stars

Pidge stared up at the endless sky filled with the fires of a thousand lives until his eyes began tear up from the strain. He could just pick out the blue-green light of Balto, lost amid the vastness of space, and he began to cry for a different reason. It was unfair. It was so fucking unfair. How could that star still shine when Balto was gone? Didn't the universe feel the vast hole left by the death of a planet, hear the shrill keen of a hundred lonely souls that mourned for that happy place? Life had been destroyed, turned into just more space debris to clutter the empty blackness, and yet here, on Arus, he could still see that beautiful, brilliant star.

Pidge knew, logically, that it was perfectly reasonable for Balto's light to still shine. There would be generations yet who would be bathed by that light, before it died for good, an insignificant dot that just disappeared one night. But that thought didn't make him feel any better.

He doubted those generations would even know why that star stopped shining.

It wasn't fair.

"Pidge?"

"Go away Keith." Pidge didn't look back, though a part of him desperately wanted to, wanted to take comfort in the strength of his leader.

"It's late. You should be in bed." Keith's warm hand touched Pidge's shoulder, and Pidge started because he hadn't heard the soft clack-clack Keith's boots made when he walked.

"I don't care." Pidge shrugged off the hand, looked out of the corner of his eye and saw the reason for the lack telling footsteps. Keith was dressed for bed, clad in a thin tank top and faded shorts, and wearing ratty, old sandals, and Pidge felt slightly guilty for keeping Keith from his bed. He had known, in the back of his mind, that when Keith found him missing, he would come looking, no matter how late it was. And perhaps he wanted that.

"Cold, tonight," Keith said, and he wrapped his arms around himself. Pidge just shrugged and went back to gazing at the uncaring universe.

They stood that way for an endless moment, a frozen plateau, and Pidge thought, perversely, I can stand the silence just as long as you, Keith.

"You want to talk?" Keith stood close to Pidge, so close that his breath played with the soft curls at the nape of Pidge's neck. He was a pillar of warmth, and Pidge wanted to desperately to lean back into him.

"No."

"It might help."

"Hah!" Pidge whirled on Keith, anger in his eyes. How dare he? How dare he pretend that he could take away some of Pidge's pain? "Just go away, Keith. Go away, because you can't understand. Nobody can understand."

"Maybe not." Keith turned away, just enough so that he could lean with his elbows on the rough stones of the parapet, eyes looking unseeing toward the east and the sunrise that was still hours away. "But just because I can't understand doesn't mean that I can't listen to you."

Pidge grunted, a noncommittal noise, and turned back to the stars.

"Did I ever tell you about my parents, Pidge?" The question came out of the blue, and Pidge glanced at Keith from beneath his long lashes, curious. But Keith stood just as he had five minutes ago back against the cold, low, stone wall.

"No."

"Mmm. They're dead, did you know that?"

Pidge shook his head and turned, slightly, until he could see Keith's profile bathed in the cold night lights.

"They died the night I graduated from the Academy. Some drunken idiot plowed into their car. He walked away without a scratch. They died almost instantly." Keith didn't look away from the sky, but Pidge could tell that he wanted to. "At least, that's what the police told me."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you aren't the only one who has lost something precious to them. We're all soldiers, we've all lived with hardship."

"So, what, you're going to just give me shit for mourning the loss of my fucking planet?" Pidge wanted to act out, wanted to hit Keith then for being an ass. But he still had some self-restraint left, and he knew better than to strike his superior officer.

"No, Pidge, no. I'm just." And this time, Keith did look down, and, suddenly, he wasn't the strong, confident captain Pidge had always known but just a young, slightly scared boy playing dress up. He turned toward Pidge, and for the first time the younger boy realized that he wasn't really all that much younger. "Shit. I'm not really good at this. I knew I was going to mess this up." He sighed, laced his fingers together. "Pidge, all I'm trying to say is that, maybe, maybe you could talk to one of us. Sure, we're not going to be able to understand what you're going through, but, well, we can understand some of it, and Christ, you really don't want to end up like me. You don't want to just keep pushing your pain down, you don't, because then you end up bitter and angry and old, and I don't want to see that happen to you, Pidge. Please. Just. Tell somebody about it. Tell me. Scream or rant or, or, whatever it is that you want to do, but don't keep it inside."

He looked young, now, and Pidge saw himself reflected in Keith's eyes, and suddenly that gate he had built carefully, painfully, since he first heard the news, broke and he began to cry. The tears came hard and fast, ripped from his soul, and they drained Pidge completely so that he sort of. . .crumpled. He cheeks were hot and wet and his eyes hurt, and he wanted to be strong, wanted to stop crying so badly, but he couldn't. He wanted to be strong. He had to be strong. Even if there was no one left to see him.

"Oh Jesus. Pidge. Pidge, come here." Keith wrapped his arms around the smaller boy, rocked him back and forth, and tried to think of everything his mother used to do to make him feel better. His shirt was quickly becoming very damp, and Keith wondered if there was anyway to get the vaguely panicked expression off of his face before Pidge looked up.

But Pidge didn't look up; he just clung to Keith, his face pressed firmly against Keith's chest.

"Does it ever stop hurting?" he asked.

"No," Keith sighed. "No it doesn't."

Pidge nodded, pulled back from Keith's chest. He looked up, through his sore eyes that still wept, and into Keith's face. It shone in the moonlight, and his hand was warm and soft against Pidge's cheek. He looked scared of some unknown thing, some monster that lurked just beyond Pidge's sight.

And that was all right, actually, because when Pidge looked back and looked at Keith he saw a boy, like himself, who hurt and who didn't have all the answers, who didn't really have any answers. But that was all right because nobody had all the answers.

Keith smiled, slightly, and it made the panic in his eyes dissapear for a moment. The blue light of the moon bathed his face, made him look sharp and fragile and etheral. And yet he was solid, so firm against Pidge's shoulder and chest, their contact close enough that Pidge could feel the fluttering of Keith's heart.

He was beautiful.

Pidge pulled himself up until his head was almost level with Keith's, and when he leaned in so did Keith.

They kissed beneath the bright, dying stars, and Keith tasted of old pain, and Pidge tasted of hot tears, and somewhere between them they managed to find a little peace.

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