Yes, yes it is me. I split this chapter in half with the first featuring Keith's POV before their little get together because it would easily be 6k+ words otherwise so Pidge's part will be out probably this week or next.

Please enjoy and also, I'll be doing some heavy editing here soon maybe in October so I can get rid of all the horrible spelling mistakes in my story.

Enjoy :)
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The lights were out. The moon outside was high in the sky and it what most would call; the perfect night. What was the perfect night? The perfect night was the type of night when the scary things that go bump in the night would come out to show themselves to the world.

Tonight was that night. It was the night where the only question that mattered was, "Do you believe in the Mothman?"

A single breath hitching was heard throughout the hospital room as a pair of amethyst colored eyes widened in the glow of the moonlight being filtered through the window a few feet away. Pale skin seemed luminous and almost unreal to the eye as a small yet excited smile formed on the boy's pink lips.

"What is it?" Keith whispered in curiosity as he leaned forward closer to Pidge and he clutched Mr. Bubbles in his arms with anticipation.

Matt, holding a candle to his face in order to cast an eerie shadow on his pale skin leaned close to Keith and began talking in a mysterious voice. "He's the thing that haunts bridges right before terrible accidents and most says he's an omen of death," he blew the candle out and skittered away with a little giggle at the sight of Keith's slightly terrified expression.

Pidge pulled his eyelids down and began to make zombie noises as he crawled closer to his older friend, "Braaaaains," he groaned.

Keith stared at Pidge with a slightly annoyed look as he flicked his friend's glasses. "Shut up," he snorted before looking out the window, "If Mothman is real then, are aliens real too?" He asked distantly as he felt a tinge of hope in his chest flutter like a little bird trapped inside of a cage.

Pidge allowed his face to go back to normal as he crossed his legs and looked out the window at the moon. "I like to believe they're real," he stated longingly.

Matt seated himself on the bed with the two teens and joined them in their little stargazing session, "Well if it helps, I'm an intern at NASA and I can tell you that it is scientifically impossible that we're the only living things in the entire universe, bro."

Keith found himself smiling widely at the moon as he imagined little aliens frolicking around on a planet millions of miles away. Maybe there was a little alien guy just like them, quietly staring out at the distant stars in the sky wondering if they were truly alone in the universe. He wondered if there was a place up there where he could start over from scratch, a place where no one knew who he was and a place where he wouldn't be haunted by the memories of having Lance near him. He felt like a collapsing star when he thought of the boy; there was an insane amount of weight that fell upon his shoulders, his heart felt like it was being ripped right out of his chest breaking a few ribs along the way, and his mind felt sadness that was so indescribable that he felt like he was going to die from it. Was this heartbreak?

He clutched Mr. Bubbles closer to his body as he tried to imagine a world where he never had to remember that pretty boy staring at him holding out the best gift anyone had ever given him. Keith wondered if there was another planet that had a place for him to live at where his past was buried behind him with time, a place where trust issues and fake friends were nothing but a distant memory.

He wondered if his real parents were watching the same moon as he was right now. What was his father doing now? Was he kicking back smoking a cigar as he played a game of poker with the boys or was he working hard to keep himself on his feet? What about his mother though, was she working hard or did she find a new family? Did Keith have siblings, did his mother love them more than him? There were so many unanswered questions in his life that a new one in a new solar system seemed like an amazing gift.

"I wonder what they look like," Keith wondered out loud as he thought about his real parents. The ones who left him behind and started anew without him.

Pidge shrugged as he adjusted his glasses and leaned into his brother's side in a small yawn. "I like to think of them as little green dudes but maybe they look just like us?" He said.

Matt nodded slightly before he placed an arm around his sibling, "What if they look like furries?"

"What the hell Matt?"

"What," Matt looked at his confused sibling with a frown, "I'm asking the really important questions like what if I was sexually attracted to an alien and they looked like a furry? Would I be one too?"

Keith stared at the Holt siblings fondly as the two bickered about whether or not there could be furry aliens out there. Keith imagined his father looking like a tall man with a flannel shirt of and a cigar clenched between his teeth. Maybe he had a scruffy looking beard, perhaps even a tattoo of a dragon on his arm as well but he definitely had black hair and brown eyes. His mother had to be absolutely stunning, maybe she was tall and curvaceous with long, flowing black hair and purple eyes just like his. He had to have inherited his looks from one of them.

Even if it was slightly fuzzy, he could still faintly remember a memory of when he was with his father back in elementary before he disappeared for the rest of Keith's life. It was a cold September night and Keith was on his father's lap with a book opened up below his little six-year-old nose while his father typed a report for his boss.

The book was about a hippo named Henry who went on adventures through mythical worlds with his friends Foxy the adding fox, Juniper the multiplying goldfish, and Laney the dividing Lion. Keith always loved those books and how Henry and his friends could solve mysteries and defeat creatures through the power of math and friendship, but that night his father said something to him that he hadn't quite understood way back then, but now he knew full well that it was his goodbye to Keith.

Thinking back to it now pained the seventeen-year-old because he now understood that his father had been preparing to leave him behind ever since he was six. Keith dropped his gaze from the window and looked down at his hand with his purple eyes filled with a mixture of tormenting emotions that he had never been able to sort out whenever he thought of his father. A piece of him, the kid inside of him, wanting to desperately know why he got left behind without a second thought, but the adult in him hated the man with a burning passion. He left Keith at a sensitive age when kids need their parents, he left Keith with so many unanswered questions about who his mother was, and he left Keith as a broken child who pushed people away when he got too scared that they would get too close.

He slowly looked over at his phone and felt his heart drop slightly when he saw no new texts from Lance. He felt so stupid for wanting to confide in the boy for comfort, to hear those words 'it wasn't your fault,' but he wouldn't get that from Lance now that the inconsiderate asshole was with Nyma the manipulative bitch.

God, just thinking of that stupid little barbie doll made Keith's blood boil. He wanted to hop out of this bed and sick Vivian on her and laugh maniacally as his little sister beat up the little preppy bitch. He resisted the urge to reach over and rant to Lance about how he was way better than Nyma in every way, like he would treat Lance right, he would take care of Lance's every need and want at a moment's notice, and he wouldn't dare ask him to cut anyone out of his life unless they were toxic and made Lance feel bad about himself.

Sure, most people would ignore the fact that Lance had bulimia but not Keith. Keith would help Lance get the help he needed as he supported him from behind cheering him on and on towards the light at the end of the tunnel patiently waiting for Lance's arrival. He wanted the boy to be happy, but he would never be as long as he was with a snake like Nyma.

"Keith, what's wrong?" Pidge asked as Matt slipped out of the room in order to see why Allura, Shiro, and Hunk were late to the little party they were throwing.

Keith looked up to meet Pidge's curious mocha colored eyes that were staring at him with concern. He never pegged Pidge to be caring, he usually thought him to be the comic relief of sorts with so much sarcasm locked away in a tiny body ready to just explode. He didn't talk with his body like most people did. When concerned, a person will keep their posture opened out in a welcoming manner and have their back straight, but Pidge was the opposite; his shoulders were slumped, he slouched, and his torso was turned away from Keith so that only his head was facing the black haired boy next to him on the bed holding a bubblegum pink hippo in his noodle arms.

Even so, his eyes said everything he kept hidden away from the world. His eyes were so packed full of concern that they almost seemed frightened as he stares at Keith. There was just so much emotion in one gaze and it made Keith feel as if he could tell the little guy anything bothering him.

That's what he did. "It's Lance," He looked down at his hands as he began to pluck at the soft fabric of Mr. Bubble's body. "I really feel like he's with the wrong person, I mean Nyma is just a giant bitch, you know like when I brought him to the mall she flirted with other guys. Who would do that if they supposedly like someone else?" He sounded distressed as he began to ramble about Nyma and how two-faced and undeserving of Lance she was.

Pidge peeled his gaze off of Keith and looked back at the moon outside. "Sometimes people just make really stupid mistakes when they're struggling with the thoughts in their head, Keith," he mumbled quietly.

Keith felt his breath catch in his throat as he looked at Pidge with confusion in his purple eyes, "What do you mean?"

Pidge shrugged and fiddled with the ends of his green sweatshirt's sleeves with a distant look on his face. "We're all in that support group for a reason, there are deeper problems hiding behind our conditions none of us want the others to know. He may seem like his only struggle is bulimia, but he never shared anything from his past with the group yet," He began before he stopped and let out a tiny little sigh. "There are things some of us don't want others to know because we feel as if it would make us appear weak and feeble; easily manipulated. When those secrets threaten to get found out, our defense mechanism kicks in and we make stupid choices to protect ourselves from people who threaten our secrets. Maybe he's dating Nyma because he was afraid of something and felt like she could somehow make him feel better about it?"

Keith found himself feeling a bit uneasy as he listened to the freshman. He was scarily accurate about it all, everyone in that group had secrets hidden beneath their surface problems. Keith's coping mechanism had been smoking; every time something happened that made him feel like his safe lifestyle was going to be threatened he would smoke in order to take away those jittery feelings of the emotions from his childhood coming back to him. With each little blunt he placed upon his lips and inhaled he would inhale and antioxidant that cleansed his body of the unwanted emotions that haunted him. The sense of abandonment, the feeling of love, the need to have someone to hold him, the crave for friends, everything would leave his body in a cloud of smoke that swirled into the air never to find its way back to his body until someone made him feel threatened again.

Every time since he started going to that meeting though, he frequented that blunt even more all because of one person. Lance. He managed to crack through the protective shell Keith had spent years putting up around him in order to avoid any more betrayals like his father's. After that first meeting, he felt so stressed by being near the skinny guy that he felt the first crack occur. He smoked to his heart's content before he went to the photoshoot and then Lance managed to nearly demolish that wall when they hung out together for the first time and accidentally allowed Keith to see the bruises of his abuse.

The final straw was when Keith found the little pieces of his wall crumble into nothing but dust as he showered Lance in his love. With each kiss he lost his guard and opened himself up to the boy, but when he heard his name he snapped back to reality. Talking to Allura and Vivian about how he felt about Lance drained him and made him smoke one last time. Even now he wanted to feel that relieving feel of the smoke leaving his body with those toxic emotions.

Keith felt the dust of his wall blow away in the gentle sigh he let out as he softened his gaze on Pidge, "You use humor don't you?"

Pidge looked up looking frazzled from the comment and furrowed his brows in annoyance, "Well at least I don't go around screaming fanta at the top of my lungs, okay Keith," his eyes then rolled as he pouted slightly. "God."

Keith found himself chuckling slightly as he reached out and gently ruffled Pidge's hair making the kid swat away his hand hissing in defiance. "I should have figured Lance would have told the group about that. Also," Keith brought his hand back to Mr. Bubbles as he smiled, "Thanks. I feel better now that you gave me that speech, maybe Lance really doesn't love her, but he's in love with the idea of having her there. It means I have a chance."

"Stop being so gay," Pidge grumbled as he crossed his arms, "Also your heart is way too big, you're getting stuck on someone who left you behind. That's as stupid as what I'm doing," He frowned.

Keith cocked his head to the side, "Huh?"

Pidge's cheeks turned cherry red as he nearly fell off the bed in surprise. "N-Nothing!" He exclaimed and waved his hands in the air in embarrassment.

Keith hardened his gaze on the fourteen-year-old and pressed, "No, what's up with you? You don't let things slip like that usually."

Pidge slumped his shoulders and sighed in defeat. "Fine, you caught me, Queef Cocaine-"

"Don't fucking call me that."

"Anyways," Pidge fiddled with the fabric of his sweatshirt again and began to let everything out. "I've been wondering lately if I should even be going by Pidge, sure it makes me happy, but a part of me feels guilty leaving behind the identity I had before. My father knew Katie, not Pidge. If I leave behind Katie then I leave behind the last thing my father left me; my name."

Keith stared at the kid with wide eyes. He knew that Pidge's father died in the Iraq war, everyone did and it didn't take a genius to figure it out, but Keith didn't realize how it had impacted Pidge. He thought Pidge had time to get over it but it was clear that a part of him was clinging to the past desperate to keep a memory close before it faded into oblivion.

Keith slowly held Mr. Bubbles out to Pidge and gave the softest look he had ever had in his life, "Here, take him," He stated calmly.

Pidge stared at Keith with confusion, his brown eyes searching those purple ones in front of him for the answers to all the questions he had. "Lance gave it to you though, isn't it your favorite animal?"

Keith shrugged as Pidge reluctantly took the giant hippo and held it awkwardly in his tiny arms. "When I was a kid I only had my father there at home. I had no siblings and no mother, it was just my father and me living together in a tiny rundown shack in the countryside of Texas," Keith felt his skin crawl in defiance as he began to tell Pidge about his life. He knew that he had to talk to someone about it and Pidge was the only one who could relate to him right now. "He taught me everything I knew, but I can barely remember his face now. The only memories that remain of him are of the day he left me and the day he said goodbye to me."

"How old were you when it happened?"

"I was eight, but he gave me his goodbye speech when I was six; he had plans on abandoning me ever since the day my mother left us alone to fend for ourselves," Keith found himself looking down at his lap as his eyes began to burn slightly. He hated this so much. "He told me that he wanted to make sure I didn't resent my mother for ever leaving us. He wanted me to know he loved me so much, that he would do anything for me even giving up his own life to save mine if it ever came down to it. I was six so I thought it was just random adult nonsense, but it wasn't clear and I know that now. Listen," His voice cracked pathetically as his hand shot up to his face to wipe away at the tears trying to drip from his cheeks. "I'm telling you this because you can't hold yourself back from your own happiness because of your father, you have the closure of knowing where he went, but I don't. You have friends now and you don't need to feel like you're being chained to something you're not."

"Keith, you're crying..." Pidge looked shocked as he went to brush Keith's bangs away from his red eyes gently only to stop when Keith looked up with a smile on his face.

"I'm crying because I've never told anyone about this, but I realize now that I have to let it out and trust others to get the emotional help I need," Keith said in a shaky voice. "Don't become something you'll regret later in your life like I did, you have so much time in this world, but me? My time is limited and I'm wasting it pining for someone I can't have and blaming my parents for the pain I've lived all my life."

Pidge did the unthinkable. He let Mr. Bubbles fall onto the bed as he wrapped his arms around Keith's body and began to cry streams and streams of tears, enough to make a river out of. Keith was so taken back by this that he couldn't even think as he stiffened up and stared down at his friend in bewilderment.

"Thank you," Pidge whimpered as he got his snot all over Keith's redshirt his sister brought by earlier for him. "Thank you so much, Keith, you're the last of the good ones, you know."

"And you're the first of the people I would cry in front of," Keith smiled sweetly and wrapped his arms around the little guy as he squeezed him tightly. "Damn, I could kill for a smoke right about now though."

"You're disgusting."

"You're worse, you got snot on my shirt you little shit."

"Shut the hell up."

The two began to laugh in amusement as they held each other closely in their arms. Today was shaping up to be a new experience for Keith, even if it meant stepping out of his comfort zone.

Was this a good chapter? Thank you to those of you who answered my questions, it really made writing this first part easier on me knowing what you guys wanted to see more of.

Please tell me what should be improved on in this chapter and I'll take it into consideration.

Tbh I have no recollection of whether or not I had homework today so guess who's gonna be using homeroom for homework again just like every other day, this girl!

God, I hate being a senior but then again I am really surprised with how easy this year is so far like I already have all A's and one B (fuck you algebra 2) and I haven't even studied yet for any of my tests. Then again, it is my second time taking Algebra 2 (my teacher in Louisiana actually failed me because she didn't like me so I shouldn't even be in this class) so I already know more than my classmates.

OH by the way I am going to comic con this Friday. I was going to be Nico do Angelo but I never got my wig :')

Instead I am being a discount Shimizu from Haikyuu!! Because I don't have a wig. So eyyy.

Have an amazing day tomorrow at school kids ❤

-Anri the discount Shimizu