Chapter Text
Keith lay awake. The hum of the castle was a familiar background noise by now.
Outside in the common room, he heard rustling, pacing, sitting, metal fingers tapping the table. Shiro. Again.
It happened most nights. Keith honestly couldn't fathom how the man functioned during the day: alert, first to respond, ready to fight and lead with his go-get-’em attitude that exhausted Keith and likely the others.
Keith silently listened. He tossed and turned. Tonight, he decided, is going to be different. He arose with an anxious pit in his stomach, but knowing what he wanted to confront. Some nights he couldn't bear the thought of Shiro being alone, wrestling whatever it was that incessantly haunted him. Slowly he stalked towards the common room.
“Hey,” Keith greeted sleepily.
“Oh, hey. Did I wake you?”
“Uh, kinda.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool, I'm used to it, the walls are thin, so...”
Shiro chuckled uncomfortably. “Do I talk in my sleep?”
Keith paused and sat across from Shiro. He shook his head and held his breath.
“Huh, I don't think I snore-”
“You….scream,” Keith whispered into an exhale.
Shiro’s mouth hung open in an attempt to muster an excuse, a comment to brush off Keith's observation.
“I… ah- Sorry. Sometimes I-”
“It's almost every night,” Keith interjected.
Shiro shifted in his seat and stared uncomfortably past Keith. Keith had never seen Shiro this at a loss for words or a logical explanation.
Keith plowed on. “You know, you don't have to keep acting strong for us, like nothing's wrong. There's plenty wrong with all of our situations. We can help. You don't need to pretend. You've obviously been through some shit,” Keith blurted, gesturing towards Shiro's Galra tech arm. “You're obviously not the same person you were before Kerberos, you-” Keith aborted his rant.
“We...knew each other? Before?”
Keith sighed, this wasn’t the direction he meant for this conversation to take; he didn't know if he could handle it. He twisted his hands. “Uh, yeah...we did. At the Garrison…”
“I'm so sorry.” Shiro shook his head in his hands. “Growing up in Japan is lucid in my head, my family's faces, moving to the US, applying to the Garrison. It's so clear. But the closer events and people get to the Kerberos mission, things get…fuzzy, they feel like dreams. I can't tell what happened, what's real, or if I made things up while I was imprisoned… Why didn't you say anything?”
“I mean, there's a lot going on. This whole Voltron thing has been a whirlwind. Honestly, though, I thought you'd snap out of it eventually, that it would finally come back to you, but- Shiro… I wish I knew what happened. I wish I could help you.”
Shiro just shook his head, eyes shifting side to side as he searched internally. “So, we were friends? -are friends,” he corrected.
“Something like that.”
They both paused and held their breath. The castle’s whirring filled the room.
“Please tell me.” Shiro was always the communicator.
“I don't know.” Keith was always the avoider.
Then, Keith laughed to himself. “We've actually had similar conversations, where I told you to stop being strong for everyone else. To give in for once.”
Shiros narrowed his eyes, still searching, taking it in.
Keiths voice wavered as he reminisced, “We were at that stupid frat bar in town with the arcade games and those video game flight sims in the back. You had that friend from the MMA gym that worked at the door who would never ID me. It was your friend's birthday that night; you were friends with everyone. I had to drink to be able to interact with any of them at first.
“We were sitting in the flight sim and I drank enough shitty PBR to... crawl into your lap and… kiss you.” Keith paused searching Shiro's eyes, Shiro's eyes were glued to the table, mouth slowly dropping open, wracking his brain for a memory, a visual, anything.
“You had a million reasons why it was a bad idea, of course. You said there was probably a rule against officers being with cadets, that I was just drunk, that you were too old for me and that you'd look like the creepy old guy… I told you to stop being strong for everyone else. And I thought the line was so genius at the time… sounds kinda cheesy now, but…” Keith hesitated. “I said, ‘I want to be your weakness.’”
Shiro slowly looked up and met Keith's eyes. Knowing. Remembering. Snippets of their prior relationship flashing in his memory.
Shiro finally spoke. “I used to make you come to my place Monday nights after the crappy Asian stir-fry the cafeteria served so that we could eat proper rice. I used the rice cooker my mom mailed me from home.”
“Yeah,” Keith smiled. Then he laughed, “I always had to choke back that matcha you made me drink. And you bought me a set of Korean chopsticks, the sterling ones that were too slippery for me to use.”
“I remember that! I had to teach you how to use chopsticks.”
“Hey, my mom was hardly around to teach me so... I just used a fork. Plus it's not like the group homes were going to spend time instilling Korean traditions in me and-”
“You used to smoke, too.”
“You made me quit.” Keith smirked.
Shiro stilled while more events and memories materialized. “Wait, I vaguely remember you getting arrested...”
“You decided not to press charges,” Keith interrupted. “Must’ve been my pretty face.” Keith then rolled his eyes, “God, I sound like Lance.”
“Oh my god,” Shiro breathed, recalling the first time he set eyes on Keith. “I remember that.”
Keith nodded and stayed quiet, not wanting to ruin the moment. He had so many questions, but he kept them to himself. Per usual, he thought.
“Keith, there's no way I’m going to remember everything… I don't know what to do...I-” Shiro broke off, searching again.
Their relationship had always been a bit one-sided anyway. Shiro made valiant efforts but had infinite obligations. While Keith... Keith only ever had Shiro.
The castle hummed. Foreign constellations sailed past. They sat in silence.
Keith finally broke it.
“...So...what now?”