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"And I'm going to get married."
Keith said it with casualty, as it isn't something important, something that is going to change his life forever. Like it isn't something that literally breaks Shiro's heart. And despite the fact they're in a public space, sitting down at the table in a local bar, Shiro lets his emotion got him.
"What? How? With whom?"
"Her name is Maeve," Keith says, as he turns the spoon on his cup. "Allura said she's one of the best alchemists out of the colony's group and she's very favorable at out union."
So she's a woman - curious enough, Shiro trusts his gay radar and Keith doesn't give straight vibes - and and altean.
"You never talked about her," and now you'll marry her is the unsaid accusation.
"I only meet her twice, so I'm talking about her now."
Shiro blinks. "Are you going to marry someone that you met only twice?" That's too much for Shiro, this is not the Keith he knows.
"I guess we'll meet other times before the ceremony."
Sometimes Keith is too blunt for his own good. "No, I mean... do you love her?"
"No?" It's Keith's time to be surprised. "She seems nice, and probably we'll get along, I trust Allura on this. She's the one that matched us up after all. But love her... probably not."
Shiro frowns. "What a minutes... Are you telling me that you're doing an arrange marriage?"
"Yes."
"And you really agree with this?"
Keith shrugs. "You know how few alteans are left in the universe, and we need to stay together, and that involves me too, even if I'm just half-alteans. And Allura insisted so much because I have this particularly quintessence sensibility that, she said, it's important to pass to other alteans."
"I get this," Shiro says, "and I get that Allura is all for it because she takes her role as head of the remaining alteans serious, but this is your life. Don't you think you deserve to chose who to marry, and out of love?"
Keith shrugs again. "I don't think I'll get ever married, so at least with this I'm going to help."
"Not ever falling in love?" Shiro inquires more.
Keith looks at Shiro straight in his eyes. "No."
"Captain. Captain!"
Veronica has to call him twice before Shiro realizes he's calling for him. It's been two days since Keith gave him the news about his marriage and he still has problems processing it, processing that it's too late and that, after all, he has the confirmation that Keith doesn't reciprocate his feelings.
"I'm listening."
"We received a call for the guards on the tower. An unidentified object crashed a couple of kilometers from the city. Sources said it's a Galra pod."
"A Galra pod?" Shiro repeats. "A rebel? Or a blade?"
"They're waiting for you before getting near. They trust your expertise as the Black Paladin only."
"Okay, let's go."
They reaches the area in fifteen minutes, and Shiro sees the crater the crash caused, and the soldiers around that check the situation. At that point, the pilot may be as well dead. Still, Shiro greets the soldiers and climbs down the crater. He uses his metal arm to force the pod's door open and, with his bayard in his hand, he enters. The circuit of the ship are broken, but in the shadow Shiro sees the figure of the pilot, still sitting in the pilot's chair. He's immobile, but Shiro seems to see the small movement of his chest to certified he's still alive.
He drags him outside the pod. "Call the meds!" He screams to Veronica, and only then he takes off the pilot's mask to check who he is as he waits for the meds. He expects a Galra or an half Galra, absolutely not at human.
And that human.
"K-Keith?"
He isn't his Keith, of course. The scar on the right cheek, the way he has his hair a little bit longer, the clothes he's wearing are clues enough, but at first it's a big shock, and not only for Shiro.
It's Slav to confirm that the strange frequencies he capted that day were the sign of an alternative reality and that he can perceive the same from the Keith on the pod.
So, a Keith for an alternate reality.
Talking about thing that are subverting Shiro's existence.
The doctors say that Keith is overall health: the hit from the crash gave him some concussion, but nothing life dangering; Shiro suspects, if this Keith is as good as a pilot as his Keith, that the crash could have been entirely intentional, to avoid a worse crash scenario.
Since Shiro doesn't want for this Keith to wake up alone in a stranger place in a stranger reality, so he remains at his bed. Watching over Keith gives him a sense of normalcy, even if he doesn't help his broken heart to heal.
At the third day, Keith finally opens his eyes. He looks around, confused, and then his gaze fells on Shiro, and his gaze softens. "Shiro..." But then he notices something, and he frowns, and he immediately tries to stand up, suddenly startled.
Apparently, Shiro has some difference to the Shiro of the other reality.
"Please, relax," he says immediately, and makes a peaceful gesture with his hands. "I know this may be confusing for you, but I don't me any harm. You're in an alternative reality."
"Oh." Keith seems relaxing immediately, and he lays down again, even if his looks doesn't move from Shiro. "Are you sure about it?"
"Yes, our scientist elaborates your different frequencies," Shiro answers, "and I personally know the other Keith."
"I see."
"You're taking this incredible well."
"I've been in an alternative reality before," Keith says. "But it was pretty different, and you... you weren't so similar from my Shiro."
It's Shiro turns to be surprised. Despite all his adventures as a Voltron Paladin, he has never crosses another reality. "How different he is from me?"
"He doesn't have the Galra arm anymore."
Unwilling, Shiro looks down at his prosthetic and finds out he envies the alt Shiro and the fact he manages to get rid of something that, despite being useful, remembers Shiro of his prisony.
"And how was the other reality?"
"Bad. The Alteans took over the universe and enslaved everyone." Shiro thinks it't now very different by the Galra empire, but then Keith asks, "there is any change to return home?"
"Our scientist are working on it," Shiro explains. "It's been around an year and an half since they start to recognize some strange frequencies about other realities, even if the knowledge of their existence is older. We never tries to pass through realities, yet, but I'm confident your arrival may help us."
"Passing between realities isn't good and it shouldn't be done," Keith says. then frowns. "An year and a half, you said?"
"Yes."
"Ah." If he knows something, he doesn't say, and Shiro realizes he has as much walls up and the Keith he met years before, and he hopes he can climbs it a second time.
"Are you hungry? Can I bring you something?"
"That would be nice."
"I'll be back soon." He returns ten minutes later with a tray of food, and Keith starts eating slower and carefully. To avoid the embarrassment of staying him watching him eat, he adds, "what about I tell you something about this reality, so you can tell me how your reality differs from me?"
Keith nods slowly, but he isn't looking at him.
"Okay. We met - I mean me and the Keith of this reality - at the Garrison, around seven years ago. I was a young lieutenant and you were the new promise over the pilots. We were friends since there."
"So you didn't recruit me?"
"No?" Shiro is surprised by Keith's immediate response. "We only have three years difference, I was at the last year when you're at first. I did recruit you in yours?"
Keith nods. "Yes, just after I stole your car."
And incredibly, this news makes Shiro laughs. "I can see that."
even Keith seems more relaxed once Shiro's burst. "Did you go to Kerberos in this?" He asks then, with a sad gaze.
"Yes, and I ended up prisoner of the Galra, then I came back, met you again, and went back to space on a Blue Lion and started fighting a space war against Zarkon."
"Okay, this part is the same," Keith says, and he nods when Shiro lists him the paladins and the lion they piloted. "Did you disappear after Zarkon's defeat?"
It's interesting to see how similar aspects can have different outcome. "Not really. I mean, in a sort, we can say I did. My soul were separated by my body, and while I was trapped in the Black Lion's consciousness, my body was in a sort of coma."
“Oh,” Keith says. “So we know you’re still alive somewhere.”
“I guess so?” Shiro murmurs. “It was a complicated period. Allura took my place as the pilot of the Black Lion, and-” He’s cut off.
“Allura did it?”
“Yeah. She’s the princess, and the leader. It seems the obvious choice, and she did a great job. Like I said, it was a complicate period, and Zarkon’s son, Lotor, is even more cunning that his father, so the battles became harsher, difficult. She had to make difficult choices.”
Keith smiles sadly. “I wonder if thing would have been different if Black accepted Allura in my reality too.”
“Who pilot Black then?” Shiro asks, sincerely curious.
“I did.” And there is a small sadness in his eyes. “For a little while, before your return. Or at least, what we thought it was your return. Instead, it was a clone.”
“A clone?!”
“Yes.” Keith nods. “Haggar had taken much interest in Shiro, and she managed to clone him and used one of his clone to spy on us. We found out later on, when she had to use the clone to save her son Lotor.”
“Wait, Haggar’s Lotor’s mother in your reality?”
“Yes, we found out much later thought. Lotor rejected her – well, for some times Lotor was our allied against them and Zarkon, before we found out about the altean colony he’s used for drain special quintessence. But then we killed Lotor and she swore revenge upon us. She almost destroyed all the realities in the meantime.”
“Woaw, extra,” Shiro says, and without notice they’re both chuckling. Things are so similar yet so different that it’s almost comical. “In this reality, Lotor’s mother is an altean, and he was killed by Zarkon. Haggar was just another Galra who tried to be more, and she used the knowledge stolen from Lotor’s mother for it, but in the end her machines were just bad copies. Once we defeated Lotor, she surrendered. Right now we have some rebel group of Galra, but the empire is basically defeated.”
“Like us. Wait, was Earth attacked in this reality?”
“The Earth? No! It was too far… it was in your?”
“Yeah, almost destroyed because of Sendak,” Keith replies. “And we lost four years of our lives for some time travelling problems… well, that’s it. I guess you’re not the Captain of the Atlas then.”
“What’s Atlas?”
“A big ship that can turn into a mecha, it was built by Sam Holt during the Earth invasion. When we came back to Earth, I was still piloting Black, and you took the command of Atlas. Especially because the Castle of Lion were destroyed.”
“I see… No, we still have the Castle, and Allura left me my spot on the Black Lion… wait, who’s piloting Red if you’re on Black?”
“Lance. And Allura was in blue.”
“Lance in Red? Oh my God.” And then he laughs again, at Keith annoyed and amused impression.
“He was not so bad, I assure you.”
“I’m gonna believe you only because it’s you,” Shiro smiles. “But how do you find me back in your reality, if there’s no body?”
“I… manage to get in contact with your spirit in the astral plane of the Black Lion,” Keith says, but he doesn’t sound happy. “The clone died, so Allura managed to transport your soul inside the body.”
“And my hair become white?”
“Yep!”
“So it’s very similar to me,” Shiro says. “With the difference that it was you to transfer my consciousness into my body.”
“I was able to?”
“Well, you study a lot of altean alchemy and then you went to Oriante, so yes, even if I guess Allura would be able too.”
“I didn’t realize I would be able to learn altean alchemy.”
“Wait! Do you know you’re half altean, don’t you?”
“Oh, that’s it. I’m not half altean in my reality.” Then, with a little embarrassment, he says, “I’m half galra.”
“Oh.” Just when Shiro thinks he can’t be more surprised by the difference. “I guess you won’t be able to, then. But the important thing is that you still found me.”
Keith releases a sad smile. “I guess so.”
Talking with that Keith is easy, it’s like talking with his own Keith, despite all their difference. And probably the same is valid for Keith, that starts to open more and more and finally reveals that, in his reality, Allura sacrificed her life to save everyone – including their reality.
It looks like the other reality got it worse – like the scar on Keith’s cheek prove, the only thing that Keith refused to talk about. But he speaks with a lot of sweetness about his own Shiro, about how his life would be totally different without him, and about how much he misses his friendship now that he’s the Captain of the Atlas with a lot of duty.
Shiro recognizes those situation, and to reciprocicate tells him a lot about his Keith and how they were their years at Garrison, and how they were right now, and about the difference and the similarities between the two pairs.
“…Unless you’re getting married, like the Keith from here. Hey, aren’t you?”
“Uh, no,” but he seems surprised. “But you are getting married in my reality.”
That’s definitely the thing that hit Shiro the most.
It’s definitely a bizarre coincidence, a Shiro and a Keith getting married in their own reality, and a Keith and a Shiro still single in their reality. Bizzare coincidence… or a strange form of destiny? But Shiro tries to cancel that image from his mind. That Keith, the Keith that’s single, is going to return in his reality soon enough, and Shiro can’t – won’t – ask him to remain. Let’s aside the fact that he probably isn’t in love with him since he seemed pretty okay at the idea of his Shiro married.
So, yeah, Shiro isn’t going to do stupid things about it. He’s going to take care of Keith until the moment his scientist are going to manage to bring Keith back in his reality. And then he’ll learn to accept that his Keith, the man he’s in love with, will marry another person.
***
Despite the time Keith ends up spending in that reality, because apparently the scientists are taking much time than predicted to find a way back to his reality, there still a feeling of strangeness, in the way he doesn’t really belong there, and that despite all the attempt of Shiro to relax him. He’s grateful, really, but he can’t help but looking at Lance, or Hunk, or Pidge, and realizes that they’re not his Lance, Pidge and Hunk. And looking at Allura is even worse, because it remembers him that they lost Allura, while this one is still alive and well. Like it’s unfair.
He’s felling like being back at the Garrison, where he feels everyone else is a stranger. Everything but Shiro, of course. Even if he isn’t his Shiro, he’s still a Shiro, and Keith can’t help but feeling incredibly at ease with him, at the point he’s basically living with him at the moment. He’s grateful for this moments that he can’t have anymore with Shiro.
The weirder thing of all that situation is Alt Keith’s presence, of course, and the thing is definitely the same for them. They try to be civil, of course, but basically they avoid any conversation between the two of them and Keith himself prefers, when they’re together in the group, not talking with any of them, but letting Keith be the real Keith of the group, at it should be.
It’s even weird when Keith arrives with his fiancé, and they start to talk about the incoming wedding. Keith has enough with his Shiro’s wedding (and glady outsource Shiro’s party to Lance, despite being the best man), but hearing them planning the wedding of another himself is a little too strange for Keith.
But maybe is just the fact that Keith can’t see him marry someone else that isn’t Shiro, and in this reality Shiro looks single, so he doesn’t understand. He knows that he can’t judge Alt Keith’s life, he has no right, yet he doesn’t seem right for him.
Maeve is a nice altean with long blue hair and bright yellow eyes, that’s also a little but touchy for Keith’s taste. She doesn’t leave Keith’s side, and basically she grabs him every time, as to prove he’s her. Alt Keith seems to accept the situation with seraphic calm, while Shiro gets a little nervous in his behalf (Keith’s sure to be the only one to notice Shiro’s distress too).
“And as Keith’s best man, Shiro will be allowed to walk inside the cave with us, and witness to our union, and glady be at Keith’s side for the ceremony,” Maeve is saying, as she explaining how the traditional altean marriage will take place. Keith wonders if he would have chose a galra ceremony for hias own wedding.
“Speaking about this,” Lance intervenes. “Shiro’s the best man, and okay, we all expected that. But what about the stag night? Can I organize it? I know some place…” Pidge rolls his eyes, Hunk looks worried, and Shiro just shakes his head.
“It’s all yours.” He looks tired as he says that.
“Perfect! You won’t forget this, mullet!”
“Actually,” Maeve coughs a little, to lure their attention. “There won’t be any stag party.”
“What?” Lance is horrified. “Why?”
“It isn’t a altean tradition.”
“But it’s an Earth tradition,” Lance replies, “and Keith’s half Terran too. He deserves the stag party as anyone else.”
Maeve’s face becomes icy. “Queen Allura trusts us into bringing back the glory of Altea. Our union will probably create a new house of powerful alchemist. This isn’t a game, this is an essential mission for our people.”
“Okay, I understand that,” Hunk says. “But it’s just a party, you know what a party is, don’t you?”
“It’s more than a party. It’s a disrespect of our tradition,” Maeve continues. “If we want to be seen as the true new altean people, we have to respect our tradition at all, and don’t let others dirty what he’s been us and sacred for century, and what we managed to save from Zarkon’s attack. So the marriage will be held only with altean tradition.”
“This is so unfair!” Pidge protests, even if she isn’t eager for the stag party until a second ago. “You’re talking a lot about tradition and yet you’re disrespecting at all Keith’s own traditions.”
“With due all respect, Altean is far older and powerful than Earth, and so-”
Shiro interrupts them before the conversation degenerate in something they all regret. “Guys. Maybe before all this we should ask what Keith thinks about it.”
Alt Keith has been silent for all the conversation, almost trying to make himself invisible in the cushion of the sofa (a feeling Keith understand immensely), and he regrets having the attention of everyone on himself at the moment. Maeve gets nearer him, keeping his hand, basically sitting in his lap.
“What do you want, Keith?” Shiro asks, with a little smile.
“Yeah, honey, tell him what do you want,” Maeve says, and this time her tone is sweet, with a big smile on his lips.
“It’s okay if we don’t do the stag party,” Alt Keith shrugs. His voice his toneless. “I don’t really like the chaos, and I’m pretty sure Lance is going to do something big, and chaotic, and probably someone will risk to die, something I really don’t need the night before my wedding. So, thank you, but I’m fine.”
“See?” Maeve says, looking directly towards the group, and there is a brightness on her eyes, the joy of having win the argument. “Unlike you, Keith understands the importance of our traditions. Be glady to have been invited to the wedding, because it wasn’t granted.”
“Some alteans wanted to make it an only altean ceremony,” Alt Keith murmurs, “but they agree that at least the Paladins must attend it.”
“Of course,” Lance exclaims, and the crosses his arms, still angry he won’t be able to organize the stad party.
They change the argument, but Keith doesn’t notice it, his gaze still on his other self and his future wife. The scene he just witnessed hit too much close to home. He had a very similar meeting with Shiro and Curtis, the day Shiro invited them all for drinking and announcing his engagement.
They were all happy and cheering (well, everyone but Keith, even if he tried very hard to be supportive of Shiro’s decision) until the moment Shiro announced that he would resign for his position as Atlas’ captain and will retire from the Garrison.
“You can’t, you’re my hero,” Lance protested, while Pidge pointed out, “nobody can pilot the Atlas but you,” and Hunk just tried a little “are you sure?”
To answer to all those question was Curtis, while Shiro just stood it and let Curtis spoke on his behalf. Just like Maeve today. Keith had a bitter taste in his mouth that night, and he had now, like maybe they’re not bad person, they don’t realize they’re manipulative ass, but they are, and just as he didn’t understand why Shiro was fine with it, he doesn’t understand Keith’s weakness here.
“Are you really okay with this?” Keith asked to Shiro, and he only got an half smile and an half answers, “someone we need to take decision that are for the best”.
For the rest of the day, he doesn’t take his eyes off Shiro. Shiro still talks with the others, elaborates projects, sometimes he tries to put Keith in the middle of the conversation, but Keith knows that, deep down, he’s angry about what happened before with Maeve, and there’s a part of him that doesn’t accept the situation and he just holds back because he loves Keith too much.
“Can I make a personal question?” he says to Shiro, as they walks back to the apartment they share in the time Keith is passing on that reality.
“Uh, sure.” Shiro seems still a little bit distracting by the previous happening.
“You’re in love with your Keith, aren’t you?”
Shiro freezes on the spot, he stops walking, for a couple of seconds he remains there, looking at Keith with his mouth half opened, while his face becomes entirely red, ears included. Then, he releases a bitter, humorless laugh.
“I can’t believe you’re asking me this,” he says at last, shaking his head while he starts walking again, and Keith follows him. Keith fears to have offending him, but then Shiro adds, “I’ve always thought I’m pretty obvious with my crush, but apparently no one noticed it, not Keith for sure, but not even the others. Sometimes they talk about how much they envy a friendship as mine and Keith’s, and I die a little inside every time.”
“There’s a reason why I know this,” Keith whispers then, realizing that the situation is very much similar to his own. No one of his friends think he’s suffering because of Shiro’s marriage.
“And which is it?”
“You look at your Keith in the exact same way I look at my Shiro.”
Slowly, Shiro turns at him and blinks, silently asking if he understood correctly. When Keith nods a little, he doesn’t add anything. He wait for them to be inside their apartment, and he closes the door behind him, before revealing all his surprise.
“You’re in love with Shiro?”
“Yes. I’ve been for a long time now.” Keith nods a little. “It started all in the Garrison, you know. He’s bigger, and brave, and great, and he saved me. But I thought he would never look at me, not until we were together fighting with our lions. There I felt I was Shiro’s partner, that we were connecting in a way I would have with nobody else. But in the end, I fall in love and he only sees me as a friend.”
He can imagine the pain on his face, because he’s the same he sees right now on Shiro’s face.
“I heard you talking about him, but I didn’t realize…”
“Oh, well,” Keith shrugs, “You’re not the only one.” Sometimes Keith wonders if Shiro is just obvious of his feeling or he’s ignoring him to not hurt Keith more.
“Sorry,” Shiro still says, with an apologetic smile. “The same is for me, you know. I met Keith when he’s already a second year cadet, and he blew out all my flight records. I didn’t envy him, I admire his talent, that’s why I wanted to be his friend. And he was so easy falling for him, in the way he speak and act and think, and he’s so beautiful too…”
It hurts, Keith realizes, hearing this Shiro talking in this way, in the way Keith hopes his Shiro would have, one day, talked. He says it out loud.
“God, how much I wish you are my Shiro.”
Shiro stops his blabbering, and looks at him intensely. Then, he kisses him.
In a second, they are on Shiro’s bed, kissing, touching, and trying to undress themselves and the others, Shiro upon him with a hand on his hair to caresses him.
“You appeared him my life just a couple of day later after Keith announced me his arranged marriage,” Shiro says, looking at Keith’s half naked body with red cheeks. “Maybe it was destiny. Maybe we were mean to be…”
He’s bend over to kiss Keith again, but this time Keith rejects him pushing him away with the palm of his hand. “What do you mean, arrange marriage?” His mind starts to work clearly again.
“Oh, well, he’s marring Maeve to populate Altea again, Allura matched them, or so Keith said.” Shiro blinks, not understanding.
“You are so stupid!” Keith burst out. He knows, he knows that in any universe he can love someone else than Shiro. “You’re giving up on him, and he’s not even marrying out of love, unlike my Shiro!”
“What can I do,” Shiro protests, “he wouldn’t may if he’s in love with me, would he? And I tried to told him that an arrange marriage isn’t the solution, but he told me he was fine.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s because he’s scared to lose you,” Keith replies.
“Well, I’m scared to lose him too!” Shiro screams back. “What if he doesn’t love me and by confessing I’m going to make thing akwards between us? He never show me something more than friendship, and I’m fucking scared to lose him that I’m ready to see him marrying another person if it means he’ll be still my friend.”
Ouch, how much Keith can understand that discourse.
“You know a thing? Once we stargazing together, we lyed down together on the grass, and I was half asleep, and then Keith was upon me, checking up on me, and joked about how an old man I am because I couldn’t stay up late, and then he bent towards me and I was so sure he was going to kiss me that I close my eyes… and he hugged me saying how much he’s happy to be my friend. So, yeah.”
He stops his monologue with a snort and Keith releases a small “damn”. That scene is awfully familiar, it’s the moment Shiro wakes up after healing from the clone’s body, and Keith leaned towards him, just after Shiro had revealed to dream about him, and Shiro rested freeze, closed his eyes a little, Keith remembered that well… and then Keith hugged him. Because his mother was there, because he was just a fucking cowards.
“We are stupid,” he murmurs, “all four of us.”
“Well, now I feel a little bit better. Or maybe not, because apparently there isn’t a reality when things work between us.”
“It may be this reality,” Keith says. “Listen well. I… I did the same thing of your Keith. I had an almost kiss with my Shiro… and I didn’t because I was afraid. And then things went shit between us, at the point we almost speak to each other right now.”
Shiro holds a gasp. “Because he’s in love with you and he thinks you aren’t.”
“Maybe, maybe not, not important now,” Keith waves his hand. “The important thing is that probably Keith loves you just I love my Shiro, but he’s feeling you’re not reciprocicating his feelings, so he accepted an arrange marriage for the sake of his people. I know, because I would do the same thing.”
“And what will happen if I confess?”
“I’ll cry, then I’ll kiss you and tell you how much I love you.”
With his head low, Shiro releases a small laugh. “Okay. I’ll do it. But only if you confess too, once you’re back.”
“My Shiro isn’t doing an arranged marriage.”
“No, but he’s marrying someone to forget he’s in love with his best friend. Because that what I would do in his place.” And then he looks at Keith, and smiles, and says, “I wasn’t wrong, our meeting was destiny.”
And Keith believes him, and believes in the fact that he’s going to see this Shiro confesses to his Keith, and be happy, and he believes that he’s going to return to his reality, and confesses to his Shiro, and be happy.
That’s destiny after all.
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