#heith week

The first few days on the castle-ship had been overwhelming. New people, new routines. His life tossed up in the air, and him only barely holding on, only treading water because he had Shiro again.

It took two days for Keith to realize Hunk was a hugger. When he was happy, he lifted you up and squeezed so hard it seemed something had to burst. When he was sad, he burrowed into you, molding himself like a second skin. When he was excited, it was an arm around the waist; when he was worried, he latched onto the nearest arm. He did it without hesitation, without even really seeming to realize what he was doing. As the cheesy survey his caseworker had made him take would have put it, touch was Hunk’s love language.

And it most certainly was not Keith’s.

At first, Keith had held out hope that it was only with Lance that Hunk was so… clingy. That their long friendship made Hunk more comfortable, more—for lack of a better word—intimate. That it would be different with the other five, who barely knew Hunk at all.

He was wrong.

And Keith being Keith, being the friendless, grumpy, quick-tempered loner he was, had thrown up his walls. It was after one of their early battles, and Hunk was trying to pull everyone in for a group hug. Keith danced back, crossed his arms, and glared at the far wall.

“I don’t like being touched.”

Funny, how clearly he remembered Hunk’s look of puzzlement, the touch of sorrow in his eyes, like something in Keith was broken. Like rejecting a hug was rejecting him. (Keith couldn’t blame him for that; all of Keith’s foster parents had taken it the same way, had tried again and again to coax him into hugs he didn’t want, and always acted so dejected when he’d wriggled away from arms that hovered just above his skin, afraid to touch but still close enough that he could feel them there, an electric charge in the air.)

Keith was pretty sure Shiro had explained it to the others later, when Keith was holed up in his room, barricaded against the others’ sorrow and pity and hurt. Touch-aversion, his caseworker had called it. Most likely related to his other sensory issues. Nothing personal.

Hunk did his best to respect Keith’s boundaries, though Keith could see the way it gnawed at him to hold back. It was the way he took a half a step toward Keith after battle, arms open for a hug, before he remembered. It was the way his eyes burned into the back of Keith’s head when Keith was in a bad mood. It was the way Hunk sometimes fiddled with his gloves when he hung out with Keith, like he had to give his hands something else to do to keep them from spontaneously pulling Keith into a hug.

It was… nice. That Hunk cared enough to hold back. It was a nice change from foster parents who had treated it like a flaw to be polished away by fake smiles and coerced affection. But Hunk’s consideration also made Keith feel guilty as hell. If Shiro was safety, was grounding, why couldn’t Hunk be, too? Why shouldn’t he be, except that Keith was still too scared to find out?

Keith couldn’t pinpoint the day things changed. Maybe it was when they were all separated by the corrupted wormhole, and Keith, alone and aching, had felt the others’ absence like a hand hovering over his back, close enough to make his skin crawl.

Maybe it was after he found out he was part Galra, when Allura was looking at him with thinly-veiled hatred and Keith had to grit his teeth and remind himself that he was a paladin, not a child, and he couldn’t demand that Shiro always be there as a buffer against the rest of the team.

He wasn’t sure he wanted a hug. Maybe he just wanted to want it. He wanted something to sooth the ragged edges inside him, and it struck him that that was just the sort of thing other people fixed with hugs, and he was desperate enough for comfort he almost didn’t care that it had never worked that way for him before.

He was desperate enough for some tangible sign that he was still wanted that when it came time to part ways, Keith threw his arms around Shiro and clung. His guilt rose high to choke him as Shiro hesitated, for just an instant, surprised that Keith—Keith—was hugging him.

Then Shiro’s arms closed around him, and it was the same as it always was with Shiro—warm, but not stifling; tight, but not constricting. There was no hesitation in Shiro’s hug, not like the foster parents whose hugs always telegraphed their uncertainty, their doubts, and their discomfort. Shiro held him, warm, steady, comfortable. A promise spoken through touch, words telegraphed into his bones as Shiro’s arms squeezed tighter.

Deep pressure, Pidge called it, smiling as though that explained everything.

The night before the joint assault with the Blade of Marmora, Keith found Hunk on the bridge, staring out over the forests of Olkarion, his hands curled over his heart like he was trying to keep it from escaping.

“You seem nervous,” Keith said, stepping up beside him.

Hunk glanced down, startled, and attempted a smile. “Yeah. Kinda. Big day tomorrow.”

“Mm.” Keith’s eyes darted sideways, noting the tremble in Hunk’s hands. “We’ll be fine. It’s a solid plan, and we’ll all be there to back each other up.”

“I know.” Hunk bit his lip, meeting Keith’s eyes for a moment before turning away. “That doesn’t mean I’m not still picturing all the ways it could go wrong. I mean, what if the virus doesn’t do what we need it to do? What if Allura can’t hold open a wormhole that size? What if the teludav doesn’t even work? What if Zarkon has some trick up his sleeve we haven’t thought of? What if someone dies? What if--?”

“Hunk,” Keith said, raising his hands in a placating gesture. “Breathe.”

Hunk did so, though the air wavered on the exhale.

Keith studied him, heart in his throat, then hesitantly spread his arms. “You want a hug?”

Hunk’s head whipped around so fast the tails of his headband smacked him in the nose. “A—what?” Seeming to realize he was gaping, Hunk snapped his mouth shut. “I thought you hated hugs?”

Keith shrugged, looking at his toes. “Yeah, but you don’t,” he said with a nervous little laugh. “I think, considering the circumstances, I can make an exception… Unless--”

He’d just begun to lower his arms, feeling foolish, when Hunk fell against him, his arms engulfing Keith, squeezing the breath from his lungs. For just an instant, Keith panicked, the familiar sense of suffocation clawing at his chest.

Then Hunk breathed in, and Keith’s body automatically copied the motion. It was easy. Easier than he would have expected, though he supposed he shouldn’t have been so scared. Hunk was strong, but he wasn’t careless. His broad arms seemed to envelop Keith, wrapping him up in warmth and gratitude, like a blanket fresh out of the dryer or the sun on his back after a day of hiking the canyons outside the Garrison. It wasn’t entirely pleasant—but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, either.

Keith slowly wrapped his arms around Hunk’s back, easing into the embrace. He could do this. If Hunk could hold back, could abandon the language of touch to communicate his love in a way Keith understood, then it seemed only fair Keith learn to speak Hunk’s language. Maybe not all the time, maybe not always for long, but he could make the effort.

“Thanks, Keith,” Hunk whispered. “I needed this.”

It only really calmed down after Shiro returned.

Hunk had been more privy to Keith’s inner turmoil than most in the weeks leading up to it, and even he’d been caught off guard by just how quickly Keith shut down once Shiro was safely back within arm’s reach. He’d retreated to his room early that night, for once not bothering with his usual training regimen, and had slept for a solid ten hours—twice what he’d been getting these last few weeks.

It had taken a few days, but things had gone back to normal. Keith had started smiling again, unprompted. He even kissed Hunk once, completely out of the blue. Just walked into the kitchen while Hunk was finishing up dinner and planted a kiss on the tip of his nose.

Hunk had wanted to celebrate the return of Keith’s high spirits, and so he’d suggested a date. Keith hadn’t even bothered with an interrogation before agreeing, and Hunk had sprung on the chance to surprise him.

Don’t worry about anything, Hunk had said. I’ll come get you when it’s ready.

He’d spent an entire day preparing. Shiro provided a list of Keith’s favorite foods, Lance helped Hunk pick out clothes from the castle’s stores, and Allura showed him how to adjust the lighting in the dining hall and get music to play at a volume more palatable to human ears than Coran’s preferred ‘death metal shrieking.’

And then, just as he was finishing up the sauce, five minutes before he would have gone to find Keith, the alarms started blaring.

Allura kept shooting him apologetic looks as she explained the situation (distress beacon from a planet that was actively being fired upon), but Hunk knew as well as anyone that innocent lives had to take priority over date night. So they got to their lions and dove into the fight, and Hunk had only a few seconds to wonder if he’d turned the stove off before the crisscrossing lines of enemy lasers fixed his attention to the matter at hand.

Hunk didn’t remember getting hit.

He remembered ramming into the biggest ship, Yellow roaring with the strain of twisting its ion cannon away from the defenseless city below. He remembered the sight of forests burning and buildings crumbling. He remembered the way Keith’s voice hitched as he called out a warning.

The next thing he knew was cold. His hands had started tingling, and his nose itched the way it sometimes did in the middle of winter when he’d rubbed it raw. He caught a hazy glimpse of the room beyond, and a familiar face pinched with… worry? No, impatience.

The cryopod hissed as it opened, and Hunk noted that it sounded different when your ears were still half-frozen. He stumbled coming out, but Keith caught him, one hand splayed across Hunk’s back, the other held out for Hunk to squeeze as sensation made its way back into his extremities.

“How you feeling?” Keith asked slowly.

Hunk paused to consider before saying, “Fine. What happened?”

“There was a second ship hiding under a cloak. You took the brunt of a full powered ion-plasma blast.” The hand on Hunk’s back twitched, fingers pulling at the fabric of his undersuit. “Allura says Yellow absorbed the worst of the damage—he’s fine, by the way, but it knocked his systems out for a while. The two of you slammed into the ground. You were… you were pretty out of it. Kept apologizing for burning the sauce.”

“Okay, but to be fair, that sauce would’ve been amazing,” Hunk said. “You would’ve loved it.”

A smile tugged at Keith’s lips. “I don’t doubt it.”

“I’m sorry I ruined our date with my traumatic head wound.”

“The sad reality of war,” Keith deadpanned. He shifted, turning Hunk toward the door, and though Hunk could have easily supported his own weight, Keith was being awfully clingy right now, and Hunk wouldn’t have wanted to ruin the moment by pulling away. “Now can we get back to our date?”

Hunk frowned as he let himself be let to the door, trying (and not quite succeeding) to sync his steps to Keith’s to make their awkward shuffle more efficient. “Uh… Keith? I think it’s a little late to salvage the sauce.”

“I know.” Keith turned his head, smiling softly. “But I managed to get the others to promise us a night to ourselves since our last date went, uh… a little bit off the rails.”

“Little bit,” Hunk agreed. He straightened, grinning as Keith began to blush. “So… does this mean you planned a date for us?”

Keith ducked his head. “I mean. It’s nothing as fancy as what you were doing, probably. Figured you wouldn’t be up for skydiving after this. But I’ve got movies and extra blankets, and Lance helped me figure out your chocolate chunk food goo cookie recipe. I don’t think they turned out completely inedible.”

Hunk couldn’t stop himself from cooing, which of course only deepened Keith’s blush. “Awwww, Keith! That’s so sweet of you!”

“Sh-shut up,” Keith said, hunching his shoulders. He pulled away, forcing Hunk to stand up straight—which was fine, since it gave Hunk the chance to come around in front of him and appreciate Keith’s blush in all its splendor. “It’s no big deal.”

“You cooked for me!”

“You’re going to regret being this excited about this when you have to choke down my miserable excuse for cookies and pretend they’re not disgusting.”

“Keith, come on. You know me. I never lie about food quality. If they’re bad, I’m going to tell you--”

“Gee, thanks.”

“--which is why it’s a good thing I’m absolutely positive they’re going to taste amazing.”

Keith snorted, sounding pleased, and brushed past Hunk. “You keep telling yourself that. Just promise that when I prove you wrong you’ll teach me how to make them the right way.”

In the first moment of stillness after Zarkon's defeat, Keith had been nearly delirious with the mingled triumph and dread, life singing in his blood and a chasm yawning in his chest. They hadn’t obliterated the fleet as they’d meant to, and Antok’s death had sat heavy in Allura’s voice as she called them all back to the ship. But they’d won. They’d stopped Zarkon. That alone had left Keith buoyant, his aches and his grief held at bay by the sense of accomplishment.

Then he’d registered the silence from the Black Lion. The way she drifted, motionless.

Terror had slunk into him widening the chasm, and even the pride and the satisfaction hadn’t been able to smother the voice that said, They took him from you again.

It had been Hunk who’d found him that day, curled around Shiro’s bayard in the hallway just outside Shiro’s room. (He’d wanted to go in, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t face the empty room and the fact that he was alone. Again.) Keith had known the others were all staying close that night, afraid to let anyone out of their sight, afraid that they’d wake in the morning to find the rest of the team gone the same way as Shiro.

Hunk had held some of that same fear in his eyes when he’d sat down beside Keith, like he’d thought Keith had up and vanished, too, and Keith hadn’t been able to hold his gaze for long.

“I—I can’t,” Keith had gasped, hating the way his voice shook, hating the way tears pressed at his eyes, a weight too heavy to stave off. There weren’t enough words in the world to contain how he was feeling—angry at Shiro, for leaving; angry at Zarkon, for taking him; angry at the others, for being there when Shiro wasn’t.

Angry at himself for being such a fucking mess.

But Hunk hadn’t tried to tease him back to the rec room, where the others were gathered with their blankets and their tissues and their empty promises that they’d find Shiro and bring him back. Hunk didn’t promise something he couldn’t know. He just reached over and pulled Keith into an embrace, Shiro’s bayard pinned between Hunk’s chest and Keith’s breastplate (he hadn’t changed, couldn’t change, couldn’t let down his guard for nearly a week when something inside him kept screaming that Shiro needed him, needed him now.)

“I’m here,” Hunk whispered. “I’ll always be here, Keith, as long as you need me.”

It was only when Hunk spoke the words that Keith recognized the panic clawing at his throat, sharper and more immediate than the ache of Shiro’s disappearance.

He couldn’t lose anyone else.

But Hunk was there. Every time Keith’s careful composure started to unravel, Hunk was there, unwavering. A steady warmth, a firm hold, a voice in his ear promising that the rest of Keith’s universe wasn’t going to follow Shiro into the void.

So it was that today, in the wake of another battle that had gone to hell from the very first, Keith found himself treading a familiar path.

It had been his own fault. His temper, his impulsiveness. He piloted the Black Lion now, but his bond with Red was still the stronger of the two, and her fire sometimes overshadowed Black’s calm. Lance and Allura had tried to talk him down, but he couldn’t hear them with Shiro’s voice in his head reminding him that this was what Shiro had wanted, this was what Keith had to do—take charge, lead them, protect them. Do that, and somehow, some way, maybe that would bring Shiro back. Maybe, if Keith was a good enough leader, if he proved himself, then Shiro would come back. Irrational, yes. But it was all he had to cling to, and so he clung, digging in as the pressure mounted until he just

Snapped.

Coran assured him Allura would recover, but that didn’t erase the image of the Blue Lion slamming into the planet's surface, her joints locked as the result of Lotor’s latest toy. It didn’t change the fact that Keith and Lance had had to pull Allura’s limp body from Blue’s cockpit, that Lance had rushed her to a cryopod while Keith towed the mangled Blue Lion back to safety and Coran opened a wormhole to take them away. It didn’t make up for the knowledge that none of it would have happened if he’d listened to Lance and Allura and been patient for once in his goddamn life.

Keith stopped outside Hunk’s door, which opened before he worked up the courage to knock. Hunk was there, a fluffy blanket draped over one arm, two mugs of the best imitation cocoa this side of the Milky Way in his hand.

Keith let himself be led inside and coaxed onto Hunk’s bed. He held his cocoa and breathed in the steam as Hunk settled in behind him, then leaned back against Hunk’s chest and closed his eyes as Hunk recited the mantra that had gotten Keith through every crisis of the last two months.

“I’m here, Keith, I’m right here. Allura’s here. She’s okay. We’ll get through this, Keith. No one’s going anywhere.”

The castle-ship’s computers identified this particular vista as coming from the planet Gleithavak, at the site of an ancient city-state. Keith wondered what sort of people would build their cities this high, and this near the sheer cliff. He wondered why he was so drawn to places like this. Because of the danger? Because of the beauty? Or because seeing nature balance itself on the edge of destruction somehow justified the uneasy balance he’d struck in his own life between everything he’d lost and everything he fought so desperately to hold onto?

“He take you places like this?” Hunk asked, a smile in his voice. “Little baby Keith, sleeping in a tent a foot and a half from certain death?”

Keith laughed, wondering what Hunk would say if he knew about the time Keith and his father had almost gotten caught in a flash flood. Or the time Keith had tried to pet a bear cub. He held an irrationally clear image in his mind of his dad and the mama bear both racing toward their cubs, screaming fear and fury that seemed to blend into one voice.

Pure fantasy, he was sure, but everything he remembered of his dad told him that it wasn’t outside the realm of possibility.

“He died…jeez, how long ago now? I was seven,” Keith said, “so—shit. Eleven years ago.” It struck him, as it sometimes did, just how long he’d been alone. More than half his life. More than a decade, now. And yet it seemed like he shouldn’t have lasted so long without his dad there to pull him back from the edge when he lost himself in the thirst for more and wound up on the cusp of a fall too far to fathom. “But I don’t really know him. Not like I ever stopped to ask him about himself. What he did before he had me, how he met my mom, whether he ever felt like there was something in his chest trying to claw its way out.”

Hunk scooted forward, carefully, and rested his hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Do you feel that way?”

Taking a deep breath, Keith lifted his gaze toward the horizon. The viewing platform sat on one of the highest peaks in a vast mountain range, the line of peaks extending to the very limit of Keith’s vision. “Sometimes. When I think about my mom.”

“And… she’s the one who’s Galra? Or, well, part Galra, maybe.”

Keith nodded. “I don’t remember what she looked like, but sometimes it feels like I remember her. I remember being with her.” The torrent of words crashed against his teeth, forward momentum suddenly halted by a spike of guilt.

We’re all the family you need.

Shiro’s voice, though it hadn’t been Shiro speaking the words. It had been Keith—Keith’s mind, Keith’s fear, Keith’s guilt.

“Keith?”

“Sorry,” Keith said, ducking his head. “I just—it’s no big deal.”

“You still want to find her though… right? I mean, assuming she’s still out there?”

Keith hesitated.

Hunk’s hand tightened slightly, and Keith finally turned, sighing.

“Yeah,” he said. “I want to find her. I mean--” He gestured with one hand, a short, jerky motion that only served to rile him up more. “It’s stupid, I know. Why should I care about someone who ran off when I was just a little kid, right? I don’t owe her anything. But… I need to know where I came from. I need to know why she left. It’s nothing against you guys, I just--”

“Keith, hey.” Hunk paused, flicking his hand in a way that deactivated the hologram vista. Suddenly Keith sat on a simple silvery platform in a dull, dim globe, but the sense of vertigo, the fear that one wrong move would send him crashing to his doom, hadn’t left. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me. She’s family. If my family was out here somewhere, you know I’d never stop tearing the universe apart until I found them.”

Keith sighed, folding his arms atop his knees. “But I’ve got you guys. I don’t need her.”

“You think you have to choose?”

Keith opened his mouth to say of course not, he knew better than that, he knew Shiro’s ultimatum had only been in his head.

But he paused, the words sticking in his throat.

Hunk sighed, scooting closer to him. “Family doesn’t make you pick sides, Keith. Family—real family—is there for you no matter what. I mean, sure, if you find your mom and she’s a jerk to you, I might end up hating her, but it’s up to you if you want her in your life. And either way, you’ll still have me. Assuming you want me.”

“Of course I do,” Keith murmured.

Hunk smiled. “Then that’s that. Whenever you want to go off mom-hunting, you just say the word and I’m there.”

Keith lifted his head, smiling as he met Hunk’s eyes. The world no longer seemed to be swaying on a precipice. The question of his mother still lurked below him like a chasm, but with Hunk there to steady him, it didn’t feel as precarious as it had before.