our fall from grace
—
lance mcclain
— was a boy. A boy that liked the ocean, the fresh saltwater sea, the peerless sky. He was a boy; full of ambitions and drive and the yearning to prove. And even his love of the sea cannot conquer his desire to be able to fly. With his arms stretched and open-wide, with the wind grazing his cheek and mapping his features. He was a boy, a human. And human boys could not fly.
One day he sees the documentation of the first man on the moon. (First man to go beyond the skies, they said. To Lance, it was simply the man who did what he, a human boy, unable to fly, could not do.) He realizes there's a chance. With mechanical planes and handles and simulations he could, perhaps, fly.
Later on he finds himself flying one of the planes at the Garrison. He realizes how limiting it was; how this.. whatever this is, was not flying. So, he fails. He fails with his mind only drifting along the flying simulations. Then he comes to understand. That to fly he needed to accept the limits and go beyond them (beyond the skies, beyond the moon, to go even farther) because nothing was limiting for him, once a human boy, and now just a boy.
Still, he fails. He threatens to crumble. He meets two people. One boy with the familiarity of his skin and his favorite foods from home, and a kid with round glasses and the familiarity of Veronica's snark. He does not crumble for them. He regains cognizance. He now only builds himself up.
He manages to fly. But still, inside his mind, he fails. He manages to smile at the people who gave him familiarity (he learns their names are Hunk and Pidge) and does not break down in front of them. He did manage to fly. Just managed. Barely cut through the wind.
Some days later he sees his hero. He wasn't the first man on the moon, but he was the first man he has seen to truly fly. He tries to build himself up on the image of him. His hailed hero, Takashi Shirogane. The first man to fly. The first man on the clouds. Even with his hero, he only manages. Manages, manages, manages. (All synonymous with failing.) He can fly, but it was always under the limits, under the handles and the lights.
(He should stop managing.
He has to starting doing. Delivering. Flying.
Because he was not just a human boy; he's not. He has long been free from the shackles of the fickle kind. He's now a boy. A clean slate of a boy. Humans have limits. Boys of the sea, like him, do not.
Humans have limits.
He does not.
Humans have limits.
He — does — not.
Rinse and repeat.)
A shift of classes later he sees a god.
Not a hero. A god. A god that rides with the wind and does not simply go beyond the clouds and the galaxy, he shatters the skies and the cosmos. He looks up at him like he hung the stars because he might as well have after being the sole familiarity that made him fly. Not manage to fly, but fly. Like he wanted to.
This boy looks at Keith Kogane and he sees a god. He's thrilled. Thrilled beyond measure and inspired to deliver. But the longer he sees Keith Kogane tear through the pillars of the skies he begins to be terrified. Terrified because he wasn't even leaving stardust behind for a boy of the sea like him to follow. The god just flies. Just knocks the wind right out of them and does not give them even a spare glance. There's nothing else but him and the air and the sky and the stars. There was no room for fickle boys of the sea in the sky, and he's terrified.
His terror evolves. His hero has disappeared. Died, they say. His hero was deemed a failure (and wasn't that familiar?) He thinks that perhaps his hero had finally burst. Had finally burned out as a bright star, too blazing and vivid to be maintained. But they insist. They insist that his hero had turned the torch to light himself afire and doomed everyone with him to flames. His hero had failed, they said. He's gone.
The boy of the sea had no time to break down as the man he claimed god also left him in the dust. The god who made him finally fly had settled for failure, too, and went to torch himself as well. They call him dropout, the boy that could have been great, and they start to forget him altogether. And he realizes. He realizes that Keith Kogane was now a forgotten god he couldn't keep chasing the shadow of. He realizes that even gods like him can leave people behind and let them be to scatter themselves in the dust.
He comes up from the stardust.
He's offered a chance to fly for real.
He moves up.
He becomes better.
The boy of the sea starts to build himself up with the image of no one but him.
(That's a lie. He still picks up the remnants of his hero's image. Still holds on to the faith for his god. But he denies it.)
Before he could go beyond the limits he, with Pidge and Hunk, catches a glimpse of his hero. Later on there's a blue lion. She speaks to him and he falters. Him, a boy of the sea, accepts the lion of the ocean, and together with his two familiarities they attempt to regain the image of his hero.
They manage.
They manage to see Takashi Shirogane. (The first man on the clouds, his brain supplies.)
But with him was his long forgotten god.
There, standing, clutching his hero, and he wavers. In a surge of faith he abandons the loathing he had for the god to give him his name and reconcile.
Keith Kogane did not falter when he hears his name.
The god does not remember.
The loathing came back to him in an onslaught.
(His long forgotten god has forgotten him, and that makes him a mortal, human boy. Forgettable. He hates it. He builds himself up with the image of the sea. The sea is calm, so he tells himself to calm down. He couldn't. He's no longer the clean slate of a boy. This god has given him his title.
He's Lance, forgotten boy of the sea.)
—
keith kogane
— was a mortal. A mortal living beside desert dust. A mortal with no more than a blade and a body. He has little desires; or none at all. He only wishes for the chance to bring down the stars. He wants to take one home, and perhaps it will light him up better than the cold desert night. He was a mortal with little desires. But no mortal had such little wishes.
One day he finds an opportunity to bring down the stars. Maybe not thoroughly, maybe not as efficiently, but by flying he realizes he can get close enough and claim one. The proficiency of the idea did not matter to him, someone who makes do. What comes, comes. What will be, will be.
He flies at the Garrison. It is easy. He blitzes through their programs and they hail him prodigious. He does not care. He broke records. They praise him. He still does not care. He becomes the Garrison's trophy. They praise him even more. He decided that he will not ever care.
Everything was dull, even for him, a mortal of little desires. He begins to regret. He begins to drift through the lessons and ignore the calls of his peers. They talk about him behind his back. He thinks they're pathetic, even more than him, and he was a mortal of no purpose.
A person comes.
He sticks himself to his side.
He told him that he was Takashi Shirogane, a former cadet. He told this Takashi Shirogane he did not need to know who he was. This Shirogane just laughs and tells him that he goes by Shiro.
Another person comes.
His name was Adam.
He's in a relationship with Shiro, and they're both happy. Mortals with purposes. He does not like mortals with purposes, because they're unlike him, so he cannot understand them. There's no connection, no familiarity. He's lost between them.
Shiro and Adam tell him that there will be a connection if he wanted one to exist. (And, if they were asked, anyway, there was already one.)
But how could he do that? He can't want anything. He can't want this connection, he has little, fickle desires and they do not include connections. They include his mortal desire of bringing the stars down. They include warming up his shack in the middle of the desert when the night comes to bite.
He concludes that he did not need to want things for them to exist. Just needing them was enough.
(He knows, inside of him, that he wanted the connection among the three of them. He denies it.)
Because he needed the companionship, the familiarity, it came to exist. The lines of it tangled within all of them. Him, the mortal, and them, the purpose. He feels light.
Light as he was, he begins to see things around him instead of shutting them out.
He learns of a soul lost in their realm of mortals. This soul was Lance McClain. He just knew that he did not belong with them fallibles. This soul was determined; he could fly without his ease, a mortal's ease, and he did not just tear through the wind. He could see that Lance McClain had no goal in the skies but it was the sky itself. It was the act of being there, just there, and that's how he knew Lance McClain was a soul mingled with all of them. No person could have flown as freely as he did. He was soulful and knew what he wanted.
He mirrors this soul. He tries to see himself in Lance McClain but he couldn't. Because this mortal looks at Lance McCalin and he sees what he can't have. He sees a soul full of wants and needs and desires; he sees drive and compassion and the more he looks at the actual soul of his being he feels more and more mortal. More and more without purpose.
So he does not look at this soul, and instead he forces himself to break through the walls of the heaven's skies and the scattered stars of the universe so the soul could look back at him.
He does not know if he made Lance McClain notice.
He does not know much for Shiro had went and disappeared. He refuses to believe that he was gone like Adam was. He objects. People did not like how he objected. They gave him a chance. He threw the useless chance away. It was not enough to fill the connection. They kick him out. He cannot see the soul again. He saves the mourning for later, because he needs to regain the connection. He wanted to regain the connection and find Shiro.
Days pass by.
Him, a mortal of little desires finally realize that he left what could have brought the stars down for him. He thinks of the soul, Lance McClain, and wishes that he bring the stars down instead.
Weeks pass by.
His too-rubbed hands were not enough to keep him warm.
Months pass by.
He finds the connection. He scourges for the source. He arrives at it. He sees Shiro, his first desired companionship, and he thanks the soul for guiding him. He wanted those stars, but it was not tradable for something he already had.
He sees the soul sooner than expected.
He's standing right in front of him, skin glowing.
Perhaps the soul was lost again, in the midst of the mortals. He looks away.
The soul tells him that he knows of him, him— a mortal of little desires. Him— an unworthy blade.
He denies ever knowing Lance McClain.
Because he never did; he only knew the soul, the one fire burning underneath his crazed passion. He does not know of Lance McClain. Not truly.
He denies ever hearing of his name.
Souls like him did not need empty mortals.
(The soul seemed to seethe. He understands. He understands the fury lurking inside him, along with his blazing wants and needs and desires. He knows of it now. He knows how to want.
He's Keith, mortal with a desire of one soul.)
—
lance mcclain and keith kogane
— were many, many things. But most of all they were just two people who never got their chance, and perhaps never will. They were two boys and mortals the earth still remembers, two gods and souls who spelled out their names in each other's bones.