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Being accepted into a prestigious flight school like the Garrison had always been a pipe dream for someone like Keith. He wasn’t stupid, he’s seen his records before and knew he had a snowballs chance in hell of getting into a millitary school as long as those things existed. He was too much of a flight risk, too hotheaded and temperamental (even though he was never the aggressor, he just happened to throw a meaner punch than those around him.)
The way he thought completely changed when he met Shiro, and by extension, Adam. Two graduates from the Garrison who, for some reason, had taken him under their wings. It started when Keith stole Shiro’s vehicle.
Shiro didn’t press charges.
Shiro, the Garrison's golden boy, had stared at the sunset with him and his body language had shown no sense of anger or annoyance (Keith had known how to read people's body language ever since his third foster home.)
Shiro brought him dinner.
Shiro introduced him to Adam a week later.
Shiro vouched for him.
Shiro and Adam helped him study to test into the Garrison.
It all happened in a whirlwind, and suddenly, Keith was packing his bag to take his leave to the school. He had passed with one of the highest simulation scores in Garrison history. His current Foster Father hadn’t even batted an eye, probably happy that Keith would be staying at the dorms and he would still receive Government pay.
That was okay. Keith was used to celebrating his victories in silence. Of course, Shiro and Adam had taken him out to eat before dropping him off at his foster home. It was the warmest Keith had felt in a while, because despite living close to the desert, the cold was always biting.
Shiro and Adam had decided to move onto Garrison grounds, where Keith knew the teachers' buildings were directly to the left of the boys dormitories. (He knew because once he got his hands on a map, he fervently memorized the large college-like grounds.) They would get one side of a floor to themselves with a large kitchen, living area, two bathrooms, and two bedrooms.
Keith would get a one room dormitory and a communal bathroom.
Shiro and Adam made it very clear that he couldn’t spend every night in their living quarters because apparently it was a right of passage for one to live with a roommate in the Garrison, (but there were still some nights where the noises became too much. Where Keith looked over his shoulder every other minute waiting for something to happen. On those nights they could always seem to tell what he needed and took him back to the teachers building with them.)
But Keith didn’t want to rely on the adults, not like he had the others that failed him, so he didn’t go up to them when the harassment first started. Keith was no stranger to other kids being hostile towards him, he had grown up with older kids in foster homes, most of which were never nice. Then, early in middle school the rumor of him not having a family spread (was it a rumor if it was true?) and life had gone downhill from there.
Here, at the Garrison, Keith couldn’t fight back against the other Cadets like he normally would without fear of Iverson catching wind of it and expelling him on the spot. No matter how bad the Garrison could have gotten for Keith, it was nowhere near as bad as being booted back to the group homes.
So he stayed right where he was and learned to ignore the stares, jabs, and mocks. It was humiliating, but getting expelled would be just as humiliating, if not more. Because then he would have let them win.
Keith had always had sharp teeth. He barred them and used them to ward off adults like a shield away from the world. But he had a soft tongue, one that fumbled awkwardly when he was faced with emotion to the point where he gave up on fitting in all together.
He was sure it was one of the reasons why he was targeted in the first place, and the fact that basically the whole Garrison knew that the famous captain Shirogane was his mentor.
There were three of them in total, and Keith was sure that under normal circumstances he would be able to handle them because he was scrapy and they were the type to have everything handed to them. But he kept his mouth firmly shut and ignored them as they followed behind him, tripping him on the heels and pinching at his arms so hard that there would later be bruises.
He withstood when they quickly took food from his breakfast, lunch, and dinners and added it to their own trays, avoiding the watchful eye of the commander overseeing lunch duty.
He didn’t report them when, on soup day, they dumped their servings into his backpack and left to get seconds.
It was all small things he could handle, because it wasn’t like none of this hadn’t happened to him before.
Then it got a whole lot worse.
The first time he had actually gotten injured at the Garrison was when he was at the back stairwell making his way to his dorm room on the bottom floor, when suddenly there was a pressure at his back and he was sent tumbling down the flight of stairs.
He heard laughing, but his attacker was gone by the time he managed to get to his feet.
A few bruised ribs that his roommate, a cargo pilot with an annoying tendency to run his mouth, watched in fascination as he wrapped himself up later that night. His roommate stated that he looked like a mummy, and Keith did not appreciate that.
The second time he had actually seen their faces, not surprised in the least when he was yanked back into the boys restroom by the collar. He had come out thirty minutes later leaning against the wall to protect his prone stomach. His teeth gritted and clamped shut to protect his soft tongue.
He lost count after the third, and learned to walk wherever the cameras had him in their view. They never attacked him where the cameras were, though there were some times where he simply couldn’t avoid him.
Once in class, he had lashed out at them right in the middle of captain Holt's lecture about aerodynamics. Luckily, the captain didn’t seem to mind and didn’t even yell at him, though later Iverson saw to it that he wouldn’t interrupt another lesson again.
Iverson was one of those adults that Keith had learned to not trust from the start. Always Ill tempered and looming over kids as some sort of intimidation tactic. As if intimidating pre-teens was something to be proud of.
A month later the three had gotten sloppy and left bruises where they would be visible. Usually it was kicks to the ribs, shoulders, and back, but he had gotten mouthy and they went straight for the cheek. Then an uppercut to the jaw followed by the normal.
He had been through this before, Keith reminded himself, he could handle a beating like this. At least their shoes weren’t the size of a grown man. At least they weren’t standing directly on his chest and squeezing the breath from him.
Once they exited the communal bathrooms, unlocking the door and keeping their faces to the floor to avoid the hall camera, Keith pulled himself to his feet with a hiss. He ached all over, a familiar hot pain, like molten lava, bloomed on his cheekbone as he wheezed for breath. Once he was stable against the wall he prodded at his ribs, none had broken or punctured his lungs. He would live.
It took a solid half hour to make it back to his dorm, just before lights out, when it would normally only take ten. By the time he made it back, Lance was scrolling away on his Garrison-issued tablet.
Probably trying to find out how he could trick the system to let him download a streaming service. He had asked if Keith was some sort of kid genius with hacking skills when he couldn’t download Hulu, but Keith shook his head because he was not some sort of kid genius with hacking skills.
“Oh hey Keith,” he said, but when he looked up his eyes went wide and he promptly coughed into his fist. “How did you- man what the hell happened to your face? Another fight?”
Keith ignored him just like he did the others, making sure everything in his bag was in order before he slipped under the covers, sleeping with his back towards his invasive roommate despite it being the side his bruised cheek was on.
“Fine, be like that,” Lance grumbled to himself, turning his lamp light off and shuffling to get comfortable, “see if I care.”
Keith was sure he didn’t.
“Has Keith seemed more… closed off to you?” Shiro asked Adam deep into the first semester, “it’s like he’s been pulling away. We haven’t seen much of him lately.”
Adam hummed in thought, not pausing in his methodical way of scrubbing the granite countertops in the kitchen. “To be fair Takashi, we haven’t exactly had much free time to see him lately. You have to meet with the Holts and the crew at least four times a week to keep up with the Kerberos launch and Keith is busy with midterms coming up.”
Shiro looked at the time and shut his laptop when Adam approached him. No working past eleven o’clock. “You’re right you’re right, I'm being overbearing.”
Adam chuckled, bending down to plant a kiss on his cheek before sliding onto the couch next to him, “I never said that, don’t put words into my mouth, but I'm always right.”
Yeah, Shiro realized, he usually was.
Sending a message off to Keith that he would hopefully see on his tablet in the morning, Shiro let himself drift off to sleep and not think about the long meeting he would be having with the Holts tomorrow (even if the launch wasn’t until a couple of years) or the feeling of emptiness in his chest.
He would have to take Keith to run the simulators to make up for his sudden absence.
Though, he ended up seeing Keith a lot sooner than he had expected. The next evening Adam had been in the middle of making them dinner when there was a knock at their Garrison-issued apartments door. Shiro quickly spared a glance in the mirror to make sure he was decent enough in case it was the captain before he opened the door.
Instead of the muscular man waiting to be saluted as he had expected, Shiro was met with thin air until he looked down to see Keith. Something akin to joy sprang up in his chest and Shiro stamped it down when he noticed how downtrodden the kid looked. He plastered a worried smile on his face and stepped to the side, welcoming him in, “Heya Keith, it’s been a while. What’s going on?”
Keith shrugged (not all the way up to his ears like he normally would) and stiffly walked into the home, slipping off his shoes and placing them next to Shiro and Adam’s much larger ones at the doorway. “Normal boring classes,” he grumbled, and Shiro’s lips tilted downwards at the answer.
He took the defensive attitude to stride, “well, Adam’s making dinner if you want to join us, unless you came by to drop something off?” It was a stupid question, since Keith had already taken off his shoes, but it was an opportunity to not force Keith to stay. It was a way to gauge why his mood was so bad.
“My roommates being annoying,” Keith supplied, seeing past the thinly veiled offer, “needed to get away from him for a minute before curfew.”
Shiro chuckled and patted Keith’s back, which made the cadet visibly wince, before he led him to the kitchen table to sit. (they had originally only had a bar space enough to fit just Shiro and Adam but they had gone out to buy a table shortly after moving in. For guests, Adam had stated, even though they knew it was for whenever Keith visited.)
Adam already had three plates sitting in their normal places, waiting for the other two to settle down before his sharp eyes landed on Keith. Something shifted in them as he squinted closely, then his expression turned grim when he went to grab his fork.
Huh.
Was Shiro missing something?
“That’s quite a shiner you have there,” Adam stated easily, as if he had just said that the weather outside was sunny, “where’d that come from?”
When Keith looked up from the meal, it was then that Shiro realized he had yet to see his face, thus, he had missed the gigantic bruise that had formed on Keith’s cheekbone. The skin looked swollen and puffy, and Shiro had to fight back the urge to storm to Iversons office, holding Keith by the collar like a cat, and demand that he expel whoever had done this to his mentee.
Adam looked deadly calm, and Shiro decided he would let his fiance handle this one.
Keith shrugged again, just a tiny tilt of his left shoulder. “The simulator got rocky, I fell.”
Adam raised a perfectly arched brow, casually twirling his fork around, “you mean to tell me that the number one fighter pilot of his class forgot to fasten his seatbelt.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement.
Keith stiffened, defensive, “There were aftershocks once it was deactivated, took out the rest of the crew too.”
“Ah,” Adam wisley didn’t push or prod much more, sensing the boy's closed off posture, “I see.”
“They need to fix those simulators, you figured it would be smooth sailing after our whole class lodged complaints our senior year, but I guess you can never win.” Shiro veered the topic away from the nasty bruise on Keith’s face and onto the Garrison’s technology that had malfunctioned on him over the years. He watched as Keith relaxed in his seat and he watched as Adam offered him the bruise ointment in the guest bathroom.
Keith didn’t stay the night that night, but he did leave looking a lot less wound up than when he came.
The moment the door clicked shut, Shiro heaved a sigh and got to work on the dishes since it was his turn. Despite that, Adam moved beside him to load them into the washer while he wiped them down.
“Somethings up,” he handed the plate to Adam, “somethings definitely up.”
Adam pursed his lips in thought, looking paler than Shiro had ever seen him. “I fear that I was wrong in this scenario.”
Shiro simply smiled, “it’s okay to be wrong, Adam. Especially with a kid like Keith, he’s unpredictable.”
His fiance scoffed, “you’re telling me. You know him best, I trust you have some sort of plan?”
“Nope,” Shiro admitted, tapping on Adam’s back gently when he bent down to close the dishwasher, “we have to wait until he comes to us. He’s like a stray cat.”
Adam’s eyes were light with fondness, a look Shiro selfishly soaked up because it was one for him and him only. “You keep collecting strays, Takashi.”
“But you like them.”
Adam wordlessly slinked off to the bedroom.
“Right? Adam?”
The worst Keith had gotten from the other three was a mere three days after he showed up to Shiro and Adam’s door uninvited, but they still let him in. It had helped him a lot, getting away from Lance’s curious eyes and the other cadets hostility, if only for an hour.
Though events seemed to happen like dominoes lately, triggers set off one by one until Keith finally felt the full force of his own faults.
Captain Holt was teaching a class once again, droning on about breaching atmospheres and calculating the density of said atmosphere. Boring stuff, when Keith felt a sudden tug at his hair. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, withstanding. Ignoring. Barring his teeth and not looking back.
But sometimes, his teeth were so sharp that they cut into his delicate tongue, driving others away. Unfortunately, that was not the case with the Cadet tugging on his hair and reaching over to pinch the insides of his wrist.
He silently batted him away like he was an overgrown mosquito, but the thing that the three cadets and mosquitoes had in common was that they always came back for blood.
Suddenly, a sharp voice that did not sound remotely like captain Holt at all shouted, “Cadet Anderson! Stand to attention!” The one who had been relentlessly poking and prodding at Keith stood up so fast that his chair scooted back with an audible screech.
The room went dead silent, none of the Cadets having heard the captain use such a tone before, though the other two cadets had to hide their embarrased smiles with their hands.
Instinctively Keith’s shoulders raised as far as they could and he avoided eye contact with the commander so as to not anger him anymore. Though, it seemed he didn’t have to because Holt’s attention was solely on Anderson, who looked like he was about to piss his pants.
“Anderson, if I see you bothering another Cadet again, especially in the middle of one of my lectures, you will not see this school again. Do I make myself clear?”
Anderson stuttered.
“Do. I. Make. Myself. Clear?”
“Y-yes captain Holt sir!”
Suddenly, the captain's demeanor shifted and he smiled once more, though it was laced with too much venom to be mistaken for anything nice. “Wonderful. You will stand in the back of the classroom for the remaining class time and meet me once class is dismissed so we can have a talk.”
Keith would admit, it was gratifying to see Anderson so discombobulated, stumbling to get to the back of the lecture hall. Keith, for a moment, thought about putting his leg out to trip the Cadet, but figured it wasn’t in his best interest in the long run.
Captain Holt didn’t divert any of the attention to Keith by asking him questions, which he appreciated. Instead, his eyes only briefly landed on him, warm and welcoming, before he continued with the lecture as if nothing happened.
Later, during their lunch period, Anderson hadn’t returned from his talk with captain Holt. That didn’t give Keith a breath of fresh air though, because Cadet Blakes was quick to take his place and pick the good portions of the meal from his plate, leaving only the untouchable food items that Keith didn’t even bother to eat.
Much to Keith’s surprise, the moment she bent over to retrieve one last item commander Lively cleared her throat from right behind Keith. Keith jumped and twisted around to see the commander glare at the cadet, “I believe that food isn’t yours, cadet Blakes.” She said in a flat tone, stern enough for Blakes to bow her head.
As gratifying as it was to see the two get in trouble, it only meant that the outcome would be worse for Keith in the end.
When he returned to his dorm after classes had ended, it was blissfully silent and Lance-less. Usually he would be around by now, chatting away in open space as Keith tried and failed to sleep, but Keith briefly remembered him telling him something a night ago. ‘Oh hey, my sister is having a baby, I want to meet my little Niece so the Garrison’s letting me leave on a Family emergency for a few days. I’m sure you’ll be glad to have the dorm to yourself, mullet-head. Hey! Don’t ignore me!’
Keith curled in on himself and was not, in fact, glad to have the space to himself.
As the sun set below the horizon, the noises of the air conditioning and the buzzing of the overhead lighting system lulled him into a light doze until they all shut off. It was curfew. The silence made things a whole lot worse.
Keith’s shoulders rose to his ears as he pulled the blanket all the way up to his nose and leaned his back against the wall, but not enough for the foot shaped bruise to twinge in pain. He waited in silence for about three hours before he finally drifted off into a restless sleep.
He was awoken later when there was a loud click, the green light above the Garrison door flashing before sliding open with a very audible woosh.
”Lance?”
Keith, still numb with sleep and soreness, just managed to crack his eyes open when suddenly there were hands all over him. Fingers roughly grabbed his hair, tugging until they were hauling him off of the tall Garrison bed and onto the floor. His scalp burned, but his back burned even worse.
Now on full alert, Keith snarled and tried to kick the many sets of hands away from him, but there were too many and the cadets were much older and much larger than he was.
“Good morning Keith,” one said, a girl's voice. Cadet Blakes, no doubt, “sorry to interrupt your sleep, but we had to get a crucial point across.”
“What, by dragging me out of bed?”
A kick to his face made him topple to the side, “Don’t be a smart ass, you’re the one on the floor.”
Keith rolled his eyes despite the dread pooling in his gut, “Obviously you don’t think you could take me in a fair fight if you’re attacking me while i’m half a fucking sleep.”
“Why take any chances,” Blake’s shadow moved above him, blending in with the walls. There was pressure on his chest and someone's foot was resting on it, but he couldn’t tell who. He couldn’t even see the cadets faces, no doubt they were wrapped in T-shirts or a mask or something because not even they were dumb enough to attack him in his own room without some sort of coverage.
It was then that Keith realized he was well and truly fucked.
There was no one else around. No Lance, no cameras.
“How did you get in here?” Keith glared through the darkness, hoping it was aimed at one of the assailants. There was a metallic noise before suddenly something smooth was placed on his cheek. With a jolt, Keith tried to pull away from it before he recognized it as a simple keycard.
Not a knife.
Not a blade.
Not a gun.
“Your roommate left it in the cafeteria the day before he left,” Anderson provided in a mocking tone, “we promised we would take it for safekeeping and return it to the owner once he returned.”
Keith bit back the urge to vomit when they gleefully started to hit at his already tender bones. But there was something so personal about being attacked in his own dorm room during the dead of night that made Keith tremble with rage. It was probably that he was triggered, that something like this had happened to him many times before.
Keith ignored his mind telling him that fighting back had never worked in his favor before, but deep inside Keith was a fighter, and he wasn’t about to take this lying down on the cold floor. He got up swinging, red tinting his vision until it took all three of them to restrain him and muffle his angered yells with a random blanket. They wrapped the thick thing around his head and pulled him back until he was sent crashing, head clipping the sharp corner of the nightstand on his way down.
Anything after that had been a blur, Keith being too concussed to make much else out until he finally passed out right on the floor. When he woke up, he chastised himself with how dumb it was to fall asleep with a concussion before pulling himself into a sitting position to scope out the damage.
There wasn’t much to see in the dark, but when his hand brushed against the back of his head he felt the familiar texture of dried blood. His head spun when he got to his feet and the world tilted on its axis, but he pulled on his garrison uniform and grabbed for the medical kit he kept under his bed, also grabbing the bruise ointment Adam had given him as an afterthought. Keith didn’t know the time, his head hurt too much to read the blurred red digits on his alarm clock, but it was early enough that he was able to pad down the Garrison hallway without seeing anyone.
The bathroom was vacant, the lights blissfully low as he took the injuries in and began wrapping them around his broken body. It must have been three hours before wake up calls because by the time he managed to limp back to his dorm and look presentable, the sun had risen over the horizon and with the sun came the blinding lights that flickered on inside the entire facility.
Keith could hear the annoyed groans coming from his neighbors, but he was too focused on pressing his palms into his eyelids to stop the stabbing pain the fluorescent lights had caused. It took a full ten minutes for his eyes to adjust to the light enough to where he could focus despite the hammering pain in his skull, and even then as he filed with the rest of the cadets to get to the breakfast hall, he was sure he looked like a zombie.
Keith couldn’t finish breakfast, pushing it away and hastily asking captain Lively if he could be excused to the restroom before jogging to avoid throwing up in front of everyone.
Throughout the morning he avoided the three cadets, ignoring their smug smiles at the sorry sight of him. Pale skin, eyebags, bruises, slouched posture, and black eye. Keith was a shell of what he once was. None of the other professors slotted to teach his classes for the day (Astronomy, physics, and flight) seemed to care, most marking him off as getting into another fight. (Keith wasn’t stupid, he knew those teachers looked at his records and saw a problem child one tally away from being expelled. He kept his mouth shut around them.)
Though those people did not include Captain Holt, who was filling in for the Astronomy teacher because apparently she had fallen ill. They still did the classwork, though Keith couldn’t help but slouch over his desk and keeping his hands cupped over his closed eyes. He couldn’t even read the paper in front of him, much less do the work. He would find a way to do it later, somehow.
“Cadet Kogane?” A concerned voice asked him, and Keith stiffened before unfurling from his protective ball to see Captain Holt right next to him, a gentle hand on his shoulder. None of the other classmates spared them a glance, ignoring their silent conversation.
Except, maybe, for the three behind him.
“My apologies captain Holt,” Keith picked up his pencil with shaky fingers, which no doubt didn’t go unnoticed by the man's keen eyes, “I will do my work now.”
“No need for that Cadet, I’m not worried about the work, I know you have astounding grades in all of your classes.” Keith flushed bright red, “What I'm more worried about is you looking like you just got into a fist fight with commander Iverson himself.” Captain Holt shot him a crooked grin and Keith couldn’t help but let his shoulders relax slightly. Holt had such a wacky sense of humor, and it reminded him a lot of Shiro’s.
Startled, Keith remembered that the professor was waiting for an answer. He felt three penetrating stares at his back and he mustered up all of the brainpower he could to talk without slurring. “Ah- I’m alright sir, I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“Hmm,” Holt’s eyebrows pinched together in worry, but he rose from his crouched position anyways, “let me know if you need to be excused, Cadet. No need in pushing yourself just before midterms,” he said before circling back to the front of the room.
Keith never got that astronomy paper done, not that it affected his grade too much in the long run. He had a feeling that commander Holt had nulled the zero.
He managed to get through his other classes and lunch (he made a point of not touching his food) well enough, occasionally falling asleep right where he was sitting up. Though when it was announced they would be flying the simulator, Keith didn’t know what else to do besides sit in the pilot seat with as much ease as he could.
They were doing crew simulations, meaning that Keith had two more cadets along with him. Two of which he didn’t know, but he did know that they looked the same age as him. They didn’t spare him a second glance as he took a seat onto the uncomfortable chair, hands gripping at the controls even though his fingers were shaky at best, his grip completely off.
He wondered how he would manage to pull this one off.
Commander Iverson shouted orders over the simulations speakers obnoxiously and Keith had to resist the urge to cover his ears at the loud noise. The hot pressure of tears built up in his eyes from the pain, but he ignored them in favor of starting up the simulation by steering. He hadn’t heard much of what Iverson had said, but he did know that they performed the same thing each time they were with a crew, a drop-off mission, because it was the only curriculum the first years could work on. The upperclassmen could do retrieval and rescue exercises.
The flight path was familiar but the lights and the motion made nausea roll in Keith’s stomach. He pulled a hand from the joystick to place against his lips, mentally willing himself to get over it.
“Kogane!” Iverson screeched, making Keith cringe, “Both hands on the controls at all times, even if your arms cut off! Don’t get cocky!”
“Yes sir,” Keith managed weakly before regretfully parting with his hand. He tried his best to focus on one pinpoint, the bright orange beacon he would have to navigate through a low level asteroid belt to reach, but even that seemed so bright and all-encompassing that it felt like Keith’s eyes were being burned into his eye sockets.
His head hammered.
His whole body throbbed.
His heart fluttered anxiously in his chest.
His fingers refused to coordinate with the rest of his body.
The vile was now crawling up his throat-
“Pilot!” The engineer shouted, grating and high-pitched. Keith wanted her to shut up. He wanted everyone to shut up. “Approaching the belt and preparing for heavy turbulence.”
Suddenly the ship rocked and jolted. Normally Keith would grin at the adrenaline and easily maneuver past the asteroids, but he didn’t even manage to make it past the first one before the feeling became too much.
He forced his eyes closed as he let go of the controls in order to unbuckle his belt. The simulation immediately spun out of control and he heard the cries of surprise from his crewmates and most of all, he heard Iverson- “What are you doing Cadet! Get back to your damn seat! You just killed everyone! Do you have no shame-”
Keith was too busy blearily curling in on himself to care, cradling his stomach as he wretched and wretched and wretched, fighting to keep the vomit down until suddenly all the noise stopped, including Iverson’s screaming. A trash bin was shoved underneath him and large, gentle hands were rubbing at his back.
He didn’t spare the time to wonder just how Shiro had gotten here, he barely had the mental capacity to answer Shiro’s low baritone voice as he asked questions. He caught a glimpse of the red words printed on the screen ‘Simulation failed’ before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and his body went completely limp.
When Shiro had looked down at his tablet during lunch to see a missed email from captain Holt, he immediately dropped his sandwich to answer it. His morning had been irrelevant, Adam had to sub in for an Earth science class since apparently there was an epidemic of the flu going around, leaving Shiro alone to check on flight plans and lecture notes.
He knew that he, the captain, and his son, Matt, weren’t supposed to meet up again until next week, so to get an email labeled priority alpha was slightly alarming. He could have called, but Shiro remembered that Holt had also been subbing for a class today, therefore wasn’t allowed on his own phone until classes were dismissed.
The email was brief and it made worry worm even further into Shiro’s heart. It was about Keith, whom he hadn’t seen since he showed up for dinner the other day.
‘Captain Shirogane, I have concerns for your mentee, Keith Kogane. He was showing symptoms of a sickness and it was clear to me that he was hiding something, though he refused to go to the infirmary to get himself checked out. I inform you only because I care for his well-being, as it seems that an intervention is needed.
With best regards- Captain Holt.’
Shiro’s stomach dropped. Keith was still getting hurt? It was no surprise that he refused to go to the infirmary, he hated that place, but for captain Holt to reach out to him? It must have been bad.
Shiro quickly picked his lunch up off the floor and discarded it into the trash can, not caring that Adam would yell at him for wasting food. He could deal with that later, for now he would scramble to look presentable in his uniform before hightailing it out of the apartments. It would take too long for him to run the opposite direction for his hoverbike, so instead he hurried to the teaching buildings. He knew that on Fridays Keith had flight simulation training with Iverson at about this time of the day, sparing a glance to his watch, he realized that the class had just started.
He cursed lowly and fastened his pace, ignoring the looks of confusion the other professors shot at him as he hastily made his way to the stairs. The elevators would take too long, and if Keith looked as bad as commander Holt said he did, then he wasn’t wasting a second. He knew Keith would ignore until he passed out because that was how hardheaded the boy was.
The moment he made his way past the double doors of the simulation room, the cadets in the class all stood to attention, saluting him. Normally Shiro would smile and wave but now his eyes landed directly on Iverson, who was yelling orders into the simulator.
“Hands on the controls! Don’t get cocky!” And Shiro knew that tone, he knew he only used it on the cadets he truly hated. Shiro scanned the crowd, and when he didn’t find Keith, he looked to the large monitoring screen showcasing an overhead shot of the cadets in the fake ship.
Keith looked bad.
In fact, Shiro would go as far as to say he looked downright terrible.
“Commander Iverson,” Shiro cleared his throat once he stood close enough. He couldn’t verbally lash out on the man, seeing as he was still his superior.
The man barely even looked over to Shiro. Shiro had never been his favorite and it wouldn’t stop now. “Yes, Shirogane, I am in the middle of a class.”
“I want you to stop the simulator,” Shiro said bluntly, and that surprised Iverson enough to gain his attention.
Iverson snarled, getting in his face, bad breath and all. “Now why would I do that just for you? Do you have a note from a higher up telling me to end my class just because a young hotshot asked me to?”
Shiro felt the other cadets' curious gazes on them and he remained calm. If he didn’t raise his voice, then Iverson would look like the idiot here. “I have reasons to believe that Kei- Cadet Kogane is injured and in need of immediate medical attention,” he explained, the the kids became restless, shuffling around and whispering to each other.
“What, going easy on your mentee just because he’s a little roughed up?” Iverson narrowed his eyes, tone icy, “Cadet Kogane is a problem child, and if he is injured, I'm sure he’s suffered much worse. I apologize, captain Shirogane, but I will not be sending him to the medical wing unless he is throwing up all over my floor and sobbing, just like the rest of my cadets!”
Shiro’s blood ran cold.
Iverson was so enamored with yelling at Shiro that he didn’t notice the simulator rocking until he looked back at the screen. Keith had unbuckled his seatbelt and was weakly curling onto his side to try to ride out the turbulence of the simulation. The other two crewmates were flabbergasted, flailing around and hanging onto their chairs, but not making a move towards Keith. Like he might bite them with those sharp teeth of his.
“What are you doing Cadet! Get back to your damn seat! You just killed everyone! Do you have no shame-” Shiro promptly hit the ‘end’ button to the simulator and tore the wiring to the comm system connected with the ship. He knew he would probably get in trouble for his impulsiveness, but that didn’t matter because Keith was curled up and in pain from who knew what, and Iverson wasn’t making things any better.
Shiro was quick to grab a trash can and rush into the simulator where Keith was shaking like a leaf, gagging. Saliva spilled onto the metallic floor beneath him but before he could get rid of whatever lunch he had (if he had eaten anything at all) Shiro shoved the trashcan beneath him and gently guided his head to the opening.
“Clear out cadets,” he ordered to the crewmates and the other kids who were watching with gross curiosity from the simulator's doors. “Move,” he ordered again, and they all dispersed as quickly as possible. When Keith made a pained noise, Shiro cursed himself for speaking so loud.
He didn’t know where Iverson was, but he was probably calling security on Shiro right about now.
“Hey Keith,” he greeted, “I know this isn’t the best circumstance, but I'm glad to see you again. It’s just Shiro, it’s okay,” his own murmurs became like white noise to his ears as he rubbed circles into Keith’s back soothingly. (Keith flinched every time his hand so much as ghosted over a particular spot and Shiro made it a point to avoid the area.)
Keith made an unconscious noise from the back of his throat, caught halfway between a pained groan and a defensive grunt before he gingerly moved away from the trashcan.
“Keith? Can you hear me?” Shrio asked, worried, “do you know what’s wrong? I need to know so that-” And Shiro saw it coming before anyone else did in the way Keith swayed and in the way his purple eyes glossed over. Shiro opened his arms and caught Keith, carefully lowering him to his shoulder to check his vitals.
Everything was stable.
Everything was okay.
Except it wasn’t because Keith was passed out in his lap, looking like he had just gone three rounds against a grizzly bear and Iverson was standing off to the side, arms crossed and disappointment heavy in his gaze.
“Well here you have it,” Shiro leaned to the side so that Iverson could see Keith’s face leaning against the crook of his neck, ghostly white. “He threw up on your floor, is that enough to warrant a visit to the medical ward?”
Iverson’s face darkened, but both he and Shiro knew that he couldn’t keep Keith here and he had a class to run. “Fine, do what you want with him, but this is all on you.”
“I understand, sir.”
Shiro took a moment to think. The medical ward wasn’t far, not far at all. Keith’s dignity would be down the drain if he sent someone up with a wheelchair. Shiro sucked in a breath and tapped on Keith’s cheek until he cracked glassy eyes open. It took them a full ten seconds to focus on his face, and that was when Shiro knew he had a concussion.
“Keith, hey bud. I need to take you to the medical ward, do you think you can stand?”
Keith grumbled, words slurred, but he got the message and with Shiro’s help got to his feet. Shiro still had to keep a tight hold on the boy's arm as he swayed to the side, leaning very heavily against him, but Shiro knew this alternative was a much better one than getting wheeled out of the room by a nurse.
He shielded Keith away from the others prying eyes with his body as they made their way down the hallway and to the elevator. When they finally reached the office, a doctor was immediately on standby, and Shiro realized that Iverson must have called down ahead of time.
He didn’t know what to do with that information, so he swept it under the rug to think about later as he lowered Keith down onto a cot. “He has a concussion and a plethora of other injuries,” Shiro kept his voice low, and immediately the doctor closed the curtains around them to darken the room.
It looked like a weight had been lifted from Keith’s chest when he escaped the light, and he was finally able to fully open his eyes. “I will be quiet, but I still have to ask questions and examine you,” the doctor whispered. She was one of their niecer staff members, Shiro could remember her from when he had gotten into a fistfight with Adam as a cadet. The irony.
Shiro watched, (totally not protectively, he was not freaking out. Not at all.) as the woman shone the flashlight into his eyes and asked him what day it was and to follow her finger. He had failed basically all of the tests. Shiro took the time to pull out his tablet and email captain Holt back that his suspicions were correct as always.
Then, she had asked him to take off his shirt. Keith didn’t have very much maneuverability, much to his chagrin, so Shiro had to help him slip it over his arms, and what he saw made him inhale sharply. Bruises were molted all over his skin like Keith was some kind of old oil painting, and much to Shiro’s horror, he realized they had been caused by shoes.
Keith had been kicked with so much force that he had four cracked ribs and two bruised. It was a wonder that he could get to his feet at all. The one on his back, luckily, didn’t cause any spinal issues, but it would make it very uncomfortable for him to rest on his back while his ribs healed.
The doctor was surprised that Keith had lasted through his classes for the day with his concussion and aches. She was equally as horrified as Shiro was.
“Get some rest,” Shiro told Keith, shrugging off his jacket to lay on top of the already half-asleep cadet, “I’ll sort things out with the doctor.”
“M’kay,” Keith slurred, pulling the jacket closer to himself and Shiro had to look away before he was tempted to stay at his bedside. Instead, he closed the curtains behind him and faced the doctor, who had a stern look on her face.
“Captain Shirogane,” she hissed as they walked further from Keith’s cot as to not disturb him, “did you know he had these injuries?”
“No, not at all,” Shiro denied, though he didn’t blame her for the accusation because everyone in the Garrison knew how close Shiro was to Keith. “I figured something was going on but I didn’t,” he choked, “I didn’t think it was this bad.”
“And what, pray tell, do you think these injuries were caused by? I need to file an incident report.”
Shiro sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, a habit that Adam had tried to put a stop to by slapping his hand away. “He hasn’t gone to his Foster family’s home in the past month, so the only solution I can find is on campus abuse.”
“Judging by the sizes of the bruises, I would say from a group of kids,” the doctor agreed, flipping through her paper and writing the information down, “there are many hits, enough to cause immense pain, meaning that the assailants had the interest and energy to proceed where's a heavy handed adult or commander would stop only after a few hits.”
Shiro could only hum in agreement, nervously glancing back at the curtains, expecting for Keith to be standing there, watching with those large eyes of his. The fact that he was laying down, silent, made it all the worse.
“He will be okay, captain Shirogane,” the doctor reassured, “I will prescribe pain medication and a new meal plan seeing as he is a bit underweight. Though I will have to notify his Foster family so that they can be prepared for his two week return-”
“No, no he can’t do that,” Shiro felt a stone lodge itself in his gut at the thought of Keith going back there. It was what the boy feared the most, probably why he had been so silent about the beatings. It was what Shiro and Adam feared the most.
“He can come back home with Shiro and I,” a voice interrupted his panicky thoughts, and relief flooded Shiro as Adam stepped through the doorway. “I was informed what had happened by Captain Holt, and have already filled out the necessary paperwork provided for him to stay with me and Shirogane for the weeks he has to recover.”
Adam always had his shit together, Shiro admired, as he sauntered into the room and handed off the stack of papers. The doctor scanned over the papers before moving to the filing cabinets and flipping to Keith’s file, dropping them into the folder.
“It seems like that is sorted through,” she said, then continued to give them instructions on how to handle Keith and what kind of environment was best for him to heal. (Shiro already knew this lecture, he had heard it a thousand times after he and Adam had punched the lights out of each other that sophomore year. A safe, quiet, and dim environment was needed.)
“You’re free to take him now,” she finished, already headed back to her swivel chair.
“How did you get Iverson to sign those papers so fast?” Was Shiro’s first question. When Adam was silent, he turned to him, “You threatened him, didn’t you?”
“Most definitely not. I parked the car out front so that we don’t have to carry him back.”
Bless Adam.
Shiro didn’t know what he would do without the man.
As Shiro hefted Keith in between him and Adam and they made their way out of the office, they were stopped by the same nice doctor.
“Shirogane, Adam?”
They turned their heads in an almost synchronized way if Adam hadn’t been holding Keith’s head, preventing it from lolling to the side.
She smiled, “I’m glad you two finally made up, you know, from that fist fight your sophmore year. Though it looks like you did a little more than made up.” Her eyes softened, “it looks like you made a family as well.”
It was needless to say that Shiro and Adam hightailed it out of there.
Taking care of Keith, as it turned out, wasn’t as hard as Shiro had originally thought it would be. But getting answers out of him was like grasping at straws.
When they returned, Adam was quick to lower the volume on the television and dim the lights as Shiro settled him down on the couch. He would move to the guest bedroom later at night, but this way they could keep an eye on him and be close by if anything happened. Keith was asleep the moment his head hit the cushion and Shiro sighed, draping a blanket over him before moving to the kitchen.
“I’m going to run to the store,” Adam announced, “should be back within two hours.”
Shiro turned to watch as his fiance slid his shoes on, “the store? I thought we had plenty of things here?”
Adam held up one of the papers the Doctor forked over to them, “His meal plans don’t follow ours. Besides, he’s a growing kid, he needs less of our healthier snacks and more carbohydrates and protein. He’s healing, so he’ll need something easy on his stomach like soup for now. Do you need anything?”
“Uhh, no.”
“Okay, don’t forget to give him the pain medication in a half hour. I’ll call.”
“Mkay, bye babe.”
“Goodbye Takashi.”
Then, Shiro was left alone to his own devices, which he would put to good use. He was quick to sit at the end of the couch where Keith’s head was resting slightly against his thigh. He turned his laptop onto touch screen only mode so that the sound of his typing didn’t bother Keith, and he got to work.
It was hard to find any evidence of a beatdown ever happening, but Shiro did have unlimited access to the Garrison's security footage, being a higher ranking officer. It felt a bit creepy, scratch that, insanely creepy to be watching Keith go through his day and through his classes, but the information he reaped from it was needed.
Three cadets whose faces were very clear to the camera. Cadet Anderson, Blakes, and Willson. He didn’t know them personally, but he did know them to be Iverson’s golden trio. His holy trinity of what a ‘good student’ should look like.
Shiro paused his work to give Keith his medication, then settled right back where he was and continued watching (stalking) Keith over the video feed.
He saw them taking Keith’s food from him, which explained the sudden weight loss. It wasn’t like Keith could sneak and get more food whenever he wanted, it was strictly prohibited to do so.
He saw them pinching him and pulling at his hair like grade schoolers.
He saw them insulting personal matters that only Keith had a right to know.
He saw them pull Keith into the restroom and leave without him, only for Keith to emerge half an hour later limping and battered.
He saw Keith emerge from the back stairwell with a black eye that wasn’t there when he had walked in.
He saw that just the previous night, Keith’s roommate's keycard had been used on his door at three in the morning, not used by Lance himself, but by three familiar cadets whose faces were covered.
Shiro was furious. By the time he finished skimming through the security tapes his blood was boiling and his eyes were bloodshot, but the work was done. He didn’t have enough evidence to expel the cadets, as he didn’t have clear face shots of the real attacks, but he was hell bent on finding them-
There was a soft and muted knock on his door, almost a tap.
Shiro shifted, and then realized Keith had somehow laid his head on his leg when Shiro had been engrossed in his screen. “Sorry buddy,” he murmured, cupping Keith’s head and shifting from underneath it until he was standing. He lowered the cadets head to the pillow and made his way to the door. It couldn’t be Adam, he would never forget his keycard.
To his surprise, captain Holt and Matt stood on the other side of the door.
Shiro’s smile fell and he turned to look at his and Adam’s calendar by the coat rack, “did I miss a Kerberos meeting? I’m sorry i’ve been busy-”
“No no, none of that,” the captain smiled, disarming Shiro, “I just dropped by to see how you and Keith were holding up. I know that you probably blame yourself for what happened, but it couldn’t have been prevented unless he had asked for help like I suggested he do.”
Shiro sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “yeah, well if you know Keith, you know that he doesn't take too kindly to suggestions.”
“Yes, a very stubborn boy he is.”
Shiro’s eyes drifted to Matt and the captain took it as the question it was, “Ah, Matt had classes today and I usually pick him up, though I wanted to see you on the way back to the living quarters.” Shiro remembered that Matt and the captain lived only one floor above him and Adam.
“You can come in if you want,” Shiro offered, and surprisingly enough, the captain and his normally loud son stepped in. Matt was not nearly as boisterous as usual, simply scooping Shiro’s computer up from the couch and taking it to the corner, presumably to go over the footage Shiro had caught. Shiro let him, because maybe the tech genius would catch something that his tired eyes couldn’t.
Captain Holt placed his jacket onto the rack and silently moved to crouch down in front of Keith. Shiro knew that the captain was a Father, but his actions spoke far greater than words when he brushed Keith’s hair back to get a good look at one of the many bruises that decorated his face.
Shiro got his phone out and sent a short message to Adam that he would be needing two additional servings of whatever soup they were making tonight.
The reply was almost immediate, a simple ‘Understood.’ Adam, despite being an amazing diplomat and bargainer, did not use his words very often.
When the afternoon progressed to night and Adam came back with at least ten grocery bags in hand, the Holts helped set up the dinner table and Shiro tried his best to help Adam silently cook the meal.
The smell seemed to wake Keith up because Shiro saw him poke his head over the side of the couch to get a good view of their guest. Keith had met Matt and the captain before, the captain for obvious reasons, and Matt because sometimes Shiro would take him along on trips with them. Keith liked Matt, and anytime they were around each other Shiro genuinely feared for his quality of life because Keith would learn another troublesome phrase or meme each time.
“Oh, goodmorning Keith,” Matt smiled, purposefully silent as he set down the last of the plates on the table, “did you have a good nap?”
Keith blinked in confusion as if he missed a chapter in a book and slowly rose to his feet, “what time is it?”
“Sit down there son, wouldn’t want you to get another concussion if you fall,” Captain Holt said without looking up, and Keith’s legs shook under him like a newborn deer as he lowered himself back down onto the couch, probably wondering what alternate reality he had been dropped into.
The rest of the night went as said; wasting Matt’s hard work on setting up the table, they all sat on the couches and ate their soup, conversations breaking out in clusters between them. Keith fell asleep after about ten minutes, and luckily did not throw up his food. Shiro laughed at the look on Adam's face when he realized Keith had fallen asleep on his shoulder. When Keith started to drool, Adam looked fondly exasperated, but Shiro knew he wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Holts left soon after, bidding Keith silent goodbyes (Matt stating that the footage he found was solid, but not nearly enough to remove the three cadets permanently from the grounds and from bothering Keith. Shiro replied that he would figure something out, as soon as he managed to get Keith to actually admit to what had happened.)
And that, as it turned out, would be the real challenge.
It took three days for Keith to be able to stand loud noises again and five for them to be able to turn the lights back on to their full settings, and during those days anytime Shiro tried to bring up the subject of just how he had gotten the injuries, Keith avoided them like the plague, pretending to sleep or disappearing off to the guest bedroom.
Shiro knew that Adam was just as pissed when he discovered the severity of Keith’s injuries. (It had been when Shiro was at a meeting late into the night and Adam had to be the one to apply the bruising ointment. When Shiro returned at midnight, Adam was pacing the living room, eyes ablaze with helplessness.)
In the end, just a day before Keith was to return back to the dormroom, he finally spoke about the experience, much to their surprise. Shiro had to hide the instinctive proud look on his face when Keith admitted to the three being the ones to hurt him, because he had finally come back to them after pushing them away for so long, even if it took a while.
“We already have it on camera,” Shiro admitted guiltily, making it a point not to show Keith the footage. “There's nothing to hide from us, the only thing we didn’t catch was the places where there weren’t cameras.”
Keith’s eyes had shifted downwards to his feet, an instinctive thing that Shiro knew he did. “The ones where the cameras weren’t there were the worst,” he whispered, a chilly admittance that outraged Shiro, but he bottled it up to instead put a hand on the cadets shoulder.
“Keith,” his voice cracked, “we need to report this, they hurt you and it’s not right-”
“No,” Keith immediately shook his head, “No, I need to- to stay under the radar. Iverson is enough-”
“Of a prick as it is,” Adam cut him off, and both Shiro and Keith looked at him in utter surprise. He shrugged shamelessly, “I can handle Iverson, you shouldn't have to worry about him, Keith.”
Keith shot Shiro a confused look, to which Shiro mouthed ‘Blackmail.’
After that, the conversation didn’t get much better. When Shiro asked what happened on the stairwell, and when Keith had been dragged into the restroom, and when the three had snuck into his dorm at three in the morning, Keith hadn’t put any of it softly. As expected, he was blunt and detached when he explained how he got his injuries, oblivious to Shiro and Adam’s inner turmoil.
In the end, Keith had only agreed to file a complaint if Shiro managed to find enough evidence to send the cadets packing. Shiro understood, he really did, because if the three got busted but stayed in the program, then it would only make them more pissed off towards Keith. Like he had ‘snitched’ as Matt later put it.
So Adam and Shiro formulated a game plan, and in the end, cadet Lance McClain had been the one to secure their victory.
Matt sent over Keith’s roommate's schedule, and when Keith was in his Earth science class, (Adam subbing that day too, the flu was really kicking everyone’s asses.) Shiro made his way to the dorm and politely knocked. Of course, he could have used his own keycard to enter since it overrode the codes on the cadets doors in case there was an emergency, but he figured he would give the dude some privacy.
“Be there in a sec!” A voice called from inside, and there was shuffling before Lance opened the door, mouth open to argue, “Keith you never lose your card- oh, heyyyyy captain Shirogane.” Lance chuckled nervously, “are you here because of the cafeteria incident? Because I promise that wasn’t me-”
“You’re not in trouble, cadet,” Shiro said, bemused, “I'm actually here to speak about cadet Kogane.”
Lance's face fell with relief and he stepped aside, letting Shiro in. The difference in personalities between the boys was startlingly evident the moment Shiro walked in. Lance’s side of the room was a lot more messy, yet personable with posters and fairy lights strung up over his bed. Keith’s side was barren and nearly spotless besides the lump of the knife Shiro knew he kept under his pillow.
He could have used it against the three cadets that night, yet he never did.
Shiro frowned.
“Sir? Err, is something wrong?”
“Have you noticed cadet Kogane’s injuries over the past weeks?”
Lance sighed and plopped down on his bed, Shiro remained standing, though he shifted to Keith’s side of the room. “I knew someone would finally notice and call him out on it. I have no idea where he’s getting so roughed up? Do you think maybe he’s fighting in some kind of illegal underground fighting ring?”
“No,” Shiro blatantly denied, because at first he had thought so too until Adam discredited the idea, making Shiro feel foolish. “Kogane definitely wouldn’t do something that.”
Probably.
“Hmm, I dunno man- uh, I mean sir. I haven’t gotten to meet Keith yet because he ignores me all the time,” Shiro winced. Keith was never the best with manners, “but I guess it’s nice to have someone who always listens when I talk. He’s like my captive audience.”
“Injuries?”
“Oh, right, sorry. Yeah, I did notice him wrapping bandages around his ribs and stuff, and the bruises, but everytime I asked he completely blew me off!”
Shiro momentarily checked his phone to make sure he had enough time before the next block of classes before swallowing down his guilt and facing Lance, who suddenly had a serious look in those mousey eyes of his. “Cadet Kogane doesn't like his skeletons being let out of the closet, but I believe that in this situation, the action is necessary.”
Lance perked up, his interest piqued.
“There are three other cadets,” Shiro continued, mentally apologizing to Keith, “Cadets Anderson, Willson, and Blakes. To put it short, they’ve been harassing Kogane.”
Lance’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline in disbelief, “Like, bullying him?”
“Yes,” Shiro confirmed, “Bullying. Were you aware that they used your lost keycard to enter Keith’s room while you were out on a family emergency to assault him?”
Lance suddenly looked like he needed to throw up, and Shiro backed away just in case. It took a full moment for the cadet to reply, “They wha- Oh my god they got to Keith and it’s all my fault ohmygod-”
“No,” Shiro said firmly, “No it’s not your fault, the keycard just fell into the wrong hands. Just be sure to have it on you at all times and report it missing immediately after you lose it to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”
“Right,” Lance nodded fevertly, “of course, of course I'll do that. Man I gotta apologize-”
“Actually,” Shiro cut in, “there's no need for that.”
Lance narrowed his eyes, and he was smarter than Shiro gave him credit for because it only took him a moment to figure it out. “Wait, Keith doesn't know you’re here, asking these questions, does he? That’s why you picked the only time I have an off period away from him.”
Shiro looked to the floor. Busted.
“So what can I do?”
Shiro looked up, “come again?”
“What. Can. I do?” Lance asked slowly, “I mean, this is practically my fault and you’re here for a reason. You need something.”
“Yes,” Shiro responded breathlessly, “I was hoping that you had evidence of the other cadets hurting cadet Kogane, but I would understand if you don’t-”
“Ah bu bu bu bu,” Lance silenced him, then remembered that he was talking to a captain and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry sir, I got carried away, but I may have something that can help you here.”
Shiro raised an eyebrow, “You do?”
There was a mischievous glint in Lance’s eyes as he pointed to a small device in the corner of the room, “Does audio recording work for you?”
Audio recording did, in fact, work for Shiro. After sifting through the file of the night Keith was attacked, it was very evident who it was since the Cadets had all called each other by name. They had been hiding from the cameras, not microphones.
Hearing the beating, the sound of flesh against flesh, made Shiro sick, but he powered through it when he and Adam first listened to it. They vowed never to let Keith get his hands on the audio recording, because he would no doubt be embarrassed by the small, angry noises he made.
Frankly, Shiro was surprised he hadn’t screamed.
Apparently, Lance had an audio recording device set up to play every night while he was sleeping to document his sleep talking. (Shiro had heard stories from Keith, and if Shiro had said that he wanted taco bell in his sleep then he would want a recording of it too) and forgot to take the device home with him. It automatically was set up to record starting at lights out and stopped at approximately seven A.M.
As soon as the evidence was collected and filed together (along with the pictures the Garrison’s doctor had compiled of the injuries) the case was easy to pass up the chain of command. Iverson couldn’t do a damn thing to stop them, and was forced to watch his Holy trinity of ‘capable pilots’ go up in smoke.
It was amusing to watch, really.
But what was even more gratifying was to see Keith come back to his normal self. He came around more often now that he wasn’t getting injured, to just hang around in the house and eat dinner with them. He was more expressive during class hours (as captain Holt had reported to them with that proud gleam in his eyes) and he even became more talkative with his roommate. Lance had said that when Keith finally spoke to him, he thought that either hell had frozen over or that Keith was in serious life-threatening danger, but also said Keith was now invited to go on late night snack hunts with him and Hunk.
It was gratifying to finally see Keith start to bloom before his very eyes, because the kid had sharp teeth to hide his soft tongue, but maybe he wouldn’t need those sharp teeth anymore.