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English
Series:
Part 3 of The Ring
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Published:
2017-10-15
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1,519
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1/1
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devoid

Summary:

Keith lived life without Shiro, but Shiro never expected to do the same.

Notes:

Uh so I saw this meta and it literally broke my heart so instead of doing my gov notes I wrote a thing.

god stop me from hurting Keith Kogane

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

It’s been a while since this type of relief has flooded Shiro’s veins, and as he and the rest of the paladins watch the Galran cruiser explode, the brief sight of an escaping craft barely visible, he can’t help the relieved sigh.

“Good job Keith.” He calls through the comms.

Silence was his only reply, and he tapped the comm again, unsure if his message had even gone through.

To be honest, Shiro hadn’t wanted to let Keith go, he hadn’t wanted to take Keith away from the spot that Shiro had instinctively known was to be Keith’s, but as they floated in the dead space, the calm after the storm, he could ignore the guilt that had been eating at him ever since Keith had left.

But Keith had smiled, and Shiro had relented at the thought of Keith so sure of who he wanted to be. The Blades would teach him patience, would show him his heritage, and Shiro was sure that Keith would return one day, a better man than he already was.

As Voltron stood – if anything could stand in space – watching Naxzela defuse, the transparent purple field wrapped around the planet disappearing faster than he could blink, Shiro was sure that everything was fine. The mission was successful, and the paladins and the majority of the coalition was alive. Keith had stopped the bomb, and countless of lives were saved.

All thanks to Keith.

But what was this feeling of dread?

“Keith?”

Silence.

“Keith?”

A scan of the screen showed complete silence from Keith’s end, not even a breath. No interference, nothing but floating chunks of Galran spacecraft between him and Keith’s last pinged location.

“Keith? Are you there?”

No reply.

“Pidge, are our communications still up?”

“Yeah I’m pretty sure. There isn’t any reason they wouldn’t be.”

Frowning, Shiro tapped the panel again.

“Keith? Do you copy?”

A sudden feeling of wrong hit him like a bag of bricks, the feeling of the universe suddenly collapsing around him, the feeling that something hadn’t gone as planned.

And then a voice. Matt’s voice.

“I’m so sorry Shiro.”

 

 

The words hit Shiro harder than they should have, and in the silence that follows, no one even breathed, and even the light chatter between Pidge and Lance stops as Shiro stares at Matt’s face.

“No.”

“Shiro…I-I was too far to do anything but he, his face-“

“No.”

“We couldn’t tear down the shield, and he knew that and he just, he just used his ship instead.”

Matt’s voice breaks, and vaguely Shiro remembers that Keith is just as important to Matt as he is to Shiro, that Matt hasn’t seen or talked to Keith since the Garrison, and that he would be suffering just as much as Shiro.

But Shiro’s heart is breaking and he can’t hear any of Matt’s desperate explanations.

“Shiro, we need to get back to the castle. We need to regroup with everyone else.”

Its Allura’s voice this time, tight with emotion, her face appearing beside Matt’s but Shiro can’t see, can’t breathe, can’t live in a world without Keith.

“You’re lying. Keith is fine.” He barely breathes out, completely disregarding Allura, and Matt closes his eyes painfully.

Shiro wonder then what Keith looked like in his final moments. Did he sit straight, his face framed by that dark hood, violet eyes flashing with determination like his days at the Garrison? Did he scream with frustration at the world, at the universe, at his life for giving him so little but handing him so much? Did he cry?

What did he think of? Did he remember his life, the painful childhood that he had always hidden? Did he remember his days at the Garrison, filled with equal parts laughter and stress? Did he think of Voltron and its paladins, determined in their fight against Zarkon?

Did he think of Shiro?

It hits Shiro painfully then, the thought of Keith. He was twenty, too young to be in any war, but he had always given the universe more than it had deserved, and it destroyed him in return.

 

 

The rest of the team returned to the castle, but Shiro wandered the rubble, looking for any sign of Keith.

Keith wouldn’t have just died.

Keith, beautiful, strong, determined, Keith.

Keith had never given up on him.

Shiro wouldn’t give up on him.

But as the rubble drifted farther and farther apart, destined to become someone’s garbage, there was nothing, no sign of a single Galran fighter ship.

No sign of Keith.

”That time you went missing in Black? Keith wouldn’t leave for days. We had to drag him back time and time again.” Lance laughed. “Thank god you’re back. I’m sure Keith would have broken to pieces if you hadn’t.”

Shiro was falling to pieces.

 

 

 

When he opened his eyes again, he was in his room, his room with too many memories of Keith.

“He was so fast, his cruiser was headed towards the battleship before I could even blink.” Matt whispered

He should have stopped Keith.

“He knew that we couldn’t do anything, but…I think he knew that we had to do something.”

Of course he did.

“He put the mission before himself. The universe before himself.”

It’s at that point that a sob rips its way out of Shiro, animalistic and painful as tears streak down his face. It’s all his fault.

 

 

It’s a few days before anyone ventures towards his room, and after several failed attempts to avoid the other paladins, he makes his way towards Keith’s room, Keith’s old room, just a few steps down the hall.

The room is stripped, devoid of anything that could possibly remind Shiro of Keith, but something about that makes it even worse.

“Why is your room so clean?”

“I only keep what I need. Always have, always will.”

If only he could go back to the day when their worst worries were being found out by Iverson.

He cries into Keith’s pillow that night.

 

 

 

Allura forces him to come to a meeting, and he emerges, red-eyed and messy, barely gathering the energy to sit at Allura’s right hand.

At one point in time, Keith would have been sitting at his.

The other paladins glance at him, concern evident in their eyes, but Shiro redirects his attention towards his own screen. He refuses to accept their pity. If he can survive for just a few minutes more, he can go back to Keith’s room, gather the scraps of Keith left on the Castle.

Kolivan stands to debrief about the Naxzela mission, and as the holographic screen flickers to life, the planet fills the screen in front of them.

“Our mission to Naxzela was for the most part, successful. Excluding the fact that both Haggar and her commander escaped, and the fact that we suffered major casualties due to her actions.”

Major casualties?

Did he not even care about Keith?

Kolivan’s eyes land on him.

“I acknowledge the fact that one of our own has passed, but now more than ever, we must push on, especially if we are able to have Prince Lotor on our side.”

It takes everything Shiro has to not scream and leave the room.

 

 

Kolivan finds him after the meeting, somewhere between the bridge and Shiro’s destination.

“Shiro.” He says formally, and Shiro sucks in a breath before he meets the Galran’s eyes.

“What is it Kolivan?” he asks, tired, so tired.

He hadn’t imagined that a world without Keith could be so tiring.

“I was told that you and Keith were intimate. I wanted to pass these to you.”

He hands Shiro a box, and Shiro’s breath hitches as he surveys its contents.

That stupid red jacket, a set of dogtags. Shiro’s dogtags strung on a chain with a single ring.

“Thank you.” Shiro whispers.

 

 

 

It’s been ten days since he’s stepped out of Black’s hangar, devoid of life.

He thinks of Keith, of everything, of Kerberos, of the Galra, and Keith leaving.

He should have fought more, fought harder, prevented Keith from leaving.

If Keith had piloted Black that day, he wouldn’t be dead. He would still be here in Shiro’s arms.

He doesn’t go back to the hangar for a while.

 

 

 

He dreams that night, of a better time, of sitting on top of the Garrison’s roof with Keith.

“I can’t wait to go up there Takashi. When I die, I want to be a star.”

“Stars die too Keith.”

“But stars are stories, legends. When you’re lost, you always look towards the stars. I want to help, I want to be someone.”

“You are someone.” Shiro whispers, and Keith looks wistfully towards the sky, hair framed like an angel.

“Do you ever feel like you should have been so much more, like you were made to do something great? I feel like I missed my chance, my 15 minutes of fame. It disappeared with my childhood, and I’m just there. Just floating around, living an empty life. Imagine what it’ll be like when you leave for Kerberos. I can’t imagine life without you Takashi.”

 

Notes:

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