Chapter Text
Shiro brought his viper around in a long, easy turn. "Halo flight, we're done for the day." The early morning sun limned his canopy in gold.
"Hell of a flight," Demo muttered, falling in behind and below Shiro. "Did they have to send all of the Marines?"
"Making sure you could get at least one hit in," Wizard said.
Toma laughed. "Remember, Demo, you see water, you went too far west."
"I'm gonna be the next lieutenant-in-command," Demo said, "and you're all gonna eat your words."
"You got three more hops to survive." Evil's grin was obvious. "Maybe Raptor will have mercy on us, and take you with him."
"Not a chance," Shiro said. "Halo flight to base, we're RTB." When base command confirmed the runway was clear, Shiro pushed his sticks forward and broke right. "See you on the flip side."
"Here he goes," Demo said.
Shiro grinned, bringing the jet in a low pass over the runway. The ground crew had gathered on the low berm edging the runway, and Shiro kept the jet just shy of mach-1 as he roared over their heads with maybe ten feet to spare.
He brought the jet around, and regarded his handiwork. At least half of the dozen crewmembers had ducked. Three had hit the ground, flat out. One figure stood off to the side, jacket flapping open, hands shading the face.
Shiro circled around as Wizard landed, touching down right behind her. "Demo, looks like my ride made it." He raised the canopy and tugged off his face-mask, letting it hang free as he taxied the viper back to its spot.
"No one ever rides with me twice," Demo complained.
"You need to learn it's the short one on the right," Wizard said. "I swear, you drive like a little old man from Kansas."
"He is from Kansas," Tamo said.
"Exactly my point."
Shiro laughed to himself and climbed out of the jet, hopping down to the tarmac. Keith was already gone, probably waiting in the hangar. After just shy of two years, Keith knew the drill.
Two hours later, Shiro threw on his flight jacket and strolled down to the hangar. His little red flyer was parked in its usual spot, Keith perched cross-legged on the seat, head down over his school tablet.
"Hair's getting long again," Shiro observed. "How'd you do on the flight test?"
Keith had looked up with a grin, but it quickly became a scowl. "449."
"And the next score after you?"
"300, but that's not the point." Keith closed his tablet and straddled the seat, sliding forward so Shiro could lift the seat to stow his gear, along with Keith's school bag. A second bag was strapped between the rear fins, a sign Keith had gotten permission for an overnight at his cabin.
"Still a fair distance." Shiro latched the seat and climbed on behind Keith. "That's what counts."
"What counts is that Föcker keeps changing the rules. How long is he gonna keep messing with the tests?" Keith fired up the flyer, letting it rise gently. He angled the nose around for the open hangar doors. "I would've hit 450 a year ago if he didn't keep messing with shit."
"Hey, where's the fun in that?" Shiro settled his chin on Keith's shoulder, grinning widely as Keith growled in the back of his throat.
Shiro settled his arms around Keith, tucking his fingers between Keith's thighs and the seat. It gave him leverage against sliding into Keith on a wild turn. Keith had shot up in his sixteenth year, but at just past seventeen, Shiro still had at least sixty pounds and five inches on him, easy.
At least Keith's hand-me-down riding pants from Shiro were finally a proper length. He'd grown into the red racing boots, but he'd also gotten long enough in the body that Shiro's old jacket was noticeably shorter on him, now. Shiro made a note to try once again to talk Keith into a new jacket.
The flyer hummed sweetly along the airbase's main roads, keeping to a decent speed, to Shiro's relief. That one speeding ticket a month after Keith's sixteenth had been hell for Shiro. Iverson had taken it as a personal affront. He'd considered Shiro the obvious instigator, even though Shiro had been busy breaking the sound barrier forty thousand feet above.
Keith glanced over his shoulder. "So, how tired are you?"
"I'm awake. Aren't we heading to your cabin?"
"Yeah." Keith's smile turned speculative. "But I was looking at the map earlier, and I realized I've never actually seen cathedral rock."
Shiro couldn't stop the returning grin. "If you turn off to the right, up here, I'll show you a back way."
The rugged dirt road provided plenty of fun for Keith to navigate, with a little town at the halfway point. Not much more than a bump in the road, but it had a diner, and Shiro hadn't eaten more than a handful of pretzels since the night before.
The waitress set down their orders, looking them over and immediately pegging them both as military, despite their off-duty clothing. "Running late, boys? Rest of you's already well up the road by now."
"Different squadron," Shiro assured her, and rolled up the frybread taco. Still hot, not too much cheese. Just the way he liked it.
As always, Keith was a bit more circumspect. He investigated, judged it acceptable, then proceeded to inhale it. "What squadron is out there," he asked, halfway through his taco.
"Don't talk with your mouth full." Shiro rolled his eyes when Keith only grinned wider. "It's probably one of the engineering classes. They get dropped out in somewhere with broken equipment and no compass, and have get back to base by some designated time."
"Engineers," Keith scoffed. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and his skepticism turned thoughtful. "Janvi would love that. I won't have to do that, right?"
Shiro stood, counting out enough cash and setting it on the table under the check. "Depends. You planning on being stuck at 449 for another two years?"
Keith spun around at the door to walk backwards, pushing it open with his shoulders. "You planning on walking to cathedral rock?"
"Don't even try it, kid." Shiro caught Keith by the head, twisting him to face forward. Keith laughed, and Shiro gave him a good-natured shove towards the waiting flyer.
They reached the canyons as the sun climbed to mid-afternoon. Wind and ancient water had scoured the land more fiercely, here, and the mesas rose almost five thousand feet up, some of them completely vertical. Shiro pointed Keith to the back trail and braced himself as Keith leaned low behind and gunned the throttle.
Halfway up the steep trail, the base ended and the rocks rose straight-up. Two promontories, with a saddle-point slice cut out of the middle, and a narrow column dividing that.
Keith whooped, sending the flyer straight up farther than Shiro had ever managed. It ran out of thrust just before the halfway point. Keith caught it just before stall, leaning hard and bringing it around. The flyer's nose came up as they fell back to earth. Keith bellied them out on a cushion of air with a few feet to spare.
When Keith brought the flyer around again after his fourth scalding, Shiro pointed at the central gap, bisected by the narrow column. "Long as you're here, might as well thread the saddle points."
Keith got the meaning immediately. He brought the flyer around, building up speed. A fraction of an instant before they hit the narrow slice between the two heights of cathedral rock, Keith threw himself sideways. Shiro rolled with him, and together their momentum flipped the flyer so the turbines were blasting air against the vertical rock.
To Shiro's surprise and a bit of delight, Keith didn't fly right through. He held onto the angle, forcing the flaps and cranking the throttle, bringing them around the central dike and through the narrower open slice on the other side.
Again, Keith caught it right at the edge of losing thrust. They passed through the gap and Keith evened the flyer out, twisting to follow the base around the promontories. Shiro made sure his heels were hooked on the foot pegs. There was no way Keith would ever consider one pass sufficient.
Sure enough, Keith soon brought them around again, only this time he continued through, leveling the flyer out as the ground fell away beneath them. Keith leaned back, cut the throttles, letting the flyer drop fast enough to send Shiro's stomach into his throat. At the last second, Keith twisted the throttle and kicked up the rudders. The flyer bottomed out, rose, twisted sideways, and Keith threw himself into a rapid descent, weaving back and forth between and over rock outcroppings and scrubby desert bushes.
A glint in the distance caught Shiro's attention. The sun's reflection hit the small object twice more as Keith threw the flyer back and forth, gaining speed as they lost altitude. The flyer roared over the small creek, splashing water up behind them, and they were back on solid, level ground.
And flying right through a Garrison engineering exercise.
"Shit. Busted." No point in trying to hide it. Shiro sat up straight, and gave Iverson a sharp salute, as Keith ran the flyer right through the middle of the day camp.
If Iverson yelled, they didn't stick around to find out. Keith threw the flyer into its lowest gear, pushing the turbines and powering them out of there. Shiro glanced over his shoulder, once.
"No one following?" Keith asked.
"Why bother," Shiro said. "He'll find us on Monday morning." He checked his watch. "We won't be back before nightfall. Pull over, I'll fly us back."
"I can do it," Keith protested, but he did stop.
"You don't know the terrain." Shiro slid forward, waiting as Keith climbed on behind him and got comfortable. "Besides, as long as we'll be running laps and doing KP all the way to winter holidays, might as well make it worth it."
With that, he flew them right off the plateau's edge, grinning as Keith hollered in shock. Two thousand feet, straight down.
Shiro nearly stood on the foot pegs, jerking the flyer back and then forward, leveling them out just before they smashed into the glassy canyon creek. He banked the flyer, bringing it around the canyon to eat up the momentum, and promptly fired it up again, scalding the canyon wall opposite.
Keith's arms were tight around his waist, and Shiro patted Keith's hands, checking. He just laughed when Keith hollered for him to do it again. Instead, Shiro took off down the canyon, using the creek as a highway. There'd be a crevice a few miles down, if he remembered right, and that dirt road would lead them back up to the plateau.
Iverson was already going to dress them down for at least an hour, with lectures nine, thirteen, and possibly twenty-two. Besides, the best route to the cabin would bring them right pass the needles, and it'd been a few years since Shiro had threaded them.
It wasn't really a surprise when Iverson yanked Keith out of his third class for a thorough dressing-down. Keith did his best to be as stoic as Shiro, beside him. It actually wasn't hard. It was twice as long as the lecture that time Keith got caught speeding on base, but Iverson was all noise, compared to his mother.
Grandmother Iverson—she'd insisted, to Keith's dismay—lived outside town. Keith had been sent to stay with her his first summer, while Garrison was out of session and Iverson was busy with graduate testing. She worked as a consultant, and had a schedule so unchanging it was written in ink and posted on the fridge, along with her grocery list and pictures of Iverson's three grown daughters. Once Keith had wrested from her the right to contribute by doing some of the chores, they'd gotten along reasonably well, and he'd gone back for the following summer.
Keith's one flaw was forgetting to pick up his feet when he ran up the stairs. Grandmother Iverson's office door would open before he'd reached the top, and he'd look up to see her glaring at him. She was three times his age and a half-head shorter than him, but that glare over her glasses could reduce him to nothing. It'd taken hours to recover, the first time.
True, Iverson's yelling did give Keith a headache, but it was still easier to handle than that disappointed glare.
The commander had finished one lecture, launched into the second one with barely a breath, and hit his stride with the third. Keith kept an eye on the tiny digital clock on Iverson's computer screen. A half-hour had passed. Iverson had been red for awhile, but he was also starting to sweat.
Iverson paused, mid-word, pulled out a handkerchief, and mopped his forehead. Before he could start up again, Shiro spoke up.
"Sir," he said, so conversationally it startled Keith, "have you had your blood pressure checked recently?" He sounded almost concerned. "Just a thought. Sir."
Iverson froze. Keith did the same, seeing a family resemblance for the first time. Iverson's glare could've cut glass. Shiro smiled, brows raised.
"You—You—Get the hell out of my office!" Iverson roared. "Both of you!"
It took Keith most of the administrative hallway before his own heartbeat got back under control. He had to elbow Shiro sharply, twice, before Shiro stopped grinning.
"Are you trying to get us killed," Keith hissed.
"Totally worth it," Shiro said. "Go on, head to lunch. I've got to make some calls, but I'll be there in a bit."
Ten minutes later, Keith was at his team's usual table. He ate with one hand, checking for Janvi's notes from the class he'd missed. No quizzes, so that was good, although he would've liked to have seen the demonstration on jet fuels. Luiz and Janvi arrived a few minutes later, and of course Luiz had a thousand questions. He'd make sure Keith's version of events was all over school by end of the day.
But Keith didn't answer any, just shrugged and smiled.
"Oh, I get it," Janvi said, cutting off Luiz' thousandth question. "You were pulling crazy stunts on the flyer with Shiro again, weren't you."
"That's all?" Luiz deflated. "I was hoping it'd be something different, this time."
"We could get some fireworks and set them all off at the same time from the roof of the main building," Janvi suggested. "Would that be different enough for you?"
"Only if we make them ourselves," Luiz said. "If you're not going to tell us about Iverson, you can at least tell us if Shiro has gotten a date yet, right?"
Keith blinked, his mind abruptly veering off in the wrong direction.
"Launch date," Luiz clarified.
"Right," Keith said, coughing a bit on the last bite of his sandwich. Out at the cabin, with no one around for miles, Shiro would speak freely about the launch, some of which Keith was certain had to be top-secret. He repeated the only answer Shiro had given to anyone else. "Late spring. May, maybe June."
"School won't be out, then," Janvi said. "Besides, they'll launch from the coast."
"Maybe we can do a field trip to go see?" Luiz looked hopeful. "They do tours the day before, on the launch site. It's like, a family thing."
Keith wondered who Shiro would take. After that first and only time of talking about his childhood, Shiro had never again spoken of anyone in his family. Keith had grown accustomed to thinking of Shiro as a fellow orphan, just through different circumstances. At least Shiro had been true to his word, uninterested in dating anyone, so Keith didn't have to deal with watching someone else wish Shiro well before the space launch.
Janvi picked at her lasagna. "It's going to be wierd, being here without him." She made a face. "I was looking forward to having him as a flight instructor."
"I'd just like anyone to be our flight instructor, other than Vickers," Luiz said. "It's too bad Montgomery had to retire."
Keith couldn't hide the grin, and a moment later a smile spread across Janvi's face, too. Luiz looked back and forth between them, catching on. They'd sent one flight instructor around the bend. No reason to go easy on the next.
"Do I even want to know," Shiro said, over their heads. He set his tray down in the space they always left for him. "You three grinning like that usually means shit is about to blow up."
"Not us," Janvi said, brows arched.
"That's it!" Luiz stuck a finger in the air, opened his mouth, and closed it when Shiro threw him a look. "Okay, I'll text it." He immediately did so, and Keith's phone beeped.
Smoke bombs in the shuttle simulator, Luiz texted.
A second later, Janvi replied: I can get everything we need at the hardware store in town.
Keith agreed, and a moment later all three set down their phones.
"Thank you for letting me live in ignorance," Shiro said. "One three-part lecture today was enough for me."
After lunch came advanced physics, then astronomical navigation. Keith had made it to fourth-year, only to find the administration had denied his flight's request for Shiro's class. At least Keith got to see Shiro in self-defense class. Unfortunately, again, not as Shiro's student. Keith had tested high enough that Instructor Chan had assigned Keith to helping with the second-years.
Between class and dinner, Keith swung by his room to get his flashcards from the previous year. One of the second-years had Cohen and Palmer, and Keith had offered the cards, if they'd help. It felt strange for the study group to meet without Hernandez there. She'd graduated and gone to work on the space station. But Keith also rather liked the idea that it was now his turn to help someone else.
From dinner to study group, a comfortable routine that Keith had grown to appreciate. It had taken long enough for it to feel second-nature, and he'd never be the most sociable person, but sometimes he dared just a sliver of contentment at where he'd ended up. It didn't hurt that he'd finally found his footing, grade-wise. He still struggled to manage straight As, but he was close enough that he no longer panicked over losing his place in the jet fighter group.
"Keith," Shiro said, as everyone gathered up their books and dispersed for the night. "I want to show you something." He picked up his satchel, and a long duffel bag.
The library was closing up for the night, and the librarians waved as the two passed. Keith eyed the bag, curious, but Shiro didn't seem inclined to explain.
"Did you get the text from Iverson?" Shiro asked, when they reached the back stairs.
Keith pulled out his phone. "Ten laps, for ten days?" He groaned. "That's going to take forever." A single lap around the Garrison's exterior perimeter was a mile. "Do you think we can convince him to let us do five laps for twenty days again, instead?"
"Somehow, I doubt it. Best to lay low and get it over with. The mood he's in, he might double it if we look at him sideways."
Keith scowled. "That's your fault, you know."
Shiro grinned and shoved open the fire doors at the top of the stairs, leading Keith out onto the Garrison's roof. The banks of solar panels glinted in the star light. The Garrison always shut down its lights for two hours, for the astronomy classes. Shiro had brought Keith up to see the stars before, but this time felt different.
At the front edge of the roof, Shiro unpacked the bag, setting up a telescope. Much larger than the ones the students used, it took both of them to put it together and raise it onto the tripod.
"Professor Singh left this behind, when he retired." Shiro patted it fondly. "I kept meaning to bring it out to the cabin, but then the battery pack died. Took me awhile to save up for a replacement."
Keith waited while Shiro plugged everything in. Shiro bent to look through the telescope, swiveling around until he found what he wanted. He leaned back with a pleased smile, gesturing Keith closer.
"I don't see anything." Keith studied the dark patch of space, finally seeing the grayish spot. "What am I looking at?"
"That's where I'll be." Shiro's smile in the starlight was touched by a longing Keith had never truly understood, but had accepted as part of Shiro. "By this time next year, you can look up and know where I am."
"You do have a launch date," Keith guessed.
"June twenty-eighth." Shiro shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels to look up at the sky. "I'll be here for the holidays, and then I leave for the coastal base. It's not a short hop, so there's a lot more preparation than usual."
"But you're not leaving until—" Keith broke off, unable to protest more than that.
Shiro had been working towards this for almost two years. He'd assisted Dr Holt with the preliminary presentations to UN Space top brass. He'd been gone for weeks at time, every summer, for planning sessions. He'd even done a half-dozen one-week stints at the UN Space airbase, helping test some top-secret shuttle designs. None of it was really a surprise.
"You'll be fine." Shiro slung an arm over Keith's shoulders. "You're a long way from that kid I first met."
"Not half as long away as you'll be..." Keith forced his chin up. "I'm excited for you, and proud, but I just…" For the first time since Shiro had first mentioned the possibility, Keith found the strength to admit the truth. "I'm going to miss you. More than anything."
"Likewise," Shiro said, and squeezed him close. "You've gotten too tall."
"Took long enough." Keith's head just barely topped Shiro's chin. So he was no longer so short he could tuck neatly up against Shiro while they watched bad movies on Saturday nights. He'd made up for that with the discovery he could elbow Shiro neatly in the ribs, and hit one of Shiro's few ticklish spots.
"Yeah, I am going to miss you," Shiro said, softly. His head was up, watching the stars wheel overhead. "But I'll be back for your graduation. And you haven't forgotten our agreement, right?"
Keith gave Shiro a sideways glance, choosing to tease, instead. "You really want to do shuttle flights, after making it that far? I mean, you might find it boring."
"Never." Shiro shrugged. "We'll just have to come with a reason to go back. I mean, if we can reach Kerberos, why not the Kuiper belt? Are you really going to tell me an asteroid field is boring?"
"Depends on how fast I'm going."
Shiro laughed. "A year will go by faster than you realize. I know it's going to be tough, but don't forget there's people here for you, while I'm gone."
"It's not the same," Keith whispered.
"I know. Dr Holt and his son are good people, but neither of them could ever be you." Shiro sighed, and leaned his head against Keith's. "This one time, I'll be gone. But when I get back, next time I go, I'm taking you with me."
"Don't forget that."
"Never." Shiro released him with a grin. "Okay, we've got about an hour before someone locks us out, so might as well use this monstrosity." He bent to the telescope, moving it one way, then the other, a few times lifting his head to check.
"I'm not falling for the satellite-as-asteroid trick again," Keith warned him.
Shiro gave him an innocent look, and beckoned him closer. "Name that planetary system," he said.
Keith studied it for a moment. "Upsilon Andromedae." He shifted the telescope around, finding another. "Your turn," he said.
Shiro needed only a glance. "70 Virginis. Too easy." He grinned mischievously. "Okay, try this one…"
An hour later, the guard heard their voices, and came to remind them it was curfew. They packed up the telescope under the guard's bored gaze. There was little to say as they made their way down the stairs, the same comfortable silence they'd cultivated over so many weekends at Keith's cabin. At Keith's floor, they parted, with reminders to set their alarms early for their morning laps.
Keith's room was dark, and he didn't bother turning on the lights, preferring to watch the stars outside his window. He lay on his bed, fully dressed, trying to imagine a year without Shiro so close by.
Eventually he rolled over, toed off his boots and figured that was enough effort. He tucked his pillow under his head, and his eyes drifted closed.
He dreamed of the stars, at Shiro's side, and when he woke in the morning, he was smiling.