Chapter Text
Keith has no idea why he’s invited Shiro up to his apartment. He keeps it clean enough even with his lack of energy because there’s only so many times you can be punished for being messy that it sinks into your skin, but it’s still old and small, even if it’s his. It’s probably a dump compared to what Shiro must be used to.
But there’s nothing for it now. He offered, Shiro accepted, and so Keith leads him inside and toward the working elevator. He usually doesn’t bother with it, since he doesn’t like being in enclosed spaces. He’s perfected the art of carrying his bike up the stairs to his place. But with burns on both his hands as well as his arm now, he’ll probably have to avoid carrying his bike for a little while. The elevator smells as bad as it always does, and while he’s used to it, he wishes Shiro didn’t have to deal with it. Shiro doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even wrinkle his nose.
Keith punches the button for the fifth floor. He’d been given the choice of a third floor apartment or a fifth floor one, and he’d chosen the top floor without hesitation. Way better than being closer to the ground.
“Top floor?” Shiro asks. He grins. “I remember you saying you liked being up high.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
The elevator comes to a halt and the doors open. “This way.” Keith walks his bike out and Shiro follows him to his apartment down the hall. He digs through his bag for his keys and then pushes open the door.
Keith isn’t usually self-conscious about where he lives, but then again, he doesn’t have a lot of people over. And Shiro seems to dominate the small space. Like he’s this bright thing against a dingy backdrop.
He struggles to think of something to fill the silence as he pushes his bike up against the wall and kicks off his shoes. Shiro, he notices a second later, has also stepped out of his shoes and nudged them into a neat line against the wall. He’s looking around the studio, and Keith readies himself for a comment.
“Well,” Shiro says, fixing Keith with an unexpected grin. “Nice to see you were telling the truth about the bed.”
And suddenly things are a little more comfortable again. “Hey! I sent you a picture.”
Shiro waves a hand. “Anyone can pull a picture off the internet.”
Keith snorts and goes over to his table. It’s half covered in papers and materials and soldering supplies, but there’s enough room for the Lion’s Ben box and a couple plates. “Here, take a seat and I’ll grab plates and stuff.” It’s only a few steps past the kitchen to get to the little cupboard he keeps his dishware. He grabs out two cups and plates, then hesitates. “Is water okay?”
“Water’s great.”
Keith nods and brings everything to his table and throws himself into the other chair. He waves at Shiro. “You do the honors and open the box. I don’t even know what’s in it, but you’ve never had Hunk’s stuff before.”
Shiro grins again and reaches for the box. Inside are two blueberry muffins, two cinnamon rolls, and a slice of what looks like their coffee cake. All of Keith’s favorites and… multiples. “Wow,” Shiro says. “This all looks great.”
“Uh, yeah. Hunk’s pretty fantastic. You pick first.” Shiro reaches for a roll, Keith grabs a muffin. Even if he’s already had one today, he really does like them.
“How long have you two known each other?” Shiro asks.
“A couple years. Ever since I started at Lion’s Den.”
Shiro nods. “He clearly cares about you a lot.”
Keith takes a bite of muffin. “I guess. He’s great. He’s a great guy.”
Shiro takes his own bite and his eyes widen. “Wow, this is fantastic.”
“Told you,” Keith says smugly. “Our coffee’s pretty good, but Hunk’s food is definitely what carries the cafe.”
“I can believe it.” Shiro licks his lips. He looks suddenly nervous. “So a couple of years?”
“A couple of years what?”
“You and Hunk.”
“Me and Hunk what?”
“Since you’ve been together.”
Keith freezes, muffin halfway to his mouth. “What?”
Shiro averts his eyes. “Sorry, if that’s a personal question--”
“Hunk’s my boss .” It doesn’t feel like enough emphasis. “We aren’t dating.” Keith isn’t sure why it’s so important to get this point across by but it is. “He’s great. We’re friends. But we’re definitely not dating. “ For good measure he adds, “I’m not dating anyone.”
“Oh.” A pause. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume.”
“It’s okay.” Keith thinks it’s kind of weird that Shiro brought it up as a topic of conversation at all. Then again, it isn’t as if Keith is coming up with stuff to say. Why did he even invite Shiro in? To just sit in awkward silence?
The part of him that wants to just keep Shiro around keeps popping up. It’s still just as weird.
He wonders if Shiro is dating anyone. Probably. He's too amazing to not have someone in love with him.
Shiro had been kind. To a total stranger. Multiple times.
Keith doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with people like Shiro. Maybe that’s why he keeps wanting to be around him. It’s interacting with an anomaly. That’s all.
The fact that he finds Shiro altogether too attractive in a number of different ways–
That’s all.
“How are you feeling?”
On reflex, Keith glances down at the bandages on his hands and arm. “Oh. Fine. Really, it was no big deal. I barely even feel it. My left hand was way worse.” That was a first degree also, thank god, but a way more painful burn. That one had raised blisters, and putting on his gloves for work had really sucked the first few days since he’d gotten it.
Shiro reaches out, but pulls his hand back before he could touch. “I… want to ask what happened.”
Keith shrugs. “Work.”
“The… the cafe?”
“Oh, no. Other job.” And at this point, Keith figures there isn’t any harm in some details. Shiro is still too easy to trust, but considering all the other factors, he’s plenty safe. “I’m a welder.”
“Oh!” Like half of the tension goes out of Shiro’s shoulders. What the hell. “Oh,” he says again.
Keith nods. “Yeah. Obviously I’m as careful as possible, but burns kind of come with the territory.”
“How come you went into welding?”
“Job security mostly. I can get a job anywhere with the skillset.”
Shiro nods. “That’s certainly true. But then... why are you working two jobs?”
“I’m only part time at my apprenticeship right now. It’s a three-year contract, but the first six months is a part-time probationary period to make sure you’re actually going to stick around. After I’m done with that I’ll be full time with benefits and stuff. But until then, I’ve got to do both.”
Another thoughtful nod. “I see. Well, it’s nice to be right about one thing, anyway.”
Keith raises an eyebrow. “Right about what?”
“That you’re impressive.” Shiro smiles at him, in a way that makes Keith feel like he did something really right.
He’s done nothing to deserve a smile like that. He diverts his attention to his muffin. “Thanks.”
“Does it bother you? That I think you’re impressive?”
Keith shrugs.
“I just mean… you work really hard. It seems like you know exactly what you want, and you’re working toward that in every way you can. It’s really admirable. That’s all.”
Keith’s not so sure he knows “exactly what he wants.” For a long, long time all he’s ever wanted to do was to survive. After he settles into a good job, after he gets a little more secure… he doesn’t know what will come after. He doesn’t know what he’ll work toward anymore. It’s a scary thought that he turns over in his mind a lot, when he isn’t too tired to think. He’s never not been tired. He doesn’t know how to not be tired. He doesn’t know what comes after.
He wants to keep talking to Shiro. Doesn’t want to let this conversation go down an awkward path it can’t return from. Probably that means taking the attention away from himself. “What about you?”
“About me?”
“Yeah. What do you want? Out of… life I guess. You’ve got a job it sounds like you like. You volunteer and stuff. You stop bank robberies--”
“That was only one time--”
Keith raises an eyebrow, amused. The fact that Shiro is trying to downplay it as “it was only one time it wasn’t a big deal” is ridiculous. He says as much.
Shiro laughs and rubs the back of his neck. The tips of his ears are red. It’s really cute.
Not something Keith should be thinking. He isn’t special. He clears his throat. “Just uh, wondering about, I don’t know. What you do in your free time? Or what you do for you? Or I guess… do you have a family? Kids or whatever?”
Shiro coughs. “No, ah, no kids. Or anyone. In that respect. I’m single.”
“Seriously?” Keith asks incredulously. How are people not fucking lining up to date Shiro? “Why?”
“I tried,” Shiro says after a moment. He’s curled his left hand around his right wrist. “But I… eventually it felt like cheating.”
Whoa. Whoa, okay, that’s a can of worms Keith did not realize he was opening. But he still can’t help his next question. “You have words?” It’s a whisper. People, if they get words, get them on their dominant wrists or dominant ankles. Keith had just assumed… he swallows. “Sorry. You don’t have to tell me.”
“It’s okay.” Shiro shakes his head. “I do. Or did. I had words once. I still know them.”
“And you haven’t… heard them yet?” Keith winces. He’s heard his so many times he could live forever and happily never hear them again. But Shiro seems like the type to care about his. And Shiro certainly deserves to have a soulmate, if he does want one.
Keith doesn’t know how to interpret the expression that crosses Shiro’s face, but it looks like Shiro’s in pain. “It’s not my business,” he hurries to add. “Forget I asked.”
Shiro goes quiet. “You have them,” he says eventually. He nods at Keith’s wrist. “Right?”
Keith pulls his wrist into his chest, ashamed, and ducks his head feeling as though he should apologize. “Yeah.” It doesn’t seem fair that he’s got them, while Shiro’s lost his.
“What would happen if you heard them?”
He scowls. At the table, so Shiro knows it’s not directed at him. “I have. Loads of times. When I was eleven, some older kids at school held me down and pulled off my band. Next day the whole school knew ‘em.” He shrugs to hide the hurt of the memory. Other memories, of well-meaning adults that didn’t care enough in the end. A foster dad who-- “Besides, they’re pretty common. People say them a lot. If someone’s saddled with my words, they’d have to make the first move once they realized it. And believe me, that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?” Shiro asks, frowning now.
“Don’t have a whole lot to offer,” Keith says dryly.
“Don’t say that,” Shiro says sitting up straighter. “You’re worth more than that.”
Keith raises an eyebrow. “No offense, but you’ve got absolutely no idea who I am or what I’m worth. I’ve probably already met them and they passed me by.”
Shiro opens his mouth again looking absolutely furious, to the point that Keith flinches back a little, unable to help it. Shiro’s expression immediately smooths out. “Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, I…”
Great. He’s made it awkward. “It’s okay. Sorry to snap at you. It’s just uh, something I’m touchy about.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Shiro says after a long moment. “But my words bothered me a lot.” He takes a deep breath, as if steeling himself, fingers tracing patterns over his right wrist. “I was worried.”
“Worried?”
Shiro nods and doesn’t look at Keith. “That I’d hurt them. My person. That I’d do something…”
Keith incredulously watches Shiro trail off. He’s only met him a handful of times, but still, Keith can’t in a million years imagine Shiro doing anything to hurt someone else, soulmate or no. “I bet they’d understand. Whatever it is. Whatever they say. I bet they’d forgive you.”
Shiro glances at Keith before he looks back down at the table. “I made myself a promise. That I’d never tell them who I was. I wanted to let them live their life without having to be connected to me.”
Keith’s mouth works soundlessly for a moment. “What?” he ends up sputtering. “Shiro that’s--that’s fucking ridiculous. Screw first impressions, you’re… you’re good. They’d see that. You have no idea--” he rakes a hand through his hair. “I’ve had kind of… kind of a rough time, okay? And it’s whatever, it doesn’t matter, I’m past it, but I know how to pick up on people who… who make it easier. For everyone.” That was how you survived. You clung on to the people willing to give you scraps of kindness, or who tried to help even if it was in the only small way they were able to. Eventually he grew too hard and bitter to do anything but bare his teeth, but Shiro… Shiro makes him feel like he’s…
Not. Special.
Shiro is watching him now, silently. Keith pushes forward trying to articulate what he wants to say, trying to make Shiro understand. “We’ve had like three conversations and I’ve skimmed a news article about you. The common thread was you just wanting to help. Help make things better. And that’s--that’s important. That people like you exist.” He looks away. “I don’t… I don’t think you’d be making your soulmate happier, by not being in their life.” He means it, with all of himself he means it, but it hurts to say. It hurts, to think of Shiro’s soulmate out there, so damn lucky at who they’ll eventually get to have, and Keith is being so stupid. All Shiro’s done for him is given him a couple meals and a dozen warm smiles. He shouldn’t be wanting to cling so hard. He shouldn’t be wanting–
“Keith?” Shiro asks hesitantly.
Keith bites his lip. This was a bad idea. All of it; accepting that first invitation, interacting again, lowering a wall that’s been up for so long--lowering it so easily. Allowing himself to even for a moment wonder what it might be like if it was someone like Shiro who would ask him a question he’s stopped wanting to hear. “I don’t think you’d be making them happier,” he says, voice cracking, “letting them feel like they’re unwanted.”
“Keith,” Shiro breathes. Keith can’t meet his eyes. “Hey.” Shiro’s voice is quiet and serious, but there’s an undercurrent of something that Keith can’t read. “Are you all right?”
Keith inhales sharply and jerks back so hard he nearly falls out of his chair. Coincidence. It’s just coincidence. He’s heard those words so many times, too many times–
It sounds different, being shaped in Shiro’s mouth. It’s the second time he’s said it, and this time it sounded deliberate, like he knows , but it’s--it’s simply a well-meant question, it doesn’t mean anything.
It doesn’t–
“Keith? Keith, look at me?”
It’s with effort that Keith makes himself look back up. He can’t imagine what kind of picture he makes right now, fingers wrapped tightly around his leather wristband as he pants roughly, heartbeat loud in his ears, just because he was asked if he was okay.
He’s not okay. He’s not all right . He’s not, and Shiro is moving again, coming closer, reaching out and Keith can’t. He can’t. He feels cornered and desperate and it’s all too much, he can’t handle being just another person Shiro’s helped, before Shiro moves on. “Don’t,” he whispers, trying to make it sound less like a plea. He’s focused on Shiro’s hand moving toward him and how gentle he had been taking care of Keith’s burn. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle Shiro touching him again, not now, not after what he’s said.
For the second time.
Keith shrinks back. Forces out, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Shiro freezes, eyes wide and lips parted. He’s breathing shallowly, staring at Keith as if he can’t believe he’s real, and his metal arm is outstretched, inches from Keith’s body. Keith finds his gaze going to Shiro’s unmarked wrist. Bare of the words Shiro's lost.
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Shiro croaks. “But I’ve been hurting you. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there, that I didn’t try to find you. I’m so sorry I didn’t say something the moment I realized.”
Keith swallows. “I don’t understand.”
Shiro pulls his hand back. Shifts to reach into his pocket and take something out of it. He wordlessly holds it out to Keith.
He hesitates before taking it, but in the end he’s grateful for a reason to tear his gaze from Shiro’s earnest, intense expression. The item is a badge of some sort, metal, with USAF pararescue emblazoned on it, above the motto “that others may live.”
Keith still doesn’t understand. He looks from it to Shiro, the metal heavy in his palm. “What…?”
“It’s engraved,” Shiro says quietly. “On the back.”
Keith flips it over. And stares and stares and stares.
Keith knows metal. He’s worked with it and molded it, and so he knows that the engraving is old. Well-worn, from being touched often. This isn’t a fresh engraving. This is one that tells of time.
Shiro’s had this for years.
“It… it didn’t make sense to tell you suddenly, when we first met. And I didn’t want to--I didn’t want to pressure you, I swore I wouldn’t do that. All I wanted was to maybe make your day a little brighter, at least be able to go forward knowing I’d done one little thing to help make you happier. I was going to leave you alone. But then we met again, and again, and you… I can’t--I can't let you go on thinking your person--thinking I don’t want you.”
“You don’t even know me,” Keith says, voice hoarse with disbelief. Although if Shiro even feels a fraction of the pull Keith’s been feeling… “You can’t want me.”
“I want to know you,” Shiro says at once. “I want to get the chance to know you. And it might not work. I might--I might not be good enough–” this is impossible, Keith thinks hysterically this isn’t real “I might not end up being who you want. But I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
Keith gapes. “How can you even say that?”
Shiro’s smile is soft and sad and it leaves Keith aching. “Because it’s true.”
***
Shiro’s heart hurts. He’s spent his whole life not wanting to be a burden on his soulmate, not wanting to hurt them, not wanting to push.
He never once considered what it might mean to his person, if he kept silent. How they might feel, going through life with words on their wrist and no one ever claiming them.
“No offense, but you’ve got absolutely no idea who I am or what I’m worth. I’ve probably already met them and they passed me by.” Keith had tried to cover up how much it’d hurt him to say that, and Shiro hates himself for letting Keith carry those thoughts with him for even a minute longer than necessary.
Keith, who is staring at him with such a mixture of hope and disbelief that Shiro can’t help but want to reach for him again. It’s near overwhelming, the need to gather him up in his arms and hold him, press kisses to his hair.
“Can I…” Shiro swallows. “Can I…” But he’s unable to say the words. Wanting so much, desperate to ask for permission, but Keith’s already said he needs distance. Shiro can’t bear the thought of asking and being told ‘no.’ Not now. So he closes his hands into fists, ignores the fact that they’re trembling, and draws back. Stands. He’s not going to go; he can’t leave, not before they talk some more, but at the very least he can give Keith a moment to process.
Keith shoots to his feet and wraps a hand around Shiro’s wrist.
The touch is electric and they both startle. Keith’s eyes are wide, as though he can’t quite believe what he’s done. “Sorry,” he gasps, “Sorry–” he lets go, but before he can pull away, Shiro twists his wrist to tangle their fingers together.
“Don’t,” Shiro says. He has to fight the urge to press his lips to Keith’s bandaged knuckles. “Don’t apologize. Not to me, not for this. I want you. You are so, so worth wanting. Spending more time with you, learning more about you, will just give me more ways to prove that.”
Keith’s breath hitches and Shiro moves to cup his cheek with his free hand. Watches in wonder as Keith lets out a quiet whimper and brings his own hand up to cover Shiro’s, gazing up at him, eyes tracking fast.
They’re so close.
“Please,” Keith whispers.
Shiro leans in and brushes his lips against Keith’s. Just a taste, just to show he’ll do anything, give anything, but that it’s up to Keith; it’s whatever he wants and nothing more.
Keith emits a broken sound and reaches for him, hands going to fist in Shiro’s shirt, and it’s the invitation Shiro needs to wrap his arms around him, one going to encircle Keith’s waist, the other hand threading through his hair.
They kiss and kiss and kiss, until they come down from the desperation and Shiro finds it in him to gentle things a little, to start showing Keith how precious he is. He kisses underneath his jaw, licks at the hollow of Keith’s throat, revels in how Keith shudders against him before Keith pulls him up to slot their mouths together again.
It’s amazing to feel Keith in his arms, responsive and perfect and beautiful. Wanting Shiro, wanting Shiro back, not thinking of Shiro as a burden or a failure, but as someone to want in his life. Shiro’s mind is whirling, with desire, with pleasure, with joy, and he pours his feelings into more kisses, in coaxing out gasps and quiet little moans. He wants it to go on forever.
Eventually though, he moves back, not wanting to take too much too soon. They have time. They have so much more time, now. But he doesn’t go very far, resting his forehead against Keith’s. “God, I’m so glad you’re mine.”
Keith’s reply is a breathless hiccup of a laugh as he throws his arms around Shiro’s neck and smiles.