Foster parents

Keith hated all his foster parents.

They were always smiling and to quote most of them, "So happy to see him" and so sure that they would have a great time together. Then the nobility would fade or Keith would get into a fight with a classmate or a teacher would call his new foster parents and ask, "Keith isn't socializing with his classmates and just read during breaks. Why doesn't he try to talk to the others? They're all such nice boys and girls."

Keith hated the last option the most because then his foster parents would meet up in the kitchen, it would always be the kitchen, and close all doors and windows and discuss. Sometimes for hours, sometimes for minutes. Sometimes only one parent were home for the phone call and the conversation between them would have to wait until the other returned.

It didn't matter much because the outcome was always the same.

They would talk privately and then ask Keith to join them and ask him, "Why don't you talk to the others? Are you shy? Do they bully you at school?" And they rarely did bully Keith but he never said when they were because he knew why people didn't like him. He was weird and the more years he went without friends, the worse it got.

He wished it was different but he didn't blame people for not liking him.

His foster parents would always look so concerned. Almost never angry because most people asking to be foster parents were the kind who couldn't go to Africa to save the poor orphans there so they settled for saving orphans in the US and maybe a rescue cat or dog. There was more of the angry ones as Keith got older as the naïve, pure-hearted foster parents preferred poor boys and girls with a sob story that the children would be too young to remember even before meeting the foster parents.

Keith's foster parents would always look for improvement and ask the teacher if he or she had seen any and then eventually they would sit Keith down and tell him that they didn't know what to do with him. They would try to take the blame but the blame on him and frustration were there. Sometimes just under the surface and sometimes so deep inside that Keith wouldn't know of its existence if he hadn't had the same conversation more times than he could count.

Soon after that, his social worker would return to the home where she had dropped him off too short a while ago and look at him tiredly.

His foster parents would sometimes cry as they said they wished him good luck and apologized for not being able to take care of him all the while holding their own biologically children or other foster kids.

Keith endured the frequent hugs when he was little and the occasional one as he grew bigger, then he would turn around, and go to his drained social workers car.

He wanted to hate his social worker for the look on her face when they would drive away from a now former foster family but he was almost certain that he had the same look on his face. He used to dread it but now they were both resigned to the fate of finding a new family for Keith.

He just had to survive the group home if there wasn't a new family waiting as there more and more rarely was as Keith grew older and his record of failed foster families grew bigger.

He wasn't the typical problem child but he was too big a problem anyway.

Shiro

Keith hated Shiro when he met him and did long past he started to care about him.

Shiro was a bright sun and everyone looked at him in awe as he flew real and fake ships or charmed the people around him.

He hated Shiro for making everyone love him so Keith would feel small and always ask himself if Shiro was talking to him because he was polite or if he felt sorry for Keith.

Maybe he talked to Keith because he cared for him and logically Keith knew that it was likely but his feelings and constant doubts couldn't believe it was that simple and amazing.

He hated Shiro for making Keith get used to talking to someone for more than just the occasional conversation about school or the canteen and for getting used to the feeling that came along when he got comfortable with the friendly feelings he got when talking to someone he had let in. Keith still had walls but there were a door now that only Shiro had the key to.

Keith mostly hated Shiro for leaving and taking all the nice feelings with him. Shiro had become someone for Keith to lean on and now that Shiro was gone, Keith realized as he fell that Shiro had went from someone to lean on during hardships to someone he had leaned on constantly.

Keith had to build a new foundation and change his lock before someone copied the key and ruined as much inside as the storm in Keith had ruined the outside.

Lance

Keith hated Lance for being loved.

Lance was dramatic and loud and Keith couldn't help being one of the people to care about him.

The boy was full of the love others had for him even if Lance didn't believe it himself and it made Keith want to strangle him almost as much as he would stop anyone else from strangling Lance.

He hated that Lance and the others had a family who they loved and missed and who loved and missed them in return. Lance was just more vocal about it and made it hard to ignore that the end of the war would mean the start of another age of solitude and perhaps desolation. Only time would tell.

Pidge

Keith hated Pidge for missing her family. He hated her for looking for her brother and father. He hated her for finding them and for letting him see what he could have had if he had been anyone else.

He hated her for being so much more than Keith would ever be.

Maybe he could find a family one day but time had passed and Keith knew that he would never get the same relationship with anyone as most people had. He was simply too old and would never be teased for his awkward moments in the past like Matt did to Pidge or almost coo at his awkward moments or improvement like Dr. Holt did as he remembered Pidge doing something similar as a child.

Keith

Keith didn't hate anyone as much as he hated himself.

He hated his eyes for being what another slightly bigger boy had told a 7-year-old Keith "purple as the gay, purple Teletubbie", he hated his face for being the first unfriendly thing people saw, and he hated the knowledge of why it looked so unfriendly as most of the Galra faces he met did.

There were good Galras and Keith knew some of them but this knowledge only made him that much more different from the others on the ship and it wouldn't bring him any closer to the resistance either. It was just a fun fact for the Galra and a ledge between Keith and the others even after Allura learned to do more than simply tolerate Keith's existence again.

All for the price of a knife that could now lengthen and information about Keith's past that was even vaguer than his few memories about his father. The information mostly just served to make Keith hate himself even more for not thinking before acting on his impulses and shortsighted desires. Like he always did and probably always would.

He once played Partners on Earth. He started being a team with Shiro but Shiro asked to switch teams after the second round and smiled friendly at Keith. Keith had just said that it was okay and that he understood. Because he did understand why Shiro wanted a chance of winning and Keith knew that he was only brining him down. Shiro had said that he never lost the when playing Partners and Keith had really screwed that up.

Sometimes there had been friendly fire because it was their only card left or card they were able to use but there were only 5 kills from a teammate to another that whole evening. Three where there simply wasn't any other cards, which Keith had done two of, and two kills out of stupidity, which was both his.

Keith also didn't think his cards through even when it didn't end with someone's death. Not giving his partner a card that was obviously a great one to give him or her or moving one of his own pieces when it would have been much smarter to move one of the others.

There were friendly teasing and that was fine. Keith would actually feel weird if there wasn't but he must have shown some of his discomfort because he was asked if the teasing was fine.

It was fine. He just really hated himself at that moment. More than usual that is.

There hadn't been time for another game before Shiro's disappearance and Keith being kicked out soon after but Keith wouldn't have been surprised if he wouldn't have been invited to another game night ever again even if there had been time for one.

The game was worryingly similar to most of his life of not thinking things through. The only difference was that if he ever hit a teammate in the war, it would take more than a heart card to revive them.

Keith dreaded either the day that he got himself in so much trouble that he would die or the day that the others simply tired of him and let the first possibility happen shortly after, but at the same time, he waited impassively for that day so he could stop being a hindrance for the others.

Keith didn't want to die but he couldn't deny that slipping away sounded like a small price to pay for never slipping up again.

This is literally something I wrote in like an hour because I was sad that I sucked at the game "Partners" last Sunday and wanted to tell my first and second teammate to just throw me home in the game. I only didn't because the game needs both players to get all pieces in the goal.
I hope people liked this bleak work that was created because apparantly it doesn't make more than sucking at a team game to make me blame myself as much as I did.

I haven't watched the new season yet even though it have been forever ago so I haven't mentioned Keith's mother but when I eventually do watch it, I will maybe include her in this