Chapter Text
PART I: No Rest For the Wicked
I. NOW:
Darkness.
It fills the totality of your vision, a black so dark that for a moment you’re sure you must still be sleeping. Must still be dreaming, of a cold, eternal void. Must still not exist? You’re not sure if you do. Perhaps Takashi Shirogane has never existed, as it were. Takashi Shirogane is only an idea. A bodiless, limitless, impotent phantom, without form or matter, drifting in the void of space. Yes, you must be some kind of sci-fi quantum ghost. That would explain why it’s so dark.
The realization that you need to breathe puts a kibosh on this theory with disappointing finality. It’s an undeniable burn through your chest, and the logic solidifies in the fire. You need to breathe, so you must have a living body. You have a living body; ergo, you must be alive.
Jesus Christ, you really need to breathe. Like, right now.
Drawing in air is like trying to expand your lungs under a ton of dirt and inside a coffin because - because that is where you are, you realize, with a horrifying certainty. You were dying bloody and scared, with Keith’s agonized face hanging above you, and then you died, and Keith must have buried you.
Keith buried you.
That thought alone is enough to send you hurtling into action. You can’t be trapped down here a moment longer; Keith needs you. Keith is somewhere up on the surface of the world, alone. You claw at the wood above you, beat your fists and forearms into the frame until the lid cracks and bitter, arid soil floods into your mouth, your nose, your eyes, almost smothering you again. Claw at the wood as it splinters apart, tearing your nails ragged, digging yourself upward with aching shoulders and leaden arms in an uphill battle that you have no hope of winning, as exhausted and trapped as you are, but giving one last push as your fingers break through into empty space -
- and a hand clasps your own. Slim fingers wrap around your palm, and by the will of an unseen strength you are hauled into the land of the living. You burst through the soil and into the clean night air, into the arms of Keith. Because of course it’s Keith who fished you out of the dark, who holds you cradled like a newborn, and who will never let you go. Of course.
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he mutters. And he does. He always will. You trust in this, more than you trust gravity. More than you will ever trust yourself. Keith will always come for you, and he will always save you, no matter what.
You try to tell him this, to assuage his own overflowing fears. But your vocal chords are parched with disuse, flooded with graveyard dirt. You wheeze. Keith fusses.
“That’s it, that’s it. Easy does it.” He brushes your forelock back from your face, wiping grime from around your eyes. At his gentle ministrations, clumps of dirt break off from you, pattering to the ground in a soft rain. He’s purifying you, sanctifying you, making you clean, muddying his hands and clothing with your filth. Your darkness is going to stain him through. With what strength you have left, you try to push him away.
“Stop,” you croak.
Keith is unimpressed. He easily evades your attempts at disentanglement. He doesn’t understand. You huff in frustration, and - Jesus, are your eyes watering?
It’s the dust, you try to say. What comes out, is: “D’ Dust.”
“Yeah,” Keith says, “you’re pretty dusty, even for an old-timer. But tell you what, I got a tub back at the motel. We get you there, we’ll get you straightened out.”
That sounds good. Scratch that, that sounds amazing. You nod along to the sound of Keith’s voice, body gone limp, already forgetting why you were fighting him in the first place. It’s probably for the best. Fighting with Keith never goes well because you taught him all you know - and because he never fights fair.
Somehow, despite being half your height and bulk, he hauls you to the car. The passenger seat is a surreal heaven that envelops you, even as dirt creases into the leather. “Oh, baby,” you say mournfully. It’s the best apology you’re capable of right now. But Keith understands; of course he does.
“Don’t worry,” he says, as your eyes flutter with fatigue, “I’ll take care of the mess.” He reaches over to pat the glove compartment. “I’ve still got the polish, too.”
You smile. That’s your boy, cleaning up after you, taking on your failures as his own. All this time, and he still hasn’t changed. Goddamn him. How you wish that he would. In just this one small thing, that’s all you ask. What you wouldn’t give…
Somewhere along the road to the motel, you must fall asleep, because your memory ends and the world goes dark. Your sleep is empty and featureless, like death, like hell. It will be years before you sleep so peacefully again.
***
When you wake up, everything in your body hurts, and that’s how you’re sure that you’re alive. You crane your neck to take in the room and find that shitty motel rooms haven’t evolved much in whatever time you’ve missed, which is a small yet nauseating comfort. The man in the room with you, on the other hand - you don’t know where to begin.
Keith is sitting on the end of the other twin bed, his colt disassembled in front of him. He cleans it with a methodicalness that borders on obsession, but you know how much the piece means to him. It was a gift, you remember, after his third real hunt. A custom M1911A1, with silver engraving down the barrel. The gun had been yours for years, and it showed, in the slight chips along it’s gold-ivory grip, but when you handed it over to Keith he took it with such a reverence that you felt immediately unworthy of his gratitude. A gratitude that persists, even now, in the way he reassembles the components with such care. A shotgun lays on the bed to his left, well within easy reach. He was keeping watch while you slept. Even at rest, Keith is always dangerous.
He doesn’t look older - not like he did when he came hurtling back into your life last year, like a comet slung out of orbit. Still that same lithe wiriness, still that same hidden strength and too youthful face. Eyes too big and open for a boy who’s seen what he’s seen, done what he’s done. He looks like a civilian, with his long braid and sharp bangs shading his eyes. But you can see he’s retained the extra muscle and height that he put on in the years you were apart. The only thing that’s changed, really, since you were last alive - well, there it is, simple as.
The man before you holds your death in his posture, in his composure. Down to his very bones. The light in his eyes, permanently dimmed, because he watched your light go out. Yet another thing you’ll have to answer for, in this new lease on life. You take a moment, behind the darkness of your lids, to make peace with the image of the boy who’s trust you betrayed. Then open your eyes again, ready to meet the man you created.
You sigh, so as not to startle him. Slowly ease yourself up into a siting position. Large flakes of caked-on dirt fall off of your bare forearms and onto the comforter.
“I guess we never made it to that bath,” you say with a grimace.
Keith snorts, despite himself. “You fell asleep. I didn’t want to drown you.” He’s put down the colt and is watching you with an intensity that unnerves you, but which you probably deserve.
“You could’ve woken me up,” you suggest lightly.
All at once, his face falls, hardened mask cracking into a thousand jagged shards.
“Of - of course, you’re right. I’m sorry, I didn’t-” He’s flustered, almost panicked. Your brain is slow on the uptake, and all too late, you realize that he must think you were dreaming.
“It’s alright,” you say, a hand up to placate him. “No harm, no foul.”
Keith still looks terribly guilty; as though he left you to be tormented by nightmares on purpose. Never mind the fact that you slept like a baby; Keith would see it as bad form if he failed to protect you from the same monster that has haunted him for years. You were always there to wake him up, to hold him, when the nightmares burned through his mind - and in that, at least, you never failed him.
“It’s alright, really,” you try again. “No dreams in sight. I slept like the dead.” Then cringe at your own stupidity.
Keith flinches, but recovers fast, letting out a shaky laugh that’s clearly forced. But the guilt never quite leaves his features. If anything, he looks more burdened with it then you’ve ever seen him before - and that includes when he desperately held you as you died.
So what else, you wonder, does he have reason to feel so guilty for? A thought is occurring to you, a terrible suspicion that is slowly simmering your blood into a high boil.
“So,” you say, “How long?”
“Uh, sorry?”
“How long was I gone?” you clarify.
“Oh. Three days to a year.”
You let out a long whistle. “Damn. Nearly had a real unique anniversary there, didn’t I?”
The scowl returns. “That’s not funny, Shiro.”
“I’m the one who went to hell,” you point out, “I’m pretty sure I’m allowed to make jokes about it if I want to.”
Predictably, Keith blows his top.
“You think this is a joke? You think you going to hell is all a big laugh?”
“No, no, I really don’t,” you say. “But you know what really does cracks me up? The fact that I am, somehow, alive once more, sprung from hell, walking the earth a free man! I really find that fucking hilarious, Keith.”
The fury has left his face. He’s unguarded, now, eyes wide. “I don’t see how that’s funny.”
“I bet you don’t,” you say, “I’ll ask you one more time, Keith: how long? How long do you have?”
“What?” Keith looks scandalized. “Shiro, do you think I made a deal to get you out of hell?”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
Keith’s face goes through a series of contortions, emotions running the gauntlet from sorrow to shame, before settling on fiery indignation.
“Well, I didn’t,” he snaps, “but I tried, alright? Early on, I tried. I went to every demon I could find, I stopped at every crossroad. No one would deal. And then, eventually - I stopped trying, but only because I saw you, Shiro. Visions of you, in the future, alive. I saw you crawl out of your grave.”
He says it so imploringly; he’s trying to ask for your forgiveness, you realize, for not making a deal, for not sacrificing himself on the altar of his devotion. In that, at least, there’s nothing to forgive.
“You saw me in a vision.” You test the idea out, see how it feels on your tongue. It’s more than plausible. Keith latches onto your tentative acceptance with renewed vigor.
“Why do you think I’m here, Shiro? Why do you think I was standing over your grave the very moment you crawled out?”
You sigh, scrub a filthy hand through your hair and pinch the bridge of your nose. You’ve been alive again for less than twenty-four hours and already it feels like the weight of the world rests on your shoulders.
“Promise me you’re telling me the truth?” you beg. “You didn’t make a deal?”
Keith gives you a single, solemn nod. “I promise, I didn’t make a demon deal to get you out of hell.”
He stands so straight, lionhearted and noble. You always thought that, in another far-flung age, Keith would make a good knight, or a paladin. He’s honorable, loyal to a fault - and he never lies.
You choose to believe him. It’s the easy choice, but also the inevitable one. Trusting Keith is like gravity.
“Okay, good,” you say, “I’ll take you on your word.”
Standing is an awkward affair, mainly because you haven’t held your own weight up in almost a year. But you manage, taking shaky, careful steps as Keith pretends not to watch your progress.
“I’m going to take a shower,” you tell him over your shoulder, pausing as your draw your shirt over your head. “Oh, and Keith-” He looks up at you through dark, wild bangs.
“- I’m proud of you,” you tell him.
Keith beams. It’s a quiet expression, downright stoic on anyone else. But you know your boy. How little it takes, you wonder, to make him happy. And how much of that is your fault.
***
When you get out of the shower, you look and feel human again. You’ve also had time to take stock of your situation - and from all angles, you’re fucked.
As expected, Keith is standing just outside the bathroom door, arms crossed tight over his chest.
“You know, I’m the one who should be angry,” he says in a quiet voice, giving you no time to recover. “You’re the one who lied. You’re the one who died.”
That you did. A more thorough reckoning is headed your way for that, you’re sure, but you need to stave it off for now. Keep Keith focused on the current danger.
“You’re right,” you say, “you’re right, and I’m sorry. But you need to understand how this looks to me, Keith. I’m - scared for you.”
“There’s no reason to be,” Keith argues, “I promised, and you believed me. Right?”
Right.
“Of course,” you say, “but that doesn’t mean you’re not still in danger.”
“How so?”
You throw your arms out. “Look at me,” you say, “I’m back. And it takes some serious mojo to swing that kind of transaction. Whoever did this, they can’t be a two-bit player.”
“You think someone else made a deal for you?”
“Maybe. Or maybe this is a side-effect, of something bigger going on in the area,” you suggest, “a ritual gone wrong.”
Keith eyes you up and down. “Gone right, more like it,” he says. “Look at yourself, Shiro. You’re not a zombie. You’re not a revenant. This isn’t some run-of-the-mill, botched resurrection spell. You’ve never looked better.”
He’s right. You took some time in the bathroom to look yourself over, and there’s not a cut or bruise on you that you didn’t get crawling your way out of your coffin. Not even an old scar. In fact - you scan your pale, unblemished forearms again.
“Did you even test me while I was sleeping?” you demand. “Silver knife? Holy water? Anything?”
Keith sniffs, clearly affronted. “I didn’t have to. I knew it was you.”
“With your super psychic power.”
“I just know,” Keith insists.
Wonderful.
“Well, now that I’m awake, we might as well get it over with,” you say. Keith grimaces. “Please. For my own peace of mind,” you add.
He takes his time about it, but Keith finally produces a flask of holy water. You brace yourself, and take a swig.
No sizzle, no burn. Nothing but cool, clean refreshment. That’s a relief, at least.
“Knife,” you say.
Keith hands over a silver dagger, slapping the leather handle into your open palm. With a steady hand, you add your first new scar to the stark, alien flesh of your forearm. Hurts like a motherfucker, but the pain is as human as can be.
“Are you done mutilating yourself?” Keith asks.
“Were there any demonic omens? Signs?” you press. “Anything going on around here that looked like trouble?”
“Nothing, I swear,” Keith says, “only - well, there was your grave.”
And yes, grave. Not a bonfire, but a grave site. You put a pin in that for now - you can only have one argument at a time.
“What about my grave?”
“All the trees were flattened,” Keith tells you. “Like a blast zone, and your grave was ground zero. It was already like that when I drove up. You didn’t notice?”
“I had other things on my mind,” you admit. Mostly the breathing process.
But goddamn - this is bad. You scan the room, note that Keith’s packed light, which is good. The faster you get the hell out of dodge, the better.
“Clothes?”
“Here.” Keith reaches into his duffle, tosses you a bundle of familiar fabric. You drop your towel and shimmy into boxers and a pair of jeans, all the while wondering how long Keith carried them around in his own bag, just in case.
“We need to go,” you say, as you pull on a new shirt. “Before we get back into a fight we can’t win.”
“You think someone’s coming after us?”
“No one just waltzes out of hell, Keith,” you say, “Not without a very fucking good reason. We need answers. And we need to make sure that whatever pulled me out of the pit doesn’t suddenly change it’s mind.” Or worse yet, demand a price for your life that you aren’t willing to pay.
“Are you alright to move out?” Keith asks, as he hands you your jacket. Shrugging on the old leather feels like putting on a second skin, settling you further into this new, unnaturally perfect body.
“Actually, I feel great,” you admit. “Never better.”
Keith reaches out to help straighten the lines of your lapels.
“It’s going to be alright,” he says. “I’ve got you back now. We’ll figure out who did this, together. And no matter what, you won’t go back to hell. I promise you that.”
“I know, Keith,” you say, grasping him by the shoulders. “I know.” His devotion has never been in doubt, after all - only his self-preservation. You fold him into a hug, and he goes easily, more than willing to fall.
“It’s good to have you back,” he says, into the fabric of your jacket.
When it comes to Keith, you will always be a greedy man. So you secure your hold, and crush him into the divot of your shoulder where you can hide him there forever. Press your lips into the crown of his hair.
“It’s good to be back,” you murmur.
***
II. THEN:
Here’s the truth: you’ve tried to teach Keith the rules, when it comes to the job. The rules are to keep him safe, after all. But how can you succeed, when you yourself are a hypocrite? You broke all of your own rules as soon as you laid eyes on him, a stranger by the side of the road with a long, sad face. Worst part is, you’ve never once regretted it.
Never stop to speak with anyone at a crossroads, unless you mean to kill them - that’s a rule you’ve carried for a long time. Crossroad demons are notorious for being wily, cunning creatures. It’s better not to let them get a word in edgewise, if you can help it. Never take on hitchhikers, either. Even a hunter can fall prey to a woman in white, or any other run-of-the-mill spectral roadside haunting. Common sense, for someone in your line of work.
Common sense is out the window on the late afternoon you find Keith at the crossroads. You pull over the Impala without a second thought. The passenger-side window is already rolled down as you idle to a stop by the dark, slight figure, a backpack thrown over his shoulder.
“Hey, buddy,” you call out, “need a ride?”
He turns to face you, and - Jesus, he’s just a kid. Not yet out of high school, by the looks of him. You’re caught off-kilter, unsure how to rescind your impromptu offer. If you even should. A scrawny kid like this one, with distrust and hunger carved plainly into every feature - he can’t be running away just for the hell of it.
“Uh, kid? You - need some help?”
He sidles up to the window, bending down to get a good look at you, then the interior of the Impala. Dark amethyst eyes scan you from head to toe. You feel judged, and seen, found wanting and wanted, all in the span of his perfunctory gaze.
“You know,” he says slowly, “I really do.”
The nakedness of his admission catches you off-guard. What can you say to that? What can you do, other then to open your arms, and let him into your life?
You summon up the brightest smile you can muster, and flash it at him, high enough to blind.
“Well, hop in, then,” you say.
He slinks into the shotgun like a wet cat coming in from the rain, closing the door carefully behind him. The ratty black backpack gets tucked between his legs. But once he’s sat, you watch as he stretches out in the seat, a sliver of white skin peeking out from under his tee-shirt as he arches his spine, relaxing back into the leather. Oddly comfortable for being in a stranger’s car. You can’t help but wonder at the life circumstances that led to creating this skittish, foolhardy stray of a boy.
Said boy in question turns to you, and once again you are subjected to the alien power of his eyes.
“Thanks for the ride,” he says, “I’m Keith.”
“Shiro,” you say, and you reach out to take his hand. He clasps it, giving a quick, firm shake.
“So,” you say, as you pull back onto the road, “where you headed?”
“Arizona.”
“You got a long way to go, kid. What’s in Arizona?”
“The future, I guess.”
Enigmatic, you think. You wait for a clarification.
He doesn’t clarify.
After that, you lapse into silence. Not an uncomfortable silence, thank god - almost a companionable one, actually, with your hitchhiker content to watch the scenery fly by his window. When you turn up the stereo, until David Bowie’s greatest hits reverberate through the metal frame, Keith hums along quietly to every song. His voice holds a strangely soothing gravel, so much deeper than his face would have you believe. You catch yourself looking at him from out of the corner of your eye. Drinking in the dark, shaggy hair, the large, soulful eyes framed by a thin, angular face.
The humming stops. Keith clears his throat. You realize you’ve been caught in turn, and quickly look away. Your passenger doesn’t comment on your lapse in hospitality, although the corner of his lip quirks up slightly.
“Nice car you got,” he says eventually.
“Thanks.”
“Chevy Impala, right? 1967?”
You startle. “That’s right,” you say, “you have a good eye.”
Keith shrugs. “It’s a distinctive model. Beautiful, too.”
“That she is.” Absently, you caress the leather padding of the steering wheel. “Rebuilt her myself.”
Keith ducks his head, almost like he’s shy, hair obscuring his face, and mumbles something in return. You don’t catch what he said, but you don’t think too much of it. Just an awkward teenage boy, stuck in a car with a man so much older and larger than himself.
Later, however, you’ll wonder. Later, you’ll review that moment in your mind, and you’ll never be sure, but you’ll think that Keith ducks his head because he’s hiding an oddly nostalgic smile, and the muffled words he says are: “I know.”
***
The motel you pull into is par for the course - which means weak water, odd stains, and a vague, unshakable fear of bedbugs. The receptionist on-duty looks bored, and then she sees you crossing the lobby and looks much less bored. Lean against the counter, bare forearms bracing your weight. Flash her a shit-eating smile - go on, make her day. But when you ask about bus stations, she frowns sympathetically.
“Sorry, hon,” she says. “But we don’t got one. You’ll have to try two towns over, in Louisville - but they don’t keep their schedules regular.”
“Well, thanks anyway,” you say, “We’ll take a room for the night, then. Two queens, please.”
You don’t sleep much that night. Not because you’re not tired, but because a nasty little voice in your head keeps telling you that if you close your eyes for too long, you might wake up to find Keith gone, and your car along with him. But towards 5 AM you must drift off, because you’re awoken to the sound of keys rattling the lock, then the door swinging open and slamming into the wall.
You’ve already drawn your gun out from under your pillow and are taking aim at the figure in the doorway by the time you realize it’s Keith. He blinks back at you, foot frozen in the air, keys dangling from one hand and two coffee cups stacked precariously in the other.
Quickly, you lower your weapon.
“Sorry. You startled me.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“…come on in?” you offer weakly.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
But Keith lets out a bark of laughter. It’s a good-natured sound, there and gone again, but genuine. Entirety too genuine, you think, for what just transpired. Really, Keith should be running for the hills at this point. Forget about you - what the fuck is wrong with him?
“You always greet people like that in the morning?”
“I travel a lot,” you find yourself saying, “Life on the road can be dangerous. Better to be prepared, just in case. You know?” Jesus, shut the fuck up.
Keith seems to think your rambling is amusing, at least; his eyes are bright, crinkling with mirth around the edges.
“Hey, no sweat,” he assures you, “it’s my fault, honestly. Should’ve seen that coming.”
You’re not sure how he’s worked that out in his brain, but aren’t about to question it. You attempt to look as meek and unassuming as possible as Keith approaches you, extending a cardboard cup like an olive branch.
“Coffee, no cream.”
“Thanks.” You take the proffered cup from him. “I don’t suppose you have extra sugar?”
Keith shakes his head. “You won’t need it.”
Doubtful. You need at least five to make it palatable. You take a swig anyway, to mend the tension, and-
“Oh.” It is sweet. Very sweet. Almost like it has seven sugars already, your ideal number of packets.
Keith smirks at you.
You watch him over the lip of the cup as you sip your coffee. He’s already been up for a while, clearly, clothing neat and unrumpled, ready to go at a moments notice. Surreptitiously, you check the time on your phone, and Jesus - it’s 7AM, and this kid’s already putting you to shame.
“I thought teenagers liked sleeping in,” you comment.
Keith shrugs. “I don’t sleep so good. Nightmares.”
“Ah.” What about, you almost ask, but good sense kicks in before you can make an ass of yourself.
Instead, you say, “I get nightmares, too, sometimes.”
This seems to perk his interest; his eyes snap up to drive directly into yours. “What about?” he asks.
“My, uh - my job.”
“Oh. What do you do for a living?”
“…I’m a professional poker player.”
Keith raises an eyebrow. “A professional poker player,” he echoes.
Your face is burning. “That’s right,” you say.
“You have nightmares about - playing poker?”
Fuck.
You jump up from the bed. “You know what, we better get on the road, get you to that bus stop,” you say. “Daylight’s a’burning.” Make sure to tuck your piece securely into your waistband. When you turn back to Keith, it’s to find him regarding you so intently that it looks like he’s seeing right through you, eyes gazing into the abyss, or another universe.
“Hey, Spitfire.” You snap your finger. “Can you be ready to go in five?”
That gets his attention. Keith blinks up at you, and then an easy grin unspools across his face. “Ready in three,” he counters.
You clear out in record time, but you always do your best to leave your shitty motel rooms in a slightly less shittier state than when you entered them. The beds get stripped, the lights turned off, the garbage bag tied up and left at the entrance. You breeze through the door, duffle slug over your shoulder, Keith tripping on your heels just behind.
As you’re struggling to lock the door: “It’d be okay if you just said you were a hit-man,” Keith whispers confidentially, “I wouldn’t mind.”
The good thing about having excellent reflexes is that, when you fumble and almost drop your keys, nobody notices.
“I’m hungry!” you announce, as loudly as possible. “Hey kid, you hungry? Let’s swing by a diner on the way, my treat.”
“I’m not a kid,” your little sidekick mutters, but he follows after you anyway, like a duckling on it’s mother’s tail, right into the Impala, and onto the open road.
***
The diner menus are greasy under your fingertips. This means the food will be amazing. It also means you’ll need to take two Tums, later. You don’t tell Keith that.
You do tell him: “Get whatever you want. Like I said, it’s on me.”
It’s a hard choice, but you settle on the double stacked Banana’s Foster pancakes. Keith orders a side of bacon, and nothing else.
“Oh, come on,” you say, “live a little.”
He ducks his head, refusing to make eye contact with either you or the waitress.
“I’m not too hungry,” he mumbles.
You turn to Stephanie the waitress, smile at the ready. “He’ll have a milkshake,” you tell her.
“Of course!” Stephanie returns your grin eagerly as she jots that down; when she turns back to Keith, her smile is gone, her tone noticeably shorter. “What flavor you want? We got vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, cookies n’ cream…” She lists them off in a bored voice.
Keith looks like a deer caught in the headlights, and at this mass times velocity the car will send him flying. You almost feel bad for pushing him out into the road. “Uh…chocolate?”
“Chocolate. What a surprise,” says Stephanie, who is becoming less attractive by the second, the more she talks to your boy like that.
“Add a side of fries to that, too - if it’s not too much trouble,” you slide in, as she’s starting to walk away. “Thanks, Stephanie. You’re a real peach.”
You can’t be sure, but you think she flips you the finger; all of your focus is taken up by Keith.
“Look, kid,” you say, “you’ve had a rough time lately, I can tell. And sometimes, when people say they’re gonna help you out, their help comes with strings attached. I get that. But what I’m offering - a ride, some food - I don’t expect anything from you in return. I don’t expect you to pay me back, okay? So you can have whatever you want. Take it with both hands open. Be greedy with it. Alright?”
Keith slumps further into the booth. He nods glumly. “I’m trying,” he says.
“Okay, good. And hey, you can have some of my pancakes,” you tell him. “They’re gonna be too big for one.”
They are. You eat in easy silence, passing cut up chunks of pancake between your plates, dripping syrup across the table. Stephanie glares at you from across the room. Keith slurps on his milkshake with all the finesse of a person who has never had a milkshake before in their life. And perhaps he hasn’t, you realize. Perhaps he needed help all his life, and turned those big, wide eyes on a thousand soulless adults, who let him down every step of the way, to the point that affording a milkshake and a scrap of kindness are a luxury. Or - perhaps he’s always lived by the roadside, spawned out of the mist and fully-grown, a circuit ghost at the crossroads, waiting since the dawn of time for you to pull up in your car and let him in.
“What’re you thinking about?” Keith asks you, between munches of bacon.
“Oh, just silly things,” you answer.
When it’s time to pay, you both walk up to the host’s station. You move to pull out your wallet, but Keith beats you to the punch, sliding in between you and register.
“Don’t worry,” he says, “I got it.” Then proceeds to plunk his backpack on the counter and pulls out a wad of fifty and hundred dollar bills. From what you can glimpse of the inside of his bag, what he’s currently counting in his hands is far from the end of it.
Christ - just when you think you’ve got him figured out. You keep an eye out on the rest of the patrons as Keith settles the bill, seemingly blissfully unaware of the several nakedly hungry stares that are being leveled his way. More egregiously than that, he leaves a 30% tip.
When he’s finished paying, you wrap an arm around his shoulder, taking a fistful of thin suede jacket, and shepherd him out the door
“What the hell was that?” you hiss, as you tow him into the parking lot.
“What?” Keith tries to shake off your grip; he succeeds because you let him go. “You paid for our room last night, you’ve given me a ride. This was the least I could do.”
“Yes, that was a very nice gesture,” you snap, “but you can’t flash that kind of money in a place like this.” You gesture around to the rusted-out trucks, the flickering neon fast-food chain signs, the sad squat-houses that line either side of this barely habitable one-road town.
Keith lifts his chin, defiant in the face of common sense.
“Don’t worry about me,” he says, “I’m not defenseless. I can take care of myself” And then he opens his jacket to pull something out of the inner pocket -
“Is that a stiletto switchblade?” you ask, in something approaching stupefied awe.
Keith shrugs, before slipping the knife back out of view. “Usually,” he says.
You choose not to respond to that because you’re not even sure what that means. Pinching the bridge of your nose does nothing to quell the rising nausea. You’ll need those Tums faster than you thought.
“…get in the car,” you say.
“Yes sir.” There’s not an ounce of sarcasm in Keith’s voice as he scrambles to obey you.
He can take orders, at least, you note. A tiny, treacherous part you whispers: you can make something of him yet.
***
The bus stop is…what you expected.
Two or three weathered men loiter nearby the ticket building. Under the awning, a woman is sprawled out on the ground half-asleep, her head nodding down then jerking up again, again, again. You watch all of them carefully, especially when a shorter, slender figure slips out of the ticketing office and hurries over to the Impala.
Keith comes back up to your window as you idle by the curb, hanging his head through the window.
“Next Greyhound doesn’t get in for another seven hours,” he tells you.
“There’s nothing sooner?”
Keith shakes his head. “A Beiber Bus, but it’s going back out East.”
You nod, thinking everything through. Then you reach over, push open the passenger door.
“Hop inside for a second,” you say.
Keith slides in like a shadow, cut from the wrong cloth and afraid of taking up too much space. He shuts the door behind him, and without thinking, you flip the locks.
You came here to go your separate ways. Now though, confronted with the reality, you hate the idea of dropping Keith off to wait at this bus stop for hours on end in Po Dunk Nowhere, surrounded by the tweaking, the destitute, or both. Keith is scrappy, but he’s scrawny, too. Street-smart, but not wise. He’s a kitten with his claws out, and the world is just waiting to toss a bag over his head and throw him in the river. You have a sudden premonition that, if you leave him here, you will forever be looking backwards through your rear-view mirror, and cursing yourself for it.
You take in a deep breath. Fuck it. What’s the worst that could happen?
“Hey, kid,” you say, “I was thinking - why don’t you stay on with me a little longer? Just until we find a better place to drop you off?”
Big purple eyes lock onto yours; Keith looks desperately hopeful. “You’re okay with me tagging along?”
“I wouldn’t offer if I wasn’t,” you answer honestly. “So, wanna try it out? Unless you don’t want to be bogged down by an old-timer like me?” you add, with a grin.
“No! No, I’d - really appreciate it,” Keith says fervently. And then, small and quiet, almost like a secret: “I hoped you’d ask.”
I hoped you’d say yes. You keep this unsaid. Almost like a secret, too.
***
And the thing is - traveling with Keith is easy, you find. Not just easy, but actively useful, too. It quickly becomes clear to you how Keith has been bankrolling his backpack fund - he is, hands-down, the best pool shark you have ever met. Witnessing him in action is a thing of beauty, and frankly, a privilege to behold. Night after night you watch him work, how he approaches the game table and the broader, older men with the perfect mix of wide-eyed naivete and brash youth. How coltish all of his strikes seem in the beginning. How fluid and premeditated they are by the end. The only part he sometimes has difficulty pulling off is the getaway, especially if his marks are large and drunk - but that’s where you come in now, to play protector, easily stepping in front of Keith to diffuse the situation.
You also discover that, not only can your new travel companion earn his keep and more some - but he can cook. This alone would justify almost any inconvenience on your part, because you have been living off of hamburgers and instant Raman for what feels like years now. And while Keith certainly cannot be called a master chef by any stretch of the imagination, he’s worlds better than you, and a hundred times more creative. You eat hearty, easy to prepare meals like oyakodon and zosui - dishes you haven’t had since your mother died - and a thick stew Keith makes from canned corn that he calls neeshjìzhii. You call it fucking amazing.
But the best part by far is that Keith never questions where you go at night. He never asks why you often leave the motel room after midnight wearing all darks, shovel in hand, or why you need to visit different homes and businesses during the daytime, dressed in your only good suit. He never asks you why he isn’t allowed in the trunk. If he has theories - active hits, perhaps - he never voices them. He never questions you. He doesn’t even try to sneak after you on your excursions. For all intents and purposes, your life with Keith and your work as a hunter are kept totally separate - intersecting only very briefly, sometimes, in the early hours of dawn, when you come limping back bloody and semi-concussed, and Keith will sit next to you on the grimy bathroom tile with gauze in hand, a needle in the other -
Keith doesn’t ask. You don’t tell.
What you’re trying to say, is that you never intended for Keith to be a Hunter. You never intended for Keith to be your partner, or your protege, or even in your life beyond the next bus stop. But when town rolls over into town, motel into motel, state into state as you pick up new cases, new trails, new leads - Keith follows wherever you go, a steady presence by your side, as though he was always meant to be there, and always will.
***
III. NOW:
Early dawn, sunrise already lighting fire to the horizon, in the parking lot of the Super 8 Motel. You expect a battle for driving rights. But when you get to the Impala, Keith tosses you the keys as easy as anything. No bitterness, no resentment; in fact, when you both slide into the cockpit, and Keith sinks into shotgun, he looks more at peace than you’ve seen in recent memory. Like he’s meant to be at your right hand. The years melt off his face, the worries and stresses that you know with a stomach-sick guilt must be your fault. But then his eyes meet yours, and you feel immediate absolution by the grace you find there - even if it is undeserved.
“Are you alright?”
“Never better,” you reply. You start the ignition, and your baby purrs to life under you. God, but that’s a beautiful sound. You give the steering wheel an appreciative squeeze.
“Christ, it feels good to be back,” you say. Then look over at Keith, who’s still regarding you oh so seriously.
“Back in Black.” You waggle your eyebrows aggressively; a chink forms in Keith’s armor, a hairline crack threatening to turn into an answering smile. As it is, a flicker of amusement dances in his eyes.
“So, what’s your plan, Captain?”
“Get the hell away from here, for one thing,” you say. “I’m not stopping until we’re at least five towns over. Then, try to figure out what the fuck is going on. Stamp the pavement, if we have to.”
Stamp the pavement is a euphemism for finding a demon and torturing it until it spills it’s guts. Not your favorite method of intel reconnaissance, but desperate times, etc.
Keith shares your dislike. His face twists into a grimace at the mention of it.
“Last time we tried that, it didn’t work out,” he reminds you.
“Last time we tried, we didn’t have enough time. If you remember, I was on a tight deadline.”
“If I - of course I fucking remember, Shiro! Jesus Christ,” Keith curses under his breath, before turning those baleful eyes back onto you full-force. “And don’t say it like that,” he hisses. “Tight deadline? For Christ’s sake, Shiro, you fucking died!”
“I remember; I was there,” you say stiffly.
“Oh, good. So you also remember the part where you lied to me about the deal you made?”
“I wouldn’t say-”
“-For three years?”
And - okay. When put that way, it doesn’t sound good. You sound like the bad guy. But you had reasons, alright? Good reasons, that even Keith’s not privy to, because Keith doesn’t always know as much as he thinks he does.
You take a deep breath in, hold for five before exhaling long through your nose. Then summon up the most neutral tone you can.
“I wanted to keep you in the dark,” you say slowly, “because I thought you would be safest that way.”
“That is the stupidest fucking excuse I have ever heard,” Keith tells you, point blank.
“Oh, really? So you can tell me with one-hundred percent honesty that, if you’d known about my deal, you wouldn’t have tried to make a deal yourself? Or - or done something even worse?”
Keith shuts up real fast, so at least you know he isn’t lying. But his silence fills you with an old, familiar dread. What wouldn’t he do, a little voice whispers in the back of your mind, to save you from yourself? What lines wouldn’t he cross?
A hurt sound punches out of Keith, and you realize that little voice wasn’t as quiet as you thought.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” you say instinctively, although you’re not sure how else you could have meant it. Keith scoffs.
“Well, I guess I’ve finally found a line I won’t cross,” he says, “I won’t interrogate demons anymore, not for anything. Not even for you.”
Hypocrite that you are, a jolt of hurt and jealousy surges through you at his declaration.
“I’ve been dead a year, and you develop sympathy for the devil?”
Keith levels you with a cool, resolute look.
“I won’t do it anymore, Shiro. Not when there’s a person trapped inside. I hate that I ever did it to begin with.” At your questioning glance: “Possession is torture enough,” Keith explains, “It’s - a mockery of the gift of free will.”
He says it so evenly, like such a conscientious little adult. And he is an adult, of course he is. But the cadence is odd, unnatural, like he’s quoting someone else. You’ve missed something, you realize. It’s been a year, and Keith has grown up, changed, in a way you can’t fully quantify. Keith is his own man now - with or without you.
That thought is enough to set you on fire.
“…alright,” you say, “we’ll figure this out the old fashioned way. Noses to the ground. No one has to get hurt.”
Besides you, Keith sinks back into his seat, tension rolling off him as the fight takes leave, just as quickly as it came, replaced by an air of wistfulness. “That would be nice,” he agrees.
That would be nice. If it were true, that would be even better.
***
Dusk, fast approaching. You’re already scanning ahead for rest stops along the highway. Fuel up the car, take a leak, maybe grab some road food, and then Keith can take over for a few hours while you catch some shut eye. Resurrection is tiresome business, as it turns out.
“Why did you sell your soul, Shiro?”
You jolt forward in your seat, just manage to control Black’s sudden swerve.
“I thought you were sleeping,” you say.
“I try not to sleep anymore,” Keith replies breezily.
How reassuring.
“You’ll make yourself sick, doing that,” you say, “besides, I need you to keep sharp for me, Spitfire.”
“Don’t distract me,” Keith warns. “I want an answer, Shiro. A straight, honest one. I think I deserve that, at least.”
It guts you, sometimes, how little he’s willing to settle for.
“I needed the Colt,” you say, the simple answer. “You know that. Yellow-Eyes had us dead-to-rights.”
“We could’ve found another way,” Keith insists, “the calvary was coming for you, Shiro, we were almost there. Jesus, we must’ve gotten there just after you kissed the bitch.”
“…half an hour,” you admit, “give or take.”
Keith swears none too quietly under his breath, a long string of expletives.
“What did Lilith say to you?” he finally asks. “What did she do to sweeten the pot? Because you can’t expect me to believe that you threw your soul away for a magic gun we weren’t even sure would work.”
You’re branching into dangerous territory, now, virgin ground you hoped Keith would never set foot upon. You can’t lie to him, not completely. He’ll know, because he knows you, inside and out, better than you’ve ever known yourself.
But you can’t tell him the full truth, either.
“It wasn’t Lilith,” you admit. “Lilith just brokered the deal. It was Yellow-Eyes that convinced me I was making the right decision.”
You glance over to see Keith watching you, wide-eyed and looking half his age.
“What did he do?”
“…he made some threats I couldn’t abide,” you say.
“Shiro-”
“-and that’s all I’ll say on the topic, Keith,” you add, as firmly as you can.
“I just…” You hear him swallow with a painful click of his throat. “…I just wish you’d trusted me to help you,” he says, after a long, defeated pause.
You little fool, you think fondly, despairingly. How can he know so much, and understand so little?
You still remember the maniacal gleam in the demon’s eyes, glazed over in pale, antiqued ocher, as he’d walked with you, as he’d pinned you to the ground and threatened everything you cherished. You knew, then, that you would do anything to stop him. Finding a crossroads, summoning Lilith - those were actions you went through the motions of, as though you’d already done it a million times over, and always would, a mobius strip of cause and effect.
She’d given you the Colt. You’d killed the demon that took everything from you. You’d saved the only thing you had left.
And then you left him.
That was your first mistake. Just the thought of all that wasted time sours and roils in your gut. Those two years spent apart, trying to keep him safe, sacrificing your happiness on the altar of your savior complex when all you really wanted to do was take Keith, and Black, and drive for as fast and as long as you could. Squeeze every last drop of life out of the three years you were given. You should’ve never left Keith, you know that now.
You also should’ve never taken him back.
When he’d turned up on your doorstep, begging for help, you should’ve told him to keep on moving. Told him to get lost, to let you enjoy your retirement in peace. But, like an addict, time didn’t factor into your habit. One hit was all it took. You got in the car with Keith, and you spent your last year on the road once more; your second mistake.
Your third mistake was the worst - because you never told him. A year spent back in the saddle, with your partner by your side, and you kept your shame to yourself. There was a certain dignity, you thought, in laying down willingly in the bed you made. But you were arrogant; you had grossly overestimated your own fortitude. When the hounds began to bay for your blood, you understood by just how much.
You meant to die like a dog, tail tucked between you legs as you slunk from the den, from the pack, to die on your own terms, alone and far away. But you didn’t cover your tracks well enough, and Keith was trained by the best. He found you, barricaded in a motel room, shivering and shaking and a week out from damnation. When he broke down the door you almost had a heart attack right then: his face melted before your eyes, his eyes grew yellow and his teeth turned sharp. But you were in no state to fight him off, and he held you through the hallucination - and then, in your weakness, you broke down in his arms and confessed. Through hysterical sobs, you admitted what you’d done, three years ago, and how the price was finally coming due.
“How long?” he’d asked.
“Seven days,” you said, and watched as his world fell apart.
As long as you live, you will never forget the devastation you saw on his face. That memory alone is hell enough.
The days that followed were filled with blood, and taunting, and screaming, and that, too, is a memory that haunts you, of Keith becoming more and more desperate, riding them harder and harder, until you had to physically restrain him from drowning a man in a barrel of holy water. The bound, nameless man wretched, his skin steaming as he convulsed on the floor. He screamed like the water was acid, and you held Keith through it all, gripping his thin, shaking body to the bulk of your own.
“Stop,” you’d begged, “please, Keith, stop. I’m not worth your soul, too.”
That was the first time you’d ever seen Keith cry. Looking at him now, you think that might’ve also been the last.
There’s a new hardness to his features, carved into him over the last year without you. His face is set like flint, impenetrable in ways you don’t understand. You’ve lost his trust. You deserve it, of course. You deserve everything that’s coming to you.
Black drives on in darkness for several miles, sans conversation, while you both stew in the despair of words unsaid. But you can’t help yourself; you never can.
“So…you really didn’t see it coming?” you ask, as delicately as possible.
No response.
“Because there were times I thought you suspected,” you blurt out in a rush, “times where I was so close to telling you, to coming clean, when I couldn't face lying to you anymore, Keith - but then you’d say something, something - cryptic, and I thought you already knew, somehow. You knew, and you were letting me keep my silence.”
Keith’s eyes flash with an unholy fire. “If I’d had any clue beforehand, you wouldn’t have gone to hell,” he seethes. “I wouldn’t have let you.”
“I don’t think it works like that, Keith. Not even for us.”
“I would’ve found a way,” he insists. And then, so plaintive it breaks your heart, “…why didn’t you tell me, Shiro?”
You can’t look over at him; you know that if you do, you’ll be met with those big, pleading eyes that you’ve never developed a defense for.
“I was a coward,” you say, “I was afraid.” And the last, the worst: “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
Keith makes a wet, wounded sound.
“I was hurt,” he says.
Your eyes are burning. You blink, rapidly, to keep the road from swimming away.
“I know, buddy,” you say. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
Keith is silent for a long while.
“I can’t see everything, you know that.” He says it quietly, like it’s a personal failing. And it probably is, in his mind. “There are…gaps. Blind-spots. Especially when demons get involved. Some of the more powerful ones, like Azazel, or Lilith - it’s like they can hide from my sight. Or hide things from my sight,” he admits.
Even at the mention of either of their names, your stomach twists in on itself.
“What about now?” you ask, to distract yourself, and him.
“Huh?”
“You said you aren’t sleeping. What do you see now?”
Silence, as Keith chews on his lip. “Darkness,” he says at last, “and fire. Storms, and sickness, and - and just bad things, generally.”
“The world’s a terrible place,” you say, as evenly as you can, “it’s sad to say, but those things are a natural part of life, Keith.”
“I know,” Keith agrees hesitantly, “but there are other things, too. Things I don’t know how to explain. But - not everything I see comes to pass. You know that.”
Yes, you do. Or, you’ve taken Keith’s word for it.
“Alright,” you say, “you don’t like what you see. So change the future.”
Keith huffs. “Just like that, huh?”
“Just like that,” you say. “You've done it before. You can do it again. And hey, you got me back now, Spitfire. Between the two of us, there isn’t anything we can’t accomplish.”
A blatant lie on your part, but you said it to make him smile. And it works; you see the barest hint of one, small and furtive, play across his lips.
“Even if we were facing down the apocalypse?” he asks wryly.
An unexpected bark of laughter escapes you. “Sure. Why not,” you agree, “Us two against the end of time? I’d take those odds.” You reach out to clap a hand onto his shoulder.
“But seriously, Keith,” you pause, to make sure he knows that you mean every word, “I believe in your ability. I believe in you. If anyone can change the future, you can.”
The smile Keith gives you is full this time, soft and sad and filled with a tenderness that no one should deserve to be graced with, least of all yourself.
“I hope I already have,” he says.
***
Morning of the next day, in the comfort and safety of a roadside diner. Nothing bad has ever happened to you in a diner, you think. Of course, with your track record, that’s bound to change any day now. But for the time being, bask in the warm familiarity of this mom and pop shop that you have never been to before and will never go to again, indistinguishable from any other diner you and Keith have spent you hard-stolen cash in. Blessedly free of the hazards of your occupation, ghosts and demons and bloodshed and whatnot. More reliable than a church is, at any rate.
You should be tired from stealing a scant few hours of sleep, cramped up in the passenger side while Keith drove. Instead, you feel good. Great, even. You dig into the combination platter you ordered, drench the bacon and the pancakes with a generous pour of maple syrup. Try not to feel judged, as Keith watches you from over his black coffee and plate of scrapple.
“Hungry?” he jibs.
“Starved. Like I haven’t eaten in a year.”
Keith rolls his eyes. “But you’re feeling alright?” he presses, “All things considered?”
“More than alright,” you admit. “I’ve never felt better. It’s like I just woke up from the best nap in my life. I feel amazing, awake. Energized.”
Whatever happened to you, whatever was done to your grave-site, it’s like it’s left a current of electricity lingering behind in your veins. Your body is a live wire; all you have to do is keep on top of the currant’s arc, and ride the lightning.
This is, admittedly, a sign that something is off. Or maybe it’s a clue. At any rate, this whole thing is above your pay-grade to sleuth out; you’re going to need to go to the self-declared experts.
Which is why you announce, right before you take another large bite of pancake: “We need to go to the Castle.”
Across from you, Keith spits his coffee back into his mug.
“No, Shiro. No. Absolutely not.”
“Why not?” you challenge. “You don’t want to see your friends?”
“First of all, they’re your friends, not mine; they just tolerate me-”
“That’s not true.”
“- yes, it is, and second-”
“Do you have any better ideas?” you cut in. When Keith says nothing, you keep on pressing forward. “We need information, and we need backup. The Castle is our best resource for both. Why shouldn’t we go?”
“Because!” Keith sputters. “Because they’ll shoot first, ask questions later.”
“Like any good hunter would,” you agree.
“What happened to ‘patience yields focus’?” he snaps.
You hold out a placating hand. “Keith, I know you want to protect me, but you can’t hide me away forever. We have to face the music sometime.”
Keith looks like he very much wants to argue that point. His face screws up, like he’s sucking on a lemon, before he capitulates with a huff.
“Alright,” he says, “We’ll go. But we’re gonna be careful about it. You’ll let me take point on this one,” he adds, with gravely seriousness.
“Of course.” After all, you’re not actively trying to get shot in the head by an overzealous hunter - or worse, Lance.
Your concession seems to mollify Keith, if only slightly. He sinks back into his booth, picks up his mug once more. A wrinkle of worry is still gouged into the space between his eyebrows. You have the sudden urge to reach across the table and smooth out the creases with your thumb.
“It’ll be alright,” you say, “we’ll take it slow. They’re just a little skittish of us, that’s all.”
“They’ve never trusted us,” Keith mutters darkly.
“And they have good reason not to,” you demur.
At that hint of the bond you two share, Keith’s interest seems to perk up. He leans towards, glancing furtively around before he murmurs, “I’ve been meaning to ask. Since you got back, can you still…do it?”
“I…don’t know,” you admit.
“Have you even tried?”
“Honestly, no,” you say, “but I can test it right now.”
The last thing you see before the world goes black is Keith’s scandalized face. Then, nothing.
Darkness. Unyielding, unending darkness.
When you disappear, you like to think that you are in the void of the cosmos. A primordial darkness, before the creation of gases, nebulae, stars and planets. A darkness before God. Here, where you hang suspended in isolation, is everywhere. And anywhere. And anywhere is where you can be.
Picture it in your mind. Clearly, now. Visualize it, down to the very last detail.
Traveling through the void is disorienting, precisely because you aren’t. It took you a long time to understand this - through countless trial and error - but eventually you realized that you aren’t the one moving at all. In this complete blackness, it’s almost impossible to see that space and time move around you, bending around your gravity well in this eternal chasm of night. No matter, no space, no time, no stars -
When you are here, you and the void are one. You bend around each other. You come out on the other side, unmoved, and unchanged.
In the real world, it’s been less than half a second. You re-materialize on the opposite side of the table, crammed in-between the corner of the booth and Keith’s shoulder. Keith, who takes the opportunity to punch you in the arm as hard as he can.
“-idiot!” he hissing, “we’re surrounded by fucking civilians! Anyone could have seen that!”
“Relax.” You give his shoulder a friendly bump with your own. “We’re in the back of the room. Nobody saw anything.”
“You better fucking hope so. Last thing we need is your face plastered across national television, again.”
“At least we know I’m fully functional,” you say with a grin.
Keith goes red. “Looks like,” he mutters. And then: “Hey. Why didn’t you do that when you were trapped in your coffin? Teleportation’s a hell of a lot easier than clawing through six feet of dirt.”
“It was hardly six feet. You dig a shitty grave,” you inform him. “Also, I was panicking, Keith. Being buried alive will do that to a man.”
Keith smirks at you. “Shiro the hero is claustrophobic. Who would’ve thought?”
“Brat.”
“Nerd.”
You throw an arm around him so you have easier access to ruffle his bangs. Keith ducks under your hand, his body pressing further into yours. The sigh you let out is accidental, honest in its contentment. Even better is the unconscious way Keith’s head dips toward your shoulder blade, skirting the edge of familiarity and into - into you don’t know what, exactly. Something else.
But Keith must remember himself, because he flinches away from you abruptly, and the spell of the moment is broken. He turns to face you, and the seriousness that falls over him is your forewarning of a heavier topic on the horizon.
“Shiro, I need to ask you something else,” he says, “and - I don’t mean to push you, but you haven’t said anything yet, and I need to know. Do you-,” he stutters, bites his lip until you fear he’ll make it bloody.
“What is it, Keith? It’s okay,” you assure him, “I won’t be mad.”
Keith huffs, as though he severely doubts it, but you watch as he settles into himself again, drawing from that fathomless well of courage he holds inside himself.
“What was it like?” he asks. “Hell?”
And - oh. You thought it would be much worse. You blink dumbly back at his worried face.
“I don’t remember it,” you admit. “It’s all just - black.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“Nothing. It’s like I went to bed, and woke up from a dreamless sleep.”
“Really?” Keith looks mystified, as though this outcome was the only one out of millions that he had not accounted for. “Well, damn.”
“Yes, that was the idea.”
Keith hits you again. It hurts, but you deserve it.
“Don’t worry about me, Spitfire,” you say, with a helpful smile. “Believe me, I know it’s strange, but I’d tell you if I could remember anything.”
Keith frowns at you, not looking very convinced.
“You’re not lying to me, are you?”
That cuts deep. You try to hide how much, but it leeks out through your voice.
“No, I’m not,” you say, “not about this. I swear on Black’s leather interior.”
A crack forms across Keith’s cross countenance; he fails to stifle a smile.
“Alright,” he says, “I trust you, Shiro.”
“Just as I trust you,” you return. “You said you didn’t make a deal, and I’ll take you on your word, Keith.” Against your instincts and better judgment, of course, but that’s a problem to unpack later. At least Keith seems to be heartened by your words; he beams at you, a rare moment of emotional inhibition.
“So,” he says, “no more secrets?”
And, well. There’s the rub.
There will always be secrets you carry, things you cannot tell him. That you’ll never tell him. Not if you want to save his soul.
What’s another sin upon your own, to send you straight back to damnation?
You clasp Keith’s proffered hand within your own. Grip it tight, as tight as when he raised you from perdition.
“No more secrets,” you say.
Another mistake you’ve made. Another promise you’ll never keep.
***
IV. THEN:
The problem is, sooner or later, Keith’s going to get hurt.
A few months into your road-trip that never ends, and you’re starting to understand that Keith will always be a permanent fixture in your life. He fits so well into your routine, into the hustle and grind of your clandestine lifestyle. He’s the right-hand man you didn’t know you needed. You’d be loathe to let him go. But you can’t lie to him forever.
You’re hesitant to tell him the truth about what you do - why you hop from town to town, where you go at night. If you do confess, he’ll want to join in your hunts. You know he’d jump at the chance. But if you don’t keep your secrets, it’s only a matter of time before some monster from your professional life crosses over into your personal, and Keith unwittingly gets caught in the crossfire.
And Keith - well, Keith is just a kid.
Here’s the thing: you always knew he was young. Hell, ever since you laid eyes on him, you understood that you had a good few years on the kid. But it isn’t until two months into your travels that you realize just how much shit you’re in.
You’ve pulled off of a dead highway in the middle of an empty field. No houses or towns for miles, no light except for the stars and a full-bellied moon. Cold night air bites at your noses as you and Keith lay across the hood of Black, but Keith is bundled up in the winter coat you bought for him, so you’re not too worried. As for yourself, you never get cold. You burn like a furnace, even in this temperature, in your torn jeans and thin cotton t-shirt. A beer bottle seers it’s impression into the palm of your hand, and you laugh when Keith takes a sip from his, only to spray it back out again. Above you, the winter night sky is spread out for you in a prefect unbroken tapestry. With your arm stretched upward, you show Keith how to find different constellations, pointing out which stars to use as a guide. Three stars in perfect alignment make up the line of Orion’s Belt. Cast out further to find the points of his arms and legs, all shining bright in the void of space. Move onto Canis Minor and Monoceros. Cancer, Lynx, Ursa Major. Continue on into the darkness, guiding your companion out into the black.
“You sure know a lot about the sky,” Keith says.
“I’ve always loved astronomy,” you admit. “…I was an astrophysics major in college.”
“You went to college?” Keith asks, naked awe in his voice.
“Only for a year. Berkeley. Go Bears,” you add, with an ironic drawl. “The goal was to work for NASA. But when I was a kid, I dreamed of being an astronaut. That was never meant to be, of course.”
“Why not?”
You gesture lazily to the reading glasses perched atop your nose. “I don’t have twenty-twenty vision,” you say wryly, “and that’s a sticking point for NASA. For the Air Force, too. Believe me, I checked.”
Keith nods. “You wanted to be up in the sky, no matter what.”
“Yeah,” you admit. “Before the - before I quit college, I was taking flight lessons over at Oakland. One way or another, I was determined to get up there. Obviously, it didn’t work out,” you add, as an afterthought.
“I’ve never been in a plane,” Keith admits quietly, “closest I’ve ever gotten is riding a motorcycle. It’s kind of the same, isn’t it? The speed, the freedom. The danger.”
“Yeah,” you agree, “it’s got the core elements. The danger is what made me feel alive, you know? Like all this time I was asleep, until I got into the cockpit with the instructor, then suddenly I was awake for the first time in my life.” A thought comes to you, then. “Do you remember the Challenger explosion?” you ask Keith.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I was in English class when it happened,” you say. “Our teacher, Ms. Silwyck, she scrapped the lesson plan for the day and wheeled out a television so we could watch the launch. And when the shuttle exploded, there was just - silence. No one screamed. No one cried. Everyone just stared at the screen in silent devastation, until she turned it off.”
“But not you,” Keith guesses. You smile over at him. How well he knows you already, after just two scant months.
“Not me,” you confirm. “That was the moment I knew for sure what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to fly up there. I wanted to risk my life, to have even the slightest chance at getting to space. For me, the devastation came later, when I realized I’d never be able to go.”
Keith nods along. “Call of the Void,” he says, “like when you’re standing on the edge of a canyon, or the top of a tall building, and you want to jump off?”
Oh, Jesus. This is not terrain you should be traversing; you’re hardly equipped for it.
“Ah, maybe,” you say hastily, and then, grasping for something, anything else, “did your teacher make your class watch the Challenger explosion?”
Keith chews on his lip as he thinks. “I don’t know,” he says. “Must’ve been in pre-school, I guess. If they let us watch the take-off, I don’t remember.”
You feel a trickle of dread seep its way into your bloodstream. This is a conversation you’ve been trying to stave off, because having it will illuminate to you just how much you’ve fucked up.
Take a steadying breathe. Then ask, as casually as possible: “How old were you, back then?”
Keith scrunches up his face in concentration. “Four, I think?” Then he shrugs. “I’m not so good at math.”
“What date were you born? I can do the math.”
“1984,” Keith says. “November 1st. All Saint’s Day,” he adds, with a wry smile.
“You just turned sixteen,” you realize aloud.
“A month ago, yeah.”
“Barely.”
“Hey, sixteen is sixteen,” Keith says hotly. “I could get a driver’s license, if I wanted. I could legally drop out of school, too.”
Never mind that he’s clearly already done so, despite the illegality. It begins to crystallize for you just how much of this kid’s life you're willing to steal, just for a little bit more of his time spent in your own. If you were a good person, you’d set him up in a steady home, or a boarding school. Pay for it yourself if you have to; you have the money. At the very least, you should be enrolling him in some kind of home-schooling, or making sure he gets his GED. Make sure he can find a path to college, or trade school, a normal civilian life. Instead, you’re dragging him around the country on a never-ending road-trip, with no future and no prospects - because you’re lonely.
“There’s a ten year age difference between us, Keith,” you say slowly. “Do you realize that?”
“Well, sure, but-”
“That means I need to be the responsible one,” you say. “I knew that from the start, and the fact that I didn’t do anything to help you is bad enough, but treating you like an adult - Jesus, I gave you that beer-”
You reach to swipe it away, suddenly appalled by what you had thought so endearingly cute just minutes before - but Keith is too quick. He keeps the bottle out of your grasp, twisting away and then rising up to his elbows in a flash, leaning into your personal space.
“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he all but snarls. “You don’t know me, and you don’t know my life. If I was looking for a parental figure, I would’ve found one. But I wasn’t; I was looking for - for someone like you, Shiro. And now that I’ve found you, there’s not a damn way you’re gonna get me to leave. You’re not my father; you’re not even my brother, not really. So whatever ‘responsibility’ you think you have, you can go ahead and shove it up your ass, Old Man.”
You blink. Then: “Is that how you used to talk to your teachers?” you ask. Keith immediately deflates, already ashamed of his outburst.
“…Sometimes,” he admits, “but only if they deserved it.”
You can’t help it; you start to laugh, dropping your head back down onto Black as you look up at the endless sky.
“You’re unbelievable, you know that, Spitfire?”
“So…you’re not gonna send me away?” Keith asks quietly, so far removed from his outburst moments earlier that you realize this is a genuine fear for him. You sober back up.
“You’re right,” you say, “I’m not your father. And whatever responsibility I had over you when we first met, I forfeited when I didn’t immediately get you some real help. But I’m not gonna make you leave, Keith. I’m not gonna leave you behind. It’s you and me, kid, till the end of the road - for as long as you want.”
“Okay.” Keith looks mollified, but still slightly glum. That needs to be corrected, you decide, even at the cost of your own dignity.
“Actually, on second thought…our age gap isn’t so big,” you say hesitantly, “because…I’m six and a half years old.”
“Huh?”
“I was born on February 29th, 1972,” you admit sheepishly, “Leap Year.”
“What, really?”
“Yeah, really.”
Now it’s Keith’s turn to laugh. It grows from a snicker to a full-on chortle as he too drops back onto Black’s hood, laughing up at the sky.
“That explains why you’re so fussy,” he chokes out, between peals of mirth, “because you’re a big baby!”
“I thought I was an old man.”
“You wish.”
His eyes sparkle back at you with the joviality you placed there; it’s a thrilling power, to make him happy. Just like that, the night turns back into a good one, with Keith smiling freely under the freedom of a lonesome road and a wide-open sky. You let your worries settle for the night. Let them be a problem for another day.
But, once spoken, the truth now hangs over you at all times, a new, unshakable weight upon your shoulders. Keith is a minor, practically a child. He looks up to you. He trusts you to keep him safe. And now, you need to have a damn good reason for why he’s here, with you, and not in the care of people who could really help him. So far, those reasons boil down to his desperation, and your greed. You need a better justification than that.
But, as fate will have it, the problem will soon be taken out of your hands. For better or for worse.
***
You’re working a salt-and-burn case in Wyoming when things come to a head.
Three and a half months since you first took on your wayward hitchhiker, and you pick up a case from another hunter’s tip. Selfishly, you wish you hadn’t. The case has been needlessly frustrating - a textile factory fire that occurred nearly half a century ago, with dozens dead, and pauper graves to boot. You spend two long, thankless weeks chasing rumors and legends, as the newly opened factory built on the old ground sustains three casualties in the span of five days. It would be faster work if you had a helping hand, of course, but you keep that temptation in check. The last thing you want is Keith to get ganked by a spirit that has a fetish for rebar and strangulation.
Just in time for the grand re-opening, you reach a breakthrough. The old foreman of the factory, Steve Oberdine, deceased not even a month ago, who warned his superiors for years about the unsafe working conditions in the previous factory, before the fire killed his two brothers who worked along side him. He was put down into his family plot not three weeks ago, in St. Mary’s Cemetery, still marked by flowers and fresh soil. Best of all, the name on his headstone is nice and big, easy to find and read under torchlight.
You wait until the cover of darkness, and until you’re sure Keith’s asleep. Then out you go, into the night with a shovel over your shoulder, slinking into the cemetery like a thief.
Digging up a coffin is hard, dirty business. You grunt softly as you work, keenly aware of the dangers of making too much noise, from both natural and supernatural sources. Not for the first time, the idea of having a partner appeals to you. A brother-in-arms, who could watch your back as you toil away in the grave, who could take the shovel out of your hands when you’re too tired to continue. Someone eager and willing to learn, and maybe a little younger than you, so you could take the role of leader and mentor, guiding him, teaching him everything you know -
You dig harder. Nothing like breaking a good sweat to burn out inappropriate desires.
Hour blurs into hour. You work without interruption. Occasionally, you have the sensation of eyes on the back of your neck, watching you when your back is turned, but when you scan the area you find no evidence of voyeurs, either living or dead.
That changes when you finally get down to the coffin, hitting wood with your shovel. As you pry the lid up with your crowbar and douse the sorry son-of-a-bitch in gasoline, you feel a shift in the air, a change in the atmosphere. And that’s all the warning you get before you’re thrown bodily up and out of the grave by an invisible supernatural force, landing on the wet grass besides the tombstone.
You manage to stagger to your feet and pick up your shotgun before you see the spirit materialize just at the lip of the grave, a clear barrier between you and it’s bones. Alright, you think, bring it on then. You open your arms, a grin spread wide across your face.
“Come and get me, you fucking bastard!”
You’ll give credit where credit is due; it’s a quick motherfucker. In the time it takes you to blink, it’s already crossed the space between you in half a second, gliding across the ground, no friction to slow it’s path. Time slows down for you, as it so often does preceding one of your jumps. The world moves in slow motion, as you let the spirit dive for you, waiting for the last possible, perfect moment to -
“SHIRO!!”
That’s the only warning you get before Keith plows into you like a battering ram. You go airborne, having just enough wherewithal to vaguely appreciate your boy’s unexpected strength, before the breath is knocked out of you by a tombstone connecting with your solar plexus. From your sprawl over the headstone, you see where Keith’s fallen in the dirt, scuttling backward from the advancing, freshly-pissed off ghost. Keith manages to get into a crouch, springing back up with an agility you didn’t know he possessed. As you stumble to your feet, you watch the spirit advance on him, but Keith doesn’t panic - just the opposite, in fact. He looks like a stone-cold killer, like he’s done this a hundred times before, and will do it again. Just as the spirit reaches him, Keith’s switchblade is in hand. He takes a swing, and you watch in dumb awe as the metal of the blade shimmers, elongates, until it’s - you blink and your brain stutters.
Is that a fucking sword?
Keith carries through his swing, slashing through the spirit regardless of your confusion. It screams as though burned, flickering out of existence.
You climb to your feet, dumbly watching your unexpected companion. Keith stares at the empty space the spirit once occupied, sword still in hand, the hilt hanging limply from his fingers. Then turns to look up to you, his eyes wide with a sudden, uncertain fear.
“I don’t know what comes next,” he say.
You have no idea what that’s supposed to mean. You do have just enough time to raise your shotgun right as the spirit re-materializes just off of Keith’s shoulder. You take the shot.
The rock salt whizzes right past his ear, catching tendrils of dark hair in it’s path, before blowing Oberdine’s head away, along with the rest of his body. As nimbly as you can, you sling out your lighter, send it arching in Keith’s direction. Keith, who catches it like a fucking cat, a bewildered expression plastered to his face.
“Go! Burn the bones!” you shout, “Burn them!!” Desperately, you hope he understands.
You see Keith turn from you, staggering for the grave; so does the spirit of Steven Oberdine, freshly regenerated, and looking for vengeance. To keep him occupied, you opt for a blitz attack, teleporting around the spirit multiple times in the span of seconds, getting a hit in with each apparition. Oberdine snarls, spinning in a circle, slashing at the empty air where you were just standing not a heartbeat ago. You see his form start to flicker, as he attempts his own form of teleportation - but you are a master of your craft, and the void is your realm. It bows to you, and no one else. You jump with the spirit, reappearing just a split-second sooner, already swinging with your metal crowbar as he flickers back into existence. The crowbar disperses him again, and again, and again. Until, halfway through your next swing at his torso, Steven Oberdine’s spectral body bursts into flame from the center outward, the fire racing through his phantom form, eating him away as he howls, and turns to dust.
You take a moment to catch your breath, then look over at Keith, who’s just turning away from the burning coffin in the grave and pulling himself up to his feet. Which - thank god for that; hopefully he didn’t see anything he doesn’t need to know.
When Keith does see you, a smile breaks across his face, radiant as the first crack of dawn. He beams at you, an adrenaline-high grin if you’ve ever seen one. Your pulse spikes, and that’s the only warning you have that you’re about to lose your shit.
“Don’t you ever do that again!” you roar. “What the hell were you thinking, Keith! Jumping in front of me like that? That thing could’ve fucking killed you!”
He flinches back from you, stumbling away as you approach him. "I’m sorry, Shiro! I’m sorry! I didn’t - I just thought-”
You pinch the bridge of your nose to ward off a swiftly blooming stress-headache.
“How the hell did you even get here?” you demand.
“I followed you,” Keith admits quietly. “I stole a bike.”
He holds your silver lighter out in his palm, like an offering to appease a wrathful god. In his other hand, the hilt of his sword dangled limply from his finger, blade tip scrapping into the dirt.
“…put that away before you hurt someone.”
“Yes Sir.”
Keith does a fancy flick of his wrist; the blade he wields is now just a stiletto switchblade - long, but within the realm of logic. Perhaps it always was, and you’re just finally starting to crack. You blink to the dispel the white light of it’s transformation from your retinas.
“Help me clean this place up,” you say. “We’ll talk when we get back to our room.”
Keith nods mutely, as sweet and docile as a little kitten. A fucking act, as you well know. Still, what you wouldn’t do to keep him that way.
***
First of all, it’s not a bike; it’s a Harvey-Davidson Cruiser, trigged out with all the bells and whistles. Under the cover of darkness, you make sure that Keith returns the motorcycle to the bar parking-lot he found it in, then get the hell out of dodge, because the last thing you need to deal with right now is Hell’s Angel’s up your ass. Then, you return to the motel room.
First aid comes before anything else. You make Keith take off his shirt, then gingerly run your fingers over his skin, along the lines of his collar bone. You thought you heard a crack, when he plowed into you, and are unhappily proved right. There’s a nasty bruise blooming around his left collar bone, stark evidence of how he came flying in, taking the hit that was meant for you.
Under your fingers, Keith flinches, and hisses. You help him immobilize his left arm, keeping your touch fleeting and gentle.
When you’ve tied off his makeshift sling, you murmur, “Why’d you go and do a thing like that, huh?”
“I had to, Shiro. I had to save you,” Keith pleads, adamantly. “You were gonna let it - gore you, or something.”
“I wasn’t,” you assure him. “Before he got close enough, I was going to tel - to, ah, dodge him. I do it all the time; I would’ve been fine.”
“Maybe not this time,” Keith mumbles. His good arm is crossed hard against his chest, chin tipped down, eyes skirting away from yours. You scared him, you realize. You’re nothing but a familiar stranger to him, really, but he’s just a kid who has no one else; of course he’s going to cling to you, no matter what. Even if that means confronting the things that go bump in the night.
Speaking of which.
You sigh. “…so, I guess you have some questions,” you hazard.
Keith nods, his eyes saucer-wide.
“That thing out there. Was that - a ghost?”
“A spirit, yes. A vengeful spirit, of a man who died recently. You heard about all the strange deaths happening at the new textile mill in town?”
“Yeah, I saw it on your murder wall.”
“That - it’s not a murder wall, Keith. It’s an evidence board.”
“Well, I know that now.”
He’s fucking with you, you realize. Unbelievable. And at a time like this, too, as nonplussed as anything.
“You seem to be taking this very well,” you remark. “You find out ghosts are real. You burn a corpse. All in a day’s work?”
Keith sobers up quickly, schooling his features to a somber frown.
“Look, I’m not stupid, Shiro. I’ve known for a while that you’re a - a dangerous man, in a dangerous business. I knew that when I came with you.”
“You thought I was a hit-man.”
“Well, you are, kind of. A hit-man for the supernatural. Except you protect people, too.” Keith looks so earnestly up at you that it hurts. This boy - he’s gonna be the death of you, you just know it.
“You’re right,” you say, “I do protect people. But not just from ghosts. From vampires, too, and werewolves. Demons, and wendigos. All the monsters that you were ever told lived in your closet, or under your bed - they’re all real, and they’re all nasty. Being a hunter, like I am, it’s a dangerous job, and it’s a dangerous life. It’s liable to get me killed, one of these days.”
“That’s why you should train me,” Keith pipes up. “That’s why I should be your hunting partner. So I can protect you, and watch your back.”
Oh, no. Oh no no no. This isn’t going the way you hoped it would. What you were desperatley praying for was for him to ask you to drop him off at a bus-stop in the morning, not - whatever this is.
“Keith,” you press, “this isn’t the sort of life you get into without a good reason. And every hunter I’ve ever met had a very fucking good one.”
“How do you know I don’t?” Keith challenges.
And, yes. With his mysterious past, and his magically transforming sword, you suppose that Keith might have a very good reason for wanting to hunt down and kill the supernatural.
“Becoming a hunter will get you killed, probably sooner than later,” you tell him, point blank. “Is that worth your life? Is it worth your soul?”
“…I don’t know.”
“You need to know,” you say, as you turn away to repack your first-aid kit. “You need to be sure.”
Keith is silent for a moment, his head tipped down to his chest as he hides behind his hair. Then, in a tiny, quiet voice: “It’d be worth you.”
“What?” You spin back to regard him with - you don’t know, hysterical fear, maybe? What have you done, you think wildly, in the short time you’ve known him, to make this kid so attached to you that he wants to gladly throw his life away?
Keith fidgets under your attention. “I mean, we’d spend more time together, right? Working cases? Hunting monsters? We’d have each other’s backs, no matter what. We’d be brothers-in-arms.” Through dark, sweat-strung bangs, those amethyst eyes look up at you shyly. “Having a brother would be worth anything,” he admits, like a terrible, dirty secret.
Goddamn. What are you supposed to say to that?
You breathe in, count to five. Breathe out. Release whatever perceived control you thought you had over this situation.
“If I were to - to teach you, to train you, you’d need to listen to me,” you say. “You’d need to follow my orders - without question. If I tell you to do something, you do it. If I tell you to stop, you stop. Do you understand me?”
I will not have you dying on my watch.
To your surprise, Keith snaps to in perfect military precision, shoulders back, back straight, and gives you a sharp salute, thumb tucked neatly under his hand. “Yes, Captain!” he swears. A glint in his eye reveals his mirth; the rough set of his lips reveals his seriousness. Oh, damn you, but you’ve really stepped in it now.
You take the only course of action left available to you. You hold out your hand. Keith takes it.
“Alright then, kid,” you say. “Welcome to the family business.”
In the future, during your more morose moments, you’ll be prone to think that this, right here - his bleeding hand clasped within your own, a blood oath between two almost strangers - was where it all truly started, the point where Keith’s dark destiny changed from shadow to certainty. The point of no return.
Through the gleam of the dim bathroom lights, Keith smiles up at you. Eyes florescent with flame and faith. All his trust, given over into your hands.
This is the beginning of the end. If only you’d known. But foresight was never your gift.
Author's Note: Is now the right time to tell you guys that I have never watched an episode of Voltron in my life? Lol but seriously, we’re flying by the seat of our pants here.