Sheith Angst week

Day 3: Letting go

An AU where Voltron doesn't exist and the Galra eventually colonize Earth.

Unreachable

Shiro was a patient man and anyone would agree. However, this was a whole different situation. No kindly asking, no begging, not even threatening had got him through and he was slowly losing it.

"Please, I just… I just want to see him," he whispered but admiral Sanda didn't budge.

"The corpses are still in quarantine, we can't risk…"

"They aren't just corpses, stop that," Shiro hissed through gritted teeth.

"They… are now" she retorted. "We are not giving the corpses out until we confirm there is no danger."

"They are our comrades who sacrificed their lives!"

"Shirogane. I'm not repeating myself. Even when tests are over, we don't have time for funerals and grieving."

He didn't even realize he had launched himself against the admiral until Iverson and another guy stepped in and fought him back.

"You could've sent me! I was going to die anyway, wasn't I!?"

Sanda barely scrunched her face, watching how they dragged him away.

If you send those pilots out, you will doom them.

Commander Holt's words, not his. They did doom them indeed, even the ones who remained alive. Shiro didn't know how long he had been staring at his hands, feeling the void that has formed inside him since he hear Keith's voice the last time on the intercom.

He felt a hand land on his shoulder.

Sam looked tired, exhausted, with grey bags under his eyes and the wrinkles at his mouth's side seemed deeper. His hair hadn't been washed for days, days he had locked himself up in the hangar with the last machinery they had left. Apparently, he had finally given in and taken a break.

"Tea?" he offered while opening an insulated water bottle.

"No thanks."

"It's earl grey."

"No, Sam."

The commander didn't insist and slurped slowly, trying to not get burnt.

"Heard you tried to punch Sanda on the face," he finally told Shiro. The pilot shrugged.

"She had it coming."

"I feel like that's something Keith would say."

Shiro tensed, feeling pain in his cramping hands and in his chest. It was still difficult to even formulate that name in his mind, hoping this time it wouldn't hurt as much as last time, and each time he felt that heavy lump in his throat. I was like not getting air while still breathing.

And he couldn't answer. Sam had lost beloved ones too, it would be inappropriate to start a fight with him. Instead he sighed and Sam slowly took a seat by his side.

"How do you do it?" he finally asked.

"Do what?"

"Accept their deaths?"

Sam didn't answer immediately. He figured he was trying to gather his thoughts, sort them out so he could make them into words with sense. He knew it wasn't easy. How again did he manage to actually realize Keith wouldn't be coming back?

He thought he had always been neutral to death. He had grieved his father when he died, yet knew his time had come. He remembered being a small boy, just ten years and crying over a dead bunny. And it was different because bunnies don't get to live long lives, nor are they sent to war. Keith wasn't supposed to be sent either, he was supposed to be a space exploration pilot, just like most of them. And he was a cadet but the invasion had them shortened on so many things, so they were sending out children to defend a whole planet. Keith died screaming with fear. Because nothing had prepared them for such a fight. No scratch that. Nothing had prepared them to be butchered like mere animals.

"I try to think of them wanting me to go on," Sam finally reacted and closed the bottle. "I think they wouldn't like knowing the are the reason I'm not being a totally functional human being."

"So… that's what you are?" Shiro mumbled but Sam let out a strangled laugh. "I don't… I don't think I could. How could I live knowing I should have died in his place?"

"No, not today," the commander replied, sighing. "I haven't done that yet, too."

After a while Shiro asked: "Do you even think we will survive this?"

Sam went silent again, so he didn't push any more questions. Instead he let his head fall back against the wall. He closed his eyes, hearing Sam reopen his bottle, and tries this time to not think of anything. He tries to clear his mind, however the worst images and sounds came back again and again, like a carrousel that was going too fast, to frantically. Keith's intercom flatlining is the most distressing sound he ha's ever heard. Sam must have felt him tensing because of the hand he put on his knee. Shiro gasped. He remembered Keith asking him not to go to Kerberos. However, back then Shiro came back home. He had Keith waiting after letting him go.

He closed his eyes again, trying to think of Keith, tried to remember him at peace. And just sees him so far away.