For this headcanon meme!
A: what I think realistically
Listen, I see and appreciate the hell out of the general headcanon that Lance has ADHD, but I propose ADHD Keith? Like, hear me out here. Fixated on aliens for his whole life, hyperfocused when he’s flying (pros in battle: very hard to shake him up; cons in battle: he doesn’t always react emotionally when or how he’s supposed to, which can be rough on the others during a merge), prickly around most people but also v e r y attached to His People, and that specific combination of “intense emotions that can burst out at unpredictable times” and “extremely controlled emotions when under pressure” tbh all of it just kind of reads ADHD to me. Possibly because I myself have ADHD and am basically just like this terrible sword boy. Especially the look on his face after he dumps a massive amount of information about his aliens theory at the start of the first episode–it just screams ‘fuck fuck fuck someone please shut me up I can’t stop talking and I can feel you getting annoyed with me’ which, like, same.
Unrelatedly, I feel like Keith knows how to pickpocket people and hotwire most vehicles. He knows how to knife fight and he lives in a shack with no apparent form of income, and he definitely stole that hoverbike in the first episode. He has some Weird Life Skills. At some point I expect this to become pertinent in the show with Keith boosting a spaceship.
B: what I think is fucking hilarious
Keith scores a solid C in Emotions generally, but more specifically he just fucking sucks at noticing when someone’s interested in him. Like, in terms of friendship and romance and/or sex, he just won’t notice. He and Shiro were hanging out on the regular in their big brother/little brother relationship for solidly eight months before Keith looked up from a book and went “Wait, we’re friends” and Shiro was like “…yes?”
This is pertinent because Lance, within Not Too Long, realizes that he’s actually pretty into Keith (he’s horrified, they are rivals, he can’t have a crush on Keith). Once Hunk and Pidge–mostly Hunk, because Lance burst into the kitchen yelling ‘SOS’ and once they got him to explain, Pidge laughed so hard they gave themself a black eye on a table corner–talk Lance down off the ceiling, he spends a while waiting for his feelings to go away and then goes back to hitting on Keith casually at every opportunity, but With Intent this time. Keith, on the other hand, spends months being confused and distressed about the unidentifiable physical sensations that being around Lance causes and that all translates straight into Prickly Mode. Two conversations that happen within days of each other are:
> Lance telling Hunk, entirely depressed, that he just really thinks Keith hates him? Like, clearly he has no shot there. And Hunk is a good friend and they lie on the floor while he listens to Lance go on at length about Keith.
> Shiro sitting Keith down and asking what’s wrong and listening to Keith’s mildly panicky outburst about how he DOES NOT UNDERSTAND what’s going on with him and he feels bad for lashing out at Lance but he can’t??? Stop??? And Shiro is just like “Oh my god Keith you’re into him, you’re fucking into him and people on the other side of the star system know he’s into you, just fucking kiss him and see what happens.”
No one is more confused than Lance when Keith corners him alone and goes “I’m going to try something and if it’s a disaster blame Shiro” and walks up to Lance like he’s a wild animal and just. Fucking plants one on him.
Anyway, thesis statement: Keith is a failure, and Lance is a disaster, and Shiro and Hunk deserve plaques, and Pidge gets nothing because they believe that getting front row seats to this mess is it’s own reward.
C: what is heart-crushing and awful but fun to inflict on friends
Keith has always wanted answers about the mysteries of the world, but not like this. He has never been so bone-deep sickened as he is when he’s told that he’s not human, he’s Galra, he’s one of the monsters fighting to put the universe under a boot heel. On that shuttle trip back to the Castle, Keith locks himself in the bathroom and sits on the floor until he feels like he can open his mouth without hyperventilating or vomiting or both, and Shiro has to coax him out.
“Come on, Keith,” Shiro murmurs, once he’s gotten Keith to unlock the door. He wraps his flesh and blood arm around Keith’s shoulders as a support, and Keith dimly thinks about how Shiro tries to touch them with the Galra arm as rarely as possible. He gets it, now. “Come on, Keith, let’s go. We should be at the Castle soon, it’ll be okay.”
“No, I–no, I can’t,” Keith says, digging in his heels. Shiro is easily strong enough to move him by force, but he doesn’t, lets Keith press back against the wall again and makes a soothing sound under his breath. “I can’t,” he says again.
“It’s okay, Keith,” Shiro says, and his voice is low and soft and calm, soothing even though Keith doesn’t care to be soothed right now. Something clutches hard in Keith’s chest, and he hears a ragged keening sound as if down a long hallway, and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s him. “The others will understand.”
“I–they’ll be so angry,” Keith says blankly, clutching weakly at Shiro’s vest. “They’ll be right to be angry.” His stomach lurches and he might throw up if he had anything left. “Allura will never speak to me again.” He can see the look on her face already, the grief and disgust and rage that twist over her face every time they face the Galra, and he can’t see it directed at him, he can’t.
“They won’t be angry. The princess will understand that you didn’t know, and you’re a part of the team.” Shiro gives his shoulders a squeeze. “Come on, everyone understood about me,” he says, clearly trying to be encouraging. “And you’ve met the Blade, they’re good people. Our allies.”
Keith can feel tears burning behind his eyes and clenches his teeth against them.
It takes Shiro another twenty minutes to talk Keith out into the body of the shuttle, and another ten to get him to walk out into the Castle dock.
D: what would never work with canon but the canon is shit so I believe it anyway
Keith finds Allura a few hours after his heritage comes to light. She’s standing alone on the bridge, her hands folded behind her at parade rest, and Keith finds her by accident on his quest to find somewhere to stand alone himself.
“Hello, Keith,” she says coolly as he stops dead in the doorway, apparently identifying him without looking away from the starscape.
“Um,” he says, wishing that he could curl up and die instead of having this horribly awkward interaction. It takes a few tires before he can force another sentence through his throat. “I can leave, I’m sorry.”
“The Castle is your home as well,” she says, turning halfway to present her profile. “Do as you like.”
Keith hovers in the doorway, frozen between the impulse to beg her to forgive him–please, please, he’s sorry, he didn’t know–and the impulse to run and never come back. Allura doesn’t say anything, and the silence is tense and uncomfortable and he hates everything about it. He’s kept his gloves on all night, because whenever he looks down he sees himself scratching at his arms like he’s trying to peel his blood vessels out of his body and Shiro had quietly recommended that he keep the gloves on so that he doesn’t hurt himself.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts again. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, that–I didn’t know. We don’t have to, um.”
“Discuss it?” Allura turns her back on him again, but this time her shoulders curve as if she wants to curl up on the floor too, maybe. As if she wishes she wasn’t the last of her kind–wiped out by his. God, Keith is a monster. “It is not your fault, Keith,” she says, stiff and clipped, as if she’s trying to convince herself. “And the Red Lion chose you. We are in a brief pause between battles and we do not have time to have elaborate conversations about the finer points of the Galra, so. I trust that you will not turn on us. Everything else can wait.”
“Right,” Keith whispers. The words should be reassuring. He feels more like he’s been stabbed in the gut. “That’s good.”
After Shiro disappears, he finds her on the bridge again, in almost exactly the same place.
“We must get him back,” she says lowly.
“I know,” Keith says. “We will.”
“Keith,” Allura says, and this time when she half-turns to him, she beckons minutely, and he hesitantly steps up beside her. “I’m sorry, for the way I’ve treated you,” she whispers, looking away from him toward the stars. “You did nothing to deserve it.”
“I feel like I did,” Keith mutters.
“You had no hand in what happened to Altea,” she says. “It may take me time to let go of my anger, but.” She sets her shoulders, looking over at him, and offers a tiny smile–the most genuine smile she’s directed at him since they found out. “If you bring Shiro back to us–back to me–that will go far.”
Keith stares for a moment, then allows a tiny smile of his own, and nods.