The drop from the roof wasn't coordinated, nor was it graceful.
Some part of Keith, in the very distant recesses of his mind—the part that urged him to consider his own safety, to turn back, to run—remembered to lower himself before the fall, to drop into a crouch as he landed. The other part of him, the part that howled with burning curiosity and drowned out the timid pleas of rationality, couldn't care less. He threw caution to the wind, his all-consuming need to get to the crashed pod overriding any whisper of sense or warning of danger.
He landed poorly, ignoring the pain that shot up his ankles as one of them almost rolled underneath him.
Without sparing a single thought to what he was leaving behind, Keith's legs carried him forward, and he fell easily into a sprint.
…
Even in the dark, the crashed pod wasn't hard to find.
It had come careening violently into a canyon wall near the Benbow's landing pad (Keith wondered if the pilot had actually been aiming for it—a near-impossible task considering the malfunctioned engines), leaving a smoking trail of destruction in its wake. A newly formed ravine snaked through the desert floor, gauged into soft red clay like a brand. It was the crash site, and the sight of the pod's dark outline mere feet away, that finally gave Keith pause.
Sensibility came crashing back into him, adrenaline wearing off with the rain that pelted his skin, and—when in the hell had it started raining? How had he let himself get so singularly-focused that he hadn't even noticed? As blind confidence slipped away from him, a barrage of questions took its place, as shocking and sobering as the freezing wind. What the hell had he been thinking, running towards an unidentified craft in the middle of the night? How was he even hoping to help? He had nothing on him—no light, no communications device, no source of warmth or aid in the case of an injured pilot—nothing.
Stupid, stupid, he chastised, finally sparing a long overdue glance back in the direction he'd come from. He wondered what his father would say, if he had witnessed this display of recklessness. Despite the night's chill, Keith flushed with shame, wondering how many times he could disappoint his father in one day. You never think.
Briefly, the thought of doubling back for supplies crossed his mind, but he dismissed it almost as soon as it had arrived. It was too late to turn back. The pilot in the pod was bound to be badly injured, if not dead, and Keith (although perhaps not the ideal choice, all things considered) was their only hope. The only thing that mattered was getting them out of that pod and finding help.
With his jaw set in determination and decision, Keith gingerly lowered himself into the ravine, careful of the weight he placed on his throbbing ankles. The last thing he needed was a fracture or a break—he'd be of no use to anyone (let alone this pilot) if he couldn't support himself on his own two feet. Though he still moved with urgency, he now proceeded with an air of caution, grateful for the frigid rain soaking through his clothes that grounded him and kept his senses sharp. As he approached, the words unidentified craft and unknown cycled through his head, and it occurred to Keith then that there was no way of knowing what manner of being had dropped from the stars—and that in addition to being unprepared and unsupplied, he was also unarmed (save for his tiny pocket knife), and very, very much alone.
No one even knows you're here, the recesses of his mind whispered, menacing and unsolicited. You could disappear right now, and no one would ever know where you'd gone. A chill shot up his spine, and he shuddered violently, unsure of whether it was the cold or his sudden nerves that was responsible.
He doubted that his father and Shiro, or any other residents of the Benbow, were aware of the crash. They'd probably dismissed it as a quake, or thunder—some byproduct of the gathering storm. It felt unbelievable to think that he'd been the only witness: but there was no low thrum of a hover transport zipping past, no telltale sirens indicating the arrival of cops, no high-beams illuminating the desert as a land rover trundled by. The night was silent save for the rainfall and the pod's ominous groaning and creaking.
You're on your own, Kogane.
Eyes glued to the pod, Keith crept forward until he was close enough to make out the main hatch, every muscle in his body coiled and ready to run—or fight—at a moment's notice. When he'd come within a couple feet of the door, he assessed the situation, bringing a hand to hover over the handle. Though the crash had nearly damaged it beyond recognition, Keith was certain he was looking at the standard one-seat escape unit that most of the galaxy's ships were equipped with. This one in particular looked old and weathered, it's metallic hull weathered and worn. Frigid rain pelted the smoking sphere, causing steam to roll off the pod as flames continued to lick weakly at the sky. The whole contraption had rolled to a rest on its side, its hatch tilted at an angle that would make climbing up and extracting a person from within a monumental task. As Keith squinted through the darkness, he swore under his breath, heart sinking as he took note of the bent and dented metal around the door hinge. Gritting his teeth, he rotated the door wheel and gave it a thorough tug, ready for it to open at an awkward angle, and—nothing. He gave another tug, crying out with the force of it, but the door held fast.
Keith growled in frustration, urgency flickering underneath his skin like fire. He needed—no. He had to do this.
Clinging tightly to the wheel's warm metal, he braced a foot against the bottom of the pod and yanked at the door with all his might, feeling a vein throb in his forehead as every muscle in his body screamed in protest. He was rewarded for his efforts with nothing more than the tired groan of damaged metal, as if the pod itself was telling him to give up.
It was with the devastating, sinking feeling of heartbreak that Keith realized that the pod's locking mechanism must have been damaged beyond repair in the crash, leaving the hatch impossible to open without help. With little other recourse, Keith smacked a palm against the hatch's window, panic and helplessness rising in his throat in the form of bile.
"Hey!" he called, pounding insistently against the door and coughing as he inadvertently inhaled a lungful of the exhaust wafting from failed engines. He peered into the window, but the only sight to greet him was the curl of smoke against fiberglass. "You awake in there? I'm gonna help you get out, but I think your lock's fucked, so if you can move I need you to just—"
A mere inch from his face, something slammed against the window, and Keith went sprawling backward in surprise, falling hard onto his tailbone. As pain shot up his spine, Keith sat in shock, attempting to make sense of the purple palm pressed up against the glass—and attempting to fight off the mind-numbing fear that accompanied the sight.
He watched the purple hand drag slowly down the windowpane, the squeak of friction loud enough to be heard over the creaking and the rain. In the span of a few seconds, the hand was gone, but Keith knew.
It hadn't been a trick of the light. It hadn't been a hallucination borne from the chemical fumes of burning metal; nor a product of some crazed fever-dream. The hand had been purple, and purple meant Galra, and Galra meant—
Still on the ground, Keith scrambled backward as what sounded like the full weight of a body slammed against the inside of the hatch—once, twice—and then the hatch was being forced open with brute, inhuman strength, the pod's occupant roaring in guttural agony as the misshapen door fought cooperation. There was a grunt of frustration, and then another mighty thud of body against door sent the hatch flying open. With it, a figure barrelled out, momentum carrying them heavily to the ground, directly where Keith had been standing only moments before. He watched, frozen simultaneously in terror and indecision, as the being struggled to all fours on limbs that trembled wildly with exhaustion. Smoke and light spilled out of the pod, framing the figure in an eerie haze, and Keith winced as they hacked a rattling cough that sent them collapsing back onto the floor. They curled in on themselves, arms wrapping around their torso as they coughed.
The sight made Keith's gut clench with guilt, and the conflict that had arisen within him at the telling sight of purple was swiftly intercepted by the ferocity of his moral code.
Galra or not—Pirate or not… did it really matter? Did it really matter, when a living being was convulsing in unfathomable pain before his eyes? Could he really just play the part of the heartless bystander?
You don't know what they've done, that treacherous part of him whispered. You don't know who they've hurt. You don't know what they're running from.
But, no, that… that wasn't right. He wasn't judge or jury; nor was he executioner. He was just… Keith Kogane, a nobody from The Wastes who'd come face-to-face with an injured Pirate. Keith Kogane, who—for the first time in his life—had found himself completely and utterly out of his depth.
Leaning into his resolve, Keith clambered to his feet, closing the distance between them and throwing himself to his knees beside the Pirate's head. They continued to hack, drawing in painful wheezing breaths between coughing fits, and Keith wasn't sure if they were even aware of his presence.
"Hey." Keeping the panic out of his voice was a challenge, as was keeping it hushed enough not to alarm his injured companion. If he'd been heard, the Pirate gave no indication. Keith swallowed, his hand hovering above the Pirate's forearm, clad in an armored, skin-tight black suit with glowing purple accents. "My name is Keith," he continued, gingerly lowering his hand to the Pirate's bicep. "You need—"
With lightning-quick reflexes that sent Keith's heart careening into his throat, the Pirate had Keith's wrist in a vice-like, bruising grip. They unfurled from their little ball with all the ferocity of a cornered, wounded predator—fangs bared and a low growl rumbling in their throat. Sitting in pools of yellow sclera, thin purple pupils swam with pain and fear, searching Keith's gaze with an almost disarming intelligence and gravitas.
Keith swallowed, throat dry and jaw tight. Every instinct begged him to lower his gaze, but he stood his ground, determined that the Pirate should see the sincerity in his eyes.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he calmly reassured, every word measured and ringing with truth. "I just wanna help."
For a terrifying second, nothing happened. The two remained frozen in their stare-down, the Galra's eyes boring into his as if they could read his innermost thoughts. Then, as if reaching a decision, the Pirate blinked, wincing in pain and curling back in on themself. Instead of releasing Keith's wrist, their grip slackened—no longer holding onto him as if he were a threat, but clinging to him as if he were a lifeline.
"Okay," Keith muttered, trying not to let himself become overwhelmed by the volume of trust that had just been placed in him. He fought back a cough and blinked stinging smoke out of his eyes (he was pretty sure that neither of them should be inhaling it). "Think you can stand?"
The Pirate gave little more than a grunt of affirmation, but it was all Keith needed to pull their arm across his shoulders. Together, the pair struggled to their feet, grunting and straining against one another until they stood upright. Pressed flush against Keith's right side, the Galra stood painfully hunched over; and Keith assumed they must be easily twice his height.
"My place is that way," Keith informed, jerking his chin off to the left. "Ten-minute walk. I can get you help, but you gotta—hey." Keith raised his voice, adjusting his grip on his alien companion as they sagged heavily against him, nearly slipping from his shoulders. "You gotta stay with me. I can't—I can't carry you."
"I can walk."
The Pirate's voice was so weak, so ravaged by smoke, that Keith almost didn't hear them. Hope fluttered in his chest, and he tightened his grip around them, taking a resolute step forward.
If they could talk, they could walk. All he had to do was keep them awake.
"Well yeah, that's gonna—that's good," Keith babbled brainlessly, part of him shocked that they'd actually spoken to him at all, and—what the fuck, wait. Because it had only just dawned on him that he shouldn't have just expected to be understood by a being who'd fallen from the stars. "Where'd you learn Meridian?"
His companion took a rattling breath that sent Keith's heart plummeting to the floor. That didn't sound good.
"Long… time ago."
That hadn't exactly answered Keith's question, but the Galra's voice—masculine, Keith thought—sounded so ragged and torn that he immediately wished he hadn't coerced the Pirate into conversation.
Retracing his path through the ravine, Keith used his free hand to push his sopping bangs out of his eyes, squinting through the rain until he spotted the smoothest way to haul an enormous, injured alien out of the newly formed gully.
At his side, said companion suddenly grew heavier in his grip, Keith's knees buckling with the unexpected weight and nearly sending the two of them to the floor. A surprised gasp left him, and he struggled to stay on his feet. "Whoa," he warned, giving the Pirate a shake for good measure. "You gotta stay awake, uh—"
"Thace," the Galra mumbled, head hanging low.
"Oh." Keith blinked, his brain momentarily attempting to make sense of the nonsensical word before he realized he'd been given a name. Heat rose to his cheeks. "Thace. Uh. Nice to meet you."
The Galra chuckled, and Keith wanted to throw himself off the nearest canyon. The guy had somehow survived the worst crash Keith had ever seen, and here Keith was saying 'nice to meet you' like they'd met at teatime at the Benbow.
Keith stamped down his embarrassment, ignoring his flushed cheeks and the weak laughter beside him. "Uh, I'm—"
"Keith," Thace interjected, and Keith's heart nearly stopped altogether before he remembered that he'd already given the Pirate his name; though he hadn't thought he'd been heard.
"Right, yeah. Good—good memory," Keith muttered, once again shifting Thace's arm over his shoulders. "Think you can stay awake for me, Thace?"
"You… talk," Thace rasped, hand tightening around Keith's shoulder. "Helps."
And… well. Keith may have generally been a man of few words, but if the sound of his voice kept his companion alive, he was more than happy to oblige.
…
Thace saw the Benbow before he did.
The walk had taken them twice as long as Keith had anticipated, their pace labored and painstaking in the dark, wet night. One misplaced step over loose, slippery rubble had sent Thace tumbling to the ground, dragging Keith down heavily with him. On several instances, the duo was forced to come to a halt altogether as Thace was consumed by a fit of breathless wheezing and hacking, rendering him unable to walk. Through it all, Keith kept a sturdy hand on the Pirate's back, fighting down his own growing helplessness when he could do no more but rub soothing circles and offer meager words of comfort. Despite his efforts, every agonized cough sent guilt clawing deeper into him, finding purchase in his stomach like some frenzied animal.
When Thace wasn't coughing, Keith was talking. As the two of them stumbled along, he rambled endlessly about anything and everything that popped into his brain: his father, Shiro, the Benbow, the desert, his favorite constellations—anything to keep the man beside him conscious. Every minute or so, Thace would grunt in acknowledgment or assent; but other than that, Keith didn't dare attempt to rope the Pirate into conversation. Nor did he often peel his gaze from the treacherous terrain beneath their feet, except to reorient himself with his surroundings now and then (a task that proved dangerously difficult in the dark; but Keith had enough experience with illicit nighttime escapades to find his way.)
He was halfway into a story about the time he'd snuck a lizard into James' work apron when Thace stopped dead in his tracks, bright, keen eyes fixated on something in the distance.
"Uh…" Blinking at the unexpected motion, Keith followed his gaze, squinting into the darkness and releasing a sigh of relief as he was greeted by the Benbow's twinkling lights a short distance away.
Judging by the tone of his voice, Thace did not seem to share Keith's relief. "It is large. Your… Benbow," he rasped, standing stock still and reminding Keith once more of a cornered predator.
"Well, yeah. I told you, it's—it's an inn," Keith panted, brows furrowed in confusion. "Come on, we're literally there."
Weakly, Thace raised a shaking hand, unfurling wickedly sharp claws to point ahead of them. "Couple hundred paces."
"Okay," Keith muttered through gritted teeth, feeling that now might not be the time for a lesson on human idioms. He gave his companion a gentle tug, but despite the alien's obvious deteriorating health, he remained rooted in place, eyes still locked ahead. "Thace? We're so close, man, let's—"
"It is large," the Pirate repeated, the words a little more heated the second time, as if Keith had failed to grasp some important point. Angling his head to the side, he turned the full intensity of his gaze on Keith, whose heart leaped into his throat, not having expected the burning urgency contorting the Galra's face. "I cannot allow you to—"
Keith swore as Thace was overcome with the worst coughing fit he'd endured, wreaking havoc on the Pirate's body and sending both Galra and human to the floor. With an arm draped around Thace's shoulders, Keith pulled him close, holding him tightly as he cast a furtive, desperate look into the darkness, as if his father or Shiro might just appear.
It wasn't fair. They'd come so far, and so close to finally finding help—so unbelievably, maddeningly close—and Thace was going to die here, yards away from the Benbow.
The second the thought crossed his mind, he knew it to be true. Whether Keith liked it or not (he hated it—oh, he hated everything about it), the man now writhing in agony on the floor was going to die. Keith knew it with a strange certainty; the same way he knew that the sun would rise in the morning, or that the downpour would eventually abate, or that the stars would grace the dark sky night after night. It was instinctive—inevitable, even, and it shook Keith to the core.
"Hey." He shook Thace roughly and blinked to clear his suddenly clouded vision, for which he was unsure whether to blame the rain or his own hot tears. He refused to be ashamed of the way his voice cracked. "Come on, get up."
Thace rolled onto his back, extending a hand to grasp at Keith's forearm. His claws dragged at Keith's jacket, piercing cloth and creating little seams that ran down the material. In a futile attempt to speak, the Pirate choked back a cough. "You don't…"—gasp—"understand—"
A hacking wheeze exploded from his throat, and Keith—in an impulsive fit of madness borne only of raw desperation—yanked the alien into a sitting position by his chest plate. "Maybe not," he growled, anger burning red-hot through his veins. "But what I do understand is that I've lugged your ass too far for you to give up on me here." Keith heaved a breath labored with repressed emotion, retreating onto his heels and pushing his sopping fringe off of his forehead. He was relieved to find that Thace's violent coughing episode seemed to have concluded. "Now, are you gonna help me help you, or do I have to drag you the rest of the way?"
For a long moment, Thace just looked at him, his gaze becoming more and more disconcerting as the seconds passed. Keith had just opened his mouth to continue his tirade when the Galra took a shuddering breath, releasing Keith's arm in favor of dragging the back of his palm down his face. Keith sat frozen in shock, unsure of what was happening—but he got the sense that whatever it was, it was important. He gripped the Pirate's shoulder, suddenly petrified by the thought that he may be witnessing someone's very last moments.
Finally, Thace's hand retreated, falling limply to the floor. In the dark, Keith couldn't see the expression on the older man's face, but when he spoke, it sounded like he was smiling. "You… remind me of someone," he rasped. "A friend."
Keith blinked, sending the tears collecting in the corners of his eyes cascading down his face. Shaken, he opened his mouth to respond but found that his voice had lodged itself in his throat. He felt… strangely raw, as if in that one long look, the Pirate had seen all the way down to the depths of his being—past Keith the Criminal and Keith the Failure and Keith the Disappointment, and all the way to…
What?
Stifling a sob, Keith resolutely wiped the tears from his cheeks, raising himself onto a knee and offering an arm for his companion to grab. "Please," he sniffled, the singular word wavering dangerously. He wasn't sure he even knew what he was pleading for. Please get up. Please let me at least try to help you. Please don't give up.
Please don't make me watch you die.
Thace seemed to understand him all the same. With a strained grunt, he grabbed Keith's forearm, and the two of them clambered to their feet.
…
In utter relief to be home, Keith hastily threw the inn's door open with so much gusto that it slammed against the wall; a deafeningly loud interruption to the Benbow's sleepy ambiance—so jarring and unexpected that it forced a spirited scream out of Shiro, who'd been the picture of perfect table-washing tranquility until that very second.
Overcoming his initial shock, Shiro's eyes widened as he took them in. Keith could only imagine the sight he and Thace made: breathless, doubled over, soaked-through and mud-spattered up to their knees. His cousin gaped at them with a dishrag pressed firmly against his chest, momentarily stunned into inaction. "Keith! What—"
"Help me!" he yelled back, staggering under new weight as Thace—now that respite was finally tangible—sagged heavily against him, a sigh of exhaustion morphing into more pained hacking. Shiro took the hint, tossing his cleaning supplies to the floor and darting across the room, ducking carefully under the Pirate's other arm. As the two of them practically dragged Thace to the closest chair, Keith's father burst through the kitchen doorway, eyes wild and keys dangling from his hands.
"Shiro! Keith's not in our room, I'm gonna—" his eyes landed on the trio at the opposite end of the restaurant. He gasped, taking a reflexive step back. "What in all hells—"
"His pod crash-landed," Keith hurried to explain, panic leaking into his voice. It had been much easier—necessary, even—to keep himself together when Thace had been solely relying on him to do so. Now, with his father and Shiro in the picture, Keith felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders, its weight now borne by the strength of three. "There was so much smoke," he continued, watching as his father made a beeline towards them. Words left his mouth like water from a running tap, tumbling over one another and uninterrupted by breath. "—and he hasn't stopped coughing and I didn't know what to do so I brought him here but I'm scared we took too long—"
Shiro scrambled out of his uncle's trajectory, making his way to Keith and pulling him into a one-armed hug against his side. Keith clung to him, feeling all at once physically and emotionally drained.
"You did right to bring him here," his father reassured in a voice that was dead-calm. In one fluid motion, he snatched a chair out from a neighboring table and sat facing Thace knee-to-knee, leaning forward to take the Pirate's face with gentle hands. Keith could have sworn that—for the very briefest of seconds—his father's hands paused in their trajectory, hovering midway between them as his eyes darted down to the glowing purple lines adorning Thace's chest plate.
If Keith had so much as blinked, he might have missed the moment of hesitancy, and he certainly wouldn't have felt compelled to explain himself. "I'm sorry, I know he's…" He trailed off, floundering briefly for something to say before swallowing thickly, hoping his next words would sound as assertive as he felt. "Pirate or not, I couldn't just leave him there."
"Course you couldn't. Never woulda expected you to, ace," his father mumbled, concentration unbroken as he examined the Galran for injuries.
Thace, on the other hand, was once more staring at Keith with the same searching expression from before, purple and yellow eyes locked on his own as if the alien could read Keith's thoughts if he just looked long enough.
"You…" Thace's purple complexion darkened as he struggled to suppress a cough and failed, dots of dark purple blood gathering on his chin. Keith's father inhaled sharply, swiftly procuring a cloth from his belt to dab gently at Thace's face as the man struggled to speak. "You thought me to be a Pirate?"
Keith felt as if all the blood in his body had decided to relocate to his face. Mortified, he opened his mouth, hoping something intelligent might come out—an apology, anything—but before he could atone for his ignorant assumption, his father straightened.
With a sinking heart, Keith realized he was well-familiar with the resigned expression carved into the weary lines of his father's face. He wrenched himself from his cousin's grasp, finding himself suddenly overwhelmed by touch. "You can help him, right?" he pleaded, already knowing the answer but hoping against hope that he was wrong.
Instead of providing a direct answer, Owen Kogane spared his son a mournful glance before turning to place a gentle hand on Thace's shoulder. "I'm sorry, my friend."
Keith took a step backward. No. No. There was no way this was happening.
While he unraveled at the seams, Thace merely smiled weakly up at Keith's father as if he'd just announced a pleasant weather forecast. "I feared as much," he wheezed. "I had… hoped, perhaps, but—"
"No!" Keith yelled, feeling slightly manic. "I got him here as fast as I could; we can't just give up now, he's—"
"He's inhaled too much xynthanium, Keith." His father's tone was even, measured—certainly not, Keith thought, the tone of someone who'd trudged through the desert in the hopes of saving a dying man, only to find that there'd been no hope all along. "Got nothing to do with how quick you got him here. You did everything right, but his lungs are shutting down. No amount of hurry was gonna help that." He turned back to Thace, the lines of his face pulled taut. "I'm guessin' your fuel tank exploded?"
You knew this was coming, Keith thought, remembering the smoke that'd accompanied Thace out of the pod's hatch. If he was stuck in there, inhaling xynthanium till I found him…
Then there never was any hope, he realized, and the thought hit him with unrelenting devastation. He wasn't sure he'd ever felt anything so painful in all his life. He'd poured his heart and soul into this one act of goodwill, determined that he'd finally do something right—something good—and it was like the universe had spat it all back in his face, cementing his role as no more than a worthless, selfish stain in the world.
As entrenched as he was in his breakdown, Keith nearly missed his father's question, as well as the way Thace winced in response. "Shot. Pirates."
For a second, the room fell silent, save for the ticking of the old clock adorning the back wall.
Then, Shiro was stepping forward with all the comportment befitting his role as Garrison Head of Outreach, and Keith swallowed nervously. "The Pirates who shot at you," Shiro asked slowly, his voice ringing with calculating authority, "—are they still after you?"
"Not me," Thace rasped, digging into a pouch at his waist that Keith hadn't noticed before. "This."
In his hand sat an unassuming gold sphere, glowing warmly in the Inn's dim light.
"What is it?" Keith breathed, feeling himself drawn in like a fire-weevil to flame.
When he answered, Thace's voice was threadbare, every word sounding like a monumental effort to produce. "Something that must never… fall into… their hands." With definitive assuredness, he met Keith's eyes. "You… must take it."
Out of the corner of his eye, Keith was sure that his father and Shiro exchanged a look, but the brunt of his focus was still dedicated to deciphering Thace's words. "I… me?"
Unaware of Keith's inner turmoil, Thace nodded. "The fate… of the universe… depends—"
"No, I—but why me?" Keith asked sincerely, ignoring the alien's outstretched palm and the object in it. The whole thing was just… too surreal to be true. His entire life he'd been praying that the universe might take a chance on him—might deliver him an opportunity to prove his mettle. He'd craved adventure, longed to taste it so badly that he'd thrown himself at whatever danger he could find just to feel the thrill of it. And now… not only was he being offered a chance, but the weight of it was enough to send even the most experienced swashbuckler to their knees.
But Keith wasn't that person. He wasn't the person people depended on, he wasn't the person who did things right. He was the person who let everyone down, who—despite how hard he might try—managed to fail over and over.
"I'm nobody," he whispered, voice cracking as he verbalized the thought.
"Perhaps," Thace agreed, and… okay, Keith hadn't been expecting the guy to vehemently disagree or anything, but: ouch. "But I sense… the mark of greatness... upon you." He dissolved into a coughing fit, clutching the golden ball tightly to his chest. Keith surged forward to steady him by the shoulders, his mind still reeling from the unexpected gravitas of Thace's words.
When the Galran once again met his gaze, it was hard to ignore the flecks of dark purple blood staining the man's lips. In his heart, Keith knew that they were nearly out of time, but he needed to ask—needed to know—
"You don't even know me."
Thace took a shuddering breath and smiled, raising a clawed hand to rest over Keith's heart. "You… thought I was… Pirate. Saved me. Good… heart." He sucked in a breath as if there wasn't enough air in the room. "Hero's heart. This..." With his free hand, he grasped Keith's hand in his own, firmly guiding it to rest atop the golden sphere. "Destiny."
Tears rolled freely down Keith's cheeks as he curled his fingers around the proffered artifact, clutching it tightly against his chest. "I won't let you down," he promised hoarsely. As the words left his tongue, they felt like an unbreakable vow.
No. He certainly would not let Thace down. He'd protect this—this thing with his life if he had to. Not just for the dying alien and the belief that he'd placed in him, or for his father, or even just for the sake of the universe.
He'd do it for himself. He'd do it to prove to himself that whatever potential Thace saw in him wasn't unfounded; to prove that there was a place for Keith Kogane to leave his mark in the fabric of the universe.
He pocketed the orb with finality, and was about to step back when Thace (in a surprising show of strength) pulled him forward by the shirt until his mouth hovered near Keith's ear. "Beware," he gasped, sounding as if he were using the very remains of his energy to articulate the words, "—the cyborg."
The hand grasping his shirt went limp and fell away, accompanied by a horrid croaking exhale that ghosted hauntingly over the shell of his ear. Keith straightened, biting back a sob as he regarded the now-deceased man before him.
He wasn't sure how long he stared, or how long he tried to make sense of what he was feeling for the passing of a man he'd only known for less than an hour. In reality, he likely only had a few seconds to process the storm of emotions brewing within him, but to Keith, it felt like forever. It was only the cautious creak of footsteps behind him that roused him from his grief, pulling him disorientingly into the next moment before the previous one had even fully concluded.
"He's gone." His father was stepping forward, using two fingers to draw eyelids down over unblinking eyes. "'M so sorry, darlin'."
Keith nodded, unsure of what to say. The artifact in his pocket felt heavy, somehow cold against his leg even through the material of his pants.
"We should get him out of here." Keith was vaguely aware that Shiro had spoken, but he felt as if someone had stuffed his ears full of cotton. "Whoever was after him will be looking for that pod, so—"
"If we take him back, they'll notice the thing is gone," his father cut in, gesturing in Keith's general direction.
"Right, but if he's missing, they'll track him here."
"Rain's covered up the footprints by now. If they don't find that orb, they'll come here anyway."
"So—what? You're saying we just keep him here? Is that really a risk you wanna take?"
"Shiro—"
"We need to leave." Both men froze at the interruption, turning to look at Keith, who was hardly aware he'd even spoken the words aloud. He cleared his throat, pressing a palm to his forehead and gripping his fringe in shaking fingers. "You're both right. They're gonna come here no matter what we do. We need to be gone before then."
"Keith." Shiro pursed his lips. "You're—we can't just leave the Benbow to whatever the hell is coming. There are people here—"
"We have to, Shiro. You heard what Thace said." Keith's fingers grazed the outline of the orb in his pocket. "The universe depends on this. We don't have any other choice."
"The fire bell!" Keith's father exclaimed, so unexpectedly emphatic that both cousins jumped. "We can evacuate the Benbow and run, we just gotta do it—"
Keith would always remember the irony of that moment, as well as the way all three of them froze in terror as floodlights poured through every window, drowning them in light so bright that Keith had to squint to see his family. He'd always remember the ominous roar of a large vessel as it landed somewhere outside the Benbow, and he'd always remember the fear in his father's eyes as he barreled across the room towards the fire bell. As soon as he'd flipped the switch, the piercing wail of a siren filled the air. No sooner had the alarm had been triggered than something big had collided with the ground outside, and the night erupted with raucous chatter. It was hard to tell precisely how many voices added to the clamor, but Keith knew for a fact that he and his family were well-outnumbered.
Seeming to have the same thought, Shiro's eyes met his. "My skiff is out back. We can slip—"
"No!" Keith's father pushed himself away from the switch on the opposite wall, scrambling away from the restaurant's back door and nearly stumbling into a table. "They're out back, too. We're surrounded."
With each passing second, the noise from both entrances grew louder and closer, interspersed with the terrified screams of fleeing families. the three of them backed away from both entrances, crowding towards the center of the room.
Keith was just about to ask what in the hell they were supposed to do when a shrill voice rose above the crowd, howling in indignation. "Cap'n! Want us to chase down the civies?"
Civies. His father's eyes met his own, and Keith could see the same thought pass behind them; the same horrifying, petrifying thought. They're going to kill the residents.
"Negative!" bellowed a new voice. The meaning behind the word itself should have sent relief coursing through Keith's heart. Instead, the very sound of the voice sent chills down his spine, simultaneously freezing him with fear and imbuing him with the urge to run. "Eyes on the prize, you worthless worms! Rip the place apart limb for limb and don't you rest until that filthy traitor's been found! The place reeks of his scent." The voices were all closer now—too close, Keith thought, backing even further away from both doors. The three of them had nearly reached the kitchen, but—what then? The only way to go from there was up.
Once again, that same hair-raising voice rang out over the din, roaring orders with incontestable authority. "You lot, around the side. The rest of you, through here. Now move, maggots!"
The responding cheer was close enough that it spurred the petrified huddle within the restaurant into action. With little other recourse, they turned tail and ran. As Shiro tugged Keith through the kitchen and towards the stairs to the Kogane residence by the wrist (as if Keith needed the prompting), his father trailed close behind, lingering only long enough to drag the curtain dividing the restaurant and kitchen shut. Metal rungs screeched miserably across a rusted rail, and although Keith understood his father's impulse, he wasn't entirely sure that a little bit of linen was going to be much protection from this bloodthirsty crew.
They'd just reached the foot of the stairs when both doors to the restaurant burst open with a deafening crash, and the jeers and shouts of the Pirates doubled in volume.
The trio's climb slowed to a silent creep. If they were caught before they'd reached the safe barrier of the padlocked door, they'd surely be killed where they stood. Not that they really had much time, because any second now they'd see—
"Captain!" yelled a warbly, distinctly alien-sounding voice. "He's dead!"
Keith flinched as something heavy smashed against a wall as if a chair had been thrown.
"Do you think me blind, bilge-rat? Search him, you worthless—"
"It's not on him!" wailed another voice. "Dirty bastard probably hid it!"
The primal, guttural roar that followed rattled Keith to his core, as if someone had injected a shot of pure fear directly into his bloodstream. Newly inspired, his family clambered hastily up the stairs, all caution and calculation thrown to the wind in favor of the fundamental need to escape. "Search everything! Leave no table unturned! Turn the place to ashes, for all I care; just find it!" commanded the captain. "Lieutenant, Scout—you two are with me. Gotta be something through that doorway," he concluded; and Keith's blood ran cold as he realized the captain was talking about the entrance to the kitchen.
He had no time to dwell on the prospect of being caught, however, as his father shoved him roughly through the door to their room before turning to draw the deadbolt shut. He fumbled with the locks, fingers trembling so badly that Keith hurriedly pried the older man's hands away and relieved him of the task.
When the last lock had clicked into place, Keith whirled around, back pressed against the door. "What the fuck do we do?" he hissed, keeping his voice low despite the chaotic symphony of clattering furniture and boisterous Pirates below.
"We find a way down to that skiff," Keith's father panted, eyes wild and shirt askew.
On the opposite side of the room, Shiro was shoving open a window and climbing halfway out. "Already on it, Uncle O," he grunted, saddling himself on the windowsill and offering his prosthetic palm to the room's interior. "Let's go."
Father and son rushed to the window, each taking the proffered hand in turn as they climbed out onto the ledge. Clambering out between his father and cousin, Keith was overwhelmed by a strange sense of déjà vu as he recalled standing on this same ledge earlier that very evening, the difference in circumstance jarring enough to give him pause.
Who would have thought, a few hours ago, that you'd be chased by bloodthirsty Pirates tonight?
As he glanced down at the sand-skiff hovering over the ground below, he was immediately grateful for Shiro's dweeb of a husband, who'd grown so fond of stargazing dates that the bottom of the boat was covered in a disarray of blankets.
Behind them, the doorknob jiggled, and Keith's heart hammered so hard he could feel it in his fingers.
"Okay!" Shiro yelled. Back in the room, something massive slammed against the door, accompanied by the sounds of muffled yelling. "Easy does it, alright? Just carefully lower yourselves and we'll drop on the count of three."
The next door smash was accompanied by the sound of splintering wood, and Keith barely let himself think before he was yelling, "THREE!" and shoving his palms against his family's backs with all his might. All three of them yelled as they fell, and groaned in pain when the air was subsequently knocked out of them.
To his credit, Shiro recovered first, the very picture of a tried and trained Garrison soldier. He dragged himself onto the skiff's singular piloting seat, not sparing so much as a glance to his cousin and uncle still recovering on the boat's blanketed floor. Keith felt a tremor run through his body as the skiff rumbled to life beneath them, and he let himself sink into the sweet softness of the blankets below him.
We're okay, he thought, feeling the rush of wind over him as they picked up speed. We did it. We're going to be okay.
Overcome by fatigue (and perhaps pain, he honestly couldn't tell), his eyes were just beginning to slip shut when a muffled sob at his side sent him bolting upright, wincing at a sharp pain in his lower back.
"Dad! What's wrong, are you—"
Hurt, he'd been about to ask. But as Keith followed his father's eyes to the distant sight of flames illuminating the dark, he realized that 'hurt' didn't even begin to cover it. Heartbroken, perhaps. Mourning. Bereft.
Unable to stomach the sound of his father's sobs and feeling utterly helpless to provide comfort, Keith curled in on himself, winding his arms around his knees and trying very hard to keep his gaze forward. He slid a hand into his pocket, grasping the orb for reassurance and praying that sleep might soon find him.
Behind them, their home—the only memento that Owen Kogane had inherited from his late sister—blazed bright red against the night sky as it burned.
…
Adam and Shiro's house had always made Keith a little uncomfortable.
For one, the place was a damn mansion. Keith was well-aware that Shiro's husband had come from money ('richest family in The Wastes' he'd once read in a magazine, 'seventh richest family on Montressor'). At the time, he and Shiro had only just started dating, and Keith couldn't yet see past Adam Wright: Garrison Space Academy Professor of Astronomy and History. It'd taken a couple years to fully warm up to his ex-teacher turned family member, but in that time Adam had proven himself to be a man of real substance; a relentless dweeb with a heart of gold who was head-over-heels for Keith's cousin.
The primary reason behind Keith's discomfort was significantly more base-level: Adam's place was always freezing. Even now, huddled under two blankets at the foot of the ornate living room fireplace, it seemed as if the cold had long-since seeped into his skin and was there to stay.
And… okay. That may have partially been Keith's fault.
He'd rejected the gentle offer of a warm shower when they'd arrived an hour ago, rain-soaked and freezing and dripping onto the polished tile of the foyer. He'd felt so numb, so rattled by the evening's events that something as rudimentary as a shower seemed like the last of his priorities. His father and Shiro, on the other hand, had eventually acquiesced. Both men had trudged up the entrance hall's marble staircase with varying degrees of life in their eyes, leaving Keith to be doted on by Adam.
After he'd sufficiently smothered Keith in blankets and affection, the two of them had sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor in front of the fireplace, and Keith had relayed the night's events. Adam remained dead-silent as he listened, a pinched expression adorning his bespectacled face as he rubbed soothing circles between Keith's shoulder-blades.
It didn't take Adam long to ask to see the artifact.
Although Keith felt strangely protective of the orb and was reluctant to let anyone else touch it, his trust of Adam won out. Weird historical items were kind of Adam's thing (a side hobby, really—although the guy had an entire room of collectibles in his house that was the size of the Benbow's restaurant, and… yeah. Yikes.) The two of them had spent nearly five full minutes examining Thace's artifact, tracing the strange lines and markings embedded in its surface. When Adam couldn't immediately place it's ornate symbols, he'd deemed it in need of 'copious research' (which—in Keith's humble opinion—sounded terrible.)
By the time his father and Shiro had returned from their showers, Adam had left his spot on the ground and had moved to stare pensively out a darkened window. Keith remained in his spot in front of the fire, examining the way the sphere glowed in the flickering light and watching from the corner of his eye as Shiro and Adam shared a tender embrace.
"Keith told me everything. Are you—"
"I'm okay, sweetheart."
"I mean… Pirates at the Benbow; Shiro, I don't—"
A movement at Keith's side drew his focus away to his father, who was lowering himself quietly to sit beside him. He took a raspy breath, and in a voice shredded from crying, asked: "Mind sharin' a blanket with your old man?"
Nodding eagerly, Keith studied his father as he shifted both blankets to cover the two of them. The man looked as if all the happiness had been sucked out of him; eyes red-rimmed and complexion splotchy. Keith wasn't sure he'd seen his dad look like this since the day they'd received word from the Garrison that the Shiroganes had been killed in action out in the great abyss of space.
"Dad?" he asked, his voice cracking halfway through the word and garnering his father's full attention. "I—I'm so sorry."
Shifting to drape an arm around his shoulders and pull him in close, his father pressed his forehead to Keith's mess of hair and rocked him back and forth. "Oh, my darling boy. None of it's your fault."
It was as if everything that Keith had repressed since their escape—all the loss and heartbreak he'd been so unable to feel—finally caught up with him, spilling over the dam he'd built to keep it all contained. Distantly, he was aware of Adam and Shiro's hushed whispers and retreating footsteps, but Keith was lost to grief. He sobbed onto his father's shoulder until he felt as if he couldn't physically cry anymore; and when he finally pulled away he was met with a shiny, tear-streaked face offering him a weak smile.
Unbidden, the image of his father's grief-stricken expression from earlier that night rose to his mind. Shifting to face him, Keith swallowed and reached for his dad's hand, encasing it in both his own and pulling it towards his heart. He opened his mouth to speak, but—but what was he even supposed to say? They'd lost everything in one night; everything, save—
"We've still got each other," Keith insisted, squeezing the hand in his own and unsure who he was reassuring. "We're together and—and that's what's important, right?"
He'd meant for the words to soothe, but to his horror, something indescribably pained passed behind his father's eyes; a sadness that evoked memories of an overheard conversation between father and cousin. He took a long shuddering breath, as if at any moment he might burst into tears again. "Keith, I—there's something I've been meaning to—"
"Guys?"
Nerves frayed from the evening's events, Keith nearly jumped out of his skin as he whirled towards the source of the voice. At the end of the living room, Shiro stood sheepishly in the doorway, peeking halfway through the threshold. He gave an apologetic wave. "Uh. Sorry to interrupt, but—Adam's in the study, and he's—I'm sorry, Keith; he's asking to see the thing."
Keith was just opening his mouth to beg for another minute of privacy when his father stood, clearing his throat.
"That the scientific term?" he asked, shooting Shiro a warm smile (surprising, considering the pain with which he'd previously regarded his own son. Keith couldn't pretend that didn't sting.)
Shiro grinned and groaned, pushing himself away from the door frame and backing further into the dimly lit hall. "Just—come on. Sooner he figures out what it is, sooner I can get him to bed."
In the time it took Shiro to turn on his heel and disappear down the hall, Keith's father had swiftly crossed the room, leaving his son to stand alone at the fireplace.
"Wait, Dad!"
Without turning, the elder Kogane froze in his trajectory, placing a hand against the elaborately carved door frame. When he didn't speak, Keith swallowed. "I, uh—you were gonna say something?"
When his father finally did turn to slowly peer over his shoulder, it was to gift Keith with a smile that didn't meet his eyes; an expression that looked alien on him.
"Just that I love you, kid," he rasped, the tendons in his hands visibly bulging as he gripped the doorframe tighter. Keith watched as they receded, and then the hand released its grip altogether, his father stepping over the threshold and into the hall beyond. "Let's not keep our hosts waitin', now," he called, not sparing another glance behind him.
And with that, Owen Kogane left his son to hurry after him, wondering exactly what it was that his father was hiding.
…
Ever since the discovery that the sphere's tiny circular engravings retracted inwards when pushed (like buttons, Keith had breathed in fascination), it seemed that the idea of 'bed' was becoming more and more unrealistic by the minute.
When a rudimentary examination of the artifact had revealed nothing of its purpose, Adam had taken to pacing his study like a lunatic, babbling furiously as he removed tome after tome from his extensive library. Before long, nearly every clear surface had been littered in dusty literature, and Keith's family had taken to watching with raised eyebrows as Adam flitted from one side of the room to another.
After two hours of fevered pacing and no results, a restless Keith had shoved a book aside in order to claim a perch at the edge of a desk. Bored and insatiable, he'd opted to poke at the tiny circular digits adorning the orb, attempting to tune out Adam's frantic muttering and pleas for him to leave the artifact alone.
"… Altean, maybe?" he distantly registered Adam saying. The man paced back and forth in front of his husband, who was making a valiant effort to look like he wasn't nodding off where he stood. Keith's father wasn't doing much better, sitting in Adam's high-back 'thinking chair' and pouring sullenly over a book thicker than his head. "Or maybe it's—for star's sake, quit messing with it, Keith—aha!" He darted to a book that'd been haphazardly propped open against a window. "Could have come from Eden-9, they've got the—damn, but the lines are all different. Dammit, Shiro!" he exclaimed, not noticing the way his husband startled into wakefulness. "These markings are unlike anything I've ever seen; I'll never figure this out—"
"It's been two hours, baby," Shiro sleepily supplied. "These things take time, right?"
The tip of Keith's tongue stuck out of his mouth as he turned the orb, and—on a whim—he pressed the tiny circles at the top and bottom simultaneously.
Something within the orb clicked, and Keith's breath hitched in his throat.
"Of course they do, love, but your family's Inn burned for this thing—"
Squinting at the orb, Keith noticed that—at a certain angle—one of the smaller digits seemed a fraction more indented than the rest. It would have been indiscernible if he hadn't been looking so closely, and he was nearly certain that it hadn't looked like that before the clicking noise.
He pressed it, and his efforts were rewarded with another click.
"—and if the Galra are after it, it's bound to be a—a weapon of some sort, or—"
Another indent. Press. Click. Search for the next indent. Press. Click.
"Honey, I love you," came Shiro's voice, distant against the hammering of Keith's heart in his ears. "But you're not gonna get anywhere without some rest—"
Click, and… where the hell was the next indent?
"For star's sake, Shiro, how do you expect me to rest when—"
Had the lines running around the orb's center widened? Keith frowned, attempting to tug and pull it apart at the seams. When the orb didn't give, he froze and—with bated breath—changed tactics and twisted.
"—and normally something like this could take years to—HEY!"
All four of them gasped as, with Keith's final twist, blue light shot from the sphere, bathing the room in an ethereal glow. Holographic images of planets and star systems danced before their eyes, shimmering iridescently.
"Keith," his father breathed, rising incredulously from his chair. Light rippled across his face. "How—?"
"It's a map!" Adam sprung forward, the how seemingly disregarded in favor of the what. "Look!" Barely able to contain his excitement, he smacked a slender hand against his husband's chest, who gaped slack-jawed up at the holographic stars. "That's us; there's Montressor!" Adam exclaimed, reaching toward the planet at the center of the room. As fingers grazed it, they fell through the image, and the entire holographic galaxy shifted to the left.
Adam squealed.
"This is—oh, Keith darling, this is—OH! There's the Eden-Ring, and there's Andromeda, and Pandora, and—look, Shiro: it's even got Dayonnara, look how tiny it is—"
"It's the whole Meridian System," Keith muttered, bringing up a finger to poke dazedly at Pandora. As he touched it, the word 'Pandora' flashed to life above the planet in an elegant, lilting manuscript. "But… why the hell would the Pirates be after a map?"
No one but his father gave any indicator that he'd been heard. Keith only had a couple seconds to try to dissect the strange look on his father's face before the world before his eyes was moving in a blur as Adam swiped hungrily through the map.
"This is the singular most remarkable piece of technology I've ever seen! Whoever built this must have dedicated years to travel and dis—huh."
Keith tore his eyes away from the cratered surface of Pandora. "What's 'huh'?"
"Seems that someone made a mistake." Adam chuckled good-naturedly, pointing to a miniscule dot right at the edge of the System. Placing both pointer fingers on either side of the speck, he pulled them in opposite directions, humming in delight when the action allowed him to zoom in. "There's nothing out here beyond Dayonnara, unless you're counting the dwarf star Excalivver, which clearly isn't…"
Adam froze, and next to him, Shiro inhaled so swiftly through his nose that Keith could have probably heard it from the next room. Peering cautiously over their shoulders, Owen Kogane's jaw dropped, and he glanced in Keith's direction with wide eyes.
"Darlin'." His voice was too careful, too controlled. "You're gonna wanna see this."
"What is it?" Keith asked, legs shaking as he crossed the room. He felt like he couldn't breathe—couldn't think, or walk, or talk, because in his heart…
In his heart, he already knew.
His father reached for him with a trembling hand, guiding it to clasp at the nape of his neck. "Looks like you were right," he whispered, even as Keith read the two words neatly inscribed atop the enlarged dot. "You did find it after all, ace. Just like you always said you would."
Keith stared, and—undeniably real and tangible—the words 'Treasure Planet' stared right back.