Goddamit I hate Nevada

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Hunk was an interesting kid, he was gentle, kind, loved to bake and cook, and a bit chubby with a motion sickness problem.  This often lead to problems with bullies. He always had his friends to fight them off though. Lance would walk with him and shoot dirty looks towards anyone who dared comment on his best friend, then he had Pidge who would use their hacker extraordinaire powers (aka googling kids on the school computers) to find embarrassing things about them and hold it over their heads (Pidge could be an unexpectedly sadistic person at points), and Keith would always resort to straight up violence. Hunk was always grateful for his friends sticking up for him, they helped him gain some confidence, to the point he managed to go on a few dates by high school. His parents were always so glad their little Hunk had such amazing friends that encouraged him to be himself. Never trying to change him.
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Keith sat in his room, it was perfect, small yet comfortable. His bed lay in the back corner parallel to the window so the light would never wake him. The walls were grey slowly chipping away to reveal the race car red underneath. His old favorite colour, it was too bright for him now. His sheets lay crumpled on the floor, pillows and clothes strewn across the room. "You should clean" He mumbled to himself, a lie he often told himself. Taking in a breath, he had stopped crying, but still felt horrible. Keith picked up his best friend, a purple hippo, placed it over his face and let out a sigh.

His phone buzzed breaking him from the pity party he had created. Keith picked up his phone to reveal a text from Kolivan, his stepdad. "Keith, I need to talk to you. Come down to The Astroid immediately.". Good ol' Kolivan, always one for formalities. Requests from Kolivan were infrequent and often only happened when something big happened.

Keith quietly opened his bedroom door, paused to check for voices, everyone was still out on the patio. Good. He ran down the stairs, grabbing his keys and helmet off the coffee table before dashing out the door. Keith jumped onto his bike and started it up. Peeling out of the driveway before anyone else could say anything.

The open road made Keith feel better, no one could hurt him emotionally when he was driving, only physically, and that was alright with him. He followed the all too familiar path to The Astroid, a sketchy run down bar with a classy name in the middle of nowhere. It was situated next to two separate shops with variations of the name "Blackhole" one was a record shop, the other was a gas station. On the end of the strip of the stores there was a strip club called The Blue Star that members of the blade often visited, Keith was often invited to come along but always refused. There was nothing there for him.

He parked his bike out front the rundown bar next to a few others. The bar was usually pretty empty during the late afternoons, since it was always too hot to drive or members just had jobs. Keith scanned the bar until he saw who he was looking for, a heavy set yet muscular man, his white and red hair braided and tossed over a shoulder. Keith sat down across from his stepdad, Kolivan looked up from his beer revealing the massive scar across his face.

"Keith, Good you're here." He said without a hint of warmth, "Yeah, you told me to be here didn't you?" Keith mumbled staring at his chipped black nail polish. "Yes I did. I called you here because your mother gets out of prison next week." Keith was surprised, its already been that long? "And?" "I'd like it if you came with me to come pick her up. I bet she'd like to see her son for the first time in seven years." Oh god, it's been seven years already? Besides that freaking him out a little, Keith could not imagine a worse thing than a nineteen hour drive alone with Kolivan. "I mean she can see me when she gets home? Can't she? Why should I go when she's got you?" "Watch your tone with me, boy" muttered Kolivan "You are going to go see your mother and that is not a request. You hear me?" "What I'd I don't want to?" Keith grumbled, he once again felt his body begin to betray him, he got angry, again. "She hasn't written to me once while in prison. She doesn't care about me." She yelled "Why should I pretend to care about her?".

Kolivan slammed his fists into the table knocking his beer over and onto the floor "SILENCE!" Kolivan was pissed but was able to revert back to cold almost immediately "Your mother loves you very much, she just doesn't know how to talk to you." Keith realized he had already dug himself a hole, he couldn't apologize now. "Easy for you to say, YOU GOT LETTERS! I HAVE NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! She loves you because you're new and exciting, I'm just a constant reminder that her husband is dead. But you know what he was the only dad I'll ever have. That bitch doesn't care about anyone but herself"

The punch to the face was sudden. He was used to the  fights but Kolivan rarely raised his hands to anybody. But he was defensive when it came to Keroila, he loved her more than anything. The already quiet bar grew silent, the man at the bar sat stopped drinking at watched out of the corner of his eye, the woman at the bar stopped cleaning glasses, the woman polishing her knife froze, and the man on the couch started smoking his cigarette a little more intently.

"DON'T YOU EVER CALL MY WIFE A BITCH AGAIN. YOU HEAR ME BOY?" Kolivan yelled, his pointer finger jabbing into Keith's already scrawny chest. "I'm only telling the truth. You're just a rebound, you hear me. The moment she gets out of prison? She'll throw you to the side, just like she did m-" Kolivan shoved him down to the ground before he could. "Watch your mouth boy" Kolivan scowled. "Heh Kol! Give the kid a break" called the man smoking a cigarette "You could get in real trouble for that" He wheezes in a failed attempt of a chuckle. "Don't make me beat you too Thace." Scowls Kolivan  as Thace puffs his cigarette.

Keith sits on the floor of The Astroid, he felt light headed. Now he'd yelled at all his family. Shiro and Adam and his friends back at the house, and just then he had yelled at Kolivan.  What was wrong with him, he couldn't do anything right. "Hey kid, why are you sitting on the floor? Fight's over. Plus that looks pretty bad." Spoke a voice he was so used to, Regris, the one of the only other Blades his age. "Just a little shocked the old man would pull such a stunt" Keith laughed standing up "C'mon Kogane, you're tougher than that, I've seen the shit you've done." Regris slapped him on the shoulders "Me and Antok are gonna go vandalize some of Governor Zarkon's election billboards and smoke some weed, you in?" "Sounds like a great time but I gotta get home." Keith fidgeted with his gloves "Aw man, already? You just got here!" Complained Regris. "Yeah I know, But you know, Shiro wants me home. We have guests." He mumbled, he didn't want to go home, he just didn't want to spend time with Antok and Regris right now.  "Ah I hate it when that happens, my mom's the same way." Regris turned to leave "Well go have fun with your narc brother and loser guests, We'll see you around." And with that he disappeared out the front door of the bar, a slightly taller boy in tow.

Keith quickly ran outside, hopped on his bike, and rode home. The sun was just beginning to set now, it didn't make it any cooler though. Keith hoped that everyone would be gone by the time he got back, he usually didn't mind guests he'd just leave and wait it out, getting his driver's licence was a god send, but those guests in particular. Ugh. It wasn't fair how they got to grow close while he had to grow lonelier and lonelier. Sure he had Regris and Antock, but they only wanted to smoke weed (sometimes do harder drugs) and cause problems.  Sure he was a dick, but that was his défense mechanism. He just wanted them to leave.

But, as he pulled into the driveway it seems not all wishes get to be granted. The car was still in the driveway. Hood popped and a defeated Adam on the front step. Keith was curious now, "Hey, what's going on?" He asked quietly. "Car's busted, the engine over heated, backfired, and then failed catastrophically." Adam answered too frustrated to tell off Keith for being such an asshole. Keith swallowed, hoping it didn't mean what he thought it did  "did you call a mechanic?" "Yeah, they can't send anyone out 'till tomorrow morning, I tried to fix it myself and I think I might have fully killed it." "So where's everyone else?" Keith asked dreading the answer "They're inside, setting up their rooms for the night, Since Pidge and Hunk are not going to do anything they're sleeping in the guest bedroom. But Lance wouldn't fit, so he's sleeping in your room."

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