One More Night || kidge au

Acceptance

The lights flickered in and out in her hazy vision and all Pidge could hear was the faint call of her name. Was that Keith looking down at her?

"Pidge, come on please, hold on for me, okay?"

Keith? She wanted to call out to him, use her voice when she found nothing was moving. Everything felt heavy and even trying to blink felt strenuous and tiring. Already exhausted, she closed her eyes again.

Sorry, Keith, I need sleep, she idly thought.

She took a breath and fell into the darkness.

There was something heavy resting on top of her, on all of her, and when she blinked, she was standing in a coffee shop with her brother. It was their place of a hangout for her and Matt, a familiar place, and one of her favorite places to be. Twiddling her fingers away at the mobile game she had just downloaded, she quirked a brow up at Matt, who sat across from her at the table.

"Where are they?" she asked.

Matt turned, and Pidge blinked. Did he always look so young? No, that wasn't right. This was years ago.

No... did she die?

"They should be coming soon. You'll finally get to have a friend, so Shiro and I aren't just leaving you to hang." Matt laughed, but Pidge smirked.

"Afraid I'd take Shiro away from you?"

Matt rolled his eyes. "Please, Shiro is nice enough that he'd humor both of us."

Right, that much she couldn't argue.

So when Shiro did eventually show up with a brooding looking male behind him, Pidge had to wonder if Matt's definition of a guy she was willing to hang out included "Lord Emo."

But, there was something about those eyes that caught her attention. She'd never tell anyone that Keith's eyes were as expressive as her animated actions, and she doubted that she'd ever confessed that his biggest tell was those eyes of his. She had also forgotten just how serious he was when he scarcely cracked a smile.

How come she saw this again?

He introduced himself as Keith, and when Matt and Shiro began on a tangent of a conversation that neither of the younger siblings could keep up with, Pidge leaned forward to the other. "Are you as bored as I am?"

Where am I? Why am I here? Pidge wanted to ask, but her body didn't seem to be listening to her.

Keith lifted a brow and leaned forward. "You could say that."

"Wanna play me in this mobile game I just downloaded?"

Both of his eyebrows shot to his hairline. "Sure? It's better than doing nothing, I guess."

Her head was suddenly pounding, throbbing, and there was a loud beeping noise that came from the kitchen of the coffee shop. But no one else in the coffee shop seemed to notice the loud beeping noise. When she focused on the sound, she realized it sounded like a heart monitor.

A heart monitor.

No, the coffee shop wasn't the first time she met Keith, she realized with a gasp.

How did Matt and Shiro meet? School, she wanted to say, but then, Pidge's and Matt's dad had collapsed from overworking when they were much younger, and he had been sent to the hospital for monitoring. Sickened and sensitive to the smell of antiseptic and the strange stillness and whiteness of the hospital, Pidge was wandering through the hospital to find anything that would distract her, maybe even escape from the white cage.