Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We see ourselves as Knights of the Holy Contact. That’s another falsity. We’re not searching for anything except people. We don’t need other worlds. We need mirrors”

—Solaris, Stanisław Lem

Translation by Bill Johnston

Prologue

He had said to himself before but he’d never admit it out loud besides. Keith had begun to garner and fester a tiny, little smidgen of a crush on the one and only, late Captain Takashi Shirogane. He understood how ridiculous that sounded, especially now seeing it in writing. Words do have a tendency toward that affect, don’t they? Providing the illusion that things are suddenly truer than they were previous simply because now you can read them. He supposed that’s what initially scared him about the Archives, the sense of permanence even in the mundane. Yes, that’s what everyone wanted: to mean something, to be remembered—but wasn’t there also an incredible sense of freedom given upon realizing that this might not all matter in a millennium? He supposed he shouldn’t give it much thought, anyway. Especially when he was likely to die tomorrow.

He remembered when he first found the first book of the Fallen—the catalyst, the inciting incident. The bright pinpoint in time to trace back to if one were so inclined to place blame. Keith had leafed through it, his thumb seeking the bent edges and dog-eared pages worn and torn and loved from the amount of times it was read and handled. The Fallen V— Lions. The V word in the title had been rendered unreadable, the other letters had been scratched out and faded into the background. No sticker on the spine or back emblazoned the correct and full title. It was ruined as far as Keith was concerned. It was perfect.

Takashi Shirogane. Age 26. 6’1. Missing since March 20th, 2021. Declared dead 2022. Died in transit.

Takashi Shirogane received pilot and scientific training in the Galaxy Garrison since the age of 19. Graduated top of his class soon-after and was amongst the few hand-picked to co-opt a mission to Kerberos, the youngest pilot at the time to do so. Amongst him was Samuel Holt and his son, Matthew Holt. The mission was cut off prematurely due to Houston being unable to communicate with the vessel and it’s crew. Of the three, Matthew Holt was the only person to survive the mission when the shuttle had returned. According to Holt, the deceased had boarded the ship before take-off. Though the shuttle had been safeguarded from being opened from the inside during flight and no signs of foul play were found. Despite rigorous search parties, Shirogane and Holt were declared dead in 2022 attributed to in-flight complications en route to Earth. The case remains unsolved.

He found pages and pages of names he didn’t recognize—biographies that ranged from extraordinary to unremarkable. It wasn’t until he was nearing the end of the book, the weight of the pages he’d flipped causing it to tilt on the table beneath it, that he fell on the most surprising words of all: His own name.

Keith Kogane. Status: Alive.

Joined the Galaxy Garrison at 16.

And then emptiness. The white of the page stared back at him and he had swiped at the paper like it might reveal black text underneath. He could almost see the blinking typing bar flashing next to the number “16,” sitting and waiting idly to type something—anything of worth under the subheading of his own name. He didn’t know what scared him worse, the idea that his destiny had yet to be written or it was already done.

Chapter Text

Part 1: Terra

Keith

Chapter 2: For All Intents and Purposes

“I’m getting word you’re peering into holes we don’t have jurisdiction over,” Iverson said on his routine call that night. The signal crackled and the audio cut and jumped in places it shouldn’t have. Keith had resorted to the archaic technology of Earth out of necessity, since the tech of Planet Altea didn’t transfer well and wasn’t compatible with Earth’s atmosphere outside of the ship’s confines. Keith started to think he should be added to the list of Incompatibles given the state of his research as of yet.

He had been on Earth for fourteen days, but already his sleuthing and curiosity had gotten the better of him and he had stopped being careful. He’d gotten caught. Keith knew this, but said anyway, “Didn’t we have jurisdiction over everything? This is all ATLAS property now after all.”

“It doesn’t work like that.”

“Tell me then. How does it work, sir?”

“Don’t be smart with me, son. You know exactly how it works,” There was a sigh and Keith could vividly picture Iverson running his hand down his face in exasperation. A familiar droning sound of a television played in the background that clicked off before Iverson spoke again.

“Keith, you’re only there to compile and collect data for the sake of the ATLAS. Please don’t try to unlock the conspiracy of a Galaxy Garrison coverup while you’re at it,” Keith flicked the zero-g switch on and off as Iverson rattled on about his responsibility to the organization and Altea thereafter. It caused his coffee mug to rise up and clatter, rise up and clatter, rise up and— “What’s that noise?” Iverson said suddenly.

“Nothing, sir,” Keith said mechanically, “You have my complete, undivided attention.” Iverson let out a huff like he didn’t quite believe him and he had every right not to.

“Keep me posted,” he said finally. Then the line clicked and went dead, and Keith let the phone slip between his fingers until eventually it dropped and clattered on the linoleum countertop just like everything else on this God-forsaken planet.

Yes, he supposed he should feel more kinship with Earth. His home after all, for all intents and purposes. He was born here, he was raised here—and if this excursion went as planned—he would have lived here longer in his adulthood than he ever had in Altea. Yet he couldn’t help feeling a sense of foreignness in these strange lands. It might’ve had something to do with the fact that he was virtually alone on this giant, blue planet—that was until Matthew Holt was shipped off to join him, but as he didn’t know him personally, he didn’t know how much relief that would actually provide.

According to his files, at least, Matthew was a robotics engineer (sent, relocated). Specialized in computer mechanics in the Galaxy Garrison until he was eventually promoted as Head of the Robotics Department in the ATLAS. A huge jump if anyone was asking Keith, but of course they weren’t. Keith was only a mere archivist and microbiologist, sent on a solo mission to salvage what was left of Earth. Keith also prayed Matthew could help with the technology aspect of things, because if he had to even look at another flip phone he was sure to have a psychotic break.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: Epsilon Eridani

Matt was always good at hiding when he was drunk on the job. He never slurred or tripped, but Keith could tell because sometimes he would move just a little bit too languidly or his smile was just a little too bright. There was once he went weeks on end without noticing, until Matt got too close to whisper a joke and the undeniable smell of whiskey was on his breath. He never whispered his jokes again after that, and resorted to shouting them at great distances even when they were on different ends of the ship and Keith was sure not to hear.

Keith never asked about it or even judged him. This was Earth and it was barren and lonely and they each had their own ways to cope, some less healthy than others, granted, but… live and let live. 

Keith wouldn’t be able to explain it if he tried—the nightmares he was having. Let alone to a drunk. The ache in his bones, the drop in his chest when he woke up. It was like he was longing for the liminal space in his dreams that didn’t exist—because it couldn’t possibly exist, right? Except, that didn’t really explain how Keith had a dream about Epsilon Eridani and later looked it up. It did exist, very much so, and eerily matched the description and atmosphere and climate that he’d experienced in his dream. The first time he chalked it up to coincidence. Keith saw and scoured and absorbed so many files a day, things were bound to pass him by. Instead they stayed in his subconscious, and festered there, until he had nightmares he couldn’t account for but have reason after all. It was after the third dream Keith started to get worried:

Silver hair in his hands, hands—fingertips peeling so bad if he picked at it he was sure he’d bleed. Mouth full of ice. He’d look up at Matt from the crouched position he was in on the floor. Matt was speaking but he couldn’t hear him. Babbling at Keith like he was angry, like he was drunk. He was more visibly disoriented in the dream than he was in life, walking toward him in a crooked straight line and his hands outstretched to his sides like he was taking a field sobriety test—an Earth practice, a dead practice. Altea had developed a faster one with a strip of paper like litmus, and a device that gave exact blood alcohol content. And then Matt tipped over like he’d lost his balance. Keith woke up before he hit the floor.

The next morning Matt brought it up—The Sobriety Test, the ridiculousness of it. “Remember how they used to make you touch your nose?” Matt said, while demonstrating and laughing. Keith supposed he laughed to offset the fact he actually missed when he brought his fingertip up to reach his nose. Except Keith hadn’t mentioned his dream, and Matt avoided the topic of his own alcohol consumption like the plague, so this was strange to say the least.

“Yeah,” Keith had replied without feeling.

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: The Dark Side of Kerberos

He found it in the ruins of the library.

Books, he figured, humanity didn’t deem worthy enough to keep. Iverson insisted there must’ve been something they missed and to comb through it all anyway. It gave Keith a strange sort of power he was only now realizing he possessed: the ability to determine what was remembered and what was forgotten. Except he was flattering himself he knew, the ATLAS recorded all of his actions on Earth, and his decisions were as much his as they were a board of scientists that agonized over his every decision several thousand lightyears away.

Humanity had fled Earth. Rendered lifeless and uninhabitable by the very organisms that inhabited it. Life on Altea had only been discovered a year before an Exodus was deemed necessary. Two years until the ATLAS—the remnants and resurgences of an organization that rose from the ashes of the Galaxy Garrison—have been sending personnel back to Earth to salvage what they could and couldn’t be recovered the first time around. This was the seventh attempt. Like any space mission or scientific discovery, all the persons involved did not always emerge unscathed. The third mission was a failure in every regard—death before launch. The last mission, the sixth, ran out of oxygen in their unit 8 months before predicted. Matt and Keith still hadn’t found their post.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” Keith asked him later that night. He hoped the delivery was casual though there was nothing to prompt the discussion.

Despite his paranoia, Matt appeared unbothered and simply shrugged. “I don’t know,” a pause, then his eyes flicked over to Keith’s, “Do you?”

“Don’t know.”

Keith fingers glazed over the text on the page for what felt like the final time. He supposed, in some symbolic sort of way, it was. It was his secret and his alone (save for The Eye of Atlas) until the moment he decided to share it with Matt.

Keith Kogane. Status: Alive.

Joined the Galaxy Garrison at 16.

“You’re the only person here with me, but ironically I think you’re the only person capable of answering this question.” Keith fidgeted with his pen in hand, wondering how best to approach the matter. 

“What is it?” Matt asked skeptically. He twirled the remainder of the rum in his glass, but he didn’t take a sip. His voice going dangerously low, he added, “Earth or Altea?” That was Matt’s way of asking whether he should grab more alcohol—Earth meant the stronger stuff. 

“Neither,” Keith replied. Matt set his glass on the table, suddenly more reproachful than Keith had ever seen him.

“What is it, Keith?” His tone teetered toward anger, like he was preparing to snap depending on how Keith followed up this question.

As carefully as he could, Keith asked, “What happened on Kerberos?”

This stunned him. He grabbed the glass again, fingers tightening around the perimeter.

“I suppose now is a good a time as any.” Matt fixated on Keith eyes then. “You really want to know?”

Keith nodded.

With a trembling breath inward, Matt began.

“Short story, or I should say the printed story is this: The shuttle left Earth with three and came back with one.” Matt took another shuddering breath inward and coughed. “The real story—what I lived through was… Comms had cut off to Houston. I still don’t know how or why just that one day Sanda was talking my fucking ear off and the next there was just…radio silence. The team—Shiro, dad, and I—had decided… Fuck it! Ice on one of Pluto’s stupid moons in the fuck nowhere side of the solar system wasn’t worth our lives. So we did the smart thing, we set up the emergency dispatch shuttle back to Earth. Months too early, mission not accomplished, etcetera etcetera, and I guess… we paid the price for it. We touched ground and I wake up—I must’ve blacked out in reentry—and suddenly I’m the only one in the shuttle. There weren’t exactly welcome parties either, which made it worse—or better, I haven’t decided—because you have a foreign object hurtling toward Earth with no warning from your team that’s missing from the dark side of Kerberos. I went to the hospital for testing. They searched everywhere. The ocean, the orbit, but it was no use. They were just…gone.”

Keith said nothing because there was nothing to say. Matt’s eyes were reddened for the first time he couldn’t attribute to a need for sleep.

“My father’s surely dead—that much I’ve made peace with,” Matt said, thumping his fist against his chest—and then his fingers splayed out until nails dug into skin. “But Shiro?…Shiro’s alive. I know it.” The intonation made the last statement sound like: “I feel it.”

“How could he have possibly survived this long?” Keith asked. He was trying to be gentle, but there was no way Keith knew to ask that didn’t make it sound insensitive or skeptical.

“You didn’t know Shiro,” Matt said a matter-of-factly.

“I wish I did.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The Dirty Little Scavengers

At first, he thought it was a raccoon. Little life was left on this wasteland of a planet, but the dirty little scavengers seemed to be the only likely candidates that could survive to be causing this noise. He couldn’t remember the last time he saw one. He wasn’t sure he’d recognize the animal even if it appeared in front of him right then. They were unique to Earth and any record of their appearance would be lost to the abyss of information they were trying to excavate. He remembered their dark eyes though, ringed with black. Nothing like the clear grey ones that stared back at him now, ringed by dark circles brought on by exhaustion only a human would be capable of inflicting on himself.

Black hair and a streak of white fell in front of this face, casting crazy shadows and sharp angles in the moonlight. But even then that face would be recognizable. In death: the Galaxy Garrison ID headshot plastered across every news station in the world upon the declaration of his disappearance, sharp jaw and glimmering youth that made people whisper What a waste! In life: the gasp that shuddered past Matt’s lips when the shadows shifted and he saw the eyes of his friend.

”Shiro?” but it wasn’t Matt’s voice, like he expected. It was his own, clear and crisp, that broke the delicate silence. Shiro. In the flesh and alive. Not in faded, printed, black-and-white photos of the The Fallen Lions. Or the In Memoriam photos in the ATLAS headquarters, dated and ghostly. Despite the grey streak and the dark circles, he was young and fresh-faced and beautiful.

“And you are?” Shiro said matter-of-factly. His eyebrow quirked and he leaned forward on his toes like he was listening, genuinely curious for the answer. This was in sharp contrast to the cold press of metal as Shiro tipped the mouth of a gun closer to Keith’s temple as he spoke.

“Keith,” he answered. He knew that wouldn’t provide much clarity, but he was still trying to avoid a hole in his skull. “Keith Kogane. I’m an…”

“Admirer,” Matt finished, rolling his eyes and lowering his own gun as he did so. He punched Shiro’s bicep, good-naturedly. Despite the gesture, Keith could see the bead of sweat conjuring on Matt’s forehead. He knew he was hoping the effort would discourage Shiro from killing Keith where they stood. He also knew he wasn’t full aware of what this Shiro was capable of—Left alone on a desolate planet would perhaps cause a once good person to resort to murder. Instead, the gun knocked harder into Keith’s skull and he screwed his eyes shut in pain. “You got yourself a little bit of a fan here, Shiro.”

Shiro’s eyes flitted back and forth between them, but he didn’t say anything.

“I’m a microbiologist and an archivist for the ATLAS. We were sent to compile data from the Galaxy Garrison back to Altea. You are obviously amongst those files,” Keith said evenly. “That’s how I know who you are. And Matt, of course.” He added Matt as an afterthought because the files didn’t explain the nickname.

Matt, without warning or preamble, hit Shiro with the butt of his gun with a hard smack—knocking him out cold with the blow. Matt’s smiling face was revealed to greet him behind Shiro’s falling form.

“What the fuck, Matt?” Keith said.

“A thank you would suffice.”

Chapter Text

Part 2: Gaia

Shiro

Chapter 6: Rise and Shine, Motherfucker

He tasted the blood first. He supposed it was like light switches in his brain, each sense coming back to him one by one. Taste first. The iron tang as the unmistakable taste of blood rushed through his teeth and up to his lips till he was forced to forcefully cough it out—his lungs heaving. Then sound. The concerned party in closest proximity would start the onslaught of questions, few of which he would have actual answers to. Then sight—or light, he should say because that would be the thing overtaking his vision for several minutes before he could orient himself. It was because of this, that sight came last—his utter refusal to open his eyes and have his retinas burn off from the lamps that would be sure to be aimed at him overhead.

“Matt,” he said once, when he heard the sound of a voice propel toward him, but not deciphering any actual words. And then louder, “Matt.”

There was a clatter and then a pause. Silence. Shiro almost broke his rule of waiting to open his eyes before he heard the voice respond, “It’s not Matt.”

There was a sharp click and then radio static. This time—Matt’s voice, clear and unmistakable—rang through. “Is he awake?”

“Yeah, thanks to your dumb ass.”

Matt ignored this comment and then proceeded to yell through the speakers at a volume the machine resisted against. “Rise and shine, motherfucker!” This was accompanied by a whine of feedback, and Shiro withheld the urge to childishly raise his hands to his ears.

“Delight as always, Matthew Holt,” Shiro managed. His voice was thick with disuse that extended beyond sleep.

An echo of steps bounded toward him and doors slid open. Finally, Matt’s arms closed around him in an embrace. Still, even with his eyes closed, he knew it was him—the unmistakable smell of sweat, ATLAS issued shampoo, and the indeterminable scent every person had unique only to themselves. In the shock of it, Shiro’s arms hugged him back. For a moment, he forgot to be on edge.

“I missed you, you fucking asshole,” Matt says into Shiro’s shirt, “Don’t die on me again, you dick.”

“I’ll try not to.”

Chapter Text

Chapter 7: Sharp Objects

It was existing around other people. Those were the moments he took for granted. It wasn’t the ruckus he missed, though those were certainly a comfort. It was the soft presence of Matt in the room, reading a book, while Shiro prepared dinner. It was the graze of Keith’s hand on his shoulder to signal his passing as he squeezed passed him through the doorway. It was the look that Matt threw Keith when neither thought he was paying much attention. Worlds and wonders threaded between two people no other two can replicate—or understand. It wasn’t speaking he missed. That’s replicable, understandable, and even a little boring. (For Shiro there must be poeticism to his loneliness, if anything he had to draw that from it.) He missed communicating, without words or sounds because there wasn’t a need to. Nonverbal communication. Their weird, broken family.

That was after though. That was much later when Keith’s presence was a comfort and not a threat.

When he woke up again an IV drip had been inserted into his arm. It didn’t appear like saline. The substance that trickled into his arm was yellow and viscous. The room was void of sharp objects. He was under murder-watch. He rattled the chains of his makeshift handcuffs in inquiry. It was clear the ATLAS had never anticipated this circumstance. The chains seemed more fit for inventory than Potentially Dangerous Personnel.

“Slept well, Sleeping Beauty?” Matt asked.

“Am I under arrest?” Shiro inquired.

Matt handed him a cup of black coffee in a styrofoam cup. A luxury he hadn’t had since Kerberos. He gulped the black coffee like his life depended on it. It simmered down his throat, brass and bitterness, but he savored it all the same. The brew had the staleness of packed coffee grounds for lightyears and space travel. He’d missed this. “You left us no choice when you threatened to kill the unarmed biologist,” Matt replied dryly.

“Fair enough.” He said, grinning. He looked around with his palms up like he was expecting a feast. “What’s for breakfast, honey?”

Matt tilted his head up at him but didn’t answer, instead he said, “You seem oddly well-adjusted for someone who’s been alone here for years.”

“Give it time,” he replied, his cup rising in cheers. It landed like a joke, but his tone was somber. Keith snorted somewhere behind him.

Matt approached him and dropped his hand on his shoulder good-naturedly. The pads of his fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt. It was fresh and clean for the first time in a long time, smelling only of sleep and detergent.

“You’re not horribly violent now, are you?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Thirsty for revenge for the ones that wronged you?”

At this, a pause, “Well…”

“Shiro,” Matt said solemnly, rubbing the collar of his shirt between two fingers and not meeting his eyes. “My dad?” This is how Matt spoke. Tiptoeing and then a slap in the face. His brown eyes rose to meet his. For a moment Shiro’s throat closed up and his vision went out. He couldn’t think of Sam right now—hadn’t allowed himself to think of him for two years.

Shiro shook his head. It was almost imperceptible, just a tiny motion from left to right—but it was enough. He would explain it to him eventually, the How and the When and His Dying Wish. Matt knew better than to push him.

Matt blinked rapidly and cleared his throat, and then pushed Shiro’s shoulder where it rested just a moment ago. “The old bastard.” He chuckled lowly and left the room.