*Crawls out of a trash can in time for Klangst week on Tumblr* Anyway howdy y'all, what'd I miss
Again, I'm so sorry for skimping on The Strength of Broken Glass and some other stories...school's a bitch.
But have some Klance hurt and enjoy!
It started in a place where you'd expect demons to rise out of, not love.
(Then again, isn't love a demon in itself?)
"Nope, no what the fuck." Keith scribbles out the words, black graphite covering the scratched letters on the yellowing paper. "Stupid, edgy emo chunk of-" He crumbles up the page and chucks it at the wastebasket on the other end of the porch, missing by a mile. An impressive mountain of similarly crumpled sheets lay scattered on that side of the wooden floor, and if Keith kept this up much longer, he'd get fined for littering.
No, no I wouldn't. Not anymore. He reminds himself. It'd been nearly a year since he'd gotten kicked out, a year since Shiro disappeared. A year since he'd lost his best friend, mentor, brother into space without so much as an explanation from those-those fuckers from the Garrison. Three-hundred-sixty-five days since that utter and complete piece of trash, Iverson, called him to his office to bust a vein at him, and then told him that he could either 'shape up or ship out'. In response, Keith had silently pulled off his Cadet Identification Tag, bearing a small golden star in the corner marking him as an excelled student, and placed in on the desk, before walking stiffly from the room.
Hard to imagine that it was hardly a year since he, a straight-A honor student with promises of becoming one of the world's best Fighter Pilots, had walked out of school with his bags and back turned towards the entrance. He knew he'd caused a stir, among students and public, but he didn't care. Not his problem anymore, the Garrison could deal with the confusion he'd left behind.
He would've cared even less if it hadn't been for something else he was leaving behind.
The skinny kid from Cuba was called Lance. He showed up one day with a goofy smile and a friendly demeanor, the kind that others would tear apart like sharks. Except he was strong, he brushed off the comments and insults with a grin and joke, and became the class clown instead. The one that you laughed with and were exasperated at, but you couldn't hate him. It was so hard to hate him.
If only Keith could hate him. It'd make liking him so much easier.
But what does it mean? His pen is moving again, scratching drily across the paper. He'd need to get a new one soon, but until then he'd push this one to the limit. What does it mean to like, or even love? What does it mean to be able to feel warm with someone, have someone to take the cold away?
Love (v.) - an intense feeling of deep affection
Like (v.) - find agreeable, enjoyable, satisfactory
Just words in a dictionary, so easy to read and make sense of in the head.
But my heart still has questions, what does it feel to love? How do I know when I love? 'Like' is too simple, 'Love' is too strong…is it even love at all?
His next words are invisible, small curling grooves in the paper. His pen is out, and he sighs and aims it at the bin. It's a solid shot, clattering around in the near-empty plastic interior for a bit, as Keith closes his notebook and tucks it back into one of his side packs. With a deep groan, he gets up, stretches, and sets to work picking up the balls of failed ideas and poems and tossing them where they belonged.
Why was he thinking about him, now, of all times? He didn't care about Keith then, he certainly wasn't caring about Keith now. He had friends, a life, and guaranteed place in the world. He didn't even know Keith back at the Garrison, probably didn't care about his existence at all. So why does Keith think about him so much?
Just a silly crush. Just a distraction. He's gone now, and it's for the best. That kid doesn't care about him, why does he care so much?
There's a place on Keith's wall where the wood is beginning to splinter, and a dent is forming there. Sawdust, wood shavings, and small sticks have gathered in a small pile beneath it. Here, Keith punches it almost daily, ranging from as many as only one in passing to enough for the house to shake and the pipes to ease themselves a little looser, right above Keith's bed. It results in bleeding knuckles, and eventually leads to a trip to the store for some gauze and a pair of fingerless gloves, the kind baseball players wear. The cause of that dent? The persistent, gnawing reminder of that kid from school, with his stupid charming smile ( God damn that smile ) his ridiculous jokes ( Screw those jokes ) and his laugh, his chiming, loud laugh that somehow rings as clear as day in Keith's memory when he least needs it.
The laugh is mostly what results in the punching.
The sun was setting in the distance, when he straightens up and stares towards the horizon. It's pretty today, sky touched all colors of bright tangerine to lilac and peach, fading away into a steadily deepening blue-to-indigo. All pastels and glitter, tonight, almost enough to make him feel like it was worth coming here.
This little hut in the middle of a desert was all Keith had left. He managed to buy it back off of some old man's hands by selling his cadet uniform, cheap, to a grateful family for their son. It was hardly enough to afford this place, with it's leaky plumbing and shoddy electricity, but the smiles of the small curly-haired boy and his teary mother made it all worth it, somehow. It springs back fuzzy memories, filled with purple and warm arms around his shoulders.
He didn't remember Mom, of course. She'd left years before he could start remembering, but whatever his Dad remembered, he neglected to say. There aren't any pictures of her in the house, nor any sign of any female having residence in this old shack at all, but she definitely had existed. Old whiskey driven tales had brought mentions of her, and occasionally he'll find Dad passed out on the couch from a hard night shift, mumbling something that sound like a different language, over and over. A name?
It didn't matter. Stomping back inside the house, nothing mattered anymore, as he turns to the bulletin board covered in pinned-up photographs of rock formations and strange glyphs, line graphs printed from the city library ten miles away. Scrabbled handwritten notes, red string webbing it all together like a spider on crack, an occasional red marker note and circle directing attention. To a stranger's eye, it's chaos. To Keith, it's a masterpiece.
He'll find Shiro. He'll figure out what draws him to this trashy place, what keeps him from leaving no matter how many times he tries to go. Until then, nothing is important.
Not even a boy with a stupid laugh.
Love (v.)-to experience a deep sensation of appreciation and affection for a specific topic, object, person, etc.
Ex: She loves him because of his looks. I made garlic knots, does he love them? I love him because of his laugh.