Chapter Text
Keith spent the drive back from the hospital lost in thought. His various wounds were healing extremely well; according to the doctors, his short recovery time was nearly unheard of.
Whatever they said, though, didn't make up for the fact that Keith felt worse than roadkill. They'd taken him off of the prescription pain meds at the hospital, and now he felt every cut, bruise, scrape, and burn.
Worse than the pain, he couldn't do anything. He'd accidentally ripped his stitches out in his sleep the previous night trying to wrench himself away from that awful blood pressure machine, so now his arms were coated in bandages from the crook of his elbow all the way down to his fingertips. It was as if he was wearing the world's worst pair of oven mitts.
He could vaguely hear Adam and Shiro discussing wedding colors in the front of the jeep, but his mind kept wandering back to the library fire. Keith found it very odd that the building had caught fire out of nowhere. He hadn’t been able to pry much information out of Adam, who had ties to people in Incidents & Security, but what he had found out was… strange, to say the least.
Apparently, the building had been perfectly normal one second, then completely engulfed in flame the next. Instantly. The official story, of course, was “freak accident”, but behind closed doors there was an investigation for arson and, possibly, attempted murder. Keith thought back to the melting metal exit doors he'd seen that day. The exit doors may or may not have been targeted specifically, but the fact that they were melting at all suggested something abnormal about the fire. Malicious even.
If some arsonist was targeting the library of the most prestigious space program in the US, what was stopping them from burning the rest of the Garrison to a crisp? Keith could never let that happen.
Who would want to mess with the Garrison anyway? Keith supposed it could be a foreign power, but the Garrison was shockingly unpolitical for a government program. Its main purpose wasn't even colonization, just research. So, the crime probably wasn't political.
He stared out the window, puzzled. They were hurtling down the freeway at eighty miles per hour, but Keith didn't mind the speeds. In fact, it reminded him of flying.
Nothing in this world or the next could ever compare to the thrill of flying a plane. It was open in every direction. It was freedom. Flying was life without safeguards. In a plane, the only reason he had to follow the rules was trust. There was nothing really stopping him from picking a direction and just. Going.
His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he didn't bother to check it; he couldn't respond to anyone anyways because of the excessive bandages on his arms. Well, he could technically use voice to text, but not in front of other people, how embarrassing, even if they were his family.
Eventually, they made it to Shiro and Adam’s house. Keith had a room here, too, but he mostly lived in the school dorms. He was glad to return to a normal bed that was fully his after being wired to the wall in a hospital cot. He stretched out on his maroon sheets, staring at the whirling ceiling fan.
Keith's body yearned for sleep, but his mind had other plans. He had the irresistible urge to do something before he could doze off, but wasn't sure what it was, and it was making him restless. The only problem was, he didn't have anything he had to do, much less could do with the bandages encasing his arms. Finally, he settled on checking that text from earlier.
Texting was an unwarrantedly complex task to carry out when confined to oven mitts of gauze. First, he fished his phone out of his pocket with the dexterity of a seal. After several tries, it ended up flopping under the bed and Keith had to resist the urge to scream. He somehow kicked the phone out from under his bed. Holding the device precariously between his arms, he tried typing in the security passcode with his nose. He failed three times, but on the fourth try, he got it.
At last, he was able to see who’d texted him. It was Lance. This should not have come as a surprise to Keith, considering that he had no other friends and if Shiro or Adam needed to talk to him they could easily do it in person. He opened the messaging app to find a simple “when do you want to meet up?" in glowing white letters.
Deciding against typing with his nose, he tapped the speaker button.
“Anytime tomorrow works for me," said Keith, clicking send. To his horror, just as the message was sent, he realized that it read “Anytime tomorrow works baby."
Well shit. Autocorrect was an unconvincing excuse, so what should he say? Should he just wait for a response? Correct himself with no explanation? Keith didn't want Lance to get the wrong idea. Sure, Lance was gorgeous, but he didn't really know the guy. Also, it seemed like a stupid idea to date his partner. Not that he wanted to.
Apparently, Keith had spent too much time deliberating, because his phone buzzed with a brand new message from Lance: “See you at 4pm in the student lounge, sugarcakes."
Keith took a breath. Clearly Lance had just thought it was a joke, because no one in their right mind called anyone “sugarcakes.” To be fair though, Keith wasn't sure Lance had a right mind after the taco incident. Regardless, he'd successfully avoided a very embarrassing typo and planned for the project. Keith would call that a success, but after the library incident, his bar for success was perhaps a few degrees lower than it should have been.
Finally having accomplished something, he felt the exhaustion of his injuries sinking into his bones. He flopped onto his bed, sluggishly removing his shoes before passing out.
***
It was 4:17 pm, Lance was nowhere in sight, and Keith's knee would not stop bouncing despite his best efforts. It was a habit he'd had as long as he could remember, and it was great to release some nervous energy. Unfortunately, it was a visible nervous habit, and Keith didn't like showing weakness. Showing weakness made him nervous. This left him in a frustrating loop of anxiety that he could only break out of if he addressed the original cause.
Today's cause of choice was sitting in the student lounge, clearly alone. Keith was an introvert, true, but he hated being perceived as a friendless freak. It wasn't as if he didn't want friends, it was just that his previous “friends" hadn't wanted him as a friend. Not the real him anyway. They'd been more concerned with superficial presentation than anything else.
Just then, James Griffin and Jordan Pierce strolled into the room. Speak of the devil. Keith watched them as they entered until he accidentally locked eyes with Jordan. Keith realized he must have been glaring daggers at them because the look Jordan shot back was one of the nastiest he'd ever seen. Now the pair of them were marching over. Great.
“What the hell are you looking at, Kogane?" Pierce said coarsely.
“Nothing worth looking at, apparently,” Keith sneered.
“Oh, we're nothing?” Griffin elbowed Pierce, chuckling like it was funny. “Is that what you really think, Keith, or are you projecting?"
"What the fuck, pray tell, are you on about?”
James Griffin cocked an eyebrow, eyeing Keith's bandaged forearms. "Aw, Keith, didn't your father ever tell you not to play with knives? Or did he kill himself in that fire before he had the chance? I guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree.”
Keith had to take a second to process what James had said because surely he had heard him wrong, surely even the likes of James Griffin wouldn’t utter something so grotesque. But he had said it, and Keith didn't really know how to respond. Words couldn’t quantify the loathing he felt right now. James had crouched down a bit, like he was speaking with a toddler, so Keith spit in his face, which was decidedly too close.
James jerked back, and Keith took the opportunity to knee him in the jaw. Keith got up from his chair just in time for Jordan Pierce to punch him in the gut, a wave of nausea slamming through him as a result. Blocking that out, he launched himself at Griffin, pinning him to the floor, only to immediately be pulled off him by Pierce.
Pierce started to wrap his arm around Keith's throat, but he didn't let him get that far. Keith threw himself back with all his weight, tipping Jordan off balance. Jordan must not be very experienced in fighting, Keith noticed. He came to this conclusion when he felt Jordan’s arm leave his neck. Keith almost felt bad for what he knew would happen next.
When they hit the floor, there was a spine chilling crunch as Jordan tried to catch himself on his hands. An ear splitting scream rang through the air. Keith extracted his own limbs from Jordan’s, who was incapacitated for the time being. Keith rose to his feet, taking a deep breath.
He was about to turn around when he felt someone behind him–probably Griffin–kicked his legs out from under. That nice, deep breath that he'd just taken violently shot out of him when his back hit the floor. As he gasped for air, Griffin’s face loomed over him, furious. Then, like a coward, he started kicking Keith while he was on the ground. Keith rolled away, still trying to get a decent gulp of air into his lungs. Griffin charged after him, but at the last second Keith somehow found the strength to pull himself to his feet using the back of one of the couches. Vaguely, Keith was aware of everyone’s eyes on them from every cranny in the room.
James Griffin, on the other hand, was either not aware or perhaps just a little bit nuts, because he didn't stop to punch Keith at the couch, but instead pushed Keith over the back of the couch and into the lap of the unlucky girl who'd chosen to sit there. But James apparently wasn't done yet, because he leapt over the couch and started to beat Keith with the first thing he could grab. Fortunately for Keith, the object was a pillow.
“What the fuck, dude?" Keith couldn't stop himself. What kind of moronic bully hits people with pillows??
Sick of the whole thing, Keith jammed his knee into Griffin’s crotch. Griffin slid off the couch, curled in pain. Carefully, and with exuberant apologies, Keith got up off of the girl they'd landed on.
Everyone was staring at him.
Shit.
“Uhh, show’s over people, mind your business," announced a voice from the crowd.
Keith looked to see who it was and–of fucking course–it was Lance.