in those eyes could have Shiro do anything without his own approval – but he keeps quiet. Keith turns away, shoulders lax in resignation and…was that red on his face? "He was making jokes about you."

Shiro frowns. "Jokes? What jokes?"

Keith's hair shifts and—oh, it really was a blush—it grows even redder. The inkling at the back of Shiro's mind turns concrete, and all he needs now is confirmation. "You mean that kind of joke?"

Keith's nod is barely more noticeable than breath, but Shiro sees it. "He was…talking about…finishing on your face."

Ah. Shiro breathes out, worry losing its punch as he nods at Keith. To be honest, he's not…surprised by it. It's not like he's not aware of how he looks, how his body looks and how much training and how many hours he spent getting it the way he wants it. Shiro is aware that he's attractive, he's completely aware as to why Iverson wants him on recruitment runs, and he's aware of the rumor mill infecting every compound with four walls, hundreds of people and one exit.

"Keith," Shiro breathes, voice soft. "People talk. You can't control what they think."

"They shouldn't think that!" Keith barks, and he sees the anger rousing in the purple eyes. "They don't know anything about you and they make you out like some…something dirty."

Shiro says his name, genuinely touched by Keith's defense of him – even if it was at a cost he didn't approve – and he can't stop the slight curl of his lips. Keith fumes, and crosses his arms, face still red. "It's not right. You're more than your face. You're just…more."

And Shiro picks up the unsaid and the unknowable in that last line, and he sees the way Keith tenses, as if he's said more than he intended. More. That's what Keith said – spoken in a fragile note, and carrying a mountain-heavy weight of things Keith isn't willing to share with him yet. Still, it doesn't dampen the way Shiro's hands start to sweat, or the way he suddenly feels like he's sweating in his uniform.

He's used to compliments and praise – he's not going to lie about his statistics and how he's good at what he does. To pretend otherwise would just diminish all the mistakes that he's made to get to the top, and Keith's wide-eyed wonder shouldn't affect him the way it should.

Shiro rubs his hand on his pants, feeling flustered at the implication of the word more. Shiro knows that he is Keith's first friend, the only one that stayed longer and that Keith clings to him tight even if he crosses his arms and keeps them around his chest and stands to the side. Keith's eyes track his when he talks, and he soaks in every word Shiro says and remembers every detail Shiro tells him and it's a grasp far tighter and stronger than any touch.

He breathes out, before stepping closer and digging his shoulder into Keith's. "Well…thank you for defending me, Keith."

Keith is still, but he doesn't pull away. Ducks his head lower, covering the red of his cheeks. "It's nothing."

Shiro grins, allowing himself to put an arm around the curled-in shoulders. The cameras in the hall are pointed at the corners, and they're in the blind zone. He doesn't miss the tension growing, a breath sucked in, before loosening. "Still, thank you. Officially, I should punish you and, don't worry, I will. You're on guard duty for the next eight hours."

Keith nods, his face neutral of any expression, but Shiro sees the anger fading from his eyes. "Okay."

He squeezes Keith's shoulder and walks forward, pulling the other with him. "Well, let's go, then."

Keith stands, still. "Go where? I'm on guard duty, remember?"

Shiro cocks his head and smiles wide. "Yeah, you are. You'll be guarding me, and I am feeling up to taking a ride around the desert."

Keith looks up at him beneath the dark hair – and the mauve eyes glitter with amusement and something deeper, warmer – and Shiro's smile grows smaller, still genuine, and grows tight as a similar one forms on the other's lips. "Okay."

Keith laughs as Shiro takes the speeder for a spin, and in the mauve sunset, his eyes are lined in sapphire and gold.

---

They call him Champion.

The other prisoners, the other aliens that line up behind him as the Galra prepare them for their battles, prepares them for their coming death with nothing but flimsy cloth and easily broken swords and shields—they call him savior and warrior.

He raises the blade and bears his rage on his enemies, until they're broken and battered and bloodied. The corpses are pulled out in bags, blood trailing after. Shiro stands, injured and bleeding and he doesn't recognize his own reflection staring back at him on the puddle of blood that remains.

The audience loves him – the cheer of the other Galra power his actions – and overhead, the golden eyes of their Emperor continues to look down on him, like a plaything. When he enters the field, the crowd roars in anticipation and they call him by their title.

Berserker.

Abomination.

Nightmare.

Demon.

Shiro finds each both fitting and foreign, and the names crowd around him as he moves around the arena, running and parrying and arcing his sword through bone and viscera, slashing at tendons and veins and hissing at cuts lacing his own skin, at the sword lodged into his thigh or the bite mark on his side that's been bleeding in the last few minutes.

He roars as he brings his blades down, cutting from collarbone to hip, and he spins and jumps away as his opponent falls. Each one of them, on their knees and down on the ground before him.

The other prisoners look up at him in wonder and terror – and the crumbling fear that their once-Champion may turn on them and become their executioner. Matt isn't here, and the consolation of his friend not seeing how far Shiro has fallen is a whisper of relief against the influx of fire.

Keith calls him a hero. Says that's what he's going to be once he gets back to Earth.

His own eyes – wide and haunted and hollow – glare back at him through the steel-sheen of his sword. The man looking back is no hero.

---

Keith is lined in scarlet and rust as he stands by the open door of the shack. The sunset cleaves through the clouds and the dust rolling up, and the desert sky is painted in shades of violet and mauve. The light hits Keith in the right angle, and scarlet marks his skin in cuts and lines.

He hasn't noticed Shiro standing behind him, just watching him – watching the wind brings wisps of his hair up, and watches the way Keith pulls the jacket around him tighter. It's not his red one – it's brown, and far too-big for his frame. It's Shiro's jacket and Shiro's chest constricts and his breath stops at the image of Keith wrapped in his clothes.

Between the fading sun and the greyed-out shadow lining the inside of the shack and Keith's hair dancing in the wind, Shiro realizes that the warmth in his chest is want.

He wants Keith.

Somehow, the realization isn't staggering. It's as if he's always known, from the start, and if his heart and his mind didn't, then the aching emptiness in his hands did.

He wants Keith – wants the flustered, shy glances and the dry wit and the caustic remarks and the bruised knuckles and the dirt-laden boots and the raspy laughter in his throat as he stands on the hold of the speeder and feels the wind lashing at him as Shiro takes them higher and further into the endless desert horizon.

He wants Keith and his slender neck, the onyx mane of his hair and the ever-changing fluctuations of purple and mauve of his eyes as light shifts. He wants Keith and his gentle hands when he holds the picture of them in his hands, the softness on the edge of his jaw and his lips and the hardness, the sharp-cut angles of his features are smoothed over. He wants Keith and his red cheeks as he takes a swig of rum and coke and starts coughing, unused to the flavor and the intensity.

Shiro imagines what it's like – to want him like that – to know if Keith moans or if he whimpers when Shiro presses his lips against his neck, if he trembles when Shiro's finger skitter down his sides and over his skin. He wants to know if Keith closes his eyes or leaves them open and bright when Shiro presses open-mouthed kisses on his chest, down his nipples and over the skin above his groin.

He wants to know the frequency and the strength of the tremble of Keith's legs if Shiro takes him in his mouth, looking up and seeing Keith look back at him – flushed cheeks, mouth open and too-bright eyes.

There's movement and Shiro is pulled away from his thoughts as Keith shifts in his position, turns his head and sees him. He throws Shiro a small smile, turning the other way and leaning against the door facing him. Keith tilts his head against the wooden beam, hair in his eyes and the sharp-point glow of intelligence and wonder in his purple eyes. "Hey."

And—God—nobody should tell Keith how he looks when he does that. It should be impossible, illegal, the way Keith looks when his eyes are wide under his hair and nobody should tell Keith that if he looks at Shiro like that and ask for the moon, Shiro will bring down Andromeda herself.

But Keith is barely seventeen and young and, although Shiro's not that older, Shiro's seen more of the world. Keith has spent most of his life alone, isolated – unwanted – and Shiro doesn't know if the wonder and awe that he sees and recognizes in the purple eyes when they look at Shiro are genuine or if they're the by-product of the first time someone's ever cared to look past the long hair and the angry words and see Keith for who he is.

And if Shiro tells Keith his feelings, how much he wants him – not just in bed, but in his life – who's to say that Keith actually wants him back?

And if he did – if Keith wanted him back, how would Shiro know that it's genuine and real and born out of actual affection and not because Keith feels like he has to pay Shiro back for the attention and the time and the interest, and that Keith is only forced to reciprocate because Shiro's the only one in his life who actually gives two fucks about him and he's afraid that not feeling the same way would mean Shiro walking out.

He knows Keith is better than that – Keith is better than that, better than anyone Shiro knows. Quick reaction times, great intuition and a good person and Shiro doesn't want to twist those into something beyond recognizable. He wants Keith to want him out of his own volition, and not some innate need to please.

Because Keith is that – he wants to make Shiro happy and proud, wants to make Shiro think that he's worth it and Shiro sees it, sees all of it in the high simulation scores and the smiles and the laughter that only Shiro can hear. Shiro wants all of that from Keith, without obligation.

He doesn't want to take Keith's trust in him and break it. Keith deserves better than that.

"Hey." He says back, and Keith smiles wider. His eyes are black in the shadows, and they are soft and Shiro feels the pounding of his heart pattern itself to every twitch of Keith's smile.

He can wait. He'll wait forever if he has to. Keith's worth it.

---

His enemy is a Galran.

This, Shiro thinks, will be easy. He does not need to think of the dead bodies of the other prisoners, or the terror in Matt's eyes, or the fading image of Keith in his heart. He does not need to think of all that to ignite the rage and the hatred in his chest, and the black venom powering his veins.

The sword is gripped tight – enough to bruise his skin, another badge against a million others on his skin. Too many broken bones, too many injured organs, too much blood lost – and he's still standing, one part human and another part fueled on whatever their healers do to him to keep him breathing. Somehow, the part that's still human hasn't died away – but it's buried under all the nightmares and his sins.

And the Galran before him will pay the price for it.

His opponent's moves are economical, textbook. He doesn't seem a fighter – smaller than the usual Galran soldiers that stand outside his cell and carry him outside to the arena. The blade in his hand is gripped properly, but his movements are edged in hesitation. Has trained in it before, but never practiced it constantly. That's what his mind thinks.

Good. Shiro slaughters by the day.

He parries well and he avoids Shiro's strikes better than most, but Shiro is relentless. They call him berserker, and he lives up to the name. Each strike that lands pulls a cry of pain from the Galran, weapon still in hand but he can see the bruises forming around the skin and Shiro narrows his eyes down on it.

No cheering from the audience reaches his ears. No fear-stricken gaze from the other prisoners reach his eyes. No purple-lined smile touches the bite in his chest.

The Galran steps back, almost tripping as Shiro swings his blade in successive strikes, not letting up.

You're gonna be a hero.

They were the reason he was like this. They were the reason his hands are covered in blood. They were the reason why each bone and muscle in his body is broken and bruised, festered and infected with so much hatred and anger.

They were the reason why every time he closes his eyes, all he sees glaring back is the disappointed, disgusted eyes of everyone he knows – the people who had been so proud of him – and he sees Matt's terrified face and Keith's shuttered eyes.

He had been a good person. He had been bright, blinding – riding a comet in orbit around the sun – and he had been whole. His hands had been clean, and they only fought to protect. They fought to pull Keith back from another argument, they held the shoulders of a too-lonely man and pushed the hair away from his eyes and made him smile.

Keith's not going to smile when he sees Shiro's hands. He'll be terrified, and he'll take a step back and more until Shiro's out of his sight.

The Galran falls to his knees as Shiro kicks him in the shin with a steel boot, and he screams as he brings the sword down over and over. The Galran keeps the blade up but he can see it cracking, sees the grip faltering.

They were the mistake. They were the reason he's become like this. They were the reason why he's had to kill. They were the reason why he had to take one life after the other. They were the reason why inky-black regret and disgust crawls up his throat and down his veins every fucking second he's awake. They were the reason why he's had to crawl all the way, licking the ground to survive. They were the reason why he's had to hurt Matt – to protect him.

They were the reason why he had to get home – his only way to ask forgiveness from those who could no longer return to theirs. All because of him – because of them.

His voice cracks, and his throat burns with the intensity of his screaming, but he keeps striking the Galran until the sword breaks and the Galran whimpers, bleeding hands rising to cover his face as Shiro doesn't stop.

yourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfault

Purple give way to red, and the chinks of his blade is stained in crimson and he keeps cutting the Galran down—all of it, cut and broken and bleeding—they deserve it, they deserve it, they made him into this, they turned him into a monster, he'll never forgive them—

Fingers fall, skin is cut, and tendons are sliced. The Galran's cries die into whimpers and into cold silence as Shiro keeps cutting him down until the body's flat on the ground.

He stops when exhaustion pulls at his limbs, when the muscles in his throat become strained and they lose their fire, and when the blood is in his eyes and he has to blink, Shiro staggers upright, the blade falling from his fingers and his hands hurt, and he falls to his knees – and the ground is wet—

And all around him is blood.

Blood and bone and brain.

The Galran is dead – far too long dead – and the only way Shiro recognizes it's Galran is because of the purple skin, and the rest of its face and body has been mangled and chopped and cut into so many slices, haphazard and brutal and the white of the bone gleams from under the blood, and the pink muscle of a tongue rests against the broken, cleaved jaw and—

Suddenly, the cheering – the applause – the celebration hits his ears and he groans, raising his hands to his ears as sound finally returns. The furor is deafening, and the claps and the cheers rumble through the ground and in his bones and Shiro tries to get air in his lungs, tries to breathe through the blood in his nose and in his eyes and in his mouth and all over him—

And then the scream comes.

It's singular, piercing, and everything else is deafened in Shiro's ears except for the scream. He knows it's not true – the crowd is still celebrating and cheering, jumping in their seats and waving swords in the air—

But his eyes look towards the edge of the crowd where a female Galra – smaller, younger – is screaming, and there is anguish and horror on its—no, her—face and there's another Galra behind her, another female, older, and she's holding her, oh god, daughter to her as tears run down broken, pained gold eyes.

The daughter keeps screaming, keeps repeating a word, and pointing at the Galra dead by Shiro's feet.

Father.

And there are hands under his arms – forcefully pulling him to a stand – and he's being dragged back and his feet drags on the ground, and his shoulder muscles burn at the abuse but Shiro can't care – can't think of anything else but the horrified, grieving crying and the Galran's corpse in a pool of his own blood and Shiro didn't even bother remembering the name, didn't even listen to the announcer, and the fear and the sorrow and the agony – they were too real, too similarly human and he can't—

Oh God.

Oh God.

"I didn't—"He mutters, uselessly and pointlessly. The Galran guards bringing him back to his cell do not listen. The faces of the prisoners around him watch on as their champion is dragged back, and when he looks up, their eyes are bright with terror. "I didn't mean to. I didn't—"

He turns his head, swivels to meet the gaze of the other prisoner. It—no, she—takes a step back and her lips are quivering as she looks away. "No, please, I didn't. I didn't mean to."

But he did.

He did.

Oh God, he meant it.

You liked it. You liked feeling his blood on your hands. You liked smashing your sword against his face. You liked tearing his skin and bone apart. You liked the feeling of dealing death. You like it. You love it. You get off on it.

The voice is cold and delighted and it cuts deeper than anything else – any blade or bludgeon – because the voice in his head is his own.

I don't. Please, I'm not. I'm not a monster. Shiro thinks, he prays and he hopes even as the voice's words echo over and over until it's the only thing he hears – not the sound of his own blubbering, or the door of his cell closing in his face or his hands banging against the metal until they're bruised. I'm not a monster.

The young Galran's scream clings to his skin and in his chest and his hands are in his ears and his lips open to scream and no sound escapes.

You're gonna be a hero.

He was a murderer.

---

"You should get some sleep, son," Samuel tells him, a hand on his shoulder and Shiro looks to him, blinking. He's been in the cockpit of the space shuttle for the last, what, sixteen hours? He's not really sure. On a normal, good day, he'd be able to tell but he hasn't slept in a long while and he really has to concentrate. He can't mess this up. It's not just his life here, but two others and they have family waiting back home.

Shiro breathes deep. He has Keith waiting back home.

"Come on, the autopilot can take care of it. We got past the belt already and it'll be a while before we hit Jupiter's gravity, anyway." Samuel urges and Shiro sighs.

"Thanks, sir, but I can handle it. Don't worry about me." He tries to give the man a smile, but the raised brow and the amused twinkle in his eye has Shiro grimacing.

"Please, I have two hyperactive kids who love to improvise rocket launch simulations at twelve in the morning. That bullshit is not going to work on me." Shiro cracks a grin and a laugh at the thought of Matt and Katie and, well, honestly? The thought isn't even far-fetched. Shiro can still remember waking up at two in the morning with his roommate scribbling gravitational equations and coordinates on the walls of their room. Sometimes, even on Shiro's pillow.

Sure, Sam has a point but, well, autopilot can only take them so far and even though they've gone past the asteroid belt already, it was still ways to go before they hit Kerberos. Samuel probably sees the hesitation on his face because the man sighs and rubs a hand down his face.

"Just five minutes, Takashi. Just lie down and close your eyes for five minutes. If you're still awake after, then you can continue piloting."

Shiro chuckles at that, conceding to the man – after all, he is the highest ranking officer – and tapping the autopilot codes before nodding and kicking off, letting low gravity move him. Samuel gives him a smile as Shiro salutes. "I'll see you in five minutes, sir."

The other grins. "Don't bet your ass on it, captain."

Shiro laughs and turns to the end of the shuttle, towards the bunks and he pulls himself on the grips of the cabin. He's still amazed at how easy it is to move in low gravity – floating and letting the current take him – like being sea without the risk of drowning. Well, a different kind of drowning.

Matt is already asleep in his bunk, pillow under him and blanket over his body. He's strapped himself to the bunk, his arms freely floating. Shiro grins – Matt had been so annoyed the day he woke up and found his face pressed against the back of the storage cabin, while his legs did a split against the upper curve of the shuttle.

"N-no, Katie. Kepler is—hmm—"Matt grumbles, frowning a bit before turning his face deeper into the pillow.

Shiro settles himself on his own bunk, and locks himself in. He doesn't really feel anything but the weightlessness and the near absence of g forces. Still, he lays his head on the pillow as the low light of the bunkers paint the cabin in soft amber. Items are scattered around, floating, and he takes a while to look at them – marvel at what physics does when it breaks the rules humanity places on it.

Slowly, he pulls the photo from the inside of his suit, by the lining of its pocket. He doesn't think of how often he pulls it out now, and how it's a furnace against his chest, and a reminder of who is waiting back on Earth.

Keith is looking towards the window of the shack when Shiro took the photo. Light had hit him perfectly, lining his nose and lips, bathing his cheek in shadow and the dark-mauve of his eyes had almost turned luminous. He had been ethereal in that moment – diaphanous. Beautiful.

God, Shiro misses him. There's an ache in his chest and it's shaped in the same outline of Keith. Shiro misses how he feels in his arms, how the lithe body is warm and fit so fucking perfectly well against him – like they were made to be. God, he misses the smell of the desert, petrichor, against his skin and the way Keith tangles his legs against Shiro's.

He can still feel it – imagine it: the way Keith's nose had been pressed against his chest, the way the dark hair had been tickling Shiro's nose and the way the arms around his waist had clung tight throughout the night. It had been everything – God, everything Shiro wanted and dreamed of and fantasized and it's just—

The way Keith had looked in the morning, when the gentle light of the sun scattered into tiny dots against his skin as it seeped past the curtained, boarded-up windows and how the flecks of blue in Keith's eyes glowed, and he smelled of rain and earth, and Shiro's own scent against his skin—

"I love you," the words are out of his lips and it's the first. The first time he's acknowledged them, acknowledged the depths of what he feels for Keith, and it's not shocking, but validating.

Like every skip of his heart, or the feel of his stomach twisting in zero gravity at the sight of Keith's smile, or the ice-tight heartbreak in his chest as Keith comes home – home, home, home – to the shack and there are bruises on his knuckles and on his face—as if all those finally found reason.

The smile on his face is wide, and real and, fuck, he's tearing up, and he can't wait. He can't wait to get home, already. Somehow, the thought of home changes. It's no longer the white walls of the Garrison, its tarmac roads and flight simulators and g force trainers and the morning jog of the cadets. When he thinks of home, all he thinks about is the abandoned shack

He's among the stars, past Mars, flying in weightless space and living his dreams and missing Keith with an intensity that makes him want to curl into a ball.

The image of Keith in a study of silver in repose blurs and he blinks fast.

Funny, how life works sometimes, how it twists the things you thought you knew into something unrecognizable, only for you to realize that it's what you've been waiting for the longest time.

Funny, how this is his dream and everything he's worked all his life towards –

And all he wants, now, is back on Earth.

He brings the photo close and presses it against his lips, repeating the words. "I love you, Keith."

They don't sound awkward and clumsy or out of place. They sound right. They sound goddamn right. He knows how little things can go right and, all his life, it had been one right path after the other. All his life, he had thought himself lucky. He never imagined he'd be this lucky.

Keith being with him sounds so goddamn right it makes his heart hurt.

He closes his eyes, tells himself to wake after five minutes, and allows himself to dream of onyx-hair and purple eyes and rose-gold sunrises and Keith in his arms.

---

The next time he fights, Shiro's mind is half on the battle, and the other is lost in the pit he's fallen. His opponent isn't a Galran, but he doesn't care to know what it actually is. His body automatically moves at every attack – to block and parry, sidestep or jump back. His opponent swivels and arcs and grunts as it changes positions, runs from side to side as it looks for an opening – a weakness – in his defense. Shiro isn't even looking at it, eyes on the ground and half the galaxy away.

His heart isn't in it. He doesn't think there's still something left of it, anyway.

It has too many arms – four – and each one holds a blade of some sort. He swivels his blade and takes two of the weapons out its grasp and Shiro steps back as the other two try to run at him.

His enemy is aggressive, and although Shiro notes fear, there will always be fear, it's not lining the attacks. He ducks into a roll and pull its leg with it, the creature flailing as its balance shifts and Shiro uses the break to deal cuts on the insides of its arms.

The creature cries out, rolling away as the weapons are discarded by paralyzed limbs. The rest are near Shiro's area and it eyes at him – warily, trying to find a way to reclaim something to defend itself. Shiro stares back, and he's weary and tired, and he just wants this fight to be over. He doesn't have the energy to brawl and flail about – he doesn't want to cut another life down. He doesn't want to kill anymore. He's had enough of killing.

Let it end, please.

The creature takes his pause as hesitation as it runs at him, aiming for the blade at his feet. Shiro waits until it's near and lands a kick against its head, and he watches the creature roll away, groaning pain dulled into a gasp. Its eyes are closed and its form is askew, but Shiro sees the slow rise of its chest. Alive.

He ignores the outraged crowd as he drops his blade and walks toward the exit, and he knows the punch to his gut is coming. Shiro groans as he drops to his knees, but he doesn't fight as the guards take him to his cell for his punishment.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

A purple-line smile flickers in his mind – and it's hard to make out the features through the static and the blood. It doesn't matter.

Shiro doesn't know anyone like that. Nobody smiles at a monster.

---

Maybe you should keep a video log. Something you can show him when we get home. Matt had said that, off-handedly, and when Shiro turned to look at him, wide-eyed, the junior scientist just smiles cheekily at him. Shiro, you're so bad at hiding things from me, don't even try right now.

Samuel is up front, curled over his laptop, typing up reports and observations of gravitational fluctuations as Matt floats above him, arms crossed over his chest as he squints at his father's screen. Shiro smiles at them from his perch on his bunk, pulling the laptop fastened to his bunk closer to him.

The ship was on autopilot, as they hit Saturn's gravity and Shiro leans close to pull the blinders up the UV windows. The laptop is open, and so is the camera, and Shiro turns to look at it, seeing his own reflection.

Samuel and Matt are too far away and engrossed to notice him and, Shiro runs a hand down his face, it was Matt who gave him the idea, anyway. He can handle teasing.

"Hey," Shiro says – quietly – and smiles at the camera, the blinking dot of the active video recorder in the periphery of his vision and reaches up to scratch at his head. "I, uh, just wanted—well. It was Matt, actually. He told me to record myself and what's goin' on so I got something to show you."

Shiro chuckles, feeling a bit awkward with what he's doing. He's never done well in front of reporters. He can imagine Keith rolling his eyes, smiling. "Don't roll your eyes on me, and yes, I can see you doing that right now."

He scrunches his nose, flicking his eyes outside the window. The stars are too distant for him to guess at constellations – and only Saturn's golden-beige glow painted the expanse of black. He takes a moment to watch the swirl of her atmosphere, and the Sun's light reaching this part of the solar system. They were still too far for Shiro to see Saturn in its entirety, but it was closer than anything – than anyone else had ever come. "It's amazing, Keith. Being up here, in space, and just—it's everything I've ever dreamed and more. When you wake up and you look outside and you see the stars or Titan in the distance, it's just—it takes your breath away."

Keith would nod, and turn to look up at the stars, hair in his eyes and an aurora glinting off purple.

He looks back at the camera, smiling. "I know you'll love it here. The ship's cramped, and Matt talks in his sleep but it's beautiful. When you're out here and you see the Earth from orbit, it's amazing how we can imagine all this and realize that it's all true, it's all tangible and we can't help but feel so small."

Shiro pulls a leg up against his stomach and rests his hand on it, still looking at the camera. "I know I'm not that good with words and I just wish that I'm eloquent enough to tell you how fucking amazing everything here is and it's just—"

Keith would blink at him, silently asking him to continue. Wide-eyed wonder and affection.

Shiro bites his lip, breathes and smiles back at the camera. "It'd be even more amazing if you were here with me."

It's silent after – just Shiro staring at the camera before turning to the window, and the only sound that passes in the air inside the shuttle is the clack of Samuel's fingers against his laptop keyboard and the distracted humming from Matt and the rushing of the temperature control. Shiro leans his head against the glass. "I miss you. God, I miss you so much."

He hopes the smile on his face as he looks back at the camera is somewhat stable, because he doesn't feel strong in that moment. "It's been six months and two weeks and I can't wait to be back home and hold you."

He leans close to the laptop, reaches forward and presses his hand against the camera, imagines reaching past the camera and the laptop screen and just – cutting through light years and millions of miles – reach out to hold Keith's cheek. Place his thumb under his lip as his fingers push the hair over his ear and Keith will blush and splutter, but his eyes will shine and he'll smile that small, special smile for Shiro – the one that's tried and tested, burned out and revived, but true, and it'll make Shiro's heart soar and his spirit fly like the memory of it does to his lungs. The one that Keith gives him inside Shiro's room, hours before the launch. It's not forever.

"When I get back, I was thinking of—"Shiro cuts himself off, unsure of what he's about to say next. Nothing's decided yet – but he's thought about it and, sure, something might come up soon that will change everything but it's not a bad plan. He's been planning to do this before, even before Keith, but having Keith in his life had jettisoned it from if to when. "I've always wanted to teach. You know that, told you about it before. I was thinking of the space academy near the Garrison and it's been something I've been thinking of doing after this."

Keith would nod, smile encouragingly at him. Tell him that he can be anything he wanted to be.

He looks away, feels the heat at the back of his neck and in his ears but the smile doesn't stop growing on his lips. "And if I do start teaching, I'll have to resign from the Garrison and that means I don't get to bunk over anymore but it'd be fine. I was thinking of having the shack renovated. You know, top to bottom, the entire thing. Get that drip fixed, yeah, the one that you complain about because it drips on to your favorite spot to read."

Saturn gleams closer, and the water ice of her rings start to glitter. It'd be too dangerous to get too close, and even though Saturn's pull of gravity is shorter, the ship still steers clear of it. "Maybe save up enough money to have papers drawn, have it documented. Own it. Probably not as easy as I make it sound in my head, but it's manageable. Hopefully."

Light refracts into a kaleidoscope of colors – reds and yellows and violets – and Shiro sees starlight and mauve and auroras lurking in Saturn's rings. "And when I finally get to own it, make it mine, I'd want you to live there…with me. It can be ours. Our home."

Keith would look at him, stare – shocked and flabbergasted – and Shiro would have no idea how he would react next.

"I know I'm rushing this and you might think I'm not giving you a choice, but I do, and if you don't want that, then—"Shiro pauses, blinking, giving the camera a watery smile. "I'll be okay with that. I want you to be happy. That's the most important thing to me."

Keith would blink, turn his head down and hair would hide the confusion and the worry and the constant fear of when is this going to crash and burn that he thinks Shiro doesn't see and, fuck if his heart still beats every time he sees that on Keith's face.

"You lost a lot, Keith." He says, and he can't help if his voice cracks, or if his vision blurs. "You lost a lot and you've lost so much, you started thinking that's all you are good for – losing. I can see it, at times you think I don't and I just want to tell you this." Shiro clears his throat. "You haven't lost me."

He smiles – tightlipped and real, if a bit shaky. "You're not losing me, okay. I won't let you lose me."

The air in his chest is bare and raw and painful but—goddamn, if it's not exhilarating, if it's not emancipating, if it doesn't feel like rising past the dawn and flying higher than anything, if it doesn't feel like free falling in space. "You're more than loss, Keith. You're more than the scraps that life gives you. You're more than being content with what's left. God, you deserve so much more. Everything I could give you, you deserve it."

Keith's eyes would turn liquid, and he'd ask that one question that has Shiro's hands trembling. Why? Why do you give me everything?

"Because I love you." Shiro says – true and direct, even if the reverb echoes with the rasp of his voice. Then, he chuckles, softly, and he's blinking and Saturn's rings paint the inside of the shuttle in myriad of colors. "Because I love you, doofus. I love your eyes, your hair, the way you smile. I love the way you snore, the way you trip when you're walking and reading at the same time and I love when you get pissed at me if I fold the corners of a page."

I love when you sneeze and your automatic reaction is 'shit'. I love when you can't talk past three-letter words immediately after waking up and you just head straight to the coffee machine. I love when you listen to music and you try so hard not to air guitar when I'm looking at you. I love when you complain about me putting all my pineapple slices on to your pizza. I love when you pretend that you're not itching to ask for sprinkles on your chocolate ice cream.

"I love you." Shiro says, finally. "And when I get home, I'm not stopping until you realize just how much."

Five more months, two more weeks and half the solar system and he'll be back home. Dark curls against purple eyes and the scent of earth and petrichor – oil and geosmin and ozone – in the lines of his neck and the seam of his shoulder.

He leans close and moves the laptop to face the window, Saturn bright and her rings in scatters of light and color, and he hopes that the camera can take it all in – the light and the brightness and just the entire beauty of the universe, the gravitational pulls and mechanics working in place. Order. Harmony.

"I'll be home soon."

---

He's watching from the sides, listless, and the bruises on his body have stopped bothering him. Shiro is not the first up, as he stands in between several of the other prisoners, and he doesn't think about the way his stomach lurches at the hesitance and the distance they put between themselves and him. It'd be the smart thing to do, Shiro thinks, and he can think of it without sounding cynical – just a bit.

The first one up is the alien before him – smaller than him, humanoid, dark hair – and Shiro watches as a blade is placed in its small and it's pushed forward into the arena. Shiro watches it stand, the arm struggling to keep the blade aloft as its opponent enters the field – a tusked beast, twice as large as the one Shiro fought before, and when it roared, he can feel it echoing in his bones.

It wielded a large blade and when it took a step, the ground echoed. The alien was infinitesimal before the beast, and when it tried to raise its blade, the other simply patted it away – the steel clattering on the ground. The alien is frozen in place for a moment, before it turns back and runs towards them—

The tusked beast roars and it makes chase and the alien trips, and Shiro looks down at it just as it looks up—

And dark purple eyes plead for help under a dark fringe of hair and the terror. It's not Keith, Shiro thinks. It's not Keith. Keith doesn't have electric blue markings under his eyes or pointed ears or sharp canines.

But seeing the alien reminded him of Keith.

What he stood for.

What he had been about to give up.

You're just…more.

More than the blood on his hands, more than the blade he wields, more than the crawling and the staggering and on his knees, face against the steel as he eats his meal from the ground up and tries to breathe around the loss. More than the terror in Matt's eyes, or the flickering – fading, almost disappearing image of Keith in his heart.

More than the broken bones and the cut muscles and the spilt blood. More than the relentless beast they turned him to be. More than the broken promises of a good person – someone worth loving, someone worth forgiving. More than his skin, his bones and his spirit.

They don't know my heart. Nothing of what's more than the inner workings of his chest, the pump that keeps blood flowing. They knew nothing of his dreams and what he wants to be, the people he cares and the one person he loves. They know nothing of the way Keith sleeps or the way he mumbles Shiro's name in slumber. They know nothing of the way his eyes glow blue-violet in the dawn's light, or how they turn black in the early twilight. They know nothing of the wide, uncaring, reckless smile on Keith's face as Shiro takes him higher and faster on the speeder. They know nothing of his heart – the magnitude of his promise, the depth of home.

The image of Keith in his heart burns bright and blinding.

They don't know my heart. It's the only ledge Shiro clings to, his nails bloodied and broken and biting – to keep his sanity, to keep himself breathing, to keep himself from running the blade into his own chest. No matter what the Galra did to his body, no matter how many battles they make him fight, no matter how many times they make him spill blood.

No matter how many times they make him ruin his own promise.

If he can believe there's still a part of him – no matter how infinitesimal – that's good, that's human, that Keith can still touch and not feel the imprint of all the lives he's cut short, then maybe there's still hope and maybe it'll be enough for what comes after.

And—

With the guards distracted by the incoming slaughter, they don't see Shiro running at them and knocking them out with his blade, pulling away their halberds and running towards the alien on the ground as the tusked beast runs at them. It was fearsome in its bloodlust, and the blade it carried crackled and left indents on the ground when it swung.

But Shiro can't back down – he can't. He owes it to those he couldn't save, to those he had to kill.

"Go, run!" He shouts at the alien, and he's not sure if it understood him as it nodded and scampered off, a trail of onyx and purple. I'm not letting you lose me, Keith.

He doesn't move in his position, allows himself to breathe and close his eyes. Fixate himself on the memory of Keith's smile and the promise of forever and he lets the echo of his heart guide him. Each step the monster takes causes the ground to tremble, and Shiro sets the halberd against the ground, the steel edge clanking. He grips the handle tight and just breathes.

He doesn't let the incoming noise terrify him. He doesn't let the crowd jeering and crying distract him. He doesn't let the ugliness and the blood and the fetid destruction and sludge infect and drown him.

Patience yields focus.

The memory of peace and serenity – the smile lined in scarlet and purple against a mauve sunset and a quietly spoken word of greeting.

Keith.

There's a swing, the hiss of an air, an arc – and with his eyes closed, Shiro senses it all the more – and he spins in place, avoiding the blade crashing to the ground as the beast is pushed forward, overstepping, and curling over Shiro and he doesn't let it up—

He swings the halberd, screams as he puts all his strength in, left foot in to a spin—

And cuts the beast's neck.

He opens his eyes, and the beast falls, gurgling and coughing until it stills. He looks to the exit, and the dark-haired, purple-eyed alien looks at him in wonder and gratitude.

And that's when the healers – the Druids, they call themselves – appear around him in flashes of purple, and he turns about, readying his weapon, only for a hand to grab his jaw and he only sees glowing vicious eyes, silver hair and cerise energy in his face.

---

When he wakes, he's strapped to a table, and the cold of a steel arm presses into his right side. He looks at it, and he feels the fear and terror climb up his throat as he tries to move. The arm moves just like his own, but there's no feeling, no touch – nothing to make it real and he panics, his heart beating fast and his breathing wobbling as he tries to get himself out of the straps that had him in place.

He doesn't know where he is – the purple glow of the room and the crystals around and just the hair-raising energy thrumming in the chamber – but he doesn't care to find out.

With a grunt, Shiro forces his right arm – the steel one – up and it breaks through the bond and, God, this is real. His arm is gone and, in place, is something artificial.

"You need to relax." A voice says from his side, and he whips his head towards the side where a cloaked figure was in the shadows, behind tall glass chambers and glowing crystals.

Shiro turns back to his arm as he tries to pull the other bonds out, breaks through it easily with the steel hand and rolls off the table. He hits the ground on his knees and grunts, standing back up and setting the table between him and the cloaked figure. He focuses on the moment, the now. He can have his break down later, he has to put his mind – all of it – here.

It suddenly dawns on him that the voice had spoken…in English.

"What—who are you?" He asks, wary and cautious, struggling to remain standing as the weight of the arm changes his gravity. He barely notices he's barefoot and dressed in his tatters, and he starts looking around for a weapon he can use.

Until the overhead lights flicker and there's a blaring sound. An alarm.

The cloaked figure moves at his distraction and Shiro looks back down just as it jumps over the table and whips about him. "What—"

He turns, bringing his right arm up to throw a punch, but he misjudges the weight, and he's pulled forward by the weight—

The figure cuts under his punch and slams an elbow against the back of his head. His vision flares and he falls to his knees, a hand under his arm pulling him up as he groans. God, it hurt. "Sorry, but you need to get out of here."

The words are confusing as Shiro blinks, his vision still flashing. Armored elbow, most likely. He's brought to a stand and an arm around his shoulders as he's helped to a pod opposite the room, and the figure's pushing him in.

"Wait—wait—"He tries to stop it, tries to put his hands up, but the right is tucked under him and he feels something bite into his neck – point-sharp, a needle? "Fuck. What—what—?"

"To keep your human body stable as it travels through a warp storm."

He grabs at the figure and manages to take hold of the cloak and pull it off, his hand listless against his leg as his vision starts turning into duplicates and his hearing fades in and out.

The figure is Galran – female – but her eyes are purple and it's a familiar, recognizable—Keith?

"Look," she says, growling. "You're not going to remember a lot, that's what happens when you travel through a warp storm without the proper modifications, but you need to remember this, okay?"

Remember what, Keith? What are you telling me?

"You need to remember Zarkon. You need to remember that he's going to attack Earth with his army. You need to remember it, Champion."

"Earth—what?" Shiro blinks, mind fuddled as he tries to focus on her, her eyes that looked so much like Keith. Something deeper than sleep was calling, and his eyes were starting to droop but he tries to keep them open for as long as possible—

"Remember this. Zarkon. Galra. An alien army will attack the Earth. You need to tell your people."

Shiro groans, his head falling forward as the Galran turns to the side and there's a thundering in his head and he's not sure if it's inside his head or outside because it sounds like—

"They're on the way here."

He blinks at her as she pulls the glass over him and he weakly tries to raise his hand to—he's not sure, break the door, pound at it—he wants to close his eyes and sleep—

Something shifts, and the pod he's in hums and there's movement, not unlike the thrum of an engine just as it's about to take off—

"Don't forget," echoes inside as he finally closes his eyes.

---

His eyes blink open and he sees constellations and warp storms, sees the flare of auroras and the ice of a planet's rings clattering against the glass of the pod. There's a name for that planet – the big one with the red spot – but he can't be bothered to know.

His reflection across the glass stares back at him, white against the black.

He hums and closes his eyes, returning to sleep. He's tired. He's so tired.

---

The next time he wakes, he's strapped to table once more but instead of the purple-skinned Galran around him, what he sees are the white coats of doctors and a familiar voice in his ears.

"Just relax, Shiro." The voice is calm and familiar, and suddenly he's remembering space shuttle launches and Saturn's rings and Kerberos.

"Commander, we have to warn people, there's an alien army coming to attack the Earth—"Shiro breathes out, tries to speak as he shifts in the table, trying to break free. Iverson is hushing him, patting his shoulder.

"Hey, hey, you're back here, Shiro. Don't worry, there are no aliens attacking us."

"Commander, look at his arm." Says one of the doctors, and Shiro sees him looking at his arm and he tries to move, tries to break free as more and more of his memory returns—

And they're not going to believe him, he realizes. The cold, deconstructive glances toward him – like an experiment – has the sweat pooling on his palm and, no, they have to know. They have to know. The Galrans are going to exterminate them, one by one, and he can't—

The thought of Keith sent to those arenas is too much. The thought of Keith lapping his own food off the ground is too much.

"You have to believe me! I'm not crazy! Commander!" There's another fucking prick in his neck and he groans. Damn it. God damn it. "Please, you have to tell people. Oh God, Keith, please."

"Shh, it'll be okay, Shiro. You're safe now."

His vision doesn't go out, but everything starts to swim lazily, and his hearing fluctuates, but he doesn't let it pull him under. Never. He's not breaking his promise, not anymore. He's allowed himself to go this far, to survive and live and adapt.

He can't give up.

The thought of Keith beaten to death, bludgeoned and sliced and gutted in a pool of his own blood is fucking too much.

He can't give up. He owes it – to Matt and Samuel and where they are; owes it to the Galran he's killed and his daughter and wife; owes it to the dark-haired, purple-eyed alien that reminded him of what he's almost lost. He owes it to every corpse he's dragged across the arena, every chip and crack of his sword and every one of those still left in that Galra ship, those that he could not save.

It will be shaming those that he had killed, shaming those that had to die to get him here and he can't – he can't forget and can't regret – and he can't give up. He blinks his eyes clear and breaks the bond with his right hand, and grabs Iverson by the jaw.

"I said, Galra is coming and they're going to kill us all if we're not able to stop them."

Iverson glares at him, face red as the metal arm holds his jaw hostage and Shiro's strength starts to flag—

But there's a commotion and the doctors are turning and suddenly they're falling to the ground and Shiro's hand falls from Iverson and he pants, exhausted and sweaty and he hears a rumble, Iverson's shout of surprise and—

Something hits a metal tray, and it all spills to the ground. Shiro doesn't really care, rolling his head side to side.

There are hands on his face, but they're not cold and clinical – they skirt over his skin gently, tracing the panes and the shadows and the scars and the touch has been—

It's been the kindest thing he's felt in so long that it drags a sad, almost-pathetic whimper from his lips, turning his head to where the fingers are running down his cheek. He hears breathing, harsh and choked, and he feels the hair pushed away from his face and he tries to open them—

Just a slit—just enough—a frisson of strength—

He sees the dark hair first, it's longer than he's seen it, but he recalls the way it feels against his skin – how the stringiness had smoothened over time, after meticulous care by none other than Shiro himself – and it's enough to keep his eyes open and awake because the beating in his chest is thunderous and half the solar system can hear it—

And then he feels the hands on his cheeks, and they're tender and fragile, as if unsure of what they're touching – if what they're touching is real, is tangible and is here and not just the fragments of broken dreams and crushed hopes – and Shiro wants to close his eyes, lean against the fingers and let them lull him to a peaceful sleep—

But he hears the choked breathing, and the gasped-out air, and his eyes travel from the hands up to the familiar red and white of a jacket he's seen far too many times not to have memorized every sliver of it, and to a trembling chin and wide, bright purple-mauve eyes.

They widen at contact and Shiro—

He's remembering ochre sunsets against a mauve desert; remembering soft but tight arms around his waist and the scent of earth and petrichor against his nose; remembering the waft of the wind in dark hair and the purple-lined smile and the realization that what's beating in his chest far outran any sort of physical want; remembering paper planets hanging from the ceiling, Ptolemy's Almagest and a warm hand in his; remembering red cheeks, dark hair in purple eyes and the echoes of more more more.

And—

He remembers.

Wait for me? He had asked once, hand on the other's chin and an arm around his waist and his entire galaxy in his arms.

A nod.

He had waited.

He waited.

He's here.

He's—just the personification of everything that had kept him powering; everything that had kept him standing, kept him moving forward and trudging through the snow and the blood and the loss—the aching fear that he's long lost the right to anything good, anything right with all that he's done—and, to know, that at the end of the line, the only person he'd been straggling and crawling and dragging himself to get back home to has waited for Shiro, like he said he would.

"Shiro." Keith says, whispers – and his voice is edging the cresting wave, the crepuscular ray of hope and despair.

And it's his name, spoken in that voice, a voice he hadn't heard in so long – through the Proserpina's launch and Saturn's rings and in the cell of the Galra ship he was on – and it's just everything he remembers it to sound like, every note and decibel, everything he's outlined and lodged so deep in his chest, so hard and so tight that nothing – the Galra, the blood, his own demons, not even Shiro himself – can take it away from him.

And the sacrifices he's had to make – the people he's had to kill, the lives he's had to cut short – all the days and months and years spent in agony, all the blood he's spilled and swallowed that he's long past the hope of forgetting how it tastes like, all the moments he's had to lap at his own food on the ground like he's worth nothing more, like the gnats and worms on the ground, and the fire and the heartache and the inky-black ugliness festering him—

It's all worth it. It's all fucking worth it.

Because he's here and he's alive and he's home – and that every promise he had broken from there to here hadn't gone to waste, and that every memory and nightmare that crawled and suffused itself into his skull and brain until it was one and the same as consciousness was suddenly surmountable, and that the blood that will permanently stain his skin and his hands will not just be a lingering ghost to the pointless carnage and brutality but a reminder of what it means to lose—

All of that, just to get him from there to here, and Keith invading the entirety of his vision.

Nothing will ever be the same again, and although the thought scares him to death, he also feels – for the first time in a long time – hopeful.

There will be questions and action plans and tears and nightmares. There's still the Galra and his arm and Matt and Samuel Holt and where they've gone and the resounding, truth-shattering realization that they were not alone in the universe. All of it will be enough to shatter mountains and crash through stone, but the fire has been lit – and what had been a dying ember in his heart had ignited into an inferno.

His body is bruised, battered – broken. Scars litter his skin, edged into his bone and Shiro knows that he'll never be truly clean, he'll never be truly innocent again, and that he's stained himself too much, too deeply, too viscerally to be ever rid of his demons—

But his heart is beating, in spite of the blackness and the bruises and the blisters—

And he's alive and breathing and burned—

But he's not buried this time.

"Keith."

---

FIN