Author's Note; Was anyone else disappointed that Shiro's gay?! I am, so that's why I decided this is an AU. Shiro isn't gay, he's just good friends with Adam. Maybe best friends, but it's strictly platonic.
Shiro handed Keith the meal, taking his own hamburger into hand.
"Okay, Keith. How do we get to your old house?"
"Get into Main Street, and, when it ends, we get out of the car and go on towards Maple Drive. I have a speeder that we drive straight out to the house. And I'll drive."
"Okay. Let's get over to Main Street." Shiro drove the car out of the drive through and watched as Keith drank two mouthfuls of his chocolate milk and one McNugget, then closed up the containers and settled them into the inside pockets of his jacket.
Shiro drive in silence, and Keith fiddled with the drawstrings on his jacket.
Shiro pulled up to Main Street and helped Keith get out of the car, showing him how to scoot forward the chairs so he could get out of the back.
"Maple Drive, you said?"
"Yeah." Keith nodded. "First turn on the left. I found a place where there's free parking, and I put my bike there."
"Makes sense." Shiro discovered within a few minutes that he didn't know where he was going and so he had Keith lead. Funny, really, how a kid half his height understood the streets better then Shiro ever could.
"Here it is." Keith patted the hover bikes front seat, smiling. "Beautiful, right?"
"Is this a fire bike?" Shiro asked, the large numbers on the side making its purpose apparent.
"Yeah." Keith nodded. "Dad bought it for half a million dollars from the fire station to insure he always had a job there."
"How'd he die?" Shiro asked, hoping that he wasn't being insensitive.
"He died a hero, saving someone's dumb kid." Keith shook his head, his face grim as he climbed onto the bike. "Let's go."
"Okay." Shiro followed him up it, discovering that there was a second seat solely for the purpose of another passenger. He thought about Keith's explanation and felt a wave of pity for him. From the sound of it, he WITNESSED HIS OWN FATHER'S DEATH.
Shiro was genuinely impressed that Keith appeared to be un-phased, simply shrugging off the memory, hardly any change in his blank expression.
Keith whipped out a throwing knife, somehow sliding away the blade. It revealed to be a key, which he promptly slid into the proper slot on the bike.
Before Shiro could blink, Keith had started up the engines. The pre-teen glanced back at him, and grunted; "Hold on. The speeder can go pretty fast."
Shiro nodded at Keith, grabbing the underside of the speeder. He had driven a speeder, owned one, in fact, but he was usually cautious in some matter. He wondered how Keith would fare.
Keith twisted his hands suddenly on the handle bars, just like a motorcycle, and it turned on fully, hovering for a moment before heading off down the road.
Keith let out a delighted cry and turned to the left, getting it into the road. He leaned forward, the fire bike speeding up in response. After only a few turns, the two were out in the desert.
Shiro barred his teeth as he stared at Keith with surprise, realizing how good of a pilot Keith was. Of course, he had witnessed Keith's skills before, during the simulator test, but that was nothing compared to now. Keith was even laughing his head off as they sped through the canyons.
It wasn't long before Keith pulled on the breaks, the bike slowing to an almost complete standstill within milliseconds.
Shiro found himself staring at a shed and a simple house as Keith eased the speeder into it's designated area beside the house.
Keith cleared his throat, and turned to face Shiro, his face once again plain. "This my Dad's house. You're welcome inside."
Shiro followed Keith inside, watching the small boy clear away a few cobwebs with a simple flick of his wrist, scowling at the spiders who dare make them.
Shiro fought back a laugh as Keith huffed at the door as it squeaked on its hinges.
Keith searched got the light switch, and, when he found it, it alit the room in a flickering light. "You can't tell anyone about this house, got it?" Keith ordered, glancing at Shiro. "It's all I've got."
"I promise, Keith. You're secret's safe with me." Shiro assured him, glancing around the room. There was a really old computer standing off to one side of the room, and a few dozen books along one wall. There was a couch, a few chairs, and a coffee table and a large bookshelf off to the side. Several machines that looked too advanced for Earth littered the ground and Shiro gave them a closer look.
"Where'd these come from, Keith?"
The boy paused from sorting through a few boxes, and he blinked at them. "I dunno. Never asked about them. Why?"
"They don't seem like Earth tech." Shiro noted.
"Yeah, people say the same thing about Dad's hover bike. It runs on a power source that has never been used before. Dad had to hide the bike from the government so that they wouldn't impound it to study it."
"Isn't that dangerous?" Shiro asked, holding one of the machines and turning it carefully.
"Yep." Keith finally found a small package of lightbulb and glanced up at the overhead light. "Nobody ever found it though, and, once everything blew over, Dad took it out again." Then, breaking off from the subject, Keith glanced at a box marked with a K. "I wonder if…" Keith dug his way into it, throwing clothes from the box over his shoulder onto a heap on the floor.
Shiro picked up one of the items, a red tank top, obviously for a woman. He put it back on the floor and glanced at Keith as he pulled out a tan jacket from the box.
"Ha!" He whispered, holding it tightly to his chest. "They never found it!"
Keith slipped it onto his shoulders, frowning at it. "This looks weird, doesn't it?"
The jacket reached Keith's knees, the sleeves spreading past his hands. It did look weird. And it didn't help that the jacket was wrinkled in every which way.
"Um. A little. But one day you'll grow into it, Keith. You can roll up the cuffs, and maybe adjust the hem."
"Yeah, yeah. I don't actually plan to wear it." Keith admitted, rolling his eyes as he smiled shyly.. "It's actually a girl jacket. It was…my mom's." His voice lowered at the last word, as if uttering it would bring a curse down upon his house.
"What happened to her?" Shiro asked, helping Keith get his arms out of the 'straight jacket'.
"How should I know?!" Keith snapped, glaring at him. "It's none of your business, is it?!"
Shiro nodded in defeat as Keith packed up all the clothes, his fingers lingering the red tank top, pausing to tightly hold an armored boot, and trying on a horizon belt that was a few sizes too big for him. It probably used to belong to his mother, too, as did everything in this box.
Keith finally closed the lid to the box, drawing his sleeve across his face as he let out a pained sigh.
"It's okay, Keith. One day you'll find a nice family." Shiro assured him, resting his hand on the child's shoulder.
"I don't care about family." Keith whispered, surprisingly leaning slightly into the comforting touch. "All family has ever done is leave me. I just want a place where…" the words died away in his throat, and he buried his face into his hands.
Shiro crouched down beside him, wrapping his arm around his shoulder. All kinds of children were at the Garrison, if Keith wanted to join, this time for real, then maybe…
Suddenly Keith let out an angry scream, standing up so that he could give the box a kick. "Why did Mom just leave us? I hate her, and I hate everything she left me with! All she's caused us is trouble! She wasn't there when Dad died, and she wasn't when bullies picked on me at school, she never helped me with math, she never took me to fun places like the park, or to museums…MOM JUST DISAPPEARED! AND NOW I'M COMPLETELY ALONE!" Keith stomped his foot onto the ground, his face red and his fists balled tightly together.
"Keith…" Shiro began, rising to his feet.
"WHAT?!" Keith spat, turning to face him. "What is wrong with you?! I stole your car, I didn't come to the Garrison when you wanted me to! Everything I've done shouts that I'm an awful kid! And you still come after me! You don't even know me! Why?! Why are you like that?"
Shiro opened his mouth to speak, but Keith drew away.
"I might be part demon, truth be told." Keith murmured, shoulders defeatedly slumping as his adrenaline disappeared. "Dad once said that, in the Bible," he reached up and grabbed a book, the Bible, and plucked it open, flipping to Genesis 6. "'The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.'" It also says that 'When the sons of God went to the daughters of the humans and had children with them. They were the heroes of old, men or renown.' And then right after that it states clearly 'The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become'. Therefore the half-angels became evil, and were fallen angels. What if…what if my Mom was an angel, or at least part of one? That make me a fallen angel, a demon, a monster. That'd explain my mutation, and why she was never around or why Dad hardly ever mentioned her. And why I don't fit in."
"Or you just happened to be the kid with the short straw. I'm sure you're not a demon."
Keith pointed to his strikingly purple pupils. "How do you explain EVERYTHING that happened to me? The purple eyes are something from a Si-fi book. I grow fur instead of hair, I have claws instead of nails, and my eyes turn yellow when I get mad. How do all those fit together?! Why would my so-called 'Jaundice' only act up when I'm angry?!"
"Wait, you have FUR instead of HAIR?"
"The only stuff that's actually hair is atop my head." Keith snorted. "And my fingernails aren't fingernails. Their DNA is of that of a cat's claws. Seriously, I'm a freak, and it's all my stupid Mom's fault."
Shiro shook his head disbelievingly. "Keith, I am POSITIVE you are not a demon. Weren't you telling me just today that you were most certainly NOT a demon?!"
"Frick, Shiro." Keith spat. "I only say that stuff because I'm trying to convince myself. Truth be told…I believe I'm not even human. I'm a demon, I'm sure of it."
"Keith…"
"Don't tell the Universes. Please! They'll…they'll be really disappointed and try to make me feel better, and the only way to make them shut up is to pretend to be happy, and…and-"
"This'll be our little secret. I promise, Keith." Shiro assured him. "You don't have to worry about it. I won't tell anyone."
'Poor kid.' Shiro thought to himself as Keith ate a few hours later, stuffing his mouth with chicken nuggets. 'He thinks he's a demon. I'm positive he's not, but…oh, Lord, show me what to do!'