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“Galra.”
Allura’s voice was flat and without emotion, but Keith could see the rage building up inside of her. The other Paladins looked on in shock while Coran all but recoiled. It went about as well as he could have expected.
“You’re Galra?” She said it like it was an accusation, mouth curling around the word with disgusting. “You’re one of them!”
“I didn’t know for sure. I don’t know anything about-” Keith tried to explain, but there was no stopping Allura.
“They killed everyone! They murdered my family, my friends. They wiped out my entire world. My civilization is gone, everything I knew. They’re monsters, and you’re telling me that you’re one of them?” The words cut deep, all the more shocking from their normally composed commander, but there were tears in the Princess’s eyes and Keith couldn’t deny her pain. He’d known loss in his life, but nothing like what Allura and Coran must live with every single day. To her, the Galra had taken everything she loved and left nothing behind for her to even remember her people by. They really were monsters, Keith had to agree.
“Is he going to turn purple?” Lance whispered loudly to Hunk who was staring at Keith was fear in his eyes, like he was going to transform into Zarkon at any minute.
“I’m not purple!” Keith snapped, the last of his nerves fraying. He hated this, hated himself. This was all too much. He couldn’t fault them for their fear when he feared his own blood too.
“Do you really look like that or do you think it’s some kind of morphing mechanism?” Pidge piped up. There was a little too much enthusiasm in her voice, the same that crept in whenever she was faced with a particularly good puzzle, and it jarred Keith to be on the end of her microscope. “Have you ever felt anything weird under your skin?”
“What? No, I-” Keith grit his teeth, frustration threatening to spill over, and for the first time, he wondered if that was because of them. If he was always so angry, if he was always so volatile because he was one of them, and all at once, it felt like there was ice in his veins. “There’s nothing wrong with my skin. There’s nothing different that you don’t already know!”
“Except there is, because you’re Galra.” Pidge said, clinical and precise as she did he best to understand what hung over their heads. Science was not meant to be inherently unkind. “We’ve been looking at you from a completely human scale, maybe there are things we don’t know because we haven’t been looking for them.”
“Well. Yes.” Keith forced himself to agree. He forced himself to see things the way they did, because Pidge was right. There was so much he didn’t know about himself, and meeting the Blade of Marmora had opened him up to more questions that he never would have considered before. She was right, but he didn’t want her to be.
“That’s enough for now.” Coran said, more decisive than Keith had come to expect from the mechanic. “I think we’ve gotten all we need from this debriefing, Princess?”
“Yes, we’ve gotten plenty.” Allura was the first to leave, her head held high. Lance lingered a moment longer before bodily dragging Hunk away. Pidge was hot on their trail, launching into a discussion of biomechanics that only Hunk seemed to keep up with. Not that Keith noticed. If he hadn’t beaten Allura out the door, he was a close second.
It wasn’t his fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He didn’t mean to, but now his blade burned in its holster, far too heavy and far too sharp, and it felt like he’d made a mistake. He stopped at his quarters, breathing hard. His ribcage felt too tight for chest and too big for his body, trying to squeeze through his lungs and break through his shoulders all at once. He needed to punch something or tear it apart, Keith didn’t know, but his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
“Keith?”
Then Shiro was there, still in his armor, a frown creased across his face, and Keith couldn’t look at him.
“I’m fine, Shiro.” Keith said before Shiro could ask. Of course Shiro was going to ask, his friend was always too concerned about him. He wished he stopped making Shiro worry so much.
“You’re not fine.” Shiro said bluntly enough to catch Keith off guard. He pushed passed Keith before the red paladin had time to think of an excuse or close the door so he could wallow in his misery in peace. Instead, he had to settle for the next best thing and crossed his arms with a scowl.
“Okay, so I’m not fine, but it’s no big deal. It’s not going to impact the mission or anything, I’m not going to suddenly turn on you just because I’m part Galra or someth-”
“Will you stop?” Shiro cut him off mid-sentence and Keith found himself staring up at the taller man in surprise. “Not everything is about the mission, this is about you. What you learned today, it’s a lot. It’s okay to not be okay with things.”
The door closed behind them with a snap.
“They think I’m an enemy now.” There was an edge to Keith’s voice, a wary sort of anger as he tried to banish the image of Shiro walking away from him, abandoning him like everyone else. He was being selfish trying to find out about where he’d come from in the middle of a war and had paid the price with an answer he never wanted. He clenched his fists and squared his shoulders, almost daring Shiro to echo the same fears that wound themselves around his thoughts. “Go ahead, say you think I’m one of them too! I wouldn’t blame you.”
Shiro sighed and sat on the edge of Keith’s bed looking tired. The last few weeks had taken their toll on him and it was written into his face, but he still managed to give Keith the same, familiar weary smile that set Keith’s heart racing all the way back in their Garrison days. “I don’t really see how this changes anything.”
“I’m a threat.” Keith said, even if part of him admitted it was just to be stubborn, but the way Shiro looked at him made the knot in his chest settle.
“Yes, you are. To the Galra.” Shiro spoke like it was the most natural thing in the world, and Keith could feel his knees go weak. He couldn’t seem to stop himself, taking an uneasy step forward, then another, until Shiro scooted over, giving him room on a cot that seemed too small. Their knees knocked as Keith fell, but Shiro didn’t seem to mind. Keith hunched over, his elbows on his knees. He laughed, but it was a bitter, tired sound.
“How can you trust me? How do you make it sound so easy?”
“Because you’re you.” Then there was a hand on his shoulder, gently coaxing him closer, and all Keith wanted to do was fall into Shiro’s orbit. Just for a little while. He didn’t want to be the only one holding himself up. “Because you decided who you were, and it’s been the same person you’ve always been. A hero.”
Keith wanted to disagree, opened his mouth to try, but Shiro shook his head like he expected it. Sometimes it fell like Shiro knew everything about him. Yet he was still here. The red paladin swallowed thickly and slowly undid his gauntlets, removing his armor literally as well as figuratively. “Is it wrong that I don’t regret it?” He asked softly. “I don’t like that they’re scared of me, but I don’t regret knowing. I don’t have much left of them. My family. I just thought… This is something. It’s still something.”
“You don’t have to feel bad about that. I saw what you did out there today Keith, you faced overwhelming odds and you found a way to win, even when it looked impossible. You were ready to give up on what you wanted most to save other people. And at the end of it all, you have at least a few answers. It’s a start, something to go on.” He pulled Keith closer and the younger man let him, falling willingly against Shiro and running his hands over the black paladin’s shoulder armor.
“Then why does it all still hurt?” Finding a place to belong had been the most important thing in his life and all it did was lose him the only family he’d ever really known. That’s what they were, family. It was so much more than a team. Hunk, Pidge, Allura, Coran, even Lance. He’d let himself care about them like an idiot, and had gotten hurt like always.
“It’ll pass, just give them time. It’s a shock for everyone, but they’ll come around eventually. Then will, you have to believe me.”
Keith wanted to more than anything, but whenever he closed his eyes, all he could see was the look on their faces when he told them. “You don’t think I’m a monster, right?” The question slipped out and his face burned with shame. He’d watched Shiro walk away from him once today already and it had almost broken him. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to do it again.
Shiro pulled his armor off, setting it carefully on the floor before holding out his hand to Keith. The metal gleamed dully in the light overhead. “Things happen to us sometimes we don’t get to choose. What you can choose is what you do with it.”
Keith took it without hesitation, twining their fingers together with an insistence that left a statement, his brow furrowing. Shiro laughed, and Keith could feel the way his chest rumbled with it. He found himself slipping his other arm around Shiro’s waist, left emboldened by daring and temptation because nothing felt as steady as having Shiro close. He didn’t expect Shiro to go quiet, and when he looked up, his friend was watching him with hooded eyes.
“Keith, I… I saw what they made you see. The hallucinations. I want you to know that I’d support you. No matter what you chose, I’d support you. I trust your judgement, Keith, and I trust you. You’re my best friend. You have been for years. I wouldn’t leave you, no matter what.”
Keith tensed, but only for a second. It was scary to think about. He knew what Shiro meant to him. He know how important Shiro was. Every time his life threatened to fall apart, Shiro was there, with his easy smile and steady strength, to hold him together in more ways than one. Keith had to come to rely on it, and when he’d disappeared after Kerberos, everything nearly stopped for good. Now that he had him, Keith wasn’t sure what he would ever do if he lost him. But Shiro took his silence as dismissal, a soft smile crossing his features, soft and sad, and he made to pull away.
Keith couldn’t let that happen.
“Stay.”
“Are you sure?”
Keith looked down at their hands, shoulders hunched from the weight of what he’d become and nodded. “I just need something to feel human again, right now.”
Without a word, Shiro pulled off the rest of his armor and wrapped his arms around Keith. The younger man settled against him as if he’d been made for that space, bodies fitting together like the missing piece of a puzzle. Shiro was warm, his heart beat strong as Keith buried his face into his friend’s chest and let the other man’s arms tighten around him to keep out the rest of the world.
This was safe.
“I wanted to tell you before now, but we never really had a chance.” He said, voice muffled against Shiro. “It always seems like we’re running for our lives or fighting. There wasn’t a chance to just…be.”
“I know. I wish there was-, I wish we had some peace.” Shiro said carefully.
“No, I-I mean, you and me. I meant what I said before, I wouldn’t had made it so far without you. You’re the reason that I’ve been able to keep going, at the Garrison and here.”
“Keith-“
“You’re like a brother to me, Shiro. You’re my family, my home. I’ve never really had anyone like that before. I always thought I was doing this alone and that my family was long gone, I didn’t know you could choose the people you love. So I do. I, I love you.” He swallowed hard, twisting in Shiro’s arms so he could look at him and cup his hands gently around the other man’s face. “I love you.”
His thumb brushed across the curve of Shiro’s mouth, soft against his fingertips. It was more than Keith had ever done before, and it set his pulse racing. Then Shiro rested his palm over Keith’s, and Keith’s entire body tensed as Shiro leaned forward, their foreheads touching. Keith could feel his breath fanning across his lower lip.
“Do you mean it?” Shiro asked, soft like he had been with the setting sun painting across his cheek, his eyes distant and feverish with pain, but Keith didn’t think he was in pain now. “Please say you do.”
And if there was one thing Keith could never do, it was back down from a challenge.
He closed the distance between him with his heart in his hands and his breath caught in his throat, and Shiro - Shiro caught him halfway. It was clumsy and inexperienced, eager and scared all at once, but Keith melted against him. Shiro wouldn’t let him go.
Keith let out an embarrassing noise as they pulled away, his hand going to his mouth like he couldn’t believe the way his skin prickled, but Shiro was smiling. It was a smile that was only meant for Keith, lopsided and pretty, and Keith found he liked it that way.
“Meant it.” He grumbled, mouth too dry, the taste of Shiro’s tongue still leaving him dizzy. “I’ll always mean it.”
Keith didn’t how he slept that night, when it felt like he was being torn apart from the inside out, flushed with heat and prickling with nerves in the best possible way. But it didn’t feel like he needed to run anymore. For the first time in a long time, it felt like he’d come home.