Chapter 3: Two of Us
Shiro's slice swept so closely to Keith's head that he could feel the heat of it. Darting a glance over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the vibrant orange incision streaking across the metal beam before he leapt aside. He flung himself backwards down the hangar, Keith just managed to duck out of the way in time for the severed beam to collapse in a deafening clatter that shook the very floor beneath Keith's feet.
He straightened. His feet were planted widely, but it was still a struggle to stand. His breath gasped, heavy and panting, fingers clenching his knife so tightly that his hand trembled. That moment, the moment of rage and hatred that had gripped him as he'd pinned Shiro against the railing, had faded. In its place, Keith was left wrung like a squeezed dishrag, desperate and pleading.
Even if it isn't him, if it's not my Shiro… Keith's flinched as he dragged his gaze towards Shiro and met his flashing, alien eyes as they glared through the wreckage of the beam. He was sagging, bent double by the force of his strike to sever it completely. Even if it's not him, I don't want to hurt him. I can't. Not if there's still a little bit of him remaining..
"Shiro," Keith said, and he didn't care that it sounded like he was begging. "I know you're in there."
Shiro straightened, expression flat and closed.
"You made a promise once," Keith continued, desperately. "You told me you'd never give up on me."
Violet lightning crackled along Shiro's sparking arm as he growled into Keith's words. "And I should have abandoned you, just like your parents did. They saw that you were broken. Worthless. I should have seen it too."
The accusation slapped Keith as fiercely as any blow from Shiro's sword, but he didn't flinch. He couldn't. That part of him, his fear and pain and loss – it wasn't relevant. Not now. Not anymore with what he knew of his past, and his parents, and the what he had to believe of the real Shiro. Not when this Shiro would inflate any accusation that may carry a glimmer of uncertainty into proportions far exceeding those Keith could otherwise withstand in an effort to crumble his defences.
Keith wouldn't falter. He wouldn't let himself fall, not when Shiro's life was on the line.
"I'm not leaving here without you," he said, because it was true. Because Keith couldn't, wouldn't leave him if there was even a hint of who Shiro really was inside that clone's head. Not when Shiro would have, had done, the same for him.
Shiro only smirked. Eyes briefly closing, something like real amusement touched his features, though it was shadowed by the same sense of wrongness that welled in his gaze when he opened them again.
"Actually," he said lowly, cruelly, his voice thick with dreadful promise as his eyes narrowed, "neither of us are leaving."
Keith barely had to think. In many ways, it was better not to think at all. Not that he would ever tell any of his teachers. Especially not his flying instructor. Or Shiro.
But Keith did. When he flew, he didn't think so much as act. He didn't consciously decide the adjust his sights, didn't even recall what had urged him to glance towards the altimeter, to nudge his level to alter his angle of attack with a peripheral glance at the airfoil. It happened without thought, and that was what made it easier.
It made it better.
It made it faster.
It was what made Keith good enough at flying that, at twelve years old, he was allowed to fly a ship out of the hangar. An actual ship rather than just the crummy, unbelievable simulators he'd practiced in countless times over the past months.
Keith barely blinked as he peered through the front display. The spread of the plains stretched beneath him, chewed beneath the speed of his flight in an unbroken expanse of dirt and dust. The horizon sprawled in the distance, and in the late afternoon glow it seemed endless. But Keith barely noticed. He was hardly aware of what spread before him as he flicked a switch, nudged his compass course, and resettled his grasp upon the arms of his seat, fingers sinking into the sensitive pads and swivelling with minute adjustments to alter his stability and direction.
"Having fun?" a voice murmured in his ear with a hint of a chuckle.
Keith allowed himself a small smile. "Not yet," he said.
"Commander wants you back down in five."
"So, I can…?"
Shiro chuckled again, and even without being able to see him, Keith knew he grinned wide enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes. He'd seen it so many times before. "Go for it, Keith."
Keith went. His own smile widening, he cast a quick, assessing glance around the front display, across the spread of the cockpit, before sinking his fingers firmly into the pads on the arms of his chair.
He paused. He waited for the right tick of a moment. The ship zipped over a tall-reaching peak – and Keith thrust his arms forwards and drove the ship into a kick of acceleration.
It sprang forth. The sudden speed pressed Keith back into his seat, the pressure wedging him firmly, but he didn't care. He barely noticed. Sinking into instinctive reaction, his foot snapped forward of its own accord to kick a pedal, one hand darting towards another switch to flick the sights on the screen to his left. Keith let loose.
He soared at racing speed. He darted like a dragonfly over crags, whipping across the plains fast enough that his rear display showed a spray of dust in his wake from the spray of his engine. He arced around a peak, took a turn and a dive, thrust the right arm of his seat forwards in a directive lurch, and bared his teeth in a fierce grin as the ship took a corkscrew turn. He pulled out of it as it dipped nose-first towards the ground, whizzing through a pair of pillar-like crags, before jerking his arms backwards and pulling himself up in a vertical climb.
He soared. He fell and twisted, then rose again. Darting in dips and dives, Keith flung himself into instinctive enactment, into belly-lurching sweeps, revelling in the simple joy of flight that he never would have anticipated was possible had he not had the opportunity to really practice it himself. When he took a nose-dive and pulled out in a death roll, a curse muttered in his ear that wasn't Shiro's but was followed a moment later by Shiro's pointed "Keith".
Keith laughed, more to himself than to Shiro, but he heard Shiro echo his amusement. "Don't worry, sir," Keith heard as he took another tight turn and zipped in the vague direction of the distant Garrison. "He knows what he's doing."
"If he crashes one of my ships," Keith heard Instructor Greene grumble, but disregarded any further comment to the matter. With another lurch, another thrust, Keith thrust his accelerators into forward motion and charged across the plains in a flurry of rising dust once more.
When Shiro ordered him to touch down, Keith did so readily enough. Once, he might have dug his heels in, and a part of him still very much wanted to. Why couldn't he keep flying for just a little longer? There were other ships still about, after all, so it wasn't as though the one he was using flew alone. It wasn't even getting late. Not really. But he knew where he should stop pushing; Shiro's boundaries were different to that of the teachers and Keith's old carers at the home. They were more fluid, but they still existed. And Keith didn't want to push them too far. Not Shiro's.
Flicking switches instinctively as his ship slipped through the hangar doors and settled with a whirring sigh, Keith straightened in his seat. Before him, the hangar spread bright and luminous beneath fluorescent lights that drove away every shadow. Everywhere he could see perched a ship of some kind, hulking or small, sleek or bulky. It was, Keith had decided, glancing towards a jet he hadn't seen before and instantly decided he'd ask Shiro if they could explore, probably his favourite place in the world. Better even that his father's old farmhouse.
The ceiling-bound door to the cockpit hissed open with a sigh. As the glass slid aside, Keith glanced up from his seat to the opening above him. Shiro was peering down through the short chute shaking his head slightly at what could only be gentle chiding. But he was smiling just a little, and he extended a hand towards Keith without comment. Biting the inside of his lip to smother a smirk, Keith climbed to his feet and took the extended hand, allowing Shiro to haul him one armed from his cockpit.
"A death roll?" was all he murmured as Keith hooked an arm over the lip of the chute and clambered high enough to sling a leg over it. The Phantom S-44 was a tiny jet, and the chute through the top was the only way to slide into the bubble of a pocket reserved for the pilot. Tiny – but also one of the fastest and most agile that Keith had ever seen.
And he'd gotten the chance to fly it. It was only the second time he'd ever done so and, glancing down at the abandoned seat below him, he was only more eager to try again.
Before Keith and Shiro could climb down form the airstair Shiro had mechanically driven alongside the Phantom, before Keith could even formulate a reply, Instructor Greene was calling up from the foot of those with hands cupped around his mouth. "Kogane! I thought I said no stunts this time!"
Keith glanced towards the burly man who likely wouldn't have even been able to fit in the Phantom. He was frowning, the lines on his brow drawn all the more heavily, and his lips pursed almost petulantly when he dropped his hands from his face. He was annoyed, clearly, but not angry. It likely had something to do with the handful of senior students clustered around him, all grinning up at Keith and Shiro and muttering to one another with nudging elbows and sidelong glances.
Keith pursed his own lips, plucking at the lip of the phantom entrance he still perched upon. The urge to retort rose within him, not in defence necessarily but because he didn't like the connotations of Greene's tone, and it was only that Shiro stood at his side that he withheld. Shiro had brought him to the hangar, after all. He always did. If Keith got in trouble, then…
"Sorry, Instructor," Shiro said, leaning out over the airstair railing. "We'll remember for next time, I promise."
Greene planted his hands on his hips instead of around his mouth this time when he replied. "See that you do, Shiro," he said, lips drawing to the side. "You keep an eye him."
"I will, sir. I'll watch out for him."
Greene grunted. He spared another glance for Keith, but it was clear that it was Shiro's word rather than his confidence in Keith himself that had him nodding curtly and turning on his heel. He strode away with an distinct mutter under his breath.
No sooner had he disappeared from earshot than the cluster of seniors swept forward and grouped around the base of the ladder. Their exchanges ceased as they turned their attention instead to Keith and Shiro, faces shining with enthusiasm.
"That was awesome, Kogane," one said, grinning.
"I told that new guy, O'Reilly, that it was a twelve-year-old flying the Phantom, and he didn't believe me," said another with a bubbling chuckle.
"Have you practiced that dive before?"
"This is only the second time you've flown a Phantom before, isn't it?"
"That was awesome to watch."
Praise and questions were flung between them too fast for Keith to reply even if he'd been inclined. He didn't know their names, knew them only by face as Shiro's classmates, and he'd never spoken to any of them before directly. Even so, he wasn't wholly surprised that they spoke as they did; it wasn't the first time he'd been bombarded as such.
Since Shiro had first invited Keith down to the hangar months before, he'd been enchanted. Keith hadn't realised just how invested he could be in flying – or in anything – until Shiro had shown him the possibility. But slowly, for the first time, Keith realised that he liked something. He was truly interested in it, enough to seek knowledge pertaining to the planes he saw, to listen attentively to Shiro and, beyond that, in their flying class. He'd even taken to raising his hand in that class to ask a questions that, for still confusing reasons, left his classmates stunned. It was only when Shiro explained that it was likely as much for the content of the question as the fact that he'd spoken up at all that surprised them that he even had an inkling of understanding.
"Most kids in your year haven't even seen a Hamlet 600, let alone know its stats," Shiro had told him. "I doubt they've considered the logistics of interplanetary flight from something so small, Keith."
Keith didn't really understand that. Just because it wasn't part of their curriculum that year, what they were supposed to be being taught, didn't meant they shouldn't be exploring it. But then, he supposed he wouldn't have been quite so interested himself if he hadn't seen the Hamlet that had stopped over at the Garrison so briefly only the day before his class.
He was lucky, Keith realised. He was very lucky – that Shiro had taken him under his wing of sorts, and that he allowed him to accompany him down to the hangar. Even luckier when, barely a month ago, he'd somehow coaxed Greene into letting him fly.
"He's twelve," Greene had said, staring at Shiro as though he'd suddenly grown two heads.
"He is," Shiro had agreed, not even bothering to deny the fact. "But you've seen his simulation."
"His simulation was –"
"He's got the knack, sir. It would be wasted to keep him outside of a real plane when he could learn so much more from proper practice."
"Admittedly, yes, but he could –"
"Besides, he's already flown Scrapers before."
Greene stuttered to a stop, blinking rapidly. He glanced towards Keith, eyebrows shooting upwards to nearly disappear beneath his military beret. "You have?"
Keith shrugged before nodding. It wasn't like it was hard. Scrapers, the low-lying vehicles that could scarcely be called planes at all for their size and the inconsequential distance they could lift off the ground, were easy to fly. His father had let him when he was still alive, had an old model he'd practically built himself, and Keith had been far younger then. It wasn't particularly remarkable.
Or he'd thought so, until he mentioned it offhandedly to Shiro one time. Shiro's mute stare, the way his mouth flopped open, had suggested otherwise, even if Keith didn't exactly know why.
Apparently, that had been enough to convince Greene. That, and the fact that Shiro had promised to watch him. And to take responsibility for him. And to wear the punishment should any be necessarily inflicted. Just as Shiro had promised Greene would happen should Keith misstep with the Phantom again.
Clambering down the ladder after Shiro, Keith paused on the second to bottom rung, waiting for him to dip briefly into the babbling pool of his senior classmates and answer with a handful of replies. It happened like that a lot, Keith had noticed. Shiro often had the company of his classmates; they always approached him, friendly as anything, and he accepted their company. It would have been apparent to a blind man that he was well-liked. Sometimes Keith couldn't fathom why someone like Shiro would bother to set aside every other afternoon to take him down to the hangar. It didn't make sense, even if Shiro was his class mentor.
Still, he didn't comment. Keith didn't want to tempt fate to ruin a good thing.
When Shiro glanced over to where Keith stood, silent and discomforted on the bottom step of the airstair, a smile and a head tilt suggested their leave. Keith hopped silently down the remaining step and slipped wordlessly to his side. He withstood the pats on his shoulders from the seniors that weren't quite as uncomfortable as they'd once been, the nods of approval and further praise that was only a little less disconcerting than they had been the first time he'd received them. He and Shiro were striding from the hangar with many a called word echoing after them and an enduring raised hand from Shiro in reply. They wove through stationary vehicles towards the floor-level exit, and the voices had died to an unintelligible murmur in their wake by the time Shiro nudged the pedestrian door open.
The orange afternoon sun struck Keith as soon as he stepped through. Shielding his eyes, he glanced up at the sky as they strode away from the hangar in the direction of the greater Garrison complex, the promise of dinner just around the corner. Not that Keith really cared; it was a little hard to care about dinner when the thrill of flight still thrummed through him.
The plummet of freefall…
The jerk of a catch, the fierce satisfaction as the jet rocked and hummed beneath his fingertips…
The swelling euphoria of tilting up, and up, and up, until he shot vertically towards the sky…
Keith hadn't realised how much he could enjoy something. He hadn't realised it was possible. Not until Shiro showed him how.
"You were incredible today."
Dropping his hand from his eyes, Keith glanced towards Shiro where he smiled down at him. There was fondness in that smile. Satisfaction of his own, as though he felt just as Keith did. As if he hadn't just taken the blame for something that he hadn't any direct control over. Shiro didn't have that kind of power over Keith. Anger didn't drive his passing thought, but it was true. Shiro didn't have that hold on him, and that he'd taken the blame and accepted potential punishment…
"I can stand up for myself, you know," Keith said. He winced a second later, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. The words sounded so pathetically petulant. "I mean –"
"I know you can, Keith," Shiro said. Raising his arm, he dropped his hand onto Keith's shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. "There's nothing wrong with me adding my name to Greene's warning."
Shiro's hand – it wasn't as uncomfortable as that of the other seniors. Not at all, even if those seniors weren't quite so bad anymore. Just as his praise didn't feel quite as disconcerting, either. Still a little awkward, still a little strange, but not as bad. Not nearly.
Even so, Keith glanced down at Shiro's hand, gnawing his lip. "I was the one who did what I wasn't supposed to," he said lowly. "If Greene was going to tell anyone off, then it should be –"
"And I'm the one who asked you to come down to the hangar with me three months ago," Shiro interrupted him. "And the one who suggested you give flying a real go. And the one who asked Greene to let you."
Keith opened his mouth the reply, but his voice caught and he was left frowning down at his dusty boots as they made their way to the Garrison. When Shiro put it like that… But no. No, it was still –
"It's still my responsibility," Keith muttered. The euphoria hadn't abandoned him, but he felt it sink a little with regretful melancholy as Greene's words really settled upon him. It wasn't because he felt any kind of obligation towards Greene. Not at all, really. But that it would impact Shiro in some way?
Keith didn't really understand Shiro. He didn't understand why he was so unnecessarily kind, so unnecessarily friendly and unnecessarily giving towards Keith when Keith had given him nothing in return. The only one who had ever felt even remotely the same to how Shiro felt to him was his father, but…
But it's different, Keith thought. He wasn't quite sure how it was, but that much he knew. It's different, it's…
Still frowning at his boots, Keith kicked his toe mid-step. "You shouldn't have to get in trouble because of something that I did," he muttered. "It's me. It's my fault. You shouldn't have to –"
"Yeah, well, maybe I want to." Shiro shook Keith's shoulder gently where he still clasped it, and when Keith glanced at him from the corner of his eye, he was smiling as though he hadn't a care in the slightest. As though he really did want to put himself forward. Want, not obligation because, as a senior mentor, he should. "We're in this together, Keith. The two of us. Okay?"
Keith slowed in step and Shiro slowed alongside him. He blinked up at Shiro, mouth opening, but no words falling out, Shiro only continued to smile down at him. Just smiled. Still smiled. When Keith managed to swallow past the lump that had risen in his throat, a thickness that he couldn't quite comprehend but left him with a funny feeling nonetheless, he could only nod. He could only accept Shiro's words.
Shiro hummed something that sounded like approval before, with another brief squeeze, he let go of Keith's shoulder. "Come on," he said, picking up their pace once more to step beneath the shadow of the encroaching Garrison. "Let's head into dinner. I'd still like to talk about your flight, but we haven't even touched on your aviation homework today, and I know you said you don't need it, but the extension stuff McAllister gave you could probably be…"
Keith listened as Shiro spoke. He listened, and he picked up his feet to hasten after him, falling in step at Shiro's side in a way that had become to utterly natural.
