Summary: For Keith, it wasn't about friendship. It wasn't commitment to his captain. It wasn't duty, or responsibility, or guilt that drove him to chase down the Black Lion and bring Shiro back. It was so much more than that. It was a history, a long, long history, and everything that history entailed. It was a past and a significance that couldn't be described in mere words.
Keith couldn't leave Shiro. No matter how hard Shiro pulled away, Keith would always hold onto him.

Rating: T

Tags: Keith Kogane & Shirogane Takashi; Season 6 Episode 4; Flashbacks; Undying Commitment; Variable Relationship - Open to Interpretation; Fighting; Protecting; Growing Up; Pilots and Flying; the Garrison; Voltron Character Cameos


Unshakeably Held

Chapter 1: Seeing Is Believing

The emptiness of the asteroid was almost eerie. It was monochromatic, the sand that spread seamlessly into rock a dull, listless grey. The only notable mar upon that sand, the only disruption in the jagged, broken mounds that could barely be deemed crags, was the ancient Altean ship discarded like a broken child's toy in the centre of the crater. The ship, and the footprints leading from it.

Keith followed those prints. He followed until he reached a mound punctured by the mouth of the cavern they disappeared into. It was dark within, a natural hollow sinking into the ground like a gaping throat with stalagmites for teeth and hanging stalactites protruding fangs that were made menacing in the greyish darkness within. The low hum of wind as it funnelled downward, darting like trailing ribbons through those mismatched teeth, was hauntingly ominous.

But not enough to pause in step. Not nearly enough to turn around and flee. Keith slowed only enough to grit his teeth, clench his fists, and take a slow breath as he peered into the cavernous depths. Then he stepped down the descending path in a route adjacent to Shiro's footprints.

To Shiro.

Wind's hollow moan was his only company. An ambient glow was all that broke up the darkness. Keith wasn't sure how long he walked for – minutes? An hour? – but it hardly mattered. He was following Shiro, was weaving through the endless lines of teeth that protruded from the gums of the cavern and jutted sporadically from the centre of the path as though a spearing trap frozen in time. Keith hardly noticed. The only thing present, the only thought of importance in his mind, was…

Was Shiro.

When that ambiance faded into a violet hue, Keith finally slowed. His nerves were so taut that he could hear the thudding of his heartbeat in his ears. Shiro's footprints – they trekked surely and steadily onwards, and it took barely minutes of following the winding trail before the source of that familiar light faded into view.

A door. A door to a hangar? A door to a hangar and, beyond that, with barely a touch to nudge the heavy metal doors aside…

Gaping channels. Corridors, the picture of the inside of a ship's hull, and nauseatingly closeted for it. Walls of unbroken metallic fencing, and further corridors that diverged from the first, from the second. Keith stepped on silent feet throughout the labyrinthine depths, peering around corners but travelling unerringly onwards down and in and through an elevator system that hummed with too much smoothness for the apparent abandonment of the hanger. Shiro's footprints no longer led Keith onwards, but it didn't matter. Keith would look, would scour every inch of the violet-grey hangar, until he found –

Shiro.

He didn't run. Keith was desperate, but he wasn't foolish enough to throw himself headlong into the moment that echoed with threat and malice. The sharp-edged metal walls, the emptiness, the isolation, and that ever-present light that pervaded it all – once, Keith might have been foolhardy enough to leap into the midst of potential disaster, but not anymore. Not when Shiro's safety was on the line.

When the labyrinth of passages finally cracked into open space and roofless platforms, the relief of the freedom from unnerving claustrophobia was far from calming. Not when Keith descended the ladder to a wide platform reminiscent of a bridge that stretched from the labyrinth's opening. Not as he edged down that bridge, eyeing the shelf-like walls that loomed on either side of him, the empty space of air and towering column of the hangar overhead.

Keith's footsteps echoed with each step, flicking his nerves with malicious fingers that bespoke company and threat. He couldn't stop glancing around himself, not at the tower soaring above him but at the shelving, or more correctly what appeared to be upon those shelves. They looked like capsules. Capsules, or regeneration pods, maybe, that stood in stoic lines perfectly side-by-side. They were unremarkable, those capsules. Plain and unassuming. Yet somehow… somehow, even before Keith reached the end of the bridge-platform and slowed in step to really take a look at them, he knew.

It's wrong. There's something wrong, something bad, something…

The split, diverging atop a short flight of stairs at the end of the bridge, planted Keith directly before one such capsule. Pausing, sparing a moment to throw a glance over his shoulder, Keith raised his gaze towards the dark, unimposing glass wall of the capsule. If he peered keenly enough, he thought he could discern a shape within. A shape of… something. Someone? Instinctively, without deliberate intention, Keith's his hand rose. Sure and steady, far more than Keith himself felt, he reached towards the capsule and ran his fingers over the cool slickness of the front face. His breath seeped silently through his teeth, his heart thundering – only to catch in a gasp when the capsule flickered with violet, illuminating light.

Keith stared. He stared up at the pod, at the figure that was definitely someone within, and the empty spread of the hangar around him momentarily faded from thought. But only for a moment – Shiro – for with barely a pause – it can't be, it's – like a domino effect, the capsules alongside the first flared to life one by flickering one to reveal their own figures, still and silent and waiting within.

Shiro…

Shiro was…

He was…

So many. There was so many of him, identical figures propped upright and for all appearances asleep in their encapsulated isolation. Turning in place, eyes wide and unblinking, Keith watched each and every one of them burst into illumination as though actors subjected to the spotlight. Too starkly visible to be mistaken. Too consistent, and exact, and perfectly identical to be anything but. Keith's breath hitched, catching in his throat, until –

"Hello, Keith."

Keith spun in place. He saw him, planted at the ready, a smirk upon his lips and eyes flashing. His eyes… they weren't Shiro's eyes. Even across the stretching distance between them, Keith knew that much. Somehow, in all the impossibility of it, for all that the identical figures of him asleep in their capsules were wrong, and different, it was the Shiro who stood before Keith who seemed to most wrong of them all. The most alien and unreal. It was as though Keith was seeing him for the first time.

Shiro… What the hell happened to you?


"You're a smart kid. You'll do well."

"The tests have come back with expectations exceeded. This is very promising."

"So long as you put your head down and toe the line, you'll go far, kid."

How many times had Keith been told those very words in the past months? How many times, from the Garrison assessors, to his foster carers, to his teachers, had he been told that he 'could do this', that he was 'good at this', and that so long as he muffled any kind of autonomy and did what he was told he would 'go far'? Keith didn't know, couldn't have counted it. He'd never been counting in the first place, for that matter; all of it, every word, felt so utterly ludicrous.

Maybe he was smart. Maybe he did have the natural predisposition to be an incredible pilot, just as those assessor's tests had somehow discerned. And maybe he would go far if he learnt to quell the discontent of having his voice smothered, his wants overlooked, and any freedom to do what he wanted to stripped from him.

But it felt like too much to ask.

Life at the home wasn't conducive to doing what he was told. There were reprimands when he did something wrong, and at times the heavier handed of the carers took a belt to some of the unrulier kids. No one liked the belt, but it was known, expected, and by and large most with a grain of sense knew how far they could push the boundaries before that belt made an appearance.

Keith had learnt that long ago. It had taken barely weeks since he'd been shunted into 'care' to discover just what limits each and every carer demanded of him. Keith hadn't been struck in a long time, and he hadn't been scolded either. But that wasn't the same as being one of the favoured kids. Favour wasn't a part of it; it didn't come into play for kids like him. It was hard to care about following the rules and 'toeing the line' when those that set those rules and laid those lines ultimately only cared as far as it made their own lives easier.

For Keith, he knew of life before the home. Not many of the other kids remembered after they'd been in care for a couple of years, but he did. Memories of his father, of the self-reliance that his father had cultivated in him, the independence that made asking for help next to unthinkable, reared within him each and every time an order was laid.

"Do what you're told," they said. "Be in bed by eight o'clock or else," and "don't wander through town without supervision," as though he couldn't very well take care of himself.

Keith could. He could look after himself perfectly well. He didn't need anybody, and least of all the carers who didn't really care all that much.

The Garrison was no different. There was still school as he'd attended at the home, even if it was a little different. There was still assigned rooms, though he had to share with only one other boy rather than half a dozen. There were still adults with their rules, their demands, their scowls when he didn't contribute enthusiastically enough and their reprimands when he committed himself too greatly in the wrong places.

What did they want? What more could they want? Keith didn't know, but after barely a handful of weeks at the Garrison he was growing so far past caring that it was next to impossible to pretend anymore.

Like in his mathematics class. The content wasn't difficult. It was barely even noteworthy for how little attention it required. Keith hadn't looked to the screen at the front of the room, hadn't listened to the teacher standing before it and explaining with too many unnecessary words, since the first few minutes that class had started.

And no one cared. Keith did his homework, passed his exams with bland success that drew frowns and mutters from his classmates, and so long as he didn't cause upheaval while doing so, no one cared. Why would they?

With his elbow propped on his desk, chin resting atop his palm and staring absently out the window, Keith suspected that the teacher knew he wasn't listening, but he didn't pull him up for his disregard. None of his classmates nudged him to attend either as he'd seen them do to one another. He didn't have friends, exactly. Not in his classes. Enemies, maybe, and rivals, but only because some idiots didn't have the good sense to leave him alone. It wasn't like Keith sought fights. He simply didn't avoid them when they planted themselves in his face – which, admittedly, they did remarkably often.

Kids were jerks.

Staring out the window, out across the ruddy brown spread of the plains beyond, Keith detachedly counted the minutes. It was a habit he'd gotten into long before it had been encouraged by the Garrison teachers. 'It's good for the mind', he was told, and 'good for time-sensitive missions'. Keith didn't know about that, but it certainly made it easier to know when his classes were finished. Someone had the poor sense to remove all clocks from the classroom to avoid the distraction that arose when class approached its final minutes. Keith was sure it was annoying not to know for people who didn't just count in their heads all the time – which apparently most of his classmates weren't capable of. Really, was it so hard?

As it was, he knew that the math class reached its final minutes when the teacher cleared his throat overloudly and called for the renewed attention of his students. "If you'll all put your tablets and pens down, I have an announcement to make."

Keith didn't look up.

"I'm very excited to introduce you to one of your senior upperclassmen who has taken it upon himself to assist in mentoring you all."

Keith blinked absently. He could just make out a ship bulky and awkward enough to be a corvette rise in the distance in a rush of sandy smoke.

"If you'll all join me in welcoming Shirogane Takashi to the room – I'd like you all to make him feel welcome and to do your best to benefit from the mentoring he can offer."

Applause sounded throughout the room, more excitable than Keith would have suspected at the offer of a mentor. But the whispers that hissed throughout the room, whispers of "him? We've got him?" and "this is so cool!", was enough to suggest that Shirogane was someone of relevance. Someone that Keith wasn't sure he knew, thought might be vaguely familiar for his name and some kind of reputation attached to it. Not enough to warrant particular regard, however.

"Thank you, Mr. Connell," a new voice said, and the applause and whispers immediately ceased. "Hey, everyone. It's really nice to meet you all. Please, feel free to call me Shiro."

The corvette was making a mess of its take off. Keith nearly snorted as he watched the pilot visibly wobble in the air before making a tentative turn. He'd never even flown a corvette himself, but Keith was sure he could do better. It couldn't be that hard.

He was only detachedly aware that, throughout the room, whispers had erupted again. That the teacher had called for attention that wasn't obtained and suggested that anyone who had any questions for Shirogane could either raise their hand or approach him directly after the class. Something about biweekly visits to the class, about a timetable with availability that Shirogane could offer to everyone if they were interested, about how he would be "delighted to help anyone who's having any difficulty".

It wasn't relevant. Not to Keith. He wouldn't approach Shirogane, let alone speak to him. What was the point? Not only did the continued whispers and mounting excitement of his classmates suggest that the mentor would most likely be overwhelmed by admirers the moment the bell sounded, but he didn't want the help. Keith didn't listen as Shirogane continued on a short spiel about classes and struggles that he'd faced himself, and how he knew how tough first year could be "'cause it's a bit of a change from public education". Keith didn't glance towards him once.

And, just as predicted, as soon as the bell chimed throughout the room in an echo of its neutral buzz, there was a roiling flux of motion as each and every student lurched to their feet. Chairs scraped and shoes scuffled as they rushed to the front of the room in a veritable charge. It was so predictable – and more than a little pathetic – that Keith really did snort this time, rolling his eyes as he watched the corvette disappear into a tiny dot on the horizon.

Lifting his chin from his hand, Keith straightened in his chair. He cast a quick glance around the room, noted the relative clearness of the route to the door that for once wouldn't necessitate elbowing his way through people who didn't understand how annoying it was to be stuck behind slow walkers, and rose to his feet. To the sound of animated chatter, outbursts of delight and laughter, and Mr. Connell's ineffective attempts to calm the clamouring mass of eager kids vying for Shirogane's attention, Keith slung his untouched bag of books over his shoulder and started from the room.

Only to be stopped in the doorway by a raised voice and the sound of his name. "You're Keith Kogane, right?"

Pausing, Keith stared for a moment into the gradually flooding hallway of chattering students. He flicked his thumb on the strap of his bag, contemplated continuing without comment for a second, before slowly turning towards the front of the room.

At any other time, the sight of the majority of his class utterly silent and turned with unblinking gazes like sheep staring down a wolf would have been comical. This time it wasn't; not when Keith was the wolf. He spared the frowns, the almost glares, and the confusion upon every face a flat stare in reply, an unvoiced "what are you looking at?" before flicking his attention towards Shirogane.

He was a senior that Keith supposed he might have seen before. Tall, filled out in his black uniform as many of the seniors were from their hours at the gym to get in military shape, he might have even been imposing if not for the comfortable, affable smile upon his face. His eyes were friendly, his crew cut softened by the tuft of a fringe, and he seemed nothing if not approachable.

Not that Keith approached him. Not even when Shirogane nodded his head in easy greeting. He stood in the doorway and blinked at the new mentor in what most people understood instantly as an unspoken request to be left alone.

Clearly, Shirogane chose not to understand it that way. "You're Keith, aren't you?" he asked again, smile widening. "I've heard a lot about you. My year-mates got a chance to see your first aircraft simulation results."

Keith blinked.

"You're pretty impressive."

Keith adjusted his hold upon the strap of his bag, deliberately ignoring the redoubled glares of his own classmates.

"It's not likely that you need it at the moment, but if you ever wanted a hand with anything, I'm more than happy to offer it, okay?"

Keith didn't nod. He didn't even consider opening his mouth to reply. Once, his father might have chided him for his surliness and urged him towards friendliness, but those times had passed. In the years since he'd lost his father, his carers hadn't quite driven any lingering instinct to do so from him, but they certainly hadn't fostered it. Whether it was habit or simply who Keith was, he didn't know, but he didn't care enough for politeness to bother replying to Shirogane's friendly offer. Not even when Mr. Connell affixed him with a pointed stare that clearly told him to mind his manners.

Turning from the room and his class, Keith stepped into the corridor and the sea of older students who had already detached themselves from their classrooms. He didn't look back as he wove his way through bodies, and he barely thought about his class mentor again that day. It was the first time he saw Shiro and he couldn't have cared less.


A/N: Hi everyone! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I've already got the second one nearly ready to post with just a couple of edits to do, so should hopefully have it up soon provided real life doesn't get in the way.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story so far! Each and every review, no matter how small, means so much to me. Thanks to reading!