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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year ago

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Keith knows his nerves must be leeching off him, because the rest of the team is overcompensating. There’s an abundance of chatting and banter, way more than usual, enough that Keith can recognise the oddity even though he’s been gone for two years. It might just be everyone’s relief after finally getting to sit down and be calm after rushing to foil Haggar’s weirdo clone plan, but Keith’s pretty sure his team has noticed his strangeness, and is trying to make him comfortable again. The thought makes him smile despite his anxiety. He’s missed them.

He’s snapped out of his thoughts by Pidge pointedly clearing her throat and using her spork to point at Krolia, who’s been about as anxious as Keith (only for her that manifests as looking like she wants to kill small cute things).

“Are you finally going to tell us who Tall Dark and Gorgeous is?” she asks, because she is the least subtle and nosiest person in the galaxy and Keith honestly should have expected it. His face flames, and his mother raises an eyebrow, while the rest of the team snickers.

Shiro tries his best to appear a little more adult. “If you wouldn’t mind introducing us, Keith.” He smiles kindly at Krolia. “You were amazing out on the field, we were really grateful to have you. Sorry for not getting us all introduced earlier.”

Krolia nods at him, smiling in an awkwardly reassuring way. “Of course, Black Paladin. There were bigger things to focus on handling.”

She returns to her food too after speaking, clearly done her piece.

Keith grimaces. He was hoping she’d introduce herself, but it looks like he’s going to have to. Fuck. (He’s not sure why he’s so opposed to it. It’s nerve-wracking, though, introducing his actual mother to his family. To his brother, his almost-father.)

“Um, Krolia, this is my family.” He points to them all and names them, rolling his eyes fondly at Lance’s wink and finger guns. He even introduces Lotor, even though he still maintains that they are not friends and Prince Hairdo has a lot of making up to do. “Everyone, this is Krolia.” He looks directly at his brother, taking strength in the man’s encouraging expression and addressing him directly. “She’s my mother.”

The entire table goes dead silent. Small conversations abruptly halt, the sounds of eating cease, silverware freezes where it was scraping on bowls. Complete and total silence.

Shiro’s face goes from encouraging and open to shocked to shuttered, jaw set and eyes narrowed.

Keith’s anxiety skyrockets. He sees his mother tense from across the table, and feels Lance go rigid beside him.

This is worse than what he expected.

“Your mother?” Shiro clarifies, words careful and controlled. He’s the first to return to movement, scooping goo into his spork almost robotically.

“Yes,” Keith says hesitantly. He doesn’t understand his brother’s reaction. He had expected some hesitance from Hunk, who is wary of newcomers, and maybe some understandable discomfort from Allura, but not…

Not Shiro. Not Shiro who is great in a crisis, who is the king of diplomacy, who has always supported Keith.

The rest of the team slowly follows Shiro’s example, returning to their meals, but there’s no more jovial conversation. All eyes are avoiding the brothers, but ears are open, movements slow and quiet so as to not miss a word.

“Hm. Interesting.” Shiro takes a bite of the goo, slowly chewing and swallowing, looking forward like he’s really contemplating. Keith watches every move carefully. “Where’d you find her?”

His tone is almost pleasant, conversational, but there’s something off and plastic about it. Forced. Like he’s talking about a volatile creature Keith has dragged home that he’s trying to be cool about, not the parent Keith has been searching for his whole life.

Keith glances surreptitiously at his mother, but she only shrugs at him. “On the space whale. Well, at the Blades, technically. She was assigned the mission with me and we both got stranded.”

Shiro makes another hum of acknowledgement, nodding to himself. He pokes aggressively at the bowl of green gelatine. “That’s wild. I would have guessed you’d have found her in a jail cell for tax evasion or something, since she seems to be the type to avoid responsibility.”

Keith blinks in shock. Two seats down, Hunk chokes on his water, and Coran thumps his back to help. Every other jaw is dropped in shock, heads swivelling from Shiro to Keith, at a total loss.

“What the fuck are you talking about,” Keith says harshly. He glances at his mother, who quickly hides the hurt on her face with a carefully practiced mask of indifference.

“Oh, nothing,” Shiro says, distractedly pushing around his goo. He sounds blasé, unbothered, but Keith recognises this tone of his, as rare as it is to hear it — the passive aggressiveness, the snooty way he speaks when he’s too furious to even yell, and just wants to make everyone around him feel stupid. “I just figured the person who abandoned her infant son without so much as a note is someone of the more irresponsible and immature variety. That’s all.”

Lance, who has never been capable of handling tenseness, stands abruptly and starts gathering the bowls and utensils of everyone at the table, regardless of whether they’re finished. Keith watches distantly as he quiets Pidge’s whining, firmly telling her to get up and bring it with her if she needs.

“She’s my mother,” Keith says through grit teeth. He pulls his gaze away from the red paladin, glaring at his brother. “I thought you’d be happy for me.”

Shiro finally looks up from his stupid goo, baring his teeth in a poor imitation of a smile.

“Thrilled,” he drawls.

Quietly, Krolia stands, pushing in her chair and following the rest of the team to the door. In the back of his mind, Keith wonders if it would be better for her to stay, but dismisses it just as quickly. Better for her not to hear whatever Shiro’s problem is. She walks out the door without so much as a glance backwards, and Shiro’s gaze follows her out with a sneer. Lance shoves the rest of the reluctant team out of the kitchen doors, then glances back one more time, brown eyes big and reassuring, smiling sadly before closing the doors quietly behind him.

When Keith finally returns his gaze to his brother, his eyes are wet and there’s a lump in his throat. Hurt swarms his chest as much as anger.

“You’re being a dick,” he says. His voice cracks several times as he says it.

“Oh, well, fuck me, then,” Shiro says, violently pushing his chair away from the table and stomping to his feet, grabbing his bowl with his prosthetic so tightly it cracks. He barely even glances at it, fisting the pieces and storming over to the kitchen to toss them. “Here, let me pretend.” He turns back to face Keith and forces a smile on his face, mockingly sincere. He reaches over and yanks Keith bowl away, with his flesh hand this time, and all but tosses into the sink.

There are small smears of blood on it, from the shards of porcelain that dug into Shiro’s flesh hand. Keith’s own hands shake. He scoops his and Shiro’s sporks into his hands, squeezing them tightly, and walks carefully to the sink. He resists the urge to fling them right at Shiro’s head, instead forcing himself to set them gently among the rest of the dirty dishes and standing next to his brother to rinse what he washes. He says nothing as Shiro roughly scrubs the goo pot — they’ve discovered it tastes sort of better hot, so they take the time to cook it — and practically slams it into Keith’s sink.

“Could you tell me what your fucking problem is,” he grits out. He can no longer stop his tears and they drip down his face, down his nose, over his lips, down his chin and disappearing into the dishwater. Every time he swallows, it’s bitter with salt.

“Sure,” Shiro snaps. “I have a couple questions first.”

Frankly, Keith wants to tell him right where he can shove those questions, but he wants this to be resolved more than he wants to be angry.

“Fine.”

“Great,” Shiro says with a relish, and Keith regrets it immediately. “She recognise you the second she saw you?”

Keith swallows. He has to try three times to speak, to force his voice above a whisper. “No.”

“Huh. How long’d it take her to realise?”

Keith hands shake so bad he has to set down a cup lest he drop and break it. He doesn’t want to answer. “Some time.”

“Crazy. Bet she told you she’d been looking for you, huh?”

“Stop,” Keith whispers, choking on a sob, but Shiro plows right on.

“Told you that finding you was all she ever wanted? That she’s so glad she can finally see you again?”

“Stop.”

“That you’ve turned into a fine young man she’s proud of?”

“Shut up!” Keith shouts, and the words hurt on their way out of his mouth, shoved past the giant lump in his throat. He gasps for air and can barely find it, lungs heaving, hurting everywhere, heart feeling like he’s being squeezed. He can no more stop his sobs now than he could stop a star from imploding, and they tear out of him, leaving him aching and shuddering and shaking. “Stop. Stop. I don’t know why you —”

“I’ll tell you why,” Shiro snaps, dropping the last dirty dish and gripping the sides of the steel sink so hard it warps under his prosthetic. “You remember when you showed me those pictures of your dad and his crew? When you were thirteen?”

Keith nods, sniffling, wiping his eyes with wet hands. He hears metal creak, hears hands being dried on a dishtowel, and a long, heavy sigh.

“I picked him out immediately, kid,” Shiro says quietly. Some of the overt cruelty has faded from his voice. He just sounds tired, now; bitter. “You didn’t need to point him out to me. I barely even needed to look at it. I knew who your father was immediately.”

Keith sets the last dish on a drying rack and takes a step back, leaning away from Shiro and pointedly looking away. “So?”

“So — ”and Shiro’s voice sounds almost gentle, now, apologetic, although to Keith or for Keith he’s not sure — “you look just like your Pa, Keith. You are his spitting image. The only difference is your eyes, and your height.” He glances at Keith and then snorts softly. “Well, not the height anymore.”

Keith doesn’t smile back anymore. He hears what Shiro is saying and he hates it, hates him a little for bringing it up.

“She had no reason to expect it was me,” Keith argues.

“And no reason not to recognise you if she was really looking,” Shiro retorts. “If she was exactly what she said she was, she’d recognise you.”

Keith scowls at him. His eyes still burn with tears. “I was wearing my Blade uniform. And she hadn’t seen me since I was a baby.”

Shiro’s face has started to return to the anger it held before, the frustration. “That’s the fucking point!” he shouts. “She left you! Without so much as a goodbye, or even a note! Just a cryptic knife that did nothing but confuse you!”

“There was a war to fight!”

“And she had a kid to raise!”

“What was she supposed to do about Blue, huh?” Keith demands, pushing off the counter and throwing his hands up. “Let Zarkon find her? She had to protect the universe!”

“She had to protect her fucking kid.”

“One kid is not worth more than the entire universe!”

“You are!”

Keith freezes. Shiro barely notices, face twisted in rage so badly that he’s barely even looking at Keith, fists clenched hard enough to creak, fury radiating off of him.

“What?” Keith asks in a small voice, but Shiro plows on.

“You’re her fucking kid. You come first. You come before any other kid, you come before her mission, you come before the fucking universe. That’s how having a kid works. They’re the priority. And anyone who leaves their family behind like that is unforgivably despicable.”

The truth comes crashing down at Keith all at once. He looks at his brother with wide eyes, unclouded with his own hurt, and sees for the first time all the pure hate and rage and pain — not directed at Krolia, not even a little, but sharpened to a point and shoved back into himself.

Anyone who leaves their family behind is unforgivably despicable.

The words ring through the room. Keith hears them repeat a thousand time in three seconds. A million different memories whirl through him at once, all tinged with a pain and a border of abandonment; memories he hasn’t let himself touch since he got to space.

“I don’t blame you for Kerberos,” Keith says quietly. He waits a beat. “I never have.”

Shiro says nothing. His expression is frozen, body unmoving, but his dark black eyes — the eyes that chose him first, that followed him with pride, that were the first to look at him softly when his heritage came out and everything went to shit, that he used to cry and sob and beg to have so that Shiro could be his brother in more than name — are wrought with pain. His face does not crumple, but his eyes are like shattered volcanic glass, and slowly they fill with water, and a drop escapes the corner of his almond eye, dripping slowly down his cheek.

“How can you ever forgive her?” he asks, near silent, voice rough as sandpaper and twice as painful.

How can you ever forgive me?

Keith chokes back his tears and meets his brother’s eyes head-on, determined and steady and loving as Shiro always has been when Keith was the one shattering.

“Easily.”

Shiro swallows. It’s loud, deafening in the silence of the room. The sound of it, the knowledge that Shiro is pushing his pain down but it’s coming up anyway, makes Keith’s chin tremble.

“I don’t deserve easy.”

“You deserve whatever I want to give you.”

Finally Shiro breaks, and sobs. And sobs and sobs and sobs. His cries seem the yank the life out of him, drain himself of energy; his knees hit the floor with a crack and he crumples at Keith’s feet.

“Forgive me,” he begs, like he knows he doesn’t deserve it.

Keith gently kneels next to him and reaches out, almost afraid to touch. “I already did.” He reaches out finally and holds his brother, his big brother who was stronger than his body and bigger than his dream and catapulted Keith up to the stars with him, and holds him together as he cries.

“I forgave you before you even left,” Keith whispers, when Shiro’s sobs don’t sound so painful. He squeezes tighter, because he’s almost worried that he needs to keep Shiro all together. “So did Adam.”

The mention of Shiro’s…whatever Adam is to him makes him cry harder, but Keith pushes on, sure that he needs to know.

“The day you went missing, he broke into your apartment. Went looking for the rings. He never took it off after. Never stopped looking for you, either. He forgave you, too.”

Shiro cries something, too warbled to make out, but Keith can make a pretty good guess as to what it was.

“You do deserve it,” he says firmly. “You are not a monster. You are not undeserving of our love, Shiro, of any of our love. We have always loved you as you are. Don’t rob of us the chance.”

“I don’t actually hate your mother,” Shiro whispers.

Keith laughs wetly. “I got that one, dumbass. Use your words next time.”

Shiro smiles slightly, wisely not agreeing. They both know he won’t. They both know this will probably happen to him again, and probably Keith, too — they may not be blood brothers, but they’ve always been alike anyway. Neither has ever been good at expressing themselves, at letting themselves be vulnerable.

But Keith holds his brother tighter, and thinks of their family who loves them with all their shit, despite it and because it, and thinks that they’ll make it through anyway.

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