Thread by @LionessNapping

For Shiro, it happens without warning. A devastating, shattering blow out of the blue.

Keith felt the storm coming, though he didn't know the form it would take.

(a #sheith angst thread for @aroundab00t, warning for no happy ending)

They're both used to the universe trying to take the things they love, trying to separate them, but they both thought they'd at least have the chance to /fight/ it like they always have.

Neither expected the universe to rip itself open right in front of them and swallow Shiro whole in a flash of white light.

Keith stares at the spot where Shiro was just a moment ago, throat burning, chest tight, and skin tingling from the close brush with concentrated quintessence.

He doesn't look away as he dials Pidge.

"If this is another butt dial because you two can't keep it in- holy shit, Keith. Are you okay?"

He doesn't know what expression is on his face to get that reaction from Pidge but it doesn't matter.

"Shiro's gone," he rasps out, voice hollow. The words sound too final in their now too-empty ship. "I need..." he swallows and finally looks at the comm screen. "I need all of you here to see if there's anything..."

"We'll be there as soon as Allura can make us a wormhole," she promises. "What happened?"

He can her her typing, contacting the others as he tells her in halting words. Everything feels so distant, removed.

This is shock. He knows it too well to mistake it for anything else.

It doesn't make it feel any better.

Reluctantly, Pidge has to hang up eventually to be able to actually get to him.

He sits in the silence and tries to reach out with his untrained quintessence sensitivity and find a trace of Shiro.

Maybe if he'd worked on honing this, he'd be able to. Maybe if he'd worked on honing it he could've sensed this coming more accurately and /prevented/ it.

Keith inhales deeply and catches a lingering whiff of Shiro and has to fight back tears and the creeping inertia of grief.

His team, his family, arrives and Kosmo flashes them over two at a time to his ship, quickly overcrowding it.

It's still deadly quiet, no one knowing what to say.

Eventually, they get to work. Keith is a little fuzzy as to how that happened, but he throws himself into it. Hunk and Pidge brought equipment to amplify his and Allura's quintessence sensitivities. Lance makes sure they actually eat occasionally and makes necessary calls.

Time has no meaning. Keith gets bullied into sleeping once, when he almost passes out on the floor. The bed smells like Shiro and Keith dreams about him disappearing over and over and over.

He wakes up more tired than before.

He doesn't sleep again.

They finally determine that Shiro got pulled into an alternate universe, figure out which one it is.

"How do we get him back?" Keith asks.

Pidge and Allura share a look. Neither answer.

"What is it?" He asks. "How do I get to him?"

Pidge meets his gaze, eyes red rimmed. "You can't."

Keith freezes. "What do you mean I can't? I have to. I can't just /leave/ him there!" His voice cracks.

"Getting to him would open tears in the fabric of the multiverse, Keith." Allura this time.

No one says that the last times they had to sew up the fabric of the universe they lost the castleship and then the Lions.

They have nothing left and the cost is /Shiro/.

"Are you /sure/?" He croaks out.

Pidge, Allura, and Hunk all nod slowly. Lance grips Keith's forearm, a show of solidarity, a grounding touch.

"Can I send a message? Anything?"

He needs Shiro to know he tried, that only the fate of the multiverse is keeping him away.

He needs one last chance to tell Shiro he loves him. They've been taking things slow, thinking they had all the time in the world now.

Keith should've known better.

"I might be able to establish a short connection," Pidge says slowly. "But we'd need to make sure Shiro was ready to receive it somehow."

"Leave that to me and Keith," Allura says. "You set up the connection."

Allura walks him through reaching out to Shiro, boosted by her alchemy. He can't /talk/ to Shiro like this but he can make sure he knows something is coming.

Keith wonders if it feels like waiting in the desert, feeling the energy of the Blue Lion and /knowing/ in the most vague way that something was going to happen the day Shiro crashed back to Earth.

Pidge nudges him and hands him a tablet. "It should connect in about ten minutes," she says. "I don't know how long the connection will hold so, be quick."

"Tell him we love him if you get the chance," Allura says. There are tears in her eyes and Keith feels his own well up.

Hunk gives him a crushing hug, then fusses with his hair. "Don't want Shiro to worry just from seeing you," he says.

It's a lost cause, Keith is sure, but he appreciates the effort.

Keith steps into the tiny bedroom and shuts the door and waits for it to connect.

It seems like ages before the spinning wheel on the tablet screen shifts to staticky snow.

Keith grips the tablet harder. "Shiro? Shiro are you there?"

The static starts to clear, resolving into a blurry picture just recognizable as Shiro against what looks like red desert.

"Keith?" His voice is distorted and Keith shakes the tablet, willing the connection to strengthen. "Oh my god, Keith."

Shiro's voice is full of pain and, shatteringly, hope, evident even through the distortion.

"It's me," Keith chokes out. The feed starts to sharpen.

He can see Shiro's face -- beloved and cherished -- and he stares, knowing this is his last chance to memorize every single line and plane and angle of it.

"Keith," Shiro breathes, like his name is all that matters.

Keith knows the feeling.

"Where are you?" Keith asks. The landscape behind Shiro looks achingly familiar.

Shiro lets out a humorless laugh. "About half a mile from where we found Blue. Whatever that portal was deposited me on Earth. I've been staying in your shack for the last week."

Keith swallows hard. "Week? It's only been..." he has to think about it, "Three days?"

"Time slippage between realities?"

"Must be."

"There's no me here," Shiro says. "At least not anymore. Found an obituary. Can't find any trace of you."

"Ah." Keith can't make any other words come out, not if he wants to keep himself from crying.

"How'd you get through?" Shiro asks. "I just had this need to come out to this spot and then the tablet activated and..."

"I called the team. They helped me figure it out."

"What do we need to do to get me back there?" Shiro asks. There's still hope shining in his eyes.

Keith blinks rapidly but a couple tears still escape. "We can't, Shiro. If I try to get through, we risk the whole multiverse again."

He watches Shiro's hope shatter in real time.

"It was all we could do to get this connection through."

"How long do we have?" Shiro's voice cracks.

"I don't know," Keith admits, sounding just as rough. "Probably not long."

Shiro runs a hand through his hair, looking away from the screen for a moment before locking back on with panic in his eyes, like he was afraid Keith might have disappeared in that fraction of a second.

"I don't know what to say," Shiro admits. "God, /Keith/."

"I know, Shiro," he says. He bites his lip. "What are you going to do?"

Keith is still in the universe with their team, with his mom and Kosmo and people who know him. Shiro is alone in a universe he already /died/ in apparently.

"I don't know. Work on finding a way back to you that doesn't rip the multiverse apart, probably."

A sob escapes Keith's throat. "Shiro..."

"I mean it, Keith. I'm not giving up. Not on you and not on us. Not even because of this."

"I love you," Keith tells him, wishing he had a chance to tell Shiro when he wasn't having one of the worst days of his life, in a voice dripping in happiness instead of fear or grief. "And I won't give up either. I won't."

"Keith." Shiro looks pained and fond all at once.

"I love you," Keith repeats. "Don't forget."

"I won't," Shiro swears. "I could never."

Keith watches the bob of Shiro's throat as he swallows.

"I'm getting back to you to tell you in person, but Keith I--"
The feed cuts off, connection lost.

Keith stares at the blank screen for a long second before something like a keen tears out of his throat. He pulls his knees to his chest, steals Shiro pillow, buries his face in it and cries.

// fin.

thanks for reading this homage to doomsday but with sheith!

i have a ko-fi if you're feeling inclined to tip through any tears this may have elicited 💕

ko-fi.com/perfectlyrose